Top 3 Things We Wish We Knew When Starting a Practice

Dr. Joseph Esposito: Hello, welcome to line your practice podcast is Dr. Joe Esposito. I'm here with one of my good friends and amazing chiropractors, Dr. Cliff Fisher. How're you doing, Doc?

Dr. Cliff Fisher: Awesome. So good to see you.

Dr. Joseph Esposito: Many of you that listen to this have known cliff and I launched this podcast and we did a lot of work together. We were doing a lot of, we did some fun things cliff, we did some book reviews, deep dives, lots of talk on leadership. Today, we're going to start with some humility. The top three things that we wish we knew that we we we could have done or should have done when we first started practice that if you get this knowledge as a new Cairo or an experienced Cairo, it's going to level you up if you get some wisdom from our, our scar tissue or tuition over the years. So let's dive in. Doc, I'll I'll start, I'm going to just name my three. You name your three to get the energy going. And then let's break them down my top three things that I wish I knew, or things I didn't do great. When I first opened. Were these three. Number one. I hired people that I liked. Because they were like me. Yeah. So we can dive deep into these. I'm just going to bring them up, and then we'll dive into them. I'm not hiring people I needed that had assets I didn't have I hired people that were like me my energy. My method of process. Number two, is I wish I had a systems of nutrition and lifestyle integration. I was doing custom work. Not that it's not good work, but genetic testing and anything under the sun, it was so complex. And I was missing the ability to help 95% of the people that needed some of the basic core aspects of wellness lifestyle with diet nutrition that I could have done for everyone. I invested too much time, I should have sent to functional medicine alone practice. That's all they did. And I built this complexity. Number three is I wish I understood the subscription model of wellness. I was constantly resigning people on a wellness plan every year like I was like Cliff, do you want wellness? Again? Does this make sense to smart? Do you want to do it? Do you want to pay for this. And it was like this reset every year, when I couldn't just let them embrace the wellness lifestyle on a subscription service did a mini exam to make sure we're on track or if we didn't have to, we didn't do anything differently. I made a very simple, I create a lot of points of resistance in the relationship with the patient that was totally unnecessary. So those are my top three, what are your top three,

Dr. Cliff Fisher: I love your three. And like when you hit the last one, like this subscription model, you know, honestly, all big business just found subscription model in last three to five years. So they wish they would have known it 20 or 30 years ago. This was a great topic. So the three things I wish I had known back then I think the biggest one is I wish I would have known that I was enough. And that, like people wanted my knowledge not me to be a parent of somebody else's knowledge. Like for me, like God put me on this path. And really to lean into my authentic self, because I think I had a lot of fear of trying to serve to meet their needs rather than to serve to meet my needs. And so that was a big one. And then the other one was I always thought happiness was on the outside. And I don't think I could have said that at that time. But I thought, Oh, I'll be happy when I get to, you know, X number of visits, or I make X amount of money. But like, every time I got to the top of that hill, I was like, Okay, now what's next now what's next. And like the last four or five months, I have been the most fulfilled and the happiest I've ever been in every aspect of my life. And still seeing that such a bigger upside but like I'm like cool, like, you know, so that's been a big thing. And I think the other biggest thing that I wish I'd known was to lean in more. I think sometimes I would, I'd like oh, I need to be better at this if I just knew a little bit more than I could present or I could do that. But to take a leadership role sooner. I think so often, especially newer doctors are waiting for that time when they feel like they know enough. They're good enough that they can now be a leader. Like you're a doctor, that's your ticket to be a leader. It's your Ticket to Ride it's not that you're done. It's that you get to play the game now.

Dr. Joseph Esposito: Huge. So let's pick a couple of these I think the hiring people that like that I like happiness on the outside. And the I'll talk about the systems of nutrition a little bit those three. Let's talk those let's talk break those down for the next 15 minutes and bring some massive value to those those listening. So hire people like me, I'll talk for a moment I'm Sure we both suffer from this one. So when you interview people, you're innately going to attract the people and resonate and have an affinity for people that are like you wired like you. So if you're a dominant personality, if you're an extrovert, if you're compliant, if you're, if you like, humor, if you whatever it is, you're going to resonate around those people. So I was attracting visionaries, and big thinkers and alpha, more dominant type people based on my personality. And they weren't systems, I needed, sometimes an introvert rule following compliant person that followed a checklist. And I had all these big energy people. And we fell down on the systems in the beginning. So I learned that I want to build a team with people that have skills and assets outside of my native genius. So I didn't learn that for a number of years. And we had a, we grew like a machine. But it was messy and hard and volatile, and is scary. Because I had a lot of these big thinkers that that didn't create systems behind it. What is your experience with that story, I'm telling from my experience.

Dr. Cliff Fisher: So whenever you were talking, I just write my notes down like you grew on your passion, hard work and on your shoulders, then so that's how you grow versus like, when you hire the right people, you grow intentionally. And so when you were talking about the hiring, right, I don't know that I even ever had a conscious thought I didn't think I was very unconscious. When I was hiring, I was just like, yep, they'd be great, I can make them work, I can train them to do the things I need them to do versus like being conscious. And I think that's one of the big values with the limelight, is they have a whole system that will tell you who's this person hardwired to be, and then put them in the right role versus like sometimes I would hire a quarterback when I really needed a left tackle to protect me the quarterback to guide that I'd hire another quarterback and we'd have two great quarterbacks, but we wouldn't know blocking. And so I think it was more of unintentional, I think the intention has been the biggest shift for me in the hiring the right person. You

Dr. Joseph Esposito: know, I want to give just a simple plug that cliff does work with align life to teach the team, their inherent value on themselves, their strengths, helped me and our whole entire team on how to find value in ourselves and how we can unify as a team become vulnerable. And on and on and on. I can't I can't say enough about it. But if you get the link below in the show notes just to reach out to support at Elaine life.com. And I can give you a link to his information. But I would highly recommend even a small office if cliffie have programs for this. It's called DOI and it's it's just helped so many people in my life that I highly recommend, if you have a team that you want more unified, if you want to see the potential team more synergized if you want to just feel true to yourself, inside of your journey in business, you may be suffering like am I enough for my like Cliff was saying it's a true solution. So anyway, if you guys want that experience, I'd love to give some insight from my experience. Just go on the show notes and reach out and I'd love to talk through it. So anyway, that's that's a big lesson so that the lesson there guys, if you will, those that are listening is figure out who the person is the job description, the personality, the structure of the job, and then write the ad for that person, not for you. And that's that's general advice on that. The next one happiness was on the flip you were saying you thought happiness on the outside. Typical cliche of I'll be happy when Yeah, 100 visits when I buy the house when I get the wife when I buy the car when I reach this like, and then you're like, never happy on the journey. I'll let you talk to at first and I'll give you some insight my side. So

Dr. Cliff Fisher: literally, it took me getting hit by a car to really understand this because I was 30 I was in 2013 I was driving I had the car I had the wife and a family, the house the practices and everything and I got hit no fault of mine, I got rear ended, herniated two discs in my neck, tore my rotator cuff. And all of a sudden I took a step back to look around like oh my gosh, I'm happy with this. I'm happy with this and happy with that. And of course, it's four or five days before my 40th birthday go through the midlife crisis I go through a divorce I opened my whole family and shattered my whole space and went on this really interesting journey as far as like finding that happiness. And so literally a decade later, it took for me to really understand that the happiness is in the in the inside and me showing up and doing my best work and everything I do and then the results will speak for themselves except I was always comparing myself to my result of what I thought it should be.

Dr. Joseph Esposito: So if you don't have the result, you can't gain happiness. So right Yeah, I'm I'm excited about how we've changed the showcase of allowing life to new doctors, we actually start by understanding the story of what they'd like. And three years from today a detailed story refined with adjectives and emotion and, and your five senses involved in a story to see what is it that you want and then backtracking a core values, and then understanding how you're wired. And then authentically seeing, can we with your, the way you're wired and our system create this reality. So it's a kind of a wild instead of just showing you what we do, it's can we use what we have with your, the way you're wired to create the outcome you're looking for? And that's just the last three months, and it's really been so inspiring. For me, it's, it's not work. It's not, it's not a struggle, it's not a sales thing. It's like, can we help you reach that story? It's been revolutionary for me to think that way and serve people that way. So I think I've learned that through our relationship pleth, and my individual journey is, is happiness is about honoring what you value in your life, I used to dictate happiness to new doctors and align life of like, this is success. This is how you, I'm like, How can I tell someone what happiness is it was so crazy. But you see that in a lot of business, a lot of consulting a lot of process where people kind of define for you happiness, and I, I'm with you, it's I think we're brothers from another word from, from different mothers, but in the same womb in a way, because my last three months has been some of the happiness, happiest, most authentic days of my life in just living in joy. So glad to hear you feeling the same thing.

Dr. Cliff Fisher: And when you were saying that about a line life, it took me right to practice to like, when we first start practice, we're like, I want to be everybody's chiropractor, I want to take care of whoever walks in the door. And there's this grasp on for anybody who comes in versus as you get more, you're like, hey, let's define is this the right place for you or not? And am I in the right relationship? Is this moving me closer to my, you know, my three top priorities this year? And so that's good

Dr. Joseph Esposito: cliff in the office, what you're saying is because if you approach every patient that ways can I do this right relationship? Can I serve their needs? And it's a whole different thought than I hate the feeling of getting new patients. It's such a scarcity. It's trying to convince and get let's serve people meet them, where, where they're at, understand where they're trying to go and see if we can serve? And is it the right relationship? Like Cliff set? Right. And, and that's another podcast, but we could talk about, is this the right relationship with the friends that you have with your mate with your business associates or your partners with your clients? Is it the right relationship? Because the journey of life is, is all about relationships, right? That's yeah, what it is. So yeah,

Dr. Cliff Fisher: all opportunities comes from relationships. And, you know, so anytime you doubt that just to check back, check some of the things that have happened in your life and connect it to the relationship that made that happen.

Dr. Joseph Esposito: Awesome. And the third one I have is systems of integration. I'll say I'll use nutrition, but any topic that you feel Clif, that's, that wasn't systemized, that was too intricate that you thought we had to do, let's say clinical that you just didn't have to. So I, I was proud to be a clinical nutritionist, board certified a diplomat on nutrition and all these other credentials I had, so I was going so nitty gritty on key pieces that took me and it was intriguing intellectually, so I can't say it was a negative, I learned so much over 20 years. But 20 years later, when I'm seeing terminal cancer patients, after all the knowledge I've gained over two decades, first thing I did is how's your water intake? The second thing I was like, What's your sugar intake? First, your fiber and your protein and your carb and your green leafy vegetables and, you know, antioxidants? And then, you know, how's your straps? How's your breathing patterns? How do you sleep like, that's where I ended up after 20 years. And, you know, I have a cancer patient, a terminal cancer patient, real short story here that I met here in Puerto Rico, sitting at a cigar bar with a friend and the guy sits down lights to garnish trembling with his hand. I don't know if I told the story in the podcast, but it was pretty wild. And he seemed kinda uncomfortable. I said this. We said, what's going on? He said, I just came to terms that I'm going to die in the next 90 days. I was told to go to hospice, I can't get treated and I'm going to I'm just gonna die. And I said, Well, that's a choice, you know, make a long story short, I said, think about a call me tomorrow, if you want some help. Call me the next day. He's been, it's been six months, the guy came over, taught him how to breathe and exercise and II, basic stuff, lost 40 pounds. I saw him playing pickleball 334 days ago when he was going to die six months ago. And what did we do? We helped his innate, understand and give it the tools it needs to function optimally. And I'm not knocking the detailed work you can do because it's beautiful stuff. But I didn't need genetic testing to help him wake up his innate immune system. So anyway, any lessons for you in that clinical getting so heavy, or that you kind of make things too complex in your world.

Dr. Cliff Fisher: I think I went back to the hiring process, I felt like I was when I when I was first hiring people, I was reinventing it every time. And now I have a system and a structure. And anybody can follow it. And you know, align Life helped me with a lot of it. And so there's that space, that makes it really easy. And so once you have that system and structure, if a third grader can't follow it, it's probably too complicated. And the other thing that came up for me was like, kind of back on our earlier topic. It's like, we want to help all these people. But really only 10% of the population is probably looking for the solution that you have so and so I'm always trying to now to get to the WHO ARE THE who's the 10%. For me, that's like part of my tribe that wants the same thing that I want. Like everybody says they want to be healthy. Everybody says they want to be successful. But literally across the board 10% will do the work to get there on either one of those two topics.

Dr. Joseph Esposito: Yeah, it makes me think of a number of things, what you just said, because I was thinking about the staffing that's huge. To go from the top what I was seeing in the nutrition side, now we have programs of implementation, a detox program, simple lab test that customized nutrients. So we have stuff in a line life that is templated, but highly clinically effective programs that you can reproduce. And thanks cliff to some of the journey we've had on making things simpler over the years. But the second thing is onboarding. You're right. Every time you brought someone on, there wasn't really onboarding, it was customer teaching based on that person. I don't know why we did that. The third is, every time I did a workshop or lecture, I had to do a new one. Every time the works, I study for hours to do a lecture, learn five talks, do the same five talks throughout the year, make it simple, enjoy it, don't put so much stress into reinventing every single time you do a talk right? Would you agree with that?

Dr. Cliff Fisher: I spent 18 months doing a headache talk once to twice a month all over. And I just got good at that one talk. And I'll tell you it was so different. Because before I'd always done all the different topics. And then what it did was it allowed me to become both a better speaker and better presenting headaches. And then once I had that down, then it was easy to go to the next topic but but like get good at your presentation, like you're opening your clothes, and then your body can change. But until you get that down, don't try to keep doing new talks. You're gonna spend all that time on learning the body, and you're the opening the closes where everything's

Dr. Joseph Esposito: so so the lessons learn there is clinical protocols that can produce the most outcome that are as easy to implement. Number two is onboard people the same way teach them the mission, the vision, the purpose, and and onboard them, like Cliff said, into easy, systematic way that a third grader can do. And third is when you're lecturing, clip, pick one topic and mastered it. Pick one, maybe two or three, but you don't need to revamp every single time you talk and invest that much time. Awesome, man. That was good. That was great. Any other final thoughts?

Dr. Cliff Fisher: No, I think just when you talked about TLI I think the only thing I want to say on that is one of the things we believe in Joe and I we believe we're on the same page on this is the only way for the business to reach his potential is if your people reach their potential. And so that's what you know, align life's dedicated to you I know deal is dedicated to that is helping people reach their potential so your business can reach its potential.

Dr. Joseph Esposito: Awesome. If you're interested in any of the protocols. We talked about staff hiring protocols, nutrition protocols, or the DNI system to help keep your team unified on purpose and understanding their individual value. Just reach out to support at a line life.com And we'll guide you the best weekend. Awesome. Thanks Cliff for joining.

Dr. Cliff Fisher: Thank you Joe.

Awesome.