What If Your Niche Is Who You Live As

Full transcript

What's up everyone? Welcome to the Anthony Eamon Show. Today we got a wonderful guest on someone I had the privilege of meeting a while ago. And then we kind of just slowly connected through. You have a local business that's about half a mile to a mile away from my Centerberg location. I know that you're into helping people. You're always you're the kind of person that always comes in with new ideas.

I appreciate that.

It's always just something else, something new, something exciting. But so people have a true understanding of who you are. What got you into the health and wellness space to begin with?

Yeah, so I, you know, growing up, I'm Shane Wend, by the way, owner of Wend Wellness LLC, Wend Wellness Chiropractic, Medical Massage, Acupuncture. We do a myriad of things involved in health and wellness. I formulated a supplement that gives you energy and mental clarity that lasts throughout the day. It's called Super U, Super in the letter U. We could talk all about it, but that's not why we're here today. So we're not going to sit here and talk about that. But uh my story getting into health and wellness is pretty interesting. So, you know, a lot of people work out because they hate themselves. A lot of people work out because they love themselves. At this point in my life, you know, I work out because I love myself. I work out because I want to see what my body can do. I want to maximize my potential that, you know, God has given me. And it's not a religious thing per se, whatever God is, but I was given this. Let's make it do the most that it can do, and let's make it feel the best that it can feel, so that I can give the most that I can give to other people, right? And if you don't do that for yourself, you can't give anybody anything, I think. Of course.

Where does that come from?

So where this all started, yeah. So where this all started, I'm just given the premise of my mindset and how this kind of formed, right? So when I was a kid, I played sports and I was always a natural athlete. You know, I'm thankful, I'm thankful for that. I picked things up pretty quick. But I was a little bit chubby. I was 10 years old. We were sitting at the ground round, and you know, to that day I was the French Fry King. I would eat all the French fries, right? Anybody had leftovers, they would pass them down. And, you know, to this day, people will give me their leftovers, but I'm more interested in wild-caught salmon and chicken, no antibiotic, no hormone. So back then I was, you know, just a just a kid. I didn't know anything about nutrition. And like I said, I was active, but I had a little chub. And I remember I had my chicken fingers and French fries there, and my pop-pop, who was an absolute stud, man. I mean, he looked like Sean Connery. People mistook him for Sean Connery actually on vacation. Uh, you know, people would ask him for his autograph. He would just sign it. Like the guy was just a stud, is the point. So you respected his opinion, right? Not to mention your little kid. Said, Shane's looking a little chubby. So I put my head down and I was upset. I was just 10, you know, I was in fifth grade. And uh, so then I went home and I looked in the mirror and I grabbed the fat on my stomach. And again, I wasn't really fat, but I had enough chub that I could grab it, right? Called them the jelly rolls back then. And I grabbed the jelly rolls and I thought, what if I just cut it off? So I could just go, I could get a knife and I could just cut it off. And immediately I was like, even at 10, that's a terrible, obviously, I'm never gonna do that. So we're gonna find another option. So what if I can make it on fire, heat it up, and make it burn? I don't know anything about exercise or this and that. I just know that when I move in sports, I feel it and I get tired sometimes. So I said, let's make it tired and let's make it, you know, work. So I didn't know any. So I got on the ground, I started moving around. This is the truth, it's crazy. I said this is how it all started. I started moving around. And, you know, at first I was like moving to the side, I would feel, and then I I pretty much I found a crunch, I found a sit-up, right? So I was like, oh, this is good. Like I feel this, and I just kept going and going and going and going and going. And I couldn't do any more. So then I just kept going and got rested, and then I would go. I did it till I couldn't do one of them, right? So the next day I'm in fifth grade, I remember in Catholic school, man. I'm I'm walking in my in my nice little red sweater and and I'm bent over. Like I'm so sore. I can't, I'm like, oh my God, like what, you know, you know, I I can't believe that I feel like this. Like this, you know, it had to do something. So you could look at it two ways there. You could say, oh my gosh, this is, you know, something that did a lot of damage, or I thought it did something. I didn't know what it did, but I said it it's where I want to feel it and what I want to lose. So I'm gonna go do it again. So I went home and I did it again, and I just did as many as I could. I could barely do any that day because I was, you know, really sore. We didn't know about, you know, muscle recovery and delayed onset muscle soreness, and we didn't know betaine reduced acidity and muscles and creatine for recovery and all these things. But I just kept doing it every day, right? So then uh with no equipment at what was I? I was 11 years old the next year in sixth grade. I had a six-pack, right? So then after that, I got really into it and I said, uh, let me just develop the rest of my body. So I was doing, you know, my bicep curls, and the way I would do them is I would sit there in the chair and I would overly flex the wrist, and I was really working the forearms more than anything. I had jacked forearms and my biceps weren't growing as much, you know. But I could do that with, you know, a 40-pound weight by the time I was, you know, 13, I think it was. I was doing the 30 behind my head a hundred times, tricep extension. That's all I would do. I would do curls, tricep extension. I went to my buddy's house and he's like, Oh, I have a Smith machine, I have a bench. I had never done push-ups or anything like that. I did ABs and I did this and I had the dumbbells, and I couldn't do 135. I'll never forget. It sat on my chest and I was, you know, and then he helped me lift it up. And when it got to here, it was like because my tricep, you know, my tries and my shows. But anyway, the whole point is that's how it started. And then uh let's see what else. My mom, she was so healthy and always getting organic food. I mean, everything, you know, eating lentil soup and this and that. And we thought she was crazy as a kid, and and you know, then we realized as we grew, this this works, this makes you feel good. It feels good to look good, it feels good to eat well, and it feels good, you know, to be able to perform your best. It helped a lot too because I had some natural talent in sports, but when I started working out like that, I saw myself excelling.

I need to stop here and ask a question. Why at 10, 11 years old did you gain the ability to hyperfocus on doing something over and over again every single day?

I wanted to do it.

But why?

Because I didn't want to have the fat.

And you just assumed if you worked at something every single day, they would eventually get better. Where most people would do that and they would just fail. So, what was the difference between?

I knew that it was good because it was hard. And I knew that it was good because it was hard focused in the exact area I had no idea why. Okay, so that I wanted to do it, and I said, I'll keep doing this, and just it's gotta be a good sort of pain that I'm gonna do.

So, why did you seek out hard? Where does that stem from?

I see that's a great question. So I I seeked hard because, you know, I was brought up by a father who did who did tree work, and it was always, you know, everything was was difficult. Anything that brought real fruit, right? And I assume to earn something you had to work hard. That was an assumption, and I'm thankful that I gained that assumption at at a young age, you know?

So your father when I would do tree work helped you realize.

That's one thing I would say. So that's one thing. So when I I'll tell you a couple others, but uh yeah, I would say of just thinking about it, right? Because I guess I never really thought about where this truly came from and why I wanted to work hard in the first place. You know, is the some of that innate to us, right? Uh genetically to to want to just work hard and and do your best at things? I don't know, right? I'm sure a decent amount of it. Natural-born leaders and this and that, not that I'm saying that that's the case. Uh, but I saw, you know, to earn real fruit takes hard work. And when I would do tree work with him or I would split wood, I couldn't just split wood for I was splitting wood at eight years old. I couldn't just go and, you know, split some wood and then stop. I had to finish all the wood. That's how much wood is here. You're gonna, he wouldn't give me a ridiculous amount. I was an eight-year-old kid, but he would give me a few logs, you know. So I, you know, if I was working for him for a day and I was dragging brush and this and that, you know, nine years old, whatever it was, and again, you know, it would be reasonable, but I had to constantly be doing it. I couldn't sit there, we didn't even have cell phones on, but I can't imagine what would have happened if I took some of I assume that when you dive into something, you just do it and you just go all in on it, and that's how good things happen, right? I don't know subconsciously how else I would have really developed that because you know, my mom, I mean, she didn't work, yeah. She uh she was consistent, I would say, if we speak to consistency here. She was consistent in how healthy she was. Uh, not just, you know, nutritionally, but uh lifestyle-wise, praying every day and this and that. Her routine was very strong, right? My father's routine was very strong of going to work all day, coming home and you know, eating a half gallon of ice cream when he got home because he had a hard day, you know, or eating whatever's left over the baked Z because I would eat half the tray. But uh yeah, man, I would say, I would say that's probably where a lot of that came from. I also experienced success at a young age. And I think that drove me to, you know, see that if I work hard, good things are gonna happen. So when I was a kid playing soccer and I was I was excelling, I think that's one reason it's important to experience success at a young age and you know, to roll that snowball that is your child down a path where they pick up based on their natural affinities, things where they're gonna succeed in. And because you get hungry for that, you taste that feeling, you get hungry for that, and it tells you, all right, I can do anything. I can do anything, I can go pick this up easy. I want to lose this fat, I can do it. I just have to be doing something that's directed towards doing that and do it consistently.

So if you have a kid that fails, are you gonna beat him?

No, but let's say a kid fails. What are you telling me?

Your kid misses a goal. What's what do you do as a parent?

Yeah, I'll tell him what went wrong. And and I'll ask him why he thought that happened, you know, and I'll say sometimes that happens. You just gotta train harder the next time, you gotta get better, and that's it. If you really care to not miss another one, then go home and you know, practice shooting a lot of goals. And not tomorrow, not the next day. Do it right now. You really care about it, do it right now. Go go hit a couple, and you know what, you're gonna feel good knowing you're doing something that's working towards your goals, even though upon intended, I guess you're not there.

So should you go to that kid that let's say lost and missed the game-winning shot, he just missed it, and say, Oh, it's okay, you'll get him next time?

Uh no, I would let uh I mean, if it was my son or someone else's kid. My son, I would say, uh, I well, I would probably use common sense at the time to cater towards his emotions in a reasonable manner. It depends. If he was really beat up about it, or if he was like, ah, shoot, you know, I should that could be a little harder on him, you know what I mean? Uh, would I be a Nazi at that moment? No. What I would do is I would probably try to encourage him to find it in him to want to work hard to do it. Get him to realize it's a good idea to want to do it. And if he doesn't really want to do it and he doesn't want to put work in to go get better and to do it, then he just shouldn't worry about it.

And then what would your father do if you have a same situation? Would he do the same thing to you as a kid?

What he would tell me, he would say, depends how old I was. But more likely than not, I would say, probably from like, I don't know, middle s middle school onward, he would say, uh, oh, you could have made that. No, you should have. Come home with your math test, you get a 96, what'd you get wrong? He'd say, What'd you get wrong? It was expected, he's 100% German, to do they're like that, to do well, stereotype, to do what's true, to do really well, right? It's expected. The bar, that's the bar. Anything less, and the thing was, I would I wouldn't be upset if he said that. I would just say, Yeah, well, I guess I got this wrong. But then after he would say, All right, good job. He would say, good job. He wouldn't say, you know, you know, but the first thing he would say is, Yeah, basically, how could you do it better?

And uh, yeah, I mean that's I want to point something out. You described two different scenarios about how you would do to your kid.

And what my dad did to me. And what your dad did to you.

In the same breath previous to the story, you mentioned what pushed you to success was being a 10, 11, 12-year-old, constantly doing things that's a failure, and repeating it over and over and over and over again. That's something you did because of the way your father taught and still those groundings to you.

And because of what's innate to my genetics, yeah. Which he contributes.

You would never be the person you are today. Of course. Because you would never push yourself to learn, never push yourself to grow. Because you never got instilled those values. So my question would be: don't you think on seeing that from a standpoint that I should do that to my son? You should do that to your son.

He did a good job, but you could do better. So how would you do that? I do a good job and I could do better in everything. Of course. And that's it. So you look at it and you say, let's take the, you know, let's take the good from both of my parents, right? So, you know, my I could tell you some funny stuff. But just, you know, to speak to how my dad is, he's very blunt, right? For the most part. My mom, she'll make a lifelong friend on the store at the grocery, you know, grocery store online that talk about how many grandkids they have. It's like, I don't, you know, whatever. But uh, she's like a butterfly floating through this world, right? But she's a doorman. She gets walked all over. My dad, we go into subway. I was just, you know, quick little thing. We were doing tree work, and then I went there for lunch. I was probably 12. And uh I said, Hey, can I get double meat? He said, How much is double meat? I said, $2 extra. He said, All right, double meat. So I said, all right, double chicken, blah, blah, blah. We get to the end, and he said, It was a $5 foot long. He said, It's gonna be, it was like $12 or $13. And he said, What are you talking about? It's $2 for extra meat. He said, Well, it's not a regular foot long anymore. When you had dubbed meat, he said, You eat it, right? So that's how my dad was. Like he would say, you know, kids like, I'm 15, like, I don't own this place. I don't give a shit. I'm just gonna throw it out. Like, I don't freaking care, you know. But it was just funny, the kid's like, what is this guy? No one's ever told me to let it, you know, but he'll tell you to that f off right away, right? And uh he takes not an ounce of shit. My mom takes all the shit. So they were they were a good match. But to be able to, you know, be hard on him in the way that my dad was with me, but also encourage him to find it from within himself, you know, in in in uh, you know, the manner of catering to who he is in the unique sense and you know what speaks to him and how to talk to him, right? You know, my dad is a big take it or leave it. I mean, he's just gonna tell you what he thinks, and that's that's all that exists, you know. So it worked out well with me, you know, but maybe with another type of kid that wouldn't work out as well. And I don't know the type of kid that this kid's gonna be. I don't, you know, maybe uh, you know, I got a little Costa Rican girlfriend. He might be a little, you know, on that, I don't know what he's gonna be like, but hopefully uh I can take the best of both worlds, right? And and encourage him and and motivate him to motivate himself, right? So he was he was he was more directly motivating me by saying this is this is our standard as people, and this is what we do, and I love that, and I'll do that. But I'll say this is this is our standard as people because you deserve this. You you should have a high standard because you're great at X, Y, and Z, and you deserve to excel. So you deserve to go in the back and shoot at the net because you know you could be the best kid, right, on the field. Whereas, you know, yeah, my dad would just tell me now it was, right? So I hope that somewhat answers the question. That's you know it does.

It helps it helps draw some lines together. And I it goes with that saying, your dad stood by his ideals and values.

Yeah.

Right? He you mentioned before he was himself.

Yeah.

He was authentic.

Yeah, you don't know anything else. Yeah.

So being able to have those ideals and values, and would you assume that your dad played the protection role with your mom and was because you said she was a doormat, right?

So he was the sweetest lady in the world, lover. Yeah.

But he had to play that role to protect his wife in front of people. He said, No, this is the way it is. Yes. And that's something you picked up from that.

Her socially, she was was great. You know, he is a super intelligent guy, but you know, socially she was uh superior in the sense of you know being able to talk to anybody. Right? She could get on anyone's level. And I think that's important. And if we segue this into business somehow, right? 90% of business is your ability to communicate with people. Doesn't matter what the hell you do, you got to get on their level, their wavelength, see what's important to them, and you know what? Know your product, whether it's you or what you're selling, and you don't have to sell it because it just works and it just is what it is, and get them to understand, based on how they are, why it's good for them. They will tell you that. You're not telling them that. So where did the She was good at relating to people? He was good technically at telling you what went wrong, and this is what you should do. And if you can combine the two, make for a nice synergy.

Agreed. I think it's a combination of the both. I guess the real question is what made you open up your own place? Like what projected you to say, you know what, I don't have this risk aversion thing, I'm hopping dead first into it.

Be fearless. Why? I love I love the quote: be fearless and shock yourself frequently, right? And that and I try to apply that to life. But in this regard, the simple, I mean, reason that I was making X amount per day, and I knew that if I dove in, I'm seeing 50 people at blocks, sports, chiropractic, physical therapy every day, right? So I'm building their business. I asked them for a raise. I asked them for a raise that was uh, you know, nothing ridiculous. I, you know, uh really relatively minuscule amount on top. I would think to him as big as the business was. Obviously, it wasn't to me, and that's yeah, I asked for a raise. But uh they said no. They said no, not because it wasn't good. I mean, I the patients loved me. It was because uh then they would have to give this other kid a raise who's been there a little longer than me, and then they they got 50 employees. So he said, Look, I gotta explain to you now, I gotta give him and her and him and him. So before you know, it's gonna cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, you know. And I so I said, that's fine. So then I'll just, you know, go do it myself. He said, This is a line in the sand. I said, Absolutely, we have a great relationship to this day, me and Jeff. He's a great guy. Uh, but uh, actually saw him at a wedding recently. But um, you know, I said, I know my worth and I know that I can do this very well on my own. I know I have some headaches in the beginning, I'm gonna have to figure out, but I'll be able to figure them out because I had confidence in my ability to figure out and encounter any unique situation and get through it and be able to just conquer it. And I knew if I had to research something to figure it out, I would research something to figure it out. And whatever I had to do, I knew it'd be a struggle. You know, I didn't necessarily stand on the shoulders of giants as well as I probably could have and learn as much as I should have, you know, before I went into it. I just dove in. But, you know, it was also calculated. I was I was doing coverage work for other Kairos while I was doing it until I got busy enough to just focus on my place. So uh, you know, I I had that I had that cash flow at least, right? Because I knew a lack of cash flow would obviously be a big problem. I got a place, the overhead wasn't wasn't huge, 579 feet, you know, got a got a pretty good deal on it. And uh, you know, I said, look, I'm gonna live at home and I'm not gonna pay rent somewhere else. I'm gonna save as much as I can, I'm not gonna buy any bullshit, buy food, I'm just gonna put it all back in the business and you know, just work to get patience.

And there's a lot to unpack in that. I think I don't know if you know this. We have Jeff on the show.

I love Jeff.

We had a nice hour episode with him a couple months back.

Yeah. And I have no problem with him. No, he knows we both know.

No, I think it's something so interesting because what something he said on the show stands out from the conversation you had with him. He talked about how when he first started his company, he had to figure out his own worth. And he would go market to everybody inside the community, showcase his value, get involved, and show people that he's worth the price that he was charging in order to build his company. Right now, I think this happens to a lot of a lot of owners, business owners. Because transparently, it happened to me for the first few years. We have that understanding of our own self-wise, which is why we open a business in the first place. Like I know my worth, I know what I can get out of this.

Right.

But then we open our business and we start hiring people, and then we fall into the trap of making employees' friends. And we start looking at the company as a family as opposed to a professional sports team. Uh-huh. And now what happens is my A players, you for example, being there, right? You're bringing an XYZ, you're doing a lot more than everyone else. I start doing a disservice by forcing you at the door because I tell someone like you, I can't give you raise to everyone else a raise. But that's not how you do business. You don't give people a raise just because they've been with you for a certain period of time. You give people a raise for those that are performance. Performance. I don't care if you're with me for six weeks or six months or six years. Of course. I'm giving you to a performance-based manner.

The best is the best.

I don't care if you get paid double what the other employee at the same job gets paid if you're doing double the performance.

Right.

We lose that sense as a business owner. It's a good reminder that when you go ahead and try to friend all your employees and start treating everyone equally, you're going to end up in a situation that's going to shoot yourself in the foot and you're going to lose your best aid players and you lose your opportunity to expand.

You have to take care of the people that do a good job because they're hard to find.

So how do you think that's the same?

Sometimes you can give them a little gold, a little, you know, carrot to keep them. Even from a manipulative standpoint as a business owner. Not that I necessarily do that. Probably be wise to, right?

So how do you treat your employees?

Very, very, very well.

So what do you differentiate your pay if you're in the same position?

Would I differentiate the pay? Do you? Oh no. Well, I don't have any two people that are the same position yet. I've only been there for two years. So I have a medical massage therapist who I pay very well. I pay her better than you know any other place she works at, really. But that's because she's very good, and I had a medical massage therapist before her, and it's what you're saying. I realized her value. So an extra $10 a session, I know that it adds up, but I'm getting paid beforehand anyway. It's not like I'm just paying her and, you know, losing money right there. It's worth keeping her. Because when I have the volume later and this and that, you know, my uh, you know, it's actually interesting. I I hired, and then there's something else I want to say about the whole thing with Jeff, because uh, you know, for him, it didn't matter how good I was, and I'll tell you why I think that. Uh, but I hired my my office manager, my secretary, uh, Linda, who's the sweetest lady in the world, you know, a 74-year-old woman that knows not much at all about computers and you know, knew nothing about chiropractic and this and that. She's actually a patient, right? And she's she was working for a law firm, and then they uh, you know, they they went under, so she had to uh find a new job and it was perfect timing. She said, I'll come and all, you know, she said, Well, I'll come in if you just treat me for free. And I said, No, then I'm gonna pay you. Like you give me, you know, and uh, which I never think that works, by the way. Not paying someone for what you got, they there's gotta be skin in the game. Or it doesn't, they don't value it, nobody values anything, it's all screwed up, then you gotta do favors left and right, it's just bullshit. You need to stay, avoid that. It's a nightmare. So I never do that, right? Because uh I respect the person enough that I want them to get the results that they want to get, they have to pay me for it, or else they won't get anything out of it. I've written nutrition consults for free for people, the friends, they don't do it. Someone pays me this amount, whatever. I hired her because she was a good human being, right? I hired her because of her principles, and I understand. I'll always take the athlete, not the soccer player. He can learn to play soccer. He's a phenomenal athlete. Give me, give me LeBron James, I'll teach him to play pickleball. He'd be the best player in the country in a year. You know, like it's just, you know, that's that's how I look at it too with uh employees, right? Different if you had to go to school and have a specific trade. I'm not gonna hire a chiropractor that doesn't know anything about the spying because he's a really good dude, right? That's obviously different. But when it comes to desk work and when it comes to, you know, things of that nature, I've, you know, an aide that's putting on ice packs or this and that, I care about the principal, uh, you know, his principles and uh, you know, his, his, his sort of character, right? So when I was with Jeff, that didn't matter. The reason that didn't matter is because, you know, his business model is, you know, he needs hands. He needs hands. If you have good enough hands to deliver an adjustment and the person will not be pissed off enough to not come back when they have no copay and they're in no fault case, that's all he needs. And it doesn't take much, right? So whether you're phenomenal or you're pretty good, as long as you're not awful, he doesn't care. And worst case scenario, what's gonna happen? He's gonna pick up, hire another. It could be a revolving door, right? It doesn't matter as much for him. And I don't want to speak, I don't know what's going on inside his mind, obviously, but from an outside perspective, that would make some sense. And it makes sense with what happened to me, right? And he knows he's the one that's growing the business. He's the one who's marketing to the lawyers, and he's and he doesn't just do no fault. And Jeff, by the way, is a great chiropractor. He's, you know, I don't have to say all this good shit about you, Jeff. If you watch this, you know it's true. And we're good friends. But uh, it is what it is, right? So he needed, he needed me or someone else to be able to be there with the other two chiropractors on staff to see X amount of people in a day. The people are happy enough. And if I have to pay this kid more, it's no longer worth it. Everyone's replaceable. Maybe not everyone. He has certain employees I guarantee you he would not be like that with if they had that same conversation because they're an integral component of his business. Like the kid he has, you know, managing the three offices. This kid's ridiculous. Like he's unbelievable. I wish I had a mic, he's incredible. They gotta buy me a mic. But uh, yeah, you know, I think I think for him it was different, but I definitely agree with with you know placing value in the people that are really good, taking care of them, giving them a little bit extra, and uh, you know, also because they deserve that, and somebody else will figure out that they deserve that, right? Yeah.

Agree. Right? But it's also taking accountability for how your staff operates, runs, taking accountability to understand what you're paying someone is how you keep them. Right? So it's whether that you can pay someone 10% more to get 10 times the output. Why is it not worth it? Right. That's how you're gonna keep and leverage the people that are around.

I wanna I wanna talk about free red light therapy, free shockwave, right? Things like that. Yeah, okay.

So one of the things I I mentioned when we first opened, which I find so intriguing because there's two different mindsets around this. I definitely could form into one of them, but I wanted I wanted your opinion about this. The mindsets are you can own multiple businesses, do multiple facets, and as long as you're a generalist and have a good understanding, you can be successful and make money. The hermosy slash the mindset that I started conforming to, niche down, then keep niching, niche even more, and niche to the point you're down to one or two services, and then perfect them. And make yourself the all the authority of that. Where do you fit?

Don't fear the man who's done 10,000 kicks, fear the man who's done one kick 10,000 times. That is definitely probably the better thing to do most of the time with how much competition there is out there that does a broad base of things, right? How many gyms are out there that don't have that unique niche. I think it depends on the industry you're into to some degree, right? Um, you know, for me, it bodes well to expand beyond chiropractic. Like, like, yeah, go into chiropractic, be the best chiropractor you can be, be better than all the other chiropractors. That's an obvious first thought. But I'm limited by what I can bill for insurance, and I'm limited by the other, you know, amenities I can offer patients to improve their health and you know, cater to you know better better outcomes for them, right? Why? So if I can offer them, why am I limited?

Why do you say you're limited? I don't think you're limited.

Well, you well, I can't reduce inflammation as much as a medical-grade red light therapy device. I can break up scar tissue with certain things. I can't, you know, promote the growth of new fibroblasting growth factors like the shockwave machine can, right? I could I do soft tissue? I could do medical massage, but how long is my treatment going to be? So it may not be necessarily that I'm limited in my skill as a chiropractor to be able to deliver some of those things. I am in certain ones. You know, I can't give them smooth energy and mental clarity that lasts throughout the day to the same degree that if they took super U every day, right? Now I can improve their cognitive function and I can reduce inflammation to some degree, right? Of course, with an adjustment, loosen muscles that attach to the spine, take pressure off the nerves that travel, and we could talk all about it, mobility and posture and all that stuff. And it's all great stuff. But once you get to a certain level on that, never stop getting better. Always happy, never satisfied, right? I'm sure you can speak to that too. Uh, but you know, also also incorporate, you know, more tools as to how to improve what your initial goal is in the first place. And my goal is to improve the health and lives of as many people as I can. So if that's my goal, and I can offer them other things that will help me to do that, right? Even if I could do good soft tissue work and I can do a lot of myofascia release, I do a lot of pin and stretch, I do a lot of active release technique, you know, ART and all this and that, uh, I don't have the time to sit a patient for an hour massage for myself, nor can I build the insurance like that. So insurance changes a few things here. It definitely does. Uh if it were cash, maybe it's a little different. And I could, you know, just charge X amount and, you know, I I wouldn't have to worry about the fact that Nightship will pay you $300 for a massage, but I send them to Vicky and they will. And Vicky specializes in that. She's the 10,000 times single kick of massage. My acupuncturist is the 10,000 times single kick of acupuncture. So if you have a collection of experts, right, just like you have a collection of experts in personal training, right? You're not training everybody at this point. Maybe nobody. I mean, you run the bit, you know. So I'm sure at first you were, right? But uh, you know, if you're surrounded by experts, that's also very helpful, and you can offer more things. But you're not surrounded by quote-unquote experts that have many different specialties. No, they're really good at one thing and they crush that one thing. Then you can offer five things, and each of them is, you know, top tier.

Yes or no? And this is where I'm gonna combat you on this because I think this is so interesting. Modalities and niche are two separate things. You can have multiple modalities, is what you're talking about. You can have chiropractic, you can have massage, you can have this. But who who's who are you speaking to? Who's your audience? Right. So if I ask you, Sheen, right now, who describe- I thought you meant the niche and what I will practice myself.

It's it's the business full. It's the niche of the niche of the practice.

Who is your target audience?

Yeah, right.

Who is it? Explain that person to me.

Anybody that wants to improve their health, you know, their wellness, uh, anybody that wants to move better, that wants to, I always say three parameters we like to affect. I have to do a lot of work on one of them, but nobody wants to be in pain. Everybody wants to look better, and everybody wants to move well enough to do the things that they want to do. That's undeniable. I don't think anybody could really tell me that they want to be in pain, they want to look like shit, and they don't want to move around to do what they want, right? At the end of the day, everybody wants to look how they want to look, they want to do what they want to do, they want to feel how they want to feel. So anybody who's looking for any of those things, right? Which is a lot of people, but then it's like, okay, let's narrow it down a little bit. Because, like you said before, you know, if we focus on too large of a demographic, maybe you don't hammer any single one. So then for me, it's more sports and performance related, is what it has come to, where I meet a lot of people in the gym. And this honestly kind of kind of fell into place, I'll say, because I started as a chiropractor and saying, oh, you know, anybody who's got neck and low back pain, right? Neck and low back pain. And now it's, you know, people that have epicondylitis, people that have partial thickness, rotator cuff tears they're recovering from, people that have, you know, all sorts of issues and epicondylosis. And that's what made me get into more into the shock wave. And that's what made me, you know, use these other modalities that were helping people in that niche. And I found, well, guess what? The best niche to focus on is the one that I live. The one that I live is nutrition, fitness, lifestyle optimization. So that's why I do nutrition consults. That's why I'm also a certified personal trainer. I'll do it every now and then. It's not really worth the money for me to drive to the gym and be going and doing that. But I enjoy doing it. But that's that's, I guess, if you were going to classify my niche as people that are interested in performing better, in looking better, and feeling better. All right. In terms of demographic, you know, age-wise, I mean, I I I treat a wide range, I would say. Most of them are middle-age. Most of them are probably middle-age. I get a few younger kids and this and that. Athletes, I like dealing with athletes. Um but yeah, I would say it's mostly middle-aged gym goers that uh are looking to add life to years, not purely looking for longevity, right? Yeah. So that's what I would say. It's a lot of the niche. Does that make sense as a niche? It's too broad.

I we work with people who the medical community wrote off. They need the caveat between the gym world, the physical therapy, people sit down, talk to them. Their ages are between 55 and 64. On top of that, they have to have a specific net worth of over $300,000 for an average household. They need to live between eight square miles at either of my location. They are looking for a done-for-you service that's done with you because we physically can't work out of people. And that means take care of every single aspect from their fitness to the nutrition to the accountability aspect of what they're looking for to get it all solved for them on a bigger level, done in a one-on-one premium service.

Right.

It's one specific person. The amount of people that fit this model are very slim, but it's very easy to talk to them. Like you have to you have to be in pain to want to come out. You have to be a certain age, you have to have a certain doesn't say we close our doors to everyone else, but that's that's our audience. That's what we're doing.

That's your bread and butter, yeah.

Like that's who we talk to, that's who we market. Now I have modalities fitness, nutrition, accountability, it's sound, it's infrared sauna, but no, no, no. The modality is that post-rehab, that's the modality.

Right.

That's my one specific audience I target. So everything I do make conforms to that.

Mm-hmm. It's a good point, yeah. Well, I mean, it is what you do, you know, beyond the point. But uh, yeah, I could, I could likely narrow it down a bit better. You know what it is? I'm an old-fashioned guy, man. I was the kid when they would say, you know, we got a rugby tournament, tell me when the van's leaving, I'm hopping in and I'll play well, but you know, I'm uh, you know, probably probably not the most organized at times, I guess, right? I'm trying to get better with that, but good with the hands, my patients get good results. I'm growing on word of mouth, and that's you know, but I could do a lot better.

Good like founder entrepreneur in the sense that you dive headfirst. You need to trust yourself and you have that trust. A lot of people don't even get that. Like it's I don't want to start a business, what if I don't make it? I don't want to start a business, I I don't know enough. I don't want to do this, I don't. You're the person that jumps off the cliffs and builds a parachute with the game.

Yeah, I'm never worried about what could go wrong. I'm excited for what will go right.

Exactly. You need you need that mindset, right? And this is what makes this game so hard of growing a business. The way to start is that mindset, right? And for the first few years, you get rewarded for that mindset bouncing around, you're making more, you're figuring out works, and you're going, blah, blah, blah. Then all of a sudden you hit a cap. And you're like, oh shit, I've done too much. Now I need to build systems, operations, I need to super narrow down who I'm talking to, and it's super narrow down my company. And it's so hard because I'm not like you. I wanted to jump into everything. I was doing everything. It's so hard to be like, oh man, I gotta cut. Yeah. And every year, instead of adding, I started cutting. I cut 16 programs last year. 16. I said, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Because there's too much of an operational load. I was confused. I'm explaining to a client what we do, and I'm like, I don't even get what the hell I do.

Right, right.

But if I offer one or two things and that's it, now it's so easy to explain. Now I can say this is what I do. And it's just that it's force yourself into that shit.

There just has to be enough of that demographic out there near you that want that service, and obviously you've established that there is.

There always is.

And right, and that could be argued. Sometimes maybe not, but I think I do, I do agree, I tend to agree with you here in that you could find it. So, yeah, so you, you know, at at first blush, right? It might seem like you don't have enough people in your community that that have a certain niche if you're uh trying to sell these, you know, fancy monkey wood cold plunges that are different than other ones, only to a certain demographic that wants to do that at this time of the day or whatever. But you can find it. You do enough research, you and you know, you do the right marketing and you appeal to who you want to appeal to, and you build that image and you live that image, and you are that image. Now, this is interesting. I wonder what you think about this. So, are you the image of who you market to?

Yes.

Right. You are the complete image of the demographic you market to.

Not 100%.

But you don't need to be.

I am not a person that can afford our services, but and I'm not the demographic of the age of that, and I've learned to understand and embrace that. But I found I found our client doing this, and it was the calling of the person I was working with that I said, that's who I want to help. I'm gonna build the company around them. Right. And that's what I did.

Right.

So it started with me, I catalyst it, right?

How could you not afford it if you know how good it is and the true value that it provides? You can afford anything you want to.

You're right in the sense, but I'm talking about back when I got hurt.

But you don't, but you do enough for yourself that you don't need it. You do it for yourself anyway.

Right. I don't need the extra support, the hands-on, I don't need the people pushing for. But if I was that client, I would be here in three seconds.

Right, exactly.

And I would spend any amount of money. Like my calling was a client I had when we s we opened a we're about two years in. He comes in on a scooter, he can barely sit upright. He's in his 40s, and his wife is like holding him up. And he was talking about how he went to physical therapy, nothing's working, he had a lapodectomy that went wrong in his lower back. They separated all the nerves in his back.

Oh my gosh.

The guy couldn't do like couldn't feel the whole toilet side of his body, couldn't have hip like that. Yeah, they screwed it up hardcore. It's crazy. And he's talking to me, he's like, Can you help me? Like, no one wants to help me. I was like, You're gonna walk. He goes, No, the doctor's telling me I can't walk. I don't give a fuck the doctor's telling me, you're walking. And I he got ignited. I was like, I'm gonna make this man walk. I'm gonna give this guy hope back. Three years. He started walking again. Isn't that a beautiful thing? And he was written off. Can't walk, never do it again. And you're you're talking to a 40-year-old guy who's talking about it who can't even wipe his own ass because his wife has to do it for him. Like, that is so disheartening. And I'm like, no, no, we're gonna make sure you can do that. We're gonna make sure you can take care of yourself, we're gonna make sure that you're not fully dependent on your wife. We're giving you your life back. That's what we did. And that motivated me. That's my client.

That's great. That's great. Whether you think you can or you can't, you're right. And isn't that true? I mean, really, 99.9% of the time, obviously we can't push over the Empire State Building, but a woman could lift a car off of her baby if she needed to, right? You do what you say you need to do. And I I I, you know, I don't think anyone needs anything really. Not that I don't think, it's true. Nobody needs anything. People need the things they tell themselves that they need, and they won't, aside from air and water and food and the obvious things and sleep. But uh, you know, you was you establish what you need and then you and then you get that and you establish the demographic that you need to help because that was so impactful on you, right? As it would be for me, and and you do it, right? So I guess, you know, for me, what's closest to that, it's like, you know, the wheels are turning. I'm kind of thinking about really what what really is my niche, right? And you know, it's health and wellness and this and that, but it has become middle-age, more particularly men, I would say. I'm almost, I'm almost an even split. I guess, I guess slightly more men, right, right, uh, that work out in the gym that have old nagging injuries. Oh, my shoulders bothering me. I can't quite, ah, I can't play softball no more. I can't, you know, but they're in there, they're lifted, they're doing front raises like this because they can't literally sort of, you know, and uh and those are people that I'm doing the pin and stretch, and it's like it beats my hands up. That's the problem with it. So I'm trying to diversify and also help that niche that I guess I figured is really what my niche is, right? Sitting here and talking out loud about it. Uh, but but you know, middle-aged people in the gym that, yeah, they have previous nagging injuries. They work out hard, but they could use some education as to how to do it. But they don't they know a little bit about nutrition, not quite enough. They don't know how to optimize hormone levels, they don't know how to uh uh, you know, anything about intermittent fasting, or they don't know why people would eat frequently or mTOR or AMP kinase pathways or anything like that. And I put it to them in plain English so that they understand what's going on and what they have to do based on what they want. And uh, you know, I guess that that's what it is. People that are looking to improve their performance and not be in pain. That uh it's kind of cool. You know, like as we're sitting here, like figuring this out, you know, that that I guess is is what it is. And you know what's funny? Naturally, naturally, that that had been, you know, that really had sorted itself out. I'm thinking the sand has really sifted through, right? Because since I started treating more people like that, that's why I got shockwave to help people like that. And I'm in the gym all the time. I live it. I am my product. They see that I'm in good shape. They're not gonna listen to somebody's not we could talk about that all day, obviously, be your product. Um, but I but I meet them in there, and by being the social being that, you know, my mom helped me to be, right? And the logical being that my dad helped me to be, I can relate to that person in the gym and tell them why this is gonna be good for them. Let me help you. You've been dealing with this for so long. I had a guy with this shoulder. You know how many times I'll find like a coracobrachialysis just like super fired up, or I'll, you know, they're they're just caught in internal rotation, this and that. And it's a lot of simple fixes for these people and things that they never even considered. And the guy's just pronated benching all day. And I'm like, have you ever done stuff that just like pulls you like this? You know, without even getting into anatomy or anything, and then you know, talking about external rotation, eyes, wise, TW, and all the stuff, you know, we would talk about, but uh serratus anterior all the time. But uh, you know, that's that's become the demographic because I I I live that fitness lifestyle. I live that nutrition lifestyle. I've torn both of my labrum's lifting, right? And I know what it's like to come back. I came back, I tore it when I was, I think, 19, I was doing shoulder press, and I was a young hotshot 225 on there. I tried to get an extra rep and then, you know, boom, left, left one goes. Six weeks later, after doing PT, I come back. And what did I do? The first day I got back, I recovered super quick because I was a young gun. I go on the shoulder press, I put on 225, I go to an extra rep, I blow out the other one, right? So, so that I learned a lesson, right? And uh, you know, from that point on, I still I still would test myself, but also, you know, be uh prophylactic, right, in in preventing injury. And so I like to teach people how to do that. And that's just who I happen to meet, and that that probably happened because I'm training people in the gym too, right? They'll let me go in there and train some people, you know, at uh, you know, certain gyms. So throw anyone under the bus. Get them. Not even to talk to. But yeah, yeah, yeah.

See a passion of your talking about there. Yeah, see how it excites you, you're thinking about it, you're living it, you're feeling it. That that's your person.

Yeah.

Now just go talk to that person.

That's pretty much what what's interesting is that's what I've been doing on accident. Now I'll do it purposefully, right? And that's that's great. Also, recently uh signed on with Ola Digital Health, not because I do peptides, and not to have anything against them, and they're great, and I need to do more research on them first and foremost. I know the basics of like a lot of them, you know. But uh people come to me and they say, you know, uh, oh, I'm gonna get this pet. I said, look, aside from the fact there's not a lot of research in humans, bop, and certain ones and this and that, and obviously the weight loss ones are well founded and the semaglutide and all that, all this stuff. But uh, you know, it's it's the purity of them. Like the purity is what you're worried about. Well, with my supplement, I look at the certificate of analysis on everything. If you're getting this from this guy's uncle in the garage, like you do, yes, it would be good if it was a true Wolverine BPC-157 and and TB500 and tissue recovery and all that stuff, but uh you you don't know what it is, right? So I said, look, I can be a source at least that will give these people, I'll look at the COA and everything, and I'll know that it is what they're gonna get. But you know what? On top of that, it's gonna improve their outcomes too. So that's great, you know, getting them in the gym and recovering faster and, you know, giving them giving them the tools to do it themselves and uh independently improve their overall health and their life, you know, that's one of my mission statements. It went wellness, give people the tools to independently improve their health and their life. And that started during COVID when there was all that manipulation going on. And I started doing workouts from home. And uh first I was just sending kids videos who would ask me, Oh, could you send me a workout? And I said, Natalie, take a video of me. My sister, you know, do this. It's easier than talking through everything, and I think visual, you know, learning is is really powerful. So then another kid asked me because I was the workout guy in the team, you know, so Shane will put us through work, whatever. And uh so then I said, Can I just post this somewhere? There we go, she's you know, there's this thing called Instagram. You could, you know, I never use social media or anything like that. So then I started making these live videos and you know, I made a bunch of workouts. It was 381 days straight uh workouts, yeah. Not a single day missed, seven days a week. Yeah. And then I continue to do the videos after that, um, you know, myriad of of topics in wellness ranging from pathology to, you know, biomechanics and hormone optimization, and you know, a little bit about an adjustment and this and that. But I was getting nothing out of it ROI-wise. Nothing. Taking me a ton of time, just so much time, so much effort. But I was getting these these anecdotes. Kid, I didn't know in Texas. Oh, I've been doing your workouts, I lost 30 pounds in the last, you know, Bob, you don't even know who I am, a 15-year-old kid, Bob. Oh, I started eating this, you were talking about I started doing this, you were, and and I want that to be contagious, and I want people to help other people. And I think if if that was spread, you know, around the country and the world, it'd be a better place, you know. And and it's it's it really has nothing to do with me. I didn't do anything. These people did it for themselves. I showed them how they can do it for themselves. And it's the same way when I, you know, have someone that I'm treating in practice. Yeah, an adjustment's gonna hold for up to 16 days. Once every two weeks is gonna be a maintenance protocol. But I'm gonna show you ways to improve your shoulder range of motion and your biomechanics and tell you why your foot's pointed out and all this kind of crap going on uh that you know, you can not need me for anything. I don't want you to need me. I don't want you to need anyone, I want you to just have yourself and be able to have the tools to know why you're doing these things in your nutrition consult. Instead of me writing up all these foods you're gonna eat every day, give you the power to go do it for yourself. Is that as lucrative? Maybe in the long run, with word of mouth and things like takes time, takes time with something like that. But now people are starting to talk and the business is growing on word of mouth, right? But here's the other thing, and I think a lot of people don't take this into account. When I was researching to do a video every day, when I was working out every day, the workout's easy to see, it's improving yourself. You're gonna have to get really fit, so it's good for me too. But the research, the amount of research over five years to do a video every day, was just dumbfounding. I did an extra five years of school. So now when someone comes into my practice, I could say 400 milligrams of aged garlic extract, 20, 75 to 90 milligrams of zinc, you're gonna have immunity. I get vitamin C and whatever. And I could tell them protocols. I know that rhodiola rosea roots standardized for Rosavent syllogicides, I know that random stuff that you know I never would have known, right? It helped me research things that made me a better provider, so I can help more people because I bolstered my own knowledge by helping other people, and I think that's that's a beautiful thing, you know.

Education is power, give away the farm, give everything you can to people for free, and that in Halo build value, which in Halo is gonna make you an authority in your field, so then you can help millions of people and then the ones that truly want the hands-on service now find you more valuable and can come in for that. Shane, we wrap this up by asking our guest a really specific question. And it's hard, so I want to take your time thinking about it. What something you want me to take my time thinking or don't? Take your time. Take your time. What's something you want to take accountability for right now that you have not taken accountability for yet?

I gotta be better with marketing. I've told myself that. So that I have never told myself. I have to figure out exactly what my niche is right there. And we did discuss it, but I've gotta dive deeper into that and really establish, you know, down to a you know, that narrow, narrow demographic. Who really is that person that I'm trying to give everything to? Because if I try to give a lot of different things to a lot of different people, I'm not gonna help anybody to the maximal degree. I'd rather just have my impact and really hone in and help that specific niche. So I think that's honestly what I have not taken accountability for at all. I've just been trying to do good things, yeah, do good things and help people. So I need to hone in on that.

Well, you said it on a podcast right now, so we're gonna hold you to it. Please do. Everyone in the comments are gonna hold you to it. And guys, don't forget what's something you want to take accountability for, post it in the comments before. Don't forget to like, subscribe, share. Shane, thank you much for coming on. Thank you.

Until next time. Thanks for having me.