The Wrong Path - Part Two (The One Thing)
"Oh man we miss coming to see you Dr. Tony, but don't worry... we still do everything you taught us to do. We eat healthy, take our vitamins, never take the flu shot, and are keeping up with all our OT appointments for him!"
My heart ♥️ sank.
Out of all the words that mom said to me when she spotted me at the local Dolphin Swim Club where our kids took lessons, I only heard one - everything. Obviously, there was one thing missing - coming to see me, aka getting their family adjusted still.
I'm so thankful for that day and for seeing Cyndi. Her words carried so much weight and provided me so much clarity that I've carried with me into everything we do to this day.
Here I was a Pediatric Certified Chiropractor, and this family took many valuable health-promoting lessons from me during their time under care, just not the ONE that I should've been most obsessed with. Man those "should've" moments in life can be the best lessons, if we shut up, listen, and learn from them.
I certainly did this one.
You see doc, many of you may be reading this and immediately making excuses for me because you probably routinely make excuses for yourself in these situations. We say something like, "Oh they probably just got too busy, or couldn't afford it anymore."
Nope. It's never actually that. It's just that our level of education and explanation around the role chiropractic plays in their life didn't reach a high enough value point.
Supplements had. Swimming had. Healthy eating had. Avoiding toxins had.
Back in my early years after finishing my Wellness and Pediatric Certification, I can honestly tell you guys I felt like I had "majored" in Wellness and "minored" in chiropractic. This wasn't Cyndi's fault that chiropractic had tumbled down the list of what mattered most to her family, it was mine.
During this season of practice, I had finally seen an explosion in my Prenatal, Pediatric, and Family Wellness patients coming in because I had switched up my Branding and Marketing, and created the Perfect Storm Workshop, and started giving that talk all over the place... but still, for this segment of the population, I still spent way too much time talking 3Ts compared to talking subluxation, neurology 🧠, and the vital role that chiropractic for a lifetime played in a family's well-being.
So after I had the heart-sinking feeling that day at Dolphin Swim Club, a few minutes later it honestly turned to anger and frustration 😠 .
I now not only had coaching from this huge chiropractic group, but I was also now freaking certified in pediatrics! How could I of all people be missing the main thing like this!?!
Then, I looked out through the glass at my kiddos swimming and smiling, and when I saw Oliver out there thriving and doing his thing, I remembered that it wasn't always that way for him. His first 6 weeks of life were spent in the NICU, hooked up to as many wires and tubes as one could imagine.
And in that moment, with Cyndi and her beautiful family serving as the light 💡 bulb messengers for me that day, I remembered the One Single Thing that got Oliver better and really created his miracle story - chiropractic.
That by far and away made a massive impact in our own family's life, saving our baby and giving him the most incredible life possible! So why in the heck was I spending much time at all talking to people about nutrition and supplements, neuro-integrative therapies and primitive reflexes, and formaldehyde and aluminum!?!
From that day forward I changed up everything in my own mental game first, then in our marketing and communication, and we backed up clinically... taking out instantly all the advanced nutritional and OT-like work we had built into our processes.
Instead of doing it all in-house ourselves, we instantly built a referral network of OTs, PTs, nutritionists, and more who could do all that stuff for us! Best part - they now also started to refer to us left and right because we no longer tried to do our job and theirs! 😎
It was glorious! And still is glorious!
At that time we had been stuck at 350-400 patients per week with 3 full-time docs for quite a while, because we were just too busy managing "all the things" as they say, and had distracted and diluted ourselves so much from chiropractic there was just no room to add more. We had followed the educational model we had gone through, but it simply hadn't led us to where we wanted to be - pure, clean, kick-ass chiropractic only!
We never looked back.
Within a few months we exploded to 550-600 a week with just 2 docs and way more impact on those we serve! We doubled and even sometimes tripled the Care Plans (more chiro 🔔 baby!) and seeing more miracles than ever as a result! So less marketing, less work, less overhead, less stress, more impact, and more income. Not a bad gig.
And since then we've kept climbing, now rocking things around 1000/week and storming towards a $2M practice for the first time, all while keeping it crazy focused and simple, so it can remain wildly powerful and impactful!
Docs and Students, I don't know where you are on your path as of this very moment you're reading this blog. And, I don't know what destination you truly do want to end up on.
Maybe you love doing "all the things" in practice and staying laser-focused One Main Thing is boring to you? That's more than all good.
But if you are there right now and not really loving it, or this blog became your "Cyndi Moment" without even needing to meet Cyndi, and you want to get back to something more simple and streamlined - get on the next Zoom Workshop with me and let me show you how we do what we do, step-by-step!
Pediatric Webinar Registration
And Students and Startups, you are the ones with the distinct advantage here! Whichever educational path and "guide" you choose will be what determines where you end up. I don't know of too many, or really of any, clean and ultra-focused Pediatric Guides quite like we've become! So 💯 for sure if this blog is resonating with you and you want to learn more about how to take that simple, wildly impactful Pediatric Path we are now on (and hundreds of others as well who are loving it), then join the Zoom Workshop right away next time it's up!
My final thought docs is this -- don't be bummed out if you got on the wrong path and went a bit sideways like I did. Instead, be entirely, wildly excited that you can now move FORWARD to the practice of your dreams!
Love ya!
Dr. Tony Ebel
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