Dr. Matthew Lawrence returns to the Align Your Practice podcast to give some advice on how he and his wife, Dr. Marian Ortíz, have learned to navigate their work and home lives. He and Dr. Joe Esposito discuss boundaries, working styles, setting schedules, and most importantly, communication.
About the Guest:
Dr. Matthew Lawrence first became interested in chiropractic while working through a back injury. That led him to getting his Bachelor of Science in Exercise Physiology from East Carolina University and eventually his Doctorate of Chiropractic from Life University. Dr. Lawrence currently owns and operates AlignLife of Preston, NC with his wife, Dr. Marian Ortíz.
About the Host:
Dr. Joseph Esposito,CEO
Dr. Joseph Esposito, D.C., C.C.N. C.N.S., C.C.S.P., D.A.B.C.N., F.A.A.I.M. C.T.N., is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of AlignLife. As such, he is responsible for the direction of AlignLife as it expands further across a dynamic and rapidly changing healthcare landscape. Dr. Esposito has more than 20 years of experience in a broad range of businesses, including chiropractic, nutrition, technology, and internet marketing.
Dr. Esposito has extensive post-graduate academic accomplishments, as well as 15 years of experience managing successful chiropractic clinics in multiple states. He also is the founder and CEO of Aceva LLC, a service-based nutritional company providing products and services to the AlignLife clinics. As the former CFO of an internet publishing company, Dr. Esposito understands the power of leveraging the internet to impact the lives of millions of Americans.
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Dr. Joseph Esposito: Hi, this is Dr. Joe Esposito. Welcome to another episode of align your practice. I'm here again with Dr. Matt Lawrence. We had a conversation on a previous podcast about opening practice going from associate ship to owner. We talked about the COVID crisis. My favorite discussion is leaving victimhood. So if you missed that, please go back and listen to that. So Dr. Matt, how are you?
Speaker:Dr. Matt Lawrence: I'm doing great. Yeah, we just got done with that podcast kind of lit me up. But now I'm excited about the next topic. So thanks for having me. This
Speaker:Dr. Joseph Esposito: topic is going to be about opening practice with your spouse to chiropractors. Now that is not a low debt experience. We're talking about half a million dollars in debt to doctors ready to roll. First off, I just want to give, give some props to our good friends. And some of the greatest doctors I know. Dr. Joe Cluedo, Dr. Deb surround, they were your mentors, and you said you purposely, you literally drove almost an hour to work inside a practice. And it wasn't only because these are cool people, it's you want to emulate a style of practice, which is pretty smart. The way you navigate it. I talk a little about that. So students that are looking to emulate reiterating some of those points and it has to match what you want to talk about the practice with a couple and what you saw what you're trying to accomplish yourself.
Speaker:Dr. Matt Lawrence: Yeah, so me and my fiance, we wanted to open a practice together, that was always the goal. So we talked about when you look for that internship or associate ship, it has to be congruent with how you want to practice in a way that you can emulate someone you can look up to. And we found that perfect match as Sugar Hill, because I got to learn from Dr. Joe and Dr. Deb, every single day. They've been in practice. Now probably I think it's 25 years. But at that point, it was like 20 years, you know, a couple all these ups and downs, which is growing and creating this amazing, beautiful practice and they're still together, they're still in practice together. All the patients love them, they have just as great culture. And so we wanted to emulate that and take that style, make it our own, but learn from them of, you know, how can we be successful because you hear of I mean, even just like you laughed about the half a million dollars in debt, but just the thought of mentioning opening something with your spouse or working with your spouse, most people laugh, like most of my patients, you know, like, oh my gosh, like you guys were great together, like I couldn't work with my spouse I couldn't do. It is like kind of a daunting task. And you have all these naysayers, people like kind of making you doubt if it's the right decision. But when you learn from someone that has done it the right way, it makes it a lot easier.
Speaker:Dr. Joseph Esposito: So you learn from these guys, and like, let's talk about some of the guidance you got. Because then we're going to talk about how hard it is to follow and how you go right off the deep end with paranoia. And fear drives you into breaking all the rules, or how to practice with a spouse. And then you reach out I liked your story, because you rechecked yourself, you and Miriam and said, okay, and then you rebuilt back some of the things you kind of academically learn from your mentors, right. But when you're in the mix of adversity and pain and conflict and the COVID crisis, you know, opening a practice during that time was probably no one gets it unless you went through that because it's a worldwide pandemic, that hasn't happened before. So you have an experience that a lot of people just can't, can't understand what you went through. But But what are some of the frameworks that you learn, like, if you, if you are in front of a classroom, academically? These are the five things you do if you're going open practice with a spouse, and you knew this before you went in? Yet? What are the handful of things that you wanted?
Speaker:Dr. Matt Lawrence: The handful of things, you know, just to name, the biggest one is, don't take work home with you. So, you know, keep work and life and you know, set read, because when you start bringing work home with you, that can start to get toxic. So that was something we knew, we're like, oh, yeah, we'll never do that. We learn that right away. We won't bring work home with us. The other thing is communication. And it'd be really communication and how you do it at home, but also in the office, spinning time where you take like coffee breaks or lunch breaks. So for instance, like instead of going through all these problems at home or in the office, like spend a dedicated time where you guys can just go out and spend an hour together and just talk about civilly, the issues bring up things that can improve things that have gone wrong. So all of those things that we knew we shouldn't bring in, then yeah, we still found ourselves doing that.
Speaker:Dr. Joseph Esposito: So talk about that your open practice, and I liked the way you explained it. Yeah, when your eyes like walk us through like a normal day You're in the midst of COVID, you're trying to open the practice. And you know the rules. And here you are with your spouse and take us through. It was very funny the way that
Speaker:Dr. Matt Lawrence: yeah, so okay, you wake up in the morning and you gotta go to work. First, we're driving a lot together. So then you have kind of the wait time of like, you know, getting ready. And then having that stress, you talk, he's talking about work, as you're getting ready, you get in the car, you're talking about work, you get to work, obviously, you're working the whole time. And then as soon as work is over, you get back in the car, bringing it back in the car, you're at home, the middle of your meal. Top issue and talking about this case, talking about something that someone said, brushing your teeth at night, you continue, it's all the way until literally you're like about to turn the lights off, you didn't stop talking about what. And we got stuck in that I mean mentioned with like the COVID. And just being like so just kind of wired up with that. It took us a while to break that pattern until like one day, we just caught ourselves at home, and like stressing ourselves out. And it's like, look, this is our alone time. But from now on, Let's just not talk about work at home, once we get home, Let's just not talk about work. And then after that it went from, okay, instead of once we get in the car after work, Let's just not talk about work at that point. And then it was, okay, let's actually create a post huddle at the end of the day where we get all of the things that happened that day, all of the areas that we would bring home with us, let's talk about it here before we even step out of the door. And then as we just kept tweaking that, we noticed like once we left the office, like a weight off our shoulders, we knew not to talk about it. And it wasn't like it was easy, it really is a lot easier. It's like you put all the things out that you wanted to say, now you can go home and you can have a life, you can have you know, the relationship. So when we weren't doing that, it definitely takes a toll on your relationship. Because you're stressed, you're busy all the time, you just can't, you know, communicate the way you want to. But just setting those boundaries and adding the coffee date, a more designed coffee date, like specifically on a certain day at a certain time. It really changed a lot.
Speaker:Dr. Joseph Esposito: So I always say the phrase that entrepreneurs don't starve the drought. And meaning they drown because they're doing too much. So when you're in the adversity of opening and starting a new business, you innately think you should think and talk about it non stop, right? Because you're in the stress of it. Would you agree that having that separation where you have time to rejuvenate, take a nap, spend time with your wife, taking walks, having coffee, enjoying your dog enjoying a hike and there's no work? Do you actually feel more productive when you actually get into work mode? Because you're not thinking about it? 24 hours was it actually more productive
Speaker:Dr. Matt Lawrence: 100% Because you're just when you don't do that you're just in this like long drawn out just No, just numb. It's just you're always you're not motivated. You're not excited about what you're doing as much because you're just always in that state, which is really dedicating like, like you said, Go out for hikes on the weekend with the dog. Now we have a 10 month old baby. So like our time when we're not in the office, it's just enjoying time with him and enjoying our family time. Like it just feels really good. But come Monday, it's like, Alright, here we go. Game on. And we we got that out of the way. Like we just had a great weekend. Whereas before, it was like, Oh, how was your weekend? Like, I mean, I pretty much worked the whole weekend and thought about work the whole time. So now we just try to dedicate that time and it takes a whole load off our shoulders.
Speaker:Dr. Joseph Esposito: But it's really like putting a new hat on, isn't it like when you're in the practice your two colleagues, your doctors who respect each other, you critique each other, you're managing patients and you have a hat on as a doctor colleague, that I'm not in a spousal practice, but I would assume it's a different energy. Now you leave the office, you take that hat off and now you're a spouse and you may be a little bit funnier band through maybe a little sarcastic maybe you have your personalities and things you're attracted to each other and and maybe a different is it like a different energy that you say, Okay, now we're us, or is that how you would have to handle it? Because it's this respect. When you're doctors in a clinic that I'm sure it's a different energy? Mildly. I don't know. What do you think of that?
Speaker:Dr. Matt Lawrence: It definitely is a different energy. It's not like you're putting a face on for the patients but you're just keeping it professional. You're keeping it very professional. We still laugh and we have a good culture with students. We still have fun. So it's not like you're just strict robotic when you get here but it is a different energy. It's a different relationship. We talk to each other a little differently. We You go home, you can be you know, the person you fell in love with, like the person that you're your home like, this is our family time. And we also have strategically kind of given ourselves roles like at the office and at home where we're in the office, I take more of like the lead cap, like I kind of CEO of the office, I guess you could say where we get home, she's more of like, CEO of the home.
Speaker:Dr. Joseph Esposito: That's what I was getting to is so little power, difference. power shift. Right? Yeah, at home, it's, what should I do?
Speaker:Dr. Matt Lawrence: Yeah, there's definitely like that different, different hat. And we're both Okay. With like, we're both okay with that.
Speaker:Dr. Joseph Esposito: So you have a lot of expectations like setting, you said, communication. But offline, you were saying, it's before you even start. And that was advice you wanted to give to, let's say, students, couple getting married, engaged. They're in school, the radio star, one of the things you mentioned, I wanted to bring up was setting expectations up front. Is that a strong? advice from you to the doctors?
Speaker:Dr. Matt Lawrence: Yeah, setting expectations of how you want your practice to look. We went through like, okay, you know, how many, how many patients? Do you want to see a day? How many do I comfortably want to see a day? How do I want to segregate that out throughout the day throughout the week, just knowing that you're on the same page, because if you want to completely different style of practices, or, you know, one person wants to grow more than the other person, like it can definitely create a conflict. So you got to get on the same page set the expectation of the vision, you asked me on the last podcast, like where do we want to see ourselves in three years, and the vision has to intertwine in some way, doesn't mean you're going to see everything the exact same way. But you got to set that expectation and know what the other person sees. Because if not, then there's been times where we didn't set, we didn't pre frame or set a certain expectation. And it does cause friction. So right away, you know, set the vision of what, how you want to practice how many people you want to see what you want it to look like how you want to communicate with patients, how you want to set up that difference between the work life balance and who you are at work versus at home, one of your coffee dates is going to be you got to just definitely set those expectations.
Speaker:Dr. Joseph Esposito: And I like the concept of the coffee like a coffee meeting versus a date night, a date nights where you probably take out your wife take her a nice dinner, you listen to music, you go do something, you know, in nature, with a family like that, or just to date night, where you're taking a wife out and it's date night versus a coffee meeting, is that the way you relate it like a coffee meeting was like okay, finances, kids, chores, business, 90 minutes, take some notes, and we're done. Or we're not talking about it all weekend. Is that the kind of, yeah.
Speaker:Dr. Matt Lawrence: Okay, well, we love coffee. So it's easy for us. But we have the date nights where we go out and we have dinner and go out and just like really enjoy that time. But we also love our coffee time to just sit down and talk to each other. But it is a different thing. It's like, you know, date night, it's literally voice a date night and then, okay, let's work on ourselves in our business. And let's just dedicate an hour to do that over some coffee. And so it's casual, but it's strategic. It's game planning. It's a it's a space for everyone to get out what, where I've been, how I've been feeling, how she's been feeling, where's places like we think we can improve in the practice with without judgment, and just strategic like game planning. And we'd like to coffee because like I said, we enjoy coffee, and it's less time. And you just really get to iron it out. And so we love that. So we try to at least once a week strategically for the office. And then we do have some other coffee dates where we just hang out and talk. So
Speaker:Dr. Joseph Esposito: that's awesome. How about like working together where it's like, you have different styles like maybe like you would lose a patient because it's a pregnant mom wants to your wife or she would lose someone because you got heavier hands and they want it. It does take a little while to figure out your genius in chiropractic with a couple where it's like I've seen that before one's like fallen the other. I'm not as good as you are. Why'd you Why'd they go see you or why they go? Why did they go see you or whatnot? Does it take a little while to really appreciate the genius of the individual Cairo the artfulness, the way they practice as two different chiropractors that serve greatness in their own right, or how does that work with a couple your
Speaker:Dr. Matt Lawrence: regarding? Yep, I would agree. To that point. It definitely took some time and experience just learning our size. We worked in two different practices. So When we came together, we were still learning about each other and seeing how each other operates around the patient. I mean, because you can roleplay all you want, but until the doors are open and someone's walking in the door, you don't really see it. But it has been a learning experience. And we're starting to spend a while now we've been picking up on what patient might better suit you, what patient might better suit you, or, Hey, I did this new patient this day one with this patient, I just felt like we had a good connection, or maybe it wasn't a great connection, I just think you may be better connection to take over here. Because generally we like to, you know, if you did the day one you to do the day two. But if we don't sense that connection, or we feel like this patient might connect with you better, we strategically will move that around, and a lot of times that person that may have been disinterested or just not quite engaging with one person. I let her take over with that person and it like they turn into a different person they flip a switch so interesting, I wouldn't you have that experience there of like, okay, who is better suited for this person?
Speaker:Dr. Joseph Esposito: Yeah, that's interesting. I didn't think benefit of the different styles actually be an asset to the practice as much as you just mentioned. That's awesome. That's great. Great advice for for for new doctor. So just in summation, the advice is to separate work and personal and family set expectations before you start. study each other's innate genius and try to start figuring out where each other's roles are. I love your idea that coffee meetings that date nights, just really good insight. So if any of you are couples looking at opening a practice, I'm sure I don't want to speak for you, but I'm sure Dr. Lawrence would take a call and give you some insight, like his mentors did for him to kind of guide you if you're trying to navigate leaving school, right? Would you
Speaker:Dr. Matt Lawrence: Would that be okay? Text me. You can reach out to me through through email or Instagram. Anywhere you can easily get a hold of me. I'd be happy to take a call with you.
Speaker:Dr. Joseph Esposito: Awesome, awesome. That's That's great insight. Thanks, doc. It was I'm going to try to bring you on in a year when that second practice is opening in your there's probably going to be a couple more kiddos along this journey. I know that's gonna
Speaker:Dr. Matt Lawrence: definitely some more dogs. Kids along the line. Yeah. Love it.
Speaker:Dr. Joseph Esposito: All right, doc. Thanks again. Good. All right. Have a great day. Have a great day. Thanks.