The Profitable Chiro Network w/ Dr. Daniel Kimbley
Welcome to The Profitable Chiro Network with Dr. Daniel Kimbley…
On this podcast, we take deep dives into the science of success, stress, and sustainable practice growth—through the lens of God’s intelligent design. From unlocking the power of your prefrontal cortex to breaking free from pain patterns and maximizing clinic profitability, these conversations challenge conventional wisdom and reshape the way you think about chiropractic, business, and life. This is The Profitable Chiro Network.
The Profitable Chiro Network w/ Dr. Daniel Kimbley
Ep 6: Stressed Leaders FAIL (The Secret to Making Better Decisions)
God designed you in a way that if you have stress in your brain, in your system, then you cannot be a good leader. Your physiology will work against you in your leadership skills specifically. That's crazy, I would argue the best way to be a leader is actually to follow, specifically like follow Jesus. What the brain is fearful of. It will continue to look for Heather. What's up? Hello, how are you? I'm great. What are we going to talk about today?
Speaker 2:Today, heather, what's up? Hello, how are you?
Speaker 1:I'm great what are we going to talk about today? Today we're talking about leadership and, as you, let me know, right before we got on and started recording, that you have no idea what my bullet points are. Nope, so you have no idea what we're going to talk about? Nope, aside from the topic of leadership, yes, all right, so here's what I want to talk about with leadership. Um, I think that a lot of people think they're doing, there are a lot of things that people try to do to become better leaders, but what I would argue is that God designed you in a way that if you have stress in your brain, in your system, then you cannot be a good leader. You have your physiology working against you and unless you take a specific series of steps, uh, your physiology will work against you in your leadership skills specifically. That's crazy, yeah, super crazy. And so, like, what I was thinking about is I think a lot of people think that if I read the next Jocko book, oh yes, all the self-improvement books.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all the leaders like there's so many leadership books and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with leadership books, necessarily, but I think there's a higher level of leadership that actually I would argue, man, we could get way off topic really quickly. I would argue the best way to be a leader is actually to follow, and follow specifically like follow Jesus, and I think that's been a part of my journey we were talking about it a little bit before as we were getting set up Right that there haven't been like dramatic changes that Danielle has noticed, necessarily, but my willingness to be able to delegate and not micromanage and just be like, hey, I completely trust you. So, as my trust has grown in the Lord, my trust has also grown with other people and I think that's a huge leadership quality, because I don't think great leaders just read more books.
Speaker 2:Do you think a great leader can be born? You know the saying like you were born a great leader.
Speaker 1:I think that we all are the. I think that we are all are like I think the reality is that we're all leading someone. There's somebody watching that's going. Oh man, I'm just going to do what they do for us. It's Coco right For us. We have an office full of clients who, on some level even if I think there are a lot of people who don't believe that they're I can never get to that level Like that's way too in stream. I can never do that, but I think that you're constantly there are people who notice.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I mean you working at the oil change shop. You say to this day that one of the best leaders and bosses that you ever had was what's his name? Again, jake, jake, yeah, yeah. So like you literally noticed these amazing qualities in him and some could say that you know, maybe because he wasn't making like millions of dollars at the time, like he wasn't the best leader, but you were noticing his leadership qualities in that stage of life, yeah, qualities in that stage of life, and it formed you with certain qualities within yourself that you learned to become a better leader as well, for sure, and I didn't even fully realize what he taught me until years later.
Speaker 1:So a huge shout out to Jake, he's amazing. So I'll just give a story so people kind of understand. My first day at the Remember this is an oil chain shop. So I would imagine that if you think of oil chain shop, your first thought is probably not going to be a place that's clean or be a place where people are trustworthy, necessarily and not that they're bad people, but I know every person who ever even myself still like we take our car to the shop and in my head I'm going well, what are they going to try to sell me? And I think there's just a reputation that places like that get is they're going to try to rip me off? They're going to try to sell me a rear differential change, or my air filter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and like maybe you do need them but we don't know and there's a misconception about it. Right, and it's funny now that I'm reflecting this is total side note, but that a lot of the professions that I've been in and done people seem to look down on Like teachers don't necessarily have the best reputation. Chiropractors definitely certainly don't have the best reputation.
Speaker 2:So anyway, dog, in all your careers.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So go back to day one. I show up and remind you I'm a high school kid, right, and I have no concept of leadership. I had no life aspirations. I didn't want to go to college.
Speaker 1:My friends and I are all partying in high school and I show up on the job day one and Jake's like what's up? Dude, I'm Jake and you know we run it a little bit differently here and I'm just going to show you. And so he said first thing I want to do is I'm going to show you how to clean the bathrooms. And in my head I'm thinking that's so weird. Like all right, whatever, dude, I know how to clean a bathroom, like I've had to clean the toilet at my parents' house before. And so he throws gloves on and he takes me in the bathroom in the lobby and is pretty spotless for a for an oil change shop already and he starts spraying down the toilet bowl and he gets a scrubber and starts scrubbing the toilet bowl and doing all this stuff. And he said so you're watching me clean this toilet right now. He's like I'm never gonna ask you to do something that I wouldn't do myself and that was huge to me, because he's like he understood that you're gonna watch me and he didn't have to.
Speaker 1:He's a manager. He ran the whole show. He could have had anybody show me how to clean the toilets, but he chose to do it himself. So he built trust literally from day one. It wasn't by grinding harder or him. And he did have stuff like he had at the time to me, like he had a house, he had this cool Jeep, um, he had a motorcycle. You know he was married, he had a bunch of kids and just a good dude, but he had this quality about him. That was like I want you to be successful and I'm going to show you how to lead, and I still remember it to this day. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You. You literally talk about how he is one of the best bosses you ever had.
Speaker 1:He taught you so much because he cared about me Right, and that's where it gets so interesting, I think, is that, like a lot of times, we think well, to be a leader, you just have to grind harder, or you have to have nicer stuff, or you have to be way further ahead of somebody, and then, when you've done it for years and years, and years and years, like he would, at the end of the day, like he was just a manager at the oil change place, but he was such a great leader, the most impactful leader that I've ever had, better than entrepreneurs who make millions and millions of dollars a year yeah, like the most impactful leader that I've met. So funny how we went there, because I wasn't even planning on talking about it. So, um, with leadership, though, I think one of the things that's interesting is I've had a run of not being a great leader, especially here.
Speaker 2:I think we all experience that at certain stages of our life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and before I share backstory because I want to get into the dark of it, where I sucked and failed and messed up but it's all learning experience yeah I would love for you to just come in and kind of share what your thought process is Like. What transformation have you seen in me, or just in our household, or in the office too, in terms of leadership, from like what it was to what you see now?
Speaker 2:I believe that, like as a male, you were designed with certain qualities, as a female, I was designed with certain qualities within me. We have certain desires, the way our brains function, et cetera.
Speaker 1:Do you believe that's the case for every male and female, or just for us, as in you and me?
Speaker 2:No, I believe that's the case for everyone, but that's just like that's my belief system. It doesn't necessarily mean that everybody else believes that. So within that, I feel like there was this time within our relationship, both at home and our relationship in the office, where I was having to step outside of my femininity role. I guess you could say I was having to be more alpha, more aggressive, being more of a leader in certain areas that I wasn't necessarily designed to be a leader in, and I think that was creating a lot of conflict. I think because of that, you, specifically at that time, didn't know how to step up in certain masculine roles. I guess you could say certain masculine roles. I guess you could say I don't have a specific example with that, but I know that we butted heads a lot and I think it was because I was outside of who I was meant to be at the time and I was trying to take on more that you didn't know how to take on.
Speaker 1:Does that make sense? Yeah, but can you give an example of that? Like what you like? Know how to take on. Does that make sense? Yeah, but can you give an example of that? Like what you like? When you say, take on more, give me. Like, what more are you talking about?
Speaker 2:I know I have ideas, but I would love to hear from you Well, why don't you share, and then I can? No, you share first. Well, I don't know. I can't think of something right off the top of my head.
Speaker 1:There are a number of places where just with like decision-making. So a silly, simple example of leadership when we talk about male and female roles and we'll circle back to practice, Um, and then we'll get into the brain as well and like God's designed for our bodies. But I think that for date nights would be a good example where I would and I still have a tendency to do this. Obviously there's a lot going on, but I'm better at it where, like this past week when we went on date night, like I got broke, I decided where we're going to go to dinner. Uh, I kind of took the lead on it, but before it would be like you do it all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was very exhausting, cause it felt like you didn't one didn't want to spend time with me, and then that also like me having to take control of like I will. I want to go on a date night, so I'm just going to plan everything Like it wasn't, it didn't feel as special to me in order, like, to create that connection.
Speaker 1:Yeah, If that makes sense. Yeah, for sure. And that's one example. I think that so many. I mean, man, the things that couples argue about finding parking spots, which direction to go on a hike. It's a legit thing, and you still. It's what's funny. We argue about this. Still. You know what I'm going to say? Yes, Because every time I'm like we're going to go this way and then you'll start to complain about it and I'm like dude, do you want to lead, I know, or do you want to drive?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm still. I'm still struggling with that because I'm used to having to take the lead with like, well, let's just go this way, let's just do this, and it's hard for me to let go and back off and allow you to step up when you want to.
Speaker 1:Do you think that that some of that comes from your upbringing too, though? Oh, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, my mom was a single mom after I turned 11. My dad wasn't really in my life too much, so she had to do both the female and male role within my household and because of that it was like very independent, I can do everything. I don't need help from anybody. You have to do it this specific way. And if anybody had any specific insight to share with that, it was just kind of like okay, cool, whatever, like I'm going to do it this way because I know what needs to be done, um, so, yeah, for sure, I would definitely say that my upbringing has a little bit to do with that as well, and I think when we first got together, you didn't know how to lead in our relationship, and I think that I just took the lead in some areas and then we just kind of naturally continued into that up until the last few years, when you started making these like transformations within yourself.
Speaker 2:And then now, for the first several months, it was like oh, what's this dynamic? Oh, how do I do this? I don't know how to like step back and let go as much. Um, but we're getting in the groove now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's a perfect segue back to practice, specific and cause.
Speaker 2:It was in practice as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely, I mean, it showed up everywhere. But what's interesting is, I think, when people think of leadership, they think of leading a team, but they don't realize that they're a leader for their kids and they're a leader for, probably, people who see them in the community. If you're a chiropractor, like, you have to be leading people. How many times I sit with chiros who get frustrated when they're like well, that person only wanted to come see me for two visits and I'm like when's the last time you got adjusted? And they're like six weeks ago, yeah, and it just congruence, yeah. So like, if you can't lead yourself in a way, so leadership has multifacets. I guess what I would say is that if you can't lead yourself in a way, you can't expect other people to listen to your leadership style. But then you're leading a team, but you're also leading your family and you're leading your children, and so it's multifaceted. There's a marriage component to it and I think that if you aren't keenly aware of the dynamics of it, then you can mess it up.
Speaker 1:An example from us in practice I can remember. So we had an employee that was, I would say, more than needy, was, I would say, more than needy and a taker of energy in a lot of ways, which is neither here nor there, but I feel like, as a leader, I enabled it because I wouldn't do, I wouldn't let go of anything, and so I can remember the simplest task of hey, can you look up X, y, z? And I'm like I'm talking to this is an easy Google search and because I was so micromanaging, they would be like, well, do I need to do this or should I do it this way, or what should I type in the search bar? And then I would get frustrated, very frustrated quickly, and I would say, well, I'll just do it, just whatever. And I had stuff stack up on my plate, but it was because I couldn't delegate, because I wasn't a good leader.
Speaker 1:And the reality is is that all of that was my own insecurity of not. I didn't think that I could be a good enough leader, or that if I let somebody else do it, then it would be a reflection of me. And I realized that the reflection of me was worse not letting go of the vine per se than it was to just step in and empower people and actually care about people, because everything I did as a leader before I didn't care about people I cared about. Are you going to help my business grow? Are you going to help my bank account grow? How am I going to look with this? I really don't care about you at all, except for your means to an end, and I don't think I ever consciously thought that about a person, but it kind of came through in everything that we did, which is why I think we had some hardships with certain people who have been in our lives.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because it was subconsciously transactional. Yes, and I think this is stuff that leadership books don't talk about. They talk about how to lead teams and how to take on ownership for everything. Like that. Stuff's great, but at the end of the day, I think there's more, and for me, the more was really. This is there was an insecurity that I wasn't good enough, and that insecurity led to me being micromanaging because I wanted to feel like everything I did was good enough.
Speaker 2:But you had to the ability to control that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Cause I could control everything. But then that's what gets into the. I think the most important leadership principle is that if I'm in control of everything, then where does that leave room for God to do the supernatural in our lives? And that's the biggest leadership principle, which is what I think Jake was great at is he could say, hey, I'm going to show you first and then I'm going to let you do it, because I trust that you won't mess it up now that I showed you and you know that it's something that I would ask you to do, Right? So there's just a high level of congruency, and I don't think I really learned that until years after Danielle being here. And then I think more and we've had conversations about this too. I think more than anything, it's like I don't care if Nexus goes away tomorrow. Yeah, I just want to make sure that they get quality of life from being able to be here too.
Speaker 2:The clients and the employees.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but more importantly, like clients are important but obviously the team is like they pour their hearts into Right and so to be like I used to be when I was very insecure and I looked at myself as not a good leader. I mean, I can remember being at like game changer stuff and saying I'm just not, I don't feel like I was meant to be a leader, like lead people at all, yeah, and then you look fast forward. It's like I'm inviting people to our men's group on Saturday mornings. Um, we do closing announcements at church and there are lots of places where people come seeking info and advice and knowledge. But it's only when I kind of let go of everything that I was free to actually lead people.
Speaker 2:I think what's cool, too, is like, as you've grown within your leadership qualities, our team has grown in this capacity as well, of like. We can wholeheartedly say that, like, our team understands the mission and the vision that God has placed on our hearts, they buy into it, if you will. They are on board with it 100% and support everything in every aspect, and previously I'm not sure that we could say that every single employee that we had understood the mission and the vision and was able to buy into it in the same way because of the leadership that we were portraying at that time, would you agree, yeah, a hundred percent.
Speaker 1:But I don't think they could, because that's what we right, that's what we brought to the table. Or I'll say I won't even say we, I'll say I brought to the table. Because if we think about, if you go back to levels of energy conversation, so insecurity is a lower and then that's just going to show up here In the space. Right, that is yeah. So then we get into what I think is probably the most important framework for thinking about. This could apply to leadership, this could apply to your life and your religion, it could apply a bunch of places. But this idea, the idea of fear over faith or faith over fear, yeah so.
Speaker 1:But the tricky, the thing to me that I think is funny about faith over fear is that you don't just have, you don't just put faith over fear. First you have to trust and then that's how you get faith. So there's actually three steps. So go in detail of what that means. So have you ever had an experience where you're really scared to do it? Sure. So an example for me and we'll just talk about business, just to keep it simple Okay, I'm really, really scared to let that person send the email to the clients or write all the copy for the card that we need to send out. So I have this fear, right. Well, I can't just say, oh, I'm faithful that they'll do a good job and it's all good, because I still have the fear. So the way that we break the fear is through trust. So I have to trust the person and I also have to trust myself that I've led them and given good enough example that they would represent nexus or whatever in a way that would be commendable.
Speaker 2:And how do you get to that space?
Speaker 1:Trust Of the trust. Yeah, I think it's giving up control, it's realizing that I am not in control Because, at the end of the day, we're not. Yeah, I agree, but everybody wants to be yeah, and I think that most people build their lives around being and you could look at the example. You could just look at our schedule this week when what happened on Wednesday and Thursday last week, I was in tears for two days in a row. I completely give it all up. We had this conversation in the car pulling into the gate of our neighborhood where I said I'm done trying to do it all on my own. I'm done trying to figure it out and control it and ask God for what I want him to do. And I'm like if he tells me to close it tomorrow or everybody goes away tomorrow, I'm fine with it. I'm not trying to control it anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think a cool thing to note about that too. Like, as you become a better leader, you've been more conscious and aware of that stuff, whereas, like, nobody's perfect. So for you to be in that space headspace specifically, 100% of the time is not necessarily realistic, especially if, like, you've had past experiences of like being in this, like hyper control headspace.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that. What's cool to me is that when there's a level of me wanting to control, it's me just snapping back into a whole pattern.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Because I felt there are a lot of places in my life that you know I've done a lot of work in. We talk about breaking free. We could do that, but realizing that there are patterns and we could say generational strongholds and soul ties and a whole bunch of things that taught me that I should be in control and you don't need anybody else, Right? And so then, no wonder it showed up in my relationships and until I started working on those things to break them off, it's like shards of glass. So we're like pulling out all these little pieces of places where I operated from a faulty operating system. And now that we started to pull the shards of glass out, we can see where we'll get promoted, right. So perfect example of this is 2024 was a pretty awesome year. We took more trips than we ever have, we took more time off from the office, we were probably busier than we'd ever been in the office, made more money than we'd ever made, so record kind of on all fronts. And then this year I feel like we've just been getting smacked from the beginning of the year and especially last month, but we launched a podcast. This podcast, um may, are making a whole bunch of changes, and so I think that what happens is you get to a place where you finally have faith. Yep, so you have fear, and we were fearful in 23, 22 and 23 that it was all going to fall apart. Yeah, 24,. We get over it and we're like, okay, we trust you, god, whatever is your will, we're good with it. And then that gives us faith. So now we have faith, and then we get promoted and we have an epic 24, but the cycle repeats itself. So now I'm at a new level of promotion that I want to keep and maintain because I think it's mine. So then I go back to my old patterns of I'm going to control this because I built it on my own and because I have the relationship with God. This is inseparable to me. Like I can't not talk about God in this, this conversation, and so if you're not a believer, this still works the same way. Like you could say manifesting, you could say whatever it is, but you, yeah, you get to a place where then you're going to have another challenge. That's going to put you back in fear, and for me that was doing some of the stuff that we're doing on the coaching side Right, and then that fear.
Speaker 1:I had to get to the place, the breaking point last week, where I said you know what? I just trust that whatever happens is meant to happen and it's all going to work out. That does not excuse me from not doing the work or being committed to doing what I said I would do and show up as a leader and show up in life. So it's not like I'm just laying in my bed every day crying myself to sleep. There's still work involved with it. But then now I kind of like shook that off over those Wednesday and Thursday. Friday was amazing, the weekend was amazing. I got so much done, ultra productive, and then kind of feeling a little bit challenging again today. But I built that place where I'm like all right, I'm just going to trust, and then that builds faith, and then from the faith you get the next promotion. It's not just faith over fear. You have to have the trust first, and the trust is key. If you don't have that and that gets back to the leadership principle I didn't trust that I could.
Speaker 1:I didn't. I literally didn't trust people that they could do as good of a job as me. Oh, you didn't even trust me. Yeah, in certain situations, yep. So then I would want to take on everything and get pissed, but then I was overwhelmed because I couldn't delegate to you either. And then that continues the cycle of frustration and leadership and whatever.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So that this is. What's interesting is that, if we get back to leadership, if you're in a fearful state, that triggers stress hormones, and if you trigger stress hormones, that is going to negatively impact your leadership skills.
Speaker 2:So I feel like every leader at some point, whether they are a business leader or a leader in some capacity, you're going to step outside of your comfort zone, which is going to create the stress hormones.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent by the nature of having a business is going to trigger stress hormones. Right, 100% for sure. So is there a question? No, I was just like reiterating yeah, for sure. So here's what's interesting Harvard did a study and what they looked at is what happens with leadership.
Speaker 1:So cortisol and testosterone work inversely with each other. So if we have high cortisol, we have low testosterone. If we have high testosterone, we're likely going to have low cortisol. So they work to get. It's not that they necessarily work together, but they're inversely correlated. So high cortisol is going to be present in stress response. So if I'm worried about how my business is going to do, if I'm worried that I can't trust my team, if I'm worried that I can't trust my wife, if I'm worried and fearful that my bank account's not where it should be or that I'm not as good as all my friends who have different practices than I have, or I'm just sharing real from me, when I have those fears, I don't have certainty in myself, so I start feeling insecure in myself. Those all trigger stress hormones. Those stress hormones mess with my testosterone, and testosterone is directly correlated to leadership ability from a hormonal perspective.
Speaker 2:Male and female.
Speaker 1:Male and female, and so what they found in this Harvard study is that if you have lower testosterone, social interactions decrease and you basically lose authority in those social interactions.
Speaker 2:If you're a stressed out person, Can you give an example for that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. So let's say that, yeah, I'll give you a really good example. So go back a couple of years ago with me. We could even go back to 2018 Warrior Week if we wanted to Knew a lot about chiropractic, had a high amount of ego, but I think the ego was just a mask for all my insecurity of, and 2018 is when we just started practice.
Speaker 1:So, the insecurity of. Can we even do this? Uh, we live on the beach, but then we were kind of surrounded by people who you know you talk about Garrett and Sam and some of these guys, just all these people that were at that time. I never met people who made that much money before, so I had such an insecurity of unworthiness Like am I supposed to be around?
Speaker 1:these people. My leadership in a lot of ways just showed, and it was reflected in that the insecurity showed up at home. But it wasn't. It was me, because of the thoughts I was thinking and the belief or the disbelief, the lack of trust that I had in myself and the lack of trust in the authority that God gave to me and I also didn't have a relationship with God then but that showed up in the way that I would lead people, which is why you felt like, oh, you're a pushover and oh, there's this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did, I did. We had lots of conversations about that.
Speaker 1:Lots of arguments about it. So what's interesting about the Harvard study is not only do they find that testosterone and cortisol are inversely correlated, so if you have high cortisol, low testosterone. Low testosterone equals less leadership ability, perception of leadership skills, socially Okay. So how someone would interpret you as a leader, so how I interpret you, you essentially yeah, um, but what's interesting about it is it didn't matter how much money someone made, and it didn't matter whether they're male, female, black, white, asian. Doesn't matter. So, regardless of demographics and socioeconomic status, they still found the same thing to be true. Everybody experienced the same thing. Yep, so that was one study. The other, harvard Kennedy school. So this is what they call the dual hormone hypothesis, which is exactly what I just said Testosterone and cortisol inversely correlated to each other.
Speaker 1:Um, but what they found is that people who have higher testosterone actually take action to seek, seek higher status. So when we talk about roles you mentioned roles earlier, yes, if we talk about a lot of times where people are going to make decisions based on what they perceive is going to give them the highest status. So I would never buy a car where people looked at me and they're like he must be broke. No, no one does. Sure, they're only going to purchase things. This is just one example. Yeah, psychologically, that are going to increase status, no matter what it is, no matter what it is. So the same thing is true with decisions, but the status seeking behavior comes from cortisol or, I'm sorry, from testosterone. Yeah, so the status seeking behavior comes from testosterone. Higher testosterone equals more status seeking behavior.
Speaker 2:So is that a good or a bad thing? Like, how do you associate that?
Speaker 1:I think it's a good thing because, if we talk about leadership again, if you're stressed out and you're not taking active steps to deal with your stress, then no matter how good of a leader you think you are, no matter how hard you grind, no matter how late you stay up at night, no matter how many leadership books you read, no matter how much money you make, there's more that is possible for you if you started to address your stress, subcortical stress, and we just get into this cycle of hormonally what happens when our bodies are in a more parasympathetic or sympathetic, healing state yeah, fight or flight versus rest and digest state Okay. And then there's one more this study in nature. They found that levels of testosterone cortisol balance actually predict leadership ability. So we talk about status seeking behaviors associated with leadership regardless of, but like? Literally, perception of leadership ability is correlated to someone's hormonal status within their body.
Speaker 2:So then let's go back to, like the people that say that you were born to be a leader, like, how does that play into it with that, what you just said?
Speaker 1:we are think about because we're born not stressed.
Speaker 1:My, I think that my life's mission is to. It doesn't matter if it's through teaching, it doesn't matter if it's through chiropractic adjustments, it doesn't matter if it's through coaching, I don't really care what the medium is. I I truly believe right now and this will probably change in the future but I truly believe that I was brought here to get people to understand and see and realize that they have an insane amount of potential within their bodies that they don't even know exist. And you can talk about the hidden curriculum and the way that school stunts people, and we could go. You know, man, the differences in schools. That's crazy. I won't get into that. But there are so many places where people's ability to be happy, healthy, successful, vibrant, vitalistic you plug in whatever word you want money whatever thing someone is seeking, that's going to also increase status.
Speaker 1:If we go back to roles for a second, it all comes down to it's already inside of us, and that's why I don't think people give themselves enough credit or fully understand that what is internally happening in their systems is a direct reflection of what is happening outside of their bodies. So an example of this I'll give you a perfect example of this, and hopefully he's not watching. You might take it personally, but I don't. Whatever, it's fine. I have a friend who just had a baby and it's having new for your first kid stressful or not stressful? Uh, so stressful, insanely stressful.
Speaker 1:So we stack not only the stress of not knowing. Is my kid dying? Are they hungry? Are they just crying? Because that's what babies do. Do they need a diaper change? Am I a good parent?
Speaker 1:There's so many unknowns. Um, are they? Are they in a leap? Are they supposed to do this? There's all this stuff, right? So we have all these unknowns that are stressful, and having crying baby is stressful. So, regardless of that, they're amazing. Baby babies cry. It's what they do, right? That's their only form of communication with you. So I have that stress as one, but then I also have the stress of I'm probably not sleeping, which also increases cortisol.
Speaker 1:And Harvard's done ton of studies which can show and there are other places I've done studies too, but Harvard's the one I think of that if you sleep deprived students for two weeks and I'm talking like two hours less of sleep than what they should have gotten in their blood, they become pre-diabetic in two weeks of sleep deprivation, just in two weeks. Just in two weeks. So the reason, and so when we talk about pre-diabetic, I'll tie this to cortisol. Cortisol is a hormone, stress hormone. It puts sugar in the bloodstream. So that's cortisol. One of cortisol's actions is to put sugar into the bloodstream. So if we put sugar into the bloodstream, then we are also our stress hormones increase insulin resistance. So this is where that's what type two diabetes is, is just extreme insulin resistance where our body can't bounce back from it, although I would argue that it can if you make the right decisions and address your hormones and your system.
Speaker 1:But anyway, I say that all to say that the external environment that you see that you're living in right now is a direct reflection of the hormonal system that's happening within your body, and most people attack it by going well, I'll just take the hormones instead of addressing why. Would I be off balance in the first?
Speaker 1:place Like bioidentical hormones and such or not, bioidentical or whatever, and I'm not saying that's bad or right or wrong, but a lot of people don't even ask the question of why is that there in the first place? What's causing that? What caused my thyroid levels to be lower? Because we know that stress hormones block the action of T4 being converted into T3. And stress hormones increase blood sugar levels. Prediabetes from stress hormones. Cortisol negatively affects testosterone Because we don't need testosterone in a fight or flight state. Testosterone is associated with leadership, because we don't need testosterone in a fight or flight state.
Speaker 2:Testosterone is associated with leadership. This is just like so wild. I also feel like, because there are so many males out there that are just taking testosterone and really it's just that they're so freaking stressed out that they're tanking their testosterone so they can't even be the leaders that they are designed to be. Or maybe they become better leaders because they're using synthetic testosterone, but that's like what their body is naturally supposed to be doing in the first place, if they just address the stress.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but what happens? So check this out. This is what's crazy. The body's always going to try to maintain homeostasis. So if we have a ton of stress and I don't address my stress or my ability to adapt to the stress which is arguably more important is the adaptation to the stress that my body is under, because we can influence how our body adapts to it and how our body processes the stress in the first place but if we don't address the stress, then what we will get with people is that, okay, I'm going to take a hormone that'll boost my testosterone, but then your body wants balance. So now it's out of balance because your body's releasing a certain amount of stress hormones to say, okay, we need to block testosterone because we don't need that right now. We actually need to fight a runaway. We don't need status seeking behaviors, we need survival seeking behaviors. Then our system goes well, let's bump up the cortisol. So their, their system is going to try to balance itself out because there's a natural balance.
Speaker 1:And so I think I've used this example before, but it's like if you, if there was a fire in here and the smoke detector was going off, and you can equate the smoke detector with low testosterone most people because the way that they've been trained go well, let's just take the battery out of the smoke detector. I'm just going to take a medication. Let's take the battery out of the smoke detector. So the smoke detector is a symptom. That's the thing that's annoying. Let's supplement it. We'll just take away the annoying thing. But we never actually address the cause and say why is the smoke detector going off in the first place? What's interesting?
Speaker 1:So when they did these studies, they did in men and women, so testosterone is important for women too, so it's not like they don't have testosterone or don't need testosterone. But the same thing is true is that female leaders you can look these studies up where they look at just female leaders and female leaders who have less cortisol and higher testosterone are again rated as better leaders, just the same.
Speaker 2:So you said that a female can never have too much testosterone. Do you feel like, or do you know, if a woman that is stepping kind of into that alpha role is like how I was in that point, like I didn't have too much testosterone, like what was happening in that?
Speaker 1:at that time? Okay, well, let me ask you this then how did you feel by stepping into that role?
Speaker 2:Oh, it created so much stress.
Speaker 1:Okay, then tell me more about how you felt. So you had stress, and then what did you feel like? What was your day to day Like?
Speaker 2:um, I think I had if this is answering your question or not I had some resentment toward you, Okay, Um, there was a lot of like anger and the fact that I had to step up and do these certain things at the time. So I would say that those were probably two of the bigger.
Speaker 1:Okay, so resentment, anger, frustration, yeah, yeah, how did you feel energy-wise?
Speaker 2:I felt low all the time because I was outside of who. I felt like I was supposed to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so like kind of unmotivated yeah, just like, eh, yeah, right, mm-hmm and anger and resentment and all the stuff, which is why we went into that space in that time when I was like I need something for myself. So remember, testosterone is a seeking hormone status, seeking right. So if I feel low and I don't feel like there's anything to strive for, part of that as a result of testosterone, so it's no wonder that if you had to step into a role that stressed you out to step into because a woman was never really meant to step into that role.
Speaker 1:This gets into like a weird subject because some people would argue and be like no women are meant to be CEOs and step up and be leaders and all this stuff which we would totally agree with. I agree a hundred percent. So it's not like that. It's not like oh, you just stay at home and do the laundry and cook the dish and like, cook the food and do the dishes.
Speaker 1:So there's a balance of it, but still, I think the principle, and if we just zoom back out, is that cortisol is going to negatively affect testosterone dual hormone hypothesis If cortisol negatively affects testosterone, that affects leadership ability. So it's no wonder that you couldn't be the leader or the woman that you probably wanted to be in our household because you didn't even have the prerequisite.
Speaker 1:Was it hormonal structure within your body at the time because of external circumstances? And there would only be two ways to change the hormonal system within your body. Is one address the external circumstances, which we did, it just took a while to get to or to address your internal system, and there's a number of ways to do that. We could take medication which I do not advise. I'm also not a medical doctor, so don't take that as medical advice. We believe that the body knows how to heal itself, that it's self-healing, self-regulating, self-maintaining. We will always stand by that, no matter what. And the other way is to address your body's adaptation to stress. So no wonder that you felt low. No wonder and I think a lot of people you know how many women I see.
Speaker 1:I had a conversation with a new client yesterday and she was frustrated. She's like I just feel anxious all the time and I'm looking and I'm watching and I'm listening to the family dynamic and dad's here too and he travels all the time for work. They're moving from place to place because of work and he's doing the best he can but not realizing that it's putting such a toll on mom because she's having to take on way more, because dad's just trying to float at work, which is my scenario too, and I didn't know how to lead people. So it made it even more frustrating, because people would come into our lives and frustrate us, but only frustrate us because I sucked as a leader, or they would leave because they would be like this sucks.
Speaker 1:Sure, should we talk about God in the conversation. Let's do it All right, let's get into some scripture. So this is my favorite part. Psalm 46, 10 says this be still and know that I am God. Be still so. I talked about that in the beginning. Right Last Wednesday was the day. I mean two days of tears like prayers and just sitting in worship music. That has never made me cry before.
Speaker 1:And I just feel like Holy Spirit was with me, saying like, hey, I just need you to be still. And it feels like a storm and it's all good. Just trust me. And when you trust me, that will allow you to have a faith that it's all going to work out. And when you have the faith that it's all going to work out, and when you have the faith that it's all going to work out, I'm going to give you a promotion.
Speaker 2:And if you look at our sketch, go ahead and it creates a space for him to be with you, beside you and work within you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you have to lead from a state of peace. This is me today showing up and going like hey Wes, I trust you that you haven't done a lot of these conversations with people yet and I trust you that you're going to crush it, that we've done the training. You're an amazing human being. Exactly what comes out of your mouth is going to need to is what's going to come out of your mouth, and it's going to be all good, and if it's not, that's okay too, Cause we'll just get better and better and better, versus me just being like no, let me just do it and then you can just sit in the back and listen.
Speaker 1:And I still do the tweak, this one word, just because I'm perfectionist, but I'm like, truly working on it. So be still and know that I am God, psalm 4610. You have to lead from a state of peace. I think that's one big piece of it. That's really good. Leading from a state of stillness and being the stillness. If I come in every day and I'm stressed out, I'm worried about everything and I put that on the team how can they be still?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Think of the effects that it has on your team, your family and the clients that you work with all when you're creating that space and energy.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So if I'm not still, again we go back to the stress hormones. Cortisol specifically shrink cells in the prefrontal cortex, so cortisol literally deactivates a prefrontal cortex. Prefrontal cortex is responsible for decision-making, so I'm going to make poor decisions across all areas. So instead of me being still and letting the team know, hey, it's going to be all good, then I go make a business decision where I'm like, hey, let's just swing for the fences, we're changing everything, we're going to change our whole system. And then I do that 50 million times because I'm stressed out all the time and the team's like he's just going to be on this for like two weeks and then he's going to give it up. So let's not. I say all the time in chiropractic practices.
Speaker 2:They also don't see this trust in you either when you're doing that yeah.
Speaker 1:You don't build trust because they're like he doesn't ever keep his word on what he said he was going to do, and so there again we go. What is a reflection on the outside is direct correlation of what's happening internally always. And what I think is interesting about it, and I'm always going to remind people, is that that is the normal design of our bodies and our physiology. God made us to have a stress response. The stress response was designed to turn off our prefrontal cortex, to keep us safe and keep us protected. So we actively have to take steps to feel like we can be still. Prayer, meditation, obviously getting adjusted, cold plunge Today I wanted to get out after like 10 seconds. Spot, yeah, spa days there's a million different things you could do. So stress does not equal productivity. I would argue that stress is going to negatively influence your productivity.
Speaker 2:Give us an example within that.
Speaker 1:Well, if I am worried about what my monthly collections are going to be, yeah.
Speaker 1:So let's just say I'll use an easy chiropractic example If I'm stressed about getting a bunch of new patients, so I'm like, okay, we got to figure out whatever we can do, and I'm so worried that my business is going to fail or I'm not going to be able to run payroll because I don't have new people coming through the door, which I hate that terminology. I've always hated it as long as we've been in practice. There's a specific reason why. But if I'm always stressed about new people, new people, new people, new people and we don't have enough, then my the productivity with which would be necessary to actually get them goes down, because my brain, when I'm stressed, is going to start to look for every single possible scary scenario. We're going to start scanning my world for more scary stuff.
Speaker 1:And so this gets into this conversation of when you're like, literally, you're just programming the brain. What the brain is fearful of it will continue to look for because it wants safety and protection, right? So if the brain is scared that there aren't enough new patients, then I'm going to look at my schedule and it's going to go hey, there aren't enough new patients. And then I'm going to look at I'm going to see the ad from the chiropractor down the street and it's going to go. All the new patients are going there. There's not enough new patients and so I'm triggering and I'm reinforcing that stress response. And then what shows up in your business?
Speaker 2:You're not focused on your people or the here and now.
Speaker 1:Yep, exactly, and so there's a conversation. I think the best leader that we could look at is Jesus. Yes, cause he just always walked in the stillness, always at peace, always at peace. He had wisdom, he made great decisions.
Speaker 2:He was always working too, so never just sat and didn't put forth the effort.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what? What was he doing? Like he was about his father's business, which was God. How can I look at this situation from your point of view? How do you see this person, this woman, this man, this person, this situation? Wisdom and then discernment. What do you want me to do? And that's the stillness Cause. Then it doesn't come from me, I don't have to figure it out all on my own.
Speaker 2:You weren't designed to.
Speaker 1:No, we don't, we don't need to. Obviously we have to make decisions. But if we're stressed all, no, we don't, we don't need to. Obviously we have to make decisions, sure, but if we're stressed all the time and we don't take active role in trying to decrease the way that our body experiences stress?
Speaker 2:Seeking that peace yeah.
Speaker 1:To seek peace. One of them is through the Bible, in my opinion, but I think there are so many other ways to do it, chiropractic care being one of them. If think there's so many other ways to do it, chiropractic care being one of them, if we don't take those steps and I'm going to back up for a second If we don't take those steps to actively seek peace within our own systems, then our world will show up on the outside as chaos. I think I've made that abundantly clear, right? So let me give you an example of what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:So yesterday I'm having a conversation with a client and it just so happened that we've had a little bit of a slower week, and this seems to happen enough times where it's like, okay, Holy Spirit, like I get the message now. So yesterday she's sitting on the table after she gets adjusted and she said, hey, can I talk to you? Because I really want to tell you that this has had an impact on my family in a way that you could not imagine, and I was kind of taken aback. So I said what do you mean by that? And she said, well, think about it. So you're taking care of my daughter-in-law, You're taking care of me, her daughter and her grandson and grandson taking care of me, her daughter and her grandson.
Speaker 1:And there's this like for lack of a better term, I'll just say revival within the family, and she attributes it to the spiritual connection and the connection that the whole family has felt with God and the trust that they've been able to foster over the last couple months is directly attributed to what we're doing in the office by adjusting them.
Speaker 1:That's all we're doing, and we get to have cool conversations. But I sat with her for like 20 minutes yesterday and talked to her about this, and what's so special is that there is a piece in her life that wasn't there before, even in the midst of chaos. So when I talk about chiropractic care, I only talk about it because I'm so biased about it from the experiences I've seen when people say I just feel like I can, like God is with me even more and it's a physiological, it's a reflection of what's happening physiologically. We got to get in on this on another episode of the podcast. The brain is organized in a way that is in the world is organized in a way that's a reminder of what is in spiritual. So the three levels of the brain are directly correlated. We are. We can't talk about this today.
Speaker 1:I have way more research to do before I get into it, but the way the brain is organized is the exact same way that the organizational structure of the spiritual realm is as well, and you can see this all over the place, like not just with the brain, you can see it all over nature. The organization represents spiritually that sense of reflection. It's like a mirror. What's up? What are you thinking?
Speaker 2:No, it just that needs a pause, because it's good.
Speaker 1:So when we talk about the uh just to reiterate, so cause I'm kind of all over the place but prefrontal cortex, wisdom, discernment, patience, all prefrontal cortex Can't do that in a stressed out state. You can't be a leader unless you have that stuff. You can't be a leader unless you have wisdom, patience, discernment, trust which leads to faith. You can't be in fear and be a good leader. A lot of these are sounding like the proofs of the spirit. They are yeah.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent they are, and that comes back to the fact that God created us all to be leaders within ourselves, as long as we are in our true identity and in our right state of mind.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So this is where you asked the question before. You're like well, is everybody born with it, or some people just natural born leaders? People have different giftings, but we all have the same stuff within us. So like, quite literally, we all are born with the exact same hormonal system that will allow us a different expression of life based on where this, yeah, what, what we're doing with our life, and so being stressed out is inevitable, but the decisions you make to deal with your stress are up to you, and that's what allows someone to tap into true leadership, because I know a lot of people who are good leaders and who would be phenomenal leaders if they stepped into some of these things, if they actually knew what it meant to be still and have wisdom and discernment, and not their own wisdom and discernment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so many people think that being a leader it just means like you have to grind more, you have to hustle more, you have to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and grinding and hustling more is not the move, right, it's just not. It actually is the opposite of what would make somebody a better leader, right?
Speaker 2:Well, we talked about that in another episode with the burnout. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it doesn't mean again, that's a thing you can't just sit on the sidelines and do nothing. So it doesn't mean don't take action, but it's obedience. Right, right, yeah, and that's a key distinction. So last, I want to talk about Matthew 11. Just real quick, come to me all who are weary and burdened and I'll give you rest. So coming to Jesus will give you the rest that you need. You can change your physiology. We know through all the research that prayer literally has an effect on the frontal cortex of the brain, a strengthening effect on it, the opposite of what cortisol does. And when cortisol is high, strengthening effect on it, the opposite of what cortisol does. And when cortisol is eyes, it affects leadership. So then I just want to get real a little bit more practical. Real quick is when we get into.
Speaker 1:I think this comes down to identity. Right, yeah, it's really what it comes down to. So I think everyone has the identity of a leader because we're all leading something. Buff says this all the time. He says you know, people have a, no matter what, you're leaving a legacy. And so what kind of legacy are you leaving? Cause you're leading people, whether you like it or not.
Speaker 1:It's true. Coco doesn't have to see us work out in the mornings or sit in the sauna or do the cold plunge or some of the more challenging stuff that we do in the course of a day, but she gets to see all of it and there's no doubt in my mind that she operates as a certain human being because of what she sees. Sure, just like I did because of what I saw when I was a kid in terms of leadership, because I never really saw great leadership growing up. So understanding that this is kind of the thought I probably would land the plane with is that when you have a faith that God can do something through you is when you have a true identity. And when you have that true identity, that's when you will have peace.
Speaker 2:And that's when you can be the leader that you were created to be.
Speaker 1:That's when you can be the leader that you were created to be, no more, no less.
Speaker 1:But it takes understanding that you have fears, looking those fears in the eye and saying you know what, god, even in light of these fears, I trust you that it's all going to work out, that I give it all to you because none of it's mine anyway and that you already look at me as a son who is good.
Speaker 1:And if there's anything wrong with what I've done, then I repent for it. And, lord, I ask that you would forgive me, and ask you to forgive me for not trusting me, and I pray that you would just continue to put a softness in my heart that would allow me to trust other people the way that you trust me, and that will build faith. And when you have faith, you'll be a better leader, because you're going to feel less stressed out about life's experiences. And this is why grinding harder, hustling more, does not make you a good leader, regardless of how big your team is, regardless of how many millions of dollars you make, there's something way, way deeper, and unless you actually tap into the energetic level and the exchange that's involved with being a good leader, then there will always be something that you're leaving on the table.
Speaker 2:That's good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, should we end it right there?
Speaker 2:Let's do it yeah.
Speaker 1:Mic drop Amazing. All right, fam Peace.
