111 - The Standard Chiropractors Must Hold Themselves To with Dr. Gilles Lamarche

when we sat at the table with the executives from Maha Action and they deliberated on how they were willing to help if— we will work with you if you collaborate with each other, right? They didn't tell us what we needed to do. They just said, you need to collaborate with each other. We need to have a voice that speaks with one voice. And that's what Maha Action will help us take forward.

Hello and welcome to Build Your 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 to the Build Your Remarkable Practice podcast, and I am here today with kind of a big deal, right? A guy that's kind of a big deal not only in chiropractic but on a national and international level, stewarding a movement where we, we know that this is a great time to be a chiropractor. So welcome, Dr. Gilles LaMarche. Thank you for all the mentorship over the years and the friendship, and I'm excited to have you today.

Well, thank you. It's an honor to be with you and to share with your audience. It's always a pleasure to share with the fellow chiropractors. And, you know, I've been, I've been around a long time. As you know, we were in Washington, DC together just last week, like a week ago yesterday.

Yes.

And to think that this is our time. And I remember last year at Light Vision Extravaganza, the continuing education event that I host for Life University, Uh, we had— I picked that as the theme of the weekend: Chiropractic, This Is Our Time. Yes, and it is our time. It really is our time. And being at the Maha meeting with you a week ago, seeing an organization that now has grown to over 40 employees who actually want to support the chiropractic profession and move us to our rightful place because they are integrally connected to everybody in DC is a big deal.

Yes.

And so for all of our chiropractic colleagues that are out there serving, you know, millions of people every day, know that this is your time. This really is our time. And, you know, people like me have been standing on shoulders of giants for years. And I encourage you, just get involved when you see an opportunity to get involved.

Yes.

And before The recording, Dr. Lona and I were chatting about, you know, how these things happen. You know, how does a guy who practiced in Northern Canada all of a sudden is sitting in this really important room in Washington, DC, you know, decades later? And I was saying, I learned from a mentor really early on that we've got to contribute to causes that we believe in.

Yes.

And so I've always supported chiropractic institutions that align with my vision. Initially, it was a school I graduated from. When they diverted from what I believe chiropractic to be, I stopped supporting them and I started supporting other schools that align. I've supported people politically that align with what I think they could help us achieve. So in the chiropractic world, you know, I supported Bobby Kennedy early before his presidential campaign. And when he announced his presidential campaign, I wrote an even bigger check and supported him. So I think important in our conversation today is to help everyone on the call understand that the hole you receive through is going to be the same size as the hole you give through.

Ooh.

In other words, we must give, and you give at the level that you can. I'm not saying how much you should give, but learn to give a percentage Yes. Even if it hurts a little bit. And so if at first all you can donate is whatever, $10 a week, then donate $10 a week.

Right.

In time, you'll be able to donate $100 a week equivalent. And in time, you'll be able to give $200 a week or $300, whatever it might be. But give from your own abundance. But support causes that you believe in. We can't expect that just somebody else is going to do it. We all have to be intricately involved in doing it. So, I attended the TRP immersion. I saw the collaboration that happens between the partners, the players, the speakers, the people in the audience. That's the type of collaboration that we need to bring to everything that we do.

Yes.

This is not about fighting for our right place. It's about collaborating so we rise as a profession to get to the right place so we can impact humanity.

I love that vision of collaboration as well as like, I believe we're, we're like in a position we've never been before where we get to go more on the offense than we've ever been.

Heck yeah.

We've always been playing defense, which is really exciting. And being in DC with you, thank you for letting me come along with you, just to sit in that room too of that idea of like, yeah, you get in these small rooms sometimes. I felt that in our state organization as you know, I've been politically active in our chiropractic association, how when we recognize that we love this thing called chiropractic, and of course it's more comfortable to sometimes just stay in the practice and stay focused on, oh, but I give in my practice, or I reinvest in my practice. That's right, but how are you reinvesting in chiropractic? And if you get in these small rooms, sometimes you realize that a small, small group of people makes the decision for everyone, right? And I would way rather have Jules Lamarche or myself or someone that I know loves chiropractic and loves humanity being at that table. And if I can't be there myself, I better be investing in the people that I, by proxy, want to be there, right?

Absolutely. Absolutely agree with you 100%.

Yeah. So it was a great time being there, and, and it was groundbreaking. And, and you and I were chatting offline a bit on this too, that there might be more collaboration happening across chiropractic than we've possibly ever seen in order to take advantage of the time we're in where we have people at, in a high level that want to see chiropractic thrive.

Absolutely. I mean, there was, there was a, a huge collaborative effort, I think, that had started, right? It was already rolling. It was rolling slowly when we sat at the table with the executives from Maha Action, and they deliberated on how they were willing to help if We will work with you if you collaborate with each other. Right? They didn't tell us what we needed to do. They just said, you need to collaborate with each other. We need to have a voice that speaks with one voice. And that's what Maha Action will help us take forward. They will take the voice of chiropractic forward, not the voice of this organization or that organization, this one or that one. No, no, no, no, no. A single voice. Is what they're willing to take forward. And I think that the 4 or 5 hours that we were together at that table moved the needle significantly. And obviously you and I were at the airport sitting in the lounge for hours waiting for our flights after. And, you know, you were privy to text messages and phone calls that came in after our meeting of the support that we had for bringing chiropractic that way. And one of the MA executives being on the phone when you were sitting right beside me, you know, continuing the conversation on how excited they were to experience the outcome because they didn't feel as comfortable at the beginning of the meeting as they did at the end of the meeting.

Yes.

And the fact that we came together was like so big, so big for our profession.

Yeah.

It's part of the big idea. The only way to get the big idea out is to see yourself as the potential that exists and to be as big as you can be and move forward. Right. As Fred Barger would say, without fear.

Right. Mm-hmm. With expansion in mind, for sure.

Absolutely.

You know, and for those of you listening that may have seen this, if you're following some of the Maha Action stuff, but Gilles got named the spokesperson for chiropractic for the Maha Action Committee, which was the very first thing that happened where Maha essentially said, we believe that he should be your spokesperson. And we all said yes, right? Like, that sounds great to us. And because—

Quite an honor, really. I mean, to be appointed the spokesperson.

Totally. And you're the perfect person for it. And I think one thing that's so serendipitous is— and I hope you tell us the story here because it's really impactful for all of us to hear your story and relate to— is Gilles' life has had this unfolding, which when you look back at the Like I look at it like sacred geometry or the major premise in action that has led you to this point where you could be that person that for the nation is a spokesperson for chiropractic and have it be about, you know, vitalistic, understand what the subluxation is and human potential and speak that in a very, very eloquent way. Like we all win, right?

Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, you know, I, it's all for the profession and I was, So often I think of BJ's quote that, you know, people have recited many times. You never know how far-reaching something you may think, say, or do.

Yes.

Right? Will affect the lives of millions tomorrow. Think, say, or do today could affect the lives of millions tomorrow.

Right.

And when I look at every roadblock that's been put in front of me, I saw as an opportunity. And I always reflect on a roadblock, you know, a difficulty. I say, okay, well, we know that in the eye of the storm, right? In the eye of the hurricane, there is this quiet spot. And I see every roadblock as that. Where's the quiet spot where I can go and reflect and find the opportunity that this sometimes crisis has put in front of me. And obviously on the, on the Maha call last week, because it was the first time that they had a chiropractor on speaking about chiropractic.

Yes.

And it couldn't have been at a better time. And it was 5 minutes, right? You got 5 minutes and you gotta be off in 5 minutes. And so I texted the president of Maha and said, well, this is what I think After I got appointed on Tuesday, I was one of the key spokespeople on Wednesday, as you all know. And, you know, Senator Rand Paul was on, Dr. Robert Malone was on. I mean, major heavy hitters. And we were sitting in the green room of the Zoom system chatting with each other before the call started. And I was like telling myself like, gosh, how did I get there? And then I started thinking about all the roadblocks, but I'd reached out to Tony that night and I said, this is what I think I should talk about cuz it's such a short window and that's what I'd like to integrate. He was like, great idea. I love it. Do that. And so for those who maybe don't know the path that I've been on, I had a beautiful practice. I practiced for 25 years. Jim Parker was my mentor. I graduated Canadian school. Decades ago, but I hit the ground running. I mean, I went into practice and I had learned from Jim Parker that the more people you meet, the bigger your practice. So I was super shy. So I went out, I went about and I just introduced myself and gave my card and said, I'm opening up an office in 3 months and this is where it's gonna be. If you need a great chiropractor, you know, call me or give it to your friends. So I built this huge practice and had fun and I was a chiropractor. That's what I did. I detected, analyzed, and corrected subluxations. And that was huge practice. I did it with no marketing other than shaking people's hands and learning to speak the message of chiropractic. And I built a huge following. And patients then become ambassadors. You, and you've got to be able to deliver the goods, right? So I trained. When I was in chiropractic college, I trained. My mentor said, you train 15 minutes every day to develop your thrust, for example. You train 15 minutes a day developing your palpation skills. I had hair then. He said, pull a hair out of your head, put it under a page of a book and run your hand and try to find the hair. He says, if you do that for 15 minutes a day, he said, in a year you'll be able to find a 2-inch hair under 100 pages of a book. And I thought, there's no way that's possible. So I went ahead to prove him wrong. What I discovered was he was wrong. At the end of a year, I could feel the 2-inch hair under 250 pages of a book.

That's wild.

Called Grey's Anatomy.

That's great.

Right? And people say, how's that possible? I mean, the hair is, I don't even know how many microns the hair is. Because palpation is not a physical event. It's a neurological event. And so I said it because you train and you train and you train and you train.

Right.

And so Yeah, I, I got to adjust a lot of people every single day. And in the spring of 2003, I got diagnosed with primary pulmonary hypertension measured at 57 millimeters mercury of pressure. Normal's supposed to be 15. So I was, my pulmonary pressure was 4 times greater than normal. Probably been that way for years. Yeah. My body, as the human body does, had adapted. That's what the body does.

Yes.

And by the times my symptoms appeared, not only was my pulmonary pressure at 57 millimeters mercury pressure, my heart had grown to 2.5 times its normal size, right? We say the heart is roughly the size of your fist. Put 2 fists together, now expand that by half. My heart had grown and my symptoms did not start until there was no more room in my chest for my heart to grow anymore. And I thought I was allergic to something. I was trying to figure that out. One of my staff sort of forced me into a medical doctor's office who happened to be my best friend. He called me one night and said, hey, if I made a promise to someone, you're the only person on the planet who could help me fulfill my promise. Would you do whatever it takes to help me? I said, yeah, of course I would. That's what friends do. He said, great, I'll see you tomorrow at the office at 4 o'clock. It was on a Monday night. He knew I didn't see patients on Tuesday. And he literally hung up the phone. He knew I'd, I'd never been to him. I never went to a medical doctor. So I ended up there and over a number of months got diagnosed with primary pulmonary hypertension. Terminal diagnosis, prognosis less than 24 months to live. One potential option to give me 5 years was a double lung and heart transplant. Abnormal. Made no sense to me. I read up on it. I was like, no quality of life. Talked to the cardiologist, said, well, no, but you're going to be alive. I said, but if I'm alive and I can't do anything, if I can't live a purposeful life, what's the point of being alive? And so, you know, Lona, I didn't go through any of the things that people talk about when somebody's diagnosed with a terminal condition. You know, people go into denial or they get into anger. I didn't experience any of that. What I experienced was the thought, if this is God's calling for my life, I'm cool. I've had a great life. And I was a single dad with 3 kids in college. So I had to tell that to my children. That was the hardest part, was to tell my children And so I explained to them what their uncle, my physician at the time, my kids always called him Uncle Barry, we were best friends, had told me. And I said, and I don't want to do that. And simultaneously, my 3 children, 2 sons and a daughter, simultaneously, the 3 of them said, then don't do it. So they were 100% supportive. Of course, we cried and, you know, conversation continued. So I got to my office. I said to my team, I am going to retire. We've got to find somebody to take over the practice because, you know, practice was my baby. And during the last probably 6 months of adjusting, I became somewhat of a heretic. I succumbed to the half-hourly use of Ventolin so I could breathe enough to take care of the next group of people in that 30-minute segment. And then I would just go home and sleep. So that my day was I'd go in, I'd adjust, every 30 minutes pump ventilator in me when I was, and I felt like I wanna rip my skin off my body.

Yeah.

And then I would go home and I would fall asleep and I'd get up the next morning and I would do the same thing again. Then I found somebody to take over my practice. So I officially retired on the 14th of April in 2004. I told my kids about the, what was happening in at Thanksgiving in the fall of 2003. Thanksgiving in Canada is in October, not November.

Okay.

A month early because you can't pick anything in November in Canada. It's all frozen. That's why. So anyway, I retired on the 14th of April, 2004, did what people do when they know they're gonna die, did all my preparations, everything I needed to prepare, will, finance, you name it, I did it all. And on the 15th of May, 31 days later, I woke up And I won't say the words that I heard in my head because they're not nice words, but they're, you're like a beep beep idiot. You've been teaching and preaching the chiropractic paradigm of health and healing for 25 years. There must be something seriously wrong with your spine and nervous system. That's what I heard in my head.

Yeah.

See, loser, you're a chiropractor. How could there be? Well, that's the question I ask myself. How could there be? I see a chiropractor every week or two. The revealing thought Dr. Lona, was the third question, or the third thought rather. Never the same chiropractor, right? Friends get together for lunch, go out for dinner, go out for a beer on Friday, come to my office, go to your office. You can check me, I can check you. And I realized in that moment, laying in bed, that my practice members got better care than I did. My team got better care than I did. Nobody in my community had a chart on me. Nobody had done a thorough examination, neurological exam, x-ray examination in like 3 decades.

Right.

And I was like, what an idiot.

What an idiot. I've been receiving substandard care through no fault of anyone but myself.

Right.

And when I asked this question of a chiropractic audience and I asked multiple questions, there could be 700 people in the room, like we're at TRP. Yeah, by the time I finished asking my questions about regular chiropractic care, we're lucky if 1% of the people in the room, yes, are on the same level of care that they provide and expect to their practice members.

The first time I heard you tell that story, I was like, oh, okay, like, gotta go figure that out when I get home, right? The whole team too, like, we need to live on the schedule, we need to have our scans redone, we need all that.

Exactly. We should be getting the same level of care that our practice members get. Why do we as chiropractors agree? And it's, I think it's all subconscious to get substandard care, right?

It makes no sense.

If the care that I told my practice members was necessary for them, why was it not necessary for me?

100%.

Yeah.

Critical question, right? Because it wasn't necessary for me and I was dying. So I had to go to the chiropractor's office, complete consultation, examination, X-rays, nerve scans, come back the next day for reported findings. My spine looked pretty good except from C7 to T4, it was, Dr. Lona, a complete mess. It did not even look like 5 vertebra sitting on top of the other. And I think that what I experienced was microtrauma. Yeah, over 2 and a half decades of leaning over a table and adjusting 150 people a day, 5 days a week or more.

Yeah.

And so I got beat up.

Yeah.

I started getting adjusted 5 days a week. I did that for 12 weeks. But, and I knew after about 6 weeks that something was changing. First 6 weeks, symptomatically, nothing changed. Yeah. I mean, I still had the same issues. Right? Which, of course I would. We know that. At week, somewhere after week 6, I could tell I was getting better because I had a little bit more ease going up a flight of stairs. I could walk from like my car into my house and not feel like completely winded.

Yeah.

I didn't feel like I was a 90-year-old in a 50-year-old body. Mm-hmm. 12 weeks from 12 weeks of care, 5 days a week, 12 weeks, 60 adjustments. My pulmonary pressure had dropped on echo cardiogram, had dropped from 57 to 27 millimeters mercury pressure. Slightly more than a 50% improvement in 12 weeks. I went from being on death row to seeing possibility of healing in 12 weeks, right? My pulmonary pressure was normal in 1 year. My cardiomegaly was no longer in 24 months. My heart went accommodate— my body accommodated again, right? Ah, it's a change. And I no longer had cardiomegaly. And so my life went on. I was like, oh my gosh, I'm well again. And how cool is that?

Yes.

And I've got plastic deformity at T2, so I subluxate at T2 real easy. So going back into practice and adjusting full spine just did not seem to be the right thing. And then I'll, then I'll go to, you know, the rest of the story, right? Because I started working in education because I was asked to. It wasn't something that I thought I had any skills at. And I've not been a professor, but I've worked on the administrative side. And I'm a, you know, I'm a great businessman. I built a huge business. I know how to run a school 'cause it's a business. So I ended up doing that in one institution. And now I've been at Life University since 2013. But I know the rest of the story you want me to tell and not to impress people, but to impress upon them what's possible. I heard a voice in July of 2022 and I'd never heard a voice before. And I've never heard the voice since, but this was like a very clear voice. And the voice was, go to the track. It was a Sunday morning in Atlanta. It was pretty hot on Sunday, you know, in July. But I remember hearing the voice. I was like, what? And I thought my wife was in the room and she wasn't in the room. I was just waking up. And I heard the voice again. And so I came to the track here. Don't ask me why I didn't stop at the track by the high school, which is like 1 mile from my house. It never even dawned on me that I was supposed to go there, go to the track. I saw go to the track at Life University. Our track is as beautiful as the one at the high school, but ours is in an extremely quaint setting, about 300 degrees of trees around the track. So it's up high, it's serene. And all I did was I walked around the track. I walked, I paid attention. I listened. I could hear the birds. I could hear the wind rustling through the leaves. I could feel the sun on my back or in my face when I was going in the opposite direction. And I was like, wow, I remember the serenity that I felt when I used to train when I was in high school and college.

Yeah.

And so I went home. I said to my wife, I think I'm supposed to train and, like, compete, like, one more time.

Yeah.

Just one more time. And so I trained, I started training, end up meeting a coach. He convinced me I should compete in the indoor season in the winter of 2023. So I started training in July of 2022. Well, about 3 weeks after that, I start training with a trainer. I start on my own, but then I, then I hired a coach to train me. And my benchmark timed 400 meters with him was 2 minutes and 23 seconds. So it's like 153 seconds or 143 seconds. Sorry. In high school, my last year of high school, I ran a 48.1. So I was like, oh my gosh, I suck so bad. And then my coach looked at me and he said, well, he said, we just need to train you up. You still have a nice running style. You haven't competed. You haven't run in like that in 50 years. Like, what do you expect? So he says to me, train the way I'm gonna teach you and we're gonna cut your time down in half within 18 months. So you do the math, right? 2:23:143. That means I'm gonna be able to run it in like 72 seconds.

Okay.

Not 48:1, but I'm no longer 17 either. So I'd be happy with that. So I, he convinced me to compete in the indoor season. I ran my first meet in February of 2023, the Southeast Region US Track and Field Association Indoor Championship, and I won the gold medal on my first meet in 50 years. That's awesome. And the rest is history, right? It brought me to the national championship that I unofficially won, officially got DQ'd 'cause I stepped on the white line twice. Ah, the first curve.

Yeah.

But that year I, I won 9 gold medals that year.

That's awesome.

And I've gone on to, continued to compete. I made Team USA in 2023, like literally like 6 weeks after I started competing. I made Team USA, went to compete in Poland, over 4,000 athletes, 88 countries represented. Didn't win a medal there. Got a lot of great experience. But in, actually on October 8th, 2025, I won the gold medal in the 400 at the World Championship. Age 70.

Woohoo!

And I ran it in 1:11:58. Almost exactly the time that my coach said I was gonna be able to do in 18 months.

Yes.

And my goal is to get even better. So I'm gonna continue. And the most important part of the story, 100% because of chiropractic. Right. 100% because I recognized at that time So I had not been receiving quality chiropractic care. When my subluxations were corrected through a specific chiropractic adjustment, my nervous system started functioning the way it was designed to function, and my organs started functioning the way they were designed to function. Chiropractic has a direct impact on physiology, period.

You—

anecdotal according to cardiologists? Completely anecdotal. The fact that I'm alive and sitting on this Zoom call with you in 2026 when I was supposed to be dead in 2005. That is not anecdotal, right? That's factual.

And the world champion—

listening in, are you under regular chiropractic care, making appointments, having your chiropractor take notes, having regular reevaluations at the same frequency that you expect to function with your own practice members. And if you're not, do yourself a favor.

Yes.

Become a practice member in your practice or somebody else's, even if you have to pay for it.

Yes.

I paid for my care and I had no problem paying for my care, and I'm alive to talk about it.

Well, and back to where we started, right? Like, you tithe back in, which is a natural law or universal law that what we give, we get, right?

So yeah, the hole you give through is the hole you receive through, right? Yeah.

Jill, you're such a gift for so many reasons to our profession, to leadership, to just humanity in general from who you be. I just was like smiling ear to ear in that meeting last week when they named you right from the jump the like voice for chiropractic, the leader for chiropractic, because I think you're the perfect person for it. And it makes me really happy because I know our version of chiropractic is what You just told us your story. It's like, who can argue with that?

Yeah. I mean, that's why I think I believe that the challenge that I was given and I was put in that spot.

Yes.

For this reason.

I agree.

I can tell the story. It's a true story. It's a documented— it's a medically documented story.

Yes.

And you— I mean, you can't deny— you look at an echocardiogram strip, you know, multiple ones that just keep getting worse and worse and worse and worse. You insert daily chiropractic care for 12 weeks, and all of a sudden you get a new strip and you go, yes, my gosh.

Well, it's such a powerful story. And then you're, you're thriving in life decades later is a powerful story. And, and I think what's most important about it is it, it takes the emotional piece too that a lot of people need to hear. I need hope. I need hope that there is something that's possible for me that's better than what I'm experiencing right now, and that my body is smart and my body can heal. And you can articulate that and you've walked it through, which that in and of itself gives people trust. Like, you know, he's not just sitting on top of his mountain, never having had any problems. Listen to me, trust me. When you're like, no, I've walked this road, I'm walking this road.

I will. That's why I believe God gave me the challenge so I could be a living example for others and they could learn vicariously through the example that I can share. Yeah, which is why I'm always honored to get on a podcast like this, because it may change how one chiropractor listening in changes how they choose to be taken care of.

Yeah.

And how they take care of their patients as well. You know, I don't use the term patient and practice member interchangeably. You've heard me use both. For me, a patient became a practice member when they chose lifetime care. So if somebody comes in as a patient, they get adjusted 4 or 5 times, they're a patient.

Yeah.

And then, you know, they leave because they feel better and they don't understand the big vision. As good of a communicator I think I became, not everybody chose to complete their care plan or to be a lifetime practice member in our practice.

Right.

But that's what we must do. We must always teach from the perspective of getting them, not to convince them, getting them to understand the value and the power Yes. But being a lifetime care member of your practice.

Right.

And once they chose that and said, yes, I want this for the rest of my life, I said, well, now you're a practice member. You're a member of the family. It's a different place to be.

Yeah. Dr. Stephen always says like, families who are in your practice are safer and healthier than families out of your practice. Right?

Yeah.

It's so true, right? Oh, so good. I was with Peter Kevorkian last weekend when we were in Montana and, you know, he had a really large family practice for a lot of years.

I've been there.

Yes. Okay, me too. And he said, I said to Peter, tell me like what you think the special sauce is for like 20 years of people staying weekly care, you know, family, you know, he's like, you treat them like family. He's like, I wanted to take care of my people like they were family.

Absolutely. That's why it was so hard to leave my practice after 25 years. I love those people.

And they love you.

Yeah, they love you in return. It's really cool because I go back, it's way in northern Canada, but I go back every once in a while. And it's so cool to walk into the practice and visit the chiropractor's husband and wife who took over the practice 22 years ago, and to see people in the reception room that were practice members when I was in practice. It's so cool to watch. That's awesome.

That's so good.

They got the big idea.

That's right. And they're still getting it. And, and, you know, in, in reflecting on all of this with like what's happening with Maha, you know, what's happening in our profession, you know, We were all together in Phoenix, and, and one of the things I shared is just like, for a population that is looking for the chiropractic paradigm and what chiropractic and the adjustment can bring back to their health, like your story of healing, right? You know, we just need more chiropractors. This is a heyday on some level for like, stay in our lane, preach our philosophy, be a beacon and light in your community, and then send more people to chiropractic school in great places like Dr. Jill's down at LifeWest, wherever, like we're tied back to the profession by either donating or sending students or whatever you can do to help grow this because there just really does need to be more of us.

Yeah. And, you know, I heard you say whatever, wherever, and I'm going to, if I can, just disagree for a second. Don't pick a school because of its location. Pick a school where you're going to learn to be a great chiropractor.

Yes.

And unfortunately, that's not every school because so many are not teaching our chiropractic philosophy. And to me, the foundation of our profession is our principles. And so when I speak sometimes to students, you know, from different institutions, which I did not that long ago at a WCCS conference, and I walked in with a stack of posters of the 33 principles, And you get students to say, what is that? And I said to one student, so where are you at in your chiropractic education? He said, I've been in chiropractic school for 2 years now. I said, you've never heard of the 33 principles? He said, no, but I'd like to.

Yeah.

So I talked about the 33 principles.

Yeah.

Because that's the foundation, right? If you look at life as a pyramid, that's your foundation. If you don't build a strong foundation, you're going to teeter-totter all over the place. And you're usually gonna fall over.

Yeah.

So make sure you get a solid foundation. And if I can brag a little bit about Life University students and our faculty for a minute, you know, the board scores that came up, Part 4 board scores that came out in November, Life University students were all above average. The Life University average was all above in every single category of adjusting. And every other category, they were also above except for one where they were even. And I think it was, I think it was physical exam or something like that. They were even with the national average. So we teach philosophy, we teach techniques, our students graduate being great clinicians, and I'm like really proud of them. I'm proud of them. I'm proud of our faculty. I'm proud of the hours that they dedicate. And it, it caused me to just want to continue to be here to support that future vision of expanding the chiropractic profession.

Yes. Well, we're grateful for the work you do. It's—

thank you.

It has many ripples, that's for sure. So thank you for being on this. Thank you for telling your story. Thank you for all you do to lead chiropractic in a bigger way. We're really grateful.

And thanks to you as well, because you've been doing some great work with your With everything you've been doing. I mean, I've known you since I think you were a chiropractic pup. You were maybe a year or two out when I first met you. And, uh, you've been out for more than 5 years now. Yes, I have.

Oh, thank you, Jill. We'll have to have a drink. My pleasure.

Always a pleasure to spend time with you, Lana.

You too. You too.

Love you.

Bye.

Love you too. 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.

All right.

Welcome, everybody, to this portion of the podcast. I am Dr. Chris Greer. I'm a coach here for The Remarkable Practice, and I have one of the favorite people that I get to talk with on these. It's Dr. Steve Tullius from Waitlist Workshops. And just so you guys all know, I've used Waitlist Workshops now for a couple of years. And just have had fantastic results with those. And I love the process and I love the patients that I get from them. And Dr. Steve started this for very unique reasons and in a very big purpose. So just with that, Dr. Steve, introduce yourself to the people who might not know you and give us a sense on what is Waitlist Workshop and what is it there? What's it exist for?

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Dr. Chris. Always a pleasure chatting with you. And thank you for the opportunity to serve you and your practice, you know, with Waitlist Workshops. So welcome. I'm 24 years in practice. Um, like many of you listening, I believe I was born to be a chiropractor and help get this big idea to the masses. And I take that really seriously. And, and I got so frustrated in practice with what I saw as a big problem for myself, which was I wanted a pediatric and family practice. I wanted a wellness type of practice, but the reality was I had a neck pain and back pain clinic. Because the majority of people, if they have a positive impression of chiropractic, think we're good for neck pain and back pain. And, and our attraction models and our websites and our brochures typically match that belief system. And so I, in 2012, I sold my practice and, uh, I went on a 9-month trip around the world. I didn't work for a year. I took that time off to, to reset with my family, see the world, go on this cool trip, and with the vision of coming back to create the practice of my dreams, which was a pediatric-focused practice, you know, and being 100% cash and all those things. And, uh, it was an amazing time, amazing trip. But, uh, and I did come back with a really cool vision, but I also came back broke. Um, it was a lot more expensive to travel for 9 months without a job than I had budgeted for, especially because the dollar was getting killed at the time in Europe. And I had to figure out a way to, from, with, from scratch to build a brand new practice on a shoestring budget. And I also came back with a severely ill child who developed an autoimmune encephalitis at the time. So, you know, like many things in life, we sometimes are able to build and create things outta necessity and with our back against the wall. And, and that's what I had to do to feed my family and, and figure out a way to build this practice. So, I started doing workshops as, you know, workshops have been taught and preached about since, I don't know, the earliest years, you know, BJ was telling us we had to go out and share the word, right? So, but back in the day, for those of you that were around pre-social media, we did it by hitting the streets and taking flyers to Jamba Juice and the local health food store. Give it, have our teams take 5 to 10 flyers each and that, okay guys, you gotta pass 'em out. You gotta put 'em up. And that's how we filled rooms and it worked. But it was a lot of work and it was a lot of groundwork. And then the world changed. It turned into this thing, you know, that we have now with social media, you know, coming on the scene. And I'm a puzzle solver. I always have been. And I thought, okay, well, what if I start doing Facebook ads? And I started playing with it and I knew that I could solve this puzzle. And I did, I, I figured out how to regularly attract 15, 20, 25 people to my workshops and other docs saw what I was doing and asked if I would do it for them. So that's how it all was born. And it was born out of a deep need to solve a deep pain, which is an unspoken pain for the profession. You know, I talk with docs quite a bit. And there's a lot of successful practices out there. If we look deep enough, we often find that the types of people we're serving are not the types of people that we set out to when we left chiropractic college. And not that those people don't need the help, but it's the types of cases, you know, we, we— this profession was built and saved upon the principle of helping the sickest of the sick get well and stay that way. And if we take an honest assessment of our landscape we have fallen far from that. And so I wanted to solve that for me personally. Never in my world, my dreams had ever dreamed of having a marketing company. And, but what I realized is that I have the opportunity to help create the demand for this massive need. And that's the beauty of Weightless Workshops is that we're not doing workshops around musculoskeletal stuff. Although we, we have some that you can, give, and we've, we've honestly created those because so many docs just want that so badly. And, and, but once they experience the Gut-Brain Connection or the Neurodevelopmental Disorders Workshop or the Mental Health Matters, and they see, oh wait, we can, we can attract these people who we always used to attract, and we can explain this in a logical way where it makes total sense and gives people the emotional certainty. Well, why wouldn't they want to do that? And so that's what we have. We have a system to attract the sickest of the sick, you know, pediatric, you know, fill pediatric practices and offices that want to help people with autoimmune issues to digestive, hormonal issues, you name it. And it's a turnkey system to do so. And I just really appreciate the opportunity to help do that for you and your practice too.

Absolutely. And that's, you know, I think what you've already said should get people thinking. So docs on the line, What you should be thinking is, oh, am I serving the population that I set out to serve? And maybe even the bigger question, am I serving the population that chiropractic was designed to serve, which is the sickest of the sick? You know, if we go way back, this is what we have historical evidence for, is having phenomenal results with the sickest of the sick, not just people with conventional low back pain, headaches, neck pain, those sorts of things. And Dr. Steve, you're right, those people need, need it too. Like the people who are doing the reactive short-term, you know, practice, I think they need help too. But it's not what your system does, right? It's like there's all sorts of marketing systems out there to help get those people in the door. The doc on the line that I think ought to be really tuning in or leaning in right now is the one who's like, yeah, I think there's more. I think there's more that I want to do in my community. And how do I do that? So I'm one who I also started before the time of social media, like, and we were doing all like trying to fill workshops. I do workshops all the time and, you know, my workshops were good and my delivery was good, but it would be really hard to get more than 3 or 4 people to them. You know, like we really had to work for 10 people to get to them. And so when your solution came in front of me and I was like, okay, they do the work on digital so that people show up at my office. Like they're going to tomorrow night, by the way, like I've got that already locked in. I haven't had to do anything. They're showing up tomorrow night so that I can do what I love best, which is actually deliver, actually go out and inspire people through the message of chiropractic and how it relates to, in tomorrow's example, neurodevelopmental disorders or the gut-brain connection, which has been my most successful one at connecting with people. Like, those are the docs that I think need to be leaning in and need to be reaching out to you. Now, one of the things I wanted to point out is like you do your attraction to these events digitally. One of the common concerns with docs is that digital new patients are harder to convert and harder to retain. Now, you and I have talked about this many times because I'm a client of yours, but do you mind if I take a second just to talk about that specific issue?

Yeah, no, I absolutely love you to tackle that one because it's— that's not a concern for our clients. So yeah, I'd love for you to tackle that one.

It is it. Yeah. And I've had this issue with digital attraction, right? Like, boom, people are coming through the door. Oh, this is great. But man, they're difficult conversion processes. And whoa, if they do start, they're way harder retaining through your processes. And what I found with waitlist workshops is that I first off, my, my reception room, which is where I do my workshops, is full. You know, it's like we've got in that from my office is 12 to 20 people, like that's full. It's great to have that energy in the room. Then the people who schedule new patient appointments from that, which is a pretty high rate in our office, they are ready. They know us, they like us, they trust us. We are already— our office is already their expert in the issue. So they convert well. And then what we've found now that we've done this for a couple of years is most of the people who we start through waitlist stay. So retention. And that's where, I mean, I'm just so bullish on retention. I just love it. I just— anything I can do to do something to improve retention, I want to get that word to the masses. And so I want to thank you personally. Like, it seems like this has solved the issue for practices who love to do workshops but struggle to get people in. And they love to do workshops because they know when people start from workshops, they stay. So I just know your system works great for that. And I don't— I know that that was one of the reasons that you started doing it for your own office. Maybe if you want to speak any more to that or if you feel like I covered it.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, absolutely. So I refer to workshops as day zero, right? We talk about day one and day two all the time, but day zero, man, if you get people coming in with, again, the, here's the formula: massive needs equals high quality leads, right? Number one. So these people, they're not, this is not a dinner workshop either. Not that dinner workshops are bad, but dinner workshops are typically around people with, maybe they have a perceived need, maybe they don't. Now we, now we're talking about people with the biggest needs in, in society, right? And so, uh, like for neurodevelopmental disorders, there's no bigger need than helping your sick child get well.

Yes.

And so people come to these workshops with a very targeted need, uh, and then they sit through an hour of your class and we don't always just leave you with the group. Like we give you the formula, we give you the formula to give people the logical and emotional certainty. I've given these workshops over 300 times. Our doctors have given them over 10,000 times and we coach our doctors on how to to present and how to give that logical emotional certainty. Because the reality is, as chiropractors, we're fortune tellers. We, we know what the future looks like. If people were just to have that exam and to take our recommendations and move forward with care, we know that their future looks much brighter with us and chiropractic in it than without it. So the— so all we have to do is get a group of people with a big need, help give them the logical emotional certainty which we build into our presentations teach our docs how to give it, and then invite those people in for care. So what I always loved is— and, you know, I got kind of frustrated too. I got frustrated when someone came in with low back pain and was questioning whether I could help them or not. When I was helping kids who weren't speaking begin to speak, and people with seizures, you know, their seizures go away, I was starting to get a little ticked at that. And so You know, these people, they see you as a specialist. They— that we are, and they recognize our value, and we show them exactly what it's going to look like to work with us so that when they come in, well, it's no— it's no wonder there's high, uh, conversion because they've already bought. They bought at the workshop. You told them what it all looked like. You told them what a care plan looks like. You told them all these things. Well, now they're just coming in to find out what are the findings and what are your recommendations, right? What a concept, right? And then because of that, they understand the process of correction that's going to take time and repetition. And so they don't balk at 12-month care plans. You know, this model was, this was built in 100% cash office. Um, they, they're glad to pay and then they, they probably notice this. They also know other people just like them who also now have high retention, conversion retention, because they have these big problems too. So I'm a little partial to it. I hear that problem all the time that digital produces weak leads, but that's only because people are thinking of all these other attraction models. That are based upon selling exams, right? And not, and that's commoditized. You know, that's, that's been commoditized. We're talking about establishing you as a specialist and you don't have to sell your exam for cheap. You, you know, you can offer it for, you know, as I did, you know, my exam was $350 and I offered it for $150, which is still a discount, but it's not of this massive, massive discount. Um, so anyway, that's my, that's my take on it.

Absolutely. I, man, I I am absolutely using that so many times. Massive needs equals high quality leads. And that's exactly what you guys do. You market to folks who have massive needs and therefore the people who come and sit in your office have our high quality leads on day zero, not even on day one, on day zero, they're there. You also touched on the fact and make sure, docs, you listen up to this because this system, weightless workshops, they train you. If you're thinking like, oh my gosh, I'm not, I don't have a presentation ready. I don't exactly know how to present. I don't know how to close at a, at a workshop. Uh, we don't need to go into all the detail, but I, Dr. Steve, talk a little bit about the training that a doc receives so that they can deliver that high-quality workshop.

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I used to be deathly afraid of public speaking. Right. So I understand the, a lot of the challenges with just even getting up in front of a room full of people. So number one, but not everyone shares that, like that, that fear that I had. However, I do know how to crush that for anyone who does, and we do it all the time. But the other piece is, and I didn't realize this was, this was really one of my limiting beliefs. I, I didn't realize that I had really perfected a system of communication to, to create that logical and emotional certainty so that people like, this makes total sense, you know, at high conversion rates, my associates, who also were deathly afraid of public speaking, but had to because they were employees. They also developed really high conversion rates at workshops. And so the last couple years I've been really focused on this problem because our number one problem as a workshop company is not getting butts in the seats. That's just a math formula. And it's, it's one that's reproducible. That's why we can have a doctor giving a workshop in 4 weeks and expect on average right now, we're averaging 20 people in attendance. We're, And that could be from 15 to 25, but, but right now we're averaging 20. And that part's easy. It's just a math formula. The hard part is making sure that the docs are ready to convert that room. I just got off a— so here's how we do that. We give them extensive trainings to understand the principles at play, not being Steve, right? Because no one can be me and I can't be them. So, but there are principles that we can follow to take people to that end result, which is, again, we're all fortune tellers. We know that those lives can be transformed and will be if people move forward with care. So then what do people need to know? What do they need to believe? What do they need to feel? And what objections do we have to handle so that they— we can even get them to that place? And so that's what I've really obsessed over. That process. That's what I built for me. It's only until recently that I fully understood it so that I could teach it. And so now we, we do one-on-one coaching prior to every first event. I just got off a call just before this. We're on a— we went through all the slides. Well, and I'm so grateful that I did. I didn't used to always do this because there were slight nuances at little key points where people are, are killing their credibility, or they're— they, they haven't established trust yet and they're selling chiropractic way too Absolutely. That happens all the time. And so it's just little tiny tweaks, little tiny principles to understand that, okay, that makes sense. That's why I shouldn't do that. And so now we're, we just, we have a great process of identifying those things and then doing some one-on-one training to make sure that they're ready to hit the ground running.

Awesome. So good. Well, hopefully by this point, the, the listener is like, oh my gosh, like, this is the next thing for me. If that's you as a, as a listener, like, wow, I love to educate. I would I'd love to see the sickest of the sick. I'd love to have a bigger impact in my practice, then get in touch with Dr. Steve. And that's the last thing, it's what I want to end with. Thank you so much for being here, but tell the folks, how do they get in touch with you?

Yeah, easiest way, go to waitlistworkshops.com. There's a calendar on that page to set up a call. It'll be with me. I do all the calls because I, I want to, I want to make sure it's a great fit. And we're going to walk through all those things and make sure— not everyone, this isn't for everyone. This, this is, this is for offices that are super passionate, want to transform their community, want to see the sickest of the sick, want to see— not everyone has to see kids like we, but if you want to see kids, I don't know anyone who does it better than us to get kids in, into offices and also be super passionate about education and growing and knowing that you, we can always grow in our communication. If that's you, then go to the website weightlessworkshops.com. Also Steve Tullius on Instagram or Facebook. I'm highly accessible that way too.

All right, awesome. Check it out, everybody. Dr. Steve, always a pleasure. Thanks for being a success partner with us as we all help each other help more people. So we're looking forward to continued success for everybody who's involved.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Doc. I love being part of TRP and I just love the mission and the great work you guys are doing to, to make docs really prepared to, to meet that need, right? Because it's one thing to get the patients in, but it's another to make sure that they stay and they're, they're experiences there, and the systems are dialed in, and you guys are crushing it there. So thanks so much.

Absolutely. Thank you.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Build Your 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.