075 - Driving Evidence-Based Care: A Conversation with Dr. Ryan Seaman

If you're not growing as a person, you can't grow your practice. And, you know, here I'm growing as a person with leadership skills and giving back to the profession, but I've also got my head around some of the latest research coming out. So faith, confidence, and belief goes through the roof, and you need those in a great practice.

Hello and welcome to Build you'd Remarkable Practice podcast. This podcast is dedicated to chiropractors who are in the seasons of launching and building their practice. Join myself, Dr. Lona, and my co host, Dr. Bobby, as we have conversations each week as it relates to building the practice of your dreams. And remember, you can have a remarkable practice as part of a remarkable life, not instead of one. We are here to lead you on the way. All right, welcome back, you guys. I have a treat for you. We are back on the Build you'd Remarkable Practice podcast, and today I get to sit down with someone else that's across the world from us. So we're on different days right now, but he's doing really meaningful work. So welcome Dr. Ryan Seaman. I know you are the president right now for the Australian Spinal Research foundation, or the asrf, as I believe it's used commonly. And thanks for taking some time away on a day later than we thought it was going to be to connect and just talk about this work that you guys are doing. So welcome.

Thank you. Thank you. It's an honor to be here. And, yeah, I hope we can give some great information to your listeners out there.

Yeah. Awesome. Well, let's just start off first with. You and I were just chatting before we started to hit record, and you're in private practice and you're president of this major entity that's trying to do some big work in chiropractic. So just talk to us a little bit about, like, what drives you to do so much for chiropractic right now? Just right now, probably for a long time.

Yes. I'm actually coming to the end of my tenure, which means, you know, it'll be nine years on the board. So. I've always been passionate about chiropractic. Once I realized what it could do, I started my career as a civil engineer and transferred. So, yes. And it's given me so much, so I wanted to be able to find a way to give back. This part of Australia I'm in is fairly religious. I'm not an extremely religious fellow myself, but I don't know of a religion that doesn't say you should be tithing some of your income towards something worthwhile. So not only do I do income, I do time. And yeah, I want to see our profession backed by the research, because in our country, if it doesn't have research, they are trying to limit our scope of practice or no, don't quite have the liberties and freedoms with it that you guys do there. So, yeah, this was the best way I found to do it.

That's awesome. And you said you're at the end of your tenure and how long have you been giving your time?

I've been giving my time since I started practice 16 years ago, but I've been on the board itself for nine years.

That's amazing.

I just want to highlight that for a second because this is the Build you'd Remarkable Practice podcast. So we've got some younger docs probably that listen in that are building their practice. And like you, I joined our state association early, found myself in leadership, and then realized you never get off the board. Once you start volunteering your time, you're on there forever. But it's something really meaningful because you grow so much in the process of giving your time back, too. So I'm assuming this has also blessed your practice to be involved with in many ways, 100%.

If you're not growing as a person, you can't grow your practice. And, you know, here I'm growing as a person with leadership skills and giving back to the profession, but I've also got my head around some of the latest research coming out. So say confidence and belief goes through the roof, and you need those in a great practice.

So. Good. Yes. All right, well, tell us a little bit more about some of the initiatives and some of the things we maybe need to know about the ASRF and what you guys are, you know, what your mission is and what you're doing at the asrf.

We want to fund the research that makes a clinical difference in practice. So it needs to be clinically applicable and scientifically robust. We run any expression of interest that comes through our office, three or two panels that evaluate that, and then it goes to the research panel to vote on what we can fund. And we're currently in that process right now. I was going through some of the EOIs yesterday, some really exciting stuff out there to fund, and it's going to really make a big impact. We were talking just earlier about your recent publication with the pediatric work you've been doing and how hard it is to get inexpensive to get the data crunched. We're looking at a couple projects that are going to use AI to do that. And the more that's done, the faster data is going to come and the cheaper science is going to get. So we really need it. And we need it to come faster and cheaper because nobody realizes your average study is in the millions of dollars to fund for a five year rct. And that's not Australian, that's American millions. So Australian millions. We're in the tens now, so yes. The other thing we're really working on is we would love to see an Australian Spinal Research foundation research facility. Personally, I'd ideally like it to see it here in Australia. Don't know if that'll happen, but we're working on it. Working on it somewhere in the world I'd like to see in the next 10 or 15 years at least before I finish practice, there'll be one labeled the Australian Spinal Research foundation in association with whatever facility we're with.

Yes.

So that would be exciting times because then we're not. I would say we're shortcutting the process then directing exactly what we want to see researched instead of waiting for them to come in under a topic.

Yep. And I was doing a little homework on your website. So you guys started in 1977 and so you've been around for a minute.

We have.

How did that begin?

Like what was the.

How did it begin? I wish I was there to see how it actually began, but there were a group of active Australian chiropractors that saw a need for one, to be able to get more research done, but two to be able to disseminate that across the profession. And they started that by starting a foundation, getting members. So all our research is funded by our members and you can be a member. And being a member is like the cost of a cup of coffee a day. But that, I'll be honest, that's not what I do. I am a gold research partner and you can go even higher than that. But you've got to contact the office, which just means I dominate even more. And for me it's cost of two adjustments a week go into it, which I don't even notice. I don't think you would notice if you miss two adjustments a week into research. I would suggest a lot of us probably give away more than that a week. But yeah, so they started it that way and it's built and built and to disseminate it. Back then we ran seminars in the late 2010s. It was getting to the point. 09010, 1112 Somewhere in there it was getting to the point where it wasn't financial for us to run them anymore. There wasn't a profit anymore to be made out of them. So we shut them down. We tried to run a few since then. We find the easiest way to get it out to us, to our members, is through the email. So if you're a member, you get a regular email with the research we're doing, the updates on it, anything we've collated, we've got a blog as well that anybody can have access to. So for you guys who aren't members now, check it out, Become a member, support the research, because we can't get it done without you. Outside of that, we brought in a pediatric fund in the last year. So this year we are hoping to fund more pediatric research as well. I can't wait. Because pediatrics in this country are being attacked left, right and center. So the more research we have, the more likelihood that we're going to maintain our scope of practice.

Yeah, that's so important for everyone, not just those in Australia. Right. I love this idea too, of, you know, in 1997 or 1977, somebody had the idea to rally the troops, to start with a vision in mind that who, you know, maybe they did know, 50, 60 years from now, they would still be impacting chiropractic in a big way and the foundation would be this big. But maybe they didn't. And that's part of just like knowing that your vision can keep growing, you know, whether that's your vision for your practice or the vision to do research. I certainly had no desire to do research when, if you would have asked me 10, 15 years ago when I started practice, if we would publish research in chiropractic, I would have said, what? And so, you know, this is the evolving, you know, as you see the need and you move with it and it's on your heart and you can give back to things like. And then it grows you to your point, you know, this is a big part of why, you know, you see the people doing big things in the profession and like, they just put one foot in front of the other and keep going. And it's disguised as hard work sometimes, wouldn't you say?

It is. And, you know, yeah, it takes time. Right now is probably the busiest time for me on the board. And, you know, in the next couple weeks, I'll probably put 20 hours in. But most of the years it's. Or most of the year it's maybe one or two hours a week for me, which isn't hard to find. It's just setting it aside and getting it done. And you know, and I know if my predecessors were the same way. And it's resulted in, when I last looked about 130 major papers published and about the same in case studies in the last few years. So that's a lot of information added to the scientific wealth of knowledge for our profession. A lot of evidence to support what we do.

Yeah. To your point, with using AI and being able to crunch data faster and more inexpensive, this is kind of the wild west for us to even the playing field a bit in being able to do some of this. And I think it was Simon Senzen, Dr. Simon Senzen, that posted something about he must have had a paper that he asked AI to like or he was plugging AI with something, it responded in an incorrect way and he corrected it and then it changed its output. So I thought that was fascinating too of just like how much our inputs into AI really matter too for changing the narrative. Right.

100%. You may be familiar with Imran, who works with Heidi. He and I were talking one day about AI and he goes, the beautiful thing is that I put all that data in, I tell it what I'm looking for, these trends and it'll spit those out, but it'll also show me trends elsewhere and gives me new questions I can ask from the same data to show more results that I would have never thought to look for.

Yeah.

Because it has so much power. There's a book called Tomorrow is faster than you think. Try to remember the author, Stephen Kotler. And now I'm not going to get the other guy. They talk about exactly the impact that technology is going to have on it. Our smartphones are now way more powerful than the largest computer was 20 years ago, even 10 years ago. And they're in our pocket and nobody uses them like that. So technology is going to change things really fast.

Yeah.

And then you add in wearables. I just can't imagine the data we're going to be able to collect shortly on the impact of an adjustment.

Right. Yeah. You know, we're in fundraising as well for our school based research with school age children. And in this next phase they will be wearing a wearable so that we can collect more real data all day long on what's happening. And yeah, to your point, like lots of great ideas, lots of ways that this can keep expanding and you know, gotta find the money, gotta go get this done. But I think, you know, what I'm just heartened by is like it's fun to Go to work on something meaningful where you actually realize, like, we put in this effort, and look what we've gotten done. Instead of saying, like, oh, this mountain is too high. We can't climb it, and we just. We don't even have a chance. Like, I think we have a chance to move chiropractic forward in a big way right now. In many different ways. Right.

100%. And, you know, I look here in Australia, we've got about 6,000 chiropractors. And from our board point of view, if every single one of them was a member, we would have a budget about 50 times what we've got now. And that's just at a base membership. Now, I'm not sure how many chiropractors are currently registered in the States.

I think it's around 70,000. Yeah.

So at 70,000 at a cup of coffee a day.

Right.

Your budget now goes from a few million to hundreds of millions, and you're competing on a really impactful level against any other form of healthcare out there. And, you know, who can't afford a cup of coffee a day? That's in our profession. And if you really can't get some help, get some coaching.

Yes. Yes. Yeah.

This profession has given me so much and freed up so much time in my life compared to when I was an engineer. I just go, my God, everybody needs to have a look at what we do.

Yes. Well, and to your point, too, this is something I tell the newer docs or my associates is, like, the money that you pay to get the tuition to learn some of the things that we unlearn, also of how to take care of ourselves and what true health is and how we want to raise our families. Like, what is that price tag worth? Right. Like, we have so much wealth in the form of, like, true wisdom with the body and how to treat the body and respect the body and all of that. That, you know, again, it's just your perception of, like, was that expensive or not expensive, you know, in, like, the tuition costs and becoming a chiropractor and serving it well and all of that. Mm.

I have never done a seminar that didn't pay back or a coaching program that didn't pay back at least four times what I put into it, you know, so tuition is nothing. You're gonna get it all back.

Right.

It's just paying attention and, you know, having metrics that are valuable to track. So you can see that.

Yeah.

Well, some people bring that up.

We love that. That's what we're teaching people is like how to have systems and how to use the numbers so that your left and right brain are happy when you're, you know, looking at practice. Right.

You know, I look at my numbers and I go, yeah, yeah. So my new patients were down this week. Well, my total volume was up. I had less cancellations and reschedules this week. I'm doing it right.

Yeah.

Great.

Yeah.

I look back at my book. Oh. I couldn't fit new patients in. Hmm. If you can't fit them in, you're doing it right. And you know, this stability, believe me, I love to do that.

Yeah.

I'm in a very rural area and there's not many people would work out here. But it's all right. I'm just gonna open more time, I.

Think, or they're gonna hear this podcast.

And love that and come looking.

Yeah. Yes, that's right. Well, this is exciting and thank you for your time and all that you do for chiropractic. And if we want to donate our cup of coffee a start reading some of what you guys have put out. Where do we find it? What do we go to? How do we reach out?

Spinalresearch.com in the top right corner on your computer screen anyhow, is a Become a member or donate button. Click on it. Follow it through, Become a member. Check out the research we've got done there. There's a research tab that's on the opposite side of the page. Follow it down, Have a look at our past research. You won't see the upcoming stuff because we don't publish that until we know what we're doing. Funding for the year, but there's links to anything that's been completed in there. So follow it through, find some great information, educate yourself a little bit more. Get that left and right brain going. Find a way to make it applicable to your practice. My favorite study, sitting in there and sorry, I can't remember the name this early in the morning. The most amazing finding in it for me had nothing to do with it. They were researching. It was the fact that over the 12 weeks of seeing these clients twice a week, and they were asymptomatic when they came in, they hadn't reached a plateau of benefits. It just says to me, you know, do we actually see people intense enough, long enough?

Yes.

I know. I don't prescribe. People come in three times a week for 12 weeks, and I've never tracked do they plateau before that at a scientific level. And yeah, that paper was following it through. And I'm just going oh, my God. So that was a Kelly Holt paper. When you go through it, but for his name, it was done with Heidi at a New Zealand college and it would be five or six years ago.

Beautiful. Yeah, that's. And that builds everyone's certainty in what they're, you know, portraying to patients then, too. Because so many times I think, well, how do we treat ourselves? Like we lay on a chiropractic table, hopefully all the time. Right. But do we always tell that to our family and to our friends and our loved ones? They do that. But do we tell that to our patients? Right. Yeah.

Well, when I set my recommendations for people, I go, look, I'm feeling a little incongruent because I get checked once to twice a week and have for 13 years. So anything outside of that is not what I do for myself. I want you to understand that.

Yeah.

And then go from there.

Transparent. I love that.

Yeah.

Well, this is beautiful. Thank you. I think everyone's going to go check that out. I am committing right now that I'm going to donate my cup of coffee, so I'm going to go to the website as well. And I just also want to say I'm a big fan of you guys. Know this, that listen to the podcast, like the energetics behind things. You cannot out give the giver. You know, we were talking about that. So when you tithe or you give back, like you're going to receive. And I know in even me donating to the asrf, my project is likely going to get funded in some way, some shape or form, because again, it's all about like, what you get out, you know, you give out, you get back and doing it for the right reasons. So thank you for all that you do.

You're very welcome.

Yeah.

And thank you for what you're doing as well. Getting more young docs out there and productive and happy in practice is only good for the profession.

Totally. Thank you. Awesome. Well, we'll find you on the website and hopefully we'll cross paths at some seminar at some point.

Hopefully. Thank you.

Yeah. Thanks, Dr. Ryan. Hey, everyone, please listen in for this next bonus interview of one of our remarkable success partners. They all help us help more people find the benefits of chiropractic. So listen on.

So, guys, I am super pumped and excited to be having a conversation today with the fantastic Vanessa Lewis from investoris. And let me tell you why I'm excited for this conversation. After working with hundreds, I would say, at this point, close to thousands of chiropractic officers. Here's What I realized, if chiropractors follow systems, process, procedure, if they engage in training, if they engage in coaching, they end up building an absolutely remarkable practice. Now, along with the remarkable practice comes fantastic healthy cash flow. But here is my experience. Vanessa. Most of these chiropractors also have a terrible job at managing finances, right? So they either, you know, end up spending just as much as they're earning, their lifestyle continues to increase, they're not investing wisely, or sometimes they're investing poorly. And so they're helping serve a lot of people. They're making great impact, they're making great income, but they don't actually manage their finances at all. So I am super excited to have this conversation today. Why don't you take us through. Vanessa, exactly how do you help chiropractors when it comes to the financial side of practice? How do you help when it comes to multiplying wealth? Take us through investoris and exactly what you can do for us and how you can help us.

Well, thanks for having me, Dr. Bobbie. I'm the financial strategist and senior mortgage broker with team at Investorist and one of our beautiful clients, the lovely Dr. Molly Weyers, she put it in one of our videos when she explained, she said, everybody starts this wealth creation journey on their own and the best that you can come up with is doctor and you end up going down this path or this rabbit hole of what's next. So that's where we step in and we offer uniquely tailored solutions because there's not one strategy that fits all. It's got to be tailored to understand what wealth means to you. And we are an organization that is value driven. So we've got to understand what you value and then layer in the relevant services that you need. But we understand that you don't have the time to go see 10 different people you want to have a chat to. One person will then simplify that for you. So I'm going to talk a little bit about the services that we do actually offer because one of the questions that always comes up all the time is what is it that you guys do and can you even help me now with the services that we do offer? I don't like to use the word budgeting, but I'm going to start with the money coaching piece of it because it's understanding and giving every dollar a purpose so you know where your money goes. We can also help with the finance piece of it because sometimes you don't understand what you can borrow. If you would like to invest, you need to understand what your borrowing capacity is or if you need to get some equipment for the practice, you've got to understand, is there affordability. So that's what we look at as well. So we look at lending options, we will look at, okay, do you have the right. Are you with the right bank? Do you have the right product, the right interest rate, the right structure? Because all of that helps with savings, which sometimes people don't understand. Now, in addition to finance and money coaching, the property piece of it is quite relevant and important because you get access to the lovely Bel, who's an absolute legend in our team, who's built this over the last 35 years of networks and relationships and connections she sourced. And I'll share a couple of real life examples as well to validate this. But she's so good at what she does with finding the right investment, ensuring this tax, the tax effectiveness is working. It's a good return on investment. Then we've got to take it to the next step to go, all right, okay, we've bought the properties. Who's going to manage this? Because that's where people start to get a bit overwhelmed and go, oh, okay, do I have to manage the tenant? Who's going to look after that? It's going to be too much of hard work. But that's where we also provide the property management services. And because it's in house, it is a lot cheaper than what you would get elsewhere. So there's the value add for our clients because we look at getting the tenant in, ensuring we've got the quantity surveyors reports in place, Is there the right amount of depreciation that can be claimed? All of that gets factored. So there's the property investment and then there's the property management piece of it as well. Then we take it to the next step. And I know there's lots of services that I'm going to simplify it in a minute. But there's also the financial planning piece, the accounting piece and the super review. Because once you've acquired your investments, you might want to have a think about estate and wills planning. You want to ensure that's in play. You want to ensure that you insured adequately. Do a review of your insurances. Is there enough in life income protection? All of that's got to be looked at. That's where the strategist, the one person in the middle, coordinates all of these services for you. Have a chat with just the strategist, who will then determine the relevant services that you need.

That is awesome. So what I'm hearing is you guys are a one stop shop, which means if I'm someone that's looking to purchase my first property, maybe I'll be working cooperative and it's time for me to. But it's my principal base of residence that I like to kind of live in. Definitely go and talk to you guys. Whether I'm someone that's looking to create leverage and you know, I know that I can access funds and I want to start making investments and looking after my future. You guys are the ones I should talk to. Is that right?

That we are. That we are. Now I've got to actually share a couple of real life examples, right as to how we lay it in the property management, the property investment, the finance, the accounting, the financial planning and the money coaching to help achieve the results that we have these real life examples. So the very first example that I'm going to share is with the lovely Michael and Imogen, the chiropractors in South Australia. When they met us, they had one investment property which was an underperforming investment. Now it had a return on investment that we call EILD, which is the rental encompass is the value of 2.9% on that particular investment. And they had $488,000 worth of bad debt. Now owner occupied debt, your home loan pretty much is bad debt because the interest is not tax deductible. Twelve months later they now have two high performing investment properties. So they've gone from 1 to 2. The return on investment or the yield went from 2.9 to, to 6.5% and the bad debt of $488,000 went down to $40,000. So they paid off $448,000 worth of bad debt. Now those are huge numbers and people struggle to believe it, but they're real life examples whereby layering in the right strategies, we've helped them achieve these results. Now I'm going to share another one that I've got here which is a simple. It was a simple refinance and a restructure. All that happened was the client came up to us and said, hey, you know, I've got these two investment properties. Obviously it's not working. The rates are not the best. Do I have the right product? Can you do a review and let me know what you can do? Now when we started the process that you know, they were on 7% I think across both the investment properties by simple refinance and restructure, we bought the rates down to about 6.34. And we saved them about $1,200 a month across the two properties. Now, we also reviewed what products they had, and we saved them on their product fees as well. So all up across the two properties, when we do the math, they ended up saving $15,172 a year in repayments and package fees on two lines.

That's amazing. So what I'm hearing you say with both cases is that ultimately, guys ends up equally more money in your pocket to do things that you're going to be doing things with. Right. Living life you want to live with. I mean, you know, you want to pay as little tax as possible. You want to make sure that you pay as little dead money as possible. So I'm hearing Vanessa and tell me if I'm right or wrong here. Doesn't matter the circumstance. Right. Doesn't matter if I'm, you know, someone that has already got multiple loans or maybe there's already a structure that's going on would be of better fit to actually have a chat to you guys and see is there a better way to structure this, set it up, refinance or reorganize things so that it equals more money in my pocket. Is that right?

Absolutely. And I'm going to take this to the next step just with that client that we spoke about, you know, where they managed to save 15,172 a year, because I asked them the question to go, all right, what would you do with this, with this extra money? Would you go on a holiday, or would you like to put that back into your home and redirect your original repayments? They actually went out the path of redirecting the old repayments. So, yes, we saved them the money, but when we refinanced, they continued to pay the old repayments. What that actually did, that reduced the loan term. They were scheduled to pay it over 16 years. That dropped down to six, because now they're paying more than what they need to pay. The math on that. I had to double check the figures twice because sue, to do that, they saved 10 years over the life of the loan. So instead of paying it over 16, they've paid it over 6. When your workout worked out to be $855,240 in repayments. Now think about what you could do with that money.

Wow, that's amazing. See, I think a lot of people, they just kind of have these loans that they set up or have this debt that ultimately accurses over time, and they put the effort in the beginning to get it all set up. But then they never really put the effort, energy into review and say, is this still serving me to my optimal, or can this be set up and structured better to benefit me? And that benefit might be that more money in my pocket, or it might mean, as you can see, your cases, you describe saving tens of years of the life of a loan, which means that you get to live the life that you want to live at a much, much sooner point. Correct?

Correct, 100%. It gives you that flexibility to do what you would like with your time, because you don't have to spend all that time working. You can then reconsider and reevaluate where you're at in life. Maybe you want to spend more time with your family because now you've created that wealth, you've created that cash flow to fund the lifestyle that you want to live. Yes, it does.

Yeah. I love it. That's exactly what it's about. So tell me this, Vanessa, what I have to do. So I'm listening to this. What I have to do. Who do I have to contact at the moment? This is for primarily Australian clients, is that right? And what would be my next steps if I'm interested in having a chat?

That is correct. If you are interested in having a chat, all you've got to do is reach out to the team and book in a discovery call. It is a no obligation call. So you just have, like, I always make this joke to go have a. Have a chat to the blonde chick in the middle and she will decide what you need and what services you need and then tailor, make a strategy that works for you. Because we, I think, and Sue's actually brought it up the other day, who is our general manager. We did get one of our clients actually sent her a little review, which was really lovely, and I had no idea that she had done that. About her experience of dealing with us and the team, which I thought would. Would give, you know, our viewers and our listeners a bit of value add as to who we are. Because everybody really panics and goes when it comes to, you know, companies that offer financial services, or what I call, Yep, it's a wham, bam, thank you, ma', am, we've sold you a property, off we go. But what was testament to our values and what we do was that we weren't solely focused. You could tell from our interactions. And this was the client's feedback. It was not purely based on. Okay, yeah, all right, we're here to sell you a property and off you go. That's it. Our job's done. It was not KPI driven. It was over two and three meetings getting to understand what your values are, what was important to you before we decided what strategy you need to help you achieve your end goals. So all you've got to do, all our listeners have got to do is just come have a chat, book in that no obligation discovery call, get an understanding of who we are so that we can then determine how we can help you.

I love it. Amazing, Vanessa. I love what you guys are doing. I know firsthand I've had countless people tell me about the amazing work that you've done with them. So, guys, we're going to leave details below so you'll have a link to the website. And what's the best way to book a call with you? Is it through the website?

Yes, definitely. There's a QR code on the website that you quickly scan and gives you direct access to our strategist calendar to book in a time that suits you.

Wonderful. I love it. So there you go, guys. It's not a tomorrow thing, it's not a next week thing. We know that success baby's the action taker. So details are below. Vanessa, thank you so much. I appreciate your time and more importantly, I appreciate everything you're doing for chiropractors and for their teams all around the country. I know you guys are having fantastic results.

That's awesome. Thanks, Dr. Bobby.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Build you'd remarkable practice podcast. Remember, what the world needs now is chiropractic. And what chiropractic needs now is more successful chiropractors. If you like the podcast, please subscribe, share with your friends and leave us a review. And if you'd like to connect with us personally, please click the links in the show notes to schedule a call.