November 20, 2024 • 19 mins
Dr. Eric Plasker, a 1985 Life University graduate, has made it his mission to ensure the chiropractic message is accessible to all, not just chiropractors. As the creator of the 100 Year Lifestyle brand, Dr. Plasker discusses the importance of translating chiropractic jargon into relatable, understandable language for patients. His conversation today offers strategies for connecting with a broader audience and delivering a clear message about chiropractic care.
This podcast episode is part of Thriving Chiros Podcast, an Alumni & Friends Chiropractic series part of the Living Life at Life U podcast. This long-term series goes into deeper detail about what it means to succeed in practice and outside of the four walls of the chiropractic office. This is Season 1, Episode 6 of Thriving Chiros hosted by Dr. Austin Cohen- Life U Alumnus, Chiropractor & Founder of Corrective Chiropractic.
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S1 (00:01):
This is thriving chiropractors, where chiropractors, supporting chiropractors, and talking
to chiropractors that are thriving beyond the four walls of
their practice. This is Doctor Austin Cohen here with thriving Chiros,
(00:23):
and we are here with one of the legends of chiropractic. Actually,
if I may say, I know he's a little nervous,
but this is Doctor Eric Plaster. As many of you
are aware, and so much value in content where I
think we're gonna be able to get today. And, you know,
the purpose of Thrive in Cairo is to really help
chiropractors not just survive, but to thrive. And what an honor,
by the way, for you to be here today. So
(00:44):
thank you so much for taking the time to to
do this. This is great.
S2 (00:46):
Wow. Are you kidding me? It's an honor for me. I'm.
We were just talking. I remember when you were in school.
I remember when you came visit me at the office
that one day, and we had a nice conversation. And
look at you now you're tearing it up, doing a
great job. So congratulations to you.
S1 (00:58):
I appreciate that and I appreciate all the mentorship, right?
I mean, a lot of it's from from guys like him. So,
you know, I think my first question is going to
dive into some, okay. Like I'm just going to go
kind of straightforward. Right. It's like, you know, you've been
in chiropractic for a long time. You've done a lot
of great things 40, 40 years. Right. Books and and
consulting companies and practices. I mean, you've done so much.
(01:18):
And if you look back right over those 40 years
and you think of some of the pivotal moments or
decisions you've made in your career. Could you share maybe
like 2 or 3 or even one that you're like, Austin,
this is like the most pivotal thing I did.
S2 (01:32):
Sure, I'll tell you the first thing that really hit
me when I was young in practice. And I would
talk and talk and talk and nobody would listen or
nobody would hear or nobody would get it. And I
had a realization one day and I said, I said
to myself, why spend so much time educating people on
things they'll never remember when you could, in a very
(01:53):
short period of time, speak to them in a way
that they'll never forget. And that changed my life. And
the whole concept that we've built on this for decades
now is peers versus people. There are peers like you
and I are peers. We have conversations. They're peer centered conversations.
We talk about research. We talk about practice building, practice management,
clinical findings, things like that. That's a different conversation or
(02:17):
a different version of a conversation than if I'm talking
to an Earthling. And so what I realized was if
I could get fantastic at communicating with Earthlings, then I
could educate the world and never have to be there.
And it changed my life.
S1 (02:32):
And was there a moment where you remember sitting in
a room or thinking to yourself, maybe it was like
maybe new patients were coming in or something, or they
weren't converting? And you thought in your head, this is
the moment. Like the oh crap moment.
S2 (02:44):
Yeah, I'll tell you exactly what it was. I was
in my second office. I had two offices that I
was running at the time, and we had a lot
of students that would come and visit. Word got out
that we had a great practice, and so I had
a couple of students that were watching me adjust this
older woman named Marie. Mary. And I said to Mary,
I looked at the students and I said, hey guys,
watch this. I said, Mary, go ahead. And Mary never missed.
(03:05):
She never missed. She'd been coming every week for like
three years. So, Mary, tell these young whippersnappers over here,
tell them what a subluxation is. And she looked at
me and she said something that changed my life. She said,
doctor plaster a what? And I was like a subluxation. Mary.
Come on, tell them what a subluxation is. You haven't
missed an appointment for three years. Every week. It's like
(03:26):
Doctor Plaskett. What are you talking about? And I looked
at these kids. They're looking at me like I thought.
You're supposed to be a master educator. And I must
have used the word subluxation 48,000 times with this beautiful soul.
And she didn't remember the word, but she remembered the principle.
She remembered how and why and all those other things.
And I realized, you know what we need to as
an industry, not just me individually, not just my team,
(03:48):
not just my office. We need to become experts at that.
S1 (03:52):
And you've heard this concept before, and I'd be interested
to hear your take on this is as a profession
when we do like reported findings and re-examine reports and
just visit to visit with patients. You know, there's you've
heard it before. They'll remember not what you said, but
how you made them feel. And I mean, what part
of that do you think is like value for chiropractic
as a whole? As we communicate with patients, I.
S2 (04:11):
Think it's everything, but it's not just how they feel
in the moment. We have to future pace them. So
we we talk a lot about in our world with
100 year lifestyle, we have a formula called the Empire Formula.
It stands for your minimum potential years remaining. It's one
of our trademarks, and we put people in the future
and we get them to see, okay, so there's only
(04:31):
one thing worse than suffering. And that's suffering for 100 years.
And we don't have to say that because we brand
that and we brand that with having them fill out
exercises just really on the case history form, they just
fill in a couple of, you know, how old is
the oldest grandparent in your family that ever lived or
are still living? 91. How old are you? 51. Okay,
you could have 40 more years based on your own
family history. So here you are now at 41. What's
(04:55):
it going to be like down the road? And that's
a ten minute conversation. Unless you give them something to
do that sticks and then it never leaves them. So
if they figure it out for themselves, they're driving down
the road. They pass one of a thousand assisted living
centers every mile in this town. I mean, they're everywhere.
And they look over and they see an ambulance like,
(05:15):
oh my God, I don't want to be like that.
Grandma's 87. I don't want to be like that. Maybe
I need to do things differently. Maybe I need to
live differently. Maybe I need to take different responsibility. And
even if they don't get it in the moment, in
that moment, every time they go into the grocery store
and it's Senior Citizens Day, they'll be reminded because it's
about them. It's not about what I want them to know.
(05:36):
It's about giving them information in a way that it
literally goes in their brain and it just keeps, keeps
spinning and circulating until they have to take care of it.
S1 (05:46):
I think what's interesting is, you know, I remember being
in practice, I mean, early on and just I would
go over with patients when I'd go over their exam results,
I'd be like, hey, you know, here's where we are,
and this is the progress you've made so far. And
you know, what I left out was the future. I
would always do past and present, and I'd skip the future.
And here's where we're going. And so, you know, early
on I realized that I got to do past we
(06:07):
got to go through present and then we got to
the future. Here's where we were, here's where we are
and here's where we're going. And that future pacing, I
think for chiropractors is something that is so key. But
you're right. Like not tying it to subluxation. I bet
a lot of chiropractors ask their patients why they came there.
I mean, a lot of them probably think they have
wellness practices. The reality is they probably have pain based clinics, actually. Right?
I mean, I.
S2 (06:26):
Mean, there's a lot of people that have patients that
come in, like, I'll give you an example. We had
a patient that came in and they were seeing another
chiropractor every three and a half weeks. I was like,
why three and a half weeks? Because that's when I
feel like I need it. And I said, so what
if you never felt like you needed it? It was like, wow.
I said, how would I do that? Well, if you
feel it at three and a half weeks, come at
(06:46):
two weeks and then you'll never feel it. Get off
the roller coaster. You'll never feel like you need it.
S1 (06:53):
So some of these nuggets. I really hope people are
kind of like jotting down some of these things and
how they're going to apply this, by the way, to
their practice. If you look back, I mean, I love
that concept, by the way. And by the way.
S2 (07:01):
Did you notice that was like a three second conversation?
That's what I mean by like your first statement, right?
Why why spend a lot of time educating things that
that they'll never remember when you can in split seconds
give things people, things they'll never forget.
S1 (07:14):
And I love that concept, though, of like how you
speak to your peers is gonna be different than how
you speak to like certain people in your patients. And
can you go back and think like, okay, here was
some of the transformations I noticed. Or here's actually some
of the communication. We also changed in that time that
maybe chiropractic could take with them and think, you know what?
I really do start changing my communication around how I
communicate to patients.
S2 (07:35):
Well, branding is a big deal. Yes. Okay. Branding is
a big deal because people will see you no matter
what you say. They will see your brand. So we
changed to and we our brand when we started training chiropractors.
And we've trained over 12,000 chiropractors. They've exorbitant growth over
the years. And so our brand at the time was
(07:55):
a public facing brand. Lkf lifetime care for everyone. And
we stood by that. We put all of our patient education.
We had lkf lifetime care for everyone on a lot
of the branding, and the doctors did fantastic with that
brand in their offices. But something changed for me when
we had a public like a newspaper or a magazine
or something called us up out of the blue one
(08:15):
day and they said, What's Doctor Pulaski? What's Lexie? And
I was like, what's what? It's like Lexie. It's your brand.
It's on your Lexie. And in years of teaching Lkf
lifetime care for everyone, I never once said Lexie. So
it took me five minutes to figure out what this
person was referring to, and she didn't know either. So
(08:37):
what I realized in that moment was, is that this
is a great vision, but not a great brand. Chiropractic
has a great vision right now, but not a great
brand out in the world and in the marketplace. So
we made a brand change and it was very interesting,
is when we shopped the book to originally in 2005,
(08:58):
to different publishing houses. One of the brands that we
wanted to use was the chiropractic lifestyle. And originally they
liked what we were doing. They liked the whole centenarian thing.
They liked the longevity thing. It was rare. It was
the future, right? They were really into that. But they
hated the chiropractic lifestyle because of our brand. When I
(09:19):
changed it from the from the chiropractic lifestyle to the
100 year lifestyle, we went from having no offers. We
thought we liked you. We thought we liked you to
a bidding war just by changing the brand. Same exact content.
So I think what's really important as as people are
in their practices and they're working hard every single day.
If you change your brand and you change like we
(09:42):
brand patient education 100 lifestyle, we brand it because it
changes the whole conversation. If you have a really strong brand,
everything that you spend a lot of time training on
might vanish if you change the branding. Yes, because people
will come and they'll ask different questions. They'll want it
differently for themselves. They'll be thinking in our case, they'll
long term for crisis care and lifestyle care and performance
(10:04):
based care. So branding has a lot. I know Life
University went through a brand changeover recently. So branding companies,
bigger companies, organizations, they put a lot of time and
energy into branding chiropractors don't. They spend a lot of
time visit to visit, to visit. So if you can
take a step back and look down at your practice
and the world for a little bit and start to
(10:26):
embrace a bigger vision, you might really see how simpler
things can be.
S1 (10:31):
This is I mean, you know, there's a group I'm
a part of called Entrepreneur Organization. I think we've talked
about that before where there's 150 people in there. Not
one's a chiropractor, a chiropractor in it, and it's people
that have reached a certain, you know, benchmark of revenue.
And it's all business people like within this group. And
what you are talking about right now is one of
the biggest principles that everybody talks about. And when I
(10:51):
started to hear that, we started to transform some of
the words in the language we speak in our office.
For example, you know, we have a dinner roll, right?
And we give patients dinner rolls throughout their visits in
the office. We labeled it. We started calling it a
spinal molding pillow. You know, it helps. It helps mold
your spine back to a normal shape. And so we
started changing the language of este table. You know, we
don't call it este tables. Of course. You know, massage
(11:13):
tables or whatever we decide to call it. We started
to transform the language in the office of all the
things we call kind of like, you know, subluxation. And
I've never heard that story, by the way. Like there
was many times I've heard you speak, that is a
great story, you know, and business story, I think for
a lot of people, you know, when you look back at,
I think a lot of people look at you as
a mentor for them, for chiropractic, for sure. And when
(11:33):
you think about your mentors, whether in chiropractic or in business,
who have been some that you've had, but then I'd
love to know, who do you look up to right now?
Who are you listening to? What books are you reading?
What's on your mind?
S2 (11:46):
Great question. I have been blessed with incredible mentors. I mean,
I grew up my first chiropractor was Ernie Landy, a
fantastic mentor. He was a servant leader. He was, um,
very grounded philosophically. He was a lover. He just he
treated me like a son in so many ways and
just meant so much to me. I would put him
at the top of the list. Uh, his practice was
(12:08):
a practice that he took over from Reggie Gold, who
was also a mentor, grounded in philosophy. A lot of volume,
a lot of people, you know, if you're not going
to change the world, everything else is Mickey Mouse. Like,
these are my mentors, right? And then Joe. Felicia. Uh, strategically. Joe. Felicia.
Felicia was a mentor. As a strategist. He was a
(12:28):
brilliant strategist. And so he taught me a lot about
public speaking and strategy and about anchors and about branding
and repositioning in people's minds. And we spent hours. I
had him at my office for 48 hours. We, Lisa
literally would come by and slip food under the door.
It was amazing experience. And then Alex Cox clinically from
(12:50):
a gonstead clinic perspective. And so great mentors and they
were all purpose driven. They all had long meaningful careers
that were relevant. So I never got in this game
for a short term quick fix just to make a
buck or whatever. It was, always from that purpose driven perspective.
And when you say today, so I'm 39 years in
(13:13):
practice almost, I am, you know, been married for 36 years,
and I'm 61 years old with a family history of
heart disease, cancer, thyroid disease and dementia. And my brothers,
who are also chiropractors, 59 and 57 years old, had
a family history of heart disease, cancer, thyroid disease and dementia.
We have all lived differently. We have lived this 100
(13:35):
year lifestyle, this chiropractic lifestyle, and none of us have
any of those conditions. We are not on any medication.
We are. Time has taught us that we are doing
the right things, that these principles are sound, that we
have not followed the status quo. I do not have
a medicine chest in my home. I have a bathroom cabinet.
You'll love the extra space. Try it. And so when
(13:56):
you understand that. And here. So who is my mentor now?
Right now our vision is our mentor. And the people
in the world that we are just about to come
out with. 100 year lifestyle. Third edition. The first edition
came out in 2007, became an international bestseller, and the
world is aligning behind our ideas because we have stayed true.
It is the single best time to be a chiropractor.
(14:18):
And if you can look at the world and the
state of the world, and you're grounded and you have
experience and you trust yourself and you trust our foundational
roots as an industry, you will realize that the world
will teach you what you need to know if you're
purpose driven or you get mentors where mentors for some,
you're mentors for some. There's so many great people that
you could learn from. But right now the world is
(14:39):
teaching us who we need to be. Joe Felicia said something.
He's still one of my probably my biggest mentors, even
though he's passed a while ago. But he said, Eric,
he said it like this. Eric, never forget chiropractic never changes,
but the world changes. So you have to always communicate
chiropractic in a way that the world gets it. And
(15:03):
so Joe, Felicia is with me every day and between
that and the world and, you know, honestly, my my family,
my wife putting up with me, she keeps me balanced.
We just got back from Italy, and now we're digging
in to get this next book done and out there,
and it'll be out before fall, before Life Vision extravaganza
in September. And so, so the world needs us now
(15:24):
more than ever, man. The world is in desperate need
of chiropractic care more than ever.
S1 (15:28):
You know, what it also needs is, and I hope
a lot of people hear this in your voice is, um,
you speak with a lot of conviction, right? And a
lot of belief. I mean, you're your mentor is your
vision right now. And the people of lives you're going
to transform. And I think that's that's really powerful. And
I think in your clinic as a chiropractor. People can
read past your limiting beliefs and they can read past
(15:49):
the mindset. And if you have conviction, a belief of
chiropractic doesn't matter what you say in that room. Yeah.
S2 (15:55):
It's true. But let me say something because I don't
want people to misinterpret, especially if you're young in practice
and new in this game. Here's what's really important. It's
not about arriving somewhere. It's about the journey. I'm still
on a journey. So when you commit to the journey
that you and I are talking about here today, there's
an audience for you. There's an audience for you. Based
on wherever you are in your journey, there's an audience
(16:17):
for you that's ten times larger than your current practice.
So don't you know, say, I got to work on
myself and then I'll do that. No, no, no, you're
a big boy and a big girl. You can do
two things at once. So commit to the journey, and
you will start to attract the people that are perfect
for your practice. You are perfect for them and the
(16:40):
exact phase of the journey that you're on. I know it's.
S1 (16:43):
Going to be hard and there's going to be speed
bumps along the way, right? I tell all my doctors,
that is when it starts to get hard. To me,
you're right at a breakthrough that's about to happen, and
you got to push through that. If, uh, you know,
if you go back to 1985, when Eric was walking
across that stage getting his diploma from Sid Williams, probably. Yeah. Um,
and the 2024 version was on the other side of
(17:04):
that stage. What advice would you give to that 1985
Eric Plaster? Um, today I.
S2 (17:12):
Would tell that young red, afro headed dude. I would say, Eric,
stay true, stay true. Because one day, if you stick
around long enough, the world will align behind your ideas
and the ideas that you stand for in chiropractic. And
(17:32):
you just have to stay true. You're going to get
attacked along the way. People are going to say no.
People are going to put you down. They're going to
criticize you in all kinds of ways. Just stay true
and trust the journey. And what is amazing now. And
I'm really just in the last couple of years able
to say this because we have never wavered in 39
(17:56):
years of practice. We have never wavered. Our first positioning
statement in 1985 was raising healthy families without drugs and surgery.
And then when we started teaching chiropractors in the world,
it was family wellness, global impact. Then it was lifetime
care for everyone, and now we're getting everybody to live
their 100 year lifestyle 100%. For 100 years, we have
never wavered from our journey. So I would tell all
(18:18):
of you young people and people that are maybe stuck
or wanting to thrive in practice and get to that
next level. Stay true. You're almost on the other side
and the world is finally aligned or aligning, I should say,
with our ideas. Man.
S1 (18:34):
This is a the most nuggets I've heard in about
18 minutes. I'm grateful to be able to to talk
to you about this, because some of these stories I
haven't heard before and I've, I've known you for a
long time, 20 years now. Which is crazy to think.
S2 (18:44):
Well, you've only heard, like 20 years worth of stories. Yeah.
S1 (18:47):
I'm getting the other 20 years. And you're right. I
think it's interesting. It's a lot of these young chiropractors
can hear you now, but, you know, I think like
hearing that story, for example, like the McPhee one. Right? Like,
that is such a great story of, like, just something
you had to go through that was a challenge you
had to go through to, and.
S2 (19:03):
It cost a couple of million dollars to make that
brand changeover.
S1 (19:05):
Investment. Yes. Investment. Well, once again, thank you so much
for doing this. I mean, you've been a mentor to
a lot of people, myself included, of course. And I
really appreciate you doing this today with us on season
one of Thriving Cairo. So thank you.
S2 (19:17):
Well, it's an honor any time. And thanks for all
that you're doing for life University and for our profession.
I appreciate.
S1 (19:23):
You. And this is thriving Cairo's. We are signing off.
Thanks to Doctor Eric Plaster for once again helping mentor
the profession and keep this profession alive. Chiropractic has got
a great vision as he said, so let's keep it going.
This is thriving chiropractors, where chiropractors, supporting chiropractors, and talking
to chiropractors that are thriving beyond the four walls of
their practice. This is Doctor Austin Cohen here with thriving Chiros,
(00:23):
and we are here with one of the legends of chiropractic. Actually,
if I may say, I know he's a little nervous,
but this is Doctor Eric Plaster. As many of you
are aware, and so much value in content where I
think we're gonna be able to get today. And, you know,
the purpose of Thrive in Cairo is to really help
chiropractors not just survive, but to thrive. And what an honor,
by the way, for you to be here today. So
(00:44):
thank you so much for taking the time to to
do this. This is great.
S2 (00:46):
Wow. Are you kidding me? It's an honor for me. I'm.
We were just talking. I remember when you were in school.
I remember when you came visit me at the office
that one day, and we had a nice conversation. And
look at you now you're tearing it up, doing a
great job. So congratulations to you.
S1 (00:58):
I appreciate that and I appreciate all the mentorship, right?
I mean, a lot of it's from from guys like him. So,
you know, I think my first question is going to
dive into some, okay. Like I'm just going to go
kind of straightforward. Right. It's like, you know, you've been
in chiropractic for a long time. You've done a lot
of great things 40, 40 years. Right. Books and and
consulting companies and practices. I mean, you've done so much.
(01:18):
And if you look back right over those 40 years
and you think of some of the pivotal moments or
decisions you've made in your career. Could you share maybe
like 2 or 3 or even one that you're like, Austin,
this is like the most pivotal thing I did.
S2 (01:32):
Sure, I'll tell you the first thing that really hit
me when I was young in practice. And I would
talk and talk and talk and nobody would listen or
nobody would hear or nobody would get it. And I
had a realization one day and I said, I said
to myself, why spend so much time educating people on
things they'll never remember when you could, in a very
(01:53):
short period of time, speak to them in a way
that they'll never forget. And that changed my life. And
the whole concept that we've built on this for decades
now is peers versus people. There are peers like you
and I are peers. We have conversations. They're peer centered conversations.
We talk about research. We talk about practice building, practice management,
clinical findings, things like that. That's a different conversation or
(02:17):
a different version of a conversation than if I'm talking
to an Earthling. And so what I realized was if
I could get fantastic at communicating with Earthlings, then I
could educate the world and never have to be there.
And it changed my life.
S1 (02:32):
And was there a moment where you remember sitting in
a room or thinking to yourself, maybe it was like
maybe new patients were coming in or something, or they
weren't converting? And you thought in your head, this is
the moment. Like the oh crap moment.
S2 (02:44):
Yeah, I'll tell you exactly what it was. I was
in my second office. I had two offices that I
was running at the time, and we had a lot
of students that would come and visit. Word got out
that we had a great practice, and so I had
a couple of students that were watching me adjust this
older woman named Marie. Mary. And I said to Mary,
I looked at the students and I said, hey guys,
watch this. I said, Mary, go ahead. And Mary never missed.
(03:05):
She never missed. She'd been coming every week for like
three years. So, Mary, tell these young whippersnappers over here,
tell them what a subluxation is. And she looked at
me and she said something that changed my life. She said,
doctor plaster a what? And I was like a subluxation. Mary.
Come on, tell them what a subluxation is. You haven't
missed an appointment for three years. Every week. It's like
(03:26):
Doctor Plaskett. What are you talking about? And I looked
at these kids. They're looking at me like I thought.
You're supposed to be a master educator. And I must
have used the word subluxation 48,000 times with this beautiful soul.
And she didn't remember the word, but she remembered the principle.
She remembered how and why and all those other things.
And I realized, you know what we need to as
an industry, not just me individually, not just my team,
(03:48):
not just my office. We need to become experts at that.
S1 (03:52):
And you've heard this concept before, and I'd be interested
to hear your take on this is as a profession
when we do like reported findings and re-examine reports and
just visit to visit with patients. You know, there's you've
heard it before. They'll remember not what you said, but
how you made them feel. And I mean, what part
of that do you think is like value for chiropractic
as a whole? As we communicate with patients, I.
S2 (04:11):
Think it's everything, but it's not just how they feel
in the moment. We have to future pace them. So
we we talk a lot about in our world with
100 year lifestyle, we have a formula called the Empire Formula.
It stands for your minimum potential years remaining. It's one
of our trademarks, and we put people in the future
and we get them to see, okay, so there's only
(04:31):
one thing worse than suffering. And that's suffering for 100 years.
And we don't have to say that because we brand
that and we brand that with having them fill out
exercises just really on the case history form, they just
fill in a couple of, you know, how old is
the oldest grandparent in your family that ever lived or
are still living? 91. How old are you? 51. Okay,
you could have 40 more years based on your own
family history. So here you are now at 41. What's
(04:55):
it going to be like down the road? And that's
a ten minute conversation. Unless you give them something to
do that sticks and then it never leaves them. So
if they figure it out for themselves, they're driving down
the road. They pass one of a thousand assisted living
centers every mile in this town. I mean, they're everywhere.
And they look over and they see an ambulance like,
(05:15):
oh my God, I don't want to be like that.
Grandma's 87. I don't want to be like that. Maybe
I need to do things differently. Maybe I need to
live differently. Maybe I need to take different responsibility. And
even if they don't get it in the moment, in
that moment, every time they go into the grocery store
and it's Senior Citizens Day, they'll be reminded because it's
about them. It's not about what I want them to know.
(05:36):
It's about giving them information in a way that it
literally goes in their brain and it just keeps, keeps
spinning and circulating until they have to take care of it.
S1 (05:46):
I think what's interesting is, you know, I remember being
in practice, I mean, early on and just I would
go over with patients when I'd go over their exam results,
I'd be like, hey, you know, here's where we are,
and this is the progress you've made so far. And
you know, what I left out was the future. I
would always do past and present, and I'd skip the future.
And here's where we're going. And so, you know, early
on I realized that I got to do past we
(06:07):
got to go through present and then we got to
the future. Here's where we were, here's where we are
and here's where we're going. And that future pacing, I
think for chiropractors is something that is so key. But
you're right. Like not tying it to subluxation. I bet
a lot of chiropractors ask their patients why they came there.
I mean, a lot of them probably think they have
wellness practices. The reality is they probably have pain based clinics, actually. Right?
I mean, I.
S2 (06:26):
Mean, there's a lot of people that have patients that
come in, like, I'll give you an example. We had
a patient that came in and they were seeing another
chiropractor every three and a half weeks. I was like,
why three and a half weeks? Because that's when I
feel like I need it. And I said, so what
if you never felt like you needed it? It was like, wow.
I said, how would I do that? Well, if you
feel it at three and a half weeks, come at
(06:46):
two weeks and then you'll never feel it. Get off
the roller coaster. You'll never feel like you need it.
S1 (06:53):
So some of these nuggets. I really hope people are
kind of like jotting down some of these things and
how they're going to apply this, by the way, to
their practice. If you look back, I mean, I love
that concept, by the way. And by the way.
S2 (07:01):
Did you notice that was like a three second conversation?
That's what I mean by like your first statement, right?
Why why spend a lot of time educating things that
that they'll never remember when you can in split seconds
give things people, things they'll never forget.
S1 (07:14):
And I love that concept, though, of like how you
speak to your peers is gonna be different than how
you speak to like certain people in your patients. And
can you go back and think like, okay, here was
some of the transformations I noticed. Or here's actually some
of the communication. We also changed in that time that
maybe chiropractic could take with them and think, you know what?
I really do start changing my communication around how I
communicate to patients.
S2 (07:35):
Well, branding is a big deal. Yes. Okay. Branding is
a big deal because people will see you no matter
what you say. They will see your brand. So we
changed to and we our brand when we started training chiropractors.
And we've trained over 12,000 chiropractors. They've exorbitant growth over
the years. And so our brand at the time was
(07:55):
a public facing brand. Lkf lifetime care for everyone. And
we stood by that. We put all of our patient education.
We had lkf lifetime care for everyone on a lot
of the branding, and the doctors did fantastic with that
brand in their offices. But something changed for me when
we had a public like a newspaper or a magazine
or something called us up out of the blue one
(08:15):
day and they said, What's Doctor Pulaski? What's Lexie? And
I was like, what's what? It's like Lexie. It's your brand.
It's on your Lexie. And in years of teaching Lkf
lifetime care for everyone, I never once said Lexie. So
it took me five minutes to figure out what this
person was referring to, and she didn't know either. So
(08:37):
what I realized in that moment was, is that this
is a great vision, but not a great brand. Chiropractic
has a great vision right now, but not a great
brand out in the world and in the marketplace. So
we made a brand change and it was very interesting,
is when we shopped the book to originally in 2005,
(08:58):
to different publishing houses. One of the brands that we
wanted to use was the chiropractic lifestyle. And originally they
liked what we were doing. They liked the whole centenarian thing.
They liked the longevity thing. It was rare. It was
the future, right? They were really into that. But they
hated the chiropractic lifestyle because of our brand. When I
(09:19):
changed it from the from the chiropractic lifestyle to the
100 year lifestyle, we went from having no offers. We
thought we liked you. We thought we liked you to
a bidding war just by changing the brand. Same exact content.
So I think what's really important as as people are
in their practices and they're working hard every single day.
If you change your brand and you change like we
(09:42):
brand patient education 100 lifestyle, we brand it because it
changes the whole conversation. If you have a really strong brand,
everything that you spend a lot of time training on
might vanish if you change the branding. Yes, because people
will come and they'll ask different questions. They'll want it
differently for themselves. They'll be thinking in our case, they'll
long term for crisis care and lifestyle care and performance
(10:04):
based care. So branding has a lot. I know Life
University went through a brand changeover recently. So branding companies,
bigger companies, organizations, they put a lot of time and
energy into branding chiropractors don't. They spend a lot of
time visit to visit, to visit. So if you can
take a step back and look down at your practice
and the world for a little bit and start to
(10:26):
embrace a bigger vision, you might really see how simpler
things can be.
S1 (10:31):
This is I mean, you know, there's a group I'm
a part of called Entrepreneur Organization. I think we've talked
about that before where there's 150 people in there. Not
one's a chiropractor, a chiropractor in it, and it's people
that have reached a certain, you know, benchmark of revenue.
And it's all business people like within this group. And
what you are talking about right now is one of
the biggest principles that everybody talks about. And when I
(10:51):
started to hear that, we started to transform some of
the words in the language we speak in our office.
For example, you know, we have a dinner roll, right?
And we give patients dinner rolls throughout their visits in
the office. We labeled it. We started calling it a
spinal molding pillow. You know, it helps. It helps mold
your spine back to a normal shape. And so we
started changing the language of este table. You know, we
don't call it este tables. Of course. You know, massage
(11:13):
tables or whatever we decide to call it. We started
to transform the language in the office of all the
things we call kind of like, you know, subluxation. And
I've never heard that story, by the way. Like there
was many times I've heard you speak, that is a
great story, you know, and business story, I think for
a lot of people, you know, when you look back at,
I think a lot of people look at you as
a mentor for them, for chiropractic, for sure. And when
(11:33):
you think about your mentors, whether in chiropractic or in business,
who have been some that you've had, but then I'd
love to know, who do you look up to right now?
Who are you listening to? What books are you reading?
What's on your mind?
S2 (11:46):
Great question. I have been blessed with incredible mentors. I mean,
I grew up my first chiropractor was Ernie Landy, a
fantastic mentor. He was a servant leader. He was, um,
very grounded philosophically. He was a lover. He just he
treated me like a son in so many ways and
just meant so much to me. I would put him
at the top of the list. Uh, his practice was
(12:08):
a practice that he took over from Reggie Gold, who
was also a mentor, grounded in philosophy. A lot of volume,
a lot of people, you know, if you're not going
to change the world, everything else is Mickey Mouse. Like,
these are my mentors, right? And then Joe. Felicia. Uh, strategically. Joe. Felicia.
Felicia was a mentor. As a strategist. He was a
(12:28):
brilliant strategist. And so he taught me a lot about
public speaking and strategy and about anchors and about branding
and repositioning in people's minds. And we spent hours. I
had him at my office for 48 hours. We, Lisa
literally would come by and slip food under the door.
It was amazing experience. And then Alex Cox clinically from
(12:50):
a gonstead clinic perspective. And so great mentors and they
were all purpose driven. They all had long meaningful careers
that were relevant. So I never got in this game
for a short term quick fix just to make a
buck or whatever. It was, always from that purpose driven perspective.
And when you say today, so I'm 39 years in
(13:13):
practice almost, I am, you know, been married for 36 years,
and I'm 61 years old with a family history of
heart disease, cancer, thyroid disease and dementia. And my brothers,
who are also chiropractors, 59 and 57 years old, had
a family history of heart disease, cancer, thyroid disease and dementia.
We have all lived differently. We have lived this 100
(13:35):
year lifestyle, this chiropractic lifestyle, and none of us have
any of those conditions. We are not on any medication.
We are. Time has taught us that we are doing
the right things, that these principles are sound, that we
have not followed the status quo. I do not have
a medicine chest in my home. I have a bathroom cabinet.
You'll love the extra space. Try it. And so when
(13:56):
you understand that. And here. So who is my mentor now?
Right now our vision is our mentor. And the people
in the world that we are just about to come
out with. 100 year lifestyle. Third edition. The first edition
came out in 2007, became an international bestseller, and the
world is aligning behind our ideas because we have stayed true.
It is the single best time to be a chiropractor.
(14:18):
And if you can look at the world and the
state of the world, and you're grounded and you have
experience and you trust yourself and you trust our foundational
roots as an industry, you will realize that the world
will teach you what you need to know if you're
purpose driven or you get mentors where mentors for some,
you're mentors for some. There's so many great people that
you could learn from. But right now the world is
(14:39):
teaching us who we need to be. Joe Felicia said something.
He's still one of my probably my biggest mentors, even
though he's passed a while ago. But he said, Eric,
he said it like this. Eric, never forget chiropractic never changes,
but the world changes. So you have to always communicate
chiropractic in a way that the world gets it. And
(15:03):
so Joe, Felicia is with me every day and between
that and the world and, you know, honestly, my my family,
my wife putting up with me, she keeps me balanced.
We just got back from Italy, and now we're digging
in to get this next book done and out there,
and it'll be out before fall, before Life Vision extravaganza
in September. And so, so the world needs us now
(15:24):
more than ever, man. The world is in desperate need
of chiropractic care more than ever.
S1 (15:28):
You know, what it also needs is, and I hope
a lot of people hear this in your voice is, um,
you speak with a lot of conviction, right? And a
lot of belief. I mean, you're your mentor is your
vision right now. And the people of lives you're going
to transform. And I think that's that's really powerful. And
I think in your clinic as a chiropractor. People can
read past your limiting beliefs and they can read past
(15:49):
the mindset. And if you have conviction, a belief of
chiropractic doesn't matter what you say in that room. Yeah.
S2 (15:55):
It's true. But let me say something because I don't
want people to misinterpret, especially if you're young in practice
and new in this game. Here's what's really important. It's
not about arriving somewhere. It's about the journey. I'm still
on a journey. So when you commit to the journey
that you and I are talking about here today, there's
an audience for you. There's an audience for you. Based
on wherever you are in your journey, there's an audience
(16:17):
for you that's ten times larger than your current practice.
So don't you know, say, I got to work on
myself and then I'll do that. No, no, no, you're
a big boy and a big girl. You can do
two things at once. So commit to the journey, and
you will start to attract the people that are perfect
for your practice. You are perfect for them and the
(16:40):
exact phase of the journey that you're on. I know it's.
S1 (16:43):
Going to be hard and there's going to be speed
bumps along the way, right? I tell all my doctors,
that is when it starts to get hard. To me,
you're right at a breakthrough that's about to happen, and
you got to push through that. If, uh, you know,
if you go back to 1985, when Eric was walking
across that stage getting his diploma from Sid Williams, probably. Yeah. Um,
and the 2024 version was on the other side of
(17:04):
that stage. What advice would you give to that 1985
Eric Plaster? Um, today I.
S2 (17:12):
Would tell that young red, afro headed dude. I would say, Eric,
stay true, stay true. Because one day, if you stick
around long enough, the world will align behind your ideas
and the ideas that you stand for in chiropractic. And
(17:32):
you just have to stay true. You're going to get
attacked along the way. People are going to say no.
People are going to put you down. They're going to
criticize you in all kinds of ways. Just stay true
and trust the journey. And what is amazing now. And
I'm really just in the last couple of years able
to say this because we have never wavered in 39
(17:56):
years of practice. We have never wavered. Our first positioning
statement in 1985 was raising healthy families without drugs and surgery.
And then when we started teaching chiropractors in the world,
it was family wellness, global impact. Then it was lifetime
care for everyone, and now we're getting everybody to live
their 100 year lifestyle 100%. For 100 years, we have
never wavered from our journey. So I would tell all
(18:18):
of you young people and people that are maybe stuck
or wanting to thrive in practice and get to that
next level. Stay true. You're almost on the other side
and the world is finally aligned or aligning, I should say,
with our ideas. Man.
S1 (18:34):
This is a the most nuggets I've heard in about
18 minutes. I'm grateful to be able to to talk
to you about this, because some of these stories I
haven't heard before and I've, I've known you for a
long time, 20 years now. Which is crazy to think.
S2 (18:44):
Well, you've only heard, like 20 years worth of stories. Yeah.
S1 (18:47):
I'm getting the other 20 years. And you're right. I
think it's interesting. It's a lot of these young chiropractors
can hear you now, but, you know, I think like
hearing that story, for example, like the McPhee one. Right? Like,
that is such a great story of, like, just something
you had to go through that was a challenge you
had to go through to, and.
S2 (19:03):
It cost a couple of million dollars to make that
brand changeover.
S1 (19:05):
Investment. Yes. Investment. Well, once again, thank you so much
for doing this. I mean, you've been a mentor to
a lot of people, myself included, of course. And I
really appreciate you doing this today with us on season
one of Thriving Cairo. So thank you.
S2 (19:17):
Well, it's an honor any time. And thanks for all
that you're doing for life University and for our profession.
I appreciate.
S1 (19:23):
You. And this is thriving Cairo's. We are signing off.
Thanks to Doctor Eric Plaster for once again helping mentor
the profession and keep this profession alive. Chiropractic has got
a great vision as he said, so let's keep it going.
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