Key Takeaways
Dr Dan Lyons delves into how foundational principles from his past have seamlessly integrated into his current practice and his transformation, inspired by the Gonstead system and the guiding hands of mentors. A distinguished figure in Gonstead Chiropractic, Dan unfolds his tale of serendipity and dedication, illuminating the path to mastery in any discipline. Embark on a narrative with me, Scott Vatcher, as we navigate the blurred lines between the tangible world and the mental constructs that define our reality.
When was the last time you considered the subtleties of focus in shaping your professional ascent? This conversation offers an enlightening look at Dr. Lyons' and my evolution, from navigating pivotal life decisions to the power of focus in our respective fields. There's also a lighter examination of how technology and social media weave through our societal fabric, bringing both connection and the challenge of deepfakes to the forefront.
We touch upon the foundations that construct local authority and the invaluable role of mentorship in professional growth. We tackle the often-neglected aspect of business management within healthcare, offering practical advice and strategies for new practitioners. Tune in for a discourse that bridges gaps between disciplines, fosters growth, and sparks a renewed appreciation for the intricacies of mastering one's craft.
Key Takeaways
Dr Dan Lyons delves into how foundational principles from his past have seamlessly integrated into his current practice and his transformation, inspired by the Gonstead system and the guiding hands of mentors. A distinguished figure in Gonstead Chiropractic, Dan unfolds his tale of serendipity and dedication, illuminating the path to mastery in any discipline. Embark on a narrative with me, Scott Vatcher, as we navigate the blurred lines between the tangible world and the mental constructs that define our reality.
When was the last time you considered the subtleties of focus in shaping your professional ascent? This conversation offers an enlightening look at Dr. Lyons' and my evolution, from navigating pivotal life decisions to the power of focus in our respective fields. There's also a lighter examination of how technology and social media weave through our societal fabric, bringing both connection and the challenge of deepfakes to the forefront.
We touch upon the foundations that construct local authority and the invaluable role of mentorship in professional growth. We tackle the often-neglected aspect of business management within healthcare, offering practical advice and strategies for new practitioners. Tune in for a discourse that bridges gaps between disciplines, fosters growth, and sparks a renewed appreciation for the intricacies of mastering one's craft.
that ironic dichotomy. We live in a physical world, or have the appearance to do, but it's really all mental. Everything we see, hear, smell, taste, touch is a mental. It's like we're living in a movie, but nothing is really solid. They're all made up of atoms, and atoms are mostly electron clouds. So it exists one way, but it doesn't really exist that way. And so we have the physical realm and the mental realm, and the two merge a little bit, but most of the time they're completely separate. But it's where they merge, that's where all the excitement happens.
Speaker 2:I'm Scott Vatcher, the host of Questioning Authority, where I question authority figures about health, wealth and relationships. This episode is brought to you by theauthoritycocom, helping health professionals be seen as the go-to authority in their community. I hope you enjoy this episode. Welcome to the Questioning Authority podcast. I'm your host, Scott Vatcher, and on this podcast I question authority figures in the spaces of health, relationships and business, and I've got a great guest on with me here. We'll say Dr Dan Lyons, but then we'll get rid of the doctor bit, make this a bit more informal, and so I always like to start the podcast out by letting people know who we're talking to. I don't want to read out a boring bio that nobody's really going to listen to and skip forward 10, you know, by 10 seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds. I get rid of this bio. What are you an authority in? Why should people have a listen to you, dr Dan?
Speaker 1:I'm an authority in Gonstead Chiropractic, the Gonstead system and chiropractic philosophy those would be the big things. X-ray, a lot of X-ray knowledge, and I helped develop X-ray tools for digital software. So instrumentation, chiropractic instrumentation, anything that fits in the realm of the Gonstead part of chiropractic I am well-versed in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so for those listeners out there, gonstead is a particular fraction or technique within chiropractic.
Speaker 2:Chiropractic has a whole bunch of techniques, but Gonstead is one of the best known and has some absolute legends in it, of which either Dan is either already a legend or will be a legend at some point when it comes to Gonstead.
Speaker 2:We're going to talk about that because part of what I believe is the keys to becoming an authority figure in anything is persistence and going deep, and that is definitely what Dan has done in Gonstead.
Speaker 2:You should have seen the resume, the CV that he sent through the podcast to get to know him a little bit better, and there were like I don't know three pages worth of Dan's credentials on Gonstead being members of, and essentially just a phenomenal amount of stuff. I don't even I don't even know where to start with it, but I think one of them said something like there was a two or 4,000 hour credential when it comes to Gonstead, you know, as an example, and that was one line of about 50. So he really has gone deep, and so I'd like you to just go a little bit deeper on how important it is, when you're trying to be an authority or an expert in something to not be distracted. There's so many distractions in today's world that we go for the shiny object here and there. But to really keep that course and go deep on something so that you can become a true expert in it, how did you keep on track in today's world and how deep did you go?
Speaker 1:You know a lot of it was just dumb luck. I guess I grew up I'm a Wisconsin native, still living in Wisconsin, and I grew up like 20, literally 21 miles from my parents' door to the Gonstead Clinic, and when I got to school I had no idea about Gonstead, I just kind of lucked into it. I had a friend from high school that was at Palmer and when she heard that I was going to go to national she called me every day until I promised to go visit her at Palmer. And I didn't want to go to Palmer because I hated Iowa, because in Wisconsin Badgers we hate Iowa Hawkeyes. So I mean just the dumbest reasons.
Speaker 1:I'm like 20, 22, 23, and I got the crocodile brain still going on. I'm not thinking rationally, my frontal cortex is not developed yet fully. So I just went just to shut her up and get her to stop calling me and Karen, if you hear this, thank you. And so I get down there and I'm just like, oh, this is different, this feels right. Those are the only two schools I ever looked at and I get down there. And so I'm 6'6", probably 260 pounds. Then I had real long hair, snakeskin boots, oil skin duster Because I was thinking do I want to go to chiropractor. Do I want to be a pro wrestler? So I already had the whole persona.
Speaker 1:You definitely have the whole pro wrestler persona and so a couple of my classmates there were three of them that are cousins and one of them is still my chiropractor. He practiced about 40 minutes north of me and they saw me and were like that guy scares us, we need to make sure he's our friend. And so they invite me out to a workshop and I said you know, thanks, but I already have a workshop I committed to go to with my friend who got me to go to school there. Well, it turns out it's the same place and I was going. I knew if I got to intern with Dr Troxell, then I got to be in a clinic seeing how this all works. You know, in fourth try, where you didn't get to see any clinical work, and then it would be me doing the clinical work at. You know, when I was in school was seventh try, was the first. You got in there to student clinic and then you had eighth, ninth and tenth. We only had ten tries. And so you know I was a former college idea. I was going to be an engineer, except I hate math. And then when I got to the point where I needed math, I'm like I'm out of this. But all the engineering principles, you know, the principles of the philosophy of engineering. I had all that in my head and it all made sense with Gonstead, because Gonstead was a lay engineer for a case make the big tractors and so it just made sense to me. And I still went and checked out everything. You know I have a biology and a biochemistry degree, so my science background says you got to investigate all these things and I went and looked at all the techniques and this is all that really really grabbed me and made sense. It was specific. You have instrumentation, so you're looking for evidence of interference to the nervous system. You got an x-ray, so you got a blueprint. You're palpation it confirms. You have all these different tools that we use in the Gonstead system to look at that.
Speaker 1:So then I go to my first seminar and I walk in and I hear as I live and breathe Dan Lyons, I haven't seen you since you were playing ball in high school. And I turn around and it's my, my hometown celebrity, a guy named CC Richelieu. He's been dead probably close to 20 years, but he was the world's best banjo player, and so I'm like God, I'm flattered. You even recognize me, and last time you saw me I was clean cut, I didn't have a beard, all that stuff. And so he takes me over and introduces me to, as he said, my best gal, dr Phyllis Markham. And actually, yeah, I got a picture of Dr Phyllis.
Speaker 1:So this is Larry Troxell right there, and his wife Pam and I interned with them and that's Dr Phyllis in the middle. She's the one that got Dr Gonstead to start teaching and she ran his x-ray department for years and she'd forgotten more about x-ray than most of us will ever learn. And so he introduced me to her and we hit it off and I liked x-ray and she liked x-ray, and so that's really how I got in there. And, besides enjoying the work and understanding it and having, you know, logically it fit in my head. Now I had, I had, you know, friends that were attached to the work and I'm like you know, she was like a grandmother to me and and, uh, cc he was, he's really the only grandfather figure I ever had, because one was dead before I was born and the other one, uh, died shortly after I was born. I barely remember him, and so I had them and you know, I didn't really want to let them down.
Speaker 1:And so you know I studied. It makes sense. You know you're working through school and some people are jumping all over the place and they go from. You know they're going to be a Gonstead doc. You know one semester and the next semester they're going to be an activator doc and then they're going to be a CBP doc and they're just to be an activator doc and then they're going to be a CBP doc, and they're just that was you, that was me, you know, oh yeah, and you got, and I knew from you know, playing basketball through high school and college.
Speaker 1:You know, you, if you want to be good at something, you have to put the time in. You can't jump around and see. You can't jump around and see. And I remember my freshman year in college playing basketball, and everybody that goes plays basketball in a scholarship, doesn't matter how small the school is. You think you're making it to the pros and I'm playing in some rinky dink. You know college campus and it wasn't much bigger than a you know a big high school gym. And I said to myself I better get a degree because I'm never going to play pro ball. But to get to where I did, I knew if I wanted to get a scholarship I had to put in work and so I mean, I slept with a basketball in my bed all the time. I had one with me all the time, anytime I could. I was working on my free throws and my ball handling and all that stuff and and it paid off. And then I see these kids in school and they're jumping back and forth. I'm like no, no, no, no, you got to just try it because and I never had heard of the four, the four competencies, and I talk about them all the time. Now you know.
Speaker 1:But when you first start out at something you suck at it and you don't even realize that you suck at it, you know. So you get to chiropractic college. I had never heard of cervical chair, never been adjusted in the chair before. They're my chiropractor, I had an activator doc and then I had a Palmer package, did SOT and all his cervical work was diversified stuff. So you're laying on your back. Never heard of cervical chair.
Speaker 1:So there's a skill that I want, I want to know, but I don't even know. I want to know it, so I'm horrible at it. And then you realize, hey, I'm horrible at this, I'm no good at it. And then you keep working. Now you get to the point where you can do it as long as you're consciously thinking about it, and then you know thousands of adjustments later you finally get good at it where you don't have to think through all the step-by-step I got to do this, this, this, all those things. And it's funny teaching because you see people, especially when you're teaching OxyPut and Atlas listings. You can see you give a listing and everybody's sitting there visually in their head. There you can see them tilting their head and their hands Okay, it's gone. Yes, I got to go this and it's I. It just warms my heart when I see that, because those steps never change.
Speaker 2:And then you can see the like, literally the cogs turning of this person like engaged, which must be.
Speaker 2:You know, I've taught at different things as well, but not to any level that you have, but I know what you mean. Like it's it's fun to see your I'll call them students, for lack of a better term depending on what you're teaching. See them go from that unconscious incompetence through the four steps to eventually hopefully becoming some type of an expert, like Gary Vee, one of my favorite mentors and entrepreneurs. He says we give up too soon. There are so many people out there that are just on the precipice of this huge step forward and it's like oh, it's not working, I'm going to stop, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, even care patients, you know, at some point, you don't know, I mean, they might never get the result they want, cause I mean everybody pretty much comes in because they hurt in some way or another, in some way or another. And is it one adjustment, is it five, is it 50? And you know, early on I had a. I had a patient come in in my first office and he was going to switch to see me because the chiropractor he had been seeing another Gonstead doc, it was like 40 minutes away and it, you know, it was always like a 40 minute wait to get in. Uh, once you got there, so he was going to come and see me. I'm right around the corner from my office. I've been open for a year and a half and it was quick. And so I saw him a handful of times and he wasn't getting any better. So he's like, what are we going to do? And so I rolled up his films and stuffed his travel card in there, wrapped him rubber bands and go see doc and see, see what he says. So it's a few weeks later.
Speaker 1:I'm in on a Saturday cleaning up, doing some paperwork, and I hear my doorbell go off. And I go up there and there's Joe standing in my reception room. I said, hey, joe, what's going on? He says, you know, I'm doing good, I just want to get back on schedule for my wellness care. I'm like, well, at least my patient education is paying off. And so I call, I see him and he says, you know, doc got me better.
Speaker 1:Blah, blah, blah and I so I called Doc on Monday. I said, hey, this is a Dan Lyons. And he goes. Yeah, dan, how's Joe doing? I said, yeah, he's back in, he's good. Thanks for sending him back to me. But I got to ask what did I do wrong? And he says you know, I looked at your films and they made sense. And I looked at your travel card and that all made sense and I did what you did six more times and he was better. And he says you know, now, maybe, maybe you know, my adjustments are a little bit better than yours. I mean, I'm in a year, he'd been practiced 30, some years and he goes. Maybe I did a little different line of correction because he's like five, five and I'm six, five, six, six.
Speaker 1:And he goes but I really think he just needed six more visits, right, and but I, you know that, being a novice, you know only in practice, a year and a half, I wasn't ready to make that call and you know I didn't have the confidence in saying, well, we just got to keep going. You know it's, we're going to get there, and when? Really, that's all it is, and you never know.
Speaker 2:And you never know. That's the, and you never know I guess it's part of being a healthcare practitioner is those fine lines and those blurry lines and those. Yeah, every day it's something new and something different, which makes it, I guess, a blessing and a curse all at the same time.
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Speaker 1:Yeah, well, it's that ironic dichotomy. You know we live in a physical world or have the appearance to do, but it's really all mental. Everything we see, hear, smell, taste, touch is a mental. It's like we're living in a movie, but nothing is really solid. They're all made up of atoms, and atoms are mostly electron clouds. So you know, it exists one way, but it doesn't really exist that way. And so we have the physical realm and the mental realm, and the two merge a little bit, but most of the time they're completely separate. But it's where they merge, that's where all the excitement happens.
Speaker 2:And how about in today's world where AI is? Really starting to take off and that merging of man. That's terrifying. It is terrifying and it's again a blessing and a curse. It's terrifying and exhilarating all at the same time. Um, I, I, 100 get the terrifying side absolutely I bet you, I bet you.
Speaker 1:No term paper is written without ai anymore.
Speaker 2:None of them probably probably not so and and interestingly then then they came out with that software that was, you could put it into and it could tell you whether it was written by ai or not. But then the software came out I haven't heard of that.
Speaker 1:I know they have one that they they put all the term papers in and it'll search term papers in the thing to see if you pirated one. But I didn't hear that they have a uh one to search ai. So that'd be interesting.
Speaker 2:They do, yes, but I mean already. So they've created that one, and now they've created an AI to combat that one, so it's just going to one up each other. It's interesting too, like a complete sidebar here. But on the deep fakes, you know how you can create a video now. That's like some kind of movie star saying whatever you want, and so how they've made that.
Speaker 1:I saw one of your guys saying you know we need to fight with vegan hand grenades. I said to Joe, I have a buddy that's a colonel, I guess he just retired from the army. And I said hey, you're holding out on me. Where can I get some of these vegan hand grenades? You have them at the vegan hand grenade market. Greta said so.
Speaker 2:Nice. Well, and that's what I was just saying with sort of like one-upping each other. So, with these deep fakes, now they've got this program that can use the internet and photos and voices taken from the internet to create this fake. But then they've got this second ai program that goes into the first one and says here's where you went wrong. And then this program goes oh, I'll fix it and make it better, and then they'll feed it back to the ai, second ai, and then that one say, well, that's better, but here's where you went wrong. And so they just say, well, that's better, but here's where you went wrong.
Speaker 2:And so they just go back and forth until it, you can't tell it's wow again terrifying, amazing, but terrifying stuff complete so I'm going to cover my face for the rest of this interview too late, too late, but along those lines, and I think much more like I think that's futuristic, whether that be a month, two months, six months, a year from now, whatever the case might be. But something that is super interesting right now is the realm of social media. Yes, so what are your thoughts on social media? Where it is, how it's going good, positive, indifferent.
Speaker 1:You know it's a blessing and a curse. You know you're able to be in contact with so many more people friends from high school and all these people. You know when I first got on I had all these friends saying you got to get on Facebook. You got to get on Facebook. I'm like what is Facebook? I don't want to be on there. And then I get on Facebook. You got to get on Facebook. I'm like what is Facebook? I don't want to be on there.
Speaker 1:And then I get on there and you see it and it's incredibly useful tool. You know you can use it for teaching. I get you know some of the groups in there. I'm in a neuroscience group and so a lot of the science that I teach about I just it shows up on my feed. I pop it up. Oh, I got to download that study and get there. So it can be. But it's a curse in that bad ideas get spread easily. But in our profession the public really doesn't understand what chiropractic is about and most chiropractors have a limited understanding of it. Pretty much all the schools teach a pain model. Chiropractic has never been pain-based it's it's that was a sellout in the sixties in order to be accepted into insurance.
Speaker 1:So it's about performance, it's about your body actually living up to its potential, and so when we, when we start to have the social media out there and people are putting you know, I get on my soapbox every time I can, so I'm on it right now Please, please, stop making those videos of you cracking people's backs.
Speaker 2:I was going to say is it from the videos of you adjusting someone?
Speaker 1:There's, there's, you know, know, when we're teaching those seminars, they're, they're videotaped. You will not. You'd be hard pressed. I don't think there's a video out there of me adjusting anywhere. I don't put them out there. And if people are videotaping me, I'm like you can videotape me, but if, but, if I find that posted on the internet, I I'm coming to your house, it's going to be 4 am and it's not going to be a fun visit Because it's taken out of context. It's not about the crack, and today is the first time I had someone come in and ask me about the ring dinger guy. The first time I'm shocked.
Speaker 1:I've had people I, the ring dinger guy, the first time I've had people and people, you know, it's, it's ridiculous and so, and whenever I do this at a seminar, you know someone in the thing and I'm like I know someone the first few. Someone's like, well, I get a lot of patients from that and I said, great, how many did you scare away? How many won't go? Because I get a lot of people that that will tell me I'm trying to get a friend come in, but they saw this video and they're scared, you know, and a couple of that with. They walk in a room and so I had a new patient or a consult this afternoon and I walk in and this woman, she's terrified of being paralyzed. She knows she needs care. She's only had like four visits years ago, 20 years ago, and she didn't get the release she was seeking so she stopped going. But she walks in and this woman's like five, four, you know, 120 pounds and she walks in and goes, you know here I am, you know, six, six, 240.
Speaker 1:And and she says that and I'm like, and I suppose it's a little, you're a little extra scared because I'm so big. And she's like, well, I said, don't worry, I'm very gentle, it doesn't take a lot of force to do what you need to do and the profession is very safe. But those videos they're so out of context and it gives everybody the wrong idea. It's not a one visit fix all. It is a procedure to go from point A to point B, from not functioning well to functioning well. That's what we have to get across.
Speaker 1:There's plenty of things you can do within. However you practice, whatever technique you use, and to get your message across and become an authority, you're better off picking the top 20 health complaints that people come in with. You know I got people come in bedwetting. People come in with, you know, whatever hemorrhoids, they got, migraine headaches, they got menstrual cramps, whatever low back pain, and talk about that. That's a way better message than just making a bunch of noise hey, come and see me and it's only $27 for the whole shebang. You know, don't devalue yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree with that. There's. It's such an interesting one because, you know, there's that old saying that says what is it? All publicity is good publicity.
Speaker 1:I think Sid Williams used to say I don't care what they say about me, as long as they spell my name right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there you go. Yeah, there you go. And so, although I would tend to agree with you in that, I do think it may be getting that just stigma or mystery about chiropractic, of people not having a clue what it is and therefore not doing it, so I don't know. I mean again, there's good and bad and everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but not everybody is making noise and cracking stuff.
Speaker 2:This is very true. There's so many different techniques out there that there's none of that.
Speaker 1:So if we talked about the principles or the tools we use to determine whether or not there was a subluxation, and how and where and when and when not to give an adjustment, now we have, doesn't matter how you practice, because you got everybody over here and I don't know if they can't see my hand. So I got one hand. So everybody over here and everybody over here and we bring them all together because everybody fits. If you're a chiropractor, you fit in the realm of chiropractic. So if we talk about all the things that we have in common, then they'll show up. I mean, everybody knows what's going to happen when you go to the dentist. There's never any surprise there. You're going to fill out a bunch of paperwork, you're going to sit there, they're going to come back. They're going to clean your teeth. They're going to take some x-rays. They're going to pick around and scrape around floss. You rinse, spit, rinse, spit. Doctor, spit, rinse, spit. Doctor comes in says have cavities, don't have cavities. Come back in six months or come back in a week where you enjoy cavities. Never is anything different.
Speaker 1:Chiropractic I mean you go someplace. You go to the joint. There's no exam. You know you probably don't have the joint down there. And do you have the joints down there in Australia? Not that I know of? Yeah, so it's a chain. You just walk in $20, lay on the table. No exam, no x-rays, just we're just going to pop and pray and walk away and what?
Speaker 2:what did you call it? What is it? Papawa, papawa, papawa.
Speaker 1:Papawa. Oh well, so I live in Wisconsin and we have a lot of Native American towns like Oconomowoc and Manitowoc, and so it sounds like a town in Wisconsin Totally does it would be a Native American term, but it's really pop and pray and walk away. Yes, I love that. And so everybody's confused and if people are confused about what chiropractic is, then they don't show up. I mean, these days you go to a chiropractor. Are you going to get someone that is practicing functional medicine? Because we got a lot of that.
Speaker 1:They come in and you know I went in because I had neck pain and I came out with $1,000 worth of supplements. Or I have a friend that he had a patient come in. It was a few years back. He says what kind of chiropractor are you Are? A patient come in, it was a few years back. He says what kind of chiropractor are you? Are you the old kind or the new kind? He goes well, what do you mean? He goes. I went to this guy down the street, laid me on my back, poured some oil in my navel, let it sit there for 15 minutes, came and wiped it out and said okay, you're good.
Speaker 2:And Rob, says yep, no, you're good on the or.
Speaker 1:I don't know what to call that one that's not Not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, yes, yeah, I am a much bigger fan of we'll call it education through an authority model If we can point ourselves out as an authority figure in our space, in our local communities, because as healthcare practitioners we have a local market. We can have a global market if we have something else to sell a program et cetera, but in reality, our bread and butter is local based.
Speaker 2:So if we can become an authority figure inside our local community, I think one of the biggest ways around that is just getting yourself out there Now, using social media, for sure. But yeah, top 10, top 20 reasons why people come see me Check out, I'm an author of a book or I've got an online course, or whatever the case might be. That can be like a stepping stone, because I feel like the true education comes once they get to you. Oh, absolutely yeah. But that stepping stone of where's the common ground, where is it something that they can understand to go, I think I want a little bit more of that. So those stepping stones is key.
Speaker 1:It helps build the relationship without you having to put in any work. You do it upfront when you make the video or write the book and then they get to read that and they get a sense that they know you and that's where that connection comes. That's why referred patients are always your best patients, because they already have that connection. Well, bill said you're a great doc, so I'm going to go see Scott.
Speaker 2:That's right, yeah, and in today's online world we briefly discussed it in the pre-show, but I was blown away by one of the uh stats on google reviews. Right, we talk about referrals and reviews and and there's this stat that's out there that said 84 percent of people will take a five-star google review with the same amount of value that they would a personal referral. Yeah, so the out that it's out there now, if we can utilize these fairly simple things to grow our authority, I think it's a huge step forward, um with with not that much work. So you know, there's a lot of things I think we can do to really push our names forward and therefore grow Like for us it's chiropractic, but if somebody else is listening and they're a physio or a doctor or whatever to just get that local authority going so that you can help the people that you're there to help, because in the end that's you know, generally we need to see them, they need to be in front of us for us to have a true effect on their lives, and the more we can do that, the better.
Speaker 2:And there's, I mean, throughout this whole episode, you've mentioned many different people and basically what I take from that is there's been a lot of mentors in your career, in your life, and also I would have to assume that, based on what you've told me as well, is that you probably are a mentor for many people students, etc. For many people, students, et cetera. You're involved in so many boards and so many memberships, so you've kind of ran the gauntlet of everything from when you were green, when you came out and you had these mentors that brought you along this journey, and now you are the mentor bringing people along on their journey. What comes to mind when I talk about that with mentorship?
Speaker 1:You know so many emotions. I mean, you know most of my mentors have passed away and so when they go then you have to replace them, and your peer group that you have is really one of the most powerful things that you can can will to dictate where you're going to end up in life. You know, if you have people that are low energy and low morals, low knowledge, that's where you're going to end up. I never want to be the smartest guy in the room. I always want to be middle of the road so I can be climbing and learning. And so you know the people and I was talking with a couple different friends, and just this last weekend I went to Florida. One of my college roommates, very successful salesman. He works for DuPont and when they had a merger when he started, there was 120 salesmen in his company. Right now there's four. He's one of four, so they got rid of almost everybody except for him and another guy. So these four guys, we had four roommates and one of them turned 60 and went down there. Another guy started the world's what is now the world's largest goalkeeper camp for soccer in the world. It's here in Wisconsin. He has 450 camps this summer. He's got 450 people paid to show up already. He's got a waiting list of nearly 400 to get on that. He's coached at pretty much every level except for World Cup. Get on that. He's coached at pretty much every level except for world cup. And when he started this thing in I think it was 89, all of us were like, man, is this really a good idea? Is this going to catch on? I mean, this is soccer in the United States. And now I mean it's amazing.
Speaker 1:The other guy, huge, uh, very successful salesman in the uh, telecom industry. And you know, what we find out is that we have, like they are close friends. I haven't, we haven't. The four of us haven't been together for five years and it was like a day had passed since then. We come back in. But you have those relationships with those people, those deep relationships, and you know I have that with them. But in in Green Bay I have, you know, really, one pretty close friend, very close friend, who is, uh, you know this self self-employed business owner. He's a entertainer, owns a dueling piano company, uh, extremely talented, extremely hardworking, and you have those things. But most of my, my close friends, are in the profession and don't live close. So I'm working, I'm answering texts, you know when, in between patients or whatever, my lovely wife, you know people calling me, asking me about x-ray, asking me about instrumentation. You know how. Here's a film what's wrong with this patient and mentoring people that way.
Speaker 1:The seminar, the program through, you know, gonstead Methodology Institute. Most of the instructors that came through there were what were Troxel interns. I showed you the picture. Dr Troxell had students that worked for him and so that's like a family. When they have new interns, you know I always comment, I post a picture in the Facebook group we have. I say welcome to the family, you know.
Speaker 1:And and and it really is like a family and every once in a while, you know, like every family, there's a little little drama and you know I'll show up at someone's office and say, look, we like this being a family and we want it to be a functional family. You can't have things like this happen. So you and the other doc, you've got to hash this out because we're not breaking this up anytime soon. It's been going for 56 years. We're not letting it die over this. So and by doing that, you know, I get better, because in order to teach someone and elevate someone, you have to be up there and you get stronger. If you're reaching down and giving a hand you know, metaphorically giving a hand to someone to help pull them up you get stronger. Through that exercise you learn more about how to communicate with people, how to do whatever it is.
Speaker 1:Every time I'm teaching cervical chair, I learn more about cervical chair and I go back into patients. Patients like, ooh man, you must have had a great seminar this week. I'm like how do you know? He's like your chair is phenomenal, like it wasn't last week. You're like, yeah, but it was way better this week. You know, it's just smoother. Uh, everything just gets better when you do that, and I can't imagine it feeds part of you that, uh, nothing else does. The closest is, you know, raising kids because you know all the young students.
Speaker 1:You know we I call them my kids and they come up and you're helping them grow and it's it's different than your kids because you can just if they're you know you're mentoring them and they're you're done mentoring for the day that you go away. Kids are always your kids are always there and, uh, when your kids fail it's a little more heartfelt. But I hate seeing the kids come out and struggle the day. They all want to show that they're making it on social media another curse of social media. But you know it's tough. Your debt's way higher than ours was and it's not going away. The debt's going up way faster than what you can make per adjustment. You know a lot of insurances are trying to cut, cut it back, so and god's not putting money any more hours in the day. Last time I talked to him he said he wasn't going to.
Speaker 1:So okay, we have to maybe you can convince him sometime, yeah so, uh, we have to figure out how to do that, and and so, by mentoring them, I help. You know, I think I said to you earlier, the schools all give you a good job of giving you the building blocks of how you build a practice and practice, but they don't give you the mortar. And so, you know, my wife and I try and put the mortar in there to put everything together so that it's easier for the students to succeed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you'd mentioned again in the pre-show that you will be putting together a membership site or two. It's not quite ready to go at the stage of us talking, but maybe by the time this is released. So check out the show notes below and just see if that link is showing up there to check out what Dan is doing in helping, as you could probably tell from this interview, if you are, I'll say if you're younger. But I mean, in reality we all need mentors all the time and Dan, you know from my brief interactions, seems like he would be a pretty phenomenal mentor. Well, thank you, yeah, no problem mentor. Well, thank you, yeah, no problem.
Speaker 1:What, what, what piece of advice would you give yourself if you could go back 20 or 30 years? Uh, so this was I, I don't you. You weren't at the uh. What was the first we just met at? Uh, marketing right, the seminar.
Speaker 2:I wasn't there, but we've met sort of through that and through some oh, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 1:But so the first one was I think money matters, that I went to seminar and that's where I had the epiphany of. You know, I have my philosophy family, I have my Gonstead family within the profession and I I have. What I didn't have is a money, family and a business thing. And you got to remember if you've ever been, uh, sid williams uh started life, college and he said you got your service hand and your business hand. You know, and you know the service hand and your business hand. You know and you know the service hand just does a service. Don't worry about the business unless you're using the business hand. And you know, I just kind of ignored it. I was always making money and I was doing well, but I should have been doing better financially and so I should have spent more time studying the business of chiropractic and making sure that I wasn't spending more than I should have, making sure I'm collecting everything I should have.
Speaker 1:And if you're a cash practice, it's pretty easy. You know there is not. You know you charge $50, you get $50. In the insurance world it gets a little messy and I've been all cash I've been. You know insurance, I'm all right now about 50-50.
Speaker 1:But paying attention to that and managing your staff, you know, make sure you have your families and treat your families as good as you treat your real family and then really learn how to manage your employees, because they are another family that you have to have.
Speaker 1:And the phrase is be slow to hire and fast to fire. And you know, if you're a Walmart or you know a Coca-Cola, you've always got people in mind. You've got a whole department just prepping people to come work for you, so you can do that and you don't tolerate anything. Here's what you can do and if you go over that, or if you don't, you have to do at least this much. You drop down here, you're out. There's someone else ready to take your spot. In a small business you don't have that luxury because when you start out, it's just you training those people and you're seeing patients and you probably don't want to train those people because you want to be taking care of people. So when you tend to hold on to people that you shouldn't and then you hold on to them longer because you don't have anybody coming in and you don't want to go and look at that and that is devastating to practices. I see that a lot.
Speaker 2:From a psychological point of view. It's some cost fallacy is what they call it and it's when you put so much time and effort into this particular employee. You feel like you've put that much time and effort. You don't want to just cut that tie and lose all that time you've put in, so you keep it going. And it is a rampant thing in small business and particularly maybe not particularly, but just because I'm in it, I see it inside the health care space of small business well, also in small offices like like we have uh, you know, I'm the only doctor in there right now.
Speaker 1:I've had had a couple of different associates over the years, but still it's two doctors and three staff. You get to know those people very, very well. You see them every day.
Speaker 1:But if you're at like Coca-Cola or a Walmart, you know you might never see the people that work under you at the same store. So letting someone go that isn't. Yes, carol isn't doing her job, right, carol? You're gone. There's no emotional attachment, but when you see these people every day and they're laughing with you and they're crying with you about stuff you know we just had a patient, got a note today that a patient had passed away you know that upsets us all and that makes it hard to do what you need to do for the business. But it's business. It's not about it's always about the business. It's not about the relationship between you and that person person who you know is not doing a good job.
Speaker 2:They probably know they aren't either, and it's actually doing yourself a disservice to keep that person on because they could go and find something that they are much better at and that they love and have a better life from doing something else, and you're both kind of stuck in this rut and so releasing them from that could be the best thing you've ever done, even though I'll admit I've had to fire a few people in my day and it sucks. Yeah, oh man, it's so hard. It is so hard to fire somebody.
Speaker 2:It's probably harder than it really is, but it's still once it's done. You feel this just huge, oh God, why?
Speaker 1:didn't.
Speaker 2:I do that before. It's that build up that exactly very difficult to do. Yes, yeah, so I mean, thank you so much for coming on the show. I think we I love where we went. We I didn't know we were going to talk about hiring and firing staff who knew. You know, I love where these, where these talks go. Yes, like I said, thank you so much. You are involved in so many things. If there's one seminar or one thing that you think right now that you would like to point people towards, again that I could put in the show notes that they could check out, what do you think you would want to point somebody in?
Speaker 1:you would want to point somebody in you know I'm going to give you two things. So the program that my wife and I are working on and sadly I'm like the deer in the headlights and I just forgot the name of it.
Speaker 2:I can't believe it.
Speaker 1:It'll be in the show notes. But you know we're going to have people like I think I asked you. I said I asked you when you first asked me to be on the show that I want to do this with you because you're an expert in a bunch of different things that I am not. You know communication. I actually have a microphone and stuff. Like 15 years ago I thought I'd get into podcasting and never took that step because I was busy doing other things. And I'm like you know, do I know enough to do it? Do I, do I really want to do it? I think I always did, but I didn't felt like I was the authority yet and there was no authority in podcasting. You know I could have been the Joe Rogan of chiropractic.
Speaker 2:Who knows?
Speaker 1:But so that, especially for students, because you need to know all the little things that aren't in the textbooks at school. It's not a technique thing. You're already in practice, you know it helps speed you along and get you to that successful, high, six figure income or more that you you want and deserve. But it's work. There's a lot of work put in there. You know, uh, we talked, started out, talking about, you know, repetition, and I think the the grind is what I originally said. I talk about it.
Speaker 1:I remember my mentor, uh, larry Troxell. I was at a seminar and I don't know how long. I was recently out of school and I'm adjusting someone and he's watching and he goes oh, you're getting busy. I said, how do you know? And he says the way you tore the face paper. So we'll take a sheet of face paper and we put it on on the chest and you run your finger through it to cut it open and I'm like what? He goes, it was effortless. And look at your tear, it's nice and clean and straight. And he says, and he goes, look at so-and-so, and they're just, you know, new, and they're a student or whatever, and it's a horrible. And they're punching their finger. They can't get it. I'm like, oh my gosh. And patients ask me all the time. They're like, do you have a razor blade on your finger? How do you cut that so, so cleanly? I'm like, well, you can do it. I put it down. And they can't. But it's just funny thing. But you know some of it's repetition. But we're going to take a lot of the fear out of what you're doing.
Speaker 1:And then for anybody in the chiropractic profession, go to chiroprogressorg. That is the Center for Chiropractic Progress. We put on the philosophy program. It is the most important non-technique program that is in the profession. I mean you really want to understand what we do. It's no dogma. I mean we teach out of the green books but everything is we use so much relevant, you know published today, science in there. The people that are in the instructors in the program are top shelf. Many of them you've never heard of because all they do is practice or teach for this program. Many of them you've never heard of because all they do is practice or teach for this program. And it is amazing.
Speaker 2:The best friends I have in the profession are from that program and yeah, it all starts up here.
Speaker 2:You know, any progression that you're going to make forward, any progression you make forward in your business, is going to start here first. You might fluke into it here and there, but this is where you're going to go, from where you are to to where you want to be in the future. It all starts with philosophy, I agree. So thank you so much for being on the show and check out the show notes for anything that we will have on there related to Dan. And, yeah, check him out as a mentor. He's, I could tell he's. He's got his shit right, he's going, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much I like that. That's my tagline, Dr Dan line. I've got my shit right.
Speaker 2:He's got his shit, right you can quote me there we go, love it. Thank you so much. Thanks for listening to this episode of Questioning Authority. I hope you enjoyed the show. Stay tuned for the next one coming out soon. This episode has been brought to you by the Authority Co. Helping service providers increase authority and revenue. Check out theauthoritycocom for more info.