Galen Stolp's One Shot Story

I'm here with Galen from Integrated Chiropractic, and he's just had— just shared with me an incredible one-shot story. Apparently, he was working with a gentleman who was the chiropractor for an Olympic team. And so why don't you tell us, mate? Tell us how you managed to go from a guy with a whole bunch of injuries to now a guy helping people with a whole bunch of injuries.

Well, just my personal experience with rugby down at Palmer College of Chiropractic. Not only that, but I worked with a guy named Dr. Wayne Huber here in town. He worked with Olympic men and women's volleyball teams across seas, taught me quite a few things there. So I've utilized both what I've learned from him and my own personal experience to help people in this big gym that I'm a part of. So it's been quite an experience. Yeah, especially going through my own injuries, things like that.

Yeah, well, he went through a list. A couple of calves ripped, a couple of shoulders ripped.

Torn ankle, separated shoulder, torn shoulder.

It's always nice as an athlete to have a doctor who knows what it's like to hurt.

Yeah, personal experience goes a long way. It does go a long way.

Now you were telling me that you've been open about a year now.

Yep, started last February 15th. Things have been going quite well, especially it's nice to have a big gym to market with. All the clients here, they're very nice people. It's a good gym to be a part of. You were here yesterday.

Yeah, great gym, great space. When you stepped out, so you said that business has exceeded your expectations in the first 12 months.

Yep, definitely.

So what sort of things did you have a challenge with when you were about to step out and you're about to have a go for your one-shot at business? What did you struggle with?

Once you're out of business, I mean, the most struggle was trying to find the right clients to approach because in the gym people think that I'm a chiropractor for sports injury only.

Yeah.

I've had a lot of personal experience with that. At the same time, I do simple adjustments like come in for a stiff neck, stiff back, anything like that. So I've also had experience with babies, geriatrics, things like that too. So I want to get my approach to all the patients, which I need to get my name out there as well as being inside of a gym.

Great. So if you were talking to someone who wanted to start their own business or step out in business, what would you recommend to them? What would they have to look out for?

Just never stop marketing.

Never stop marketing.

Yeah, just always have cards on you, always promote yourself. Confidence is probably the biggest thing.

Really?

Yep, definitely have confidence in what you do in your job. Confidence goes a long way with your adjustments, your therapy.

Yep.

And knowing in your head that you are even in the right rehab to do to get past their injury, things like that. And then obviously care for your patients. Right.

So my background's rugby. I played a lot of rugby in Australia, a lot of martial arts, boxing up until about 4 years ago when I just didn't heal that quickly at all. And I love chiropractic work. I don't like these soft adjustments. I like the ones that you can hear it thunder about a block down, you know, the real good ones. So for me, when my body gets out of line, I feel my hips go, or if I'm doing a back exercise. And what I've found with bodybuilding particularly is because you're putting so much stress on the joints and so much stress with the muscles and the muscles contracted, Even though you are stretching them, I've found that it's difficult because sometimes the body just gets out of alignment. Now, with your experience, what would the benefits be? What benefits would you tell someone sit behind getting regular chiropractic adjustments?

Well, especially for engaging in physical activity. The thing with me is I do the hard adjustments too, but I also can ease up my approach and my tension, things like that. But in your case, I mean, you're going to need some muscle work as well. So I always focus on the muscle work first, find out which muscles are too tight, which ones are too weak, things like that. Then I'll fix that component or do my best fixing that component of the issue, and then I'll adjust you. That way, if you go sit down in your car, all you had was an adjustment, you can go right back out of place. So we have to basically focus on that soft tissue component.

Because bones don't have memories, muscles have memories.

If I give you the right rehab and you're compliant with it, I see very good responses too.

That's great.

I usually don't do long treatment plans. It's usually about 1 to 5 visits depending on how severe the case is. If it's a car accident, it's going to be more, things like that. You've been through a lot of concussions. We'd probably do quite a few neck adjustments, things like that. I'd give you some rehab, strengthening, stretching, things like that too. that you can use on your own. If you do it on your own, you typically don't have to come back as much as a normal patient does.

That's excellent.

So, well, it's awesome.

Well, I'm going in for a crack. You're going to come join us, and we'll see how we go.