I’m Dr. Frank Sovinsky and welcome to DC Mentors V-blog.

I want to share with you the idea of managing your practice.  You know 25 years ago Michael Gerber introduced the idea of the E-Myth and revolutionized small businesses.  Well today we have The E-Myth Chiropractor that I co-authored with Michael E. Gerber.  The E-Myth Chiropractor says that most chiropractic practices don’t work but there is a solution.

I want to teach you something about the whirlwind of practice today.  Sometimes you get caught in people, caught in time, you don’t have enough people or the right people, or the right time.  Step back and you start to look at chiropractic business as managing the work that needs to be done, managing the time.  In other words, manage the clock because it’s very important.  Time equals life to people.

Then you manage the space, the office space, the flow of the office.  We think that small is the new big, meaning we want to keep your overhead under your feet.  So don’t look at management as managing people but managing the processes, managing the things that you can actually grab ahold of and take this whirlwind and make it spin the direction you want  it to and don’t be driven by it or let it spin you.

We want you to be compelled to make a great chiropractic business not be propelled down into the ground, not consumed by it.

The E-Myth Chiropractor, give it a read.

Hi, I’m Dr. Frank Sovinsky and welcome to another DC Mentors’ V-blog.  We’re going to continue our tour of the Fountainhead and here with me is another Palmer graduate, my good friend, Dr. Wade Anunson.  We’re sitting out here in the garden, outside of BJ’s house where there are all these statues of warriors and passion.  What year did you graduate here?

Dr. Anunson – February 1994

Dr. Sovinsky – And in your mind, as you graduated, why did you want to get out and go out into Wisconsin?  What did you want to accomplish?

Dr. Anunson – I wanted to make a difference and I absolutely knew I could.  As a student you’re just chomping at the bit to go and touch people in a way that you know you can help them.  Being around the students and this energy here at homecoming is phenomenal and it’s palpable, the hunger that the chiropractic students have and I can so resonate.  It reminds me and refreshes me of why I began this journey as a chiropractor and why I started on this trek and so it’s been grassroots, pulling back to my heart strings.

Dr. Sovinsky – You’re going to be on the road next week and speak to the students at Palmer’s Florida campus and then you’re going to California to speak to that campus.  When you’re talking in front of the students it’s not about philosophy, but philosophy of business.  That’s one of the things about the Palmer Center for Business Development here – it’s about all the things we wish we’d had  exposure to as a student.  You know, obviously we got the wonderful clinical competencies, we know how to adjust.  We kind of start to know why we adjust, but that’s a developmental thing, right?  It’s mastery of that.  And then looking at, “Oh we have to run a business.”  I know you’re doing this not just because of a philanthropic effort, but what are getting back as you stand in front of these thriving, inquisitive minds and very critical thinkers? 

Dr. Anunson – Boy you said it right there with the critical thinkers . . . they want information, they’re hungry for real true leadership and they’re sniffing it out.  They’re really scrutinizing who’s in front of them as to what may be behind the scenes and I can really appreciate the fact that they are open and yet a bit cautious. I respect it.

I’m getting what we can do to change this profession.  You nailed when you said we did not have the Palmer Center for Business Development and it’s such an opportunity to come out and actually have the tools that we didn’t have.  You and I learned through the school of hard knocks and developed and through DC Mentors’ awesome program of streamlining and giving systems to your chiropractic business and now looking at it from a business model saying our profession needs help.  And these chiropractic graduates, you guys are going  to be the difference.  So being able to serve them some of that and offer something is fulfilling in a lot of ways for me.  It’s a way to give back.

Dr. Sovinsky – And the students love you.

Hi, you know this cat.   I’m Dr. Wade Anunson this is the one and only Dr. Frank Sovinsky, co-author of “The E-Myth Chiropractor.”  We’re here on campus of Palmer College of Chiropractic at homecoming.  You’ve been kicking some tail, everyone seems to be tugging at your strings, the students are just hungry. They want a piece of you. 

Dr. Sovinsky  – I think the students want a piece of somebody that’s got an authentic kind of a message for them, someone that is not promising them overnight success, but promising them work and promising them that there is a reward at the end of that.  So I’m thinking that’s it’s not a piece of me, it’s a piece of this E-Myth Chiropractor message and the DC Mentors spin we have as chiropractic consultants.  The message that you can create your dream chiropractic practice with effort the right effort, with the right work and the right intensity and the right clarity and the right passion behind the why you do what you do.

Dr. Anunson – It’s electric.

Dr. Sovinsky – I like the idea that it might be me who they want to come up and talk with, and I’m not being that humble.   It’s like when you talk to a patient about the message of how your body should be able to fix this, and in most cases it does, but I think your past the point of it doing it on its own – you exercise and all of that’s awesome but I think you’re going to want to listen to the alarms going off in your life. A whisper, if ignored, becomes a loud siren.  So I think they’ve seen sirens in the chiropractic profession when they watch some of the mentors maybe not do that well in practice, when they’ve watched some people and they look at magazines that talk about it being a bad environment and they’re going, “There seems to be hope here, and there seems to be a plan, and it seems to be real.”  So I think that’s kind of what it is, at least in my mind.

Dr. A – Well you’re obviously very humble, I set you up for that.  It’s exciting to see the excitement around the message you have.  It’s really exciting to be a part of that to, just from the stand point of sometimes being a conduit for people in my life, patients, and students, and patients who have become students, getting into that message and then being able to disseminate what you’re really trying to project into our profession, to clean up some of the minutia that gets in the way of us really having an impact that you and I both believe we can.

Which brings me to my next question.  There are successful chiropractors and they see the subtitle of the book and go, “Why Most Chiropractic Practices Don’t Work and What to Do about It,” and they go, “Huh?  I’m pretty successful what is he talking about?”

Dr. S – Well they literally are sitting on a whale fishing for minnows.  What do I mean by that?  Right in front of them . . . This is not scarcity.  There are human beings all over the planet, all over your community that would  be amazing if they had an awareness and willingness and ability to be amazing.  So if you are already locked up in your mind that, “Here I am.  Nobody in my community really gets it so I’ll go out here and maybe they’ll get it,  and maybe they’ll buy some vitamins or maybe I’ll do cold laser, or maybe I’ll do this . . .”  So I think that’s what we’re doing, I think it’s right in front of us.  And to play off of that fishing theme – it’s a blue ocean strategy, don’t compete out there for the minnows because all you’re going to get is a minnow. You’re sitting on a wonderful philosophy, a wonderful science and a wonderful art that is kind of been ignored a bit.  Come back to that and provide something that’s affordable, accessible, and hassle free.  Then you’ll be in a blue ocean, not a bloody red one.

Hi, I’m Dr. Frank Sovinsky and welcome to another DC Mentors’ V-blog. I’m here with my esteemed colleague, and yours, Dr. Todd Curzie from Alaska. And we’re out the office of B.J. Palmer, in Davenport, Iowa.

We’ve been talking about how we’ve got to bridge this gap between what people are trying to call faith based chiropractic, when it’s actually tradition based.

You have two different degrees in the chiropractic philosophy and a lot of people don’t even know that there are degrees available. So what did you get?

Dr. Curzie – There was initially the Legend of Chiropractic Philosophers which was suppose to be a similar to a PhC, the Philosopher of Chiropractic offered many years ago. I believe the last class was in the 60’s. And now that became an honorary program, after a year long program in that study and writing a thesis, and then they developed it into a four year degree associated with the International Chiropractors Association and that was a diplomat of the Philosophical Chiropractic Standards. I did that for the love of chiropractic philosophy.

Dr. Sovinsky – By the way, Dr. Curzie and I received our medallions together yesterday, as Fellows in the Palmer Academy of Chiropractic. It’s a big honor for us. I just wanted to point out that’s what we’re wearing here, it’s not because he’s Italian.
So we went into your credentials, but why on earth would you go back and study and have to write a thesis and have to spent time, money and treasures to get those?

Dr. Curzie – I traveled back to the homeland every other month for five years for the love of chiropractic and so it was more than just, “I like philosophy and chiropractic.” I really felt in tune with the entire chiropractic philosophy and B.J. with his unbelievable ways that he had and I just thought that was something that I want, I want to be a philosopher of chiropractic. I wanted to learn more and I got to the program and found out how much I did not know, like just a normal complete cycle. We talk about the safety pin cycle and then we talk about the normal complete cycle and the abnormal complete cycle and to go through all those little things and we went through each one and broke it down over days and months.

Dr. Sovinsky – If you were looking in terms of not only that language of mental impulse, because a lot of times the younger philosophers, the younger chiropractic students kind of see that as an archaic language – How would you describe a mental impulse, how do you actually talk to a patient about that?

Dr. Curzie– I don’t ever talk with a patient about it. If I had to describe mental impulse I’d be going mental trying to describe it. But we talk about the things in today’s world. We talk about putting things into the universe and that’s in a mental realm, right? So we have this other realm that we’re trying to. “Oh, I put it out in the universe, now it came true.” And as chiropractors we do that all the time but now that that mental realm is becoming more a part of our society . . .

Dr. Sovinsky – Oh you mean because of people using the word?

Dr. Curzie – Yes, people using these things now that are not concrete.

Dr. Sovinsky – So, what’s irritating you is that people are talking about ideas that chiropractors talked about 1890?

Dr. Curzie – Oh yeah, the stealers.

Dr. Sovinsky – Ahhhhh, the stealers. You don’t mean the football team, you mean the stealers. OK, got it.

Dr. Curzie – No I mean the actual stealers but we look at all these all these people like Deepak, I love Deepak, and people still don’t know who Deepak is, which is amazing, but he talks chiropractic. Bruce Lipton, he talks chiropractic and now everything’s energy.

Dr. Anunson – I love how you encapsulated more than financial success for chiropractors, more than clinical success and you brought in the fact that we are multi-faceted with our relationships, both family and our communities, being successful in a lot of ways is what you want to see happen.

Dr. Sea – Well, as a chiropractic business coach and working with hundreds of chiropractors over the years, nothing is more tragic, to me, than seeing a doctor accumulate a lot of the worldly trappings and be alone, he has no relationship with his spouse, has no relationships with his kids, has no relationship with his community, his friends because he spent so much time simply building his practice to have these “things.”  That, to me, is not a definition of successful or affluence.  “He who dies with the most toys wins” is a fallacy.   It has nothing to do with my definition of success, affluence and a well balanced and fulfilling life.

Dr. Anunson – Beautiful, one more thing. DC Mentors has a Brain Spa coming up which is a signature chiropractic seminar which will be in Lake Tahoe, September 23 & 24, 2011.  You are teaching a major nugget in that chiropractic seminar. 

Dr. Sea – One of the old principles is that if you take care of the patients, the money will take care of itself.  It’s another fallacy.  If you don’t have the money consciousness and the money IQ or financial IQ it doesn’t work.  If you don’t have a system in place that allows you or systematizes what you do with your finances, how to save, how to pay off debt, how to accumulate wealth, etc., if you don’t have that systematized you struggle for a long time to get any traction in that aspect of your life.  So the Brain Spa seminar for chiropractic success really takes chiropractors and their spouses through an appreciation of financial intelligence and a level of financial acumen and then gives them a system that helps guide them through the day to day procedures and policies of financial affluence and creating thier wealth.

Dr. Anunson – Beautiful so it sounds first like there’s some awareness that the participants are going to come to, they’re going to be more aware of what isn’t happening or what’s missing in their systems.

Dr. Sea – Absolutely, there’s a huge number of myths about financial success, what it is, what is looks like and how it feels in your life.

Dr. Anunson – And then there’s going to be some systems that they can walk away with.

Dr. Sea – and start with Monday.

Dr. Anunson – A proven system that has a track record for success and it’s unique to what you developed over the years.

Dr. Sea – Yes, very exciting.

Save $200 when your register for Brain Spa by August 23, 2011.

We invite you to attend our Brain Spa, September 23 & 24, 2011 at Lake Tahoe, CA. 

Building Chiropractic Affluence is like constructing any structure built to last. You need material, resources and supportive scaffolding.

The BrainSpa™ process installs the neuronal scaffolding and the financial planning to get your dream to scale. You will leave with the mindset and mental toughness it takes to persevere and be personally guided through the DC Mentors’ Seven Accounts System™ .

Here’s just part of what you’ll get at Brain Spa™:
An action plan for creating your family’s financial independence
An action plan for getting out of debt and staying out
An action plan that allows for ‘guilt free’ spending that doesn’t sabotage your investments
An action plan that eliminates the “worker bee” mentality and replaces it with the “entrepreneur mentality”

You will learn: 
How YOU are your single biggest barrier to growth and what, exactly, to do about it.
How to TAKE ACTION outside of your comfort zone. Getting rid of the “overwhelm.”
How to be cool under pressure and not choke.
How to stay on track and focused despite obstacles, resistance, opposition, or setbacks.

Hi, I’m Dr. Wade Anunson I’m here with Dr. Douglas Sea a chiropractic consultant for DC Mentors.  Dr. Sea, you’re a partner in DC Mentors and come with an incredible background.  You’ve had a phenomenal chiropractic practice for years.  You give chiropractic coaching clients guidance on sound financial principles and how to better position themselves to create more freedom in their lives and really to have the balance that a successful chiropractic business needs.  Can you touch on one of the most immediate things you see as you evaluate and analyze different practices?  You’ve obviously evaluated hundreds of chiropractic practices over the years, from a statistical standpoint is there some theme that you see? 

Dr. Sea – Well, one of the things I would comment on is the old adage, “It’s not always how much you make, but how much you keep.”  I think that applies to the chiropractic industry more so than any other industry.  We see chiropractic practices that are producing $70,000, $80,000, $150,000 a month in services and even have a fairly high collection ratio, but the chiropractor’s net income is only a small percentage of that.  They leverage their work ethic or their work requirements to produce this higher level of monthly production, but they’re also incurring a high level of risk, because more services equals more risk in malpractice.  There is more risk in seeing more patients.  There is all this additional risk and yet, all of a sudden they realize their net income is a fraction of what it could be without the risk and without the effort if they had a balance or more controlled overhead and a more consistent level of practice volume, if you will.

Dr. Anunson –  You’re a Northwestern graduate and you’re here on Palmer’s Campus, you’ve been here before.  Just knowing who you are, you’re level of contribution to chiropractic and what you want to see happen with this profession, I find is very heartfelt because there is something burning inside you that you want to contribute to more.

Dr. Sea – You’re right, absolutely, and it’s not that I have a strong loyalty to one campus more so than another campus.  I think there is a huge benefit to having a strong campus and strong education and I think we also have to realize our institution’s job is to prepare us to be in chiropractic practice, to be clinically sound doctors, to make good decisions and then add in the business acumen that it takes to be successful as well.  Some of the schools are doing a much better job than other at preparing the new students for that.  I give back to our profession so that we will have well balanced, successful, highly ethical chiropractors that are successful that can afford to take care of the families and give back to their communities out of their abundance.  That’s a real big indictment and a calling to us that have been blessed by this profession the way that many of us have.

Dr. Anunson – That said with respect to campuses, chiropractic colleges, putting out the best students that they can put out, focusing on what they can focus on in that range of time, what’s your hope, what are you seeing for tomorrow in the students and what is the feel you get when you interact with students?

Dr. Sea – When I’m fortunate enough to interact with chiropractic students, I see a high level of optimism, a great amount of hope and passion in these kids, but I also see seeds of doubt and insecurity.  They’re not sure if they are going to have what it takes to be successful in the real world.  I also think there is an unrealistic expectation in a lot of the chiropractic students that I’ve had an opportunity to meet.  They think, “Hey, I got out of school, I got my degree, I’m going to hang up my shingle and I’m going to be successful tomorrow or next week, or next month,” and they forget that one of things that it takes to truly be successful not only in our professional world, our business, our practice, but in life in general – we are never done being a student.  We are always learning and the more that we learn the more we can do.  Develop as a person and you come up a better business person, a better chiropractor, a better husband, a better father, a better mother.  That’s truly the definition of being successful.

Attend our Brain Spa, September 23 & 24, 2011 at Lake Tahoe, CA.  A chiropractic seminar for sucess!

Building Chiropractic Affluence is like constructing any structure built to last. You need material, resources and supportive scaffolding.

The BrainSpa™ process installs the neuronal scaffolding and the financial planning to get your dream to scale. You will leave with the mindset and mental toughness it takes to persevere and be personally guided through the DC Mentors’ Seven Accounts System™ .

Here’s just part of what you’ll get at Brain Spa™:
An action plan for creating your family’s financial independence
An action plan for getting out of debt and staying out
An action plan that allows for ‘guilt free’ spending that doesn’t sabotage your investments
An action plan that eliminates the “worker bee” mentality and replaces it with the “entrepreneur mentality”

You will learn:
How YOU are your single biggest barrier to growth and what, exactly, to do about it.
How to TAKE ACTION outside of your comfort zone. Getting rid of the “overwhelm.”
How to be cool under pressure and not choke.
How to stay on track and focused despite obstacles, resistance, opposition, or setbacks.

Early registration ends August 23, 2011.  Save $200.  Register now!

Hi, I’m Dr. Frank Sovinsky.  Welcome to another DC Mentors’ V-blog. 

We are paying a visit here to Dr. B.J. Palmer’s office.  We’re at the fountainhead of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa for a Homecoming 2011.  If you’re a chiropractor and you have never been to this campus it’s really necessary that you come here.  It’s hard to really describe what it is about being at the fountainhead.  I was walking, literally just a moment ago, touching where B.J.’s hands and D.D.’s hands were put in the concrete.  It’s not about worshiping, it’s about respect. Often times in our society today we don’t really respect the people that went before us.  The pioneers literally cut a swath through the woods of a healthcare system that didn’t make sense to them.  And I’m standing here where B.J. would enter every day.  I think about the hard work, how he would get up in the middle of the night and go to his typewriter and he had so many things to say that he would use a typewriter that actually had a continuous roll of paper going into it, because his thoughts would flow.

We’re paying respect and homage.  As we grow this chiropractic profession we need to, as the author, Descartes, said, “stand on the shoulders of giants” and all that wisdom of our forefathers. When you stand on those shoulders look for what was going on in the world of science, for what was going on in the world of understanding and education worldwide.  There wasn’t any worldwide web, so what did B.J. do?  He went the worldwide web called a steamship and had many, many travels and brought back many treasures that we see in B.J. mansion and on the grounds here at the mansion garden.

When you start to appreciate how great minds work, like yours, you want to continue that knowledge.  Not just of the science, but the art of living, the aesthetics, another branch of philosophy (not chiropractic philosophy, it’s a branch of philosophy as it is). 

So I just wanted to check in with you and if you are wondering about this beautiful medallion I’m wearing, the medallion was awarded to me this weekend as a result of being inducted as a Fellow into the Palmer Academy of Chiropractic.  It’s a recognition for contributions to Chiropractic, to moving it forward and to the Palmer University System, the Palmer Campuses.

One thing I know for sure is the chiropractic tribe doesn’t always agree, but we are loud and the people in this world know we are here.  We just need to make that foot print a whole lot bigger.  So I encourage you to get to the fountainhead and join us sometime for homecoming.  It’s hard to really describe the sense and feel that you have with the past, as we stand where we are now and reach forward to how we are defining chiropractic.  If you’re out there whining about chiropractic, if you’re out there wondering about what direction we’re going, whether you should leave the profession or should do this or that,  get an appreciation of who we are, where we are and what we want to be.

Hello I’m Dr. Frank Sovinsky and welcome to DC Mentors’  V-Blog. 

Let’s talk today about happiness.  We all want it.  Sometime we chase it, sometimes we don’t know we have it.  There’s an old saying about happiness that goes something like this, “If you want to be happy for two hours get drunk. If you want to be happy for a couple of years get married.  If you want to be happy for the rest of your life grow a garden”. 

What does that have to do with life?  What does that have to do with being a chiropractic entrepeneur?   

Let’s go back to the first statement,  it might not be that you get drunk for two hours but that you might consume some of the other pleasure foods like caffeine, sugar, fat and salt or all of them in one big treat that gives you a buzz for two hours and changes your chemistry. 

If you want to be happy for a couple of years get married.  Well I kind of take offense to that just a little bit because, at least I’m happy in the relationship that Cathy and I have for 24 years.  But get the idea here of if you want to be happy forever grow a garden.  Studies show that people with plants in their offices, who actually have the time to nurture and talk to those plants, have a greater sense of well-being. 

Now most of us don’t have the time to really go out and nurture a garden .  Sometimes we live in climates that really don’t foster that kind of possibility.  But let’s look at your business.  You know your business is a thriving entity, it’s something that you breathe life into.  What would it be like if you actually got fascinated about how to nurture that chiropractic business with the right soil, the right philosophy, the right clarity, the right organization, the right management of money, the right people committed to being a cohesive community and, of course, the right direction?  What would like be like?  What would it be like if you woke up in the morning excited to go into your chiropractic office and see what weeds have grown so that you could pull the weeds out?  Or discover what flowers are coming out, or that what fruit might be sharing itself with you. 

It’s a metaphor and, yes, you could say it’s kind of out there,  But is it really?  I mean if you look at your life in long term, when you look at the span of your career, the growth process of a business versus I have to do it, do it, do it, do it and then get out and do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, you lose all that passion, you lose all of that time with the soil, you lose all of that time watching the incredible manifestations of universal principals that are actually exposed as you start to grow with and into your chiropractic business  as you start to nurture and lead it. 

So if you want to get a buzz and be happy for a couple of hours go get drunk, if you want to be happy for a couple of years get married, if you want to be happy forever grow your business into a beautiful garden.  It’s really that simple.