What is YOUR Next Iteration?

Dr. Joseph Esposito: Hello, and welcome to this episode of align your practice podcast is Dr. Joe Esposito. I'm here with my good friend, Dr. Joe Clarino. How're you doing? Doc?

Dr. Joe Clarino: What's up, buddy? Thanks for having me, man excited.

Dr. Joseph Esposito: So this, I asked about topics and Joe came up with a thought about the next iteration of yourself. So really excited to break that down because all of us are in I love the statement that that I use when I lecture is where you are right now is exactly where you're supposed to be based on your behaviors and your actions, whether it's a weight loss seminar, business seminar, exactly where you're at the money in your bank account, the relationships you have, the job and the outcomes you're creating is exactly where you're supposed to be based on your behavior. So that's a good opening, about self awareness of where we are based on our behavior. So give me some scoop. Actually, before we do that, I, I don't know why, Joe, but I want to tell this funny story. Joe and I have known each other for a long time. And if you know Joe cleaner, some you know him. But this was just so funny. We were in the car together. And it's Joe and I first started working together. And we're driving. And I'm always thinking the next thing what I got to get done, and we're pulling into a parking lot. And I take off my seatbelt while I'm finishing driving. And he just stops it says, Where are you going? While I was driving? I don't know. Hopefully you guys laugh at that when he actually thought I was getting out of the car while I was driving. Because I was getting the next step ready, like I gotta get out of the car. Wasn't that funny?

Dr. Joe Clarino: Well, because sometimes your foot gets in front of the other foot before the other foot is ready. And I was like, He's why he's driving, to jump out of the car, because he's got to get out of the car. And I was like, I'm gonna end up in the storefront. And you know, so that's funny. Yeah. Where are you going?

Dr. Joseph Esposito: We're going anyway, I thought you guys would enjoy that. So Joe, give me some scoop you recently trained on this and a little props about Joe. He's probably nurtured more interns and doctors, anyone I personally know, he's got a heart for the profession, helping people get out of their own way. And, you know, I really appreciate his insight, he's always has a different twist of an insight. And, and this topic is going to be pretty, pretty awesome. So give me your scoop on what you trained on in regards to this.

Dr. Joe Clarino: Well, you know, I think next iteration is a is a good topic in the sense of like, you know, everybody's gotta grow to the next level, I don't care what level you're at, you're at a, you know, five figure level, you're at a six figure level seven figure level eight figure level nine figure level, like, there's always the next iteration, and I'm putting a money value to it. And money is just a byproduct. But that's just giving it a value in that sense. Nine out of 10 times, it's more it has nothing to do with money has everything to do with your insight of yourself and the maturity of what you believe you are or not. And, you know, it's funny, like, you know, this give a little bit of background on my story. I started playing football when I was seven, and just was good at it. I was just I was just good at it and had a gift to play it. And I became the captain and I didn't know what leadership look like no one taught me that no one told me that they just said you're the leader. And then my father said, just lead by example. Just show him what to do. And they'll do it. And that was my level of leadership experience. Like that was my coaching for leadership. No other coach sat me down. No one told me what to do, how to do it what it meant. It just was like, go do it. I heard Joe Paterno talk about it in high school on a a tape once. And that rocked me because I was like, oh, there's something else in this thing called leadership that I didn't know what it was. But I still had no bearing of what it meant. I just remember it sparked my interest I listened to in locker room. And I remember he hit us man talk and it rocked my world. I was like, wow, like this is this isn't this is this is powerful stuff. And but what happened was I just became a leader that was a Yellin screamer. And in sports, you can get away with that sometimes, but even at that people didn't follow. So then I stopped yelling and screaming and just became an example. And I just literally led and never talked. I just did good things and never spoke. And I kind of went from extreme and went from this side to that side. And neither of them were effective. And no one taught me that and then I got into practice and I thought, well, maybe the yelling leadership thing could go back to where I was. And that proved to be not so productive at all. I had 52 W twos in one year of employees. I had 52 employees in one year. So that was that proved not to be a good system. And and then I blamed everybody else. It was always everybody else's fault. I can't find good employees. I can't have my practices and growing I was always the excuse, Excuse Excuse. Until one day I said Well, maybe it's not them. Maybe it's me and that I got hurt, that that was a tough one like that I didn't like admitting that there was something wrong with me or that I was less than or I needed help or, you know that I had a, I needed a life preserver for that. And then my wife, although we practice together, and she's amazing, you know, my wife, she's incredible. She just couldn't be that preserver. For me. She couldn't, she couldn't give me that enlightenment, although she tried. I just couldn't hear her, right. And so it just took me at some point in time to surrender, and let go and realize that I didn't have the answers. And then I needed help. And then I needed someone to show me the way to make this thing called chiropractic successful. And that's how I started this path of creating a next iteration of me. And that's what I trained on the other day about.

Dr. Joseph Esposito: So that's the lesson for people listening is what's the next iteration of view? And I like what you said, you have to get to the next level. And then I would question and say, Do you really have to get the next level. But when you study, anything in life, whether it's a relationship, if you get caught, not progressing the relationship, it stagnates, you start to doubt it. When you have a business that stagnates, you start doubting the business, is it me is it if you don't constantly reiterate, if you've grown the business, because you can, then you feel like you got to sell it into another, there's always movement. And the movement is consciousness is becoming more self aware, and more ability to utilize your knowledge skills experience inside of your current understanding and your consciousness. And to me that I know that sounds a Lhasa Tarik. But it's really about your own self awareness, and reflect on your story, which helps people listening. You got to a point of self aware, you didn't know the answer, but at least you knew it was coming internal, that took you what 20 years to say that's probably inside. So those of you listening, you know, the journey on this podcast, if you leave today and say, you know, what, what is it inside of me? Like Joe said, the next iteration myself? What is it? Is it more humility? Is it being a better listener? Like what is it is the next iteration, I think that's kind of where you are going with the concept. But for us all to figure out what the next iteration is.

Dr. Joe Clarino: Yeah. And when I, you know, when I started to change, what happened was, I started to realize that, you know, I'm quick to gun I've got anger issues, like I am, I am, I am a jersey Ight. Through and through, like, I just, it's like my identification. That's like, it's weird. And I'm, although I embrace it to this day, I think there's parts of me that the roughness is is good, like, everybody tried to make me smooth. And I'm like, No, I'm not smooth, I want to be a little rough. And that's just who I am, like, take it or leave it in that sense. But I also learned that I have to meet people where they are, and I have to connect with people, whether it's patients or doctors or teams, you have to find out who they are and what they're about. And when I started really learning about people, and understanding the human nature of people, like, who are they, how do they tick? How do they think, how do they act? Why do they act this way? Why do I act this way? Why do I react this way? Why do they act this, like, I started looking at all that, and analyzing it, like really analyzing it, and thinking of all the lessons that I've had along the way. And I'm trying to steer people away from doing all the painful things that I went through, I went through a lot of pain over the last 25 years of learning. To not go through that pain, and fast forward the process. So they could condense it quicker, faster and easier. Instead of just doing all these hard life lessons, it's just not worth it. It's that it's this. It's the you don't need it, you can actually fast forward it much quicker. But the reality of it is, is that once I started to see what people really how they tick, I was able to meet them where they are, talk to them, connect with them at a level, make them understand where their shortcomings are, or even the shortcomings. That's a bad word, where they weren't seeing themselves for what they were worth. Like. I believe that everybody's got a genius. I believe everybody's got amazing abilities that God has given him. There's things that I'm great at that other people aren't. And there's things other people are great at that I'm not. And I've learned to embrace that, like I know what I suck at. And there's certain things I really suck at things. Because other things I'm really great at. And when I started to figure that out and meet people where they're emotionally and help them and guide them, it helped me grow like so it was weird. Like the more I gave, the more I got and it just became this, this given this give and take kind of thing and it became a purpose of mine. Like I wanted to coach and teach as much as I could and I've went I've helped coach hundreds of doctors now. And it's been fun. It's been exciting and I've learned a lot from the process. But that was an that was a part of my next iteration in the sense of me giving to get and And that was a, it was an amazing season for me. And I really enjoyed them, they gave me a lot, and I still coach and teach, but it's not as much as I used to. But the reality was a reflection of that for me was I realized how people need to look in the mirror and be aware of who they're who they are and their greatness. And they need someone to tell them that. And they need someone to show them that and each show needs to make them understand that they don't have to be great at everything. And then they need to make sure that they're hiring and knowing systems and what it is to be a great leader and doctor and show him the fundamentals. And once they do that, then they can really go and start moving through the iterations of being great.

Dr. Joseph Esposito: You had said before the call in a system like align life where you have the same website, same brand, same systems, and you could have two different doctors and that literally have about 20x difference in revenue. Maybe even the same town, I've seen that as well. And the same within 510 miles away from each other. That disparity. I don't know if it's to overly simplify. But if we take the concept of the next iteration ourself, could we make it as simple as saying, the next iteration of your utilization of systems? Or your next iteration of your leadership? Can we put it in two buckets? Is that too simplified? Because we know some people are not using systems, they level up, they double and triple. They're just not using system then we know some people using systems and they're just don't have good leadership. I don't know if that's to simplify. But that could be a way to get somebody listening to kind of figure out am I in this box? Or this box? What do I have to lift up? What are your thoughts on that?

Dr. Joe Clarino: Yeah, I you know, I think you know, when you look at clinics that start together, and then one takes off and one doesn't, right? Or you have three clinics even have one take off ones middle and ones well, and you think okay, they have all the same system? Same sign, same wall, same poster, same everything. What's the difference? Like there's you all the toolbox are the same? Okay, now, what do you get? Yeah, here's a piece of wood. Here's a chisel and a hammer widow, something someone, someone, a widow, something beautiful, and someone will look at it and go, I don't know what to do with it. Right? The difference is, I think some of it comes down to who you're who you're innately are, right? Like there's different things inside you that you're born to. You're born as a systems person, you're born not as a systems person, me by nature and not a systems person. Right now, I've trained and conditioned my mind to be a systems person. But by nature, I am a horrible systems person, I want to fight every system there is if you tell me to go left, I'll go right because I just hate being told what to do. So like, systems don't resonate with me, right. But I trained myself to understand systems, because systems, systems help build teams systems help beat a build practices, systems, help build marriages, systems, help raise kids, like systems are in everything we do. And once I started to realize, Wait, life is full of systems and these things that we have around them. And if we don't have this, I do not have time to give it a morning, go to bathroom to brush your teeth. It's a system, you create a system for yourself, right? You cook something, you pick up the pan, you take out the oil, like there's certain systems that you do, you just don't realize you're doing them. And once I stepped back and realized that I'm doing them anyway, let me embrace them instead of fighting them. And what I did was I realized, I need to understand them and own them. But I don't want to control them. I hired someone else to do that. I found someone who loves systems who loves doing that. And then I put them in that place. I have a full understanding of it now. And I embrace it, and I want to have everybody around it. But the reality of it is that so I think systems is part of it's who you who you who you're you're born as an understanding that number two, I think once you end either embrace it or have people around you, then it's the rate of implementation in which you put it. So there's either certainty there's not certainty, like you're either going to say, yep, this worthless do it, which I see that on people that go in and go up. That's a script, they put it in play. And they're like, I got results. Other people are like, Well, this was me, this was totally me. Does it? Does that work really matter? Do we have to do it exactly that way? I always wanted to make it clear Reno's way, not that way. And all it did, it took me 15 years of a full circle to come back and do it the original way I was told, so it took me a long way the scenic route to get there when the reality of it was you just follow the system. So I think there's a little bit of that. I think a little bit of both in there.

Dr. Joseph Esposito: Yeah. So So systems is one the other is leadership. So if you have systems dialed in, but as you grow the organization, your clinic, you have to lead people and sometimes their fall down is on the leadership. How do you know that staff retention is down? You're you have no labor efficiency, you're hiring more and more people because you're inefficient in your ability to manage You don't keep people accountable or responsible. So either you're turning over so much, or you're over hiring and your payrolls too high, because you you're not creating efficiency, labor efficiency is the term because you don't create accountability. But if I was to step out of those two systems, if I was looking at my next iteration is IT systems is a leadership. The third is what our I don't know the word I'm looking for. But my mindset or the stories I tell myself, because I'm living inside the stories of my limiting beliefs, right, I'm never gonna hit a million dollar clinic, if I don't believe I'm worth it, if I don't think I'm smart enough for good luck enough, whatever, whatever story it is, if your leadership is good, and your system is good, and you still have these limiting beliefs, it will control you even with the other two set. So sometimes it's a self reflection. And I know we may do another podcasts on this, but you had said, what you hate about your business, your practices, what you hate about yourself, or whatever you're mad about outwardly, it's what's inside inwardly, to deeper concept, but it's, it's something that we should break down maybe on a future one, but those are my three leadership systems. And the third would be your limiting beliefs, right? I mean, that's a big one.

Dr. Joe Clarino: Well, leadership is turned around, it's like, it's almost like this word stress, like, Oh, I'm so stressed. Like, it's just thrown around. So loosely. And leadership is a very, very, like stress. It's extremely light, but heavily effective in the sense of like, what it actually does for people and, and leadership, for me is funny, I thought I always had to have the answers as a leader. And what I found to be true, is that, as a leader, I, I only have a few of the answers, right? But I have a set sound way of what I want to do and where I want to go with it doesn't mean I have all the answers. It just means I know where I'm going. And, and I will tell you, as a leader, I've listened and why read in many books on this, the hardest thing a leader does not do the thing, man takes us back, the thing that hurts leaders the most is that they don't stop and think they don't spend time to think about what is going on. I was always reactive, instead of being proactive. And when you think about what you're doing, where the business is going, what people are you leading patients, teams, the business like anything you're doing, your your wife, your kids, anything that you're doing, you have to think about? Why are you leading them this way? What is What are you trying to accomplish with people, and you know, like, in my office, my goal is like, look, I want people to come work for me, whether they stay a week, or 10 years or 30 years, I want them to walk out of there better a better human being. I want them to have better relationships with their families, I want to have better relationships with their with their kids, I want them to go out and be a better person in society, like, like, I just want them to manage money better. I want them to be thrilled and strive and what they're doing in life. I want them to have a better fulfill life. And I think so often people go, Oh, I work for I work for somebody and I can't have those things. Yes, you can, you can. And those dreams can be built on any business that we have. And once I changed that mindset in my practice, that I was going to build great leaders inside the practice, like I wanted to, I want to build five 810 leaders in my practice. So I don't have to be the leader all the time. And once I started changing that attitude, and made them be great leaders and let go, they be they started stepping into the space, right. And then they started to rise up and they started doing it. And we in my office, we read a book, every quarter is as a unit. And we read all kinds of leadership books, marketing books, we read all kinds of every quarter read something different. And it's amazing what it's done for us. We've all we go through the books, we express our feelings, we talk about what we got out of it. And I'm telling you, man, I've seen 180s in my team's lives, like how they look at stuff, how they react to stuff. And including me like I mean, I'm part of that. And it's, it's great. And then we get to understand each other at a higher level. And because of that, you know, that's where leaders are built. And so now when I have a meeting with my team, I do 20% of the talking

where I used to do 80% of the talk. You know, I have a friend of mine, my neighbor, she's got a side job, she

got to $25 million company. And she's like, I am bored out of my mind. I'm like, What do you mean? She's got like, 100 and some place. She's like, I don't do anything anymore. She's like, I am the CEO but the brains are in the room. They're running an operating the shell. I just make sure that we're going in the right direction. takes me an hour a day I'm out.

It's not done. While you think more

Dr. Joe Clarino: is more. It's the opposite as we get bigger and grow but it's less, it's the 180 of what we think. Sorry, I didn't cut you off before.

Dr. Joseph Esposito: No, no, that was that's, that's awesome. So leadership. I think we both learned and one of the books, multipliers that I think you read as well was so game change for me, because it taught you in being a dictator, as a leader. You always speak first, you interrupt you, Trump, you steamroll people. And that's what I thought I grew up same place you did, is leadership is about dominating controlling. It's like setting the pace. And I agree, same on my journey is being quiet and let people speak. Because if you're the leader, and all you do is speak first, you're killing creativity. And what happens when I realize reading multipliers, which we've done some academic study on this podcast with multipliers is allowing nurturing of creativity, like you're saying, with your team to build leaders that you don't give them the answers. You let them solve, and you guide them. But you even if you have the answer, that was hard for me not to give the answer, but guide them, right. Maybe look this way, that's a good idea. What do you think you should do now, instead of giving answers, kind of like what a little kid if you do everything for them, you never build a child to become a leader, when they grow up,

Dr. Joe Clarino: I always say, Joe, you can skin a knee, you can't break your nose. You can skin your knees in my practice, but you can't break your nose, you can't fall on your face and knock your teeth out. But I'll let you skin your knees. Because everybody needs a skin in the year when you know the skin and knee or elbow. But knocking your teeth out hurts and it really screws up right? Breaking your nose is no joke. So I'm okay with that. And as a great leader, I know when they're gonna fall and hit their nose or the teeth. So I'm like that don't you're gonna fall hit your teeth. Or I'm like, You know what, let them scrape their knee, it's okay, let them scrape their knee. And that's what I think that's what, that's what great leaders let people do and give them the space to be and make a little bit make mistakes. So they get a little scar tissue without really hurting the mothership of the business.

Dr. Joseph Esposito: That's awesome. So in closing on this episode, I think for reflection, is look at your next iteration of you is is it an area of systems that you need to improve with your team? Is it leadership stuff that we just talked about being a better leader? Is it mindset, limiting beliefs, they got to break and have a higher consciousness around what are you thinking that's dictating your type of leadership or your intention behind systems that may not be there. So, Joe, thanks for your insight. Appreciate it. Welcome. Talk to you next time.