Exploring Health Optimization with Dr. Tracy Gapin

Hey everybody, I have with me Dr. Tracy Gappin. So Tracy, say, wave hello to everybody. We've got everybody in our room here. Tracy is outside of Sarasota, Florida. Tracy, why don't you do that? Obviously your name is Dr. Tracy Gappin. Tell us what you do and where you're located and all that good stuff.

Yeah, sure. So I'm the founder and CEO of the Gappin Institute where we help high-performing individuals have more energy, lose weight, have better sex, and live longer. I have a background in urology. I spent 25 years focused on men's health, and I spent about the last 8 years of that planning my exit. I liked traditional medicine until I didn't. And so for many years I was planning and preparing my exit. And after much research planning, I launched the Gap Institute about 2 and a half years ago now or so. And we've exploded and doing very well.

Yeah. And you left a pretty good paying job as a urologist, right? You were part of a large group. You don't have to tell everybody what you were making. I mean, but you were making really good money, weren't you?

I was doing very well financially, very comfortable, and I gave it all up. And kind of crazy to say that out loud, but—

Why? Why'd you do it?

You know, I, I had no choice, Matt. I hated what I was doing. I went to work every day and it was a job and I was miserable. I didn't enjoy the work I was doing. I was bitter and resentful toward the hospital. For all just the nonsense and BS. A lot of bitterness over many years of lack of control of my life with the hospital and being on call, controlled every day of my life, and the bureaucracy and the paperwork and the hospital nonsense and the lack of respect for patients. I— at some point, I just got very disillusioned with healthcare in general as well. I was actually considering leaving healthcare completely.

Really?

Until I found this whole world of health optimization and longevity, and I started getting certifications and going to courses and a lot of new education in this whole new field that really combines functional medicine and regenerative medicine and hormones and peptides and lifestyle medicine, kind of puts it all together. And I found a passion again, and it became really a passion project for me. And now I freaking love what I do, and it shows in the work that I do with my clients. It shows in their outcomes as well, and my whole team feels it. It's a completely different culture than I ever had in traditional medicine before.

How did you learn? How did you get to your 10 sales?

I was literally between robotic surgery cases on my phone doing mastermind work and doing like research and trainings on how do you do that kind of stuff? How do you build a website? What are landing pages and lead magnets and funnels and all that kind of stuff that I knew nothing about? And I found a couple team members to help me along the way. And while still running my very busy urology practice, I started to put the pieces together and start offering this cash offer program to my existing urology patients and had a few interested who bought in. That grew and grew. And so I would carve out half a day a week to just manage those clients in this cash-based thing going on on the side. I hated urology and I knew that it was really time to jump off that cliff.

Okay, so 2 and a half years later, tell everybody what life is like now.

I love what I do and I enjoy coming to the office now. I love my team. I have an amazing group of individuals who we've created a culture. We have core values that you've helped me develop internally. I work with people who want to get better, people who want specific outcomes, people who are willing to pay cash for real results and who understand what's wrong with our broken healthcare system. I do a lot of business stuff now, now that I've developed the team. I have 3 mid-levels working with me now, so I'm much more involved on the business side of things, which I really love as well. I feel like I'm an entrepreneur stuck in a doctor's body. That I can finally start to be my real self.

You know, being a doctor actually is entrepreneurial, right? Let's back up a second. So you and I started working together, what, about a year ago, I think, or something like that? Yeah, maybe a year and a half. Yeah, just over a year. What was business? What was your life like then?

So when I launched Gap Institute 2+ years ago, I had a local mid-level nurse practitioner who had a very busy practice at another competitor who wanted to join me. So she, a female nurse practitioner, had a very high-volume pellet practice. And so I incorporated her into Gabin Institute. The only problem was the Gabin Institute for Men's Health and Performance didn't really suddenly make any sense when I'm bringing in this nurse practitioner to deal with all of her women. And so I very quickly pivoted to no longer be the Gabin Institute for Men's Health, but to become the Gabin Institute for High Performance Health, so that we can really emphasize that we work with both men and women. And that requires that we have separate copy for each and that we have separate imagery and landing pages and etc. for each. And that allowed me to focus on the men and Karen can focus on the women. I had actually already hired a PA externally at that point as well, who was going through training with me remotely. And so when the center opened, Mike, the PA, was put in charge of seeing all the men, and Karen would see the women, and I would see a few stragglers, close friends, people who I felt I need to continue seeing, but that was only a handful. And so that's how we launched was with One very established mid-level and one very new mid-level. But I brought no patients with me really from my urology practice. I had a few who I had mentioned had signed on to the cash program. It was under 10. All of the urology patients who tried to follow me quickly realized that I don't accept insurance. And so it quickly became apparent that my avatar is very different than the guy who I was seeing in my former life.

And so then you were doing really well your first year. I think we started working right after your first year. Well over 7 figures for the first year. And then the crap kind of hit the fan, didn't it? Like, you all of a sudden, didn't you? You lost all of a sudden.

Yeah.

And you were back seeing patients every single day, weren't you?

So about a year ago now actually is when I started having trouble where the other PA started having some personality issues start to come through. Work quality started to very clearly not be up to par. And so I quickly realized that That PA was a problem. And in December, I had to terminate. And so I went from seeing no patients on a daily basis to suddenly seeing a full book, a full day's worth of patients every day, taking over the practice again. It was a massive blessing because it helped me realize—

Why?

It was a blessing because I realized all the things that we were doing wrong. I realized all the things that Mike was doing wrong, and I had to truly acknowledge that because I didn't train him properly. And so I took responsibility for that, and I I fixed it. And so about December, January, February is when I really rebuilt everything. I rebuilt my programs, pricing structure, mapped out exactly what the process looks like for the client, but I also mapped out the process for training that PA how to do it my way. This is the method, this is how it works, and you can't deviate. We started to instill core values at that time as well, which were lacking. And so we started having weekly meetings last December that now include every single week a core value that has been really helpful in creating that culture.

So now we're 9 months later.

Yeah.

Tell people, what are things like now? What is revenue like now? If you have mid-levels back in place, are you still seeing patients? Tell us what it looks like today.

Yeah. So today I have Karen still churning out women's health. Sean, I hired in May-ish, and I put him through the training program that I built based on all what we just talked about. And Within 6 to 8 weeks, he was fully autonomous. Now he comes to me with questions. We'll review clinical cases together and stuff, but he's independent. I just hired my third mid-level. Her name is Brittany. She joined us this week, second week of September here, and she's going to be doing mostly women's health and men's health as well.

And so you've gone from zero patients to 10 to getting some marketing to people coming in to— you had to build the systems and support. Now you're in that fifth phase. You're in the acquire or scale. Tell us a little bit about that.

Yeah. Okay. So year 1 gross revenue was $2.1 or so. This year through August, we're on pace for right around $3. So nice growth this year. We are planning on opening our second corporate-owned location in Naples, Florida next year. So I have a regenerative medicine doc in Kansas who came to me and he's actually one of my clients as well. He loves what we're doing. And so we are going through the legal work of the operating agreement to open up a Gap Institute Institute there in Kansas as a partnership. I have a PA who I've known for years who does similar work that I do from another entity who wants to open up a Gap Institute in Ponte Vedra, Florida. And so we're working on that location that I would be medical director and he'd do the clinical work. Massive opportunity in Scottsdale, Arizona now with this massive sports complex as well. They want us to come in and not only do coaching for the kids, but also a Gap Institute for the adults and parents as well. So opportunities are popping up everywhere and now it's Starting to become really fun to start to look to how do we scale all this. And this is where honestly the training that you gave me a year ago on setting up the systems and the processes and the training of the mid-levels and everything that we've done, all that infrastructure now is where it's really starting to reap its rewards. Because without that, I wouldn't be where I am and I could not scale otherwise.

Thank you, Dr. Kaplan. I appreciate that. So what would you say to someone who is sitting here listening to this and they're considering about working with our company Mavericks? What would you tell them?

I think focus on where do you want to be? What kind of life do you want to live? Don't worry about the how. Focus on what you want to do with your life, where you want to be, and know that the how will work it out. And that's what systems are for. That's what Matt does here with Maverick. That's what they do. It's first being committed to jump off that cliff, knowing that you're going to make it, knowing that you're a survivor, a winner, and that you're going to somehow make it work. And don't worry about the how. The how will take care of itself once you're committed to making that transformation.

Awesome. Well, Dr. Kapphahn, I appreciate your time. Give a wave to everybody out there in the audience here in, in Dallas and abroad. So thanks. Appreciate it. And we'll see everybody soon.

Thanks.