101- Forward Thinking Chiropractic with Dr. Bobby Maybee

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Hello and welcome to the Evidence Based Chiropractor. I AM your host, Dr. Jeff Langmead. This week we have a special episode and a special guest. I interview the Forward Thinking Chiropractic alliance founder and practicing chiropractor Bobby Mabie and it is an interesting chat. We go down a few different rabbit holes and I would encourage you to take a listen and see what he has going on. Additionally, last week you may have heard the faint sound of champagne popping in the background because last week was our 100th episode of the Evidence Based Chiropractor podcast. So thank you a ton for listening, for contributing, for giving feedback and everything in between. I greatly appreciate it and I cannot wait for the next 100. So before we dive into the interview, I'll say a few words about Rock Tape. Roc Tape is revolutionizing the soft tissue world again with new rock blades Mohawk. Featuring three tools in one, a surgical stainless steel hand polish tool and two attachments silicon sleeve and an ABS comb, Rockblade's Mohawk unlocks never before seen treatment protocols to reduce pain, improve mobility and address issues like nerve glide and neuropathy. 175 bucks. Check it out and get access to educational courses@rocktape.com Mohawk and without further ado, here is me and Dr. Bobby Mabey.

One thing that you and I, I brought it up before we came on just kind of casually but I'd love most people are going to know you from the Forward thinking Chiropractic Alliance. We're going to get to that. But I would love to know a little bit more about you. Like how did you get involved in chiropractic, what drew you to the profession and maybe even a little bit about your practice as it stands today.

The origin story can get long. But long story short, I was in the military. I was a medic in the Air Force. I also played on the Air Force Traveling all forces basketball team suffered an injury not unlike most other people that find their way to chiropractic. I was in the physical therapy clinic and I thought the physical therapist that I was talking to, I thought his job was just the bee's knees and he said this is nothing, you should check out chiropractic, it's way cooler. And I did and that's where I ended up. And he was right. He was right.

It was a good recommendation. I like it.

Yeah. And then after that, I followed chiropractors around in my early military career. From age 19, I pretty much knew I wanted to do this. Followed them around when I was in college, shadowed, worked as an associate. I mean, not an associate, an assistant. And then just picked out what I liked the best about the practice and what I liked the least about the practice and decided which way I wanted to go.

Sweet. And with that. And how long have you been in your current location?

This current location is a move, and we've been here for three years. Previous to that, I was in a multidisciplinary clinic. My partner was a physician and internal medicine and integrative medicine physician. And we were together for about seven and a half, eight years. So most of my career has been spent in integrative clinics. Okay. And this one is a branch out. Yeah.

Right on. So what's. What's the best standout? This is a good little rabbit hole to go down before we dive in. So best and worst. There's a lot of chiros out there that are looking to integrate their clinics, looking at different companies to help integrate. How do you do it, Maryland do, arnp, Pennsylvania. Just. We don't necessarily have to go down all of that. But what is your best and worst of having an integrated clinic? What was some of the best things that you loved about it? What were the couple of the biggest challenges?

Best is what everyone looks for when they're looking to work with an integrative clinic is that they get to work with different professionals and be part of a team, and it's a little more exciting. And those are great reasons to want to do it. The negatives is, especially in a larger integrative clinic, the reality is what you do is you end up with patients who are sort of shoppers, and they shop from one aspect of the clinic to the next aspect of the clinic to the next one. So they're trying out the acupuncture for a couple weeks, then they see chiropractor for a couple visits, then they're back with the md. And it's not always as truly integrated as you might think. So if you truly want to run a integrative clinic where the patient is truly managed by the whole team, you need to be sure that you've either set that up ahead of time or that you're walking into something like that and not just a bunch of professionals that all just happen to be in the same building under the title of Integrated when they're just usually just doing their own thing.

Yeah. And I guess a little bit more on the business side of that. Do you find that the integrative clinic really helps? I mean, a lot of docs are looking at it from the model of, hey, this is going to be able to expand our palate, expand what we have for service offerings, maybe even drive some more revenue ultimately into the clinic. I don't know. And your setup might have been a little bit different in terms of how that worked out, but your take on it, just with your experience, do you feel like it is good for a revenue driver? Do you think that there's a lot of hurdles to that? What have you experienced?

Well, there's a tremendous amount of hurdles. The overhead can be tremendous. I mean, our first integrative clinic was an MD physical therapy, chiropractic, acupuncture, massage. We had an esthetician, we had a bariatric, oxygen chamber, nutrition. There was a store, and the store didn't just sell supplements. It sold like tchotchkes and knickknacks. And it got really overwhelming and we parsed off and just went MD and DC and then just functioned on a cash only basis actually as well. So that's a whole nother rabbit hole to go down. But it was an MD DC cash practice that worked really well because it was more simplified. Yeah, you can get. You can fall down a overhead rabbit hole that you'll never come out of.

Right, right. I guess my big question for you then is, so who ended up with the tchotchkes, the chotchkis?

That's. The physician's wife did. Yeah, there were lots of neat little like cups and robes and things like that.

All the trinkets.

I didn't get anything.

So as and as time goes on, I mean, how's that morphin? I mean, anybody that's been online, on Facebook or off, I mean, for that matter, is probably familiar with forward thinking chiropractic alliance. I mean, the group's probably pushing almost 10% of the entire chiropractic profession, you know, within the group at this point. That's getting there. So in terms of that, like, what did you think? Did you want it to be big and popular? How did you build the tribe, so to speak? Did you just start just saying, hey, me and a couple of my buddies. Here's a few thoughts. We just want to be able to use an overused term, mastermind online. Where the heck did it come from and where is it now for anybody that's unfamiliar.

It's not a popular term to use these days because it's been co opted by the political environment. But we wanted a safe space. Basically what we had found in the or that I found in the chiropractic world online was that if you were to get into a conversation about evidence based care or chiropractic or some of the things that aren't traditional chiropractic approaches, rehab, I mean you can go down that list dry needling any of these other things that would be considered quote unquote, not chiropractic. If you ever try to get into these discussions, they were usually overpowered by louder voices that were saying things like that's not true, chiropractic. They would always devolve into an argument basically with whatever you want to call them, Internet trolls or just people who are just button pushers. So you can never just have a conversation about a certain piece of research, a certain way of practicing a certain approach to treating a certain type of patient. So we just wanted to create a place where people could go and have those conversations and not be quote unquote interrupted. Little did I know that there were thousands of people that wanted to have these conversations without being interrupted. And what it turned into, a couple friends, turned into 200, turned into 400, turned into 4,000 and still going on and on. So we still try to keep it pretty exclusive to people who are evidence based in nature to the group. So we don't let everybody in the group. And it's worked pretty well so far. It's a great group.

Yeah, I'd agree. I mean same as you probably and same as a lot of docs out there listening. I'm part of multiple Facebook groups online for chiropractic and some are dormant, some have all the haters and trolls. But I think with the forward thinking chiropractic alliance, one thing that I've found is the docs that are responding, the docs that are engaging, you know, are generally just a really good group of docs that are out, as you kind of said, to help each other and to say, hey, here's what I'm seeing, if it's medical, if it's business, if it's something in between and you know, there's a lot of engagement in terms of varying docs, various places, various practice styles, saying here's what I've seen, here's what I've experienced. Obviously there's some light hearted, you know, driving in there as well, which is great, you know, keep it, keep it fun. And lively. But I would say that I would agree. I think you've done a great job, but try to.

I mean, the administrators have to do a diligent job of keeping out salesy people and people who are there just to sort of sell a product or so we're not as exclusive as far as thoughts anymore because we know the majority of this profession is moderate in their approach to practice. And so you can't forget those people because they're super important to who we are as a profession. But we can get rid of the people who are sort of sticks in the mud and salesy folks. So that has helped the process of having this group have good conversations and setting the bar that we're here to share with each other and help as much as we can. We're not here to sort of land new clients. That it helps people be able to feel like they can be honest in the group and share and not get ridiculed or sold something. So it's nice.

Cool.

And I think you guys have done a great job of it and kind of, you know, kind of stepping on the. On the back of the group and upward and onward as well. The group's going to remain, obviously. It's growing fast. People are into it and the group of docs in it are awesome. And I think even more will be kind of, you know, open their eyes to it, obviously, as time goes on. But I know one big item that you have on your agenda in 2018 is actually kind of bringing that same. I'm going to put words in your mouth a little bit, bringing that same thought process as far as helping each other out, pushing the profession forward, looking to, you know, to the leaders in their designated territories. And what I'm beating around the bush about, obviously, is the event coming up in 2018. So give us a little bit of what's. How the heck. I mean, that's an undertaking, obviously, that you're going through right now.

Right.

So I'd actually love to know a little bit of if. I mean, we're going to talk about the event. I'm probably going to have you back on before the event comes up and we'll be able to talk about all the speakers, all that we can even. Even touch on a little bit. But I would love to know, like, what. How did that ruminate with you? Was it just that you were like not too thrilled with what you were going to. Just the demand from the group as far as saying, hey, we really want to do this. What spurred what's kind of Give me the behind the scenes. How does something like this come to fruition?

All of it.

All right, all of it.

Well, for one, it was always sort of the intent. I mean, you can't just get. You don't get anything done online on social media, you know, per se. You're not going to create any action, you're not going to create any movements. You're not going to actually get things done just by posting stuff on Facebook. You have to actually be out in the public shaking hands and meeting people, going to meetings and being part of things and putting your money where your mouth is. If you believe in something, you have to invest in it. So it was always a goal to get the group, quote unquote, off of social media. So it's not just the reputation of being a Facebook group, that it's a larger thing. And there people have always said, because in our group, people get so close to each other, it's almost like a pen pal, long distance relationship, that eventually they would like to meet some of these people. And so it's always been mentioned we should have some sort of convention, we should have a meeting, we should have our type of speakers speak to us in the message that we like to hear. And that's where it comes from. And it's hard, it's not easy to do. But we've created such a large group and I have such a network of amazing people. There are people that have done this before. There are people that have put on these type of events and they are awesome because they stepped up and they said, do you need help? I'll show you how to do it. So the event is going to be, it's sort of designed like I was tired of seeing the same old events where the same speakers show up and they sort of dial it in, they phone it in for their 15 or 20 minutes or hour lecture, whatever they have. People are really just there to get their continuing education credits and you know, they're looking for the nearest bars and as soon as they can sneak away, they're just like, sign in, go get my drinks and I'll sign out later on. So I wasn't. I'm not fascinated by those type of events. And I was never fascinated by the rah rah tent revival type of events either, where you're going to get spizzed up and fed up with the energy and then you get sent back out to your practice and you go, wait, I don't feel that anymore. So what did I learn? What did I take away from it? I have to go to another one so I get spizzed up again. We want to actually provide content to people and something that can really knock it out of the park. And we want to present it in a way that designs or states for this forward thinking chiropractic alliance, who we are, what we believe in, and announce that there is a new progressive way to practice and this is how we think it should go and how it should look for young chiropractors of the future.

Sweet. I love it.

So we're trying to make a new.

Thing and where and when.

June 1st through the 3rd in Kansas City, Kansas, not Missouri. It's at Cleveland Chiropractic College. So that's on the Kansas side. And, and it's going to be hot. Figuratively and literally it's going to be hot. And we're going to spend a weekend in Kansas City at Cleveland. Cleveland has been generous enough to offer their campus to us. They had some students on campus that really have worked really hard to make sure this thing happens. I mean, quite honestly, we've been trying to do this for quite a while now. And it wasn't until a group of students from Cleveland stepped up and said, we're going to make it happen. And they worked with their administration to get all the permissions and get us the space and hotel rooms and food carts and barbecue trucks and they're handling all the stuff. So I've never even met these people before and they're doing a tremendous amount of work, just not just for the group but for the profession as a whole. So it's gonna be an awesome event even if you're not in the group.

Yeah, I think, and I think that's the key thing is again, I think it just harps back to like, you know, the, you know, keep saying it, but it's like, you know, the, the group of individuals and chiropractors out there and all of us. Right. You can feel siloed at times, but when you start to, as you've kind of said, hey, some of these people I've never met and they're like going above and beyond for not only for what they believe in, but for the profession. It's not only about, it is their individual relationship and the building of that, but it also is about, well, how can we do things better, how can we modernize, how can we continue to learn and make things easier for other docs to be able to do so as well. So kudos to you, kudos obviously to the whole team and all of the Students out there that have really put together again. I've kind of watched it in the group kind of progress and there has been truly a team effort. So I think that's awesome. Obviously I'm looking forward to it greatly. And if I'm not mistaken, I'm gonna put you really on the spot right now. Because if I'm not mistaken, anybody is listening to this that's not in the group, there might be a Black Friday deal, Is that correct?

Hey man, I gotta put butts in seats. So whatever it takes. It's not about the money. It's really about getting this thing off the ground and having a good successful event so that if it is so successful that people will demand another one, a bigger one. So we're trying to make it small. It's not a huge event and we're trying to make sure that people are there and then the people who are there, we want them to talk about it and rave about it. So on our website, which is forwardthinkingchiro.com you can sign up to be a member. Right now I think membership is paid, but it's pretty, it's nominal fee just to be a member. If you're a doctor or a young doctor, it puts you on our map. So there's a directory so other doctors can, can find you. If you're a student, it's like 10 bucks and that that gets you membership. So that when we do have content, there'll be further content to give out to members. But there is the first place where we're probably going to do a pre sale launch is for the people who are members of the website. And then we'll leak out pre sales here, there and everywhere else. But the, the Black Friday one will be members only, whatever that means.

Nice.

I've been a week into my first ever website. Like this is not my world.

That's all good. You're doing a good job so far, let's put it that way. So yeah, I'd encourage anybody out there. If you're listening to this on Monday morning, heading to work, obviously have a great Thanksgiving, but keep your eyes peeled. Check out the forward thinking chiropractic alliance, not only the website, if you want to become a member. That's awesome. I think Bobby laid out kind of where it is and where it's going and really supporting the ability to produce great events is fantastic. If you have the opportunity to check out the event and kind of earmark it in your calendar for mid-2018 in June there, that would also be awesome. And at the bare minimum, I would encourage. Personally, I'll tell every doc out there, I'd encourage you. If you're not in the Facebook group, certainly put in your two cents. I know there's a couple questions to get in as you kind of go through the admins on their quality control. So hop on in, put in the request, and hopefully both you and Bobby and myself will see you there on the inside. So, Bobby, why are you going? Yeah.

Oh, you mean on the inside of the group.

Yeah.

Do you know any of the speakers that are going to be there?

I know a couple. Yes, I guess. And I will, Yes, I will say I am going to be there as well.

We're giving you like a top billing.

Yeah, yeah. Thank you. So, yes, I'm going to be there. I wasn't going to toot my own horn, but thank you for inviting me to go.

Yes.

Yeah, buddy.

And that's absolutely what we'll kind of jam on and chat about as we get closer. I'll have you back on. We'll talk about all the speakers, we'll talk about all the topics. Yeah. And obviously I've had the inside track, so I've seen some of what the topics are going to be. I think it's going to be awesome because again, the goal of this event, in my opinion, from a speaker perspective, is let's get out there with docs that are in the field. Let's give them tools, let's give them training, let's give them, okay, here's how we can talk, here's how we can move forward, here's how we can communicate. And really. And there's technique as well. So I think it really goes across the board to a practicing chiropractor, how to truly improve your practice, or at least get information where you can feel more confident moving forward in your day.

So that's Fresh Faces. There are definitely fresh faces you're going to see there. Not the same names you usually see on the speaking circuit, per se. And that should be exciting, for sure.

I can't wait. And of course, everybody that's listening, you can expect to see like 247 footage while I'm there, so. So you won't be able to miss it, but I'm looking forward to it. Bobby, I really appreciate everything that, you know that you. That you've done and putting together the. Not only the event, but the group and certainly for taking the time and chatting and we'll. We'll definitely get back together, go longer on a few of those topics. But thanks man.

No, I appreciate you. Thank you for the work that you do too, by the way. I really appreciate it. You're doing a good job.

Thank you.

So I hope you enjoyed that episode with Dr. Bobby Mabey. And additionally, if you are listening to this on Monday morning, it just came out. Be sure to check out what I have going on@bodysignalsprogram.com a lot of people have been reaching out to me over the last year and a half. Love the Evidence Based Chiropractor, but they want research based content for their patients. Workshop content, weekly handouts, social media graphics, Facebook ads, you name it, it is in this program. I contributed all the research based content to it. So if you're looking to step up your marketing game in 2018, check out bodysignalsprogram.com There is a special price that expires at midnight tonight. Have a great week and I will.

Talk to you soon.

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Sam.