Elevate Your Mindset With Dr. Preston Gregory

Oftentimes, it’s the things that have happened to us in the past and the limiting beliefs we have developed that keep us from achieving all of our potential. Dr. Preston Gregory believes it is the job of chiropractors to unravel all of those, elevating the lives of patients by elevating their mindset. In this episode, he sits down opposite host Dr. Kevin Pecca to share with us how this is possible, improving the nervous system and reprogramming the subconscious mind. Dr. Gregory is a phenomenal upper cervical chiropractor and motivational creator and speaker. He has a great passion for helping others improve their mental health and therefore their overall quality of life and reach their fullest potential through chiropractic. Along with his own inspiring journey toward becoming a chiropractor, Dr. Gregory dives deep into our subconscious and activating system. He discusses how you can elevate your mindset by unlocking the nervous system. From there, you’ll discover doors for peace and healing opening up. Join this conversation and find wisdom and inspiration from Dr. Preston Gregory!

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Listen To The Episode Here

Elevate Your Mindset With Dr. Preston Gregory

We have an amazing guest, one of my favorite upper cervical chiropractors, Dr. Preston Gregory. He is an upper cervical chiropractor in Boiling Springs, South Carolina. Not only is he an upper cervical chiropractor, but he makes some of the best motivational content on Instagram and TikTok. He's very inspiring to talk to and has a great message. He's been through a hell of a lot in life. He's overcome it. He's got such an elevated mindset. It's a breath of fresh air talking to him. It gets me motivated to do more and accomplish my goals and dreams. Dr. Preston's amazing. I hope you enjoy this episode. Cheers, love.

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We have a phenomenal guest, Dr. Preston Gregory at Momentum Chiropractic in Boiling Springs, South Carolina. Dr. Preston is a phenomenal upper cervical chiropractor, motivational creator, and speaker. It's an honor to have him on the show. Preston, how are you?

I'm awesome. I'm the lucky one to be in the presence of greatness.

We've been talking back and forth for a while now, probably since January 2023, on content creation, upper cervical, and all that stuff. This is actually the first time I'm sitting down with you and figuring out, doing a little bit of a deeper dive on where you come from, what made you choose upper cervical, all that stuff.

It's been cool.

Preston, where are you from originally?

Boiling Springs.

Is that by the beach?

It's more of the Upstate of South Carolina. When I say Boiling Springs, they have no clue where that is, but most people are familiar with Greenville. I'm 30 minutes from Greenville.

Is that where South Carolina University is?

South Carolina University is in Columbia. Do you know Clemson University?

Yes.

Clemson's 45 minutes from me.

Did you go to chiropractic school in South Carolina too, Sherman?

I went to Sherman, yes.

That's why you have a solid foundation.

Everything I've done right here in my backyard.

Preston, tell me a little bit more about growing up. What were you into? How did you even get into the field of chiropractic?

Growing up, my whole life revolved around sports, baseball, football, and wrestling. I love sports. I hated school. If there weren't girls in sports at school, I probably would've never graduated high school. Never thought in 1 million years that I would pursue a doctorate degree. Never even thought about chiropractic. Never grew up with chiropractic. No one in my family went to a chiropractor. With divine intervention, everything fell into place perfectly. My main focus was working out. I love bodybuilding. I love working out, all that good stuff.

I had knee surgery in high school, so my thought was, “I'll be a physical therapist. It seems pretty easy.” I didn't realize how competitive it was. It's hard to get into the PT school with a 2.6 GPA. In the mix of being depressed, lost, and having no idea what I wanted to do with my life, I hurt my back doing CrossFit. I was here in Boiling Springs, South Carolina, and at the local CrossFit gym, there were students from the local chiropractic school, they were interns, and they were like, “Why don't you come to the chiropractic school? You can get checked since you're a student. It's $10.” I was like, “Cool. get me out of pain.”

It was the typical generic chiropractic experience. “Where does it hurt? Let me poke it. Your back?” I didn't understand it. It wasn't helping me. I would go on a Monday and feel good. By Wednesday, I was back in pain. I did this tango for three weeks. Here's where the story to me is amazing. This is where God comes in. Three weeks after starting care, I was going to message my intern like, “We're breaking up. I'm wasting my time. I'm good.” He messaged me that morning and said, “I'm graduating, I'm transferring to someone else.” I was like, “I'll give this person a try.”

This person’s name is Rocco Crapis. He became one of my best friends and mentors. He was very upper cervical driven. I met this individual, and naturally, we hit it off, but the amount of certainty and confidence that this person exuded. That's what I bought into. I looked at this person. He was a student. Naturally, students are supposed to be uncertain. He said, “I know your low back is hurting, but the issue's not in your low back. It's in your upper neck. We're going to take very specific X-rays of your upper neck, and your upper neck and it's going to change your whole entire life.” I said, “Sign me up.”

He did. Within one adjustment, 80% of the back pain was gone. I thought there was a veil removed. I had more mental clarity. That was a pivotal moment in my life where I was searching for something and that was the opportunity that God gave me. I hit the ground running, and for six months, I and this individual met at Starbucks at 5:30 in the morning. We talked about chiropractic philosophy.

I had almost an identical first upper cervical adjustment. One of the game changers with that was the guy's enthusiasm and confidence that he was going to help me was like, “This guy's serious. Something's going to happen here.” That goes a long way with patients.

The thing is no other chiropractor or chiropractic intern had that. It was very uncertain. “Maybe we'll try to move this segment, maybe we'll try to move this.” When I met someone that was upper cervical driven, they knew that this is the issue. “This is how we're going to correct it. Here's the proof through thermography and instrumentation that we did get it. You're good. Your life is going to change.” That is a component that we could go on a deep dive. There is this fascination and agreement and planning the subconscious belief that they're going to get better. You have to hold that vibration as a practitioner.

After that adjustment, you're like, “This is what I have to do going forward.

Not really, honestly. It was weird because I felt phenomenal, and he adjusted me the following week. We reached it, I was holding, and I was hungry, my personality is all or nothing. He said, “I got a book for you. You should order this book, the Law of Attraction. I was like, “Okay.” I got it. I read it in 48 hours. I came back to the next visit, and I was like, “That book was phenomenal. Why has no one ever told me these principles that the energy I put out is what's going to be brought back to me?”

He was like, “It's pretty cool. Read The Power of Your Subconscious Mind.” I read that, then I read The Power of Positive Thinking. I went down this whole rabbit hole of books and Andy Frisella, and I'm like, “I used to put so much emphasis on my physical body, but I neglected my mind.”

This is the game. You perfect this game, and you win the game of life. For six months, I was a sponge. I enjoyed being in his presence because I'm like, “This world's pretty freaking cool about being abundant and being a millionaire.” One day, getting coffee at Starbucks, he said, “Why don't you become a chiropractor?” Since of all the self-limiting beliefs, I was like, “I can't do that. I'm not good at school. I'm not smart.” I spent four years at a community college. I'm like, “I'm not qualified.” I started sitting back saying, “Why not? Why can't I?” I met with my advisor that week and realized I was a few classes short, and I said, “F it, we're doing it. Burn the ship. Let's do it.”

A lot of people know intuitively that you change your thoughts, you change your life, but there's such a tango within life. Many thoughts are coming at us. It's very easy to get back into that lower vibrational. Your mind is just going. How do you stay up, keep the mind clear, and keep those positive thoughts going to keep improving your life?

Part of it scientifically, if you want to get into the realm of science, is this. I'm not a woo-woo guy, “Let's sit here and think about a Lamborghini, and we're going to have it.” The reticular activating system is a bundle of neurons in your brainstem. That's what filters information going to your subconscious mind. Your reticular activating system is looking for everything to validate your belief system.

That's why if you start driving a blue Ford pickup truck, you start seeing them everywhere. They're not all of a sudden popular. Your subconscious mind is looking for them and pinpointing them. If you have a negative bias or a negative belief system, your reticular activating system is going to validate those beliefs. It's going to find all of the crappy shit in life to say, “Your life sucks.”

If your reticular activating system is rooted in gratitude, “I'm blessed. I'm abundant. My life is great,” guess what it’s going to be looking for? All of the opportunities instead of obstacles. Plus, I believe we can brainwash ourselves. If we think about the military, you take an eighteen-year-old kid and put him through boot camp, and he's a trained warrior, a trained killer, “Kill. You got to be a tough soldier.” He was brainwashed. You can brainwash yourself to be sick, to have anxiety. “I'm nervous.” What if you could brainwash yourself to be positive, happy, and abundant?

I tell myself these conversations so much that I've brainwashed myself that every single time someone asks me, “Preston, how are you?” “I'm amazing. I'm awesome.” It's reflexive. Most people's reflexive moments in life and reflexive conversations are doom, life is hard, and life is shitty.” It's become so reflexive for me because I trained my program, my subconscious mind that when someone asks me, “How are you?” “Phenomenal.”

It just comes out.

I don't even think about it. I'm just like, “I'm phenomenal.” “Why are you phenomenal?” “I'm alive. I'm blessed. I'm grateful. I have goals. I have a purpose.” I've taught myself for years. Most people can look and see calluses on their hands. I've put calluses and ingrained this shit in my mind for years and now, I don't even think about it. It's automated.

Is this something you have to revisit and ground yourself in every day, every morning? How does that work?

Every morning. You may get this. I'm a very driven, motivated person. I'm writing out 6-month, 1-year, 5-year, 10-year, or 25-year goals. I feel like I'm immersed in my purpose but there are a lot of mornings I wake up where I'm just like, “I'm tired.” That's just raw reality. I always have to step back. If you're just focused on the day-to-day process, you're going to get caught up in the mundane. It's exhausting. Running a business, having employees, training people, doing Zoom calls, doing podcasts, it's a lot. I always have to realize, “What's the end goal? What's my purpose? If I was going to die the next day, how would I live now?”

When I revisit and think about dying, about life as being extremely short, what's the impact that I want to have? At the same time, how do I show up now in how I speak and move? I'm impacting the world. I'm creating a ripple effect. Maybe I meet one person now and they need to see me at my best. If we're in the game of serving people, I can't afford not to show up. Every morning, I have to play this weird game with my head to get fired up. Some mornings, it's organic. It's effortless. Some mornings, I'm like, “Preston, let's go.” It's harder than another. I just try my best.

It's funny that you mentioned that. I'm sure you know that I went to chiropractic school. For a lot of people, the sole reason they chose chiropractic school was they heard chiropractors make a lot of money. They hear they set their own hours. This is all very enticing to them. If you don't have a purpose, it becomes a regular job. You get caught in the regular grind. There is a ton of people I went to chiropractic school with, with chiropractic degrees that are not doing chiropractic anymore because they didn't know why they were doing it.

That's why what you're doing is so powerful as far as making content and educating people in this show. People need to see what's possible. There's a huge divide within chiropractic. People don't realize that you can expect miracles. You can serve very complicated cases. You can do something so simplistic and create such a profound shift and change lives. That's where the purpose is. If I was cracking backs, taking insurance, and hoping people get better, I wouldn't get lost. I would be looking for quick fixes and how do I make money. You and I are rooted in a bigger principle.

Preston, mental health is a big part of a lot of the content you make. Where does that come from? I saw some videos about your family too. I don't know if you want to get into that. You don't have to. I love things like this, what is people's why.

I realized my whole entire life, I had the thing inside of me. It was buried inside of me. Most often, our limiting beliefs, the conversations, the traumas, our environment, our families, the cards that we were dealt, all of this clutter just suppresses all of our potential, dreams, and desires. It's our job to unravel that. As a chiropractor, we can improve the nervous system and the health of the spine. People's symptoms in life typically will change. It starts to remove some of that clutter and give them clarity but you have to do the work.

When you start to dive deep and erase the victim consciousness, reprogram your subconscious mind, and realize that all the shit that you believe about yourself typically isn't true. It’s something that's been projected onto you by your peers, your family, your mom, and your dad. Broken people have said things about you that are not truly you. Oftentimes, we associate that with who we are. When you start to unravel that and erase that, you realize, “I can do it. I want to do it.” I've seen my whole entire family have so much potential. Those potentials went down the drain because of drugs, chaos, abuse, and alcohol.

My mom was the greatest mother ever. When I needed her most, she was there but she fought demons her whole life. My mom tried to hang herself in the closet when she was twelve years old. She got pregnant when she was fifteen years old and had my half-brother who was handicapped. She had me when she was eighteen. When my half-brother was eight years old, he died. My mom went through a lot of shit early on and never had the ability to process it. I'm not against medication or the medical route.

My mom was this young single mother that was dealing with all this shit and didn't know what to handle and what to do. What was the solution? Here's a pill. From the lower tabs, Ativan, Adderall, and Klonopin, it was all this cocktail remedy to solve a deeper internal problem. Years and years of numbing, guess what? You may feel good at the moment, but the pain's still there. That led to meth and suicide. My big thing is there's never going to be a right time, ever. There's always going to be an inconvenience and the next thing. Face the shit now. Life is only getting harder.

If you don't know what to do, you don't know how to change your life, you're so embedded in trauma and you're like, “I don't know how to break free from this.” Ask somebody, seek out help. It may be hard, but why not live the life of your dreams? It's sad that the opiate crisis and everyone's just trying to rely on medication. The big thing right now that's trendy is Ozempic. Ozempic is a weight loss pill or shot that people are doing. Have you heard of that?

I haven't.

It's a weight loss shot. Medical doctors say it's going to be the cure for obesity. You don't have to exercise. It's curving your appetite and it's a shot. What is that going to do? You do no work, you lose weight. When you don't have the shot and you haven't instilled the core habits, routines, and identity of a healthy person, you're going to gain weight. I'm like, “I'm not about that.” Take massive ownership of your life. I realize that if you don't control this, you're going to allow the world to program it for you or you're going to be like, “I don't know what to do.” You're going to be weak and soft.

It drives me crazy and it's coming from trauma and pain, but I'm at a point now in my life where I refuse to be reliant on pills. I refuse to make excuses for my life. If I want something, I have to go out there and get it. That applies to everyone. I went through a lot of shit in my life and that shit could define me and be my excuse or it could be what qualifies me and gives me a platform to try to speak and serve others.

There's something to that pain and suffering. You can go one way and stay there. If you know how to harness it, I feel like it almost brings you to this beautiful level that you can't get to unless you've experienced that pain and suffering. Is that something that you feel awful about the shit you went through, but the life you're living now wouldn't even be possible if you didn't even have those experiences?

Often, we pray for this perfect life. We pray for the perfect marriage. We want to be happy and successful. We don't want any problems. Without the problems, we do not evolve and grow as human beings. If you look at anyone on a grand scale that's made a massive impact on their life, most often, they took the biggest pain point of their life and the thing that should have disqualified them was the very thing that qualifies them to make an impact.

If I sit here and talk about mental health, I can be an expert and study it. When you've lived it, when you have personally experienced it, or you've witnessed your family deal with meth and drugs and suicide, you can talk about suicide. You can talk about mental health. That's what qualifies you. The very thing that you think disqualifies you is the very thing that qualifies you to live your purpose. I wholeheartedly believe that.

As a society, we've been programmed to run away from our insecurities and problems. If you just look at your problems from the same lower vibrational state, it's a sense of trauma and you're going to get triggered. When you can revisit the darkest times of your life and heal, you can go to it with a sense of gratitude and peace and pluck the lessons from it. The lessons that I've accumulated over the past years, every single one of them have come from shitty moments, from failing boards, from my mom dying, from living with friends, and from my dad being in prison. All of those things have come from hard times.

I had a thought in my head that I wanted to ask you, but it slipped my mind.

That's all good. That's why I'm so passionate about the mindset thing because there are a lot of people that are going to promote this fairytale, “Just be positive.” I've often seen this. People will share positive quotes or podcast clips. They'll share Bible scripture verses, uplifting optimistic things but the very moment they're sharing these words of encouragement, they don't believe it's applicable in their life. Even though they're like, “I can do all things with Christ who strengthens me.” Really?

They share these uplifting things, but they don't believe it's applicable to their life because they're so stuck. That's where it comes down to doing the work. No different than you doing the reps. That's why you're such a good blare doctor. You haven't practiced your toggle ten times. You've done it for many years. That's why you're so good. You have to practice these principles to have a strong mind and a healthy life.

I remember what I was going to ask you. A lot of people think healing is just physical. Do you think the upper cervical was able to heal through those emotional traumas? I remember when I was under upper cervical care for the first 6 months to 1 year, there'd be days where I was crying and bawling my eyes, emotional releases because the nervous system remembers everything. Was there emotional healing that the upper cervical helped you or that you had to go through too? That can be just as painful and difficult as physical healing.

It was a total immersion process because outside of me passively feeling those emotions and going through the retracing process of being, “That's weird. Why am I feeling this?” I was searching for those emotions. The simple fact of having chiropractic, that veil removed, and a clear brainstem in my nervous system and body going down to that parasympathetic state and feeling calm for once and wanting to heal expedited the process. There were tons of journaling and crying sessions. I do think that if I wouldn't have chiropractic, it would not have laid the foundation, clarity, and receptivity. Being receptive to the fact of reading books and wanting to heal and do more, and putting emphasis on my brain.

I can't say chiropractic’s the end-all-be-all but I have seen a lot of people, without even me trying to sit down and do this, have a therapy session. When the human body feels safe and you unlock the nervous system, innately, intuitively, your body wants to seek peace, thrive, and unravel all the garbage. It opens up the doors. It's your job to walk through it, but it opens up the doors for peace and healing.

Was talking to somebody professionally something that you recommend? Was it just friends, family, and everything else?

Not really. It's a fine line. It's hard for me to talk to my family because my family can't take me to where I want to go. It's hard for me to share my vision and my financial goals with my family and no one in my family has made more than $50,000 a year. How are you going to teach me how to become a millionaire and be abundant when the most you made is $50,000 a year? How are you going to teach me how to heal when you've never healed or when you never read a book? I didn't do that with my family a whole lot. The big thing that got me is talking to people that experience similar shit as me and heal from it.

I'm not a huge proponent of therapy because it can be this whole Kumbaya, let's just talk it out. Nothing against that. I liked talking to Rocco. He was my first mentor because he lived a very similar life to me. When he spoke, it wasn't that he was trying to teach me something that he read in a book. He was telling me his life and I'm like, “You get me. We're the same person from sports to mindset, our identity, not knowing what we want to do, and feeling broke. You get me.” The greatest way to help someone heal is relatability. When you can relate to their story, that bridges the gap and that allows them to drop their guard down.

As far as the content and everything you create, there are probably less than five upper cervical chiropractors making continuous content out there right now. What motivates you? You're posting a lot. You're making great content. What motivates you to put yourself out there like that?

If you want to make a lot of money, you got to solve a problem. You can't make money if people don't know what problem you're solving. The whole thing is, I'm not able to go out to the community a whole lot if I'm stuck in my office. What better thing to do than use this tool right here? Honestly, I've always wanted to make content, but I was just winging it. I saw your page and that's why I contacted you because you're making some pretty good content. I realized that people want to be a part of something. People are nosy, want to creep on you, and want to see who you are and how you move through life.

What better way than just to build a page to show people who I am? Outside of chiropractic content, I can help you with your migraines. I also want people to see who am I. Where do I spend my time? I take ice baths. I read books. I work out. I study things. I have a podcast. I immerse myself in this principle. This is me and what I'm preaching is what I'm living. If you're not on social media, you're missing the whole big picture.

Isn't it amazing how people couldn't even do this, if they wanted to, many years ago? You needed to be on the TV. There was no internet. They didn't have a platform? I feel so lucky that anybody that has a phone can put themselves out there, advertise themselves, and say what they want to say. It's mind-blowing how many people you can reach these days.

It's almost too easy. That's the sad thing about life. At our disposal, we have every bit of information and resource that we need to open a business, change our life, heal, or learn how to play the piano. Whatever we want to learn, it's right here in our pocket. It's so convenient that no one takes advantage of it. To where it seems so simple, “I don't have the time to make a ten-minute video.”

If you realize those ten-minute videos compound. That's evergreen content for people to see your face and hear your voice. That builds trust. Like you, I've had so many people come to my office and I'm like, “Pleasure to meet you. My name's Dr. Preston. How did you hear about us?” “I've been following you for the last six months.” It's like, “For the past six months, you've been following me and seeing what I'm posting and seeing if I check the boxes that you should come into my office.”

That's funny you mention that because a lot of people that are doing content, it's almost like they want that quick fix. They'll post three videos, “This isn't working,” when people will follow you for 6 months, 1 year, and 2 years, and they will land in your office all that time late because of the last video you posted. People will subscribe to what you're saying, and then they see that one video year later and like, “That's it. I got to go see this guy.”

People don't truly understand how hard it is to make high-quality content. This is something I'm learning too. If you look at someone that has 5 million subscribers on YouTube, the amount of energy and effort that goes into their videos, the budget, their team, and their editing. Often, we just pick out our phone and make some decent video with a little bit of captions that we took five minutes to make, and we expect to have 1 million views. It doesn't work that way. You have to be very systematic.

Often, we're just making content just to talk. Chiropractic, B.J. Palmer, subluxation, but you're confusing people. I'm trying to make my content centered on chiropractic. What problem do I solve? When you find my page, you know that these are the problems that I solve and I do a good job at it. That's it. Erase the whole, “Let's make trendy videos. Let's talk about things.” Make it very concrete what is the problem that Kevin and Preston solve, upper cervical, brainstem, misalignment. These are all the things that are correlated. I can help you.

To touch on what you said before, in my first couple of years in practice, I tried to do a lot of it all by myself where I was going to do this. You slowly find people and you start inviting them into your life and your inner circle, and they help you get to that next level. One of the mistakes I made early on was, “I'm going to do this. I'm going to get myself here.” Not that I don't need help, but I was going, I was burning out. You invite these amazing people into your life and they give you these little tips and tricks and you start growing together. It's an amazing thing to see.

The hardest thing for me is delegating. Even for you, you make phenomenal content. You're a phenomenal practitioner, and you're very successful, but you're way beyond in the years of practice in the game of business than I am. It's hard for me to let go and start delegating to other people. Being one person doing everything, it's exhausting at times. It's a lot.

The one thing I didn't ask myself when I graduated chiropractic school was, “I want to be an upper cervical chiropractor. I'll do it anywhere.” I bought a location that I liked but didn't love, and it's not necessarily where I wanted to live. I had to backtrack and say, “How do I go from here to here?” That enabled me to delegate. I had to. If I didn't delegate, I wouldn't be able to go to the second place. That was tough, stepping back, having other doctors in your office, getting the miracles you want to get in there too. It's tough to step back and delegate, but it's for the bigger picture like we were talking about before.

It's part of maturing. It's hard because as a student, you're buying into someone's belief and certainty. As a student, you haven't seen the miracles. Most students cling to a doctor. There are students that follow Dr. Kevin and are adopting your certainty and your miracles. They're so immersed in the principle, “I'm going to change the world, give love, and serve.” You realize that personality is good, but it's not sustainable. You got to fall back on delegating and having people in your corner. You got to have the right systems. It's maturing as not only a doctor but a business owner as a leader. If you're married, a husband, or a father, it's putting all of that together.

Surround yourself with people that want to help you succeed and want the best for you too because as you know, it only takes one person to try to pull you back down again. I know you got big dreams, big aspirations. What do you want to do in these 5 to 10 years? Where do you see this going?

For me, it's coaching. That's what I want to do. Speaking. The goal right now is to get the office up to where it doesn't need me. Right now, Momentum Chiropractic has been pressed in chiropractic. It's been very personality-driven. I started with nothing, no backing. Naturally, I was the face of this office. That's great.

It had to be.

It did. It served me to this point, but what I'm trying to do now is eliminate more of Preston being the face of it and develop the systems in place. I'm trying to get better management, train more office managers, try to get an associate and hear a second doctor. My goal is to work my way out of the office. I want to coach and speak. I realize that when I talk to patients, what I love more sometimes than adjusting is speaking to them. Communication is what I love more than anything. I still love chiropractic. It's this up and down, but the end goal is to have this office run itself. I still come in periodically, but I'm out coaching and speaking. That's what I want to do.

You already are a great coach and speaker. I'm excited for that to take fruition and see you do your thing on some big stages.

Thank you. I've also looked at it too. People that have the most impact. If you look at Ed Mylett and Andy Frisella, these guys that have 2 or 3 million followers, they're in the entrepreneur mindset space. That's the influence I want. You probably have more followers than any other chiropractor that I've ever met, unless it's someone that's doing shitty garbage.

As far as a value-driven doctor that's actually promoting a principle of healing, getting to the root cause, you have the biggest following that I've seen. The thing is, not many chiropractors are walking around with 2 to 3 million followers. What if I could create that type of following based on coaching impact in my story, but still drive chiropractic into it? A foundation of my healing, a foundation of my life. The core pillar of how I maintain this level of function is chiropractic. That makes sense. I'm trying to build a massive following and leverage my story, my voice, and how I move through life. Along the way, sprinkle in, “You should try this.”

One thing I hope you do a little bit more is I didn't know some aspects of your story. I know short-form content's so tough that you only have a minute to explain some of that. You have a phenomenal story that many people are going to resonate with. I heard it. You can't keep saying your story but I could listen to one of those clips every 2 to 3 weeks. That's a powerful thing that's going to hit some soul chords in people for sure.

It is tough sometimes on social media to make these 60-second clips that tie in all the details of everything that you went for. I truly believe in relatability and the only thing that makes you unique in life is your story. If I'm getting on in front of a camera and talking about mindset, purpose, discipline, and habits, then I'm like everyone else. If I can sit there and talk about, “I know what it's like in high school to live with a friend because my dad's in prison. My mom's in rehab.” Someone may hear that and say, “Wow.” Someone may hear that like, “That's my story. He gets me. He understands me.”

I feel like that allows people to drop their guard because everyone's got their guard up. They got their filter of like, “This guy's full of shit.” When you show people you're raw and you've experienced similar things and you have the tools to help them overcome it. I want to leverage my story because I'm not a pro. I'm not Tony Robbins right now. I'm a normal dude trying to do something positive with my life.

All those guys have phenomenal stories. I remember the first time I saw Gary Vee. I was like, “Shut up. This guy is so full of himself.” I heard his story and I'm like, “This guy is real.” It's very easy to dismiss motivational content when you don't know where it's coming from. Once you hear where it's coming from, you're in it.

You can also decipher too, the people that genuinely believe the message they're saying on the people that are putting on a facade. I believe the people in this motivational realm are the people that are going through a lot of hard shit. That's why they're so passionate. When Gary Vee, Andy Frisella, Ed Mylett, or Tony Robbins speaks, there is a lot of energy there because they went through hard times, and trusting these principles in this process is what changed their life. This is what I believe. Honestly, reading books changed everything for me.

If you can give the audience a couple of gems, 1 or 2 books to kickstart them, what would you say?

I'm going to explain, and then I'm going to give you an answer. Every book that I've ever read serves that season and that version of me. Often, we're searching for this perfect book, but you realize that every book that you read serves a season of you. Where you're at energetically, that's what you're going to get from the book. Meaning that you could read Think and Grow Rich in January. Months later, read it again. You get something completely different because you evolved.

I would say fundamentally, the 2 or 3 books that I recommend are Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. That's a staple. The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Dr. Joseph Murphy. It's an old book. The last one, if you want to go a little bit deeper, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself by Dr. Joe Dispenza. I would read that one last.

If you start to understand elementary, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind, stories about your mind then you dive into Think and Grow Rich. You're reading a book that was written in 1920, but it's so applicable a hundred years later. You go into the newest work of Dr. Joe Dispenza’s Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself. You understand that this isn't woo-woo manifest. There's science behind your neurons, your brain, your subconscious mind, your reticular activating system, and your hypothalamus. It's powerful that you have the ability to reprogram your brain.

Isn't Dr. Dispenza's story amazing? Nobody even knows he's a chiropractor from New Jersey. I didn't know that until I started reading his books. It's possible to talk to people on those big stages.

What's fascinating is he's brilliant. This is my belief. He started doing his work because he knew he couldn't make that big of an impact as a chiropractor because people were already going to have this preconceived notion that, “You're a chiropractor.” Most of the underlying principles of what he talks about are chiropractic principles. The body is designed to heal itself. There's innate intelligence. There's organizing wisdom. There's energy. All that's chiropractic, but he's coined a different term that's more digestible for people to understand.

I want to turn it back to you a little bit. I do appreciate and admire what you've done with social media. Believe it or not, everyone knows who you are. I'm only a couple of months in the practice, but what you've created and what you're doing, I meet a lot of students at Sherman, from Florida, from all over, and they're always referencing you. I'm sure some of these students reach out to you, but there are a lot of people right here in my backyard that you've never met that know who you are.

That means a lot. That all started because I thought my life was over with brain fog, blur vision, dizziness, and headaches from concussion. Doctors were telling me, “You're never going to live a normal life again. I met Dr. Drew Hall, an upper cervical doctor, and I saw him recording these testimonies of people getting better from the same stuff I was going in. I was like, “If I saw this a few years earlier, this would've saved my life so much sooner.” It was a blessing that I did suffer for five years because of those struggles, those tough times we were talking about, but showing people that this shit works, my mind was blown. Doing the actual adjustments are not enough. We got to show some people that this is working.

There are a lot of people that get amazing results in their offices. There are a lot of upper cervical practitioners that literally have hundreds of walking testimonies in their town, but it's not displayed. No one hears it. Where we're transitioning to in the era of social media, that needs to be a prerequisite, a requirement as an upper cervical doctor. You have to put videos out. If you're not preaching this principle, then that's a disservice. There are people in your community that's going to suffer because that's part of the job. We know X-rays and instrumentation. That's part of what we do as a chiropractor and so is making content. We have to do that.

People are going to think that a fucking wise trap adjustment is upper cervical. “I do upper cervical. It's a wise trap.” Those are the videos that are getting hundreds of thousands of views. It's an obligation for us to tell people, “That is not upper cervical. There's a better way to do it. I know regular chiropractic didn't work for you. Upper cervical is completely different.”

It's frustrating too, because on the spectrum of chiropractic, we go from the joint, $27, we go from insurance, $10 adjustments. There's a chiropractor at a flea market here in my hometown that adjusts people for $15. There's someone like you and me who's doing a $2,000, $3,000, $4,000 care plan. The gap is massive. There needs to be a consistent standard with all of us upper cervical chiropractors to where society starts to differentiate, “This isn’t one of those generic guys, but this is one of those upper cervical root cause guys.” They need to know this is a high-ticket price.

I'm not in the game of trying to make tons of money, but with what we do, it's stressful. It's hard trying to find a root cause, being super precise, holding the space for people to heal, taking pre- and post-X-rays, having instrumentation, and having things that hold us to a standard. It's a lot of damn work. Society needs to realize what we do is up here.

I want to have the guy, the CEO from The Joint, on this show for a business perspective. There’s a Joint on every corner of the United States. What is this guy doing? Do not agree with his chiropractic practice methods, but from a business standpoint, tell me what you're doing, my friend. You can learn something from everybody.

It's hard too, because ultimately, I can't take care of everyone. There have to be other chiropractors here in Boiling Springs, but it almost needs to be this conversation where The Joint serves certain people. If you've got some low back pain and you need to get a quick fix, cool. That's okay. When you start to dive into the realm of complex neurological issues, EMS, chronic inflammation, and vertigo, that does not serve you. I wish it could be that when you walk into The Joint with those types of issues, they could say, “You have a little bit more stuff going on than what we do here. I'm going to refer you to Dr. Kevin. He can help you.” That's farfetched. I wish that were the narrative on how we took care of people to get results.

Dr. Preston, at the end of every show, I like to ask all my guests, what is one piece of advice that has resonated with you over the years that you would like to gift the audience? It could be anything.

I'm big at the moment. I speak from the heart. I don't rehearse anything. I don't pre-frame anything. I don't read notes. This literally hit me, results rule. There are two Rs in life that everyone falls on: Reasons and Results. Maybe you're reading this, and you've had a lot of reasons why you can't do something. The excuses. “I'll start tomorrow. I have kids. Life is tough. It's stressful. I don't have the funds.” There are a lot of reasons in life. When you set aside reasons and go up to results and take massive ownership, that's when your life changes.

Results rule. If you get phenomenal results in your office, new patients are going to come. When you get phenomenal results in the workplace, you're probably going to get a promotion. When you get phenomenal results individually, internally, physically, mentally, emotionally, you level yourself up as a high-value person. You attract better friend groups and relationships. Let your filter in the chiropractic world, because there are a lot of dangly keys that want your attention and your money.

Outside of what you feel, outside of what feels cool, the wise trap, the adjustment. I have a ring light right here. Whatever it is that feels good. The foundation of chiropractic is results. Whatever gets the best results, that's what I want to do. I found that to be upper cervical. In every area of life, you are selling yourself. You're not competing with others, you're competing with yourself. Get the best results possible. When you get high-level results, all the things that you hope and wish for fall in line. The goals that I want, the goals that I'm chasing are going to come when I'm able to get the results and I'm able to become the person I need to become. Don't fall into the reasons. Fall into the results.

I love that. Preston, you have a podcast. What is the name of the podcast?

The podcast is named Unmasking Greatness. We're on Apple and Spotify. You can find us there.

Where can people find you on social media?

Social media, if you look at Momentum Chiropractic, that's my business office page. If you don't want to follow chiropractic but more of the mindset, it's Dr. Preston Gregory. That's where you can find me on TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram.

Preston, thank you so much for taking the time out and coming on the show. I would love to have you back at any time. It was great talking and sitting down with you for the first time. You're an awesome guy.

Now we have to meet face to face.

That's fun.

I’ve got to come down to Florida and enjoy some coffee and some warm weather.

Let's do it.

I appreciate you.

Important Links

• Dr. Preston Gregory
• The Power of Your Subconscious Mind
• The Power of Positive Thinking
• Think and Grow Rich
• Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself
• Unmasking Greatness Podcast
• Spotify - Unmasking Greatness
• TikTok - Dr. Preston Gregory
• Facebook - Dr. Preston Gregory
• Instagram - Dr. Preston Gregory

About Dr. Preston Gregory

Dr. Preston Gregory has a great passion for helping others reach their fullest potential through chiropractic. He was born and raised in Boiling Springs, SC, and graduated from Sherman College of Chiropractic in 2021. Dr. Gregory’s passion resides in helping people improve their mental health and therefore their overall quality of life. Through chiropractic, he helps individuals transform their lives and express their greatest potential.

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