Facilitated

38| Vision: Simplicity, Boundaries, And Better Care

• The Facility Denver • Episode 38

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We reflect on a year of simplifying care, tightening boundaries, and improving outcomes by focusing on what actually moves health forward. We share how clearer systems, humble collaboration, and teaching foundations beat complexity and constant access.

• shifting from expansion to focus
• simplifying protocols around foundations
• teaching principles over rigid plans
• setting boundaries to sustain quality
• improving systems for labs and follow-ups
• choosing referrals and collaboration
• aligning with curious, humble patients
• fertility trends and proactive optimization
• human touch alongside AI tools
• stepping into education and thought leadership

Want to take the next step with functional medicine? Learn more about our new patient process and lab testing at www.thefacilitydenver.com

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Stay curious, stay proactive, and we’ll catch you next time!

SPEAKER_04:

Welcome to Facilitated, where we bring you real stories, strategies, and science from the world of functional medicine. I'm Dr. Mitchell Rasmussen, a functional medicine practitioner.

SPEAKER_02:

And I'm Kate Darty, a certified nutritionist. We are the owners of the facility, a functional medicine clinic here in Denver, Colorado.

SPEAKER_04:

We help people improve their biology and get out of their own way. In my view, our work is about getting to know the person with the condition much more than it's about understanding which condition the person has. As I always say, diagnose the biology, not the disease.

SPEAKER_02:

On this podcast, we break down complex health topics, share real patient cases, anonymized, of course, and explore cutting-edge wellness strategies so you can make informed decisions about your health. Quick heads up before we dive in, this podcast is for education and general information only. We're here to share insights, not to diagnose or treat. So if you're dealing with a health issue, chat with a qualified healthcare provider before making any changes. All right, let's get into it.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

Do you have any accents you can do?

SPEAKER_00:

Hmm.

SPEAKER_04:

I don't We watch Love Island, UK, and sometimes I try to mimic, and then I got recorded doing it once.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

I'm so bad at it.

SPEAKER_03:

Well Lucy has a book. It's a a fantastic book. It's called The Grumpy Monkey. And one of the characters I do always read in a British accent just for fun.

SPEAKER_04:

Give me an example.

SPEAKER_03:

Uh his name is Norman, and what does he say? Jim. Why are you grumpy, Jim?

SPEAKER_04:

That's better than my own. Can you tell the difference between like a British or a Welsh accent?

SPEAKER_03:

No.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh.

SPEAKER_03:

Sometimes I even get the Australian accent confused. Also, we've been watching Bluey all the time.

SPEAKER_04:

Is there an Australian character?

SPEAKER_03:

It's Australian.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh.

SPEAKER_03:

The whole show.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Man, the stuff I have to look forward to if I have a child.

SPEAKER_03:

Bluey is a great show. It's so much better than Blippy and Miss Rachel. I much prefer Bluey and demo.

SPEAKER_04:

You just have to sit and watch it.

SPEAKER_03:

I mean.

SPEAKER_04:

It sounds awful.

SPEAKER_03:

Generally, I'm answering questions about what we're watching.

SPEAKER_04:

From Mike or from Lucy?

SPEAKER_03:

From Lucy. Oh. What's that? Who's that? What's he doing?

SPEAKER_04:

I don't know, honey. We're watching it together.

SPEAKER_03:

I want to go there. So Blippy goes to different like children's museums and water parks and amusement parks. And so she always wants to go and do what he's doing.

SPEAKER_04:

Is it obviously a cartoon or is it like Toy Story where it's like kind of no no no blippy's a real person? Oh. Yeah. Okay. But Bluey is a is a full-on cartoon, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Is it a dingo cartoon? It's a whole family of dogs.

SPEAKER_04:

The reason I asked you that is when we started, I almost said, good day, mate. But then but that's not British. Australian. Then I just started thinking about like, oh yeah, I'm terrible at accents, so I'm just gonna hold that one in. Wow. We have a guest today.

SPEAKER_03:

Uh nonverbal.

SPEAKER_04:

A nonverbal guest. Ethel's here with us. Not my grandma. My dog. She's laying on my lap right now. Yep. So that's fun. She loves seeing what her owner is up to. Look at her. She wanted to talk about vision today with us.

SPEAKER_03:

Vision, yeah. It's the end of the year. We have uh completed our clinic days for the year. We have one more day of telehealth. And then full steam ahead into 2026, but it felt like this is a good moment to kinda zoom out where we're at, where we want to go, thinking ahead to the new year. Um, we've done a little bit of planning with one of our been business mentors. Uh, so we kind of have a little bit idea of more solid ideas around this before when we originally had planned to record the episode. Uh, but really just it's kind of like us thinking out loud in public, not making announcements here.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, I growth is interesting.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

It's hard to notice things are changing when you're in it.

SPEAKER_00:

When you're in it day-to-day. Yep.

SPEAKER_04:

But it's been, I mean, I've had a good last week just really reflecting on just little little things, even just simplifying patient care. And I think, as my fiance would say, saying less at times. I think learning to say less and learning to distill it down. I mean, that's something that Kurt, one of our business, the guy you were talking about earlier, he's talked so much about like you might have all these things you want for somebody, but it can overwhelm them. And I think that's been 2025 is for me clinically, since you focus more on the business, it's been learning to I don't know if it's simplify or really focus on foundations for people more than complex. And I think that's I'm excited to see where it goes this next year. It's been very uh purposeful. I've had to mindfully slow down and try to simplify.

SPEAKER_03:

I've done the same thing in in how I'm organizing follow-ups and how I'm communicating what is said in a visit to a patient to still highlight the big things but also capture all of the details. So I've seen that. I think it is kind of helpful to look back before looking forward in what you're saying of like recognizing the growth, recognizing where we've been. Do you think we're practicing do you think it's looking how you thought it would look five years ago?

SPEAKER_04:

No, but not necessarily, but not bad. I guess if you're asking what I thought, so when did we open? We're in it was 2019, July. Okay. I mean, I thought, you know, when we were a couple years old, we got a second location, we had a huge space with up to like seven employees, and it was uh thought that was the dream in the big city. Thought that's what I needed, and I realized I'm glad we did it, but I think our growth has been simplifying. You know, what did we learn about having employees?

SPEAKER_03:

That we hate it, yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, really distilling down and being comfortable referring out, you know. We refer so many people to Dr. Weaver who worked for us, and it's I love not having to worry about filling his mouth as an employee and just sending people to him because I know how great he is. Yeah, so that's been fun. I'm just partnering with people more. I mean, when we think about how we started this whole thing, the facility, you know, facile to make easier. We want it to be a one-stop shop for people, and we did it. I mean, we can say we did it. We didn't go out of business, we didn't we weren't unable to pay for our lease, like we did it. But now we the next step has been like let's focus on what we do best. I mean, what would you say? Are you where you thought we'd be?

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, not at all, but I'm I'm really happy and proud of where we're at right now.

SPEAKER_04:

Like when we got that second spot, my dad, it was during COVID, and my dad was like, So most people are getting lean right now. Is there a reason you guys are paying more money? And hey, hindsight, right? But hey, we finished that lease too, we got through it. You know, I I I that's what I'm really proud of is that we in every position have held up our end of the deal for people. We didn't leave you know, any lender or anybody high and dry. It's just we got through it and now we're focusing on you know, maybe someday us being financially successful.

SPEAKER_03:

So looking back on how things have changed from what we thought. I want to know how things changed for you professionally in terms of being a clinician? What do you feel like in what ways have you changed as a clinician to who you are, to what you thought you would be?

SPEAKER_04:

I mean, six seven my whole dream of going to chiropractic school was to combine movement and functional medicine. And I mean, Shante, one of our mentors, has talked about this a lot. Like, movement kind of gets repetitive, and uh I've noticed that like I don't really enjoy rehab that much. I you know, I only take on a select couple people with injuries, and um it's nice as a changeup. What do I do two hours a week now? Only so I mean when we first opened, yeah, I thought I'd be spending so much time in the gym with people and doing soft tissue work, and I just I don't enjoy that. So that's been something I've loved to just send out to other people. And then the other big thing again, back to simplicity. You know, I think the number one thing that we now have people work on is their parasympathetic tone, you know, and it used to be you know, so much focus on the immune system and all these complicated pathways, and that's kind of putting the cart before the horse for most people. So I I again it literally goes down to simplicity. Like I went so far out there, distilled the knowledge, and now I think I'm coming home to confidently being okay preaching the basics. It's coming, in my opinion, from a place of going to depth.

SPEAKER_03:

What you said about movement and getting repetitive, and I yes, five years ago you were doing it all. You would go from a in-person physical medicine patient over to functional medicine, and you've really condensed that down, like you said, to what two hours of physical medicine per week. But what I've noticed is you're only one person. You need to spend your time doing what you're good at. You're so good at functional medicine.

SPEAKER_04:

Thanks. I try hard. I appreciate that. Okay, let me throw it back to you then.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I think similar with going through school, I was going through school with a specific goal in mind, and I never really enjoyed the what you think of as a nutritionist of here's how to build your plate, and here's what to put exactly how much the details, the cooking basics and nutrition basics. I just I don't enjoy the coaching aspect of it. I do like a little bit more of the advanced therapeutic diet guidance and more of the global picture. I don't know, sorry, what was the question?

SPEAKER_04:

Well, and just uh what I've noticed is we're trying to teach somebody how to fend for themselves from that perspective, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, yeah. So recently we had a patient who asked if I wouldn't build her a meal plan of exactly what to eat, and I said no. It's I kind of feel like it's doing a disservice to the patient because you might stick with it for a little bit. It's not sustainable. You don't learn anything from that. Instead, I want to give you parameters of here's how much protein, how much fiber, what a healthy balance looks like. You do the work of building it out based on your preferences, your time availability. And that carries you forward. Use tools like if it's a tracking app or if it's AI to create meal plans, or if it is a meal planning service for a short time. There's resources to use to build more understanding versus here's a paper of exactly what to eat for the next three weeks until you get bored.

SPEAKER_04:

And I remember when you put your foot down, whenever that was recently, but you supported it with I'm not gonna leave you hanging, but it's it isn't sustainable. And this goes back to the message that I like to explain is the goal is kind for people is kind of nothingness, is kind of no change. Right. When you're when you got so many symptoms and they're you're knocking them off one at a time, that's exciting. You get a dopamine hit, you're you're improving all these things. But the goal is to be okay, and it's relatively easy to get there for most people. The hard part is staying there, right? I mean, how many times do we see an intake and somebody felt markedly better on a whole 30, then they completely said screw it after 30 days and added everything back in and they're bloated again and you know, constipated, and they they never learned anything from it. That's a prime example, is like you can stick to rigidity for a short period of time if you have a short-term goal in mind, but the long-term strategy is to figure out how to nourish yourself. You know, I would say another growth point would be I became a nutritionist this year. Yep. And I learned actually a lot. And I I think I hope you've noticed that I'm really trying to lean more into foods as often as possible over supplements. Even simple things for the gallbladder, like let's get bitter foods instead of digestive bitters and all these things that are readily available if people learn about them. And then negotiating better with people. Like if you do this, you don't need this, and you know, and I think less rigidity, it's hard for me. I'm a little rigid just by nature. So I think that's been something I've learned to lean into this year is uh we're a thought partnership with the individual. It's not my way or nothing. It's here's your information, here's you know, I say like informed consent essentially. I mean, it happened yesterday with somebody. Like I don't necessarily agree with your approach, but if that's what you want to do, here's how we will support you. Right. So I don't think I would have done that two years ago.

SPEAKER_03:

What type of patients do you feel most aligned with right now?

SPEAKER_04:

I mean, this year has been so much about fertility.

SPEAKER_03:

It has been. But I think a through line is we really enjoy patients who are curious, who are open-minded, who are willing to take information and apply it.

SPEAKER_04:

And humility in people, I would say I'm now starting to notice uh I don't necessarily enjoy here news flash. You're probably not smarter than your doctor about medicine. Okay, they might not know every little blog post and mitochondrial enhancement or methylene blue or peptides, but get out of your head that you think that you're somehow smarter than somebody that went to medical school when it comes to actual medicine. You might not have the same knowledge base, but I mean we run into this sometimes. People they go on AI and they run their labs through AI or something, and they they they have phrases that they use, but they don't they never took a biology class. And I get frustrated sometimes with those because you know, you oh, I went to the ER and they didn't help me. It's like well, the ER is not a psychiatrist's office, the ER is not a primary care physician or a dermatologist. Like their job is to make sure you're not dying and then refer you out. So I think helping people with their expectations, but I don't really know the point of me, but I think those are the people that I'm trying to do a better job of showing where their doctor is trying to help them. Because yeah, you don't get much nutrition understanding in medical school, you only get 10, 15 minutes max with patients, and that's the system. But I think for those of you listening, like most doctors, I would I would say are trying to help, and they're pretty educated, and just because they might push medications that you don't agree with does not mean that they can't be a thought partner in this journey with you. So, I mean, you know, we get those people like, oh, my doctor doesn't know anything, and it's like pause, like me supporting that notion does not help the person. It literally builds up this ego inside of them, and then I mean it could spill into us where now I'm fighting against you. Right. So I think being really trying to work on humility is an active practice for myself, for the words I speak, but even just for the way that these individuals speak about their other providers to us. No more throwing people down, no more accepting my doctor doesn't know anything because that's just it's a wild assessment. I think another thing that we've grown in this year is learning boundaries.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_04:

You know, what are we actually capable of from a sustainability standpoint?

SPEAKER_01:

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04:

What do we have to be okay letting go of? How do we learn early on that maybe we're not the right fit for somebody? It's hard because I have this notion that because of how foundational the work we do is, that pretty much everybody could get some benefit. But there's a caveat to that. You have to be willing to work and not rely solely on someone else to give you health. Like I can't I can't make you healthy.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_04:

I can hold up a mirror for you and let you see yourself and let you see how your past and your actions create this picture that leads to whatever you're dealing with. But it it at the end of the day, it's not my responsibility to get you better. And being I'm truly okay with that now.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. New boundaries have naturally developed. As growth has occurred. I mean, even look back three years ago, four years ago, we were running our functional medicine practice very differently, where we were doing more of a membership-esque model where while you were in a package, you had open access to us. It wasn't sustainable, and it's not sustainable going forward. And if we want to keep doing this in the next 10, 15, 20 years, that had to go.

SPEAKER_04:

And outcomes are no better when you're constantly a pen pal with somebody. But then again, you you know, we're being okay with not being the air quote right fit for everybody. Yeah. It's essentially cutting out those types of actions that waste our life force. And that degrade us. I mean, how many times we'd have to spend hours a day after work emailing with people. I mean, people don't realize that. Like to you, it's just a quick question, but you know, if I had not a high volume, if I had 20 patients that week in hour-long visits with all the follow-up that we already do, and then the follow-up, you know, 30% of them send an email, people don't realize like that adds up so much in a year. And it used to just make me so frustrated because we kind of set ourselves up for that.

SPEAKER_03:

Yep.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, what's coming up?

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, I it's been such a healthy change. We we are not perfect with it. We're still learning where that boundary, where we need to reinforce that boundary for ourselves.

SPEAKER_04:

But the people that get it get it, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Yep. Here's an interesting philosophical question. Is this philosophical? I don't know. Here's an interesting question. If we accidentally doubled our patient load tomorrow, what would break first?

SPEAKER_04:

Podcast.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, I mean, sure, we would start dropping things off of our plate. But last week we saw this. We had four, was it four new patients in one day? And it wasn't necessarily the time. Like that's four hours of direct patient care, which was doable. It's the lead up and the follow-up. Meaning we spend a lot of time going through intake forms, considering a patient case.

SPEAKER_04:

Past labs.

SPEAKER_03:

Going through past labs. And it was kind of overwhelming in the day by the time we got to the fourth patient to try to remember this is someone we have we don't have a relationship with, so we're only basing it on a paper form. Okay, is this the person who has a lactose intolerance, or is this the person with a sensitivity to eggs? You know, it's like, and I'm just picking on the nutrition part of it, but it was a lot to manage in our brain before having a relationship with someone.

SPEAKER_04:

And I got a little squirrely by the end of the day.

SPEAKER_03:

Definitely.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. Sorry to whoever came in later in the day. But I mean, that's a new boundary going forward, is you know, and for those of you who do a high volume practice, four patients a day sounds like nothing.

SPEAKER_03:

No, I think it was the four new patients. That's what I mean. I think it's so much different when we have a relationship, relationship with someone. Uh both of us, uh I don't know, this is maybe tooting our horns, but both of us are very good at remembering information about people, details about people, and really knowing the person. I mean, we spend a lot of time getting to know the person, and it's so much easier to keep that straight if we were to have four repeat patients in a row. Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

Which we can do no problem.

SPEAKER_03:

It's it's going from this is someone I only know a paper version of, I don't know them yet.

SPEAKER_04:

And then we have to go home. I've got to order unique labs on all four of them. You have to send a follow-up that takes an hour for all four of them the hour before the visit that we spend together, and double that because it's two of us. You know, so for four new patients that day, plus we had other patients, three hours minimum per person, I'd say four between two of us. So that's a 16-hour day just with new patients.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. So what would break? I think our brains would break, not necessarily, but I think our quality of care would absolutely go down. We are actively working on our systems to improve this. Uh, whether that be, I mean, we've developed our our lab panel now to be pretty effective for almost every male or female new patient. There are minor tweaks we make, but we're not rebuilding a whole panel every time, which is great.

SPEAKER_04:

And not running other auxiliary tests at that first at the same time.

SPEAKER_03:

Yep. So just taking away the decision factor of okay, what else do we need to look at in order? Um, my templates and systems for follow-up have gotten better. Your similar for dosing schedules and supplements has gotten better. You used to individually send supplement information sheets to every person. Now you have a Google Drive with every single supplement sheet for the people who are interested. They can click it, they can see every single supplement sheet not specific to them.

SPEAKER_04:

We did have somebody that thought they were supposed to take all of them. Yes. But it's another story for another time. Yes. And it doesn't water down the the care. That's what the best part is. Right. Is letting go of this control has actually not made people not get better. Which is sweet to see. It's such a good reinforcement.

SPEAKER_03:

Yep. What are what do you think problems that are gonna be more common? I don't I'm not gonna say five years, I'd say in the next three years in terms of what people are coming in with, what people are asking at the first visit, why are they seeking our care.

SPEAKER_04:

I mean, we know that as the soup of our modern world gets more and more toxic, that fertility is only going down. Yep. Right? It's so many factors that influence that. So I I think that's getting more and more complicated. What worked five years ago doesn't necessarily work today. Maybe ten years ago. You know, just things are getting more and more degraded in people's health. I think another thing is people come in back to like the smarter than your doctor thing. People come in so educated now on fancy words without the foundation that again it's about creating a cohesive system for them to think about their health because they've got all these words, but they don't really know how they turn into a song or a poem. What do you think?

SPEAKER_03:

Uh I was definitely gonna hit on fertility, and I think more and more continuing towards wellness and optimization, where we have a sick care sick care system, but there is this population of I would say 20s to 40s age group who are looking for what can I do now to live better in my 80s, and it's just not being answered at a primary care physician's office. So I think more of that where it's not so much problem focused, it's more preventative, proactive. I have access to this information, but I want a little bit more interpretation of it or a little bit more guidance of what to do with the information that I have access to. Thinking outside of patient care. What risks I feel important, but maybe a little bit uncomfortable right now.

SPEAKER_04:

I mean, my big one is public speaking and not, I mean, I'm talking about like big groups. You know, I we've been for years going to, you know, groups of five to thirty at those schools, sometimes maybe 40 or 50, but I'm talking like the next step for me if I wanna teach more is to get in front of you know three, five, seven hundred people crowds. I've had that as a goal for a while, but never felt like I was ready, and I'm finally now we can't share anything about it right now, but stepping into that next year. Yes. Which makes me nervous, shows me I'm alive, feels feels exciting.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I think for both of us, it the risk of stepping outside of clinic time to do more teaching, more consulting, more education, whether that be to practitioners or to groups of people, uh consumers. It is a risk of taking away the hours that we can devote to clinic time. Maybe the podcast, maybe social media. I'm sure things will fall off, but I do feel like it is important for us. We're kind of ready to take the step into being more thought leaders in a more public space.

SPEAKER_04:

And it I think it took it takes time, right? I mean, as the more and more I learn, the more I feel like I don't know anything. So I was stuck in this uh imposture syndrome or whatever for so long, and I had this mantra that like, well, who the heck am I to think I deserve to be listened to or to share a message? And it took, I mean, a decade. You know, I mean, I've been at this a while, and I've realized I realized last month I've studied the body more than half my life. This all started 2007. You know, so I'm finally stepping into like, nah, I might not be right about everything, and I'm not, but like I definitely have enough that I should start sharing it. So I mean that was kind of the genesis of this podcast.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

That was like a first step.

SPEAKER_00:

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04:

You know, I mean, we did that, you know, some in-person stuff. I mean, you've started consulting. I mean, we're we are stepping into that role. It's just not seen by the public per se. And I think that's what's different about this coming year is it's gonna be more obvious who we are and what we're about. Yeah. I guess getting out of that self-consciousness. Being okay to be self-conscious and do it anyway.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. If fear and I would say if resources were not a limitation, what do you think we would be tackling the Q1?

SPEAKER_04:

I don't know.

SPEAKER_03:

Really? I think more uh direct order labs for sure. I would put so much more energy into it because the competition just isn't good. So sharing more about our panels versus honestly function health, superhuman, is that what it's called?

SPEAKER_04:

Super or Gary Brekkas crap.

SPEAKER_03:

Right.

SPEAKER_04:

That he's stealing from people with.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. So currently our community knows and we we do a good enough job with the patience of this is you know, if you want to get more labs, this is what to get. But yeah, if resources in terms of time and money that I could put into marketing, I think I would go all in on that.

SPEAKER_04:

I mean, I think I would start skateboarding if I didn't have any fear.

unknown:

What?

SPEAKER_04:

I s you know, I was a skateboarder in eighth grade for like a month. I had the shoes, I had the board.

SPEAKER_03:

I got the outfit.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, you do. I literally I went to Italy in eighth grade. I'm cringing at this. I brought a skateboard to Italy. I've been skateboarding like a week. I wrote it one time in Positano on a cobblestone, and I almost ate shit so bad, and I put it back. I literally strapped it to my bag. I was acting like a skateboarder. So I think if fear was not an issue, I think I would skateboard this year.

SPEAKER_03:

Wow. You know, one time I snowboarded. I'm a skier. One time and I it had to be high school, I was went skateboard, I went snowboarding, and my parents said, okay, you guys can it was me and my brother. So we rented the snowboard for the day. It lasted about three hours, and I uh convinced the rental place to let me swap it for skis. And you know what? I thought it was gonna be cool, like because snowboarders were the cool ones, and the skiers were lame. No, I'm a skier, I'm proud to be a skier, I will forever be a skier.

SPEAKER_04:

I snowboarded, I think, twice. Yeah, I was so bad at it. Skied my whole life and just I could not. I what do they say? Yeah, we kept catching edges. Yeah. Face plant, butt to the turf, to the snow. It was awful. Yep. Is that a good answer? That's what is that what you were looking for?

SPEAKER_03:

Exactly what I was looking for. Let's land the plane. What do you think matters more than you expected?

SPEAKER_04:

Support?

SPEAKER_01:

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. In all ways. I mean, I've you know, I've had some opportunities this year to lean, just personally to lean on my loved ones. Um always prided myself on being there for others, but just you know how life goes sometimes. The roles can get reversed, and it's been great to see you, my fiance, my family, my friends, you know, show up for me when I've needed you. Walked in yesterday, gave you a big hug out of thankfulness. I think recognizing that gravity affects me like it affects everyone else. If you get what I'm saying, and but then clinically, recognizing that the individuals that get better have support at home.

SPEAKER_03:

I was gonna say to me, what matters is enjoying the day-to-day, enjoying what we're doing. We gosh, what did we say? Seven years, six years in. I don't feel like we have the luxury of just taking a week off and taking a vacation, and it's not a nine to five that we show up to and we get our PTO, and but the trade-off is I don't feel like I need a vacation. I don't feel like I need to escape. I like clinic days and I like work days, and so that matters to me.

SPEAKER_04:

Shifting perspective.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you you've got me. I went to Sarasota with family this year. I had an entire half day where I had to see, I think, three people, and I was like, it was fine, but you know, it's it is it's that balance of we can take time, but there's nobody that's gonna pay our bills.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

You know, but we've kind of accepted that the last half of December is always it's fine. We even like calculated into our year, and then now randomly, the last couple weeks have been some of the busiest weeks of the year for us, which is like bonus. It's fun getting people excited and started right before the new year. Um, but yeah, I mean, uh I enjoying it more like tomorrow, Christmas Eve. I've got a guy, a distance guy, you know, pretty bad hamstring tear, and he's awesome triathlete down in Arizona, and he thought I was nuts. I'm like, well, I'll see you Christmas Eve because the timing didn't work out anywhere else. And you know, we're going to Hillstone tomorrow night. I'll get my workout in. I've got a 45-minute telehealth visit with this awesome guy, and it's like that freedom of like, no, I'm it's not a burden. Like, let's spend 45 minutes together and then I'll move on with my day.

SPEAKER_03:

So I think looking forward, it has been become more important to me that there is a little bit of flexibility. I think for both of us, I'm thinking like whether that means my daughter has a sick day and needs somebody to stay home with her, and I have the flexibility of scheduling visits on telehealth and staying home to manage that side of things, or looking further ahead, I'm thinking I want to be involved when she has field trips or activities at school. And unfortunately, I can't tell the school to only schedule those on Tuesday on my non-clinic day. So I think moving forward, figuring out where that balance of flexibility in terms of patient visits, scheduling clinic time, and still being able to well just being comfortable the of where we're at.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. You know, I mean, starting a practice from nothing with no social media, no reputation, no patient base. We had to, you know, start from nothing. And you spend five, six years toiling in obscurity. You know, and you were just talking to me last week about you know, growth often, like in your dad's company, it doesn't, it could happen exponentially right away, but those that can stick it out, it's like those most adaptable to change survive in a way. Um, it took a lot of can we do this? Can we do this to sw finally become like, oh, we're doing this. You know, and that's I think the comfort we've settled into this year. We're like, oh yeah, we are doing this.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it's the mundanity of excellence. My sister Kelsey turned me on to it. Big influence in Goldman Snacks, apparently, but great thing to look up if you're curious about that. I heard that.

SPEAKER_04:

Ethel just gave. A yawn, I think she's bored too. Yeah, I mean it is, but it's just being more comfortable with what we're doing and where we're at, and knowing that we can excel in getting people better, and people send other people to us, and the community has just grown and grown and grown to where now I've fully recognized that it's all good. We're doing it. It's been it's been fun. I woke up I think a couple weeks ago and I was like, holy crap, we're actually successful at this.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Okay, I'll end on this one. If someone listens to this in five years, what do you hope still is true?

SPEAKER_04:

Fiber is important. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03:

We haven't mentioned fiber once in this episode, but if someone listens to this in five years, I hope that's still true.

SPEAKER_04:

I hope that human-facing service and help is still important.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

I heard this, you know, AI has become involved in a lot of like radiology practices now, but the radiologist like there's not less radiologists. I just heard this on a podcast, and you know, the AI can read the scans, but diagnosing and taking a history, that's the human touch. And we've got more and more people coming in, having run labs through AI and things like that. And I guess what I'm hoping is that there's still the realization for clinical touch and for human-to-human contact, and that we're not fully, you know, chips in our brain, don't have to communicate without talking. Like, I'm hoping that we can still have what makes us human, human.

SPEAKER_03:

I agree. AI is a I'm bullish. AI is a great tool. Just all in how you use it. Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

Well. Happy holidays.

SPEAKER_03:

Uh this is probably not happy holidays. Happy New Year. Okay. Happy 2020.

SPEAKER_04:

It's a holiday. It's uh it's currently like 70 degrees out in Denver, and it's two days before Christmas.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, so we're gonna go to the skate shop and get some skateboards and enjoy the sunny weather.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, I'm ready.

SPEAKER_03:

All right.

SPEAKER_02:

For more about what we do at the facility, check out our website, www.thefacilitydenver.com. You can also follow us on Instagram at the facility Denver for extra tips, behind the scenes fun, and updates on new episodes. Thanks for listening. Now go facilitate your own health, and we'll see you next time.