EP 595: Unlocking Success: How Habits Shape Your Future with Ron Sinagra

The purpose of this show the purpose of this show is to guide you to realign with habits that get you to live the life you've always dreamed of. This this is the habit based lifestyle podcast with Jesse Jewel. This is the habit based lifestyle where you can access your full potential right now. Finally break free from destructive habits that dream life. If you want it, you can.

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Welcome back to the Habit Based Lifestyle Podcast. I'm your host, Jesse Yule and today we got a very special guest, one of our HBO clients, Science Ron Sanagra. Ron is from New York, he's a chiropractor, also does kind of functional medicine. Ron, can you give us kind of an intro man and just tell our audience a little bit about yourself and what got you started in chiropractic and then also kind of what you're doing now.

I've been in practice 35 years. I would have been considered a, a very straight chiropractor when we used to use those terms, primarily upper cervical. I also did gonstead type chiropractic care, but ran my business for 30 years. About 25 years. And I started moving towards functional healthcare. We don't call it functional medicine, we call it foundational healing because we look at the foundations of health and obviously we don't use medicine. But I really thought it was 30 years ago. We didn't deal with the types of patients. 30 years ago. Not everybody was a type 2 diabetic. Not everyone was obese, not everyone was fatigued. It had all kinds of fibromyalgia type symptoms and thyroid. I mean, it's a different patient base than it was when I got out of school. When I got out of school, autism was 1 in 10,000. It's 1 in 35. I mean, we have had a shift in health care, but that didn't drive my real change. My real change came when following an insurance model in New York State became impossible. Deductibles went up to 5,000, copayments went from $20,000 or $15 to 60. And most people viewed chiropractic for musculoskeletal reasons no matter how many times. I mean, I Spent my whole career doing seminars trying to educate the public on chiropractic's role in restoration of normal function, health, healing. But it was an uphill battle when most of your profession is doing the 13 danger signals and a back pain model. But either way, when the insurance became obvious that you could do insurance, my partner and I, Dr. Dave Weinstein, who has since passed unfortunately my bud. But we said, look, we need to create a model that we're going to attract people that are going to spend money and make a commitment. And who is that going to be? Sick people. So we formed a wellness center and we started targeting specific illnesses. Autoimmune disease, type 2 diabetes, fibromyalgia, thyroid conditions, digestive conditions, and then brain malfunction, you know, ADHD in the children and hyper. And what do they call hyperactivity, and then also anxiety and depression.

Let's talk about. So, like, from 35 years ago to today, how much more are you seeing all those conditions versus, like, what you saw 35 years ago when you first started?

I don't see musculoskeletal patients. They don't. I mean, I still have a chiropractic office because, you know, I still have my chiropractic base, but all my new patients are dealing with disease and illness. Very few back pain patients come in. Not that they're not welcome, of course they are. But I target specific, especially autoimmune disease. I suffered with psoriasis for years. My whole life. My. And I went to take a seminar on functional wellness, and it was life changing. And then I changed. I completely changed. Which is ironic because if you would have asked me what is my biggest nemesis in life, it would have, I would have told you. Psoriasis. I mean, it was very. It was unsightly. I would take my shirt off. I'm a boat guy, and these big red scaly patches everywhere. You know, it was. It was. It was tough. And when I took the functional wellness seminar, I'm like, oh, my God, this is the only thing that's ever made sense in healthcare.

So when did you, when did you make that switch from maybe more of just chiropractic to the functional wellness model?

12 years ago.

Okay.

And over, over. I'm sorry, 10 years ago. I'm trying to think when me and Dr. Dave did it, we did it about 10 years ago. Maybe it was 12. Between 10 and 12 years ago, it started a little slow, you know, and then we just said, look, let's just do this, and we set up a wellness. You Know, we set up a whole website, and then we started using Google, AdWords and specific target markets for autoimmune disease. And then it just started to take off from there. And I truly love it because, you know, as a chiropractor, we used to always wish to take care of sick people and. But yet 95% of our patients, 90% of our patients that came through the door were musculoskeletal, you know, back pain, neck pain, headaches. And then if somebody came in and they had another condition and they got well, it was great, you know, but very few people came to us and said, I have lupus, I'm coming to you. They didn't put the connection between.

Yeah, well, I mean, I think. I think most people don't know that they have autoimmune, you know, lupus, some of these other conditions, because, you know, maybe if they go to a traditional doctor, they're like, hey, just take this, you know, versus, like, you know, a lot of times people go to a chiropractor because they're in some type of physical pain, but they don't understand the root cause of it. Maybe something underlying.

You know, the ironic thing is most of them, most of them come to us after traditional medicine, you know, because the quality of life is not something that is reaching a level that they find acceptable under, you know, understanded medical care, especially with autoimmune disease. So what you're having is people coming in again. You know, they're properly treated by the endocrinologist, they're properly treated by the gastroenterologist in terms of their. And they're. They still have symptoms, they still don't feel well, and then they look for something else. And that's how they find us. Right. Which is actually sometimes it's better because they usually come in with all the atomic bombs ruled out. You know, in wellness, you know, my utmost responsibility is to never tell someone they need wellness if they actually need crisis care.

Yeah.

But most of the time they come in and I've had 14 colonoscopies, I've had three MRIs, you know, so. And I mean, at least 95% of the people, all that stuff that would. You'd have to say, jesus, am I sure that this is not something else? Before I say, let's. This is what you require. So they come in with all that ruled out, and the big thing is they just need to be put on the road to restoring health and function. And no one does that in terms of. In my. In the standard medical practices in Western medicine. It's all about just treating the effects of the malfunction.

And yeah, let's talk about, like, in your industry as a chiropractor, I think I even asked this question a few weeks ago, was like, hey, should chiropractors be able to offer weight loss and nutrition, you know, programs, or kind of like that wellness model? And there was a lot of chiropractors that said, no, we need to stay in our lane. And, and I'm like, you know, thinking, well, like, there's a lot of people that, you know, aren't getting the help they need. And you guys are kind of the ones that I see as, as someone who people are looking for answers from that are not from the traditional, you know, medical system. Can you touch a little bit on that?

Yeah. You know, I was in that school of thought for many years because, you know, our, our whole fear in, in principled chiropractic was that if you added other things, you would dilute it and it would, it would. Now people truly wouldn't understand what it is. And, you know, kind of like what happened to the do. And now all of a sudden, you morph into your part of, of medicine. If you're going to take care of sick people, if you're gonna, if you're going to petition the sick to come to your office and you don't address diet, you're not going to get them. Well, I mean, we need a 100% consistent innate nerve supply. We want an innate nerve supply. Well, your body needs an innate food supply. And we have so bastardized our concepts of food. People don't even, I mean, they don't even know what real food is anymore. Millennials, Gen Z, they think pizza and Pop Tarts is food. They don't know. So if you're going to take care of someone with autoimmunity and you're going to give them proper adjustments, which, remember, upper cervical is, you know, is a. My practice is broken down into three parts. It's upper cervical, metabolic repair and nutrition. Those are the three components of the wellness center. But if you're going to just adjust somebody and clear the subluxations out, yes, they're going to perform much better. But if they're eating, you know, McDonald's and they're eating inflammatory foods and they're, they have, you know, they're eating tons of gluten and pizza and pasta and their blood sugar's all over the map, you're not going to get the desired results. So.

Right.

I am completely okay. With a chiropractor that says, look, I. This is what it is, and I want to stay right here in my life. This is what we do. And they always say, well, just refer out to a nutritionist. Show me one who does. Nobody does that.

Yeah.

And now you're sending people to other offices and getting other. Look again. People can, you know, I'll take the hits on this one. And some people may not agree with me and think what I'm doing is not the best for chiropractic. But I think, you know, we have some video testimonials on my website with people that, like, had Crohn's disease for 25 years, 20 bowel movements a day, bloody mucus, stool, had to buy a motorhome because the guy had two minutes and he had to go poop. And if he didn't have one, he pooped his pants. And in eight weeks, his life was back to normal. People with fibromyalgia. So, I mean, just. But the thing is, I feel we're finally doing what we've always wanted. BJ used to always say chiropractic was to help the sick of the sickest, right? And then, and then 95% of our profession were taking care of musculoskeletal stuff because we sold our souls to the insurance companies in the 80s for those little pieces of gold and silver. So we changed all the diagnosis to neck and back pain, and we promoted neck and back pain because that's what the diagnosis code had to be to be paid. So we sold our souls to the insurance companies, and now the general public thinks we're back pain doctors. And we're like, why do they think that? Because we told them that for 30 years, no one sick goes, you know, I really should go see a chiropractor. But at the wellness center now, I love it because I'm taking care of two sick people and then. And then I teach them all about upper cervical chiropractic, right? They get pre scans and post scans, they get knee, chest, upper cervical. So I'm doing upper cervical chiropractic. I'm putting them on a proper diet, which is life changing, life changing because these people aren't eating food. And then we do, you know, we use supplementation after running their blood work to make sure. I mean, I'm running people's blood. Their vitamin D is 1112. The range is 30 to 100. We want it like it's 75 or 80. So a lot of things like that. They have no micronutrients they have no minerals, their hormones are a mess, their bodies are all inflamed, they've got a ton of food allergies. So once you grasp that concept and you start to restore function, I mean, the body knows what to do. It's almost, it's almost too easy to bring about health when you look at it through restoration of function.

All right, well, let's talk about this. So the biggest thing is, is like you came into habit based lifestyle. What, what was kind of the main reason you, you decided to do a different style of marketing versus just continuing to do what you'd been doing.

Well, because it was a tough go, you know, when we, when I, when we became a wellness center. And now it's all, it's all cash and we don't take insurance and we have different programs. But you know, people lay out, you know, minimum $4,000 and you know, they have to pay it up. So some people do it, some people don't. So I also live in the, the communistic state of New York where people, everything here is just so. Property taxes, auto, which, I mean, people's budgets are tight and I get, real estate taxes are just like stupid. 30 grand, 20 grand, you know, an average home. We're not talking, you know, you get a really nice home. You know, talking a million dollar home, $60,000, what, six grand a month of taxes. So I get it. People, people are stressed out that way. But you know, we had these areas where we would have great weeks and two good weeks and then I would have two week period where, you know, 10 people would come in and one would sign and it became very difficult to get consistency in the income. You know, the fluctuations in income were very, it was very stressful and it was very frustrating too because there was, you know, and you do the same exact talk, you do the same exact presentation on 10 people and you get nine to sign up. Be like, I got this right, and the next 10 one signed up, you're like, what? You know, so, and you know, any chiropractor will tell you it's always been a numbers game, you need more new patients. I mean, right, that's it. You know, we've got, we've got enough new patients and you know, some continue, some drop out, you know, so you require that input. And I was doing Google Adwords and it was really expensive and I was spending 6,000amonth. At one time I went to 10,000amonth and some months that was good. But this is just, I want to get away from that. So when I heard your talk and you know, I kept my Facebook page private, you know, I don't have, I don't use the word doctor. I don't, you know, I have one for my practice, but it's almost unused. But I kept every. So I wanted the ability to like, as you and I have spoken about one of the things about social media, my fiance yells at me, why do you put a political. Because we finally got the ability to talk back. Right. And you know, so that's why I sometimes just to unload my frustrations of a very, very biased media and everything else. So I saw you and when you said something to me, well, you're on Facebook all the time. Why don't you make money with it? And I'm like, I never thought of that. To bash liberals. Yeah, only kidding, my liberal friends. But, you know, I used it more for political stuff.

And also, look at it this way, you wanted to still be yourself. Your biggest thing coming in was like, hey, I'll use it, but can I still be myself with, you know, the other content? And I was like, yeah, look, you can still be yourself, but you might as well make money while you're on there. And you're like, you know, I think the light bulb went off then.

It really did. And it really did. And you know, I'm, I'm going to play. I'm 61 and I have a 3 year old. My first child and I'm a single dad now, so it's my, my free time and everything else. It was the, the program. I didn't give the program it's due. You know, it took me a longer time to get into it because I just was a little overwhelmed. And then I started doing it and I, and I remember I did my first ask post. Geez, where is that? Like, you know, and I, I think I got 12 potential new patients from it. And, and I, you know, being here on Long Island, I know so many people and. Wait a minute, let me see. Do I have that list I want to show you because I actually keep it because it's, I just did leave it in my desk.

Well, let's, Let me ask you this. As far as implementing the program, you'd never done anything like this, you know, what was it like for you to begin to implement this?

Well, let me just say that was, that was my first ask post.

Wow. 1212 leads, you know.

Yep. And, and the funny thing is a lot of them didn't, A lot of them didn't pan out. Right now you know, at the original post. But even yesterday, somebody came in the office that answered my original post and just was like, you know, I've been, I've been reading your post all the time. I'm ready and I'm like, what? I'm like, okay, great, fill out the case history. But can you repeat your question?

Yeah. As far as, like, you know, knowing, you know, a lot of people use Facebook or don't use it really at all. But like a lot of times people come into the program and they're like, well, hey, I don't really use Facebook for anything. What was it like for you to begin to implement this system that we have?

It wasn't difficult. It was more just grasping the concept and understanding. Changing the algorithm was very important to do. And your steps towards changing the algorithm was excellent. And then just, I, I did more watching other people to try to figure out what was going on. But you know, by putting, you know, by putting out the engagement posts and, and, and I'm real good with it. I, I, you know, because that's just how I think in terms of wanting to make other people. But I never looked at it like, you know, if you ask people questions. As soon as I did the first post, I never asked people questions. I always made statements. Yeah. And then the first time I asked a question, you know, you know, like, who else is dealing with fatigue? You know, Baba Boom, you know.

Yeah.

Look at this. And then the, the, the understanding of people that liked me, I went to their Facebook page and liked a bunch of their friends. So now I'm going to people that obviously think like I do.

Right.

You know, or, and so, you know, I went to Mary's Facebook page page and I looked at Mary's friends in the area and I friended them. And to be honest, I only had one person say, who is this? And didn't. And unfriendedly. And I, I've done hundreds.

Right.

So I, it's, for me, it was a slow process, but that's me. I'm 60 years plus years old. Technology me, my visa.

But I mean, someone who's, someone who's 60 is like, hey man, you, you figured this out. So like, it's not that hard, right? Where you have, you know, 20 year olds that figure it out in like one second. But like, as a 60 year old, you figured out social media. So like, you've been, you know, doing this since I think since December.

Yeah, I wanted to start in January and you asked me to start in December, which was a Smart move. Because it took me a couple of weeks just to. To get through the. The initial part, just because of my time restraints, not because it was difficult. And again, because I'm a slow learner when it comes to the technology. And just to figure out how your pages were working, I was like, jesus, I hate this. You get frustrated. And my fiance be like, calm down. Let me show you. So. But I. And now I got it down. And by the way, also, Beth helped me out a lot, and she is just off the charts, phenomenal, you know, so your staff was incredible in helping.

That's awesome.

But I figured it out. And instead of. Instead of just going on Facebook and, And communicating and. Or doing political posts or, you know, dealing with things in life and society, I started gearing up my posts for my practice.

Right.

And, And. And engaging posts on health. And I've gotten some incredible. I've got some. Some email, you know, some private messages from people just like, you know, you've changed my perspective. I mean, I never got that on a political post.

Yeah, that's awesome.

You know how many people you change with a political post point of view?

Zero.

But yet with the, with the health posts and the engaging posts, I really, really. People just have actually gotten, like. A couple people have said, well, I talked to Mary, and Mary said, whatever you're doing, go see Sanagra. He's the best at what? And I'm like, why would she even say that? And it's because she was. She agreed with all my posts and my feedback. So instead of just, I. I turned something that I was spending time on, I turned something that I was putting energy into and not promoting my business to something that I am spending time on. And now I'm promoting my business, and it's really working out well. Right? And. And I still. I'm. I would still say I'm still a novice because there's so much more I need to learn from you. I just. Again, my time constraints, but just the basics changed. My, My. I don't. As I told you before we spoke. What. I've. I'm working through lunch now. I never worked through lunch in 30 years. I mean, I, like, I told Jesse, I go. I grabbed the sandwich, and I walked into a room with one of my favorite patients. Look, can I. Can I eat half a sandwich here? Because I was that busy. And they loved it. They were like, yeah, sure, Doc. Come on in. So I've also had financial gains. We had our busiest day at a $20,000 day now. I had a Couple in the past a few years back, but they were few and far between. And my goal is to have two of those a week. I mean, to be honest, in my brain, I can't understand why I don't have one three days a week. Monday, Wednesday, Friday are big days, but, you know, we're gaining that. But the biggest thing is, you know, and you know how this works sometimes in life when you do things and all of a sudden things are coming out of nowhere and, you know, the practice is just really exploded. I don't have those downtimes. I mean, I would go at times a full week without a new patient, which would be like a, like a restaurant. You know, when you go a full week without selling a dinner, you're in big trouble. And the ups and downs were crazy for me, very stressful. And now I've gotten that consistency that I've needed. And to be honest, I, I. For my engagement post, I've been doing a lot of research and looking up famous. And so I'm actually really enjoying that aspect of it. And yeah, and now I'm thinking like, you know, what's going on in the world of health and how can I get someone to see something? And you know, and, you know, with fatigue and, you know, or, you know, weight loss and Ozempic and, you know, the negative. And when they engage back to you, that just opens up the door. And then you, you know, you send them a quick little message. And now you go from someone that you just knew to a Facebook friend, someone communicate.

I know, it's, it's, it's pretty amazing to be able to do that. Give me, give, give our audience kind of an idea of like how much extra revenue you've been able to add since you've been doing this per month.

You know, we just started in January, really, and the first. But in the last two months, I'd have to say it's 20,000 plus. It has to be me. It might even be closer to 30 because, you know, we were averaging 30,000 to 40,000, and when I looked at marches, we were over 75. So now that, that's not all. I just think I'm also in a good spot here, you know, which.

Right.

The whole thing has helped, but. And I don't attribute the whole thing to hbl, but a damn big portion of it is no doubt. Look, when you, you know, my intermittent program is $6,500, you know, and you sign up three in one day, that's just that, you know, that's almost 20,000 there. That's not all the other people you're seeing and, you know, and the chiropractic adjustments and, you know, the income potential. Look, we. We're trained professionals, right, that are excellent, excellent, excellent doctors at Understanding Health, Wellness Physiology, Rest, you know, Health and Physiology Restoration. We should be paid that way. And that's the whole thing. Chiropractic has always had an inferiority complex when it came to fees, and we weren't getting paid. And no one leaves my office because they can't pay. If someone's sincere, I will make arrangements for them to be. If there's many people, I can't afford this. And I'm like, why are you tan? Are you Disney? Oh, that's right. Okay, good. I don't see a lot of 1979 Ford Granada's in the parking lot. You know, people. People have money for what they. A dental implant. I should.

I think what's cool, you know, now is, you know, where it used to be hard to maybe get somebody to pay for a 60 to $75 adjustment. You got people, no problem paying $6,000 for, you know, their health.

Yes.

And a much qualified, much better qualified person.

And that came down to the initial concept of doing it. You know, who is going to pay and really who's going to be. It wasn't just payment, but the payment falls under the umbrella of who's going to be committed to making a change in their life. And it was people whose quality of life is horrible. And that's the whole thing we promote is the quality of life. Especially one of the things I always talked about to the patients. I'm like, I go, in our 20s and 30s, and even sometimes we chase silly things. Houses, boats, cars, watches, bags, you know, opposite sex, whatever it may be. You know, when you get to your 50s, like, oh, I see the finish line.

Yeah.

Quality. Quality of life, you know, now it's 62, quality of life. When people come in, I'm like, I tell them, I go, what are you saving your money for? I go, you're gonna. At 72 if you can't move, if your health is, what are you gonna do with your money? Why wouldn't you spend it now on you? Spend it on you. And I'm. I'm a lot more bold with that approach, you know?

Yeah.

You know, I get people's faces. Not in a loving, caring way, not in a nasty way. But I'm like, look, you know, I don't know what you're spending your money on, but I'll tell you one thing, if you don't feel good, you're not going to enjoy it.

Right.

It's important for them to grasp that concept. But look at the big picture here. You know, you need. And that's where HBL is helping me because I'm dealing with, on Facebook, I'm dealing with more people that are in. I'm not dealing with 20 year olds or 30 year old. I guess maybe a few.

Yeah, you're dealing with your ideal clients.

Yeah. Are really. Yeah. Ideal clients. And look, the health, the health of this nation is abysmal. I mean, for a health provider not to be busy is because they don't know they need you or we're not getting our message out the right way.

So let's, let's talk about just, maybe just this one question. We'll wrap it up like, what would you tell that health professional chiropractor who may not be busy or may not be serving the people they want? What would you tell them about this program and how it could benefit them?

When you try to promote your practice, there's, you know, a lot of it you can't control. You can control this. You know, when you, when you do Google, you got, somebody's gotta just in cyberspace go online and find you and look you up and this and that. You know, if, if you put out a radio ad, somebody's got to hear this one. You're, you become proactive and every day you're thinking of ways to engage people on a health issue. And then you're, and you're coming up with great concepts on your ask post. So you know to say like, look, if, if fatigue is taking your life away and I can show you in 25 or 30 days how to improve your life. Would you be interested? Give me a thumbs up. And so, so now instead of just sitting here powerless, hoping that someone hits my Google Ad or hoping that someone hears a radio spot, I do a radio show hoping someone heard my radio show. And now I'm proactive every single day. And I still haven't given the program. It's full effort because of that's my life. There's so much more I have to learn from you. So I'm doing phenomenal and I'm just scratching the surface with hbo. You know, thank God for Beth. She's, she's got the, she's got the most patience. She's like, now Ron, hit that button. She helps me find. And you know, she's just so helpful. But I think that's it Jess, the answer to that question is every single day you can do something proactively. And I have to be honest with you, I wasn't sure when I met you. I said, I just hope I get my initial money back and I'm just gonna probably let this go, you know. And that was the first day, you know, I'm like, I don't know, big difference, you know, once you get into it and you see it, you know, and this is coming from a guy who's in his 60s and you know, doing technology and that's not the easiest thing, but you can be proactive in improving your practice and in giving yourself an opportunity for your practice to grow, increase income and to be honest, enjoy the hell out of it.

Yeah. That's amazing. Well, hey, I want to thank you so much for being on the show today.

I want to thank you because everything that you said to me when we first talked, you asked me what my goals were and you showed me how to get them and you were an integral part of it and you backed up everything you said with a great program, a great staff and I, I'm incredibly pleased.

Yeah, thank you, man, so much. Let's now it's time for you to hit those six figure months coming up.

So that's, that's, that's, that's something I've never done with this and I'd like, and I, and I see that in the future. No doubt, no doubt.

Yeah. If somebody's in New York, they're looking for, you know, someone to help them with their health. Like how would they get a hold of you?

Ah, they could call my office at 631-563-1444 or you can look us up on the web sunrise wellness center.com that gives you all about my practice and testimonials and conditions and upper cervical. So it's love to teach you how we can help.

Awesome, man. Well, hey, thanks so much for being on the show today, guys. If you, if you want to learn how to level up in your life and business, how we help our clients, health professionals make an extra 10 to $30,000 a month in their business. And you want a better qualified client, just simply go to the show notes. You can email me Jesse habitbase lifestyle.com if you want, you know, better business habits, better lifestyle habits. You can also go to our show Notes and join our private Facebook group, Habit based lifestyle and business secrets and we'll help you whatever, whatever you need. Until next episode. Have a great day.

Jesse, thank you so much.

The purpose of this show the purpose of this show is to guide you to realign with habits that get you to live the life. Live the life you've always dreamed of. This this is the habit based lifestyle podcast with Jesse.