Grit, Growth & Business Ownership with Dr. Matthew Zaideman

In this episode of The Un-Traditional Entrepreneur, Juming Delmas sits down with Dr. Matthew Zaideman for a candid conversation about business ownership, masculinity, grit, and what it really takes to lead when pressure hits. 

Dr. Zaideman shares that his path into ownership was never random or rushed. Rather than starting from scratch, he spent five years working inside the practice he would eventually buy, intentionally studying both the clinical side and the operational side so he could learn what worked, what did not, and what mistakes he wanted to avoid when the business became his. That long-term mindset set the stage for a transition into ownership that was strategic, patient, and deeply intentional. 

The episode goes beyond business mechanics. Shortly before buying the practice in 2017, Dr. Zaideman’s son was diagnosed with autism, and that moment transformed his motivation. What had once been a goal of ownership became something much bigger — a mission. He talks about how that diagnosis reshaped the way he saw his work, his future, and the type of foundation he wanted to build, not just for his business, but for his family and the people he hoped to help. 

Juming and Dr. Zaideman also dig into what separates true entrepreneurs from people who panic when circumstances shift. They talk about the “automatic” instinct that business owners need — the ability to adapt, survive, and problem-solve without freezing when something goes wrong. Dr. Zaideman reflects on how that mindset helped him navigate the uncertainty of 2020, when he quickly pivoted during the COVID-19 pandemic by offering antibody testing after his normal chiropractic schedule dropped off. It becomes one of the clearest examples in the episode of what entrepreneurial grit looks like in real time. 

A major focus of the conversation is the evolution from being the business to actually building a business. Dr. Zaideman explains how he worked to stop being “the product” by expanding services beyond himself, bringing in massage therapy and health coaching so the company could continue operating and serving clients even when he was not physically present. That leads into a broader discussion about the role of a CEO — not as the star player doing everything alone, but as the strategist who builds the team, sees the whole field, and empowers the right people to do their jobs well. 

The episode also offers strong insight into hiring, accountability, and leadership. Dr. Zaideman speaks honestly about the cost of holding on to underperforming employe

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Today, I made a very, very, very special cigar for you. I don't know if you can look at that and see what that is. You can see the colors from here. Look at my forehead. I know my forehead is big, but you see that? Well, how do you feel about the doctors in today's society?

SPEAKER_02 0:14

You know, it's um it's political number one. It's not about people being wild with the system more so than the individuals.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

How many times do you call a doctor office? I'm a black man, right? Black men don't even be going to the doctors like that. You know statistics and shit. Stop playing. You know that black men black men will go to the hospital at the last moment. We got to be damn near dead. I think a lot of business owners, specifically men, are sissies. I think they sissies. I think they punks when it comes to business ownership. I think that when I think of a business owner, I think a lot of men are afraid of challenges. The way you feel about doctors is how I feel about male business owners.

SPEAKER_02 0:55

I call them entrepreneurs. My kind of job, like, I am the product, I am the service. So it's not like I can leave necessarily for two weeks and the revenue and operations still stay the same. If I'm not there, things don't happen. And so that's actually been something that's scary. It is, yeah. How many people would you say you fired in the nine years you've been working with? Probably less than five. I haven't got to do that very, very often. It's usually not just you as the owner who's feeling the strain of that bad employee, it's your other team members who are being dragged down because now they're having to redo certain.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

You're gonna make fucking emotional decisions. Right, right. In your business. And emotional decisions never grow businesses. What's up, what's up, world? Welcome, welcome back to the untraditional entrepreneur. I'm your host, Jamee Delman, and today we have a special guest by the name of Matthew, Dr. Matthew Zademen. You talk about real man, real hustle. I got to do what I got to do to provide for my family. That's Matthew Zademe. I mean, this is this podcast isn't just about a man who bought his job. This is about what it means to be a man during that process, decisions that he had to make from the beginning when he was like, I am stuck between the roles. This is what I need to fucking do to take care of my people, my family, and this is what he and this is where I'm at today. This is about challenging men in business ownership and really what it means to be a man during and outside of business. Thank you guys for tuning in. Thank you, Matthew, Matthew, for joining us, and welcome to the other side of motivation. Let's get started. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Absolutely. Listen, I know we were just talking about cigars and bourbon. Today, I made a very, very, very special cigar for you. I don't know if you can look at that and see what that is. You can see the colors from here. Look at my forehead. I know my forehead is big, but you see that? Don't laugh too hard, Matthew. You see what that is? What is that? You don't know what this is? You can't tell from the coloring. Matthew, stop fucking playing, man. Come on. I told you I was an expert on these cigars now. This right here, my friend, is a Cuban cigar. All right. Yeah, I have a plug. I'm gonna hook you up, man. This is the this is rated number two best cigars of the year.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

I'm gonna hold you to this, you know.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

Yeah, and see, but this this is a special thing. I don't usually pull these fucking cigars out during my lives and during my shows. Some people get my cheaper cigars because we're about to toss up. See, you I gotta pull out this the Cuban because this shit is legit right now. This shit is like a real conversation. And this cigar, I'm gonna hook you up one. You never had a Cuban?

SPEAKER_02 3:40

I have had a Cuban when I was in uh We've had those before, absolutely. They're the best. But you didn't even recognize this from the labels. Last time I had a Cuban, it was probably 15 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

Oh my god. It's been listen. Yeah, I'm gonna get you a Cuban cigar. I just bought a box uh two days ago. Just bought a box of Cuban. I got a plug, you know what I mean? So I gotta plug some day and get some. Yeah, I don't buy the cigars from here. I think I'm gonna just start sticking to my fucking Cubans because I like them so much. But today's a special occasion for you. I have the utmost respect for you as a man, as a business owner, and I think that you are an you are the ideal style business owners that I think that most men need to implement. All right, you want me to call you doctor? You want me to call you Matt? How do you want me to do this? You tell me.

SPEAKER_02 4:29

Tell me Matt, that's great. No, you know, don't worry about the doctor part. Most people say I'm a fake doctor anyway, so you know.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Why they call you a fake doctor? Because you do holistic practices.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

It's a whole chiropractic thing. Yeah, that's that's often a thing wherever I uh you'll see that in the comments of my show sometimes that someone will try to, oh, it's a chiropractor saying it doesn't matter anything anything, which you know, I really don't care because you know, the medical traditional medical doctors have made such a fool of themselves over the last you know five decades really, that uh it's a badge of honor for me. So it doesn't bother me at all. Well, how do you feel about the doctors in today's society? You know, it's um it it's political number one. It's not about people being well, it's just about, and you know, I I think a lot of it is about the system more so than the individuals. I want to be clear about that. I know a lot of medical doctors who are are great people and they they want to do more, and that's uh honestly a lot of the reason why they're getting burned out, they're they're leaving. They don't whenever you ever go to the doctor and they feel like they don't want to be there, they don't want to be there because they're really part of a a corporate structure at this point that is just uh you know following an administrative guideline.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Yeah, I see the nurses more than the doctors. I see the nurses way more than the doctors. I see the doctors for probably about a minute, two minutes max. They usually in and out the office. Yeah. I was just in the hospital the other uh last week. You didn't know nothing about it. But I was in the hospital last week. I the doctor came in for like two minutes. He was in and out. It was me and the nurse talking the whole time. I'm sure it was like all you'll be fine. Yeah, right. But okay, so look, you are you it's fair to say that you are an entrepreneur. I would agree with that, yes, 100%. Yeah, yeah. How long have you had your business for now?

SPEAKER_02 6:16

Well, we we bought the business in September of 2017. So we're coming up on nine years in business myself. I worked in the in the office since 2012, pretty much right out of chiropractic school. So I came on board, and that that was kind of the goal to have a traditional work there for a while and then purchase the practice. Um, that was kind of the goal from both sides um going into it. There wasn't a real timeline for it when I when I came on board. I I just knew that I felt confident in my clinical skill being able to help people, but I didn't know shit about running a business. I'd never done it before. And I I knew enough to know what I didn't know. So I didn't want to do that straight out of school. I I really wanted to be able to, you know, some of the mistakes by seeing someone else own it, and instead of you know making the harder mistake of doing it myself right off the bat, because I knew I'd make some stupid ones for sure.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Shit. So wait a minute, you were like, so you you went in knowing you were gonna buy the business.

SPEAKER_02 7:17

That was the yeah, that was the goal. Um, you know, there was always a chance that something wouldn't work out in the end, and it almost didn't, actually.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Yeah, but you learned and then so your objective was you knew you was coming in to buy it, but then on top of that shit, you were watching for the the the potential fuck-ups from the other business so that you learn not what not to do. Sure. So what I would want to do differently, you know. Right, right. Okay, that's actually damn, that's a little bit different than what I was thinking. So you gotta have like a fucking, like a like you almost you your strategy was all the way planned out, all the way up until the end of purchase.

SPEAKER_02 7:58

Like, yeah, I definitely wanted to be a business owner. I didn't necessarily want to work for someone my whole career. Uh why is that how you feel about working for people? Tell me. I gotta go back and think. Um, you know, you know, working for people, I mean, I don't mind working for people. I always have been the type of employee too to like I take pride in being part of the success of whatever organization I was part of, even jobs I didn't necessarily like. I really credit that to my to my mother, probably instaling those kind of values in me to just you know take pride in doing a good job. Even at the shit, even at the shit you don't want to do. Right, right. But yeah, I think it was I had um, and and this is kind of funny I'm even saying this, but I had this idea of more freedom in owning the business, which probably is not so true now that I'm in in the thick of it. You know, the freedom I I perceive, I mean, I can kind of do whatever I want, but I can't do whatever I want in some regards. You know, because you know, you can't uh, especially in my kind of job, like I am the product, I am the service. So it's not like I can leave necessarily for two weeks and the revenue and operations still stay the same. But if I'm not there, things don't happen. And so that's actually been something that's scary. It is, yeah. Because you know, you're you're one injury away from being in a world of trouble.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Right. How do you get yourself out of that situation though? What if you have a strategy for getting yourself out of that situation?

SPEAKER_02 9:31

Yeah, and that's actually probably over the last, I would say, probably four to five years, the focus has been building services that don't necessarily require me to do. So that's why you know we started adding, and these are all things that weren't here when I was here. It really was when I came on board, it was just the other doctor. Yeah. And he was running the same thing. And I and I could see how how that wore on him over time. And so I quickly noticed I need to build other services that other people can do. So, massage, you know, we brought in massage therapists. Um, you know, I can be gone and our massage therapists, you know, are seeing people. We started adding things like health coaching, other services that other people could provide. So not all the pressure was on me. And the other great thing about it is it does add more value to the patients themselves because they have, you know, more things to help them achieve, you know, whether it's getting out of pain or improving their health, all those kind of things. And so having that team is helpful. It's hard building that team.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

For sure. Finding the right people and shit. Right. And you can build a team, but not have the right people in the team.

SPEAKER_02 10:41

Exactly right. And when they're and they're when they're part of patient care, your reputation gets attached to those people too. So you have to, you know, a little bit be worried about what they're gonna do for your own brand, especially when they're providing some of the services. So that's that's that's a challenge. And you know, it's also uh a challenge to make the systems around that, and that's really important too, I think.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

So you you had talked a little bit about, you know, fine. I want to kind of go back a little bit on that team. When you were you had five years to fucking develop this shit. You already had a plan. You already had you then you fight five years to learn it. Like, what was like some things that you noticed within those five years that you didn't know that you're like, oh shit, I didn't know that about a business ownership or some shit like that.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

Yeah, that's a good question.

SPEAKER_02 11:36

A lot of it was a little thing. So, you know, getting staff trained to do the things you can't do. Like, you know, how many times have you called a doctor's office and maybe didn't want to go back to that office because the front desk was a nightmare?

SPEAKER_01 11:49

Or did someone I'm a black man, right? Black men don't even be going to the doctors like that. You know statistics and shit. Stop playing. You know that black men don't be black men will go to the hospital at the last moment. We about to be damn near dead.

SPEAKER_02 12:04

Well, it's transferable to any business. I mean, even if it's any kind of other business where you you know have that first person you talk to is a terrible experience, you know.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

Oh, yeah. I did a podcast on this shit, like AI, right? I like like I don't know how that's gonna look for the medical world, but like sometimes I was talking about like I can't wait till AI start taking over because these motherfuckers are rude. Like, I'd be coming into some shit, and these motherfuckers are rude as shit. And I'm like, Or completely incompetent, you know? Even and you know it's funny about that when you say incompetent, motherfuckers be sitting here talking like like they will tell you something, and you know in the back of your mind that shit is wrong, but they make it so convincing that they believe the shit. But you know better. People at home, people do that shit all the time.

SPEAKER_02 12:50

Yeah, and sometimes it's they don't know, and instead of like you know saying they don't find out the right answer, they just make something up.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Because nobody don't want to look stupid, they don't want to look dumb as fuck. But I'm the type of person, Matthew, I'll tell you that that ain't right. I know that shit is not accurate. The information that you feed me is bullshit. I know for a fact, you don't want me as a client because I'll be sending, I'll be sending these customers. If I'm a customer of somebody and you give me wrong ass information, I'm gonna tell you, listen, you're giving me wrong ass information. And I feel like I will be doing you a disservice if I didn't tell you you giving me wrong ass information. Because at the end of the day, you're gonna get somebody else's bullshit and they're gonna believe it. You might have fucked up somebody whole life because they didn't took your motherfucking advice on some shit that sounded convincing. People sound convincing all day. It's reading through the bullshit. That's why it's so hard to hire people because people be bullshitting their ass off in these interviews. I'm like, what the fuck? And then you you hire them and it's like, what the fuck?

SPEAKER_02 13:44

What the fuck? Why know? And then how they look on paper, and then even you know, they may be great in that first month, and then all of a sudden all of a sudden. What the fuck? Right, right percent.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

How do you identify what do you do? How do how do you how many people would you say you fired in the nine years you've been working? You've been doing a business. How many people have I fired? Yeah, how many people you determinated they asked? Like, I gotta let you go.

SPEAKER_02 14:04

Probably less than five. I haven't had to do that very, very often. Um, to be honest with you. We we have been pretty blessed to have a pretty good uh team. You know, I don't know if that is is luck.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

Some of the people in nine years, yeah. Yeah, hasn't been many. Your your judgment skills, so how do you identify that? How do you identify how do you identify like someone who's gonna come in and kick ass?

SPEAKER_02 14:27

Well, you know, there's a few things that I have found helpful. First of all, if it's people who I've actually hired quite a bit of people who have been patients first. And the advantage to that is that they oftentimes well, oftentimes they want to work there because they really love what you do. And when you can have that, that's already because they're they're motivated for it to work instinctually. So that has been kind of a a nice thing that that has happened that I've kind of favored to. I've also, you know, I mean, there's no magic trick that I've done as far as like, you know, looking for things in resume. I don't have a fancy personality test or anything like that that I've I've found very helpful. My previous employer used personality tests and they they didn't work. I mean, oftentimes we end up hiring the they end up being the worst people, some of the people who look the best on those tests, you know.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

It's like it's like motherfucking going through a lot of detective tests nowadays. People can bullshit that shit too, going through a lot of detective tests. 100%.

SPEAKER_02 15:30

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

If you have all a psychological thing.

SPEAKER_02 15:33

I think I think part of it is too is setting it up where I I think you have to have your your systems in there too for it to for them to be so you have to set them up for success as well. Make sure there's you know good training. But if you get folks who are willing to be coached and willing to be trained, then you can have a lot of success if you have the right systems and give them the right support. But there's also those people that they're just not gonna get it. So, I mean, we've also had people just it didn't work out and they realized it wasn't working out, and so they just kind of left on on their own accord. And that's that's always nicer than having to fire someone. But but it's also having that accountability because you know, if they're not you know making the marks and you're keeping that accountability level up, then that's that kind of stuff can can can take care of itself. Another thing we've done uh that's been real successful is having interns in here from like FSU. We've had interns from interns from FamU that are in these that are going into these professional fields, and you can usually tell the ones who really are passionate.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

I feel like interns are like, um man, listen, man, it's really hard to find interns. It's like you gotta go through a pool of interns, though.

SPEAKER_02 16:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:47

Like no, it's they and luckily I don't do that. You don't do interns? I don't do that part of the job. Yeah, yeah. I I still do that part a little bit. I'm trying to get out of that shit. Who does it? Your wife, she does that part. Yeah, something like that.

SPEAKER_02 16:59

Kristen does that.

SPEAKER_03 17:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:01

She's probably a better judge of she's probably a better judge of all that shit, anyways. Then you are. That's maybe I didn't do the same thing. That's probably the advantage I do have. That's where I really should say I've avoided all that.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

Yeah. So you but you have like a good help made and things like that. Because I feel like interns are straight, but I think where a lot of businesses fuck up is that they try to use interns to grow their business. Sure. Yeah. No, I I see what you I know what you mean by that for sure. So, I mean, how do you approach that?

SPEAKER_02 17:32

So, with interns, I I almost view it as a working interview because I also look to hire some of these interns, especially if they're like a, you know, maybe they're a junior. So they might have a couple, you know, they might have a couple years left. We've had several who have ended up being fantastic employees. You just have to be on top of it though, because we, you know, we kind of screwed up on this uh this past year because we had like two of them graduate at the same time. And then we also just happen to have one of our other uh main employees whose um husband ended up having to transfer schools for a postgraduate program. So we lost like, you know, 75% of our staff in like uh in like one month that we knew it was coming, but still that's a lot of turnover to train a lot of new faces. So you have to, you kind of have to have those fresh people coming in so you can train, you know, train them up and have them ready to replace people. Um we were kind of you know behind the eight ball a little bit on that. But it it is, you know, you get them three, you know, usually it's like you know, uh a semester and you you have them for that kind of working interview. And we always tell them, like, look, hey, we we want to if if you succeed at this and you like this and you're good at this, we do want we do want you to be part of the team. Yeah, because then then they're I have a hard time with that.

SPEAKER_01 18:50

I have a hard time with that. Like, I feel like most of these guys they get in, but they don't, and ours our job is like fun shit, you know. Sure, like a lot of the shit that we do is fun shit, talking to influencers, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you wouldn't believe, like, man, sometimes I be feeling like, goddamn, I don't want to put too much on the intern. Like, I feel like I'll put two assignments on them, they're like, oh my God, that's a lot. I'm like, what the fuck is going on, man? I maybe I have some. I have maybe maybe one or two solid interns out of maybe. You definitely get some duds. You definitely get some duds. You get more duds than none. More duds.

SPEAKER_02 19:28

And if they're if they're not, you know, if they're not cutting it, you know, they're not gonna get, I'm not gonna put them in positions where it puts our you know, business at risk either. So they're not gonna get the experience out of it either if they can't uh you know, can't meet people.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

Again, I think it's having you know you have those standards of it uh as well. And then sometimes they kind of you know weed themselves out as well.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Look, I want to talk about like I know what the biggest thing we was talking about a little bit was like the business ownership, man. I'm gonna be honest with you, man. I think a lot of business owners, specifically men, are sissies. I think they sissies, I think they punks when it comes to business ownership. I think that when I think of a business owner, I think a lot of men are afraid of challenges. And uh there's a rise in women business ownership. Well, ain't which ain't shit wrong with that? But like women business owners are showing a lot of these guys. The way you feel about doctors is how I feel about male business owners. I call them wontrepreneurs, right? Because they move on a scare, they move on a scary ass basis. Like they scared as hell. They don't believe in taking risks, they don't believe in jumping the loop, they believe in how can I say this, push this, push that, push this. For me, I feel like these motherfuckers out here are out here pretending like they doing so well or they got all this bread and bank and shit like that. That it's hard almost it's like it's I'm gonna speak speak specifically, specifically for black business owners. Like, it's like really bad when you listen to the way they think about business ownership and how they treat business ownership like almost like their personal life. Like I don't know how to like approach that when it comes to like dealing with people. I don't have patience for that kind of shit. I don't have patience for broke business owners who who pretend like they have shit going on when they really don't.

SPEAKER_02 21:19

Yeah, I I think a lot of it gets to where I mean, just from an evolutionary standpoint, you know, men are the hunters, they're their providers. Naturally, naturally, naturally, and I think that they're, you know, I think a lot of it is, you know, maybe a compensation to be afraid of the failure of it. I think that's I think that's a big thing, is that they're afraid to fail. The the easiest way not to fail, even though I think this is um not necessarily the right mindset, is to play it safe. And I think get a fucking job. If you want to play it safe in business ownership, get a fucking job. Yeah, yeah, I agree. I mean, that's a good point. It is scary. I mean, I remember, you know, when COVID hit. I mean, so COVID 2020, we had only been so, you know, we bought it in September 2017. So 2018, 2019, and then 2020 hits. And I mean, all of a sudden my schedule is empty in March of uh 2020. And it was literally me and my wife in the office. We just sent everybody home because we didn't know what was going to happen. We didn't know if we were going to be able to pay people. That was that was a pretty scary time. And instead of like just putting your head in the sand, you know, one of the things I I recognized really early on is like, man, people when these COVID antibody tests came out, I was like, man, people are gonna want to know if they got this infection earlier and and already have natural immunity and stuff like that. We pretty much survived 2020 by me pivoting and doing these COVID antibody tests.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

And that's what it's really about, man. But you just hit it, pivoting. It's the key word here, pivoting. Men don't know how to fucking pivot. They get scary and shit. They want to get scared about what's about to come for like fuck that key word here. And I say this shit all the time. You hit it, hunting. Fuck that. Like, we are natural hunters. Take it back to what we are naturally designed to do as men. And you bring that to the business world. Like, don't like we have to like before technology, buildings, and cars, we were men had to, we people were moving in tribes and shit. We had to hunt. We we at one point was a hunted. We were hunted by other animals and shit. You know what I'm saying? But them motherfuckers had spears and sticks and shit with no guns, and they was out there fighting like a motherfucker. These motherfuckers get into a business ownership and like scary, get scared and shit. Like, what the fuck? You again got about to get eaten by a line that everybody's so fucking afraid of failing, being broke. What if I go homeless? Like, what the what are the chances of you fucking going homeless running a business?

SPEAKER_02 24:01

I don't get that. Well, and and how much is it that we haven't, you know, how much has changed the society where we a lot of I think people growing up now haven't been allowed to experience failure. We've always kind of insulated, I think we're insulating not just, I mean, definitely men, but more and more into saying that, you know, we always, even when you screw up, it's like, ah, it's okay. Like I see you a lot in school, like everyone graduates, you know, even though they're they've gotten all F's or whatever, you know what I mean? It's just, it's, it's the participation trophies, you know what I mean? And there no one's felt that sting of failure. And I think if you've never felt it and don't know how to deal with it, how to deal with that emotional thing, you don't it's a it's a foreign, it's a foreign language to you, and you don't know you know how to adapt to that stress.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

And that's the best type of fucking people to fucking have business ownership. I think people who should own a business are motherfuckers who struggled in life, really went through struggles and persevered that shit. Because if you went through a struggle in your motherfucking life and you persevered it, that means that every time you touch something, you're gonna always find a way to persevere because you was able to persevere the hardest portions of life. Motherfuckers get into business ownership and been entitled their entire fucking life. Shit been given to them. There was really no work, no hustle, no grind, none of that shit. I was in the streets, Matthew, for a long time where I didn't even have shit. Matthew, I was living in the back of my homeboy's truck, sleeping in the bed at one point in time. But like, and then to be where I'm at today and then come from the streets to college. I got a mixture of motherfucking both. You're talking of street knowledge and book knowledge. But then you come into business ownership and you you bring that same methodology in there. I have a natural survival instinct. I don't give a fuck if the world blew up tomorrow. You know, I'm ready. I'm motherfucking ready, Matthew. I'm ready. I got shit in my closet. You don't even want to know what's going on. We are prepping. We are all the way ready, Matthew. I am never a person that's gonna worry about a fucking job. That's why I left a job, man. Can't do it. Because like people rely on it. And that's why men are scary, because they had the security of a job.

SPEAKER_02 26:18

Yeah, and if you and if you fail, you just do something else. You know what I mean? You can't be afraid, you can't be that the reason not to adapt and make changes.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

And if you're really I don't feel like they should do something else. How the fuck are you gonna do something else, Matthew? Why would they do if this is what you're supposed to do? You're you're a chiropractor. If you fail, you're gonna go off and do something else.

SPEAKER_02 26:37

Uh start again.

SPEAKER_01 26:39

Start over again, right? You you you're gonna still do the same shit. If this is what you're supposed to do, you're supposed to pivot.

SPEAKER_02 26:46

Like what you invested too much in it at this point to at this point, yeah. You know, go work for the state or something like that. Right.

SPEAKER_01 26:52

That's not and you're a chiropractor. You ain't gonna start this shit over and be like, hey, I'm about to go and work for McDonald's or some shit, or I'm about to go, you you gonna, yeah, you're gonna go back to saying, all right, fuck this shit. You you learned five years in working for your company, right? That this is what I can and can't do. This is this is working, this is not what's working. So you had like almost a blessing. Some motherfuckers don't have that opportunity, right?

SPEAKER_02 27:17

Yeah, no, that that was a huge, that was a huge advantage for me, there's no doubt. And you know, also being to have a business that and a brand, really, that I mean, I think by the time I bought it, it had almost been the previous doctor had been practicing for almost 40 years, probably 38, 39 years. And so there was already, you know, brand recognition. Yeah. You already established. Right. I mean, you had to pay for that, you know. But that's a big thing.

SPEAKER_01 27:45

When you think about that shit, that's a really big thing. Like you didn't build it from scratch, you bought that shit. You were an employee that came in and bought that motherfucking job. What does that say about you as a man that came in to a company knowing I'm about to go in here and buy my motherfucking job in the next five years?

SPEAKER_02 28:04

What does that say about me? I don't know. Maybe it I don't know if it means uh it says I'm I'm stupid or if it was a good strategy. You still in it, shit. You still in it? Yeah, it is. And and honestly, it's really a almost a totally different business than the one that we started. You know, it was you know, very quickly, you know, it was the same time when I was getting ready to buy this. This was the same time our son got diagnosed with autism and everything. And um, I was already knowing that I was gonna change things. And that was really the challenge because really what I wanted to do, I had to change the whole structure of the really how the business flowed in general. I mean, it was more of a very more high-volume chiropractic, so we would see a lot of chiropractic patients, a lot of very quick adjustments.

SPEAKER_01 28:56

Was it when I was born before that?

SPEAKER_02 28:59

So he yeah, he was born in 2014, 2014.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

So um And you found out he had autism before you bought the business.

SPEAKER_02 29:08

Is when we were pretty, he was about two when we were like a big.

SPEAKER_01 29:11

And you bought the business there, and you bought that business in 2017.

SPEAKER_02 29:14

Correct, correct.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

You know a lot of motherfuckers would have been scared as hell situation. Absolutely. And and what was your mindset when you were going through that? When you going through that, knowing you have a child on autism, and fuck, I'm about to buy this building. Most motherfuckers were scary and be like, man, I can't afford this right now, I can't do this. Like, I need to really focus on my son, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. What was your mindset when you were?

SPEAKER_02 29:38

My mindset was actually Yeah, that's a great question. My mindset was actually more that this was a mission to help him. And that was more, I really didn't even think about the concern of that. I just felt like it was gonna be the best path forward to be able to lay a foundation to help him, to be able to get him services that maybe I wouldn't be able to as just, you know, an employee working somewhere, um, and and able to work around focusing my practice on having the tools to actually improve him. That was kind of my mindset at the time. And I knew um I wasn't gonna be able to do that within the existing practice that was there. And then I also knew that starting this um from scratch was probably not ideal either. So to me, the best part was to try to work through that. And that was that was a difficult process. That that whole process of buying that place, um, you know, kind of kind of what basically what was offered as uh purchasing was not really in a realistic offer for what I was buying. And uh was actually I had to walk away from it uh for a while. There was actually uh March 2017, I I basically was no longer working at this office because I was offered a deal that frankly was not based in reality of what it was worth.

SPEAKER_01 31:06

Yeah. And you know hold on, Matthew. Before you go off to on the in your little tangent, I want to go back to something that I don't think you even realize this shit. You said when you bought the business, when you found out your son was autistic or on the spectrum, there was something that clicked. Instead of what most men do is panic in the situation of your stature, right? They panic. You internalize the shit. You ain't you ain't just internalize it. You took something that was threatening possibly to your life, livelihood, and you didn't let your ego get in the way. You didn't, you didn't, this wasn't a fear of failure, this was the fear of how can I help my son? So something, not only did you just buy the business, something else clicked on top of just buying. Now it meant more to buying this bit. Now you had something to fucking fight for because it's like, all right, fuck this. It's either it's either I can cow away like a little sissy, walk away and find something a little bit more secure, or I'm gonna take the chance and utilize this this opportunity to grow something from it. Which is still scary because you don't know if that motherfucking business is gonna fail or not. You're a year in. It's true. It's true. You're a year in. And that switch, what is that switch? There's something about that switch.

SPEAKER_02 32:33

I honestly think it's kind of how I'm wired. It's it's automatic to me to be I'm a problem. I mean, when I get into a thank you. When I get to a something that's threatening, my default is not to, like you said, panic, not just go into a fight and flight and put my head in the sand. It's to solve the problem. What is the problem? And because there's always a solution.

SPEAKER_01 32:57

Men are natural problem solvers. We are natural problem solvers by nature. By our nature, we always have to always solve problems, even when it comes to everything. We can't help that this is what the fuck it is. When there is something that's threatening us, even our family or whatever the case is, our objective is to solve the problem. You take that same problem solving ability into business ownership. And that's why I have a problem with these fucking entrepreneurs, these entrepreneurs, is because they come, they panic in a time of change or pivot. They panic and they cower down and back off and say, you know what, fuck that. I can't do that. I'm gonna just do this instead. Something a little safer. Take your ass to a motherfucking nine to five. Not everybody should be an entrepreneur. You are a prodigy of what an entrepreneur is, is understanding that there's a switch that comes on that you can't explain. It's just fucking automatic.

SPEAKER_02 33:53

It's like I don't I don't know what to do.

SPEAKER_01 33:56

This is the only thing I know to do is I know that I need to figure this out. There is nothing else. It's either I figure it out or I die.

SPEAKER_02 34:05

That's it. And the question is, is that something really people can learn to do? Fuck no. I don't know. I'm not sure it is. And I I think it like you even said, it's there's there's experiences in our lives. I think it's um, you know, what you were taught, how how you were taught you know, your upbringing and those influences as well.

SPEAKER_01 34:25

And to be fair with that, that's different. I I I I disagree with that because you can have three people, Matthew, and raised four people raised in the same household, and all your siblings end up with a different result. Your parents can teach them all the same fucking way. That's right. And they all end up in different areas. I think in reality, there are chosen people. And that that is a there's something that is given by the universe, by God. Like there is something that is, there's an extra seed dropped in some people that becomes like, like you said, automatic. It's like breathing. It's like I don't have to think about breathing, I just breathe. Same thing when shit hit the fan. I don't think about panicking. I'm like, all right, what the fuck we need to do to get out of this. I immediately already start coming up with motherfucking strategies, tactics of execution. Because my natural thing to do is one thing and one thing only. As a man, survive.

SPEAKER_02 35:26

Yeah, and that's that's all to me what entrepreneurship is, is uh being able to, it's like, you know, like you go back to hunting, you know, you're out there and your spear breaks. Are you just not gonna find food? Are you gonna, you know, do something different, form some sort of trap, do some sort of other mechanism to get that food. You know, that's you you gotta be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 35:49

And the people who aren't doing that, people who aren't strategizing and creating those traps when they're hunting, you know what that you know what happens to them motherfuckers? They become hunted. Right. Yeah, right. They become hunted. And it's the same shit in entrepreneurship. If you are not a natural hunter where you can come up with strategies and traps to make sure your business thrives, you'll be eaten alive by all the other carnivores out there that's trying to eat and survive. And maybe even by some of your own people. We might not eat you, but we might we might take your weapons. We'll take what the fuck we need. That's why, man, fuck, I love motherfucking um The Walking Dead. It ain't about no motherfucking zombie. It is not about no motherfucking walking zombies, it's about men surviving when there's nothing else to survive on, and we gotta naturally go back. And what's crazy is the strongest people survive. And people who are weak always get taken advantage of and taken. But men have to be able to make sure their colony is protected. And the people who survive the most are not the strongest. Because just because you're strong don't mean shit. You could be a dumb motherfucker. Right. It's here. It's here. What do they say about the Neanderthals? And we are we're Homo sapiens. The reason why we won a war against Homo sapiens or Neanderthals is because one thing and one thing only. We had the power of communication, we had the power of strategy. These mother, there was, there was other human beings that were much stronger than us, other sapiens that were stronger than the Homo sapiens. But we made better wealth than that. Exactly. We had better mind process. It's the same shit and like human evolution and business ownership. Naturally, that's how we survive. It's here. Strategy.

SPEAKER_02 37:33

No, we're when you think about it in these terms, you know, we're actually a pretty shitty animal. You know, we're inferior to all the other animals out there as far as strength and speed and all these other things. But it's our ability to innovate, is what makes us the top of the food. Strongest. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:51

It's innovative. We cannot, we can't go war to war with no motherfucking gorilla. And no motherfuckers, you know, we can't go to war to war with them. We can't go to war to war with a lion, with a panther. We can't do that shit. We got motherfucking shit that can stop them, though, in an instant and take them out in a second, in a millisecond. We got shit that will take them out in a millisecond. That's why we, that's why we as human beings are the superior beings here, because we have the ability to strategize. It's the same shit in business ownership. If you don't naturally have that hunting material, and I ain't shitting on people who work at a regular job. What I'm saying is business ownership is not for everybody. Hunting is not for everybody. Some people are great at helpmates. Some people are great at helping the cause or help pushing and promoting that. Everybody shouldn't be a business owner.

SPEAKER_02 38:47

Do you think some people go into business ownership too? I I get this pops in my mind a lot, that they actually think it's going to be the easier way out. That it's going to be easier than that nine to five. For sure. I think so. Yeah, I mean, I think that's part of it too. I just I think a lot of there's a perception from a lot of people that, oh man, you just own this business and all this money comes in, and it's just cruise. You get to go, you get to go whenever you want, you come and go as you want. You're uh you don't got an answer to nobody. Just dumb as hell.

SPEAKER_01 39:17

Right, right. I read a book called Either E-Myth, and it's called, what did he call it? He called it uh, I think it was like something like an emotional seizure or something like that, where people, oftentimes, people who actually go into a business ownership go into business ownership off of an emotion that they felt. So you sat here and told me from the beginning that you had a strategy. You already planned on buying the business. So there was no emotions tied to it. Most people, most people who go into business, they go into business because of their feelings. They were tired of a boss treating them that way. They were tired of listening to people. They're there, I don't want to do this shit. I'm gonna just open up my own. That's an emotional response. I'm gonna open up my own motherfucking business. You already went in knowing there was gonna be ups and downs to this business. So you had already planned on being you were a business owner before you were a business owner. You weren't a business owner when something didn't go your way and your emotions took over. That's how most of these business owners are made. Something don't go their motherfucking way, they get upset. I want to run my own business because I don't like this. You were a business owner before you were a business owner. You were a husband before you were married. You became your wife's husband when you married her. You are a hunter. You are a hunter, but you are a hunter before you start hunting. You don't become a hunter off of an emotional response. Yeah, I won't be able to do that. Same shit with entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_02 40:48

I agree. And I think that, you know, when you you unpack that a little bit more, there's probably already the, you know, wanting to own a open a business because of that type of response already shows to me some weaknesses that that is probably not for you. Because you're you're not you're not doing it from a strategic type of approach anyway. Um you're just doing it. You're doing it from an emotional approach.

SPEAKER_01 41:13

Yeah, and you're gonna if you do it from if you're doing it from an emotional approach, you know what's gonna fucking happen in that situation. When you get the business, you're gonna make fucking emotional decisions.

SPEAKER_02 41:21

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 41:22

In your business. And emotional decisions never grow businesses. Everything is like, it's not personal. This is business.

SPEAKER_02 41:31

100%. And a lot of people can't separate that out either. And and that's not always the easiest thing to do. I I mean, I'll admit that too. It's just like when I've had to even haven't had to let people go. Like, I don't like doing that. No one no one likes doing that. But at the same time, they're not gonna, I'm not gonna have one individual take down my family. That's not gonna happen. Right.

SPEAKER_01 41:50

Because your natural instinct kicks in. Right. Your natural instincts kick in. As a you are an entrepreneur before emotions come in.

SPEAKER_02 41:59

And and the worst thing you can do is ignore that and try and let that emotional part creep in, like, ah, let's give them, let's give them this tenth chance. You know, you're you're better off cutting that off. And sometimes it's a again, it comes back to that fear too, or like, oh, if I don't have this person, who's gonna do this job? Who's gonna do the job? Yeah. And every time, every time I've I've you know cut that that stress, it makes the whole place run better. Because it's not just it's usually not just you as the owner who's feeling the strain of that bad employee. It's your other team members who are being dragged down because now they're having to redo certain somebody else's work. Right. Right. And yeah, and so it it's it's actually, you know, as much as that sounds scary sometimes, it's the best thing you can do. And it always feels better when it does your answers out of your out of your office.

SPEAKER_01 42:54

And I agree with that because like I had a situation where it's like if I'm constantly hunting or telling people, hey, this will, if I am constantly touching your position more than you're touching your position, that's a problem. Right. If you're constantly making the same kind of errors, it's still not getting done, that's becomes a problem for me as a business owner. And it's like a part of me is like, I really like the person as an individual. But just because I like them doesn't mean that we should work together. Because I'm still on a mission. Like, like we you just talked about automatic, right? It's automatic. We are automatic people. It doesn't require us to have a breathing machine to breathe, it does not require us a masculinity machine to be a man, it becomes automatic for us. So it's nothing personal, it just makes sense to say, hey, this is not getting done or this is not being done properly. I'm constantly having to touch this. This ain't got shit to do with you as an employee. This just has everything to do. With making sure that we're not putting extra strain on people, that the job is going to get fucking done the way it needs to get done. And if it can't get done, no hard feelings. Find some motherfucking body who is willing to do it and not just do it, but go above and beyond to do it.

SPEAKER_02 44:19

And that's why it's so important to have these expectations really clear to your employees when they come in and you know do your best to have some way to measure those uh expectations. Then they really, I mean, a lot of times they they kind of know it's coming and they don't have any counter argument to it because they know that they have fallen short. Yeah. And you're not doing them any favors by keeping them. By keeping them. You're not. Because you're making basically telling them the way they operate is okay. And that's doing them no favors for their for their future either.

SPEAKER_01 44:53

Yeah, you true. That's true. And it's it's funny because I I forgot the book that I was reading. It could have been an e-myth or it could have been the hard things about hard things. And it talks about um a ceiling. As you start growing as a business, even the people that you start bringing with you, like eventually they will hit a ceiling. Like there, some people can't break through ceilings. Some people are basically stagnant. And then, like, like, and I think I can use like your wife as a prime example, is like your wife, when you guys came into this business, probably didn't know shit about business ownership as well, but she started breaking through ceilings to understanding that. And some people can't. And while some people aren't good business owners, they're good ceiling breakers.

SPEAKER_02 45:39

I I think that is a great example because I don't think this is something she would ever want to do on her own. In fact, I know it would be nothing she would ever want to do on her own. She, but also I I don't know because she's definitely more organized than I am, right?

SPEAKER_01 45:52

And most business owners ain't we not organized.

SPEAKER_02 45:54

Right. And so that's an excellent point because you really do need those types of people to be able to be kind of the glue that keeps it all together. Because otherwise, I've just got 50 ideas that are going all at the same time. That's a little bit of my ADHD, but you know, because then if you just launch everything out without, you know, without that that glue to hold the little things together, then that's that's gonna fail too. So you gotta be able to also just be honest about your weaknesses. We all have them. Um and if and if you can identify those, then like you said, put aside that ego to know what you need around you to be able to uh you know make up for that. And then you know, I'm always always trying to work on those weaknesses. I'm trying to get more organized, it's not going very well, but you know, it it's still it's still something that I'm I'm gonna continue to try to uh develop strategies, just like everything else. Like, how can I be better? It's always got to be about how do you make yourself better at anything, and especially the things that you're not very good at, but in the meantime, at least have the people around or the systems around to make up for those weaknesses. For sure.

SPEAKER_01 47:07

I agree with that. Yeah, I agree with that. And I feel like most people are not okay with being the somebody under a CEO. Everybody has to be a boss to some degree. Just because you work for someone or a CEO does not necessarily mean you're the underdog. Because oftentimes you just hit that shit. CEOs are not the most organized people, they're not even the most smartest people. Oftentimes, they're just the most innovative, the most strategic. But even as a CEO and as an owner, your job is supposed to be hiring people who knows how to do your job. So often when you really think about being a CEO, you have to be the dumbest of the team. Like you hire people smarter than you to be the to do the job.

SPEAKER_02 48:02

That's especially at the specific job. You know, God, if I had to work at the front desk, we would be screwed. You know what I mean? That there's been times where people have come in and I've checked them out when they buy a supplement or something like that. And I can feel the pain on this poor patient's face as I'm trying to stumble through checking them out. I get it done, but it it it was like a wasted time in their life, they're never gonna get back. So you and and I I you you brought up a really good point about people being somewhat a boss. I say that a lot uh with my front front desk, especially. I'm like, you're you're the quarterback up here. You are in charge of this whole realm of this office, and I think that's also a good thing to empower your um employees with, and they'll give them more ownership of their uh position.

SPEAKER_01 48:51

Yeah, 100%. Um, and you I think about and I think about a fucking football coach. Like, football coach make all these motherfucking demands, all these shits. You don't like that shit? What he get mad? He ain't doing the shit right. Coach, you bring your ass out there and and and battle against these six, four motherfuckers, 300 pounds, and you try to get them motherfuckers on the ground. No, the judge, the coach can't do that. The coach can't throw the ball like a motherfucking quarterback can. The coach is is the least talented motherfucker on the team. He can't do the job.

SPEAKER_02 49:23

He can only look how many coaches are uh really, they're just kind of mediocre, terrible players who you know couldn't really do it on the field, but they can do it on the other side. And I I would take that a step further. Look at some of these guys, um, some of these coaches who have come from like smaller schools, they've come to bigger schools, and they're used to doing they're they're the offensive coordinator and they're a head coach, and they refuse to hire an offensive coordinator to take that over, and then they have all these extra demands on them in these bigger organizations because now you got to recruit, you got to fundraise, you gotta do all these different things. And now they can't plan a game plan like they did at Show fucking can't, you know, Tennessee State or whatever. And you have to have those people and you have to again put a put that ego aside. I think you touched on that well. I think ego is a big part of it. Yeah. That you know, either you want to micromanage the position or you want to not give it up because you don't trust your your staff. That's that's probably because too, you didn't train them well enough, or like I said, you just you can't put aside your ego enough to let them do what they do well.

SPEAKER_01 50:29

Yeah, and I'll say this to fucking entrepreneurs, and this is real, this is real shit right here. Stop always trying to be the motherfucking football coach and learn to be the player because the players is what wins the game. The coach just coaches it. Be the quarterback, be the running back, be the wide receiver because that's what you're good at. Everybody wants to be the fucking football coach instead of being the player. Everybody's not designed to be a football coach. Some people are designed to be the fucking player. Absolutely. Because a quarterback can't coach, a linebacker can't coach, a running back can't coach. Know your roles. Everybody can't be the football coach. Nor can you be. Right. Some people should be the wide receiver because that's what you're good at. That's business ownership. To me, when I think about business ownership, that's what it is. We're not the most talented people. We're innovative. We underst we're innovative, we understand structure, we understand what we want. We just need you guys as players to help us understand how to effectively execute what we really want.

SPEAKER_02 51:39

I think that's 100% accurate. And I I think that it's it's hard, sometimes the hardest see the forest for the trees with some people to be able to take that perspective, but it's it's what you have to do.

SPEAKER_01 51:52

Yeah. All right, listen, man, Matthew, thank you so much. This was a heartfelt, loving show, man. This was good, man. I think that this hit home for uh for me. I think even after our conversation, it just re-rem re-reminded me as an as an entrepreneur that I'm automatic, man. Shit. I'm automatic. Fuck that. That's the word. I'm automatic as an entrepreneur. As entrepreneurs, I'm automatic. I know what it means to be an entrepreneur. I'm automatic. I know what it means to be a football coach. I'm automatic. I know I can't throw that fucking ball like a quarterback. I'm automatic, I know I can't run that ball like a running back. I'm automatic, I know I can't catch that ball like a wide receiver. I'm a football coach. I'm automatic. I'm the CEO. I'm the boss of the company. But without the players, what the fuck is the Broncos? What the fuck is the Miami Dolphins without the players? The players are still the most important piece. Everybody don't have to be a fucking football coach. Learn to be the motherfucking player. Anyhow, that's our show today. Thank you guys for tuning in. Thank Matthew. Matthew, Dr. Matthew Zader, man.

unknown 53:06

That is.

SPEAKER_02 53:07

Thank you so much for having me. It was great. I had a great time.

SPEAKER_01 53:09

Hey, man. This was good, man. Next time when we do a part two, I'm gonna have, I'm gonna have to throw you a Cuban cigar. I got a whole box of them behind me. I don't know if you can see them. I got me a box of Cubans. I'm gonna hook you up with some. And the next time we jump on the show, we're gonna probably we might do this in person. If I can around and play with it. I love it. I love it. I'm definitely holding you to that.

SPEAKER_02 53:28

So don't think Hope is going to get away with this, not uh.

SPEAKER_01 53:32

Nah, we're gonna talk about entrepreneurship and fatherhood on the next episode. I promise you that. All right. Sounds great, man. I appreciate it. Thank you, Matthew. You did a great job. Thank you guys for tuning in. I'm your host, Jameen Delmas. You guys know where to find us at on all the streaming platforms YouTube, Instagram, find us on social media, find us on Apple Podcasts, all of the other good stuff. Y'all know where to find us at. I'm your host, Jameen Delmus. Thank you guys for tuning in to the untraditional entrepreneur. And welcome to the other side of motivation. We'll see you guys on the next episode.