Speaker 2 0:30

My name is Dr. Vu Misra and the name of our business is the M Center, and we are a chiropractic and physical therapy and a wellbeing center. And the people that we serve are the people of Loudin County mostly, but we do serve people from abroad. We do have people. Visiting us from other states, which is quite humbling. But we, yeah. Those are the people that we serve.

Speaker 3 0:51

And I'm Julianne Misra. I'm the business manager and a yoga therapist. And we serve any age from babies, newborns who've maybe had a rough delivery on up to elderly people, athletes, couch, potatoes alike.

Speaker 1:05

Awesome. So just all

Speaker 3 1:07

everyone.

Speaker 2 1:08

Cradle to casket.

Speaker 1:10

Okay. Wonderful. You both came from very different professional backgrounds. We have, the pharmaceutical industry and news and media. What experience, experiences led you to create the OM Center and what problem were you determined to solve?

Speaker 2 1:27

Sure. Shall I start? Sure. Alright. What determined us to create the OM center was us seeing a lack of care in a field that really needed it. Most people who come to see a doctor are usually complaining of some sort of musculoskeletal condition or some sort of inflammatory condition. And while there's plenty of things in the pharmaceutical industry from which I came that helped solve those symptom. Symptom logical symptoms. There's no real path towards correcting the problem. And so we decided after our life paths that maybe our niche would be to fill that void, and that was to provide natural paths to healing.

Speaker 3 2:06

Yeah. I was working at CNN both in the newsroom and in the health unit. Excuse me. And I felt like we were always talking about disease. And one of the shows that I helped write and produce was called Your Health with Dr. Steve Salvato and then Dr. Gupta. And I always said, we ought to call it your disease.'cause we spend all of our time talking about drugs and disease. And he noticed in the pharmaceutical industry, things were really good and they were helping a lot of people. There was also some manipulation of data and a lot of drugs were put out. And five years later they were. Pulled because they found problems with them and they turn around and of course put them out for something else because they need to make their money back. So we just felt there has to be a better way. And like he said, education, empowering people was really important to us. Sometimes you can't fool with mother nature and we're always trying to do that, so we wanted to get back to nature and what's natural as far as healthcare.

Speaker 3:00

Absolutely

Speaker 3 3:01

and wanted to offer lots of paths to that because there are so many approaches that you can take, for your wellbeing. So

Speaker 3:08

that's wonderful.

Speaker 3 3:08

Yeah.

Speaker 3:09

What a journey it's been. And the rest

Speaker 3 3:10

have

Speaker 3:11

been

Speaker 3 3:11

history 20 years later.

Speaker 2 3:12

20 so odd years later. Yeah.

Speaker 3 3:13

Yeah. I always thought I would just help him out and I go back to the news business. But then I, we had children and the practice was growing and it never felt like the right time. And so here we are 20 years later and

Speaker 2 3:26

the news business changed a lot too.

Speaker 3 3:27

Oh yeah. I would not wanna work there today. God bless my friends. That still do. I love them. But yeah, it's crazy

Speaker 3:34

for sure. I think it's funny all the things that, we do in life and they lead you to where you are now and

Speaker 2 3:39

Yeah,

Speaker 3:40

you wouldn't change it for a thing.

Speaker 3 3:41

Exactly. Series of

Speaker 2 3:41

choices becomes

Speaker 3 3:43

you,

Speaker 2 3:43

right?

Speaker 3:43

Yeah. Yes.

Speaker 3 3:44

And we find that with our patients. Some people come in for. Chiropractic, they're in pain. Most people come to us'cause they're in pain. And then we're really working on their function, not just getting them out of pain. And in the process, they might find like maybe someone that never would foot, step foot in a yoga studio. All of a sudden they've been sent to the yoga therapist for posture rehab.

Speaker 2 4:04

Yeah.

Speaker 3 4:04

And they're doing yoga, and then maybe they're stressed. So we send them to reiki and or someone else comes in for reiki and the reiki master says, Hey, you really could be adjusted. And they're like, oh, I've never done that, I'm afraid. But the next thing you know, they're on the table. So sometimes people go full circle. They come in for different reasons and end up doing other things as they get more comfortable and then sending their family and everyone they know, which is cool.

Speaker 2 4:27

And I think that's one of the best things that we provide, is we provide an environment where people can come in with. Some level of trust just because of who you are, what they've heard, and then all of a sudden be exposed to a whole level of care that they've never even considered and that they probably wouldn't want to consider. But if it wasn't for the fact that they've already given you your trust and now you're like saying, Hey, why don't you think about this? And there is no push, I will tell you that we do not push our patients anymore than giving them our recommendations and then. It's up to you. If you don't wanna take care of yourself, what are we gonna do for you? So that's really what we want to do, is empower people to take care of themselves.

Speaker 5:03

Absolutely. That's awesome. You guys. You're doing amazing things. For our community.

Speaker 3 5:07

Thank you. Thank you. We love what we do.

Speaker 5:09

And as a husband and wife team leading a highly respected and successful healthcare practice, what has been the most important in staying aligned and building something meaningful together?

Speaker 3 5:22

I think. Really a game changer for us was we rented some trouble as our team grew and it was large and we, you have a lot of personalities and we always say we're like family and you know everyone that comes in our doors, our brother, mother, sister, father, uncle, that's how we want every member of our staff to treat them. We also treat our staff that way. And sometimes, you don't always get along with your family. And we take things personally and we shouldn't. So we ran into some trouble and we have a really great coach, Dr. Jay Greenstein, who has just been a mentor to us, and he told us, you need your mission, vision, and values. We had a mission, we had a vision. We didn't have a value statement. So Dr. Mr will tell you, tuna will tell you more about that.

Speaker 2 6:03

Yeah so basically we when we started off as we did just a, two man band as we started to grow, the issues really became that though we wanted to treat everyone like family, it was great to treat patients like family. But we soon found out that as the business grew, that if you really wanted to have a successful team, much like a professional football team, what you can't do is treat'em like family. Oh, you feel tired? Go take a nap. Okay. Oh, you don't feel like working today? Okay, that's fine. No, it's put your ego at the door. Come on in, cell phone's away. We're here to do a job and we're here to make people feel better. And if you're not feeling better and you're really not feeling better, then you need to be coming in as this patient,

Speaker 6:40

we hold each other accountable.

Speaker 2 6:41

Absolutely.

Speaker 6:42

It's a great system.

Speaker 3 6:43

Yeah. So the acronym for our value system, which became really a game changer, is I Reach and it's integrity, respect, empowerment, accountability, compassion and honesty, and how that was such a game changer. For us is that, if someone in the team is calling in sick all the time. Instead of saying, Hey, why are you always sick and what's wrong with you and you need to take better care of yourself and look at the junky or whatever, you're not working out or whatever. Our judgment, we don't wanna be judgmental. We wanna be supportive in mentoring. So it's more how is that accountable to the team? Do you realize that every time you're calling in sick, your teammates are having to jump at the last minute to fill your slot and it's putting a lot of pressure on the team? Or when you spoke to me that way, that did not feel respectful. Here's how it would. Help me for you to talk to me or give me that feedback or constructive criticism in the future. So it just took all the personal stuff out and now we just don't have problems and we have just attracted the best team. And yeah, from time to time we do a hiccups and then we just have to. Apply it.

Speaker 7:49

Sure.

Speaker 2 7:49

So we, and

Speaker 7:50

that's normal. That's

Speaker 3 7:51

realistic. Yeah,

Speaker 2 7:52

I think so. And the acronym I reach is really I reach above and beyond. Yeah. Because that's the minimum I reach is the minimum. You're trying to go beyond that. Yeah. And if you try to go beyond that, you'll easily succeed.

Speaker 8:02

Okay. Awesome.

Speaker 3 8:02

Yeah. And it keeps work fun. Dr. Hery, one of our great partners in the clinic. Joined us 10 years into our practice and we needed a little shot in the arm of Young Energy and everything. And, but he likes to say, every day I am living the dream. If you love what you're doing, you don't work a day of your life. And we, we really feel that. And we try to work smart and not work hard. We all work really hard, but we wanna always be working smarter so that we have time for our patients.'cause in the end, that's why we're there. Yeah. We're there to serve and help them, and that takes time to listen and all of

Speaker 2 8:35

that and all of our decisions and all of our growth has been dependent on that. What can we do so that our patients get the best that they can give? And a lot of times it depends on what you can give them and as well as what they were willing to do themselves. But if you have the interference of a payment system like the insurance company. Who's not even there telling you that something is right or not right, or whatnot. It can confuse the patients and it can deter patients from getting care. And we find that the patients who get some of the, best outcomes are the patients who are willing to pay cash because they are, they're upfront saying, I am committed. I'm not having someone else come in and pay for me. And then I might show up when I not show up. No, I'm paying cash. I'm gonna show up

Speaker 9:13

for sure. Yeah, no, that makes sense.

Speaker 3 9:15

Yeah.

Speaker 9:16

And to pivot a little bit, you've emphasized how much can be discovered simply by hearing someone's story. Why do you believe listening is such a critical part of effective care?

Speaker 2 9:28

I will I guess I'll tell you some things that that I really believe. I think we should be listening twice as much as we speak, and that's why we got two ears, one mouth. I believe that patients tell you the story, they tell you what's going on in their lives. No one else can tell you that. They just don't know how to put the pieces together to understand how those different parts of those facts that they've given you can impact their lives. And once you put the pieces together and they see the puzzle, all of a sudden it's a picture instead of all these pieces. And then they say. Wow. I had all these questions, but really have to, or maybe 90% of their questions get answered as soon as they understand their condition. And the story is everything.

Speaker 3 10:03

Yes. In clear communication. We all document every provider. We have massage therapists, we have yoga therapy, we have hypnotherapy, reiki therapy. Everyone is documenting pretty much what's going on with the with the patient. And. It's part of the story and sometimes they will have failed to share something really important in all the times they met with the doctors.

Speaker 2 10:24

Yeah.

Speaker 3 10:24

And as the yoga therapist, I'm learning, oh my gosh. They had polio as a child and they didn't share that.

Speaker 2 10:30

Yeah.

Speaker 3 10:30

And maybe they were working on their upper body and I noticed something with the leg or the massage therapist, they talk a lot to them, so they learn things like sometimes people will come in and they had a fall and we're like, oh, you need an exam. We can't just start massaging you, but they're just, it's in, it's really important to share because there are lots of pieces to the puzzles and that's how you help them solve the puzzle of their their wellbeing. That's really important.

Speaker 2 10:56

And if a piece is missing, they very soon realize what piece is missing?'cause the puzzle's not complete and they see it and they're like, wow, I'm not, I guess I need to do some cardio. Yeah, okay.

Speaker 3 11:03

Yeah, for sure. If they're getting adjusted and they're going out. Not sleeping in a really poor position or laying on a really bad couch, they're gonna reinjure themselves.

Speaker 2 11:15

Yeah.

Speaker 3 11:15

And they're gonna need to keep coming back again and again. So if we don't educate them about how they're sitting and how they're standing and sleeping, and. Take that takes time to do all those things.

Speaker 2 11:24

And I think that's a big misnomer about what happens in our our profession is that people will say, oh, once you start to see a chiropractor, you see a chiropractor rest your life. Yep. You sure do. And the reason is because if you don't change your behavior, you're gonna get the same outcomes that you've been having. So we've had these many athletes that come in and while we get them to feel better, we ask them what is your goal? And they go I wanna be outta pain. We say, great. Alright. When do you wanna do that? And they go. Today we're like, all right, are you going back on the field? Yes. You're not gonna be outta pain. You're gonna go out there and get banged up. We're gonna manage your condition, get you feeling better, but as soon as you get out in the field, you're gonna get banged up again. So just understand, let's manage each other's expectations here. We can help you. But until you get done with your season, you're really not gonna be outta pain. And then they understand and then manages everyone's expectations. I think we have. The best outcome possible for everyone. That way,

Speaker 3 12:10

yeah,

Speaker 2 12:10

everyone's expectations.

Speaker 3 12:11

Another piece to that puzzle is a care plan. And sometimes people think, oh, as soon as I get outta pain, I'm done. No, we need to restore function. You need to be using your body properly, or are you gonna end up in pain again?

Speaker 2 12:22

Yeah.

Speaker 3 12:23

So seeing it through that's something where it really does take time to explain to patients. It's not about us trying to keep you coming or getting your money or filling our schedule. It's,

Speaker 2 12:32

we have trouble getting people in so we're not trying to get you in. Yeah. Okay. So we, let's let get that straight. The other thing is, when people see their dentist, they don't go, I have to come back. I have to brush my teeth every day. Yeah, that's good. Dental hygiene. And people don't think about their spinal hygiene until they're painful. If we treated our teeth Yeah. Like we treat, you have beautiful teeth, by the way. But if we treat our teeth that we treat our spines, we'd all lose our teeth.

Speaker 12:54

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It really the work we do at home is just important as the work that's done in the clinic.

Speaker 2 13:00

Exactly.

Speaker 3 13:01

Absolutely.

Speaker 13:02

And that's a really great piece of advice for everyone to know. You have to keep up that consistency if you wanna see true results.

Speaker 2 13:08

Absolutely.

Speaker 3 13:08

And our mentor actually developed an app.

Speaker 2 13:11

Yeah.

Speaker 3 13:12

And that helps people to stay on track with their exercises and everything,

Speaker 13:15

oh, that's awesome. Yeah. Very cool. And with this many patients come to you after exploring multiple treatments and avenues without finding lasting relief. How do you approach someone who feels they've run out of options and then they come knocking at your door?

Speaker 3 13:31

It

Speaker 2 13:32

happens a lot and a lot of times it's actually as long as it's not a, a life altering condition that they have and you can't help them. As long as it's something that you know, you can help them with. It's a great feeling. And you think, wow, I'm the doctor of last resort. Okay, so if I can't help you, you're saying that, this is really, you're gonna have to have surgery or something like that. More often than not, probably 80% of the time we've be able to prevent surgeries. So we're just thrilled with that. And yeah, I think it's new.

13:59

I

Speaker 3 13:59

think it's percentage is higher.

Speaker 2 14:01

It gives us an inward smile for sure.

Speaker 3 14:02

I feel like I could name just on two hands in 20 years, the people that. Really ended up need needing surgery other than say they tore a meniscus in their knee or something like that, but as far as their spine, yeah, we'd get really great results. And if someone isn't sticking to their care plan. At some point we'll say we can't help you. We're very honest about that, and we have a job to refer them out. If they aren't getting better, we need to refer them out. Yeah. And we have a whole team of people that we work with, other medical doctors, pain management doctors, physical therapists, other avenues to try because if we're, what we're doing isn't working, you need to keep trying until you find something that does work.

Speaker 2 14:43

Yeah. There is no, there's no reason. No matter what condition you have, that if you take the time to get it properly evaluated and treated, that within two weeks time you can start to see results, measurable results. But the real question is, are you being compliant and are you true and honest to yourself? Because we're doing everything we can from our end. If you're not doing everything you can on your end, guess what? There's room for improvement.

Speaker 15:06

Absolutely. Yeah. Said. And to just dig into that, a little bit more, you often emphasize, like we said, what happens outside the clinic is just as important as what happens inside. What everyday habits most commonly lead to dysfunction. And how does your maintenance approach in campaign help? Patients stay ahead of those issues long term. And you mentioned some great ones, how we're sleeping, different things like that we might not even be aware of.

Speaker 2 15:35

Sure. I will tell you that probably the best measure of how a patient is doing is to have them understand one or two functions that they need to be doing as a human being. One is to squat. If you cannot squat, don't go to the woods and go hiking because you're gonna be in trouble. But number two I is to be able to perform basically a shoulder and chest a activity. And that is simply just being able to place your hands in this position and to do that as if you're on a, on a wall. And being able to do that without pain and keeping your whole back flat on the wall.

Speaker 3 16:06

We call them wall angels. It's kinda like a snow angel with a wall.

Speaker 2 16:09

It's wall angel. And then the third thing is, I don't wanna be too off base here, but it's true. Everyone puts on their underwear in the morning, and if you sit down and you put on your underwear, you're doing yourself a disservice if you cannot stand up and put on your underwear. That's problem number one, a smaller problem and a, another functional test that you can use that is better for you is to put your socks on sanding up, and that's demonstrating flexibility, strength, balance, all at once.

Speaker 3 16:34

Agility.

Speaker 2 16:34

And if you can do that's good for you. You got that day down and it's a, there's a day you can't do it. Then that's the day. Might need to call me.

Speaker 3 16:42

If you stop using it, you start losing it. That's something we say all the time.

Speaker 2 16:45

And so your question, to

Speaker 3 16:47

move

Speaker 2 16:47

your question about maintenance care how does maintenance care help? When people come in and they have no pain, they've been through the program they're in no pain. They come in maybe once in a month, once every three months. What do they want? When they come in, you can measure them and you can say, Hey, do this functional test, or You should be able to do this orthopedic test or this range of motion. This is what you had last time. You've lost 10 degrees of rotation in your neck, did you know that? And if they don't know that, they're not gonna try to fix it at home. But if now they recognize it and they're accountable to me and themselves, then they have something to work on. They go back and they go, wow. I didn't think I was in pain. But I can see now how I was tightening up. And if I let it go for maybe another couple of months, how that could cause me problems. I wake up in the morning and I have a kink on my neck. Yeah, that's right. So that's how maintenance care can help patients is to stay ahead of their condition by us evaluating them in advance of symptoms.

Speaker 17:34

For sure.

Speaker 3 17:34

Yeah. And we used to not be good about pushing that, and I say use the word push because it, we never wanted to be salespeople. There are some offices and not criticizing that, but it's a different approach. You sell these big packages with all these visits upfront and. Also people that give away our profession. And we don't appreciate that because we feel it devalues us. If you give too much for free, people don't respect it. So we didn't push maintenance and we were doing our patients a disservice because the people that are, I can, we could name them. Maintenance patients come in every month or every three months, depending how active they are. Less active need to come in. More or more. Spinal conditions need to come in more often. But ones that are really doing the work come in every three months, costs them very little$55 or$45 for their adjustment. They're not there long. They're out the door and they don't need big care plans because they're maintaining and they're feeling great and they love it and they tell everyone about it and it just works. So we're, that's a new thing that we're trying to be better at. And we've learned a lot along the way.

Speaker 2 18:42

When you talk about family and you talk about how you want to treat your patients, like family maintenance care is family. People will go maintenance care are okay, I'm coming in and it's, you're only spending like five minutes and you're adjusting me and you're just like moving my legs around, checking my neck and whatever. You're done. And that's it. I'll say to them, I say, I also take care of my family and when I adjust them, I probably do that in two or three minutes. So the fact that I spent five minutes with you is a little overkill

Speaker 19:05

for sure. Oh, that's so funny. But that's amazing, you're able to provide, and it's such personalized work too, to your patients. You're meeting them where they're at and guiding them along the way

Speaker 2 19:14

yeah.

Speaker 19:15

That's

19:15

awesome.

Speaker 3 19:15

Yeah, it's been awesome. We've had, one of our first patients was very pregnant. And her baby was breech, and Dr. Misra used some pressure points, I believe it was to help the baby to turn. And she brought that baby in 20 years later, just last year, and introduced him again to me and to him and said, Dr. Misra turned you when I was pregnant, and I think she did yoga with me too. I can't remember for sure. But anyway, we've literally watched families grow up and go off to school and college and. Do great things. And along with that, we've mentored our staff, which we're probably gonna talk about at some point. But

Speaker 19:54

yeah,

Speaker 3 19:54

it's really been a, such a privilege, honestly, to be part of the community and to build a community. And it's really fun. We once had. Our treatment bays are closed, but the top is open so you can hear. So we always have to be careful about HIPAA and what we're sharing with the patient. But we had a patient recognize a voice and it ends up, it was his prom date

Speaker 2 20:18

for 30 years ago, 35 years ago. I don't know. You just

Speaker 3 20:22

never know.

Speaker 2 20:22

And he was living out in Winchester and she was working for, I think, a OL or something like that.

Speaker 3 20:27

Yeah.

Speaker 2 20:28

He was like, is that so and I was like, I have no idea what we're talking about. And he goes, no, you know who she is? What's her name? I was like, I cannot tell you that. And he said, can I go outside? And I said, I can't stop you. And he goes, alright. And he goes out and it's his prom date. And they like, have this happy reunion for a minute or whatever and she's married, he's married or whatever. They just had their little niceties and he comes back in the room. He comes back the next time and he says, can you give this to her? The next time she comes in and he has a picture, he had to duplicate pictures of their prom night. And and I was like, I don't know,'cause she's married and everything. I don't know if you wanted to hand off a prom picture to her, or whatever.

Speaker 21:06

Sure.

Speaker 2 21:06

I truly, I don't remember if I actually gave it to her or not. I think if I did give it to her, she. Probably left it in the office or didn't pick it up. I don't know what happened, but it was great.

Speaker 3 21:14

But we have neighbors run into neighbors who are like, I didn't know you came here. And then we have people that refer people and they know, they come there and they're like really happy to run into'em. And yeah. So it's sometimes six degrees or whatever that's called separation. Yeah. Yeah. But it's, that's a beautiful thing. Like we always say, and I think a lot of doctors say this, a referral is the greatest highest comp. Yeah, highest compliment. Just letting us. The fact that people trust us, and they're trusting him to adjust their neck. That's You're putting your body

Speaker 2 21:44

Yeah.

Speaker 3 21:44

In someone's hands. And that's, it is. That's huge.

Speaker 2 21:47

It is. It is humbling. And I will tell you that as much as I wanna retire in the next few years so I can enjoy my life while I still get some health around myself, I'm gonna miss this. And so I'm wondering to myself, how am I gonna do this and be happy when I leave? And I realized I don't have to leave. It goes with me. You know where I go. It's such

Speaker 22:05

part of you.

Speaker 2 22:06

Yeah, it really is.

Speaker 22:08

Yeah. It's just really cool how you guys have. Seeing generations come and go and grow up and have babies. And it's really cool. And the memories made at the M center too. I just love that story you shared with the pro picture.

Speaker 2 22:20

Yeah.

Speaker 22:20

That is just, that's awesome. And to do a kind of another pivot, COVID challenged many healthcare practices, yet you guys were able to actually expand and even open an additional location. What decisions or guiding principles allowed you to adapt and grow during that time? May

Speaker 2 22:40

I answer that?

Speaker 3 22:41

Absolutely. It's all yours, baby. So this was your winner.

Speaker 2 22:44

Let me just start by saying that our mentor, Dr. Jay Greenstein, had planted a couple of seeds and he put his trust in me as being his first customer for this app that he had developed.

Speaker 3 22:55

It's called Embody. It's

Speaker 2 22:56

amazing. And this app was connecting patients to our practice in ways that. Nothing else did. And so when COVID hit and people had our app, they were still communicating with us through that app. And they were still making visits and coming in to see us because we were essential healthcare workers. And we were taking the load off the emergency room centers by seeing the musculoskeletal patients as much as we could, and. Again, thanks to Dr. Hery for taking over that role because with yeah, Juliana, myself being sequestered due to some health issues at the time Dr. Hery stepped up and him and actually his wife, who's a nurse,

Speaker 3 23:29

ran the practice and was laid off, came in, they ran our practice,

Speaker 2 23:31

they ran the practice for two of them a few months until things started to settle down again.

Speaker 3 23:34

And I scheduled it home and did the billing from home.

Speaker 2 23:37

Yep. And

Speaker 3 23:38

cause of EMR.

Speaker 2 23:39

And so basically what happened was that app allowed us. Growth and people would not be going to other practices or we, still seeing us as new patients and new clients. And we were booming and we needed more space and we didn't know what to do. And thankfully a patient of mine Greg Hogan, I'll tell you his name he, he's not gonna mind, he's a business realtor in this area and you should really interview him at some point too. Okay. Him and Dr. Jay Greenstein for sure. And, the he said to me you guys are too busy here. You, you need to expand. I was like, you're a realtor. Your job is to sell me a building. I know that. And I'm not ready to do it. We just invested all this money in revamping this place and we're not doing it. He kept pushing me and finally he found this place down in Leesburg and it was Lees Burg's original hospital. And long story short, it was irresistible because it was already being paid for by the tenant. And all I had to do was get a mortgage and I did. And it was during COVID. We got a great rate. And that

Speaker 3 24:28

place, I thought he was crazy. I said, we're gonna go bankrupt and you wanna buy a million dollar building. Sure. I was really scared, but I fell in love with building too. But anyway, go ahead.

Speaker 2 24:39

Yeah, and and then we thought, our vision is really coming true. We now have a place that's not just in Ashburn, but we have a footprint in Leeburg and we have space to expand our vision. And so we thought we were only gonna invite or have people that are tenants that would add to people's lives. Something that's positive. And so while we love, pizza and other things like that, we thought that a bookstore, a plant shop, a yoga studio. And maybe a residential apartment on top

Speaker 3 25:07

and

Speaker 2 25:07

a hemp store and a hemp store. And of course the M center, the chiropractic physical therapy place all in that building is really an oasis of healthcare.

Speaker 25:15

Yes, it is. Yeah. You guys are in a perfect location. Just here in downtown Leesburg is amazing, but you guys are truly in a very sweet spot.

Speaker 3 25:23

Yeah. And it's really nice to, as much as it's a money pit and it really is like we have a wall right now that's gonna have to be replaced on the outside of the building, which is very costly. Because it's fortunately not a support wall, but old buildings require a lot of money.

Speaker 2 25:40

Apparently it's three bricks deep. Yeah. And they have to replace three layers of brick.

Speaker 3 25:44

Yeah. Oh

Speaker 2 25:44

my goodness. And yeah, I don't want to think about

Speaker 3 25:46

that. But anyway, it is an honor to restore historic building and there's something so cool looking back at who all's been there and the fact that the first doctor and the first pharmacist in Loudoun County were there. And, there's a man t Colin Campbell, who did Forks Over Knives, which is the whole plant-based movement. He was born there in the China study. He was born there

Speaker 2 26:06

in that building.

Speaker 3 26:07

And we met him and I wanted to talk to him about all his research and he wanted to talk to us about

Speaker 2 26:11

My dad

Speaker 3 26:11

was

Speaker 2 26:12

building was one of his post grads.

Speaker 3 26:14

Wow.

Speaker 2 26:14

Yeah. Goodness. So they did biochemistry research together in the sixties. He's

Speaker 3 26:18

amazing, man. He's, I think 90, now

Speaker 2 26:20

He's 90 something like 92, 93.

Speaker 3 26:22

Yeah. He's so healthy

Speaker 2 26:23

and he still. Out there speaking and doing things and,

Speaker 3 26:26

but

Speaker 2 26:27

yeah.

Speaker 3 26:27

Yeah, his grandfather died in that building and I believe he was born there. And that doctor, he said, saved his life. So it's always amazing, but it's really cool to be part of history and yeah.

Speaker 2 26:38

Six degrees is separate

Speaker 3 26:38

To restore a building and, honor the integrity of that and everything. So be part of Leesburg. Yeah. It's a cool feeling. Like we love our Ashburn office, but

Speaker 2 26:48

you feel like you're in the fabric here.

Speaker 3 26:49

Yeah.

Speaker 26:50

Yeah,

Speaker 3 26:51

it's definitely community more so it's nice

Speaker 26:54

for sure. I agree with you too, the, these buildings, they hold a lot of character, especially yours. And back to the team, you've mentored many team members who have gone on to pursue careers and healthcare. Why is mentorship such an important part of your legacy and what impact has that had on your practice?

Speaker 2 27:15

Let me start if you don't mind. Okay, sure. I will tell you that without mentorship, there is little in my mind. Value of purpose for lasting purpose for you to be able to do something while you live is great. But for that to continue when you're not there is even greater. And you can't do that without successive generations. And so to invest in those successive generations, I think is one of the biggest investments and the best investments anyone can do for their business if you want it to be long lasting. We did that with with our second doctor Dr. Maya Mann, who is amazing. She not only has developed her own, following but she's very good with. Prenatal and sports injury. She used to play basketball and so we mentored her just outta school. Julianne found her and we were like, I don't know, we just haven't even met her. But Julianne said, you've gotta meet this person. And we met her and we all fell in love with her. She has now been with us for about five years and she has just grown leaps and bounds herself and she has developed. Skills that match our skills and compliment our skills. And so that's the benefit of mentoring people and having them develop a relationship within your practice because they follow your trend. When we have hired staff members, usually the staff members that we hire, we want to hire people who are. Up and coming and motivated to move on. We know we're a stepping stone for you and we're not gonna keep you for 20 years, and that's not the idea. You're high school, you're in college, whatever you were going to physical therapy, you go whatever. But a lot of times when people start to work with us, they understand the body so clearly, so quickly that they all of a sudden want to do that field. So we've had a couple of chiropractors get developed here, physical therapists, dos, MDs Veterinarian and a lot of PTs that decide to go to, PT school. So we've felt that we've served our community very well by helping support those professionals develop.

Speaker 3 29:04

And now we literally seek out students who are in school for pre-med or healthcare in some, and it could be healthcare management. We have a new employee starting who is interested in that and business analytics. And she has already done research and published and she's in high school. She's a senior. She's at Academy Loud. Yeah. And anyway, it's really cool because they're invested and you hear them say, oh, I'm so far ahead of all the other students.'cause I've learned all this anatomy working with Dr. Misra, Dr. Harvey and Dr. Mann. And now we have Dr. Monte who. Was a ca was a patient first, then a ca Chiropractic assistant went to Life University where Dr. Misra and Dr. Mann studied

Speaker 2 29:46

physically.

Speaker 3 29:47

He's doing his preceptorship with us, which is like a residency, and then he's starting to work for us in April. So that's our first, like someone that actually came back to us instead of just going out into the world.

Speaker 2 29:58

Frankly, we've had two or three chiropractors who said, we're coming back to work with you. We're like, yay. And then they get married, they go somewhere else. We're like,

Speaker 3 30:06

but we have about 20, assistants and front desk people that we've mentored that are now either in medical school or of some have

Speaker 2 30:14

graduated and

Speaker 3 30:15

yeah. And that's really amazing. And that's really been, and our son actually and our daughter both worked with us at one point. That was all four of us. And our son's getting ready to go to med school. He wants to do research, he thinks right now, but he's interested in neurology as well. He was really quiet. He's very introverted and a lot of the. Employees say, they really just grow and get more comfortable with people

Speaker 2 30:38

Yeah.

Speaker 3 30:39

And have to step outside of their comfort zones, and that's where you really have growth. And it's

Speaker 2 30:43

really great to see our children Yeah. Work there. Our daughter, Sierra, went from both of'em, went from watching videos in the playroom where we, we had work so we didn't have daycare. Sure you're in the playroom. Stay there. And she really she impressed me so much. She grew so much. She became so independent there. And I think of, of all the. Traits that my daughter has learned there. Her independence and her assuredness and her ability to yeah. Actually now live in New York City by herself is just, that really what she telling me really tells me that she's, yeah, she's developed some great tools and has some great assets. Alright. Yeah, she

Speaker 3 31:16

works with public relations yeah, it's interesting. She's using her communication skills and she did some acting when she was young and that gave her a lot of confidence too.

Speaker 2 31:24

Yeah. And

Speaker 3 31:25

yeah,

Speaker 2 31:25

but you know when you deal with people and people out in the street and they can be standoffish, you don't only say hi to you. But as a child and you're looking up at these adults, all these adults, not even acknowledging you makes you feel like you're not even there. And so when you go in and you work at a place and you're 16, 17 years old and you're telling these 45, 50 5-year-old people get on the floor and do this, and you know I'm gonna do this to you and you're gonna do this, all of a sudden it's empowering. And then you start seeing people differently. You're just a grownup kid. That's all you want. Everyone is just a grownup kid. Yeah. And then you start to feel more comfortable. And that's the true empowerment because the biggest stresses I think that we have in life, even though natural disasters, and stuff like that are horrible. It's people. People stress us out more than anything else. Yeah. So what we try to do is we try to help our community feel better because then we have a nicer community to live in.

Speaker 3 32:13

Yeah. And we always say, when you help one person. It's a ripple effect. You're helping 10 because they're a better parent, a better aunt, uncle, a better coworker, a better human being. They, when you're in pain, you're not, chronic pain is debilitating. Sure. It changes you. And I was just in a car accident and I suffered a concussion as some injuries, and we've helped so many patients through that over the years. And I have to say, it's a whole new experience to be on the other side. And it really helps me to appreciate, and I've sent an email to the staff just how much I've appreciated the care that I've gotten because it's really unique.

Speaker 32:51

Yeah.

Speaker 3 32:51

Providers today, the industry is tough. They're paying less and less. Everyone's paying more for insurance. They want doctors to spend five minutes with people and be out the door. One of our chiropractic assistants is in do school right now, and he said that's one of the struggles he's had in his rotations at hospitals is they want him to be done so fast and they want them billing a lot. And he started with us and he heard people's stories and he knows it's important. His brother's a medical doctor and I said to him, he went to school late in life at 40. He was a computer geek and really intelligent. And I said, Ava, what surprised you the most? And he said, how little we know and how much of the diagnosis comes from the initial history and physical? And each doctor just keeps running with that instead of. Learning,

Speaker 2 33:42

expanding or

Speaker 3 33:43

expanding and listening and getting their own story. So I think that's pretty indicative of our times.

Speaker 33:48

Absolutely. I just, I'm just constantly amazed by the work you guys do. It's super inspiring.

Speaker 3 33:54

Thank you.

Speaker 2 33:55

Thank you.

Speaker 33:55

And you made a great point too about how, when you're in pain, it's hard to help those around you. And it's, so being able to fix that, it's infectious. You're spreading that positivity all around.

Speaker 3 34:06

Yeah.

Speaker 34:07

When you're feeling better, you're able to take care of your people, your friends, and your community better.

Speaker 2 34:11

Yeah,

Speaker 3 34:12

definitely. And that really takes a team, and I just wanna say we're here today, but we wouldn't be here without Dr. Hery. He came in, he gave us that shot in the arm, helped us develop things he d markets. For us, our marketing is really with our partners. Who are gyms and other businesses that are helping people and empowering people and everyone in our staff is important. The cleaning people, we couldn't do what we do without them. And we have team meetings every week and it's really important as a business that you listen to your team. I'm happy to be wrong. I don't like being wrong. I'm a human, but there've been many times that I've been wrong in a decision, and we went with the majority and it ended up being the best thing. And I've never been, so happy to be wrong because teamwork works you,

Speaker 35:02

teamwork makes the dream work.

Speaker 3 35:03

It totally does. And right and you definitely need to look at your strengths and higher to your weaknesses. And I was always afraid to spend money and thank God my husband was like, we've gotta get help. And he was right and I was wrong. And that's been a, we've been a balancing act with each other.

Speaker 2 35:19

Yeah.

Speaker 3 35:19

And it hasn't always been easy. We'd be fibbing if we said it was,

Speaker 2 35:23

yeah,

Speaker 3 35:23

working together 24 7. There is a price that you can pay for that. But you have to hire to your weaknesses because you need to spend money to make money. And I lost this money because of that. And so that was a big lesson for me. Hire the help that you need. Get the support you

Speaker 2 35:40

need. Plus it's stressful, yeah. When you're doing something that you're not good at, why are you doing it?

Speaker 35:46

Yeah. Everybody has their own unique thing that they're Yeah. Really good at,

Speaker 2 35:49

so Absolutely.

Speaker 35:50

It makes it even more impactful, just having everybody do have their strengths put together.

Speaker 2 35:55

I was always wondering to myself, for example. These people who look at social media all the time and like constantly looking at, I'm like, why are you wasting your life? And then we hired someone who's like a professional and she's like doing TikTok videos for us and all this stuff. I'm like, I see why you're doing what you're doing.

Speaker 36:08

Yeah.

Speaker 2 36:09

And you're so good at it.

Speaker 36:10

We

Speaker 3 36:10

went to the

Speaker 36:11

pros.

Speaker 3 36:11

Exactly. We thought we didn't need that either, but we do. Everything is changing. Social media is a big part of people's world today, so

Speaker 2 36:19

yeah.

Speaker 3 36:20

Love it or not. You better jump on board. Like one of the thing we learned is you have to keep adapting. And we did it with COVID.

Speaker 2 36:27

Yeah.

Speaker 3 36:27

But my dad always said, adapt or die. And it's so true in a business, you just have to keep looking at the bottom line for us, it's the changes in healthcare. And so now we're at close to. 35% of our patients are self-pay because they have high deductibles, or we're not working with their plan because they're limiting their care and telling us what we can do and can't do. And we refuse to compromise the quality of our care. So we've had to explain that to people and we have to really work with people to keep it affordable and everyone's different and has different needs and all of that. But

Speaker 2 36:59

if you keep your values solid, you will attract the patients.

Speaker 3 37:03

Yeah.

Speaker 2 37:03

That you deserve.

Speaker 37:05

For

Speaker 3 37:05

sure. Yeah. And people here are very highly educated. Yeah. And they want to learn and they are intelligent and they don't want quick fixes. Most of them. Sometimes they think they do, but once they really think about it, they really wanna learn. So that's an added challenge is, we do have to stay on top of our game because. People are expecting the best, and from everyone.

Speaker 2 37:30

Exactly.

Speaker 37:31

Okay. And being the best. You've been voted best of loud in five years in a row. Congratulations.

Speaker 3 37:38

Thank

Speaker 37:38

you.

Speaker 3 37:39

I'm going for six right now.

Speaker 2 37:41

We're working on it.

Speaker 37:42

All righty. Which it speaks to the trust and impact you've built within this community. When you reflect on that recognition and the lives you've helped transform. What does that achievement represent to you and what excites you most about the future of the OM Center?

Speaker 2 38:00

You wanna answer that?

Speaker 3 38:01

Sure. When I met to know that's his nickname I really felt like. We were brought together for a special reason for two completely different cultures and religions and all of that, although we're both very spiritual, so we can bridge all of that. But I really believe the M center is the reason that we were brought together. And yeah, I get emotional because. We've put so much of our life into it. We have a lot of lessons we tell people today. We are glad that our doctors have a better work life balance than we had. My husband used to see people. He'd come in early, he'd see them over lunch, he would stay late and he'd be doing his notes till 10 o'clock and he'd take a break to read a book to the kids while I was teaching yoga at the studio. And I was billing till two in the morning.'cause we were a two man band and we had to do it all and there was a price for that. So we tell, our doctors, we really have tried to give them better schedules than we had and make sure that they do put their family first. And we tell all our staff, take the vacations

Speaker 2 39:03

that they need. Yes.

Speaker 3 39:04

And you can never afford to have a child. You can never afford a vacation. Take them, have them.

Speaker 2 39:09

Yeah.

Speaker 3 39:10

The universe will support you. The money will come from somewhere. I learned that really early on. I used to worry, I didn't want him to worry about money, so I didn't tell him anything about it. Your job is to take care of all the patients the same, no matter what their insurance is, what they can afford, whatever. But that was a lot of stress on me. And I like to say I'm the yogi who lost her way. And I'm fighting my way back. And people would put us on pedestals and think, oh, they're so healthy and they're this, and they're perfect. And I'd be like, don't put us on a pedestal.'cause we're only gonna fall off. We're human.

Speaker 39:41

Yep.

Speaker 3 39:42

And we're learning every day. And 20 years later, we're still learning from our staff. Every new person that comes in, we say, we wanna hear from you because you're a fresh set of eyes. You might think you don't have something to share, but you do. If there's something that feels awkward or uncomfortable to you, we wanna know about it. If there's something we can improve, we wanna know about it. But I think to circle back to your question, we just, it is really humbling, but we are really proud of the community we built and yeah, so now we're working on rebuilding our relationship and sometimes you get help for that. And we have a really great. Therapist, Beth, Mitch. I don't think she'll mind us saying her name, but again, you gotta ask for help when you need it, and I'm so grateful that I've been on this journey with him and. He's very humble, but people have literally called him Dr. God. He has many nicknames and I know no one wants to be called Dr. God. That's a little bit much, but he's had a lot of names. Also The Punisher. We he used to roll out people's IT bands with a rolling pin and we once had a big firefighter come in and Where's that rolling pin and stand behind the door and pretend he was gonna hit him with it. Oh my goodness.

Speaker 40:48

That's so funny.

Speaker 3 40:49

We have a lot of fun, but but it really has been a labor of love.

Speaker 2 40:52

Yeah.

Speaker 40:53

Yeah it's truly admirable what you guys have created. You have truly built the om center from the ground up, and it truly, the results have reflected on the time, the effort, the long, early mornings, late nights. It truly shows. And it's just so inspiring what you guys are doing. Thank

Speaker 3 41:11

you.

Speaker 41:12

Continue to do, as we wrap up, is there anything either of you would like to add that I haven't touched on today?

Speaker 3 41:20

I think just that we wanna continue building even. We hope the center when we sell it will continue to thrive as the OM center. Dr. Miser just added an r Vidic facet to the practice where he has practitioners direct from India. We tried to find one here over the years. We always envisioned having that because we do have a big Indian population, obviously him being Indian. Yeah. And the population from India is growing. And he had a partner that he joined up with. He can tell you a little bit more about that.

Speaker 2 41:51

I have a partner and his name is Nanda Kumar Raju. And he, I hope he doesn't mind, don't sue me. He was a patient and he and I worked together and worked out an issue that he had. And years later he brought back up something that he. Brought up initially as a patient that we should work together. And I said what are you talking about? And he said, your practice does all these other things. What do you think about bringing Ayurvedic into the practice? And I said, we've been looking for an Ayurvedic practitioner. He said, no, how if we just get some people from India? And I said, how's that gonna work? And he's an IT guy, as an IT company. And we basically developed an Android app and a an iOS app as well as website that is a platform for. There's right now, currently five vetted Ayurvedic doctors that you can see that do things from diabetic reversal to, endocrine problems, to musculoskeletal care or skincare, whatever want. They have a field of expertise that you can speak to them and, you'll have two visits for like less than a hundred dollars and they'll give you two weeks of time for you to try out their plan, which is all natural. It's basically dietary changes and health changes. And within two weeks they're gonna, like I said, within two weeks you see something and they will touch base with you again for new additional costs and. Ask you if you have any questions and how things are going, and then adjust what they need to do with you. It's an amazing, easy method to get some natural healthcare. And Ayurvedic is, thousands of years old. It's actually recognized in India as one of the medical arts, alongside with medical doctors. There's Ayurvedic medicine, you get to pick which one you want. Not like it is here

Speaker 3 43:22

so much. Yeah. Like acupuncture in China. Sure. It's the main path for healing there.

Speaker 2 43:27

One of the main paths. Yeah.

Speaker 3 43:28

So we wanna continue to just offer. Different, more

Speaker 2 43:31

and more things,

Speaker 3 43:31

approaches, and that's always changing. Light therapy is a big thing now. Sound therapy, so you know, whatever can help people as the technology advances, like now we use Shockwave and before that it was laser therapy and we have a laser machine that the NFL has. It's really. Amazing and very powerful, but you have to keep adapting and seeing what is gonna help people, and that's what we're about. So

Speaker 43:57

yeah,

Speaker 3 43:57

I think life is a school and love is the lesson, and that's why we're here is to help each other.

Speaker 2 44:03

Yeah.

Speaker 3 44:03

And love each other. Yeah,

Speaker 44:05

for sure. That's at the core of everything, right?

Speaker 2 44:07

Yeah,

Speaker 3 44:08

definitely.

Speaker 44:09

I think those are some great opportunities to be able to take advantage of and people can look into it and decide, what would be the best path for them. I think it's awesome.

Speaker 3 44:17

Definitely.

Speaker 44:18

Thank you so much Dr. Misra and Julianne for joining me on the podcast and sharing your knowledge and empowering story with us. I wish you and the entire team at the M Center continued growth, success, and all the best in the future.

Speaker 2 44:32

Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Appreciate Thank you for giving

Speaker 3 44:33

us

Speaker 44:33

this opportunity.

Speaker 2 44:34

Yes. This is a wonderful opportunity. Thank you for having us. Of

Speaker 44:37

course. Thank you.