EP41: Clear the Bottleneck, Create the Breakthrough

What Are You Tolerating That’s Costing You Growth?

As we move toward 2026, most conversations focus on what we want to add. New goals. New strategies. New habits.

This episode takes a different approach.

Instead of asking what more you need to do, I invite you to look at what you’ve been tolerating.

The quiet energy drains.
 The conversations you’ve been avoiding.
 The systems you know need attention.
 The decisions that once made sense but no longer serve where you’re going.

I share a personal reflection on a location that has taken more energy than it’s given back, along with why tolerating friction is never neutral. Sometimes the bottleneck isn’t something we need to let go of. Sometimes it’s a step forward we haven’t taken yet.

Because when a bottleneck finally clears, growth doesn’t come from working harder. It comes from releasing pressure.

This episode is a reminder that clarity is lighter than tolerance, and that the things we put up with quietly shape the ceiling of our business, our leadership, and our life.

As you step into 2026, the question isn’t what you need to add.

It’s what you’re ready to stop tolerating.

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Transcript

0:00

This is the Austin Cohen Podcast where we talk real strategies for chiropractors ready to grow beyond the adjustment. If you're building a business, developing your leadership, and trying to build wealth without burning out, you are in the right place. Let's get to work What's up everybody? Welcome back. Austin Cohen podcast. Oh man. This could be the last episode of 2025, which is perfect timing for the topic we're gonna be talking about today. And it's something that if you're a leader or want to be a better leader, you've gotta listen to this topic and conversation today. Hopefully you guys enjoy the 25 things I learned in 2025 in, yeah. It's good to reflect, and I'm hoping many of you took that as like, all right, what did I learn in 2025? What were the things then, lessons that I took away in 2025 that I could then deploy and move into 2026 from, but then not carry that baggage in with me going into 2026 and learned from, you've all heard the definition of insanity a million times, which is doing the same thing over and expecting a different result, and I think it's a good time for reflection, but then also thinking of the action that's gonna get put behind that. Like the law of attraction doesn't just, I don't just think of, oh man, if I just dream of a Lamborghini, I will create a Lamborghini it. It doesn't work like that. Yes, you do have to put the vision out there. You do have to dream about these things and vision cast, but there is a lot of action and beliefs that do go behind that. Hopefully that was a good moment for all of you. Man, all I can share is I cannot believe how close we are to Growth Summit. Wow. My presentations are done. I've put all of them together, and now it's time to tighten them up and make sure that they are delivered in a way that every single person walks out of their. With actionable items and belief systems that they walk away and they put it together and actually grow their practice. There's nothing more I love than hearing from all of you who have shared a lot of gratitude with me over the last, since we've really started this podcast, demand and I shared this on my Instagram the other day, just be getting emails and dms and Facebook messages and it's been really cool to. Here some of the transformations that many of you have had just by listening to this podcast.'cause listen, I know for some of you this podcasts can feel overwhelming. It can feel like a lot. But if you keep listening to this content and you keep in the game, eventually as time goes on, you will, it will start to click it. It's just a matter of just putting in the work though. This is exactly why I always recommend endurance races to people. For those that are thinking about personal goals in 2026, if you do an endurance race, you just have, you can't, yes, you can't do a hundred miles without any training, but the slow burn and the slow grind every week and waking up early on Saturdays and Sunday mornings and knocking out 20 miles here and then 30 miles the next day, those are the things that get you to the a hundred miles. And so by consistently listening to this podcast, by reading my weekly newsletters. And then Growth Summit, which is right around the corner. Yeah, there will be transformation that will take place. You were not taught how to be a leader. You were not taught business. You are not taught managing people while you're in chiropractic school. That is something you will learn through experience and learning through others who have been where you want to be. So once again. I'm just excited to be with all of you in just less like a month, basically a month left. Oh, so awesome. And it's gonna be rocking. And then Charlie has an unbelievable presentation about building a personal brand. He's got over a million followers. And by the way if you haven't booked your dinner with him that Saturday night, please. It's$130 and it's an includes your, I think it's like a three or four course dinner. There's zero profit on that dinner. And the reason why is what Charlie's doing is he's gonna be talking about how utilizing foundations and how doing charitable work, the value of that and service of giving back. Charlie is an unbelievable humanitarian. And so it'd be really fascinating to be there and listen to him talk about what he's done and some of the projects that he's put together. It is one, it'll be one of the most inspiring. Dinners that you probably ever sat through, by the way. And I'm not just, like I said, I gain nothing from it except for you leaving that and being a better human being for the world by learning some of the things he's done. And I've donated to his charitable foundation too as well many times. And it's unbelievable work he's doing. Today's topic is obviously we're really close to 2026. And a question I've been sitting with that's been a little uncomfortable for me, not in a bad way, more in a clarifying way, is this, and this is a question I ask myself usually at the end of every year, is, what am I tolerating that isn't serving me anymore? Not what goals I want to hit, not thinking about what I want to add into my practice, not what I want more of. It's what am I quietly putting up with? And if I'm being honest here, it's the things that slow us down. Usually aren't the big obvious problems. They're the things we've actually normalized, the things we've learned, how to work around the things that drain just a little bit of energy every single day, but they add up. And so for me, one of the things I've been tolerating is a location I acquired a few years ago, and I've just been dealing with very difficult people there for a long time. It's something that's just not broken. It's something that just takes a lot of energy and is not serving me well. There's been a lot of toxicity there, and over time it's really dragged on everything else. So for me, it's just shutting down that location. Very simple. You know what? I'm not one of those people that's I know I've had a few people who I've told, I've talked about this is, as I say, I'm, I am removing to add more into 2026 and. Like I'm contracting to expand is what I've shared with people. And it's been interesting. Some people have said to me, Austin, oh man, I'm so sorry to hear that. It's no. For those of you that want the multi-unit life and you wanna achieve something bigger than you ever thought you would ever be able to achieve, there will be very hard decisions you will have to make. And not everything's always gonna go your way. You're gonna deal with very difficult people. You're gonna deal with very difficult locations and. It's part of the process of significant growth. Like you wanna run a hundred mile run, you wanna come to Adventure Summit and do something really hard. Yeah. You're gonna deal with difficulty along the way. Why? Because it's a stretch. It's a difficult experience. Anything that is really hard, that puts you past your limits, yes, there will be the uncomfortable zone that you will have to go through. And I hope, I really hope everyone gets to go through that. If my kids are like 40 years old. And they tell me they've really never dealt with any hard times or difficult things in their life. They're not being stretched. They've just been sitting in the comfortable zone, which is fine for them, if that's what they want. But I know what it's like when you get uncomfortable, and I know what it's like when you push yourself past what you thought was possible and how great it can be. And so for them, I'm always gonna push them. And yeah, for me it's shutting down a location. And that's just how it's going to be. And like heavy things, even when they're manageable, they can still slow you down. And that's what this episode will be about is just not quitting, not blowing things up, just taking an honest look at what you're tolerating in your life and asking does it still deserve your energy as you move into 2026? We tell ourselves a lot of stories about tolerance, and it's one of the questions I ask my coaching clients is what have they been tolerating? We say things such as, oh, we're being patient, or we're being loyal, or we're being resilient to those people. Okay? But sometimes we're actually just avoiding a conversation or a decision or an uncomfortable step forward. And here's the truth. Tolerating is not something that's neutral because what it's doing is, and for me in this location, it's costing energy, it's costing focus, and it's costing the team clarity in most practices. Do not stall because of a lack of effort. They stall because of there's toleration of friction. So maybe it's a team member who should have had a clear conversation months ago. It may be a role that wasn't clearly defined. It may be a service you keep offering out of a habit, but there's no impact around it. Maybe it's a system, is outdated, but feels annoying to replace. Here's the part we don't talk about enough. When leaders tolerate things, the team feels it before the numbers ever do. When the more I tolerate, the more a drag am in my team, and they know that the less I tolerate and the better I can be at conversations, better at leadership, and better making quicker decisions with less tolerations. The team feels that too, eventually it's gonna show up in the results. Here's another angle I've been thinking about too, as well. Sometimes the things you're tolerating isn't actually something you're holding onto. Maybe it's something you're avoiding stepping into. And for me, like that's shown up in our tech stack. So I have a budget we have for our tech stack, like there's payroll, budget, advertising, marketing budget, tech stack budget. And I know with chiropractors it's like crazy to me. They're like, I wanna find this all in one software that does everything. It's like that that just doesn't exist. It would be like the chiropractor that tries to be everything for everybody. They try to be their physical therapist, they try to be their acupuncturist, they try to be their mental health expert. No, be the best dang chiropractor for that patient. But then also have the best resources for the best physical therapist in the community, the best acupuncturist in the community, the best massage therapist in the community. Like it just doesn't exist. Yeah, there's some that can do really good things with automations. Like for example, I'll just use ours'cause I'll just share from experience like ena. It's part of my tech stack. Yeah. It can build really good treatment plans. Yes, it can show me, it can build amazing spinal health scores to create really good clarity for patients. It can run great level 10 meetings. It can show me data that I would not be able to see on any other software that we have. But it's really the data that actually moves things forward. Not just data to track data, by the way, like value by referral source, doctor commit rate, close percentages. Now we have the birthday list that's out there. Now we, it's, I can look at how many people haven't had a re-examine over a year. That's a huge stat to be tracking. Okay. But it can't be everything for everybody. It doesn't have two-way communication. So I need a two-way communication software. It doesn't do my newsletters. I want a really good newsletter campaign software, and I know some of you guys are trying to use like track stats and review waves and SCTs for your newsletters, like MailChimp's the best for, at least for us. MailChimp works really well for that, but it also has API that can integrate to other things too as well. Listen. If you guys are overwhelmed by all of these things, like all these tech stacks, I do think that you have a systems problem. I say this all the time. We run a hundred plus visit practice a day with one office staff and we still have time to do a lot of things. She still does her recalls on Mondays. She still does her adding all the stats in every Monday. She still sets everybody on and up decompression every day, and we run about, 80 decompression a week. Why the it's, the systems create freedom. And so maybe that's the toleration for you. I don't know. But here's the deal with that tech stack is I know that I'm not leveraging all of my tech the best way possible, and that's the toleration I've been dealing with. So for me, it's go high level. That's something I pay for, but I don't use. And I know that if I leverage it and use it better, it could have a really high impact for the result. Like money's not the issue for this thing. It's just the energy that is. And that's why I've been paying for the subscription because I know it's good and if I cancel it, I'm not gonna use it. But if I keep paying for it, it's gonna make me want to eventually stop my toleration of not using it and get into it. It's like gym membership. Some of you guys have gym memberships, but you having to the gym in two months. Why? Because you know you need to go and you know it's good for you. If you're a subscriber to Kiron 80 and you haven't been using it, send me a message on Instagram. Email me atAustin@kironeighty.com. I'll more than happy to jump on a call with you for 30 minutes and give you some best practices or get on our monthly growth calls and ask questions. I do a free call once a month for an hour that call's worth more than 200, the 1 95 a month. So what are you avoiding that's costing you just as much as tolerating dysfunction? And listen, sometimes it doesn't break. Sometimes it's not gonna crash, and everything is just gonna stay fine. But that fine is very dangerous when you know better is available. And for me it's shutting down that location. And for me it's the toleration of not utilizing go high level and getting better at utilizing that software and then having, and then onboarding somebody to use that for us. But I wanna know how to do it first, then I'm gonna hire somebody to manage that for us. And most likely probably somebody a VA most likely oversees that would manage that for us. This is where kinda everything starts to come together is every practice I know has a bottleneck and most bottlenecks are not obvious. What are they? They are tolerated. A bottleneck is anything that restricts flow. Look at traffic jams of cars. You can work harder upstream. You can add more effort. You can even push your team. But your growth cannot move faster than the narrowest point in the system. And that bottleneck might be a person, a decision. You haven't made a system, you haven't upgraded a boundary, you haven't enforced a role, you haven't clarified. Maybe there's a commitment you've been postponing. And here's the question I want you to sit with. What happens when a bottleneck finally clears up? Most people expect chaos or a fallout with that person they had to talk to or disruption. But what usually happens is this, the flow increases energy returns, momentum picks up without you actually even working harder. So what feels like to you, explosive growth is actually just pressure being released in the bottleneck. Like nothing magical change. You just stopped choking the system. And here's the human side to this, like it's not fair to your team to tolerate something that holds them back to as well. Maybe your leadership. Yeah, you're holding them back because you're not willing to work on your leadership. It's not fair to your family to bring that weight home every night. And it's not fair to yourself to call it leadership when really it's avoidance. And I share what those excuses were earlier. Every time I finally addressed something, I was tolerating the same thing happens. What I feel lighter, I think clear. And I show up better, not because the decision was easy to make, by the way, it never is, but because clarity is lighter than tolerances, and some of the biggest growth spurts that we've had across our clinics did not come from any new strategies. They came after resolving something. We've been putting off a conversation, a system change, a hard decision. It's like the things we tolerate quietly can decide the ceiling of our business. Just like law of the lid, just like the levels of our leadership. I would say tolerations may be one of the biggest things though, that hold leaders back and really is what kind of chokes that bottleneck for all of you. So as you move into 2026, I don't want you asking what more you need to do. And I know chiropractor, shiny object syndrome, you're gonna see an ad that's gonna tell you how you can generate$20,000 a month or$15,000 a month or some new service. No. I want you asking one question, what am I tolerating that's costing me momentum? Okay. Hey Li, listen to this real quick. Put your phone down and may maybe you're driving right now, so I want you to listen to this again. What am I tolerating that's costing me momentum? And maybe it's something you need to let go of a conversation. You need to have a system that maybe you need to finally step into. Maybe it's a boundary you need to enforce. You don't need to fix everything. You only need to identify one single bottleneck. Clear the bottleneck, and let the system breathe. And what follows from that growth? And for those of you guys that have been sitting back thinking that maybe you are the bottleneck or you've even thinking that you are somebody who starts something and doesn't finish, I invite you to Adventure Summit. I have seven spots available, left for Adventure Summit 2026, which will happen in August. And if you're somebody who's been looking for something really hard to do that with a good bond and a good brotherhood of people, I highly encourage you to join us. Yeah, you're thinking your brain off 40 miles. That's hard. It's, we're going into 2026. You still have eight months left of training. To get there. Yes, it's 40 miles over 20 hours. That will happen on Wednesday. And then on Thursday we'll be whitewater rafting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. There will also be a couple business tours. We'll be doing the, we're staying in a big house together with a hu the group of people that comes to this, by the way, it is insane. It is an unbelievable brotherhood and group of guys that come to this, that we bond with each other, if you think you're the bottleneck and you think it's your level of leadership and you're somebody who does something and stops doing it, then yeah, maybe it's time for you to step into Adventure Summit. But if I don't see you there, you know where Hopefully we'll see you at Growth Summit. Listen, I love and appreciate all of you. Thanks for such a great year. If 2025 and excited to work with all of you in 2026, hopefully at some capacity, see you next year. Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. To learn more about building your business, leadership, and life on purpose, visit chiro one eighty.com or follow Austin on Instagram at Dr. Austin Cohen.