Can You Really Work With Your Spouse Without Losing Your Mind? 😅

Welcome to the Working Moms of San Antonio podcast. We're your hosts, Erika Radis and Marie Lifschultz, a realtor and lender here in San Antonio. But most importantly, we're working moms just like you.

This podcast is all about creating a space where we can come together, share stories, and learn from each other. We love connecting with local moms in business Hearing about their journeys and how they're balancing it all, because let's be honest, it's not always easy, but it's so worth it.

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Now on to today's episode. Grab a cup of coffee, settle in, and let's get started. Oh, they can edit anything. So if you flub up or something like that, like what I'm doing now, Frank can cut it.

Yeah, don't worry. So yeah, no worries.

Random stuff happened for sure.

Okay, okay. Welcome to this week's episode of the Working Moms of San Antonio podcast. Today we have friends and guests, Carson and Jordan from Cross Timbers Chiropractic, and I'm going to turn it over to them to share a little bit about themselves and the work they do. All right.

Well, thank you guys.

Yeah, thank you. As I'd say, I'm Carson Foster with Cross Timbers Chiropractic. We've been here for almost 5 years now, so we have been married that whole time.

Oh, wow.

That's good to know.

The weekend before we officially opened.

Did you really?

Oh, we didn't know that. So obviously we didn't share that, that this married couple, they opened.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah, I was about to say, so we We were supposed to be up and running long before we got married, but it was like COVID times, shippings got delayed and everything. And so we ended up getting our X-ray unit the Monday after we got married on Saturday. So, yeah. Oh wow.

Have you guys always been in the same location? We have.

Okay.

Yes.

Good.

This is our first location.

Yeah.

It's going well.

Yeah.

Very good.

Well.

Yeah. So, I mean, I guess we always, I've always, love when couples work together because I, I somewhat work with my husband and we have completely different personalities. So I, I've had lots of fun and lots of frustration. So anything that you guys can share, obviously that's not what we, we look at. You guys have a business for 5 years and have done it successfully, so any tips you guys can share?

Yeah, uh, I mean, I can think of a couple. Jordan can, can chime in and say if I'm wrong on this or where I'm lacking, but For me, yeah, I think it's nice. We both worked in chiropractic offices before we worked together. So once we got engaged, Jordan actually went up and worked for a chiropractor up in Dallas while I was going to school up there.

And this was not what I wanted to, like, just say that. Yeah, I know. This is, when we were dating, Carson was like, oh, you know, a lot of chiropractors and their wives work together. And I said, Absolutely not. Because in my mind, with him being the chiropractor and me running the front, I was like, it'll be like, you're my boss, you're gonna be in charge of me.

I don't, not so much.

I don't like that.

Yeah.

Um, and then as I got to know other chiropractors, see other chiropractic offices, I was like, oh no, no, no, no. The front desk, like what I do is like my own thing. Like we would be equal. And so, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, we say it all the time, but she sees a patient twice for every time I see them once, right? When they're coming in, when they're coming out. So super important what she does. I was trying to explain that to her then, but didn't really come across. We ended up going to a seminar, um, and Jordan could kind of see that, you know, this is more, you know, we really care about people, you know, like we're trying to do, do things, help the community. And I think she got that, you know, all the, all the, the speakers there were talking about how great their, their, uh, you know, their front desk front desk staff is and that they wouldn't be able to do it without them. And so I think that, that kind of helped. Yeah, because Jordan, you were living here, you know, working for, with the wine distributor.

Oh, selling wine.

Yeah.

Oh, there you go. That's how she knew about the wine the other day. Yeah.

Yeah.

And, but so she ended up working and was completely trained on everything to do up front, which, you know, me coming out of school, I had worked other offices, but that was much needed. I mean, you know, because there's so much paperwork, there's so much things to do. So we were really able to hit the ground running. And I think the reason I'm kind of getting to this backstory is one thing is we kind of had a why as to why we're opening and what to do, you know, when things— when there were struggles, which there were, because we're opening up newlyweds, all of that, you know, we had a vision and we had a reason on why we were trying to do this, right? We were trying to help people. We were trying to build this, make it grow. Do you have anything to add to that?

I mean, yeah, kind of what you were already saying, um, having not just like, we are working, we're building an office, but the— we're trying to literally help our community. And it wasn't just something as a job, it's the mindset of the office is also like a personal mindset.

Ministry. Yeah, yeah.

And so like how we live is in that like natural holistic like mindset. And so it's more of just more than just, oh, we're gonna go work. It's something that we live out outside of the office too.

Yeah, yeah, I love that. I mean, it looks like you guys obviously, yeah, kind of mentioned like, yeah, I work the back, you work the— different personalities make it work, you know. So it's a— well, you have a— what is it, like a yin and yang or the opposite?

I mean, one can't really exist without the other. Yeah, so yeah, you need both.

Yeah. If I tried to go to chiropractic school, I would flunk out. Yeah. I would, I don't do sciencey medical stuff.

Yeah.

But paperwork, I'm very good at paperwork.

Yeah.

Yeah. And the business side as well. Yeah. I mean, you have a business degree. Um, so yeah, that was, you know, that kind of stuff. Oh, in the beginning too, figuring out who's good at what as well.

Yes.

Yes.

I mean, that was like a huge thing, especially when we first opened, you know, we were seeing like 2 patients a day.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

And, uh, Jordan's doing like all this paperwork, all this intake for these patients, this type of stuff. So I was trying to do, you know, obviously I would do the paperwork when the patient came in, but then all that has to be entered in the computer into their, you know, like our electronic health records. Uh, and so in the beginning I was doing a lot of that even though it was technically Jordan's job. I was like, Jordan's up there working all day, I'm literally just sitting back down waiting for patients. And it was just like, it just kept getting pushed off.

And then I kept saying like, Jordan, no, no, no, get out of my space, let me do this, please.

Yeah, yeah.

And so in some of those things, like having that space, having, you know, roles that she does that I know how to do, I'm trained on, but like she does it way better, that type of stuff. Yeah, especially like social media, which I am terrible at.

I mean, that I think can be it. So, uh, as some people know, like my husband and I, we work here together, um, at Working Moms of San Antonio, and he's in charge of like a lot of the social media and different things, um, all of our event space rentals, like he deals with all of that. And so I think it can be a struggle to figure out initially like who's good at what And like, you want to be doing more sometimes, but it's like, maybe it's better if I just— sometimes it's better to just like be like, nope, this isn't my deal. Like, I don't want to mess up what you're doing. And so when you work with your spouse, sometimes those kind of things come up and it's like, okay, well, should I help? Or even like sometimes when you do help, it's like, get out of here. You know what I mean? Like, I got this. You know, it's better to be working, I think, to your strengths. It's certainly more time efficient. Yeah.

I mean, that's— yeah, so true.

I think it was a benefit, you guys, you started it together. So Roger and my husband and I did work together in different aspects, but I had been doing the job for 18 years before he began. So I'm like, everything, I did all the things. So trying to hand things over, I'm like, you're not doing it the way I want. He's like, well, this is good. I'm like, no, no, no, my name's on that.

I'm like, no, it needs to be highlighted straight and underlined like this.

And yeah, I was very specific because it was my business, not our business, if that made sense. So that was a struggle that I found out in my relationship. Like, I can't be Mine has to be ours. Yeah. So obviously you guys opened the practice together. Yeah. So now you figure out the roles and stuff.

Yeah. I, I do have something I wanna talk about that, but I have a, I have a funny story first.

Share the story.

I like funny stories.

My, our first patient, or like one of our, our first or second patient, we were seeing him cuz we were open, but we didn't have an x-ray unit. We were like, we weren't fully open, but we kind of did like a soft opening and we had a couple patients who, who wanted to come in. And at that point I'm making no money.

Sure. I'm ready to hit the ground running.

So yeah, come on in. And so he came in and he kind of knew us and he knew that we were about to get married. And every time he'd come in, he'd be like, did you sign a prenup yet? Did you sign a prenup yet? Did you sign a prenup yet? And it was like his last visit before we got married. And he was like, did you sign a prenup? And I was like, yeah, I did actually. He was like, really? I was like, yeah, I got a piece of paper that says she owns half of this business. So, you know, it's—

We entered with nothing and—

Yeah, that's right.

And it works.

I like to make that joke too. It's like if people say that kind of thing, it's like, I don't have nothing to want, so I don't know. I don't know what you're talking about, but sure, you can have, you know, half of zero.

Yeah, okay, you want that, whatever, I guess.

We did—

you were talking about kind of bringing in your husband and wanting things done a certain way. We did. When we first opened, the office that Jordan worked for, uh, before we opened was actually my dad's office, and so we practiced very similarly, but there were some things that, like, I wanted a little bit different, um, and so we, you know, we sat down and, you know, we role-played things.

Yeah.

We went through everything over and over, um, until, you know, like I was happy with what we were doing. Jordan was happy with what we were doing. We could, I mean, you can kind of speak on this, but like when a patient walks up to the front, I know what's going on. I don't have to worry about is Jordan, you know, collecting anything like that. And that comes with obviously us in the beginning, but then also, you know, as we hire, um, when we've had staff in the past, just like being able to focus on the patients and not have to worry about are they collecting, did they charge them the right insurance, that type of stuff. And I think that goes both ways.

So yeah, I mean, I thought you were going to go with coming from your dad's office. There were some times that Carson would be like, this is how I want it done. I'm like, no, no, no, that's not how— that's not how you do it. He's like, no, that's not how my dad does it.

But this is how, you know, we know this is how we want to do it.

Yeah, yeah, we did it. We did that a little bit. And there were some other things that I then called my dad and said, oh, That's why you did that.

Did y'all learn a lot about each other's— because obviously the first year of marriage is kind of the hardest, so let me say you get to learn each other. But during this process, did you learn more about each other as you learned how, okay, I like it this way versus this way and so forth?

Yeah, I mean, also we'd been— we were long distance for 5 years. 5 years.

Oh wow.

Oh my gosh. And then, yeah, once we got engaged and then when I went to work at, uh, up at his dad's office. We finally lived together for the— or like, we're together again for the first time since our first year of dating, which again, that's impressive.

Yeah, we went from long distance to like living together and working together. So it's, uh, yeah, 24/7.

That sounds like a blast.

We're gonna put it all to the test. Everything went pretty well. I mean, like, I can't think, I can't remember any, like, crazy things, but yeah, I think it went as well as you could have hoped.

So there's hope for us out there.

Yeah.

Yeah. And, and you had a baby.

Yeah.

In the process of the past 5 years.

And yeah, we, he just turned 2. Seems wild that it's been that long.

Yeah, I know. Can you believe he's 2?

No.

That's scary.

I can hear it.

I mean, my first time, my first meeting with working moms.

Yeah.

You were pregnant. I was pregnant and I was like, hey, I don't have a child yet, but like, am I still allowed to talk about this?

I remember that conversation.

Yeah.

She's like, I'm not a mommy. Yes, you are.

Do you guys wanna talk about a little bit, like, I know that theater is like a, has been a big part of the practice and like being at the practice.

Yeah.

And all of that. Do you wanna share about kind of like your mindset behind that and like what that was like?

Yeah.

I mean, again, I, with us both working and owning our practice, there wasn't a quote unquote maternity leave. Sure. Which, um, Both helped and hurt, uh, especially he was born early, so he spent some time in the, in the hospital after being born. So it was a good thing Carson had to go back to work. We couldn't just not work. Yeah. Have two like zero incomes. Um, but that did give us the opportunity. I was able to be at the hospital the entire time Theodore was there. Um, and have that flexibility. And so it just seemed natural once we were home to— he— it's a family office. We want to see families in the office. It just seemed right to have him with us in the office until he started being mobile and running around and tearing papers down. And then he had to go to daycare.

But yeah, until it became— until it became an issue. But I mean, yeah, he was in there for, for a while and we actually We had just hired someone and their first day was supposed to be on a Friday and you went into labor Thursday night.

Yes.

So I had to like text her and be like, hey, by the way, let's push it to Monday. So then, you know, I'm in the, you know, baby's in NICU.

We're gonna have a month and a half to train her before I leave to have this child. And instead of, yeah. Yeah.

Just wish, best wishes, right?

Yeah.

So doesn't always go that way.

No.

Baby was in NICU. Luckily, I mean, he was doing great. He was healthy. He was, or else I probably wouldn't have left. But he, so I was like, hey, you know, meet me at the the office on Monday and we hit training. And yeah, so then it was also nice once he got out, you know, he was, you know, obviously at that age they're pretty easy to take care of, right?

Yeah, a lot.

Yeah, we had a little bassinet up for the front desk and yeah, Jordan was able to come in, help train front desk and yeah.

Well, I think it's always kind of like our networking group or our community that I am fascinated seeing moms and our families working together. I think it's important when the girls come and see you and Frank working together, I think that's amazing. And my boys go work with my husband when I go help with the paperwork. They see us working as a family that this is how things work, you know, and it's doable and it's, you're able to have, I wouldn't say have it all, you're able to have family and the job and, you know, make it all work.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I definitely think it makes that barrier of like choosing between the two a lot easier whenever your family is kind of growing, or the office, and the— or like the family is a job. And so you don't necessarily have to pick between the two because—

yeah, well, we had talked about when we started, you know, with working moms, we were like, we like, we like working, we like our jobs.

I did like working at that time. Yeah, a little grumpy.

Yeah, I'm a tired student, but it was something we wanted to continue to work and help provide for our family, but also be a mom or be totally be a dad, you know, and be a family. But I think I personally love supporting businesses that have families involved. Like, I know, I know where my money's going to. Yeah, it goes to theater.

Exactly.

Exactly.

That's it. Yeah. Theodore's like become almost the face of our office in a way. And I mean, if I come to a Working Moms event, if I go to any other networking event, everyone's like, wait, Yeah, even though like at this point he's been in daycare, this summer will be a year, but people are still like, no, no, no. Yeah, we're supposed to have a child with you.

Yeah.

Um, and so people know when they come to see us who they're supporting. Like you said, they, yeah, see Theodore.

Yeah.

And I think that's super important. I mean, it's— we talk about it here all the time. It's so important to support small business, family business, and all of that. But I feel like something no one does talk about is when you do work with your spouse and it is a family business, like the risks are so much higher.

Yes. Yeah.

You know, it's not like you have some— if something goes bad with the office or whatever, it's not like you have somebody else that's also making money. You know, it's all tied together.

So yeah, there's ups and there's downs. Yeah, for sure.

No safety net.

Yeah. No. And I mean, some, some people, some are better. It's definitely important to have like a balance. You talk at work about work, you talk about home at home. Work, you know, bleeds into home. So, you know, for us, which is okay.

Yeah.

I mean, like, I'm perfectly fine with that as long as it's not becoming a detriment. Yeah. Which it hasn't recently.

I was going to say, that's it.

When we first opened and we were planning a wedding and like also no income, we don't know anyone. You know, I moved here.

It's all kind of sitting a lot of money on a wedding with no money coming in.

Yeah.

So, but yeah, since then, I mean, it's been great. But yeah, I mean, you have ups and downs.

For sure.

There's seasons to it. And so, important to plan for those, but then also, yeah, that does come home sometimes.

But I think we've— one of the things that has helped us manage as long as we have, which I mean in the grand scheme of things isn't that long, but so far, is that we have systems or we're comfortable enough talking to each other about being like, hey, I don't, I'm not mentally capable of having this conversation right now. Like, can this wait until a later time? And it's taken some time to figure out how to say that and figure out how to hear the other person say that and not take it personally.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah. I'll be like, oh, you don't care about it because, yeah.

That is a huge one.

It's hard. I mean, I, I, I would, when working with Roger, now that he, he's in real estate, I'm like, I wanna turn off. Real estate sometimes.

Like, I don't want to hear about it, but that's, you know, that's not possible.

That is not possible.

I don't know why.

But there's still, you know, like, it was a rough day where, you know, a lot of numbers doing that stuff, and he wants to come home and talk about more numbers. Like, my brain's tired. Like, I'm really like, can we just turn it off? But then, like, his whole day was that, and he wants to share that with me, and I have to be understanding. Yeah, you know, but it's like, yeah, I'm like, don't you have anything else? Anything else happen today? Like, did you see anybody? Who called? Like, oh, more real estate? Okay.

Yeah, it can be all-consuming if you let it, you know? And we've caught ourselves, you know, we, we work here and then in real estate, like we work at most of the time at home.

Yeah.

And then, I mean, your son's not old enough to say these things, but my children say like, you and dad are always working, like you're always working. And that's like a little knife to the heart, you know what I mean? To your point, it's important to see them or for them to see us rather working together and all of those things. But it can be like where things And my industry is so up and down and, you know, whatever it can be where, you know, I don't just leave at 5 o'clock 'cause that's not the way it is. And so they see us working and they feel like it's constant. And I don't want them to feel that way. No, but it's kind of a tightrope that you walk.

You gotta, you wanna be present with your children and your family.

Yeah.

But then sometimes work takes over, especially if you own a business. It's, it is whether it's real estate or not, but it's 24/7.

Yeah, exactly.

I mean, and you come home thinking about like, what did I need do tomorrow?

Make sure that—

Did I post for social media? Did I like, and that's a whole nother stage.

Social media.

Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna say, especially with Theodore being so young, being like, I don't want him to see me constantly on my phone. But then, you know, you have to like, for your social media, you have to be on there and active in order for people to know about you.

Exactly. Yeah.

People are active on social media in the evenings, which means if you want to make those connections, that's when you do it. Yeah. It's rough.

I've heard of people, and I don't do this cuz I'm not very healthy, but I've heard of people doing like time blocking where they'll be like, hey, for 20 minutes I'm gonna get on here. And I'm gonna like engage with people and I'm gonna do all the things I'm supposed to do and then I'm gonna put it away. And I feel like that's probably healthy, right?

Yes.

Who does that? I don't know. I don't know.

But Jordan's decent about that sometimes. I'm not. I'm so bad when it comes to that.

But I try, try to set time limits.

We ever go and see who else tagged you and take— call them.

Yeah, yeah, because our group was great about that, you know. Yeah, like people being like, hold on, I literally have to be on social media to make sure that these—

that you're being responsible.

Or not all branches, but like the, you know, crumbs that people are leaving. I have to follow up on that too.

Well, I had, uh, for me to keep me focused on things, I had turned off notifications and like do not disturb kind of stuff. And I realized I hadn't— I was very grateful I had not been on social media like in 2 days.

And I had been—

I know, I was like, what happened?

Um, that sounds amazing.

But I'm like, oh my God, I hadn't really looked. I had been tagged by Sarah, by different people in different groups. And I'm like, yeah, I didn't respond. And if I don't res— when you— in real estate, if you don't pick up the phone, someone else will. Yeah, that's what they tell us all the time.

There's a million of us.

There's— everybody has. So I mean, I was the first one to be tagged. Hey, call her, do this, whatever, blah, blah, blah. And I didn't respond for 2 days. And I'm like, oh, so you're probably enjoying time with your family. I was, you know, it was— I can't remember what it was, but I'm like, oh my God. But I had purposely wanted to turn off notifications so I didn't get distracted for whatever it was. So, but yeah, that's for sure what it is. What else do we got?

I don't know.

I mean, there's some stuff you go, um, obviously relationships and stuff, but I think seeing, because you said it hasn't been that long, it's been 5 years.

Yeah, I know, I noticed that coming. I was like, wait a second, 5 years, big deal.

Because small businesses fail so often, you know, and it's a family-owned business and you guys are doing great, you're doing all the right things.

Yeah.

So is there anything that you guys kind of did in the beginning that you like, hey, we really switched this up and this made a huge difference, that you might want to share with other people that might across industries.

Yeah, I mean, we were kind of discussing before, we built everything from the ground up. Like, it's— we didn't have anything to kind of—

any—

what am I trying to say?

Like, like mimic or no franchise?

Yeah, yeah, we didn't have any game plan versus what we were— like, our game plan was what we built on, um, and I think that is going into it knowing exactly what you want that end goal to be, and having that autonomy helps you be flexible when something doesn't work out.

Yeah.

And you can like—

you can pivot. You can pivot. Yeah. Okay, we tried this for 3 months or 6 months or a year. That didn't work, let's switch.

I mean, that's—

whereas if you're owned by someone else, you might not be able to do that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And We have quite a bit of that.

I was going to say we had friends who tried marketing tactics or like an ad. Yeah.

I mean, it seems like, you know, for specifically what we're doing, like, you know, when we opened, we didn't know anyone. Like, we knew a handful of people in San Antonio. I'm not from San Antonio. You know, I moved from DFW, you know, I'm not from the South. Jordan had been working here for a year or 2 years?

Yeah, yeah, 2 years. But the people that I knew from that job were also people who had just moved here at the same time. Like, it was nice. Like, they— nobody I knew was from here, and a lot of them at the point we opened had like transferred to a different location. So we didn't know people in San Antonio.

So I mean, just getting—

you had each other.

Yeah, that's true. But just getting each other didn't pay the bills.

So you get people to walk through the door.

Yeah.

So, you know, just getting out and meeting people, like, We definitely went through a lot of different things in the beginning. Yeah, I mean, and some of that stuff is like cyclical, like Facebook ads at the time were absolutely killing it, then that kind of dried up and they're still profitable. It's just not like they—

not like they were. Not like it used to be.

Yeah. And so then like some, like it goes through that, like our SEO does really good and then kind of, you know, backs off or, you know, different things like that. So, I mean, I, for what we do, the biggest thing is meeting people, you know?

Yeah.

Knowing us, you know, trusting us, that type of stuff.

And I think for any business, yeah, the people who get sent to you, because even if it's my mom's hairdresser's cousin said that they see you or know you or trust you, even that, like if a person tells you that they trust someone, you're going to be more likely to also trust them. Oh, it's like, yeah, same with this. And I think that's something that Yeah. That is kind of across all industries. It's absolutely, that trust is what you, is gonna pay the bills most.

Yeah.

So yeah, boots on the ground, getting out, meeting people, doing, we got on Meetup and joined, you know, a bunch different groups trying to, I am a, he is rolling his eyes.

He's like, oh, that might not have been the platform he liked.

I'm the president of the Alamo Fly Fishers and have been for like the last 4 years because of that. And yeah, I mean, I've met a bunch of really cool people. Yeah.

You know, Do you like fly fishing?

I love fly fishing.

Okay.

At least there's that.

He likes fly fishing. He does not like running the club.

I do enjoy it. It's just like, I feel like, you know, we were doing all this stuff whenever we first opened and then, you know, we get sucked into it and do it.

Do you feel like something like that has generated business for you?

Uh, a little bit.

Yeah.

I mean, the more people that know you, like, I think in my business, like, I, when I was trying to work on, because I'm horrible at social media, I was like, I, I realized I don't wanna, I don't wanna the whole world to know. I want the people that know me to remember me so they can refer me. Like people actually know me.

Does that make sense?

Yeah. Like I don't need to market to the whole world. I need to market to my, my network, my people.

Yeah.

And that works better for me. But you have to have some kind of social media presence.

So when people go research you, you're, yeah, you're, yeah, you have to look at your brand.

So yeah, I've told my husband like to build his business cuz he's new in real estate in the last 4 years. Like, hey, go to things you enjoy. Like, go join this club. Join— if you like church, go join— he's big in with Knights of Columbus. Go talk to those people. Yeah, let them know. Let them know what you do. So they might have a son, a daughter, uh, whomever, a friend that might, you know, like, hey, I know this person. Yeah, I see this person. Yeah.

So yeah, yeah, I—

and I agree with that.

Yeah, it's— and it's like you said, it's It's not just joining groups, it's joining groups that you genuinely enjoy. If I went and if I joined the fly fishing group, I'm not gonna— yeah, like, no one's— I'm not gonna make that connection versus if you enjoy fly fishing.

And that's something that we had said originally when we first opened, was like, let's do things that are congruent with us that we would enjoy doing anyway. And if we get patients from it, we get patients from it. I don't know how— I mean, I've definitely gotten some patients from fly fishing. I'm not sure that it's been return on investment. But, but it is a lot of fun and I enjoy it. And I've also made friends from it, which was another thing. Like, you know, again, we moved here, we didn't know very many people. So yeah, I mean, that's kind of our MO. I'm not— I don't think either of us are super good at like sales or like standing up for like the 60-second elevator talk. But, you know, just trying to—

Jordan is. Jordan is good.

She does it. She does it really well.

I can do that, but I, I enjoy that part of like sales. But the— what I was doing before, like the pushy, like actually like making sales. Yeah, I don't— I'm not.

Yeah. So we just mostly focused on relationships and yeah, and doing things that if, you know, if it has no effect on the business, that's perfectly fine because we're enjoying it.

Well, it's the community that makes small businesses run.

It really is.

It's truly your community. So finding groups that you align with is really important.

Yeah.

And we've, like, with Working Moms, it's kind of what we did. We wanted to be around people that were like us.

Yeah.

That had the same goals. And we, even if we didn't need your service, we, we try to find people who did.

Yeah.

You know, like, this is a great person. I have not used their services, but they're great and I know them and I love Theo and like, you know, that kind of stuff, you know?

Oh, absolutely. I mean, there's a lot of that. I feel like they're it. Well, at least for me, um, I'm very busy and so to do these things, like you said, you've got to number one, enjoy them. For me, it's a little bit more strategic, I feel like, or I try to be more strategic. Like, we— like, I had to kind of look at who my best clients were, and my best clients where I enjoyed working with them, they were understanding, things went smoothly, they were reasonable, were moms, you know. And I think it's because we have to pivot so much, like, in life. And so I was like, okay, how do I get more of these type of people to know that I do real estate, you know? And yeah, not like in a weird salesy way, but just like know about me. The more people I know that I want to be clients with and, and, and whatever, the more I feel like are likely to use me. And then my, then my quality of life in work starts going up just a little bit more. Yeah. You know what I mean? And so I think it's okay to be strategic in that way.

I think, yeah.

Where maybe some of the groups you join are sort of like these crunchier type groups because you guys are a little bit more holistic and yeah, naturally you already are like that. And those, you're gonna attract those type of patients, you know, for that kind of stuff. So I think it's good to be doing what you like. Mm-hmm. Um, and what what kind of comes authentically to you. But I think being a little strategic about it in business is okay.

Yeah, absolutely.

Don't just go join a whole bunch of groups just to join.

Like, that's not the point.

It's really to like, where are your people?

Because that's who you want to, to bring in.

Yeah, I remember I tell you, I, I would— I, for, for my business, realtors are important because they refer. Most people when buying a home will go to realtor first and don't care about financing. They're like, yeah, that'll come later. They don't understand that they need that part first. So yeah. Typically the personality of the family that I'm working with reflects the personality of the realtor. Yeah. Some realtors aren't very nice.

No, which must mean that my clients are the best ones. They're the best.

I love them. They're the best. But it's really true. It's not like, oh, and there's some that are very, very difficult, very, you know, like I can't, but the agents like that as well. Yeah. So you, yeah.

So I, it's a personality thing.

Yeah.

So, oh, interesting.

You attract those people. That if you really enjoy, then focus on that group. If it's fly fishing or a holistic group or something like breathwork, whatever. Yeah, those type of things. And you enjoy those, you're going to have people you have something in common with.

Yeah.

You know, there's just not—

I mean, I've learned— I've been in real estate 12 years. I've learned not all money is good money.

And that's a hard lesson to learn, especially when you're broke in the very beginning.

Oh, no. When we're in the beginning, all money is good money.

Yeah.

But, you know, as time goes on, as your businesses evolve and different things like that, You know, it's, it gets to the point where like, well, how is this affecting my mental health? Or like how, like is this person coming in and complaining constantly and it's gonna be a fight every time? Yeah. Like maybe, maybe it's okay to be like, hey, perhaps we're not aligned.

Like, oh, I would say there, there have definitely been, cuz we are in network with most insurances and they're not, and that's unique for your, your practice.

I have to say a lot of people aren't, and that's very helpful cuz I know for someone who, who needs insurance and I would say that's just, if you're paying for out-of-pocket is difficult, chiropractic care.—

yeah, by your insurance, you might as well hopefully find a chiropractor that will take that, like use that coverage.

It's a wasted service if you're not.

Yeah. But there, there were definitely some plans that there were.

There was one plan that we had to get out of network with because they would tell the client, like their client, our patients, they'd be like, hey, you don't— it's this, it's $10. You don't have to pay anything more than $10. But then they would come to us and say, well, you get all that, but you have to do this, this, and this in order to see them. And that is $100 or $100, you know, like it's whatever, pick numbers out. But so then the patients would be like, well, no, you're trying to scam me. They told me it was only $10.

And so it sounds like my insurance.

Yeah.

And so the CHAMPVA.

Yeah.

And the VA is its own.

Yeah, that's it.

Yeah, it's a wild animal. Yeah.

And so it was like, well, this is just making us look bad. It's, you know, it's—

yeah, it's not working.

It's not working for the patient.

Makes sense. They're getting upset with us, like, and so we ended up dropping that one.

But, um, but yeah, just having that things, having to sometimes be like, hey, this isn't working, like, it, this is making us look bad, this is making you unhappy, like, we can't— yeah, keep it up.

Yeah, makes sense.

I mean, we all face those type of things, you know, in any business.

Like, I, I have investors that I work with that, um, have programs that they have certain guidelines, and I have someone on that program And then tomorrow you change your guidelines, but I already have them. Like, what? Yeah, I was like, they need to have XYZ, whatever it is. And I'm like, oh my God, during COVID Yeah, that was the worst. Like, I had people locked and ready to go and they would change guidelines. Now we're not doing this, we're changing it to this. I'm like, they're already under contract. Like, they're closing in 2 weeks. What are you telling me? Yeah, I guess so. You have to— I don't use those anymore.

And I mean, to your point, if it starts becoming a bad reflection of the business, I mean, that's what you can't— you can't— we're in San Antonio is like a big small city. It's super weird. I've lived here my whole life. It's huge, but like everybody knows everybody and everybody's intermingled. Like if word gets out that like someone thinks you guys are doing like some shady shit, then you don't— everybody knows. Yeah. Then everybody knows. And it's like, that's the last thing a small business needs.

Yeah.

You know, especially if that's not what's going on.

Out of our control to somehow like make us look bad.

And yeah, that sounds like that was probably the right choice.

We try, we try and be flexible and work with most people in situations and Sure. Treat everyone as long as we can.

Yeah. Do you wanna just talk really quickly of sort of about the philosophy of like different chiropractic offices have different, I feel like philosophies. And do you wanna share a little bit about the, the yours?

Yeah.

Yeah. I was gonna say I'll get started and you can, you can kind of jump in.

Yeah.

And, but yeah, I mean our, our goal is to promote natural healing, right? The way we do that, there's lots of different ways that we can promote natural healing. The way we do that specifically is by making sure that the spine is functioning properly., right? If we have restrictions in the spine that are causing what we call spinal dysfunction, right?

Mm-hmm.

Part of the spine isn't moving properly, that will create by default nervous system interference. So it's not sending proper signals back to the brain. The brain can't properly control those muscles, ligaments, everything kind of around that area. And that's a lot of times when we get the stiffness, the soreness, the pain, it's gonna increase local inflammation. That's whenever we can have like the symptoms going down the arm, the leg. But it also, through different pathways of the brain, can, can cause, you know, problems elsewhere. And that's something that, that we measure in the office with heart rate variability. That's becoming like almost a buzzword nowadays. Heart rate variability is, is super, super popular and, and we can actually track it at home. But basically what we're doing is seeing how well the autonomic nervous system is functioning and how well balanced it is. The autonomic nervous system's gonna control everything we don't normally think of. So things like heart rate, blood pressure, Digestion, all of that.

So think it should be doing on its own. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

For sure. But it's kind of made up of two systems, right? The fight or flight sympathetic nervous system, right? Think of that whenever everyone knows.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Everyone hears that, but they don't know about the, the second part is the parasympathetic nervous system or the rest digest heal nervous system. Its job is to come in, tell the sympathetic to calm down and kind of start, oh, you know, digest, you know, have us calm down, produce those hormones and heal. So yeah, that's one thing that we track in there. Obviously, we do a lot with the normal things that you think of— the neck pain, the back pain, the headaches, the sciatica. But we really focus on overall healing and we'll tell patients, you know, 90% of my patients, if not more, come in with pain, but we'll kind of talk to them about, okay, we want to stabilize this area, not only to bring you relief and allow this area to heal, but also kind of make sure that things are functioning properly. I try to stay an expert in one thing, and that is that, right? Spinal dysfunction, the chiropractic adjustment. Other things are super important for that, right? How we're— what we're eating, right? I like to say we need to eat right, we need to move right, got to think right, breathe right, and then we need to have a clear and connected nervous system, right? So I'm working with number 5, but we started doing in-house talks, talking about those other 4 and trying to give patients resources, right? Not trying to sell them on supplements or meal plan or anything like that, but just trying to, trying to get people to, to create those healthy habits that, that create our wellness routine and, and really create our health overall. So do you feel like I'm missing anything?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was gonna say everything's connected. We obviously think chiropractic is again, one of those pillars. That's what we build our practice on. Our philosophy on is the, the, that part of the physical aspect. But like Carson said, we specialize in the adjustment. That's not to say massage is super important, phys— like moving, right? So potentially physical therapy depending on what's going on. Those are all super important. We'll refer out to those. Sure. Because there are other people who are experts in those disciplines. Mm-hmm. We're the experts at the adjustment. And so that's, we, we try and kind of niche down to that. Aspect of health and then refer out for, for everything else.

Yeah, that's a really— I mean, that's a good philosophy. You, like you say, do one thing and do it super well, um, and then the rest of it, you know, you let other people handle that that also do super well at that part of it. So exactly, that's great. I like that.

I was thinking as he spoke about the resting part, I'm like, is that every mom that doesn't rest? Like, they don't ever go into the rest.

I mean, that's like— chiropractic is, uh, very much needed in the motherhood community because we're so like on it.

Like, we're wired and we're on, on.

Exactly. And that's the overactive of the, the fight or flight. I mean, that's why we have jaw pain, headaches, all that from clenching.

And, uh, and you don't realize you're doing it just because your body's responding. But I was thinking, oh man, we never relax. Yeah, that's important.

I can like get in situations, especially if I have to do a lot of peopleing where like I'm in front of people all day and, you know, a lot, even networking and all that, I can get in a situation where I will work my jaw into a migraine. Like, and I'm like, I've started noticing like these different things about myself where I'm like, this keeps happening, like on Brewing Business Day or whatever it is. Not that I don't love Brewing Business, but, you know, it's just a lot. And I, I feel my jaw doing it. And then by the end of the day, I've got to take Motrin because I've got a bad headache.

Yeah.

And so I'm working myself into that.

I feel like— Brewing Business, I'm getting adjusted. Yeah, that's right.

I do relax a little bit.

Yeah. So, I mean, and that's just one example and everybody, I'm sure, is so different, but like the stresses of daily life You can work yourself into a migraine or you can, you know, like get tense and like all of a sudden have crazy back pain and all the things. Yeah.

I mean, our goal, like I said, was, was natural healing, but really within that it's adaptability is like, well, you know, if the spine is functioning properly, then we can, we can, you know, we always hear like, oh, well, I, I, I reached down to pick up a Kleenex and I threw my back out. And it's like, okay, well you reached down to pick up something that's under a pound.

It's not been in your forearms, guys.

I'm just saying.

Yeah. Thousands of times. But something happened this day where your body wasn't able to adapt and you hadn't injury. Same thing happens, you know, with stress and different things. And spinal dysfunction is important for that. But like I said, there's other aspects as well. I will say, just because you kind of touched on it earlier, you were talking about kind of, you know, being strategic and figuring out where your good clients come from, that type of stuff. I started seeing a lot of jaw pain patients. And I know they would come in, I'm like, oh yeah, I can help with jaw pain. Now, again, with everything, not in every single case, but we have a lot of really great results with it. And I started realizing all these people were stuck in that sympathetic state so that we had super tense shoulders, super tight jaw, headaches. We, we saw a lot of irritable bowel syndrome and some other things that, you know, typically wouldn't be seen as chiropractic that I'm not treating. Right. But we would see results with. And that's why I started measuring HRV, because that's kind of what that tells us.. And so when I started seeing some, some really good results with these people, I was, I realized, you know, a lot of patients with jaw pain are, you know, they have all those, those symptoms and stuff and I, I could really help 'em. So we started reaching out to dentists. Oh, talking to dentists. That's, then we started getting a lot of dental referrals from it. And that was one that I, I was like, I know these peop— I know these people, I can help them and they need the help.

Yeah. So I was gonna say, so many dentists that, like I'll go out and talk to, they're like, yeah, people, you know, we work with them out. So people come in there, they have jaw pain and they tell me about it. And yeah, it's not like— yeah, that's not for— and granted, there are a lot of dentists and orthodontists that do TMJ work. Yeah.

And they have good protocols, but some of them don't. Some of them don't want to deal with it.

Yeah.

And so it's been— and people don't think, oh, my jaw's hurting, I need to call up a chiropractor. And so that kind of bridges the gap because is they go to their dentist because it's their mouth. The dentist says, this is not what I do, but I know— again, yeah, I know someone who does do that.

And yeah, the jaw isn't something that I would think of for chiropractic care.

Yeah.

But too, like, you guys, I know you've come in here and talked about like when your kids get ear infections, like different— like, those aren't things that I would think about for that either. But you guys have such success helping these people. And so I think it's really just a matter of getting that word out. Yeah.

Educating the public and being like, these are I, I think I just don't know. I, I mean, I didn't grow up knowing anything about chiropractic. I think on the first time, once and only time I've ever been to a chiropractor, and I didn't know I was pregnant. I was pregnant with my first son, and I didn't know I was pregnant. I was having a hor— I thought I had helped someone off the floor and tweaked my back, and my husband's like, go to a problem. I had never— I didn't know anything about them, and I was really scared. But no one teaches you what they— what, what you— I guess what they do. They just want to give you a pill for it. Let me give you, let me give you a pain pill. And I hate medicine, hate medicine. I avoid medicine at all costs. I don't like taking pills, but like, that's what they— so here, take this and you'll feel better. Well, it, okay, mask stuff, but then after I'm done with it, I'm still like hurting.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think people don't know, so that's why you don't think of— I had chronic ear infections as a kid, like, I know, and then let me give you tubes or let me, you know, medicine or whatever.

That's something we help out with a lot. I will say, uh, to, uh, stay in good standing with the board, I do not treat ear infections, right? But dysfunction in the upper neck can— oftentimes we see, especially in little kids, because it's the way that their eustachian tubes run, right? So that's the tube that kind of— the inner tube of the ear that drains the ear, right? And it produces its own mucus. So when they get sick or we have allergies, it's going to produce more.

Sure.

It runs almost horizontal, right? In adults, it goes kind of straight down. Okay. It runs almost horizontal, and then it's surrounded by the jaw, the upper neck, everything up there. So if we have any problems up there, and it's already not a good system to drain, all of a sudden. Yeah. And then we add allergies or a sickness on top of it, all of a sudden it can back up. Right.

Yeah.

And that's whenever we get ear infections, especially in kiddos, they can be recurrent. So what we find in, again, not every case, but in a lot of kids, they have some dysfunction up there. And if we can get that proper motion, it can drain better.

Yeah.

Like I said, I'm not treating the ear infection, but a lot of times with removing that spinal dysfunction, their body's able to function properly. Mm-hmm. And their ear infections go away.

Yeah.

They can, their body's unable to clear it on its own.

On.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And that's, that's kind of our entire goal. There's a whole list of symptoms that we don't treat, but by adjusting the spine, it allows your body to heal itself.

Do what it's supposed to do.

Exactly. Your body's made to heal.

Yeah.

Yeah. We're removing the interference along your spine that lets— then we say, okay, body, do, do what you're supposed to do in a better way.

Yeah.

Yeah. I had, uh, I know when the, when we were looking for a pediatrician, when I found out I was pregnant with Tyler, here that I love, absolutely love this pediatrician. She's like, allow the body to do what it's supposed to do. Yeah, she didn't— she hated— I mean, that's okay, she would if she needed antibiotics, but she said if we can let the body heal itself, that is the best way to start.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, that's— modern medicine is amazing. Sure. I mean, potentially saved like myself and Theodore during the whole birth process, but like, in society today, sometimes it can be reached for quicker than it needed— needs to. Totally. And so I think, like you said, a large part of it is just educating people and sure, letting them know that there is— I mean, it stinks because sometimes I want to just take a pill and let my pain, like, let sure pain go away and be done. But that's not a long-term goal or a long-term solution. And so sometimes you need to stick it out for a day or two and let your body heal the way it's supposed to. Otherwise you're blocking things and you're just digging yourself deeper into it.

Right. Next time it's gonna be even less quick to do what it needs to do, I imagine. Yeah.

So we see that a lot.

Yeah.

We see that.

I try to tell my kids that, like, if they get a fever and it's like super low, I'm like, if you're not uncomfortable, we're not gonna treat this. Cuz your body getting hot is its way of like killing bacteria. Yeah.

Yeah.

So you need to do that.

I was saying it'll just lengthen the timeline of the fever if you try, I mean, again, there are times, yeah, sure, time and a place where it's—

it will save your life to take a fever reducer, right?

So I think I was told one time as a kid that if you take pain pills too much, it won't work. You eventually get immune to them, like you. And so I'm like, I don't want to take any because when I need it, I want it to work.

Yeah, yeah.

So I avoid them. So I wanted to work with them.

I like that mindset. I'm not sure how true it is, but I like that someone told me it would become like—

just like Tylenol or, you know, that kind of stuff, just to, you know, and I'm like, when I had sore muscles or like, you know, whatever the case is, and I'm like, no, I can't because when I need it, it won't work. So I have to wait.

That's so funny.

And that helps you only use it when needed.

I need it. Absolutely. Like, I can't bear this yet.

Well, this has been a super interesting conversation. Typically when we do these podcasts, it's like more about like, like your services and like that kind of stuff. But I really liked this talking about like couples working together and like how you guys open and, and your philosophy and all that. It's been super good. But, um, will you guys share with our listeners how they can get a hold of you, um, for your services?

Yeah, I was gonna say, so we are, uh, we are— our office is located, um, off Thousand Oaks and Jones-Maltzberger, so just north of like McAllister Park, if we know that is, a little bit north of the airport. Um, and then as I'd say, we are— we're Crosstimbers Chiropractic, so, um, you can find us at crosstimberschiropractic.com. I believe we're Crosstimbers Chiropractic on Facebook and Instagram.

Crosstimbers Chiro.

On both of them or just on Instagram? Yeah. Cross Timbers Chiro on—

or I mean, I guess our name is Cross Timbers Chiropractic, but our handle is just Cross Timbers Chiro.

You should be able to find us.

Uh, give us a—

if you get on the website and you give us a call, it'll come straight to me or Jordan. So, uh, give us a call, text if you guys have any questions.

Yeah, uh, our phone number is also textable. Carson kind of said that, like, call or text. But yeah, you can— a lot of people don't realize you can just text us and it'll come to—

yay—

the two of us.

Nice.

We're out here to help. Our goal is to change the community. So let us know if we can do anything for you. Yeah, definitely. No events coming up?

Like, guys, like, you know, breathwork stuff?

I know you had some not too long ago. Well, probably we try to do a breathwork class. So that's, like I said, we kind of have 5 pillars that we like to talk about. We in the office, everyone comes in for pain, so we focus on, on pain. Most people in chiropractic, most people aren't necessarily ready, but we, we try to offer these classes. So we try to do a breathwork class with David from Breathe Through Wellness. Um, we'll probably do one around May. Um, and then we do have a talk actually tomorrow night, so that, that one will be too late, but and where we're kind of talking about those 5 pillars of health, how to build that wellness routine, how to build those healthy habits. And we'll try to do those quarterly. So hopefully we'll have one in June as well.

But on the website you have events listed. So yes, events coming up, they can definitely take up. Yeah, absolutely.

I was going to say website, social media. If you're— yeah, we'll post any upcoming events on there.

Yeah, perfect. Okay, well, we'll put all that stuff in the show notes too, so that way people can just click and get to you guys. And thanks so much for being on.

Thank you guys for having us.

Thank you so much.

This is awesome.

And really quickly, I'll thank our listeners for tuning into this week's episode, and we will catch you guys next time.

See you guys next time. Bye. Yay.

Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of the Working Moms of San Antonio podcast. We hope you loved today's chat and found a little inspiration to take with you into your week. If you have a podcast topic suggestion or a question you'd love for us to cover, definitely send us an email at hello@workingmomsofsanantonio.com. We'd love to hear from you. And until next time, see you in the community.