How to Help Your CA Go From Good to Great

Welcome to this edition of Catch up with ChiroTouch. I'm your host, Dr. Ronnie Simms, and I'm so glad that you tuned in today. And so you know, these podcasts are ChiroTouch's way of really supporting and reaching out to the profession that they love.

Our goal with this is for you to grow, for you to be inspired so that you can become the chiropractor and the person that you want to be and that the world needs you to be. Right now, more than ever, chiropractors need to be at their best. And so today, I'm super excited because this is the first time in doing this podcast that I get to hang out with a rock star CA.

To me, I think the CA position is the most critical position in the chiropractic profession. And with me today is Mary Quense. And Mary is an amazing lady who I've learned much from.

And she is a CA and COO, trainer extraordinaire with the Remarkable Practice. And she's been a CA her whole career. And she'll probably talk about that.

Mary, welcome on.

Thanks, Doc. It's so good to be on here. And I'm just so excited to be with you and talking about one of my favorite topics, which is team and our CA's.

So super excited to be here.

I love it. Let's just dive right in. The first thing is, I know you've been involved as a CA both in the role of being a CA, and then ultimately get into a position where you're managing a lot of CA's.

Now you have this beautiful role of being a really kind of a top notch CA coach and even a integrator COO coach. And so you've kind of really progressed in your career in chiropractic in just a remarkable way. I'll use that word.

And so I want to ask you the question. In that process, and again, so you know, on this podcast are a variety of DC's and hopefully they're teams, both docs new in the field and seasoned veterans that really need to kind of tighten things up. And so the question is, you know, elaborate on this.

How important, in your opinion, is the CA in that process of growing a vibrant dream practice?

Yeah, oh my goodness, a CA is everything. And we were just talking earlier, right? Like how you could kind of take a C plus doc and bring in an A plus CA, and that could radically change your practice.

And team is everything. It is the firm foundation, right? I think about foundation of our house.

If that's faulty, the whole house is faulty, right? So if we do not have a good solid team of CAs in our clinic, that we're not going to be able to best serve our communities and have a vibrant, growing practice. So the CA is everything in there.

So what you're basically saying is I could have an amazing vision and plan in my mind, but without that support and without that team supporting that vision, I'm not going to get there.

Exactly.

Yeah, so that's so good to say that. I just wanted to start off with that because I know that you and I both fully believe that with all our heart, especially being in these vibrant practices for as long as we've been in them. And so the next kind of layer on that then is as we look at the CA position, there are so many different CA positions, especially as your practice grows.

And so as I look at that, how important is it, in your opinion, for the CA to be in a position that best fits their personality so that we can have effective expectations and agreements in place? So how important is that, that we put them in the right seat?

Yeah, oh my gosh, so important. So I've been in this field now for 13 years, and the first practice I was in and worked in and helped run was a high-volume clinic. We had a lot of team members, you know, through the about six years I was there.

And let me tell you, when we had the right team members, it was everything. When we had the wrong team members, it was miserable. And you could tell that those team members were also miserable, right?

It's like for any of us in life, when we're not operating out of our strengths and our strong suits, we are not our best selves, therefore, we're not going to be our happiest selves. And it's not saying that we can't grow in areas that maybe aren't our strengths, but what we really should each be doing on a day to day basis, and chiropractic aside, that is something I am so passionate about for all human beings, right? Is that they are working in their zone of genius.

And so it is so important, especially in the clinic, because yes, we are in the business of chiropractic, but we are also in the business of saving lives and helping people. We are dealing with so many individuals on an hour to hour basis. So you want to make sure that the people that you have in the specific roles and seats in your clinic are the right people and not just a body to fill that space, right?

Because that is going to go horribly wrong.

Yeah, and as I think about that, Mary, I'm sure you've experienced this where you have had a very talented CA, but you perhaps had them in the wrong role.

Yeah.

Can you kind of speak into that, the specificity of maybe some of the roles within chiropractic?

Yeah, for sure. So, you know, we have our front desk CA, who I got to do that for a while, and I just love that, right? It's like you are just, you're that first face that people are seeing, whether they're a new patient or an existing patient, right?

They are, you are that bubbly person at the front welcoming. You're just opening the door to your home and ready to love and serve them. And so that is the perfect spot for someone with kind of a more upbeat personality, just super outgoing.

And, you know, then we have our checkout CA, and we're going to go through some different positions. I understand every clinic is different. So this is not for us to look at what we're lacking, but to be encouraged by what we can work towards having, right?

So some of you may have one CA that's filling a few roles now, and your goal is to get more in there. So just to encourage you, we've all been in that spot too, right? Where we had to start out with like a smaller amount.

Maybe we had one or two CAs where our goal was to get to four CAs. So just to encourage you, I work, as Doc, you said, with CAs and COOs. So we have this conversation a lot of not comparing what we don't have, but being able to be encouraged to what we're working towards.

So as we go through different positions, I just want to remind us as teams about that, that we have goals we work towards and not to let this be a downer to you. So we then, you know, we have our checkout CA. That personality might be a little more somber than the check-in CA would be.

Good with numbers, also good with people. But another one who I love is our TECA. And so they might fill a few different roles.

One we always had in our clinic, we called it the floater. But I just love that. Just someone who also has a great personality, just out there touching on the patients, getting them signed up for workshops, maybe making sure they're doing their rehabs, if you have that in your clinic.

We've got our back office CA, and they're really back there helping run the business, help keeping our docs in line with that. You may have then even just going into associate docs and whatnot in there. So there's just so many different roles, and I love that because there's space for so many different personalities too, which is awesome.

So many docs I talk with, they didn't really spend the time researching or writing out these roles. They rather were just looking for a good person, and then they come in, and then they're trying to figure out, how am I going to keep this amazing person? Maybe they have them in the wrong spot.

So how important is it for doctors to kind of define what those roles are all about? How important is that, in your opinion?

It's so important. That's the blueprint, right? If you're building a house, you have your blueprint.

So that's our vision story, our blueprint of our clinic. And so, yes, you can find a person to just put in a position, right? But is that the best person for that position?

Also, how many of us have, because guilty is charged, have been like, oh, they're an awesome personality. They're going to do great here. And it's miserable, right?

They're a great personality, but their other gifts and talents and kind of their personality, their strengths are not, they're not working in those, right? And so it's so important for you as a doc, and I know this can feel overwhelming, right? Because you're like, I don't know, I just want to help people and adjust them.

That's how a lot of you are wired. And I love that about you. But to really have that vision story of, hey, this is where I want to go in my business.

These are the team members that I'm going to need to accomplish that. Right? And that's so important.

And again, it's going to look different for everyone. So what you might want your clinic to look like could be different than the guy right next door to you or the woman on the other side of you. But it's so important, like you said, to kind of have that written out.

And then I love hearing my teams that I work with and coach with saying, hey, this is our goal. You know, by Q3, we're going to hire this person, right? And then looking at Q1 of next year, we're going to work towards hiring.

So really laying out a plan. And things may happen sooner than you planned or a little later than planned, but at least you have it laid out and you know what you're working towards.

So in a sense, you know, as you reverse engineer this, you're kind of figuring out what personality traits fit each role. And then as you go about that, what are some tools, some resources, things that the chiropractor and his current CA can utilize to make sure they get this right?

I mean, there's so many resources out there. One that we love to recommend and use is Chiro Matchmakers. They're an awesome tool, right?

And they can help you hire and find team. Or a lot of our clinics, they'll find a team member and say, hey, we think they're good for this. And then they'll send them to Chiro Matchmaker to kind of do their scan on them.

I know it's not a personality scan, right? Because you can't legally do that, I don't think, in most states before you hire someone. But Chiro Matchmaker has been an amazing tool.

And what I love seeing Chiros do is create something out of a need they had, right? So like Chiro Matchmaker came out of a need that some of these other docs were having, right? Like, hey, we just keep bringing in the wrong person.

So that is a great tool prior. And then post, like someone that I love is Strength Finders. That's a great one.

Again, once you've hired, to really know, hey, how does this person work, right? Like, I know that's helped me even in my personal and professional, right? To be like, hey, these are my strengths.

This is why I am so passionate about this, right? But I also need to like lay off a little bit.

Right, right. So yeah, it sounds like what you're saying too is those docs that maybe didn't follow that formula initially and do have a team, that it makes sense for them to take their current team through some testing, just to fine tune and be sure that they're in the right position so they're not burning them out.

Yeah, I've had teams that I work with. And again, I don't work for Chiro Matchmaker. I just love them because we've seen such great things.

But I've had teams of, let's say, 10 start working with myself or some of the other coaches I work with and then putting their whole team through that testing and realizing, ooh, we have some people in the wrong seats. They're great people, but we just need to move them around a little bit. So it's a great tool that you can use even with existing team members that you're like, hey, they might be in the right seat, but actually they may not also be in the right seat.

And some of us can operate in our non-strengths, but we can only do that for so long before we're going to experience burnout, unhappiness and discontent.

Yeah, and those unicorns, those tree unicorns are not that many people out there that can do that. And I appreciate you talking about that because I know there's a lot of docs on the call on these podcasts that will reach back to me privately, kind of like, dang, and I kind of did this all backwards, and I just encourage them to say it's never too late, right? To just fine tune this.

And how do you see that when you go through that exercise? What has been your experience in some of these practices as far as what type of growth have you seen? Were they really kind of slow down to speed up and they really start to look at that?

Have you seen some great stories out there?

Oh, my gosh. So good. There's this one, Dr. Mark Mao, who I love.

He's a doc I've gotten to work alongside, and he does some coaching and training on strength finders. And I'll never forget, three years ago, the first time I heard him speak, and he did an exercise. We were at an event, and he did an exercise, and he had everyone take their non-dominant writing hands, and he had a phrase, whatever it was, you know, I love you, and he said, write that phrase with your non-dominant hand.

And then he said, okay, everyone did that, and then write that phrase with your dominant hand. And I don't remember the times, but I will tell you, doing it with your non-dominant hand took much more time than doing it with our dominant hand, right? So that, I'm an analogy person, a visual.

Dr. Stephen Franzen and I talk about that all the time, how we're these visual people. So that helped me really understand, like, when, like, we can work in our non-strength, right? But when we are, we're not being as efficient.

And so when those teams switch around their team members, they're that much more productive, right? I hate the word busy. I've kind of removed that from my vocabulary in the last year or so or working towards that.

But it makes them so much more productive, right? So you go from doing a task that maybe took you 30 minutes to now doing something in like five minutes. Like just think of you as a business owner, how much more efficient that is for you and your business, processing more people, and just keeping happier team and happier patients.

So in the same vein here, Mary, as it relates to kind of what I'm hearing you say is, you know, it's not just finding the right people, it's making sure they're in the right seat, doing the right job, the right way for the right reasons, all the rights. And so if you can go one layer deeper for me, philosophically, in your opinion, how important is the CA and the actual success of the patient's experience and the results they get? Because I always tell my teams that you guys have no idea how far reaching of an effect that you're having on people.

You may not be doing the adjustment, but when you make their schedule easy, and you make the finance easy, and you make the billing easy, just how far does that go, in your opinion?

It goes so far. And our CAs, right, I have the unique experience of, I'm not working in a practice at the moment, but I'm a patient in a practice. Like, paying patient for the first time in 13 years, which is really actually a neat experience for me, because going into this clinic, right, and being like, I try to not be too critical, but you know, you're just constantly looking at everything.

But the team has been so amazing. Like, I can tell each person in this clinic I go to is in their right role, right? And through the little things that they're doing of helping me redo my appointment, right?

Like, if I need to change it up, I have an ever-changing schedule. I try to stay consistent, but it's ever-changing. If that were hard, right, if those were hard team members, they weren't responsive, they didn't...

I'm just telling you now, and I'm no chiropractic, and I'm in it, I wouldn't go, right? It's like life is so busy. So just to encourage you, docs and CAs, like those little things are the biggest thing to a patient.

We all have life going on, right? I know chiropractic is valuable. I know how important it is for me to get in for my adjustments, but I also have life going on, right?

So it's like these little things that you're doing are helping remind me to stay on track, right? To keep doing what the doc has laid out for me to do, to get my best results. And the longer they've done that for me, the easier it's been for me to be a patient, and the more I want to go, if that makes sense.

Yeah, you're right. You know, getting free care is nice, but you value chiropractic so much that it wasn't just because you received it for free. And to me, that just means that the docs you worked with and the team you were on all reinforced just how important it is to stay under regular care.

So I think that's really cool. Now, if I could take you to kind of pivot here a little bit. So let's say, okay, I've got, I've added a couple of new team members.

I've clearly defined the role that they're in. I've done some personality testing, maybe on my current team and new team. And I feel like I have people in the right seat, the right people.

Tell me how important is training now? Once I have that team in place, how important is my training rhythms? Not meetings.

I know those are important too. But speak into that training culture.

Oh, my gosh.

I know I'm speaking your love language.

I know. But the reason you are is because of, like you said, the doc I started out with. So Dr. Pete Camiolo, I've had the honor of starting my career in chiropractic with him 13 years ago.

And he took a chance on me. Honestly, I worked in fashion at the time. I've gone to school for interior design and worked in fashion.

And he took a chance on me, brought me in to help at that point via Front Desk CA. And let me tell you, we did not miss a training. Like Dr. Pete's leg could be falling off.

And he'd show up at the office on Monday for team training. Like we did not miss it for anything. And the intensity with which we trained never changed.

Like never changed. I still six years or five and a half years into, you know, now I was his office manager running his practice, we would still get nervous to train on Monday mornings because that's the intensity with which like we trained. And he's like, we always train as if, like we train so that we are prepared for everything and anything.

And still to this day, like, I just have that so ingrained in me. Like we do the same things over and over and over. How do the greats become great?

Right. It's like you think of the greatest athletes. That's the easiest thing to compare it to.

They didn't become great by just dribbling the ball up and down the court, like once a week, right? They did it day in, day out, hour in, hour out, minute in, minute out. Like they just went at it.

So training, if you want to have a good, solid team, train every single week, without fail, like without relenting.

Again, some of the docs on the call are gone. Guilty as charged here, you know? And I think, you know, for some docs, it's easier for them in their mind to sit down and just meet and just to talk philosophically about the practice and kind of what we want to do.

And that's far different, right? What you're talking about is you're literally role playing, right?

Yeah, I'm laughing because, like you said, I work with our integrators, COOs, and so many of them will come and be like, we went to do our training and our doc just talked for 30 minutes, and then we had 10 minutes to role play. And I'm like, oh my God, like, give me your doc's phone number. I'm going to call them.

And so, yeah, and I love that about our visionary CEO docs. Like, you guys just have the best hearts. But yes, we need to be role playing.

We need to be rolling up our sleeves. Like, what are your processes and procedures that you do in your office? And you need to have a schedule, right?

Make it easy. Make it easy for you and for your team. Create an agenda.

So if there's, you know, like 10 different things you want to train on, or if there's 20 different things, create a 20-week schedule and then follow that. It makes it so easy, right? You're at day one and then at week 21, you're back at day one.

Like, just make it super easy for you and for your team so you can come prepared. That's another big part is coming prepared, right? Not like the day of training being like, well, I think we could do better at our phone calls.

Let's do that, right? Have a plan and follow it. Help yourselves by making that.

And it's going to make your life so much easier. It's going to make your team that much happier because they're going to be equipped and prepared, right? When that hard, testy patient comes in and is going at them, they're going to feel so confident in their response because you have trained on that multiple times already, right?

So it is just... That's really a lifeline of a good team.

Yeah, it's interesting that you say that. I remember some years ago when we started this intensity of how nervous people would get, and I would always start the training by saying, hey, we have an umbrella of mercy over you, okay? Don't worry about it.

We're not going to break you down. It's going to be fun, and this is going to make you better, and we're going to be able to help more lives. So if I were to go upstream of this, and again, as you know, chiropractors, we don't get business 101.

We have to learn that as we go. And so if we go upstream of this, how important is it for me to have an actual manual that has all of this in it? You know, so they know, and scripts and the whole thing.

So how important is that, that you have a playbook?

Yeah, we had that, I mean, from day one with Dr. Pete, I had a binder, this massive binder. That was another thing for me, like, I don't know, I'm such an outgoing person and like good with people. So when it was like, here's a script, and I'm like, what the heck do I do with this?

I don't read a script. But let me tell you, thank God for that script, because that helped me, right? I didn't have to make it up as I went.

I knew exactly what I needed to say. I knew exactly what went with what process and what procedure, what day of their visit, right? Like, there was no making anything up.

So I know that is, I don't belittle that, that's a heavy lift to create that, right? But like you said earlier, the slowdown to speed up, I would much rather spend time on the front end, making sure that, hey, I have my processes and procedure book in place. I have this binder when someone starts.

We use this to train, right? We use this manual to train. We use it day in and day out, then down the road, right?

You're three months in and you're like, why does every new patient we bring in not come back? And it's like, well, we kind of fumble it because we're just winging it, right?

Right.

So that it's such a helpful tool. Like there's no reason in my mind that we wouldn't have that.

Yeah. And I love how earlier you tied what we're talking about to this greater vision of saving lives. I think it's important for docs to always paint this with this beautiful picture of, you know, this is why we're training so hard.

I had a former practice member that played professional football and he showed me once his playbook. And it was, wow, it was massive. And he talked about practice, you know, how hard practice was and how you had to come prepared and how nervous he would be and, you know, all these different names and different codes.

And I just think of docs out there in practice, and you mentioned the word, we just wing it, you know. Chiropractors seem like we're the king of the wing, right? And so it sounds like the projects, if guys are taking notes right now, and gals that are running their practice, the first one is create your manual.

Not just your employee handbook, but your manual, meaning, and I don't know about you, we do lifetime wellness care, but we'll usually start with four months. Everybody's a little different on that stuff. But we literally train, like you said, we're on a 26-week rhythm.

But twice a year, we go through day one through 144, and we just train that out, right? And it makes it so much easier for onboarding new people. So maybe elaborate on that.

You know, once you get your ducks in a row where you got your manual, you now have specific job descriptions for each role in your practice. You've done some due diligence and taken them through strength finders, and you've taken them through this pro scan, if you will. And now you realize, okay, we got everybody in the right seat, and we know what seats we need to fill next.

We've got our manual. Now we're training. And now we can scale, right?

And then you start thinking about, oh, we're going to bring another doctor on. So kind of give me your kind of added insight on what I just said.

Yeah, it's so, I love that. Like you said earlier, sometimes we kind of work our way back, right? And I think that's kind of how people do it.

You know, we, in the Remarkable Practice who I work with, we work with, we get coached, right? The leaders get coached too. And so one of the coaches we worked with, he said either you start at the beginning and work towards the end, or you start at the end and work your way back, right?

So the way I am, I'm going to work your way back. I see the vision, and then I do the little steps back. And that's just how I'm personally wired.

And not that that vision can always grow and change, right? So I think it's important, one quick thing as I'm saying that, it's important to acknowledge the wins and the progress that we've made, right? Because we're also in this space, we're always wanting to do better, right?

That sometimes, and like grow and do more, sometimes we forget to just like stop in the moment that we're in and be like, hey, we've done a lot, right? We have done some amazing things. Like we started out as a chiropractor who knew not much about running a business or a team, and now look at us, look at what we have, right?

So I think number one, it's super important to acknowledge where you've come from and where you're at, and then to look forward to where you're going to continue to go to, right? And like you said, that may mean bringing in another doc, right? That may mean you as a CEO, scaling out from doing all the adjusting, right?

And doing some of the adjusting. And that may mean bringing other things into your practice. I think it's just so neat because in the space we're in of health and wellness, there's always so much we can do to complement the chiropractic.

And it's important, I think, to keep the main thing the main thing, but it's also neat that there are other things we can do, and this is to support our patients, right? This is to make their journey better and easier and to really help them. So I think it's just neat that we can ever be growing and evolving within the clinic that we're in.

And it's not that you've never made it, but there's always more we can do.

That's right. Wow, that's so good, Mary. I so appreciate that answer.

And I think, you know, I think back to what we said about philosophy of saying, hey, you're a critical part of what's going on, and the patients are getting better because of you. But there are other ways to let them know that you appreciate them. Obviously, maybe you can speak into this, but one of those is pay and bonuses.

So what's your feelings on that?

Yeah, I think it's so important, right? And again, coming from being a team member, from working in other spaces, right? Like, I think it's so important to compensate your team well.

And that doesn't mean you just have to be throwing massive chunks of money at them, right? I know that can feel overwhelming. But also, find ways to show them that you appreciate them.

Like, I've even sometimes like, and Dr. Pete is a very thoughtful person. He just got super busy, right? So I'd be like, hey, Dr. Pete, here's a gift card to give to so-and-so, like to thank them for the work they've done.

So find ways that you can, without it being in their bonus structure, maybe thank them, just small ways, learn their love languages. We're all different, right? Like, the way I'm going to receive it and another team member is going to receive something will be different.

I think it's so important to have structures in place for compensating and bonusing your team, and then also just doing fun things for them and with them. Happy team is going to make just a happier workspace, right? And a better workspace for all.

So even if you have to put reminders on your calendar to like get something for the team, like that's okay. But find the things that will help you in this season that you're in, even if it's your office manager helping you as a DC, like to remind you. But it is so important to be compensating our team and bonusing them and just doing things to really encourage them and thank them for the hard work that they're doing.

So good. Yeah, I was just at a UAC event, and one of the individuals that was interviewed was a Fortune 250 CEO friend of mine, actually, and Dr. Stephen interviewed him. And the whole topic was right along with what you just said.

And it was all around the servant leadership model. And to your point, sometimes chiropractors were busy, and so having that integrator who can kind of keep you plugged in and kind of keep things in front of you as it relates to showing that appreciation to the people that work with you, because that's the biggest disconnect. And one of the takeaways on that was it's far different to be a good manager than it is to be a good leader.

They're two different things, right? And often we think they go together, but not always. So what you're saying is a good leader leads down really well by remembering everybody has a different love language.

They have different things that make them feel appreciated. Some, it's words of affirmation, like you said. Others, it could be a gift, you know, or a gym membership or something.

And so I really appreciate hearing that from your perspective. That was very, very good. Well, we're covering a lot here.

This is great. I feel like sometimes chiropractors don't do a good enough job of teaching the chiropractic philosophy to their CAs. So how important is, in your opinion, that that CAs have some chiropractic philosophy?

Yeah, they need to know the philosophy of chiropractic, right? Like, I am not a chiropractor. I've got my green book and I love being able to dive into that, right?

And just really remembering and knowing why we do what we do. Remembering that our bodies are the most amazing thing that have ever been created and that they are so smart, right? They know exactly what to do.

And if the past two years have taught us anything, it's that not enough people know that truth, right? Not enough people know that truth.

We need your teams to know the truth so that when the patients come through the door, they know without a shadow of a doubt when they say, hey, we can help you. We can help you, right? And patients come in with lists of things going on, right?

But it is so important for your team to know the philosophy behind chiropractic, why we do what we do, right? That's our core. That's a core of why we do what we do.

Everything else is just kind of added and extra. But the core of why we do what we do and that philosophy and reminder is so important. So I would just encourage you as docs, as teams, to build that in, right?

We would go over that. My docs would go over that with us weekly, like in our huddles or things like that. There are so many spaces that we can bring it in to just little nuggets to our team, but constantly pouring into them on that is so important.

Yeah, I experienced one doc that really pushes workshop. And when I talked to a couple of the CAs, they had never even been to the workshop. I'm gone.

You need them to go to the workshop. So, but no, I appreciate that because you're right. Understanding the philosophy really helps you know when to speak.

Sometimes CAs will over speak at the front. Yeah, they'll maybe give personal health advice that would not be consistent with what the doc is giving. And so I think you're right there.

I think we get too hurried out of the gates, and we don't teach them the fundamentals of the base running and the fielding and the bunting and all the little key things that go into the practice. But mostly, like you said, is the chiropractic philosophy is so important. And like you said, the last two years did teach us that, that a lot of people in our society would have been a lot better off had they been seen a chiropractor during the whole era that we just came out of.

But my goal in my practice, and I know this is your goal for the practices that you coach, is I personally am drawn to lasting the long-term relationships, whether it be with a practice member or my team. And so, just what are some final parting words of wisdom and encouragement you might give to the DCs and the CAs on this call, as it relates to creating these lasting bonds and these long-term relationships?

Yeah. Oh, gosh. This is something like I could tear up about, because so when I worked with Dr. Pete, we had a high-volume clinic, like I said.

We saw over a thousand patients a week. So that's my average Monday. I encountered 300 human beings.

And that's a lot of people, right? And what I realized really quickly was how important it was to know every single one of them, right? To know who each one of them were.

And this is what I believe, like, and Dr. Pete instilled that in us, right? That each person is a human. It's not just a number, right?

We deal with numbers a lot in our clinic, and I say this on my calls all the time. Every number is directly related to a person, right? So that's what makes these numbers even that much more important.

But they're not just a number because they're a number. They're a number because they're a human being. And it's so important that we are stopping, that we're taking, you know, looking them in the eyes, right?

Each person that we get busy. There's so much going on in a clinic. I remember sometimes feeling so overwhelmed of that pull between, like, working, I'm doing, running a business, but I'm also, there's human beings in front of me, and I need to be a part of them or present to them.

So I would just say that, like, to remind us, amidst all the things that we are doing in our clinics, you know, new patient paperwork, walking a new patient back, adjusting a patient, doing an x-ray, doing a, whatever it is, that that's a human being in front of you. Right? Who's going through life.

So make sure that we're making eye contact with them, that we're looking at them, that we're connecting with them, that we're being present with them, because we may never get that moment back. Right? And we don't, life, so much happens in life.

And the same with our team. Make sure that we're present to our team members, that we're not taking for granted the people that we get to work with, to be with on a daily basis. And that, for me, the basis of everything I try to do is love.

Right? Like, what is the core of why I'm doing this? So making sure that I'm operating out of that.

And I think we'll just be able to reach so many more people as we focus on each individual as they're in front of us.

You get me teared up too. That was beautiful. And it's so clear to me that, you know, you just didn't make chiropractic a job.

This is your calling. And my hat's off to, you know, Dr. Pete and the other people that have come alongside you during your journey. You are a gift to chiropractic.

If we could hug, I'd give you a big hug right now, but obviously you're in Arizona and I'm in California. But next time we see each other, it's going to be high fives and hugs. I really, truly appreciate you letting us invade your busy schedule.

And I know that this call is going to be extremely impactful. You had so much to say and you encouraged me so much. I can't imagine just how many people are on the other end right now that are just going to be so fired up.

And so, Mary, I just want to thank you for taking the time to do this. And for those of you that tuned in, I want to celebrate you because you're never going to regret time spent on personal development. And I know this is going to be one of those podcasts you're going to save and relisten to again and again.

And I also want to thank ChiroTouch for their spirit in this. That ChiroTouch really does want the profession to be successful. We're not doing this podcast to sell more software.

This is to help chiropractors grow and thrive and to become the best version of themselves. So again, thank you, ChiroTouch. Thank you, Mary.

And remember for those docs out there, take care of yourself. Take time to get adjusted. Make sure you treat your body properly so that you are vital and at your best.

And so have a wonderful day and we'll see you all later.

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