Justin: 0:57

welcome. I appreciate everybody joining today. Looking forward to our guests today, Dr. Maurice Pearl, he's with Balkman Chiropractic Clinic. And, also something a little unique, I'm joined by the founder of Amplified Whole Health, Jen Collier. 'Pretty excited to have her on as well. Today we're gonna be talking to Dr. Pearl about chiropractic. And normally, what's really interesting about the podcast, is we focus very heavily on the organizational side of things: how does organizational health impact an individual. But, with your role in what you do, so much is focused on the individual. And so I think what we'll probably do is spend a lot of time talking about how an individual's health impacts an organization, and what does that look like? So that's the idea, but maybe tell us just a little bit about chiropractic and how you got here.

Maurice: 1:51

How much time do you have? It is a relatively old/new-ish healthcare profession. I think it was founded... someone's going to kill me online for this later, 1890s or something like that. There's a lot of stuff happening with it, but basically the basis of it is that we focus on holistic health training through natural means. For some doctors it's just manipulation adjustments, there's soft tissue...some focus on nutrition, weight loss. It just goes back to what that doctor likes and he's always been as good at.

Justin: 2:26

Okay, great. So what do you like and enjoy? What are you good at?

Maurice: 2:30

I do a lot of soft tissue work. I do alot of manipulation. I tend to focus more on movement than anything else. So if someone's not moving well, I'm trying to figure out why they're moving the way they are and try to correct it, whether that's through an exercise, a tweak in the way they're moving or just simple getting that joint locked out and cracking it, making it pop, all that fun stuff.

Justin: 2:51

Yeah. So, can I make a confession? Okay. So,I've been to a chiropractor now several times, but years ago, I'd never been to one. And I thought it was a lot of hocus pocus. do you hear that a lot from patients?

Maurice: 3:04

Oh, I see it all the time, what we're talking about. So, I'm a member of the American Chiropractic Association. I'm the ultimate delegate for Arkansas am also a member of a couple of different other groups involved in chiropractic. And one of the big things we've been focusing on, honestly forever, is trying to move us more into the light, more to the evidence-based modality, more into, "Hey, this is what we can do." So how we do it, this is what works, whe try to get away from a lot of the woo stuff. Some people like that, some people want that, but I just can't get behind it.

Justin: 3:37

Yeah. I think what was so, I guess odd for me at the beginning, was ,"how am I going to lay on a table and somebody's going to pop and crack me, and then I'm going to get up and I'm going to feel better." And now I've been, and this has been years ago, and now I've been, and I tell you, I'm a firm believer in the changes that it can have for you and just the impact on your overall health. And yeah, it's been really good for me.

Maurice: 4:01

I mean, honestly, I fell into it on accident. So, I'm coming out of college, playing football, wanted to be a surgeon, wanting to work in medical field. You know, wanting to go that whole route. I shadowed a surgeon for an entire summer, basically worked with him day in, day out. His life sucked. He's a great guy, super nice guy, but he was tired, stressed out, didn't get time with his family and kids and I didn't want that. My wife, who I was dating at the time, she was happy to hear that I wanted none of that lifestyle. And, another friend of mine, she happened by and talked me into chiropractic college. Her parents taught it and I just kinda fell in love with the hands-on and the face-to-face, that personal connection and all the ones doing that simple little tweak and fix everything. so,

Jen: 4:51

what's the difference between chiropractics and physical therapy?

Maurice: 4:56

Another hard question. So, there is a physical therapist whose name is Gray Cook. He is probably the godfather of movement. Just about every orthopedic physical therapist and chiropractor has read his book or quotes him nonstop. He says at the end of the day, you should not be able to tell the difference between a good chiropractor and good physical therapist. So you should be focusing on movement, soft tissue, any other chemical stressors...they should be able to all that stuff. So perfect world, nothing. Realistically, just mindset. So for me, first, I'm coming to the spine first, looking there, and then I'm going to look elsewhere Physical therapists, look more at like functional movement, look more at a soft tissue injury, more orthopedically at a patient. Okay. So,

Jen: 5:39

it's really more like the focus is a little bit different.

Maurice: 5:42

It's also depending on where that PT with the school at. There's a school in Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh, and they have a great program there. They work hand in hand with a lot of PT's, a lot of DO's, or a lot of DC's as well. Everyone's learning kinda the same stuff. They all come out being kinda the same doctor, which works out well for the public. But, you get some places... It gets really confusing, "Should I go here? Should I go there? Should I do this? Should I do that?" And it's not easy for us sometimes, either, too.

Jen: 6:13

What kind of clients do you have? What kind of clientele do you usually work with? Do you have anybody you specialize with?

Maurice: 6:20

Me, personally, I like meatheads. I get along with meat heads well. I know meat heads. Really I like people who are active; I like people who are involved with running, lifting, CrossFit, that kind of stuff. A lot of sports related stuff. It's just my background; I know that best. Other doctors, I know, work solely with pregnant women, which is a great practice to deal with. If you've had kids yourself, you know how the body treats you during the whole process. Dr. Jarnagin, he treats a little of everybody, Dr. Alexander, about the same. Dr. Tompkins, she treats a little more women and older patients. It just comes down to, honestly, who you jive with and who you know best.

Jen: 6:59

Okay. And are those are all doctors in your clinic.

Maurice: 7:02

Sorry. Yeah, there are four doctors, our clinic: Dr. Tompkins and Dr. Alexander are married. And then Dr. Jarnagin and he owns the clinic. So they both, all three of them, have been there for about 10 plus years now. And the practice itself has been there for probably 50, honestly, in that location for as long as anyone in this town basically remembers.

Justin: 7:22

You came out of school and how long have you been doing chiropractic at this stage?

Maurice: 7:28

I graduated 2015 and so I've been out practicing about five years now.

Justin: 7:32

Got it.

Maurice: 7:35

It's been fun. Yeah.

Justin: 7:37

It's been fun...

Maurice: 7:38

It's just those first couple of years...so with medical school, you go to medical school, residency, fellowship, all that fun stuff. Chiropractic's a lot less organized. Basically, you do your three and a half, four years of chiropractic school. And then, basically, those first couple of years out in the real world is your residency. You're learning patient care, business stuff, everything that you didn't get in school. So it's a struggle in America who you are, where you're headed. So my first year, I was in a practice in Bentonville and it was busy. I was seeing 50 plus a day pretty easily, doing a lot of different stuff that I'd never planned on doing in my entire life. And I got good at it, but now I'm just like, "Okay, I don't want that anymore." So I just want to focus on what I do now. This is where I'm at and I'm happy now.

Justin: 8:28

Nice. Well, as you think a little bit about the practice that you're in and that you work at today, how does that clinic help and encourage you from an employee development standpoint? What processes do you go through to continue to learn and to study?

Maurice: 8:50

It's interesting because it's a small clinic. Literally, it's just us four doctors, and we have two front desk employees. That's literally it, so everyone has to be on the same page, learning from each other nonstop, constantly about how each of us work, because the way I approach a patient situation is different than the way Dr. Alexander will talk, or the way Dr. Jarnagin does. And for the employees, having them learn how I like to work, how I like to go about things systematically, to just us knowing how they respond to stuff too, as well.

So, I know this kind of patient: 9:20

I'm not going to put with her because they won't get along at all. It could be a bad situation for her and then vice versa. So I also, earlier, work in occupational medicine clinics to do a lot of drug testing, D.O.T. Physicals, that kind of thing. And that's a whole other environment from a healthcare standpoint, there it's more focused on getting people employed in jobs, get them working, stuff like that. Though, the way that's organized is, not going to be any different from the way the clinic's organized. So over there, basically everything runs through the front desk employee. She is in charge of everything and over in the clinic side, doctors tend to run the show but more, so going back between those two can get confusing, but it works pretty well.

Justin: 10:06

Okay. Got it. You learn from one another. How do you communicate with each other to say, "Hey, I've got a new patient or someone that I need to transfer over to you"? What's that process to just open up the door for communication.

Maurice: 10:21

Between the doctors, it's literally popping into one another's offices when they're actually sitting down at the desk and saying...

Justin: 10:28

Which doesn't get to happen much...

Maurice: 10:29

It doesn't! There's been a lot of times where I'm trying to track down Dr. Jarnagin in the office and he's running back and forth, and so am I.

So, I need to talk to him at 8: 10:35

15 or I don't see him again until four o'clock in the afternoon. It's just tracking that person down and saying, "Here's what's going on. Here's what I need help with. Can you help me out with this?" And the majority of the time, it's "Yes, let's do it this way. Okay. Let's go." Kind of thing.

Justin: 10:51

Interesting.

Maurice: 10:51

Yeah.

Jen: 10:52

How about with your clients? Do you find yourself doing a lot of coaching with them and working on things more than just the physical aspects of stuff? What do you wind up talking talking with them about?

Maurice: 11:04

So there is a whole book of knowledge on just how to deal with patients, clients, et cetera. For some, it's as simple as laying them down, adjusting them, and out the door in five minutes. For others, it's protracted. We're talking about chronic pain, talking about how this movement makes him or her feel, talking about what's good about this, talking about, "Hey, I had this happen good for me yesterday." How can I repeat that over and over again gets assessed, so it's going to be dependent on each and every patient. Some, like I said, you're in and out five minutes, some, 30 minute session with them and you never know what you're gonna get from new patients coming in the door.

Jen: 11:44

How do you hone your skills when you're working with patients? Is that something that you talk about in schooling? Is that something just as you're...

Maurice: 11:51

Not enough

Justin: 11:54

There at go. So, all the schools out there, this might be something you want to be bringing up more.

Maurice: 11:58

schools do a great job, as good as they can. My class, I had big class at Logan University. We had 150 ish in our class. So they we were having to teach us patient communication 150 times in row, basically. You get that standardized patient. They tell you X, Y, and Z, you respond ABC. You get an A. The real-world that's not how things work at all and you basically get smacked in the face your first year or so. You say all the wrong stuff, you screw up, you jumble your words, you trip over yourself and you just, fail, fail, fail, and take it. But there's all kinds of books out there, all kinds of training and do...Motivational Interviewing is a big one I've been getting more and more into. There's a book called Game Changers, right? Have you read that one yet? So John Bernardi, he's a weight loss and life coach. Basically his book is more about getting into that career field, but he goes over talking with clients, breaking down how to communicate with them, that kind of thing. There is a way of marketing called StoryBrand, which is about taking a new-patient client or whoever you're working with, from beginning of their story to the end. And basically along the way, you're guiding them through that. You make them hear their own story. Stuff like that, that's helped me out a lot along the way with getting better.

Jen: 13:20

Okay. You know that the health and wellness coaching that they're doing...this is a new thing within the past three years...that they've got this exam, right, to work hand in hand with professionals, with doctors. What is your thought on that? Do you feel like that there's a need for that in the medical community?

Maurice: 13:38

There is a need for it, like an insane amount. My problem is, realistically, insurance won't pay for that kind of stuff from me. So I could spend, 30 minutes talking to this patient about all these issues and get paid the same if I spend five minutes, which, in my opinion, is not right. It incentivizes doctors to spend less time and effort with patients. Most patients dealing with any kind of chronic health issue need more coaching, need more help, need more guidance than just that five minutes: "Here, take this.. Do this. Bye, see you later," kind of thing. And we fail our patients a lot if we don't give them those type of opportunities to win at least. And honestly, coaches like you, you make my life so much easier. It really does, it makes things a lot smoother. Even this working with a personal trainer or a yoga teacher can change a patient's outlook on a lot of stuff, which makes the treatment go a lot easier, which makes coaching them through the next step a lot easier. That whole team environment is the best way to go about go healthcare.

Jen: 14:42

Yeah, just coming together as a team to really figure out how do you best serve your patients and work together instead of against each other.

Maurice: 14:50

And then you look at, I'm a big football guy, the NFL, the way they're organized. They have multiple chiropractors, physical therapists, nutrition coaches, strength coaches, athletic trainers, and it's literally a big, giant circle. They all work together, all the time to get these guys the best possible care. That care should still be happening to everyday Joes. There's no reason why it shouldn't and we're starting to see more and more of it now. I think the VA is getting more into that now, which is nice to see. It's more holistically based health. You've seen some hospitals go that way too. It's just slow. It's just slow. The sad thing is that it comes down to money and people don't yet see the value in that kind of thing, their attitude, their practice or their business, which they should, because...

Justin: 15:37

Do you feel like that people don't, like individuals, or do you feel like maybe the business owners don't yet see the value in that? Or maybe it's a mixture of both.

Maurice: 15:45

I think that both. Most patients, after spending a little bit of time thinking about it, going over it, working with it, they realize this is a better option. Business owners, we're raised in this world to expect, quick turnaround on something. We paid $5 for it, you want to see $10 back right away. But that kind of coaching, that kind of help, it's gonna pay off dividends 15 years from now thing. Or it's going to be telling their grandkids that this doctor or this therapist, this coach helped me out with this, you should go to them too, as well, kind of thing. It just ends up being a win for your patient, your client, more than anything else. And that builds business more than anything else.

Justin: 16:26

I think that's really interesting because at least my perspective is that so much of being a doctor in the medical field is about building relationships?

Maurice: 16:35

It is. But like I was saying earlier, you're incentivized so much nowadays to spend less and less time with your patients. It's just one of the things that frustrates me about insurance is I want to spend an hour with a patient every single time. I want to work on every single thing. But, when I get a chance to work on the proper team with someone, I absolutely love it. Things go so much smoother. There's a couple of doctors here in town I refer back and forth with because they work well as a team. I can send a patient there with this, they'll report back to me with this, patient's back in my office three days later, we have a huge game plan ready to go, and they get better. Yeah.

Justin: 17:16

That's awesome. That's encouraging. Yeah.

Jen: 17:18

So now I have a question for you. We gave you an activity to do today. For those who are listening, who haven't seen our website, we talk about health as being like a house. And so you have this foundation, which is your worldview or your faith, and that's what we believe, how you see the world and then around that, and you build the walls. And so there's a wall of nutrition based on whole quality foods, a wall that's based on your physical health and your functional movement, walls based on lifestyle and the rhythms of life, a wall that's based on your mental patterns, your attitudes, your emotions, and then the roof is loving yourself and loving others. And so we gave you an assessment and an activity to process through. So I was just curious, what did you learn about

Maurice: 18:08

I can see how doing something like this, every six to nine months would be really helpful for me. I probably should do it more often. Cause I've seen little things that I need to work a little more on. We all know that 2020s been one of greatest years ever, and I'm seeing some of that in this; I really am. My biggest thing...it's things I've had issues with before in the past where I needed to work on a little bit more to be a little better rounded person. But yeah, I'm glad I did it because it helped out.

Jen: 18:42

Yeah? So what did you see? What were you the most successful in? What do you think when you look at it? Or you're like, "Oh, I felt really good, I'm glad that I know that I'm really working on this for my health and wellness."

Maurice: 18:52

The physical stuff. So for me, that's always been, I won't say easy, but it's always been a habit since day one. I came from a college football background. I've been in the weight room since I was 15 years old. Getting in that state, making that part of my normal routine, I feel great about. I know I can, I will always be able to dedicate, an hour or so a day, at least to that as needed. Nutrition, it's getting better. Like I said, 2020 has been a weird rocky year and my nutrition took a big nosedive. Began this year and gained the whole COVID 19 pounds and everything like that but I should get that back down. And then I think those were probably my two strongest ones, honestly.

Justin: 19:34

That's really good. That's exciting.

Jen: 19:37

Good to know that you're doing that because a lot of people struggle, especially with nutrition. And like you're saying, now with COVID, it's hard to get all your physical activity in and be actually paying attention to what you're eating.

Maurice: 19:48

And it's little bitty habits I picked up over the years. I had professor who would literally tell you, if you can go shopping in the grocery store, don't go down any aisles, just walk around the edge, go through the produce, meat, dairy, and then walk out the door. Doing that. It's made the nutrition part a whole lot easier. On top of that, my wife's a vegetarian, so we're able to, well, I'm forced to eat more vegetables, which is a good thing though, too, because I get lazy. I like burgers and hot dogs and pizza. I'd eat that all day if I could. But she doesn't. So, I don't as much either. So it works out pretty well. Yeah, it's just a lot of little things I see I need to get better at still, but I'm happy.

Jen: 20:27

So tell me what would you like to see more of in your life when it, you think about your personal health?

Maurice: 20:33

The mind stuff. I've noticed that tends to be an issue with me, was actually talking

to a colleague today about that: 20:38

how some weeks it's day-to-day. Sometimes it's, " I'm feeling great today, mentally I'm strong, emotionally and felt solid." Other days, I'm a little rocky, just going with the flow. I think, getting more stable, more level, would benefit me a lot more in the long run. Yeah.

Justin: 20:57

I guess a good question for Jen is what would you typically recommend to someone who's trying to improve the mind element of their, emotional, thought patterns and wellbeing? What would you maybe recommend to someone?

Jen: 21:12

There's all kinds of things that people can do.

And so really it's: 21:14

what's interesting to them? But there are ideas like gratitude journals, and taking time every morning to really plan out the day. A lot of people find success by saying, "this is the one thing I'm going to do today. And if there's just one thing I do and I get this done at the end of the day, I can say, 'Hey, you know what? I actually achieved something.'" And so there's this self-efficacy or confidence that's built by realizing like, "Hey, I met a goal every single day," and building up in that. Those are some ideas.

Maurice: 21:47

That's the one thing that I definitely got out of. At the beginning of everything, my business coach had all of us writing gratitude journals every single day, first thing in the morning, three things. And, during those first couple of weeks of lockdown and shut down wherever you want to call it, then, that did help me out a lot. I got out of it, got busy, and got focused on other things and that's when things started dipping off a little bit.

Jen: 22:09

It's those daily habits, if we could just do them every day.

Justin: 22:14

Yeah, it's so hard and challenging, I think, for all of us. You were talking about this idea of heart, mind, soul, strength and the foundation and the wheel. And it, for those that are listening to this, the idea of a wheel is you can map out where you're at on the wheel. And if you draw a circle, then how wheel-ish is your wheel? I think for many of us it's always changing, right? We get better in one area and then maybe get worse than in another area. I think what's important for people to remember is that life is a journey and it's a process. We all have ups and downs and good times and bad times and it's okay. And that's also encouraging.

Maurice: 22:56

It has to change, otherwise we don't grow, we don't get better. Getting bad at something is a good thing. Cause we get to work on and get better at it later on. That's why I love CrossFit because I suck at it. So I'll keep working on those little things I am really bad at. I hate running. I'm a horrible runner and we've been running a lot lately and it's showing. I'm getting faster, cardio is getting better, but, yeah. Yeah. Keep working.

Justin: 23:21

I'd like to come back to your clients and where chiropractic, for them, impacts their personal lives, which then ultimately impacts what it is they do for a living from a career perspective, et cetera. So maybe let's just start with that.

Maurice: 23:40

For a lot of patients, the way I start off the first time I meet them is with a functional goal. Basically, I want to be able to pick up my kid, I want to be able to walk down the stairs, I want to be able to sit at my desk for 30 minutes out pain, and going off those kinds of goals sets the stage for everything else going forward. One patient I had a couple of years ago, her issue was she couldn't kneel to pray at church, so getting up and down on the pews was painful for her. She hated going to church and it started affecting the rest of her life. For her, getting her better, improving her health, wasn't so much of getting rid of the pain. It was getting her stable up and down off the ground, repeatedly, for a couple hours. For her, that was her win and she'd hit that milestone. She was happy. She was good. She was done. And she enjoyed life again. So sometimes it's like that.

Justin: 24:31

As you're working with a client, and they come in... I had somebody on here who was responsible for risk management and workman's comp, so I'm sure that you probably see some patients like that, that had been injured on job. Now they're unable to work effectively and they're in pain and discomfort and, when you're uncomfortable, it ruins... honestly "ruins" maybe a bit strong, but I guess it's possible it ruins or makes your life very difficult in all elements of your life...

Maurice: 25:09

Pain, chronic pain is one of the biggest reasons for depression. People who don't feel good aren't living well, they tend to be more likely depressed. We still don't know exactly why, but basically it's one of those things that, if you feel good physically, you tend to feel good mentally. Just getting them feeling better about the way their body feels is just step number one. For your workman's comp type patients: for a lot of them, it tends to be those acute injuries. Those tend to bounce back a whole lot faster, easy to deal with, a few sessions and they tend to be back pretty quickly. It's those little bit longer term ones. You start to have issues with the way they're moving. Someone injures her neck at work, lifting a box, something like that. They tend to start having trouble picking up their arm over their head, which makes typing appear a little bit harder, reaching and grabbing the thing off the shelf a little bit harder, which makes their day that much harder.

Justin: 26:08

Now when they go to the grocery store, it's hard for them to reach up and grab the cereal.

Maurice: 26:12

Yeah. And then, they start getting grouchier and they start complaining more about this and that, but once they start focusing on, "Hey, get that shoulder moving, strengthen those muscles, get that motion corrected," those little issues become a lot less important.

Jen: 26:28

That really starts to affect like business productivity too, when people are in pain or when they're hurting, when they're depressed, when they've got that going on, that really can affect productivity versus when they're feeling good.

Maurice: 26:42

My school, they did a big study with, Boeing in St Louis. They were going in for a couple of times a week for a couple of years and basically interviewing the factory workers, asking how they felt, then going and looking at productivity. They were able to see that when people were feeling better, they were more productive. They had less issues at work, less mistakes. People were feeling worse, things went downhill. It tends to be a fact that if your employees are healthy and happy, you have a great company.

Justin: 27:15

Interesting. People were actually making more mistakes because they were not feeling

Maurice: 27:19

well. You're not focused, think about it. If you're thinking about your knee being sore, the headache you have, or the crick in your neck, you don't care as much.

I'm the same way: 27:27

if my knee is sore I don't care about little things. I won't sign something the right way. I'll miss a bubble on the form, that kind of thing. There are a few companies that have realized that healthy, happy employees equals more money and they are doing great. So there's one up in Wisconsin called Standard Process. They make supplements, a lot of whole food nutrition type stuff. Voted number one out of all the businesses in the state as best place to work. They provide all their employees organic foods, free supplements, nutrition, personal trainer, nutrition coaching, free chiropractic, physical therapy, massage, even free daycare. Meeting all these employees needs, without spending a whole lot money, and they're able to work harder or they like being there at work. They're happy to be there. They're proud to be there and it ends up being a better product in the long run.

Justin: 28:29

You mentioned this idea of "you don't care as much" and it's really, I believe, you just lose your ability to focus. It's not that you don't care. You're not trying to do bad. You're just distracted and you're focused on the discomfort and that makes it very challenging to perform at a high level.

Coming back to the NFL: 28:53

why do they have all of the staff? So people can perform at a extremely high level day after day.

Maurice: 29:02

Exactly. It's a simple thing we think about like that, it's just hard to get past these barriers of have to hire this person, have to hire that person... x, Y, and Z... but you really are seeing it more and more like ArcBest and ABF. They're doing great things for employee health. I know I'm seeing, talking to their employees, they have onsite health care there at the offices. They're getting off, if they need to go to the doctor or whatever, two hours with no questions asked. Go get this taken care of. They have onsite gyms and I haven't met one person there that hates being there, they're proud to work there and they do a great job and the company's growing everyday because of it.

Justin: 29:40

That's a good word, I think. Yeah.

Jen: 29:43

So, what do you think when you... as you're encountering your patients and ...through this conversation, what do you wish patients were focusing more on when it comes to... when they're coming in the door, what do they need to be working on in their lives when it comes to this health wheel?

Maurice: 30:02

Taking more time for themselves. They get busy, they work a lot. They have kids, have family, they got all the responsibilities, but you tend to see more health issues where people will spend less time focusing on themselves. And it doesn't need to be a lot either. It could be that 10 minute walk in the afternoon, the extra five minutes of lunch doing this, that 20 minutes in the morning reading the Bible. Just something to focus on your own health, your own wellness. Like I said, it doesn't need to be a whole, ordeal, whole long thing. Just be your number one advocate.

Jen: 30:34

Okay. So what do you say in response... because I hear this and you may hear this, what do you say in response to, "but yeah, I don't want to take time away from my family. That's not being responsible." What would your... what do you say back to that?

Maurice: 30:46

Meet them where they're at. So if you go at them, tell them they've been doing this wrong, and they need to do this instead, they're going to shut that door in your face and they may stick around for a little bit, but they won't get very far. Finding that sweet area where it's a win for them. So instead of saying, "Sally, I need you to go home and walk 30 minutes every single day for the next two weeks straight t least." She says, "no, I got this and this and this." Okay. "Can you give me two days a week walk for 15 minutes? Yeah. Okay, great. Do that." And we repeat the process over and over again until we slowly start building up that time, get a little bit more, a little more, or we find other opportunities for her to focus on herself.

Jen: 31:24

Yeah, that's what I find too. When I talk to people it's this, "Just remember this: Hey, when you're investing in yourself, you're investing in other people too, because you're more pleasant to be with, you're feeling better. Just like the productivity of a business, you're also more productive with relationships in that you're engaged and you're relaxed and you're pleasant.

Maurice: 31:42

In that book Game Changers, it talks about how you can't give a hundred percent of yourself to something all the time. If you're not feeling great, part of your mind is going to be on that, focusing on, "Hey, I feel crappy. I feel kinda tired. I'm sick, I'll play with my kids a little later" kind of thing. If you can focus on those little things, you're able to devote more energy towards what you really want to do.

Jen: 32:05

Yeah.

Justin: 32:06

Yeah, that's really important. I know that's something that I've been personally working on over the last, probably, several months is just taking that personal time. For me, it's in the morning and, for me, there's a spiritual component, there's also just a "planning my day" component of what accomplishments do I want to get done? What am I thankful for? Like you said, the gratitude journal. I've been working on that. Consistency's still getting there, but I've found that it has made a huge difference in not just my attitude, but in the attitude of others within my family.

Maurice: 32:43

Yeah. I mean, like attracts like. If we see someone doing the right things, living life the right way, we want to be a part of that. We want to emulate that at the end of the day. That's why, in front of your kids, you eat that broccoli, eat those green beans too... because they will eat it too. Honestly. It's just in those little things where, you know, if we want to see a certain reaction, if you want to see a certain activity, if we want to see a certain attitude, we have to have it ourselves. If we don't have it ourselves, we're never going to get it out of the people.

Justin: 33:12

That's really good, and a great example, right? It's all about modeling in a lot of ways. How do you transfer maybe that statement into modeling for your clients?

Maurice: 33:29

We'll talk about going to work out. We'll talk about my diet and lifestyle kind of stuff with them. I get a lot of people wanting to lose weight and I know everyone wants to lose weight. And I'm asked, "you're a leaner guy, what do you do?" And it's,"I do X, Y, and Z, but honestly I don't have a lot of time. So there's many times where I'll go do this instead." And it may be something simple like going to Clean Cooking, picking up five, six meals, keep them in the freezer. And that right there, meets that small calorie lunch, I'm not eating a whole lot. It's healthy food. And for a lot of people, that's an easy thing for them to do. I talk about how I make time in the morning to workout for myself at least an hour every single morning. And that tends to make them realize, "I have an extra 30 minutes here. I can go walk around the park, on lunch break." Just letting them know that it's okay to do that kinda stuff.

Justin: 34:19

And you're an early bird.

Maurice: 34:20

Yeah.

Justin: 34:21

You get up and you hit the gym pretty early.

Maurice: 34:22

Yeah. And I'm a crazy person about that, but that's one of the thing that's been a part of my daily habits. Since, like I said, 15 years old, I've been working out that early in the morning, every single day.

And so it's just my natural mode: 34:31

get up in the morning, go do something physical, and then get on with the rest of your day.

Justin: 34:38

I really liked what you said though, coming back to your example about meeting people where they are, is anybody who's listening and thinks, I got to

get up at 6: 34:46

00 AM to go to the gym kind of thing that's not the truth, right?

Maurice: 34:50

Oh, no, not at all. Like I said, I'm a crazy person. I enjoy being up that early. I liked seeing the sunrise. My wife? Never going to happen, but she gets up to take my daughter to school about

7: 35:01

30 and that's what it works for her. So for her, her exercise comes when she drops my daughter off, she takes my son to therapy, and afterwards they go to the gym, they go walking, they go do something physical. It's all about finding that time to do something for yourself throughout the day. For some people it maybe that 20 minutes on the way home, stopping by the gym, walking around the park, walk the dog in the afternoon. As long as you find something.

Jen: 35:27

I have to ask a question. So, as a chiropractor, what do you think is the ideal exercise for people? Because obviously there's not. It's... oh, you know, the adage..."any exercise that you'll do is the best exercise for you," but what do you think when it comes to actually keeping your body pliable and mobile and healthy for aging.

Maurice: 35:48

I liked the deadlift, because it is something we do every single day in various forms. Whether it's picking up our backpack, picking up the dog, picking up the kid, we're going to bend over and lift something. I think we're making our bodies as strong and stable doing that as possible will pay off in the long run, but there's so many ways that you could train that movement exercise, that it's literally endless. You can do the suitcase dead lifts, single-sided goblet dead lift, million ways to go about it. It's just one of those things. I think everyone should know how to hip hinge better. Which will make my life a whole lot easier as a chiropractor. Other than that, though, probably the squat. We all get up and down every single day and then something at the cardio base. Our hearts always need more exercise. We don't get enough any more.

Jen: 36:40

So if people were to find that stability from the deadlifts and the squats and being able.... do you think that would help people from falling over more?

Maurice: 36:50

For sure. There was a study I read, I think it was down in Brazil, where basically you follow these people from like 45 to 60. They found out that people who move better, who were stronger at 45 are more likely to live, to be 60. And it basically came down to those people are also exercising. They are lifting more, they were eating better. They were doing all these little things right at the very beginning which paid off, 20 years later. But it's like anything. Have you read the book, Atomic Habits? That's another great mindset book. Basically, it talks about how making a1% change day after day after day, year after year after year, it's gonna accumulate to a huge change down the line. His example was the airplane veers off one degree from takeoff and now instead of ending up in LA you're now in Alaska. It's compounding these little bittie movements and little bittie habits that will be best for that patient.

Jen: 37:49

It'll pay off in the long run.

Maurice: 37:50

Yeah.

Justin: 37:50

I'm reading a book called the Compound Effect. And it's exactly that principle, which is that little small things done consistently pay off big over time.

Maurice: 38:02

Yeah. And as a doctor, as one that is active, I suck at it sometimes. I know better, but I still, suck it out. When I take the big bite of something, when my diet fell apart earlier this year, I'm wanting us to throw out all the junk food. I wanted to buy nothing but salad, vegetables, fresh fruits, all that kind of stuff. But, realistically, I could do that, but I was going to fail doing that. So by dialing it back and saying, "Hey, let's focused on eating three solid meals a day. Okay. Let's add more vegetables to meals. Okay. Let's add lean protein to each of these meals instead." And over three, six months that became, I'm meal prepping again, almost every single meal now. And my diet has cleaned up a lot since that day.

Justin: 38:47

And it's okay to give yourself grace to say, I don't have to jump into the deep end of the pool.

Maurice: 38:51

Yeah, it doesn't have to be perfect either. Unless you're trying to be that Olympic athlete, that fitness model, that someone who has to be at the top of their game all the time. You don't have to be perfect. 80% gets you there. It's a passing grade in school. Shoot for 80% and give yourself time to enjoy life, enjoy something, space to mess up. Yeah. Because you're going to mess up. It's going to happen. Just how do you respond to it at the end of the day.

Justin: 39:19

Yeah. Don't tell my children that 80% is acceptable.

Maurice: 39:25

I have few friends who are MDs and they talk about their grades coming out of undergrad and they weren't great grades, but they still got into med school. They still are doctors now. They realize that some of that stressing they had when they were in undergrad was not worth it at all, they just gave themselves ulcers for no reason at all. It's just one of those things where you have to understand

that: 39:45

I'm not going to be perfect. I'm not going to be the greatest at everything. As long as I keep working at it and trying hard, I'll eventually get there. It might not be on my own timeline, but it's going to happen.

Justin: 39:55

Finding balance. And I think that's a really great transitioned back to this house model that we're talking about, right? You don't want some of your walls higher than other walls. You want all your walls the same height. You want to have a solid foundation and everything to be plumb and level. And so it is about balance.

Maurice: 40:13

Yeah, and that storm comes in it's going to knock down the imbalanced house every single time. If all your walls are strong and stable, even if they are, on your assessment, that four out of ten kind of thing. Yeah. You still might win the day. May not be a great win, but you'll still be here tomorrow.

Justin: 40:29

Absolutely. I guess as as we kind tie up or wrap up, when you think about everything you've learned from a chiropractic perspective, what has been the biggest impact on you personally, that you've learned? Whether that's from school or being out in the actual field and practicing with people.

Maurice: 41:00

When I started looking at chronic pain differently, It's changed some since I got out of school. Traditionally pain's looked at as a purely mechanical issue. Their back's not moving. Adjust. It moves better. It's still not moving. Okay. Go see the physical therapist for injection. Still not feeling great. Talk to the surgeon. That kind of thing. But in reality, pain is such a complex process, there's so much, there's a mental component, a biological component, a physical component that if we aren't able to address and fully realize all those parts of it, you're going to fail. Patients are gonna fail. They're gonna be stuck with a lifelong pain. There are some patients who, just need to be told, "Hey, I'm not fragile. It's safe to move. It's safe to do this." And just hearing that, they're more likely to get out pain.

Justin: 41:53

Interesting. So actually some people actually feel like they are maybe a little fragile, like " Hey, I could hurt myself again."

Maurice: 42:02

It's so evolutionary, our brain. That it's protective. I stepped off the edge of that hillside. I stepped on some thorns, that hurt a lot. I'm not going to do it again. So I'm gonna block that spot from happening again. But you know, in 2020 we work at desks. We sit around a lot. We do not a lot, most of the time. So, if we get hurt our brains go look at it, and say, "Hey, that activity caused pain. You can't do anything close to that ever again, don't do it. It's going to hurt." And it gets into that kind of recurring thing. "I haven't bent over in two years. If I bend over, it's going to hurt." Now, I've bent over. It's actually, it's gonna hurt cause I haven't used the the muscles in a long time. So this whole horrible cycle of this dread in a... what do I want to say? Getting out of shape, essentially. It leads to this longer-term chronic pain where, at this point, there may not be anything structural going on. It's just all neurological.

Justin: 43:03

So giving people permission to go back to being people.

Maurice: 43:06

Yeah. It's okay to move. It's okay to be active. It's okay. That it's okay to feel pain. There's a physical therapist, I really love following, her name's Annie O'Connor. She is one of the best clinicians dealing with chronic pain I've ever seen. I've seen some of her sessions on video it's just amazing, but she has this whole "red light green light" system, essentially. It's like a stoplight. So it talks about "if you're feeling this it's a red light, you stop that entirely. If you're feeling this it's a yellow light go cautiously. If you're feeling this, the green light go full speed" and a few patients that I have gotten into that kind of a discussion, talking to, it's changed the way I think about activity now. So it may not be going back to the gym, but now they're not afraid to bend over anymore and slowly over time, hoping that turns into, "Hey, I'm not afraid to pick up my kids. Hey, I'm not afraid to go for a walk. Hey, I'm not afraid to go pick up that weight," kind of thing. It's not as simple and cut and dry in school like I thought I was going to be. They tell you in school, 12 visits max their fixed. You do this one thing over five minutes, you're great. You don't need anything else. But in reality, some patients may be... you may be with them for a couple of years working on something. Others, it may be, a few weeks. Just kind of depends on what they are going through.

Justin: 44:28

Yeah. It's about the whole person.

Maurice: 44:29

Yeah, exactly.

Jen: 44:30

That's what I was about to say. It's about the whole person. It's health as a whole. It's not just the one element. You can't break people down into just one part.

Maurice: 44:38

It's just, it's awesome. It's nice seeing that that's being more and more addressed, more and more. The last clinic I was at, I told you I was busy seeing 50 plus a day, but we also had a physical therapist on staff, a nurse on staff. We did a lot of nutrition, weight loss too. So I had patients coming in to see me, they're seeing physical therapists at the same time, nurse at the same time. So we're addressing all these problems at one time, which makes them get better so much quicker and easier. And then you're able to actually address every issue someone has. It's a whole lot simpler.

Justin: 45:11

That's really awesome.

Maurice: 45:13

You're even starting to see at the VA, now. They're starting to integrate counseling, acupuncture, chiropractic, nutrition into these vets with chronic PTSD issues. And they're getting a whole lot better at getting off those painkillers, reporting being happier. It's just, it's great to see. It really is. I just wish, we would have been seeing this years ago.

Jen: 45:33

Yeah. I actually think it's so interesting too, as you're talking ... you've been talking about emotions, such strong emotions tied to the body, and I think that it's just amazing how truly closely knit the brain is to the body.

Maurice: 45:48

What was it Deion Sanders used to say? "You look good, you feel good, you play good" kind of thing. People have been saying some of this stuff in one form or another for years, whether they've been doctors, therapists, athletes, coaches, but it's never really been addressed or put into practice till probably the last 10, 15 years. And you're starting to see it pay off in the long run now. You see more hospitals investing more in this kind of holistic health, a lot of smaller clinics are doing it now, too. We're seeing more and more coaches like yourself pop up, which I love seeing. The potential for making great changes to their health over the next 10 years is huge. I hope this trend keeps going. I really do.

Jen: 46:32

It looks like it is.

Justin: 46:35

Yeah, that's good. I am so grateful that you took the time to come on the show and to talk about chiropractics and people and individuals and how you're helping people in the community to grow and to heal and to get back to living life. And so it's really awesome. Thanks for coming on the show. You can go see Dr. Pearl at Balkman chiropractic clinic, so you can go check him out. And, I know the clinic is on Facebook, obviously you're on Facebook, so they could probably ping you.

Maurice: 47:06

Facebook. Instagram. Messaging me, call me. But yeah, the good thing about my practiceI love is there are four different doctors there, four different personalities. We have someone who could help anyone any day. And that's the only thing I care about. Honestly, it's people getting better at getting healthy and happier.

Justin: 47:24

Yeah. Getting back to living life. That's awesome. Thank you, Jen, as well for coming on and...

Jen: 47:29

Thank you for having me!

Justin: 47:29

Offering a unique perspective from a health perspective. It's just nice to see things from a different angle.

Maurice: 47:38

Yeah.

Jen: 47:39

That's true.

Justin: 47:39

I appreciate that. Thanks again. Take care.

Maurice: 47:42

Thank you.

Justin: 47:42

We'll see next you next time