Boost Your Conversion Percentage with the Brain-Trigger Sales Method by Dr. Dan Sullivan

What's up guys, welcome to The Arena, a podcast by Making Moves where our mission is to help you make more money, reach more people, and change more lives. I'm your host, Dr. Travis Stewart, and this week I have on Dr. Dan Sullivan, who deep dives his proprietary sales method called the Brain Trigger Method. And I'm not sure he would even call it a sales method. However, it is a highly effective communication strategy to help you increase your conversion percentages through authenticity, certainty, conviction, and communication. So we go into all things body language, tone, different communication strategies that you can use to not only connect at a really deep level, but also to build trust in your prospects and in your new patients so that on the other side, you see a significant increase in conversion percentage. I know you're gonna love this episode. It's strategic, it's tactical. Critical. There's going to be huge takeaways all throughout the episode, so make sure you, you, you finish it out. We start with kind of some storylines, but then we get into the real meat of the Brain Trigger Method, and I know you're gonna love every single second. And on that note, if you have any awesome takeaways or value bombs that you get from this episode, take a quick screenshot, share it on social media, tag myself and Dr. Dan Sullivan, and we'll reshare it and be super appreciative of you. Uh, just helps to grow this channel and reach more chiropractors who are looking to grow themselves and their businesses. So thank you so much for listening. Thanks for choosing to spend your time with me in this podcast, and I hope you enjoy the episode. Without further ado.

The bottom line is, if you don't know how to convert people, you're going to always have a deficit in being able to scale. Now, here's the other thing, right? And since, you know, we're recording here, the other thing is Starting any business, Warren Buffett said this, "It's not how fast you can row, is that you're in the right boat," right? He said, "Are you in the right boat?" Tell me a greater boat right now. Tell me a bigger problem in the current United States of America and other places, but even here, a bigger boat than healthcare. And if you just look at the stats, it's staggering. So, therefore, we know we're in the best business. The question becomes, if you're not succeeding or growing, it's not because the opportunity is not there. It's that you haven't been able to capitalize on the opportunity. And, and fortunately or unfortunately, we know that's a skill thing. It's not a you were born thing. It's not an innate thing. It's do you have the skills to go get people, and do you have the skills to convert them? And then ultimately, can you bring a team around you, a who, not how mentality, to actually scale the moon? Because it's, it's there for the taking.

Exactly. Dr. Dan Sullivan, welcome to the podcast, my man. Um, I pressed record while you were talking because I knew that we were going to get some, uh, you know, some, some good wisdom coming, uh, out of our— we were, we were kind of talking off, off screen here, and you know, I was like, this, this conversation's too good to not press record. So I just, uh, I went ahead and I went ahead and sent it. So welcome to the podcast, man. I'm really excited to have you. I'm excited to dive in today to The Brain Trigger Method, which is what you just presented on in our Chiro Ads Academy group on our weekly mastermind call. And man, I had some incredible takeaways. And I want to come back to the conversation that we were just having eventually, because I think it's a really important conversation to have. And it's something that I, over the last 4 years now— this is— I'm going into my 5th year of practice. Um, I have began to understand it more and more and more, and it's that it's up to me. If it's to be, it's up to me. Extreme ownership, you know, I'm, I'm huge on that. And you even talked about your internal locus of control and understanding that, you know, the difference between a successful communicator and unsuccessful communicators is the fact that successful communicators know how to take control of their communication and they understand communication at such a high level that they can actually be malleable in these interactions. And so I'm just excited for the listeners today. I think they're going to be the beneficiaries of this conversation. However, I know I'm going to have some major takeaways as well. So thanks for being here, man.

It's a blessing, man. I'm honored to be here. I know you've interviewed some heavy hitters, and so it's an honor to be here. I would say this. It's crazy. You've only been in practice for 5 years, man. You seem like a— 4 years. Old soul. You seem so wisdom. You seem such full of wisdom.

So thanks, man.

It's good.

Thanks, dude. I think that's just a lot of hardship and challenge, you know, that got me here. You know, you said something on the call and it's that, or at least the way that I extracted it was that great communicators aren't born, they're built. And I would say that, you know, that has a lot to do with my story. You know, a lot of What has led me here was challenge and hardship and overcoming that and, you know, just building myself through constant adaptation. And so I appreciate you saying that. I take it as a huge compliment. But let's dive in, man. So tell me, what's your story? I know you're huge on stories, man. What's your story? Just lead us in here with a little bit of backstory on you, and then we'll dive straight into you know, the topic of conversation?

Yeah, I think I would want everybody to listen— that's listening rather, everybody that's watching to know that you have a story and your story is worth telling. I see so many people out there and especially in the natural health space and the chiropractic space that you think you don't have a story. It's not like somebody else's. It's not some sort of, you know, miraculous event you went through. But that doesn't matter. I'm telling you, you have a story that's worthy of telling. So I'm going to start my story. But I don't want anybody to think because I don't have a story like that, you have to have an ability to tell your signature story. Every great leader, if you think about anybody that you think about, whether it be, uh, Tony Robbins, or you think about Alex Hormozi, or you think about Ed Mylett, or you think about Brendon Burchard, think about all these other leaders. Maybe if you're in the entrepreneur space, you think about and you know them. The reason why you know them is why? Because you know their story. So my story is, you know, I go back to and I actually wrote a book about this called The Trust Formula because I've studied the hero's journey. And when you study that model that every movie is built around, you know, there's an inner conflict, there's an outer conflict, and we watch the outer conflict. But the inner conflict is really what keeps us engaged because we all have been through the inner conflict. Whether you're watching Top Gun: Maverick or you're watching Taken or Tommy Boy, there's a story internally that all of us align with. So I'm saying that because when I tell you my story, there's going to be an internal story that you're going to align with. So, when I was 16 years old— so, first off, I grew up in a family where my mom was a nurse and she was a nurse for 37 years. My two oldest brothers are medical doctors and then my sister's an occupational therapist and I've got 3, 4 other siblings. And so, I grew up, I didn't know natural health at all. I didn't have one set of tubes, I had two sets of tubes in my ears. I had my tonsils taken out at 9 years old. And I— which, by the way, I just have to make this comment because I know somebody's not going to be able to listen to me unless I make the comment of the fact that I've got earbuds in my ears. I wear these earbuds when I work out. I made him wear them, for the record. You made me wear them because I'm like, I did. I have these. I said, I have these, but they don't connect to my— you know, when I'm talking on the phone, I use these. I use these once a day when I work out. So anyway, here we are because I couldn't figure out how to— and they needed— I needed earphones. But, it reminded me when I had ear tubes in my ears when I said that. But, I grew up in the medical model. And so, I didn't know chiropractic. I didn't know natural healthcare. And then, when I was 16 years old, I was injured pole vaulting. And I was a big athlete growing up. My two oldest brothers I admired and looked up to more than anybody. And I thought I was just going to go to medical school because that's what they did. But then, I got injured and went to all the doctors. And nobody get me better. And all I wanted to do— and my— and one doctor even said, you know, pulled my mom out and said, we think he's faking it because no tests indicate anything that's wrong. I had to bone scan, MRI, all the things. And my mom actually left in a pretty, you know, not good mood. She's like, you don't know my son. And thankfully she left. And we went home that next week. Our family dentist said, you should try a chiropractor. And I remember telling my mom on the way home, like, Mom, if he said it's in my head, I don't care where it's at. How do I get it out? I just want to get back on the healed. And so, go to the chiropractor and as you know it, he starts to get me better, starts to adjust me and I start feeling better. And, he said this famous 5 words, "You should be a chiropractor." So, I started to be a chiropractor thinking I was just going to help athletes with back pain. And then, I get to chiropractic college and my whole world shifted. It's one of those things why I still go visit the Twin Cities in Minnesota at least once a year and I take my family there because so many— I went to Northwestern up in Minnesota. So many things shifted in my life over that 4-year period of time that it has such a nostalgic meaning to me. And so there is where I would just say, like, I learned the lessons of you can have anything, like, like the world will give you what you go take, meaning you have opportunity. And I learned that. I like, I remember even talking to my little sister Abby one time and I'm like, Abby, I didn't know this is what I was getting into, but I feel like I have, like if somebody came out with like a pill that was going to solve all these health problems from diabetes to cancer, heart disease, all these things. I'm like, I feel like I have it. I said, the only thing that's going to inhibit my ability to go have sex, have success with this is going to be my lack of communication skills. Because I knew I had it in my heart, but I grew up introverted, shy, took an extra English class in undergrad to avoid taking a speech class, didn't like to speak in front of anybody. And so the idea that I was going to sell, it sounded so bad to me. How am I going to sell this? Although I knew in my heart I needed to. So I spent a lot of money before I got started in practice. In fact, I have the number, $523,000. I was in debt before. Some of that was training. A lot of that was training. I went to the specialized training right out of school. But I also, you know, to open the practice and then my school debt. And so most people would say that's crazy. And arguably, I don't know that I would advise that. And then my daughters, I've got 3 daughters now and they, 2 of them at least want to be a chiropractor. We'll see see how that turns out. But I remember telling my dad after chiropractic college, like, I'm going to go spend all this money, more money to get training, like double what I've already spent on like school. And I wasn't asking his permission. I was telling him, he was like, you are, you're, are you sure? Like, that's kind of crazy. And so I, yeah, then it came out and, you know, I, 0 to 4 years, 4th year, I hit 1,000 visits a week because that was the posse that I ran with. I was always drawn to people that were doing big things. And to this day, I'm just always drawn to people that are doing big things. And because I know if they could do it, I could do it. And Travis, meeting you, and I know I've said this, we said this on the other call, I just know that you've got something like, you know, I feel like God's got his hand on you and your ability to articulate and think about things in a way, marketing and sales. And I consider myself similar way. I'm just curious, why does things work? And when they don't come naturally, they never came naturally to me. I had to learn learn, but I'm willing to like, I'm not the sharpest, I'm not the fastest, I'm not the most talented or the strongest, but I will say I'll go longer. Like I will sacrifice and delay gratification longer than most people. That's why I love Navy SEALs. I love reading books about my, one of my favorite books is Lone Survivor. And about a Navy SEAL, just, I love hearing about people that are just go, they're not, they're not, they don't have anything except choice. It's character. Character is about choosing. Even though I teach my daughters this, it's a choice. It's a choice to be. To be great. It's a choice. It's just doing the same thing over and over again and, and, and, and constantly getting better while you do it. So I know that was a long intro there, but, you know, here I am. And so one last thing, so full circle. So I did that. I end up— I sold that practice that was in Nebraska. I sold that practice in 2012. I moved to, uh, Tennessee. I practiced there, you know, opened a big practice there, built that for about 3 and a half years. Then I moved to Atlanta. And I really was going to be there. I teamed up with Guy Reifman. We were working on a big project at Life University and we did that for a little while. Then that kind of fell through. The board pulled the plug on some stuff there because we were going to launch all these practices. And then I ended up, you know, I created some content online and I was just kind of in a little bit of a transition period. I'm like, I'll get back into practice. But I ended up creating this poster and then a course and then people start asking me to speak and lo and behold, One thing or another, that was 2015 through about 2020. And then, you know, then we moved back here to Nashville, Tennessee, where I reside with my family and just been banging the drum and, you know, preaching. And I have a couple of practices now that I run from afar. And, you know, I'm in there. I speak a lot. I'm into writing books. I just— I want, you know, I'm in this health space and I want people to know, if you're listening, that you didn't have to show up with all the talent in the world. You can gain the skills. Nobody was born with the skills that you need to go to the next level, that can be earned and learned.

Yeah, man, that's good, dude.

Hmm.

That's a message right there, you know? And I think that's a message that more people need to hear. You know, I think hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. I think that some of the most successful people that I know and some of the people that I admire most, aren't very talented, you know, they're just hardworking. And one thing that I actually, I actually landed on your landing page as I was doing a little bit of research and, and you even spoke to that in one of your like 3-minute videos. It's like, man, the people who, the people who are the least talented that eventually land themselves as typically an overnight success. In some place of triumph, you know, become the best teachers because they earned their success through merit. And they typically had to break things down to a fundamental level and they had to understand it at such a high level that now they can communicate it better than anybody else. And I would say that, you know, you— first off, thank you for the compliment and saying the kind words about me, you know. Pajintempo actually pointed me out at Level Up several years back at one of the Crash events and there's hundreds of people in the audience and he just made me stand up and he pretty much said that. He said some wild things about me and I don't know him from Adam. I've never met him before. And, I just remember this overwhelming sensation of euphoria coming over me and I just began to sweat and have this autonomic response and I almost broke into tears because my entire life I wanted to be seen. I wanted to be seen. I wanted to be validated, and I wanted someone to give me the confirmation that I could become what I thought I could become. And I also have this extreme infatuation with Navy SEALs. And I read— right now I'm almost done with Jack Carr's, uh, series, The Terminal List series, uh, which is about James Reece. He's a Navy SEAL, and You know, I think that I, I also am infatuated by them because of how much effort they put forth and the work that they do in silence in order to become the best operators in the world. And one thing that I like to share, especially to people that either want to be entrepreneurs or think that they can be entrepreneurs, is that It takes so much sacrifice to get to where we are, not just where you are, but where I am. I'm 4 years into practice and, you know, now running 2 businesses and I have a baby. Like, there's so much sacrifice that takes place and so much effort in darkness, you know, like when no one sees or— I don't know, it's just like there's something to it. And so, the spirit and the passion that you're bringing to this, I can tell that Um, you've been very similar in that your, your behaviors are what has led you to this place. So I'm excited to unpack how that actually shapes into the conversion and the communication and taking extreme ownership and, um, you know, like molding how you say what you say and not just depending on what you say, but also having a why that you start with, why you say it and, and who you are. And so all of these character attributes that lead to this much passion come out in your story, and, and that's what, what really influences people. Hey guys, I know you're enjoying this episode, but give me 1 second of your time. This is my shameless plug for the Chiro Ads Academy, where we're teaching docs how to bring their Facebook and Instagram ads in-house and generate repeatable, consistent new patients month after month without the headache and hassle of working with digital marketing agencies. It'll not only save you $30,000 a year, but it'll also give you outsized returns. It's the same exact system that we're running inside our 7-figure practice right now. And last month alone, we generated a 34x return on investment. We spent $1,567 in Facebook ad spend and generated over $54,000 from Facebook ads alone. This system is proven, it's tested, and has been installed in over 150 practices across the world, and it can be installed in your practice as well. So that you can generate similar results. Click the link in the show notes to watch a free training where I break down every single step of the entire system. And if you like what you hear, book a call so we can see if this system will work in your practice. Click the link below and I'll see you on the inside. Thanks for your time. Back to the episode.

Yeah, I love that you said that. Do you feel like you— when you say I needed to be seen, heard, and valued, because we all— I just, you know, Tony Robbins talks about this, like we need certainty and uncertainty. We need significance, right? Significance is, you know, being seen, heard, and valued. And make no mistake about it, I have done deep dive into why did I— why was I so attracted to the science and research? It's not because I love science and research. It's because I want to walk into a room and I want to be seen, heard, and valued. And the way that I do that is that I have this irrefutable truth that if you're going to come at me with it's not true, then you better bring the evidence because I have plenty. So, it's not that I love the evidence, I just love that significance. And again, we're all work in progress. In God's eyes, we've arrived. It's okay, but we have this thing to do. And so, I was always aligned to the research and that's where I've spoken all over the world on the research and the devastating effects of subluxation because I needed the research. Why? Because I needed to prove my two brothers that what I chose was actually the right decision, was that I am literally validating my decision with the people that I want their opinion and respect their opinion most. And, the irony is they live their own life. They don't really care. They don't really, but we live in this world where we've got to prove it to somebody. And so, it's that question, right? It's like, when is enough enough? But, at the same time is you want to help more people. The other thing, dude, you told me this a few weeks ago when we connected and you said, I said, will you ever branch out, like go outside of Cairo? And you're like, you know, I need to have passion for what I'm doing. I need to have a mission behind it. And that's rare. And I, and I, that's why I also, when I chose coaches starting in chiropractic, I knew I needed people that were on purpose, that were doing it for the right reasons, that were mission-centered, because I knew that that was the piece, that if I'm going to do something new for long term, it ain't about the money. And Josh Axe, one of my best friends, him and I talk about this often. We were we got into entrepreneurship and we cut our teeth in building chiropractic practices, not how much insurance you can bill, but how many lives you can change. And so, that— and Nylett talks about that is that he had a neuroscientist on is how you start something is how you actually always see it. So, it's kind of like when you are— your favorite music, by the way, let me tell you what it is, is what it was between 18 and 22 years old. Your favorite music between 18 and 22 is your current favorite music. Mine was Dave Matthews and Pearl Jam. And so, when that comes like and OAR and these things, and so, how you actually— so, when there's people, I actually feel bad for people that got into chiropractic and they're like they end up into mentorship that was just about how much they could bill and how much they can make and how much time off they can have. And I'm not saying those are bad questions. They're just bad first questions. The book, The Go-Giver, he says this. Making money is not a bad question to ask. How can I make more money? It's just a bad first question because there's a lot of ways you can make money. But I'm going to tell you where joy and fulfillment really comes from is actually having a purpose, is having fulfillment through your work and doing it with the right people and having relationships. So, I know I'm kind of going off here, but I say that because I caught your words of being seen, heard, and valued. We all want to be seen, heard, and valued. The question is, are we getting that? That— are we getting— are we filling up that cup in the right areas that is truly long-term fulfillment, you know?

Yeah, yeah. And I think that's, um, that becomes the backbone of the who you are when you say it and the why you say it, which I want you to get into here. So, um, let's dive into— let's dive into what you coach, right? You've, uh, you've now— all of your experiences that have led you here now have created the, the emphasis and significance around a message, right? This message that you've packaged and that you believe in so much that now you want to spread it to chiropractors to help them make a bigger impact and make a bigger income inside of their practice. And you call it the Brain Trigger Method, is that correct?

Yep. Yep. Yep. And so, I have a program called— yeah, I have a program called IGNITE and it's— and what it teaches, what he teaches is the Brain Trigger Method. So, the reason why it's a Brain Trigger Method, the old vehicle, right? Like, there's an old vehicle is just, "Hey, use these scripts and do it like I did it." That's a lot of chiropractic coaching. And it's not that that's not— it's not that that's bad, it's just in the long term, if you don't have a customized way, meaning you have a unique voice just like you have a unique fingerprint. And so, God gave you that. And so, if you don't have a way to customize the way you say things and how you say it and the questions you ask and the stories you tell, you're going to end up eventually jumping from thing to thing to thing to thing. So, what I found is when I study the brain, there's just principles that when you know them, you can apply whatever you're currently doing and get better results if you pull on these brain triggers, hence the Brain Trigger Method. Yep.

Yeah. All right. Dive in, dude. What's the Brain Trigger Method?

So, there's 4 components. And I start off with the first component. Well, and you mentioned it on this— I know we were talking earlier, but the one thing that people want most is, "What do I say?" And don't get me wrong, what you say is so important. But Albert Morabian, back in, I believe, the '80s, put out a research study that showed that, you guys have probably heard this, that 93% of communication is nonverbal. So, only 7% is the words. And what they said is, and what his research shows, that 55% is body language and 38% is tone. So, breaking that down, what you say is actually the least impactful, although it is impactful because it does drive the other things. So, So, the brain, talking about this, is 4 components, is who you are. And I got to break that down because you're like, well, like I thought we were communication, but why is it that, and I always, it always drove me crazy. I was very envious of friends of mine, colleagues of mine that could just go in and make anything work. Like, how do they make anything work? And it's because they had a certain DNA about them. They had an identity, right? It's that subconscious belief. I often call our selling subconscious selling because it starts with with who you are. And if you show up in a place where you don't believe— like, I had one doctor that I had to fire because he just— he really— I got down to it, like, he didn't believe that by him choosing to say one thing over the other or choosing to think a certain way when he got into a new patient or a consult or even marketing, like, he didn't think that— he literally lived a life, and this is so sad, unfortunately, where everything just happens to me. Like it's just the way things are. And like guys like you and I were like, no, you go create. And I have evidence of that through my life when I have done it. Because if that was the case, then why would you ever work out? Why would you ever choose what to eat? Like, that wouldn't make it. So, the point is, it's that internal— we talked about it, the internal locus of control. Carol Dweck said internal locus of control. Those that win in life have a growth mindset. A fixed mindset says, I just can't control it, so I just show up and whatever happens, happens. A growth mindset, so, it's an internal locus of control. The control for my future and destiny is inside. So, we start there. The first part of the Brain Trigger Method is you got it, who you are when you show up. Then, we go to the next step, which is why. Simon Sinek wrote a book called Start With Why. The greatest businesses don't start with what they are, what they have. They start with why they do what they do. And one of the famous lines I love that he said this in his book, he said, and I want to make sure you guys really get this, what I'm going to say. It's not about doing business with everybody who believes or who needs what you have. So think about this as chiropractors, as healers, as people that, you know, you have principles that they need and is going to transform their lives and have for so many others. But to think there's people that you don't want in your business, right? You know, this part of marketing is not just to attract the right people, is to repel the right people. And so, to think your business, to have a better, more successful, more joyful, fulfilled, results-oriented business, it will be important for you to get not everybody who needs what you have, but to get the people who believe what you believe. Mm-hmm. That's where joy comes, like, that is a practice worth building. There's nothing like it. So, how would you do that? Right? You gotta know your why, and you gotta be able to extrapolate your why. So the why you do what you do, I'll give you the shortcut. I'll give you, if you want like the secret sauce, here's the secret sauce. You know right now what your cost of saying yes to your care is. You know what it is, your staff or yourself, you could, here's the care plan, here's the recommendations. If you're in this, we're going to do this, this, and this. But the question is, do you know the cost of saying no? Do you know and do you have vision for the people that come in, right? My people will perish for a lack of vision. As the good book says. And so, do you have vision with clarity of where they're heading if they say no? And so, when you can come— and this was what allowed me to ask for money. When I started practice, I had a $2,700 care plan. It was an 8-month care plan. I remember it vividly. The idea that I was going to— I don't think my parents had $2,700 in their bank account my entire life growing up. So, the idea that I'm going to ask for a care plan, like one care plan for one person, And the only way I was able to do that is I had to get really connected with what's the cost if they say no. In other words, what's the return on investment? And when you know that and you believe that and you're convicted of it and you see it and you understand it, you then can with confidence ask for that money. So, that's that while. I'll stop for just a second if you have any questions or thoughts on that or anything I needed extrapolate more.

Man, no, I was just taking that in to be honest. And that's something that I don't think about at least specifically that often, but I do know the cost of saying no. I actually started as a firefighter. I was an Air Force firefighter for between the age of 18 and 22, and that's part of what set me on my path to chiropractic was first off, I knew I wanted to be in healthcare and I thought I wanted to be a first responder, and I was a first responder. And as a first responder, I got to see on a daily basis the cost of saying no. I got to see these people who had been swept up by the medical system, who had no locus of control, who did not take ownership over an agency over their health and the decisions that they make on a daily basis that led them to, you know, early onset or diabetic, becoming diabetic, any type of cardiovascular disease, a lot of mental health struggles. I got to see a lot of substance abuse. I got to see how that then translated into, you know, domestic violence. And I was called out on cases like that on a daily basis. And honestly, as a probie, so during my first year in the fire department, I was a plugman. I sat in the back left corner of the fire truck and I carried the med bag. And so whenever we parked down the street, you know, it was my job to like huff it in and be the first one in on scene with the med bag, prepping everything so that when my superiors got there, they could take control. And they were paramedics and I was EMT-Bs. But another part of my job was to actually take a huge Ziploc bag into every medical that we got called out on and go find the medicine cabinet.

Cabinet.

And I actually had to pull out all of their medication bottles into this, into this bag and then label it and then hand it off to the ambulance when they got there. And so that was something that was just burned into my brain. And I think that's actually what set me on my path to finding a new paradigm. And now subconsciously, you're just, you're telling me this right, right now, and I'm actually starting to use my, my filter and my memory to understand that And that's why I understand so fully the cost of saying no is because I saw it. I saw people on the worst day of their life. I saw people's lives end, right? I saw several people perish, pass away, and also have to go and pull out all of those medications from their medicine cabinet and hand them off to the paramedics. And so now, to understand where this conviction and certainty comes from, You're telling me exactly where it came from, and it's from that past experience. So that's great, man. So I guess if there are people out there that don't know the cost of saying no, or they don't have a story like mine or a past like mine that has shaped my subconscious to be able to communicate that through my tonality and my why, how do you help them build that?

Yeah, that's a good question. So, here's the thing, you all have a story. And think about this, you're not in this profession or in this industry without a story because you— like, who would just get into something that's got one of the lowest levels of trust? Like, who would get in an industry that would be like, you know what, I actually want to sign up for the industry that most people think is pseudoscientific and kind of were known as quackery, and it's going to be a hard sell. It's not really as covered by like most insurances. And, you know, it's not easy to build trust. Nobody would do that unless you—

what?

You have a story, which is a why. I don't care if you've never— like, I've taught at Life University for 2.5 years. I taught Philosophy 1, and we did a poll. And on average, at Life, which is more of a philosophical school, 28% of the students came in, had never been adjusted before. So, the point is, even if you'd never been adjusted, you still got to chiropractic school because you believed something that the world needed to know or that you could make a good profession out of, that you can make a good career out of. The point is, that's a story in and of itself that you had the guts, the tenacity to put money and to put time into helping people in an in an alternative model. So my point is, however you want to dissect it, this is what we do all the time. It's like you take your story, people need to know your story. That's it. It's like somebody's like, I don't have any story. I didn't ever get adjusted. Even when I did, it wasn't that— like, it wasn't like, you know, earth-shattering. But it's like, no, but let's break this down. Why did you get into this industry? Well, because this, and I just I just saw my grandma this way. And for some reason, I had a friend and I went to church with them and their dad. He had a good life and he adjusted people and had his own business and he owned his own schedule. It's like, okay, great. That's it. So, then from there though now, when you got to see it, would you say it's safe to say that you see things now that you never thought you'd see, people's lives that get back and memories that are created and destinies that they never thought they'd get and off drugs and back into health and vitality and movement? Would you say that that's pretty profound? Yeah, we see it all the time. So, do you think that that's the norm? It's not the norm. So, now, you get to use this story because it's now your passion. It's your thing. It's like the thing. So, that's where Simon Sinek does a great job of saying, "Start with why." So, you all have a story and it just becomes— I mean, I will tell you the hardest people that we do work with are the people that are born and raised in chiropractic because they're like, "Well, my story, I didn't know anything different." different. But all of them had a moment, typically in high school or undergraduate, where they had a revelation that they didn't probably want to be a lot like— my daughter is probably gonna— I'm gonna have to work hard with her story. It's like, like, where they didn't— like, this health was normal to them. And then, but what happens is then in high school or college, they saw— I had this, this, you know, dorm room dorm mate that they had all these drugs and allergies and sleep issues and ADHD, and I didn't even know that existed. Why would you take that stuff? Like, I didn't realize they didn't know there's another way. And so anyway, everybody has a story, but Travis, let me ask you this. So you said in that space, and we're going to teach somebody here right on the spot. Uh, what did you say you were to, like, you helped the paramedics? What was your job title?

I was a firefighter. EMT basic. Yeah.

Oh, okay. Okay. So you're EMT. So firefighter. So think about how fascinating, because I'd never heard that version. It makes sense. Right. And I don't know if this is your story, but I think to me, I pieced together, I feel like this was like the idea that most people don't get that experience. So, if you know anything about firefighters and a first responder EMT, I had to go into that call and the first thing my job was to is go find the medicine cabinet. And, what I found was the first time you do it like, "Okay, this person must be sick and that just happens and they probably had a bad string." And then, you see it again and then you see it again and you see it again. And you see it wasn't just a small bag, it's a huge bag that I had to go take all this. And, I thought to myself, there's There's just no way, like, that the body was truly designed to need to have all that medication to survive. And it turns out these people, the reason why they were so sick and end up with an event is because they were on the stuff. And I've never met somebody that said, "If I could just get a couple more drugs under my belt and in my medicine cabinet, I really feel like I'll be reaching that pinnacle of health that I've been looking for." Nobody says that, but it's what we fall into. And the point is, like, it hit me. That I gotta go do something. I need to be in a profession where we can get people away from this stuff and give them means to be able to live their life on their own terms and not shackled inside their body as a prison and be able to live. You see what I mean? Like, it takes that story and it's like, now everybody's gonna be like, man, you're— that's right. And, and why? Some people may love their drugs, and guess what you're doing by actually telling that story? You're repelling those people because they're not going to be good anyway. They love their drugs, they don't got to be. But, but the ones that, that that love that and like, you know what, I think the same thing. We think the same. And now you've got them because now what Simon Sinek says, it's not about doing people with that need what you have, it's doing business with people who believe what you believe. And so, you're attracting that and they're attracted to you and then oxytocin skyrockets because they're related. So, the third component is then how you say it. So, it's who you are, then it's why you say what you say, And then it's how are you saying it? So, I always use these little 5, this 5-word phrase. Zig Ziglar always used to say it. He would say, he didn't kick the dog, right? He didn't kick the dog. And so, he didn't kick that dog was the 5 exact words. He didn't kick that dog. So, I just want to show you how tone, your tone of voice changes the entire meaning of the phrase. When it's altered. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna use two examples. So the same five words, I'm gonna say, he, he didn't kick that dog. So he didn't kick that dog. I'm just changing the tone on kick. He didn't kick that dog. And then I'm going to change it to, instead of kick, I'm going to change it to that. He didn't kick that dog. He didn't kick that dog. He didn't kick that dog. Say that to yourself. Like, just say that in your mind. It means two different things, although it's the same word. He didn't kick that dog means he did something to the dog, but he didn't kick it. He didn't kick that dog says that he did, he kicked the dog, but it wasn't that one. So do you see, we can give you the script, but if you don't know how to deliver the words, then you're going to have them land in a way that you may not desire it to land. So, there's a part of the brain called— where's my brain? So, I always have a brain on me. There's a part of the brain right here called the amygdala and it's part of this limbic system. The amygdala is that fight or flight. If it's triggered a certain way, it'll go directly to the hypothalamus, which would trigger the fight or flight, that stress response. But if you know how to handle— so, your Your tone determines the intention behind what you're saying. And the amygdala is the quarterback of that. So, when you use a certain tone, you can trigger fight or flight, or you could trigger rest and relax and that parasympathetic. And why this is important is when you use the right tone at the right time, you can get them to really believe that your intention's pure, it's for them, and you have their best interest, not that you're just trying to get a buck from them. And all that has to do with your tone. So tweaking your tone and one of the things we do, and unfortunately you can learn some of this stuff, but the best way to actually put it in play, you gotta have some feedback. You gotta, whether, you know, eventually maybe I figure out some sort of AI technology where you literally, and I'm sure there's stuff out there, but you can measure your tone. You gotta know how you're saying what you're saying. And the fastest, the shortest path, the hack to better tone is more conviction, more care about who you're speaking to, and more conviction about your product, service, or offer. More care. You care. Frank Kern said, demonstrate you care by actually caring, right? Demonstrate you care by actually caring. So that's not easy when you see a lot of people, you know, when you're doing 15, 20 new patients in a week, that's not easy. So you have to, you have to really get in that, in that mindset. You gotta have to care and then, uh, and convicted behind So, that's the how you're saying it. And then, the last one is the what you say, which is what we always get into, which by the way, if you're going to focus on a what to say that's going to get the best bang for the buck, two primary things that most of you are not doing is you're not asking enough questions and you're not telling enough stories using analogies, metaphors, and your own signature story. Those are the two deficits because you're doing a lot of preaching and teaching, I'm sure, and I'm sure it's great. Great. But there's an idea behind actually educating people. And this idea says this, is that when you teach is to pour in, to educate is to pull out. So if you were going to educate somebody, you got to pull it out. Those convinced against their will are of the same opinion still. So you don't want to try to convince them and force your opinion. You just, if you see some of my testimonies, and I could show you dozens of them, but one common themes you're going to see in testimonies that we work with. And it's not because I'm great, it's just that we just teach the principles and then they apply them and then they get all these results. But, but here's the two big things. Well, there's three. One would say, I got to be myself. I got to take off the mask. I didn't have to try to be somebody else. The second thing would be is I learned that I was speaking way too much. And the third thing is I was not asking enough questions. We hear this every single day. Wow. I wasn't asking enough questions. Or the questions you're asking, you're just trying to check them off. You know, if somebody's telling you, you know, you're like, okay, and how bad are they? And how often are they coming? And then you're just checking it off. Like a real caring, empathetic person is going to say, you know, and they say, well, yeah, they happen every day. Like, okay. And what are their worst? Are you kidding me? You just said okay after they happen every day? Like, have some empathy. What do you mean? They have headaches every day. You look, hold on a second. Every day? You're having headaches every day. Oh my goodness, I'm so glad you're here. Like, I'm so glad you're here. That one, first off, you know, that's not normal, man. And are you taking— what are you doing for them? Well, I'm taking medication. And so I was taking— I'm taking two, a couple, you know, I do probably, you know, a couple Tylenol, you know, when it comes. Like a couple— you're doing a couple Tylenol a day, so you're doing on average 700, 800 tablets of Tylenol a year. Man, that— I'm so glad you're here. We got to get to the cause. So, so you notice, like, you're just glossing through things because we were taught in school, like, OPQRS, just ask them a question, onset and location, and how long is it, what makes it better and what makes it worse. That's the problem. The problem is you're not literally— you're not— what are you really asking? Like, but when you learn how to ask it and you ask at the right time with the right way, you can literally get their brain to focus on the thing you want them to focus on, and now they're convincing themselves. So anyway, Anyway, back to you, Travis. I know I just said a lot there.

Oh, man. No, I was taking that in. I guess, man, the biggest takeaway that I had is how shackled it must feel as a chiropractor who has the greatest message in healthcare that is trapped in a system that doesn't allow them to be authentically them and to also be trapped in a life where they don't have conviction and confidence in the, the product that they're selling, and they don't have a deep enough why to fight for something at the end of a report of findings, and they don't have enough empathy to be able to adjust their tone and to take these 4 attributes of voice that you're going to share with us in a few moments and implement those. And to me, a lot of those things come, come natural. You know, like, I think, I think when, when you have these 4 components dialed right, when you have the who you are when you say it, the why you say what you say, and the how you say it. And it's like when you start with you and you start with your why, and then you understand the how, then the what you say is far less important. And I think that's a big point here to drive home because a lot of chiropractors love scripts, man. They love scripts. And I will say, I'm an advocate for frameworks. I, you, you know how meticulous and detailed that I am over the past few conversations that we have, and I build a framework for everything. And mainly that's because I know that every interaction that I have, whether it's in my office or online digitally, I'm not always going to be the best version of me. And that's something that I control my controllables. However, being a chiropractor and especially an entrepreneurial chiropractor is very taxing and very demanding. And it demands that we wear multiple hats. And so because of that, you know, there are instances where I walk into new patient appointments and like I'm not oscillating at my highest frequency. And I want to make sure that this person gets treated the exact same way as the person who got me at my best, even if I'm at my worst. And so that's why I create those frameworks, is just to make sure that I'm not missing anything. However, when you dial in these 4 components, like, this is the stuff right here that doesn't change a conversion percentage. It changes your practice in your life forever. You know, like if you could— this isn't just about sales, dude. This is about relationships. This is about being a human, doing the thing that we've done primitively for thousands of years, telling stories. It's the way that we've passed down information since we could, you know, make these sounds with our mouth that actually turned into words where we could transfer information. And they use the inflections, they use the tonality, the changes there. They use the emphasis on specific words. They had a significance to the reason why they were telling the story that they were telling. And so this is just really great, man. And I just want to share that with you. And I guess just going back to my initial thought was Man, how it must feel to be a chiropractor that knows that you've been sharing the message that is now becoming— it's taking center stage, dude. The Maha Movement is taking center stage. Center stage. BJ and DeeDee have been on the Maha Movement since 1865, you know. And then I'm sure there were advocates and teachers that were you know, sharing a similar message for hundreds or thousands of years before that, right? So the chiropractors that are so vitalistic and philosophically rooted and have the best message in healthcare that have the message that can shift paradigms and actually change lives and they don't have these 4 components to assist and facilitate the transference of that belief, the transference of that information. Like, it's right now I'm having a revelation, you know, I'm like, this stuff needs to get out there, man. 13% utilization rate is terrible.

Yeah, it's like when you see, yeah, like when you were introduced to chiropractic for the first time, like, why is it, why doesn't everybody know this? It's like you start to, and I think life is about that, right? You peel back scales every year, you know, whether it be through parenting and you just see what's important. And, uh, I will say that when— yeah, when you start to understand these principles, it's why we call it Root— you know, we, we call our program, our, you know, really our company Root Cause Coaching, because it's about root cause. A lot of the, the, the challenges you're having, you know, we all know root cause from a health standpoint, but a root cause from a success standpoint, and even in your own relationships, to your point, your marriage, your kids, your family, your, your, uh, friends, It's everything's communication, how you show up, what you say, how you say it. Are you into people? Do they— you know, C.S. Lewis once said, when you leave a humble person, you don't think, wow, that person's humble. You actually leave that person and think, man, I really like them. They're very interesting. Like, I really like them. And all you did was ask them questions. Do you know that when you ask somebody questions, they can't help but like you because you asked them about them? You got— you allowed them to talk about them. You know, remember this: people will believe some of the words that are coming out of your mouth, but they believe everything that's coming out of their own mouth. So, if you ask yourself the question, you see why it makes sense, like, oh, communication. If I can just get them talking, but then I can hijack their brain. I talked about research. They went to college and they asked these college kids, "Are you happy?" And then, "How many dates you been on the last 30 days?" And then, they reversed the order. "How many dates you been on the last 30 days?" And, "Are you happy?" And the happiness factor plummeted. Literally, how they thought and felt about themselves went off to down. Why? Because they thought, "Oh, I haven't been on many dates. I must not be happy." You got to know that how you ask something to somebody and where you are, what you ask them, and the order to which you ask them is the reason why they're saying yes or no. I got to go home and think about it. I got to go home and pray about it. I got to go home and ask my spouse about it. And that's back what you just said. It's in your hands. It's not like if you were looking to get off insurance, if you're looking to sell a higher ticket, you know, I just had this guy, Dr. Noah, amazing guy, salt of the earth dude, raised it, doubled his fees, went up 2.3x in his, in his revenue in 90 days. Has 100% conversion to wellness. That means people staying longer with him. And he's like, I can't believe it. Like, I was coached by other people. Like, I didn't know, but it was just because it's him. Like, now it's him and his stuff just, it just works. So, it's who you are. It's why you say what you say. It's how you say it. And then, it's what you say. They're all important. But then, the other thing I'll add to this is like, because I did scripts too and I learned those and it helped me have frameworks. So that I can— I knew I didn't have to focus on what I'm saying because I knew what I was saying, but now I can notice how I'm saying it and who I'm saying it to, and I'm thinking about them, and I'm caring about them. So, I talk about this to clients all the time, and I just say, "Give me your— just give me your, like, your initial consult that would explain how you do what you do." I don't care what it is. I just care to hear how you talk about it. Like, for me, anytime I go over here and I look at a nervous system chart, like, I literally know, but I just, in my mind, I have this awe and wonder. So, I'm literally putting myself in their shoes. I'm like, Travis, I know there's a big possibility you've probably or maybe never seen a chart like this. And it's one of our main missions and passions. We want to make sure we're empowering our patients to make all the decisions. I'm not going to tell you what to do. You're going to have an opportunity to make all the decisions, but we want to make sure you know what you're saying yes or no to. But here's the deal. When you look at this chart, see, God put the most amazing healing power in your brain and your spinal cord. And in order for your body to heal, cut from a cut to heal, heart to beat, lungs to breathe, digestion to occur, it has to occur from here. Your brain runs your body and then that runs out through the spine to all these nerve roots and it goes to all. And when I'm thinking about that, like, I have this awe and wonder. It takes me back to chiropractic college. The reason why I had became so passionate is because I was in trimester 2. We were studying in the cadaver lab and I was learning about the digestive tract. Here's one example, learning about the digestive tract. And I remember learning about the semipermeability of the digestion and that in order, like, it lets some stuff go across into this blood, into this bloodstream that's right next to it. And then that's going to carry the nutrients up and make your cells what they are and replenish all the nutrients and then take the bad stuff out and all the things. So, I'm like, "Okay. So, this is a pretty powerful, you know, tissue, like this tissue is dictating what goes into the bloodstream. And now what I know is like, actually, if you study leaky gut, leaky gut is because that, those, that netting becomes bigger, it gets across stuff that shouldn't get into the bloodstream, and the body has an autoimmune response. The point is that this lining has an important job. And I remember studying it in Guyton's Physiology. And then I would go back to the cadaver lab, and literally the thing was like as thin as that piece of paper. And I'm like, there's no way. How does it do all that? And it's that thin. And then I thought to myself, well, the controlling system that actually controls what that thing does must be pretty flippin' important. And if you interfered with that, it would make sense why that could wreak havoc to your body. And it just— that was my linear, you know, you know, lineage of thinking. And then it's like, oh, I see why then people that get adjusted can get experience things that wouldn't seemingly relate to the spine. That makes complete sense now. I want the world to know about it. I can't believe I lived 22 years of my life. I didn't know this. So that's the stuff, right? It's like, you can already just tell, like, I can have that moment as I'm talking about it. And it's not just trying— I'm not just putting on a good thing. Like, I still think about two cells came together. You think the chiropractor creates miracles? Two cells came together, 10 months later, a baby came out, right? You have a baby, right? It's like, look at— you look at this beautiful blessing, you're like, oh my goodness, like, this is crazy. So anyway, I just want to to remind you, yes, it's not the script, it's how you think about it. And I will say the challenge as you get older in practice, right, is that you see things and they just become mundane, right? It's how to make the ordinary extraordinary, how to make that everyday thing that you see that's so ordinary to us, but man, it isn't to the public and they don't know it yet. And like you said, we got a 13%, we're going to continue to increase that. But, but I will say this, don't give yourself pressure on that. You're doing better than you think. You're closer than you think. It's skill sets and it's just this mindset and skill sets. Root Cause is about two things. It's about your belief and conviction and it's about your ability to communicate.

Yeah. Yeah. I guess what I'm kind of stuck on right now is you can— you just took us through an exercise, right? Where like, even if— first off, I think most people who say they don't have a story, it's because is comparison is a thief of all joy. I think they're comparing themselves to that like breakthrough chiropractic story that they hear all these people, you know, share on stages. And so they're like, well, I don't have a story. I don't have a— no, you have a story. It's just not like theirs. So you have your own story, you know, which is like your analogy, you know, against the fingerprint. It's your story. And so you've got to find that story and allow that to become your why. And then everybody has that, right? Like, everybody has, uh, those— the, the, the accumulation of experiences that have led them into chiropractic school and through chiropractic school and now on their chiropractic journey as a practitioner. It's just like, it might not look like somebody else's, but they definitely have that. Um, and then how you say it You can, you can learn that, you know, you could learn that through exercises with a person like yourself. Um, you can study these attributes of voice and tone, uh, which I'd like for you to touch on in a few moments. You can learn what to say, but I guess the one that sticks out to me and the one that I starred right here and underlined is who you are when you say it. How do you shape who you are? You know, like, how do you take somebody who they know their why, they know how to say it, they know what to say, but like, they just don't show up, you know? Like, how do you change that?

Yeah, that's a great, great question. And we would both be getting paid a lot more and having a lot of our impact if we could nail that down with one of your acronyms. But here's what I will say. This is why Tony Robbins is so popular because he works on it. It's subconscious, right? It's an identity thing. Now, to me, as a believer, one of the things I always back to is who did God create us to be? And when I look at Genesis, it says that Genesis 1:1, He created the heavens, the earth, and in 1:26, He created us in His image. So, I start off on that saying, well, I must be creative. He created me and I just know that everybody that is created to create and built to build. So, you are built to build something and created to create and the highest level of value creation. We didn't talk about this, but I wrote about this in my book. I'm writing about another book right now talking about this is your lowest level of value creation, meaning what you get paid the least for is implementation. The next one is unification. The next one is communication. The highest level is creativity and imagination. So, let me break this down. So, the roofer of a roofing company, the roofer gets paid the least. The foreman of the roofing crew gets paid more. The salesperson communicator gets paid more than both of those. And then the owner of the company, the creator of the company, who with his imagination gets created the most. So, what's the top levels is creativity, imagination, and communication. You've got to communicate. So, it's the most value exchange in our economy. If you don't know how to communicate, you can only get paid so much. So, if you're just looking and relying on insurance to pay you and you don't know how to communicate to have somebody have value to pay you out of their pocket, you'll never get paid what somebody else that does have that skill and it's all learned. So, but I believe that the who, it's our identity and I think we're all on a trajectory and the goal would just be to get higher. Like, let's just go a rung higher. Like, I'm not as far as, you know, somebody that's doing TEDx, then I need to get up to a certain degree now. So, we're all on a journey on that. Here's what I will give you a recommendation. Here's what I would say the tip though is. Is where I see people go wrong with this is that their character is so low. In order to improve your character, by the way, which is a choice. So, how do you improve your character? You improve your— your character is everything, meaning if you're not getting a result, then you're going to go figure out a way to get a result. That's why I invested $500K before I made a dollar because I knew that I was willing to do the work as long as I know what work to do. And so I think that character comes in is, are you, first off, ask yourself this question. If you're listening to this, you're, you're, you're watching this. I want to ask you, are you fulfilling the promises that you're making to yourself? Mm-hmm. Tomorrow morning you're gonna get up at a certain, like you, I was telling my wife and I've been talking to this with our, with our oldest daughter. She's 14 and we're like, she, she's has a problem with sleeping in and it, and it's not part of it. It goes back to, okay, Hey, Hallie, just what the time that you're gonna get up, just do that. It's not, it's not, well, it's so hard for me. No, it's not. It's a choice. I get it. It's hard. It's the same hard for everybody. If you ask me, well, how do you, you know, keep your body fat percentage this and work out this way? It's like, it's still hard. I hate going to the gym. I hate going to the gym. I don't like going to the gym. I like the feeling, but the pain of regret is always harder for me than the pain of discipline of getting there. So my point in saying that is, is how I believe that you can instantly increase the who you are is that if you don't trust yourself, how is somebody else going to trust you? And if you don't fulfill the promises you're making to yourself on a daily basis and you don't have that accountability and that discipline, then you could talk all day long, the greatest talk, but you're showing up and you're expecting them to not trust you because you don't even trust you. And I'm not throwing stones because there's a lot of things that I need to fix. But I think that's a part where people that do what they say and say what they do will always be greater influencers. Like you said, uh, on this or before, it's like, you know, um, hard, you know, hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard, right? So it's character beats charisma when charisma doesn't have character. So I believe that just fulfilling those promises that you made yourself, you know, start with small ones, right? There's a part of the brain, the Goggins-Huberman, uh, uh, uh, podcast. There's a part of the brain that gets bigger when you do hard things and you do them. It's called the anterior cingulate gyrus. And this area of the brain in the prefrontal cortex gets bigger. And what they showed— it is smaller in obese people, it gets bigger when they go on a diet, it's bigger in athletes. And it's literally this place in the brain, what they said, it's like this willpower. It's this place that when you, when you, it's almost like the will to live, like people live longer when they have this bigger. And the only way you get this thing bigger is that you do hard stuff. And, and, and like my wife and I were in, you know, January and February of 2025 here right now, if you're listening to this, whenever you listen to this, but we did January, we did like a, a, a, like a month long of, of, of some fasting with our church. We also did cold plunges and there's other things. And he went funny. He said is if the thing that you're doing was hard, But then it becomes easy because you've done it. So, what? You got to change. That actually isn't going to grow it. So, you got to keep doing stuff that's hard and challenging. That's why, to your point, I love Navy SEALs like that book, Lone Survivor. It got me to 1,000 a week, believe it or not. Well, you would believe it. I would go into my team and I would read them parts of the book because I remember thinking, guys, a lot is going to happen. Like, we're going to see 200 people in the next 3 hours. A lot of things are going to go on. Like, there's going to be a lot of people, there's going to be people calling, there's going to be people this and that, and you're going to have planes, you're going to have this, that. The question is, though, here's the deal. It's always perception. And I would read this like, but we're not going to get shot at this afternoon. Chances are we're not going to fall off a cliff and get our shoulder busted out and hallucinate because we haven't drank water for 3 days. So, let's ask ourselves, let's define hard. And I don't know if it was the best approach, but I think it was an approach to say, hey, we're going, we're saving lives and we're going at this. And so, business is tough. It's not easy. Uh, but you don't want easy, and you're going to grow that part of the brain when you do things that aren't easy.

Yeah, you know, when I was asking you the question, I wanted to pull out your hypothesis on it, and I think that that's similar to the answer that I would have given. You know, I think, I think that how you shape the who is through building self-belief. I had a conversation with someone the other day, and it was on their birthday, and I was just, um, you know, I think, uh, are you a Vanessa Van Van Edwards fan. Do you know who that is?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

Yeah. So I've read some, some of her stuff and just kind of like using the Spark Questions, you know, and, and, and just asking questions that are meaningful, you know, in conversations. And we were all out at lunch and I was just asking, you know, like, what was your greatest accomplishment over the past year? What were things that you think, you think you could have improved on? You know, what were things that you did well? And, you know, what's your— what's the vision that you're holding for the next year, for the next trip around the sun? And, you know, what are— what are 2 things that you're going to stop doing and what are 3 commitments that you're going to start doing? And then one of the answers was, I'm going to stop procrastinating. And so then my question, I just— it just kind of allowed me to follow that thread, you know, like, okay, why are you procrastinating? I know this person really well and I knew what she was alluding to. And I was like, why are you procrastinating? And it's, well, I've always been a procrastinator. And I said, no, but what's the real reason that you're procrastinating? And well, I don't know the answer to that question. Do you mind if I share what I believe the answer to that question is? Yeah, of course. I think it's lack of self-belief. And as soon as I said that, it was an epiphany. Boom. You're procrastinating because you don't believe that you have the credentials to actually share the information that, you know, needs to be shared because you think that somebody is going to have a false perception or, you know, who is, who is this young associate doc that thinks that she should be telling me how I should embark on my pregnancy journey or things that I should do to improve my labor and delivery outcomes or questions that I should ask my OB. To ensure that I'm cared for appropriately? Who is this person? And so, I think that the root cause coaching is what all of our questions and self-audits and self-assessment should be. What's the root cause? Not the superficial BS answer that you're going to give because there's people looking at you or maybe even because you don't want to come to terms with the fact that that's what the real reason is, you know, is you got to build that self-belief. And I think you're right. I think a lot of that starts in discipline because the same person said that one of their other commitments was that they want to start waking up when their alarm goes off, you know, not pressing snooze 7 times. And so it is interesting how there's such a strong correlation between the people that have you know, a difficult time with carrying out those small challenging tasks and also the root cause of lack of self-belief that then trickles into every other aspect of their life. So building that character and building that self-belief, I think, is a, is a great foundation, you know.

Yeah, I had a mentor of mine. Yeah, he said this, he, to your point exactly, he's like, If you knew that book that you were waiting on that you're procrastinating to write was going to be a bestseller, you would write it. You'd have it done by the end of the month. If you knew that the impact you were going to make on these moms was going to be second to none and was needed and save these lives, you would do it. So your point exactly is right is what gives you the right to— and we all are. I mean, we're all procrastinating something. So we're all have to like have the mirror here and looking in the mirror. But right, you're exactly right. What are we holding back? Because if we knew that was going to be the thing, we would have it done, you know, by the end of the day. So you wanted me to mention about voice. So there's 4 components of voice. And I want you guys to think about this. Your voice is so powerful, or it's not, but it has the capability to be powerful. Your voice, it's one of those things I just mentioned the nerve chart. I mentioned the digestive lining. Think about your voice. The idea that we get to use this voice to, I mean, as they've said, the power of a word is more, words are more powerful than anything. I mean, they're the things that create nations or explode them, right? They create wars or create peace. It's words. Like to think your voice is going to be the thing that's going to get somebody to say yes or no, or how much they're going to be willing to pay and then how much their life is going to change. So, there's 4 components of your voice. It's like a— I've always said this as an analogy. It's like a piano. You have 88 keys on a piano. I see a guitar back there. You got 12 strings on a guitar, or I mean, there are 12 strings sometimes, but 6 strings on a guitar. And when you learn that these 88 keys on a piano, So you can play all of them and it makes amazing music. And so your voice can play all these keys, but you're most likely only using a fraction of them. So your voice comes down to 4 things. Number 1 is your speed or your cadence, how fast you say something. The next one is the volume that you use or the voice use. The 3rd thing is is your ability to create tone, right? Tonality. You go up and down. Are you just monotone? And nobody will listen to you if you're monotone because they'll check out, right? But if you go up and down like we just talked about, and then the last one is the pause. It's if you watch— here's a recommendation. Go watch this weekend or this coming weekend, watch a comedian. Go watch a Netflix, Nate Bargatze or Sebastian Maniscalco. I could give them— they could give us their script and we would flop. Why? Because they know when to pause. They know the tone to use and when, the right emphasis. They know exactly how to go up and how to go down. It's so fascinating. Being funny is not about just the words. In fact, it's the least thing, right? You got to have them. It's a necessary thing. So, think about your voice from that perspective is you can literally keep somebody's attention by saying nothing. You could say absolutely nothing. Noise, nothing, by just changing how your voice, right? So, you just could do that. But, you know, my daughter, so we homeschool. My daughter just did this presentation yesterday. She did the battle of the burgers. It was a presentation of a science project. She took 5 burgers. She had a grass-fed, you know, farm-to-table burger. And then, she compared McDonald's, Burger King, Sonic, and White Castle to our, you know, control on which would mold faster. And so yesterday she got to present and she did a great job. I was so proud of her. And I just got there thinking, I'm like, she has no idea the value of being able to use her voice and confidence. And then they asked her questions. And the one thing my wife and I talked about was, I said, Hallie, remember when you answer questions, you have to have the same amount of confidence and tone that you did when you just, when you had, you know, kind of gone through your entire presentation. That will be important. And actually, one of the judges said, like, the way you answer questions is very confident, was very noteworthy. And so, I just— and then, you know, and I took her to that yesterday morning at 7:30. I dropped her off and it started at 9:00. So, I came back and on the way there, I did this little exercise with her. I've done this. I've taught this from a stage last year. I'm like, "All right, Hallie, let's get your head right. Let's get your head right." Like, the why you're saying this and the who you are when you show up, I knew that I'm like, think about your, think about your project, think about the people you're going to reach and what they're going to say or what they're going to think. And you're going to influence whether or not they're going to go to White Castle or have a different burger based on what you, what you presenting. So her whole gist was preservative power. If it's more preservatives, it's going to mold, it's going to take longer to mold. Right. And so, and it turned out, you know, and it was a good one. So anyway, all that to say, your voice, your voice, use it like an instrument that it is and just watch out. Yeah.

I mean, even just taking away from, from that, you know, like the exercise in the car is like being intentional about how you think about what you're going to be doing.

Mm-hmm.

You know, instead of just like going through the motions and these mundane tasks and going in and I'm doing the same thing just on a different day, it's like you gotta get your mindset right. You gotta get your mind right. You gotta get your heart right. You know, heart-centered. Get your mindset right. You know, I like to kind of ramp my mind and then settle my heart. You know, it's typically like I just need to get a little more revolutions per minute going in my brain, and that kind of gets me amped and passionate, but also like settle my heart so that when I have those people come in where I need to match their tone, I need to match that frequency and be more empathetic. You know, I can slow my cadence, I can drop my tone a little bit, I can insert more of those pauses, you know. And I think, I think that's where just understanding these concepts and not only hearing this podcast, but also potentially even taking notes and then applying these on a daily basis and then assessing and reflecting and replaying and seeing how could I have tweaked that just a little bit. Bit, you know, not necessarily what, what could I have said different, but how could I have said that differently? And, and then seeing how that leads to better outcomes in your practice. And not just better outcomes of conversions, but also better outcomes of, you know, radically shifting paradigms and shattering old beliefs. Because I think, like what you're saying, whenever you communicate this way, It's, it's not communication that is with the intention of helping someone make a logical decision. This is bringing more emotional relevance and emotional weight into play. And I think that's where we can truly make these huge paradigm shifts that then create this cascading effect for generations to come. And you're truly changing lives, you know. So this is, this is good, Dr. Dan. I appreciate you being here.

Yeah, good stuff, man. I will say, as we kind of wrap up, I will say this. Roger Bannister, right? Everybody knows this. May 6th, 1954. And it goes back to your question about the how does somebody change the who they are. For, you know, and Mel Robbins is kind of a life coach. I can't remember what she does, but she's, she's good. I follow some of her stuff. She says, is, you know, nobody's coming for you. Like, nobody's coming for you. Everybody's got their own thing to worry about. And that's the other part of like being rejected. You think people are thinking about you more than they are. So nobody's coming for you. And I just want you to know, like, you have to decide, you have to decide that I'm going to step up and I'm going to get the skills and I'm going to make the moves. Now, I will say that I believe that when you take a small step, God takes a big step towards you and he will find and put people in place. And I believe that there's just, if I look back over my life, it ain't, it's not because of me, in spite of me oftentimes, but I have believed that I've had discernment in certain things. But I'll say this, Roger Bannister in 1954, they tried to run the 4-minute mile, break that 4-minute mile mark and nobody could do it. They had wolves chasing them and dogs chasing them and doctors said, there's no way. It's not only impossible, it's dangerous. And then, and nobody did. And then May 6th, 1954, Bannister broke it. And then that wasn't the fascinating thing. What was the most important part is that within 3 months, another guy broke it. And within the next 3 years, 16 people broke it. And today, no, 46 people broke it in 3 years. And today, high school kids break it. So he didn't break the physical barrier. He broke the mental barrier. And I just know that you guys listening, you're tuning in because is you believe you have something inside you to a degree, right? In your head, but we got to get it inside. And the fact when he broke that barrier, he allowed everybody else to say, "I can do it too." Then, the legs didn't change, the training, there wasn't even enough time for the training to change. He broke it and he created a new belief pattern. And so, I'm telling you, what are you still stuck in and who do you need to be around in order to really break those patterns? And when you do that, I'm telling you. Things shift and they can shift quickly. And so you're closer than you think, but we've got to break some of those patterns and know that that's ownership. That's you, right?

It's a quantum leap. Yeah. I heard on Diary of the CEO, Vanessa Van Edwards, actually, she had a really great podcast on there and she said something like, with— we know that whenever you sit within 25 feet of a success, highly successful individual, that it improves your performance by 15%. And, you know, that's why I enjoy having conversations like these. You know, I think I get free insight into invaluable coaching and an invaluable coaching session. And, you know, I think one thing that you mentioned, maybe it was on this podcast, I don't know, it's all, it's all like meshing together now, was you were, you were alluding to like the growth mindset versus the fixed mindset and that those people people who are willing to grow and willing to shape and willing to improve are ultimately going to lead more successful lives. And, and in that, typically is more fulfilling lives. But because that growth mindset is oftentimes directly correlated with purpose and passion. And so I implore any chiropractors out there that have lost their purpose, lost their passion, have lost touch with their mission to get in touch with Dr. Dan. And be able to really dial in these 4 attributes and these 4 components to not only conversion, but I think fulfillment. And not fulfillment in the sense of delivery, but being fulfilled in your practice as a chiropractor. Dial in who you are, dial in why you say what you say, how you say what you say, and what you say, and let all of those things be able to shape the experiences of others in your practice that will eventually help to grow and scale your practice beyond your belief in a faster amount of time. I saw what you did with Dr. Mike's practice. I've heard now of several different testimonials. Got to come into your Softwave Solutions call and be a part of that and hear some of the stories there. So I know the power of this process when it's implemented. The only thing holding someone back is connection to you. So if you want to share maybe a link or something that I can put in the show notes here, or you can just tell people where to find you before we wrap up here, I'd love to give people the opportunity.

Yeah, there will be a show. We'll get a link in the show notes. You'll see that below. And then the other thing I would say is, you know, Instagram, I'm pretty active on. So like, if you, you know, you can follow some of my stuff there. And see what else I put out there. That's Dr. Dan Sullivan on Instagram. You can find me also on Facebook. You can find me on YouTube. I'm just getting my YouTube back up cranking again. Then also, therealdansullivan.com, not the fake, the real, therealdansullivan.com is my website. And I'm pretty reachable. Like I said, I would say if you're watching this and you want some insight and go to my Instagram, send me a DM and myself or a team member, most likely me, We'll, uh, we can respond and get you what you need. Um, but yeah, I mean, dude, this is— we're gonna do a lot of work together. I feel like, you know, people need to follow you, and as they already are, um, and you're just gonna continue to grow. I, I just know it. I know that the way you're thinking about things, I— it shocks me. I, I should know this, but the fact you've only been around for 5 years in the profession, and, uh, you know, as a chiro, um, just speaks volumes to what you're doing and what you're going to be doing. And when we get aligned and others get aligned, people are going to find out, you know, who you are and what you're doing. So excited about working on this together. And I will always— I'm a story guy, so I got to end with the story because it's a different story that on that Bannister mentality, but so fascinating. I love the story. So there was a guy and some of you may have heard this. There is a guy who ran this big publication company. And, and what happened is when he was a high school sophomore in high school, 16, 17 years old, sophomore, junior. He was in middle of Kansas and his mom, he was running with the wrong people and just, he wanted to drop out. He's like, ah, school's not for me, mom. I'm just, and he was not showing up. And his mom said, you can drop out if, but you just got to take the SAT. So he takes the SAT and his mom, you know, commanded him to do it, takes the SAT. And he ends up, because mom's so hard wanting him to get to college, is she thought maybe there's a possibility that he could, you know, see something. And so sure enough, he takes the SAT and he gets a 1480. And like the high score, I think is 1600, 1480, like top of the class. And he, so he gets that score back and he's like, you know what? Maybe I am smarter than I, and his mom said, actually, you know, who'd you cheat off? He goes, actually, I tried. You can't cheat. I did try. Even his mind, I didn't try or I couldn't cheat. So, he starts going to class and he starts hanging around different people and he starts actually getting a decent grade, ends up at a community college, and then he ends up going to an Ivy League school. Did so good, he ends up going to Ivy League school. Years go by, he ends up graduating, meets his wife, they have a family, and he ends up owning this publication company. And he was the head guy and doing great. Lo and behold, he gets this this letter from SAT Corporation, and it's out there for a while, and finally his wife's like, are you going to open that? He's like, ah, okay. Finally he opens it and said, we regret to inform you that you were one of 13 people when we did an audit that we sent you the wrong score. You didn't get a 1480, you got a 680. And so he says this, most people will say that that score changed my life. But he said it wasn't the score that changed my life, is when I started acting like somebody that got a 1480 is what changed my life. And so the question becomes, I feel like the theme of this podcast for your great questions is who are you acting like? Because I don't— I think, Travis, you and I would both say, like, I, you know, I don't know, but none of we don't have supernatural gifts. Nobody on this line has supernatural gifts. It's what are you acting like? And I do agree. You have to build those synapses. You have to build that new subconscious. But I'm telling you, you are capable of it. Just like this individual. And I got that— Tom Bilyeu was the one I heard that podcast on. So, so fascinating. When I started acting like it, not when I started, not when I got the score. The question is, who are you going to start acting like? Because you can start acting like that today. So it's a great story, man.

It's a great story. It's a great message. It's a great message. And I think we'll just leave everybody with that question, you know, like, who do you want to become and who do you need to act like in order to become that person?

Person.

And, you know, just taking those small actionable steps every day to do the small hard things that compound over time until eventually, you know, you've got the proof and the promise and the plan. Alright, brother. Thanks for being here, man. I really appreciate you taking time to be here with the listeners and you've already let them know where to find you. So, I hope that happens and I look forward to, yeah, connecting soon, man. Thanks for all you do.

Ryan Desanti: Appreciate you, brother. Yeah, it's been an honor.