Success Is Built One Step at a Time – The Untold Story Behind Modern Thyroid Clinic

So today on the podcast, I have Mel, the director of our weight loss division and our supplement division, and also One of my very best friends in the world.

So much fun to work together, y'all.

I know, it's kind of the best. And I'm here at Mel's beautiful home. And last night we were chatting and she thought, McCall, you should like tell people about the story of how you built Modern Thyroid Clinic because you built it from like this teeny tiny tiny thing into, you know, a national telemedicine practice. And yeah.

When I think like people hearing your story not only humanizes you a little bit, but also just to show like other women who are hustling and maybe are hitting their rock bottom, that there's this idea of like, I don't think I'm ever gonna be able to build my career or go after my dream because I'm getting a divorce I'm having to start over, or there's all these hiccups that are happening in our lives. And I think your story is such a beautiful example of drive and determination and optimism. I like— her story is my favorite, y'all. And I think it's just like extremely important for all of your viewers and your clients and your patients to know like how hard you've worked and how far you've come. I'm excited for this story, guys. It's a good one.

Mel's been along for the majority of this ride, so she kind of knows how it began. Where do you think that we should be? Should I like go back to my story as a patient and kind of go deep with that?

I, I think start your story when life started kind of fluttering in shambles a little bit. Yeah, because my memories of you when you first started going from like a tiny little room to working out of your apartment with your two kids and literally building the practice that we have today. Yeah, I think let's start from there.

Okay.

I think not only is your— are your patients gonna freak out about this, but I think everyone that works for you—

oh, that's probably true because they don't know the origin of the story.

Yeah.

Anyway, start there.

So gosh, this was like 9 years ago. Basically, 8 and a half, 9 years ago, I had started what would become Modern Thyroid Clinic and what kind of was in its very early days.

I rented an office by myself in this area of town in Austin called Westlake.

Like, it was a big building that mainly people just go to do office work in, and I found one that was like cheap. And you would walk in and there was like a greeting room that, I don't know, it was probably like 10 by 15 feet. I had, I had no in-person employees. I had one girl that answered the phones for like a bunch of different people and charged me per call for every call that she answered. Oh my gosh. I know, like $2 a call or something. So I didn't have to pay her unless I was kind of building revenue in my little office. You'd walk in and there was two rooms side by side, and I occupied one for my—

to see patients in.

So patients would walk in. Think about this, this is like almost 10 years ago. We were not in a progressive era of medicine.

So patients would walk in and I had a little sign that was like, please be seated, I'm in with another patient, I'll be with you soon.

Did you like print this sign out from like Google Docs or something?

Basically.

Yeah.

I mean, yeah. And then I think I framed it.

Oh, that's nice.

Like I, I had a giant wall in my office where I saw people that I painted with chalkboard paint, and I like drew all over it all about biochemistry, and just the whole thing was covered from floor to ceiling. And that's what I used to like teach my patients every day. I had no budget for marketing, had nothing. I have no idea honestly how anyone ever found me.

I love that piece where you were sharing last night where there was a day you had like 12 patients and you're like, how are they, right? How are they finding me?

Yeah, I remember explicitly being like, every time I got a new patient, I would be like, I am so grateful that this person is coming here, that they found me, that they're coming here, that they come here and look around and they're not like, what is this ratchet office? And it wasn't like I tried to make it cute, but like This person has no employees. Is this a complete scam? And didn't leave. But I was telling Melissa, and I remember one week I had 12 new patients, and I'm like, how in God's name are all of these people finding me?

Because, girl, word of mouth is one of the best things to build your business. And you were giving people optimism around thyroid that had never been done before. And that community where we lived, y'all, it would— there were so many women out there who were just driving through life with brain fog and not being able to drink coffee anymore and not being able to work out and running around with their kids and having to take naps. Like, there was really no one else in that community at that time who could put a reason to the why we were all feeling that way. And all of a sudden thyroid was all over the place, guys. Like, you're— I felt like your business really like blew up and started rolling forward and speed that was honestly, it was amazing to witness and see on the back end of it. But holy moly.

Well, thanks. And I think there's something really special when you can change someone's life, especially if it's in a short period of time, because they are so motivated to go tell other people about their experience.

Yeah.

So like during this time I'm building my office, I'm building my patient practice. I was in a pretty difficult, challenging marriage where I honestly, I just wasn't valued. And I was with my partner who didn't really have a regular job, who kind of worked from home. But it was my responsibility in our house to take my kids to school, or my one daughter back then, to school. She had school for like 5 hours, so I take her in the morning. I would get to see patients for 5 hours, do all of my chart notes. I would pick her up drive her 30 minutes back home, and then do everything that I needed to do at home, right? I had like no help outside of the home. I had no help in the home, and it was really, really intense. Actually, no, I did have two kids back then.

I already had Rosie.

Yep, I've just given birth to her, so she was like a newborn baby.

This—

my daughter who was disabled from birth—

I was like, something is wrong with my kid.

I was blown off from every direction. I remember at 9 months old she still couldn't roll over, went to the pediatrician, was written off. At 15 months old, I went to the pediatrician because she couldn't sit up. And like, they were like, we don't care if she's not walking until she's 24 months. I'm like, I don't care that she's not walking. My child can't sit up from laying down. Like, she's 15 months old. You know, and so it was such a battle to get anyone to ever hear me, believe me, partner included, that something was wrong. Thank God, you know, a couple, few years later, we were able to figure out that Rosie had a rare genetic disorder that at the time 34 children in the world had. So I'm building my business, trying to show up in work, in motherhood, in a marriage that is absolutely failing. And becoming increasingly, increasingly toxic.

And, and also, like, you were trying to navigate your own health at that point too. Like, you had had so many ups and downs. Like, I think so many entrepreneurial women can probably relate to your story too, just like all the different dynamics of being a mom and a partner and starting a business. And your business isn't just like, oh, I'm gonna create a product and try to sell these really cute hats. It's like, no, I'm actually giving and healing people and giving their lives back. And that takes so much energy just to give to one patient.

And you were doing all of this trying to navigate your kids and Rosie, and, and then I did like every job at my practice except answer the phone.

I know, you know, like I did everything.

I scheduled them I sent in all their scripts, I ordered their labs, I checked their labs when they came in, I did all the paperwork. Like, I did everything. And there is beauty in like starting a business from the ground up where like your hand is in every aspect of it. But it was incredibly challenging because I was doing that at work and I was doing it at home. I was a primary breadwinner, a stay-at-home housewife, but I wasn't, you know, the main person parenting my children, trying to navigate the complexities of figuring out what in the world was going on with my very young child. And but my business was like growing, you know, organically. Speaking of like our little community, people would ask me, well, how do you market Modern Thyroid Clinic? And I'm like, I mean, really, until now we never have done marketing. Like, this is all organic growth, which is wild to be at a place where, you know, we'll probably be a 10-figure business this year, to have no marketing budget, no formal marketing team or formal marketing at all, and be self-funded is pretty, pretty unique. It's definitely a unicorn.

Like, what were the— if you could choose like 3 words that got you through that growth period to the next step, like, what would those— like, if you were trying to inspire someone who is maybe in the same boat that you're in or were in currently what would be those like 3 things that was like, okay, this would give me motivation to keep going?

And you mean in the dark times of building a business, dark times at a family at home, or both?

I think both, sis, because I don't know how you did it. I'm, I'm curious.

I know, right? So 3 little pieces of advice, like what kept, what kept you going? Yeah, like I think in your work. Even still at Modern Thyroid Clinic, this is a theme that we've carried through. For anyone doing anything, you need to find your fuel, right? And my fuel— and it's kind of ubiquitous at Modern Thyroid Clinic with our clinicians but also with our team— our fuel is changing people's lives. Like, that nourishes our soul, and that can get you through dark times. It can get you through really hard times. Like, if you can stay tethered to those individual lives that you've changed and shifted and find your fuel in your business, right? Because I do think that got me through some really dark times. And then look, like, I think there are seasons. I don't buy into like hustle culture. I don't do it. I don't think that's a way to create a sustainable life, especially not as a woman. But there are seasons in the life of an entrepreneur whether it's personal, whether it's work, that you just have to commit and show up and do it day after day after day. And then when you get through that, you have to rest on the back end, you know?

Yeah, I think that's important, right? As you're saying that, I'm— do you remember that interview with Kim Kardashian? She got all that heat where she was like, you just need to get off your ass.

Yeah.

And work. Yeah. But There, I think there's like truth behind all of that because I, I mean, I'm biased, I'm definitely a girls girl, but I feel like women are so incredibly strong. And when we are at the lowest point in our parts of our story of our life and we have that fuel, the motivating factor, whether that be our kids or that we are generally making a difference in this world to keep you going, like you just have to get yourself up and you have to do it.

You have to make yourself—

you just have to do it.

You do. Yeah, I completely agree. And you don't have to do that forever. No, but that's your season. It could be you do it for 4 days a week and then you really disconnect for 3 days. I still kind of operate like that. Like, I go hard for a sprint and then I like completely distance myself from my work. And I think the last thing is, look, like, when you're building something whether that's rebuilding your personal life, whether it's building a business, which happened to intersect at the same time for me. Like, I, you know, lost my marriage in a pretty horrible, horrible way and had a 4-year-old and a 2-year-old who is completely disabled and medically complex, moved out of my home and into an apartment, a little condo where I had to start over. I brought a blender from my previous house.

Um, I left everything and I never went back to that house. Like, I never did. I couldn't.

I could not ever step foot in there again. When you're in that process of rebuilding, there is so much power in that of like, what do I want my life to look like because I get to create it? What do I want my business to look like because I get to create it? And you envision that and you write it down, and that applies to everything.

Oh, absolutely.

You get detailed, detailed. Even, even a man— I remember a friend of mine back then, and still to this day, is Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. And we went through kind of traumatic divorces at the same time and entered the dating world at the same time. And she met her now husband at the same time that I met my now husband. But before I met my husband, when she was kind of first dating her now husband, she's like, well, what do you want in a man? And I told her, I'm like, well, I want someone tall. I want someone kindhearted and empathetic. And she's like, looked at me and she said, McCall McPherson, that's not enough. Like, you need to get so incredibly detailed about who you want your partner to be and you write it down. Leave no stone uncovered. I love that note.

No way.

I'll have to show you because y'all, it is the blueprints of my now husband. Yeah, like you're gonna be like, I'm gonna show you later today.

You have to show me.

But it's the same way in your business and in your personal life. Like I hit rock bottom and I got to rebuild my life, I got to rebuild my business into whatever I wanted it to be. And I know that so scary for so many people, the start, the starting over, it is so incredibly empowering.

Well, and I think too, when you're— when you just take that one step at a time as you're starting to build and also heal yourself in conjunction of building this— I feel like it's an empire now. You've created a thyroid empire. That those little tiny celebrations of moving from office to a newer office, and then your business starts to, to grow a little bit more where then you can take on other employees and, and different partners. And it's just like, it was slow burning, I feel like, at the beginning, but now it's this huge thing that you've created. I mean, as a friend watching and observing McCall in all of her phases, I'm like incredibly astounded and just so proud of you. But holy moly, the community that you've created, not only just with like the folks that work at Modern Thyroid Clinic, which are freaking amazing, guys. But all of our patients— oh, and all of us are patients of Modern Thyroid Clinic too. Like, we all— we're all like, all of a sudden regulating our thyroids and we feel like we're 25 years old again, guys. It's fabulous. So when you like started shifting into your next office, which was Alive and Well, that's when things I felt like really started taking off because people were flooding. I remember just hearing chatter at the yoga studio being like, McCall McPherson, yeah, the thyroid doctor, we gotta go to McCall.

Yeah. And it's funny, you know, like there's such a lesson in this that I still carry on to this day, but I, I already had people like flying into my old office from out of state.

That's right.

Like some people from out of the country, and I'm like, what's happening? So then they get there to this office, and I didn't feel like it was cohesive with the level of care that I provided. But people didn't care. Still to this day, over 10 years later, I still have patients from that office that see me now. It's been 11 years since I've been in that office. So what happened was there was a, a very unique, incredible wellness center being built just outside of Austin called Alive and Well, and I had met the creator of it on so many occasions and became— he became part of we got into the same community, you know, we became close, and he really saw something in me and pulled me into the circle and helped to elevate me so early on. And I do think that made such a difference. It put me in the center of all of these people who would benefit from what I had to offer, and it did— it elevated our brand our office. It was the most beautiful thing you've ever seen. It was a wellness center that didn't exist before Alive and Well. And I think there's such a lesson in that, and I still try to do this to this day, of when you are having success, when you are on the upward trajectory— look, the reality is that upward trajectory, mine, like this right now, it's not going to last forever, you know? Yeah, like it's going to level out eventually, it's going to come down. But when you're on that upward trajectory bring people in with you, bring them into that circle.

Yes.

And help to elevate those people that also really deserve it and can make an impact. And it's such a powerful way to use your skill.

I love that.

McCall, I think you need to talk about that one patient that you had during the mix of a little chaos when Alive was first being built. So switching offices and going to a new office that wasn't quite ready for you, but you literally had so many patients at that point who were dying to see you that they didn't even care.

Yeah.

And you were like, come into my office.

Yeah.

And let's, let's extend the story from there, 'cause this one's a good one.

So, right, this, this man brought me into this circle of this beautiful elevated wellness center that was being built from the ground up. Like unlike anything that the market had ever seen. Now there are quite a few, didn't exist before this. And my lease was ending and we had a date that everything was supposed to be built by. So obviously I'm planning to transition over and I schedule patients for my new office, one of which was coming from India. It was a mother bringing her son from India. Obviously their flights are booked, obviously everything's firm, and Alive and Well was not done being built yet. They were in deep, deep reno phase still. The cement floors, like, it was all probably 70% done. So imagine an enormous wellness center, 70% done. It was absolutely chaos. The floors were getting stained literally the day that this patient was coming in. Everyone was wearing gas masks, staining the floors all around everywhere. And these people flew in from India. And again, it's like, by then I had been desensitized to being so incredibly mortified about my office space because I had already been like winging it the whole time in not the best place anyway. But it was hilarious. I was like, so I'm really sorry about the office. And I mean, they didn't care. And that's That's the thing, when you help people, they give you a lot of grace for the most part.

That's just a testament, I think, to what you provide as a provider and a clinician to each of your patients, that they would literally get off of a plane in India, from India, and go through, like, I'm like envisioning like scaffolding and like hammering in the background. And I mean, y'all, when you feel great with optimized thyroid hormone, Let me just tell you, you don't care where the office is. You would see this chick in the back of a van if you had to.

I love it. And we're passing the mic back and forth because this whole previous on the recording, you could probably tell my voice wasn't being captured from my own mic. It was being captured through Mel's. So you know what, we're still winging it even to this day. So started hiring employees, leveraging another kind of entrepreneur tip is like, do what you can. I hired only contract employees, people on my team that would take a percentage of their revenue so that I never had to front the funds. Now we don't do it that way anymore. Um, but like when you're building, get creative. Like there's a lot of people that will get creative with you, especially if they stand behind your mission, especially if like you'd be shocked how many people do things like this. Um, so anyway, was working there, was working part of the way at home, had met my now husband after being divorced, after kind of literally rebuilding myself from the ground up. Mel would see me so often during that time, and I was like a shell of my current self. Like, I was not— I was a zombie halfway, you know? It was just so, so intense. And so I worked really hard to rebuild myself from the ground up. You know, Mel's yoga retreats really helped me build some community, really connect with myself, go deeper. I did a lot of therapy work, all of the things to build up my resilience again. And thankfully I did. And during that time I met my husband. Lots of transition there, lots of growth and transition at Modern Thyroid Clinic. Part, part of the time seeing patients out of Alive and Well, sharing one office with 3 or 4 clinicians. We would rotate and each go in on a certain day, see patients from home virtually from the other days. And then COVID hit.

COVID, like, transformed so many businesses. And that's what I think was like a pivotal growth moment for y'all at Modern Thyroid Clinic. There was no drop. It was all about stabilizing. And then all of a sudden it opened up the floodgates, I think, for you to be able to see more and more patients. Being a patient, incl— just me included, I would much rather be doing virtual than going in in person anyway. So having like a telehealth or virtual practice.

Mm-hmm.

It was big. And we had done telehealth and virtual, but like people were not adapted to that. Like we had to incentivize them with discounts. And things. Like, they wanted to come into the office still. That's what everyone was accustomed to. So we had like 75% in-person, 25% virtual before COVID When COVID hit, we were on lockdown, right? So we went to 100% virtual. People adapted to that very quickly in the market. But my daughters were out of school. One daughter had only had a semester of kindergarten. Rosie went to like a special needs school that completely shut down for months. And now both of my daughters were in my 2-bedroom apartment that was 1,400 square feet where I was also having to see patients out of with no child care support, really. So my boyfriend at the time, now my husband, is a dentist. His practice got shut down because all dentist practices did. So he was coming over to babysit my children while I would work. And I can guarantee you So Rosie was really had a hard time back then. Like she would spend 70% of her life screaming, like sounding like we are torturing her, just screaming, uncomfortable, agitated. So I literally saw patients out of Weston, my other daughter's room with her little wall in the background so that Johnny could have access to my room, Rosie's little sleeping area, the living room with the kids while Weston's doing kindergarten. In the living room and my patients could hear Rosie screaming in the background for 4 years. This went on, right? And I'll tell you, if there's one thing that's going to tax another's nervous system, it's that. I lost 90% of my hair, 85 to 90% of my hair. Mm-hmm. It's the only other time that's happened except this year. And when Rosie was able to go back to school, like 6 months later, it was in our home. So she still screamed. Like 70% of the time. It was so incredibly intense. I would never wanna go back to the COVID lockdown times.

Okay.

Oh my God.

Look at this history now of Modern Thyroid Clinic. I think this story is just so fabulous. Not only is it inspiring that you're like, okay, we can— women, you can do anything. Like if you are going through the lowest moment or lowest point that you think is in your life and you're like, I can't, get myself up to go do just that one baby step. I just think you're just such a great example of how, yes, you can take a baby step and baby steps are also steps forward.

Yeah.

But holy moly, y'all.

Mm-hmm.

The history of Modern Thyroid Clinic, starting in like a tiny little room with a printed document from Google Docs saying, please wait here.

Yeah.

To getting into one of the most pristine wellness facilities in all of Austin that has now been like completely duplicating all over the world to running one of the top telehealth thyroid companies in the country.

Yeah. And I will tell you guys this, like speaking of burnout and hustle culture, the way that I've done things and the way that I did things then, right, is like you push. And that's what COVID was for me. Like I had to push just to get through it. And then I took 3 years off from growth. Like, we organically grew, we grew slow. I did not push for like 3 years almost. And then in 2020, late 2022 or early 2023, I was like, okay, I'm going to take a little time off clinic and I'm going to push, I'm going to grow. And so at that point, like, everything exploded. But I couldn't have done that if I kept pushing, pushing, pushing. And I remember one of the clinicians at Alive and Well acupuncturist looked at me at one point and she's like, during my push, during COVID during my growth, during my divorce, she looked at me and she's like, "McCall, you don't have to push right now. Like, you can take a break." You know, it was Cindy, the acupuncturist. She's like, "You've pushed too long. Now you have to rest." And I was like, "Oh my God, you're right. I have to rest." And so, you know, if there's a theme here, it's look, you can push, but then you need to have a season of rest. And that goes for your team, it goes for yourself at home, at work, everything. And after that, you know, rest— long story short, when I came back online and decided to do more, you know, within like 3 months we ended up with a 9,000-person waitlist. And then we decided to go national, you know, and it's been building, building, building ever since. But entrepreneurial, you know, life, it's not easy. It's not a single trajectory of growth. It's not without some difficulty and some pain. It's not without people that support you and show up for you in the difficult times. And it's not without people bringing you in to help you elevate to the next level. And so it's so important to always continue to, to do that as well, right?

I love that.

I don't know why I'm handing it to you.

I think we should end with that.

I think so too.

Bam! Modern Thyroid Clinic, one-on-one.

Bye y'all, till next time.

Goodbye.