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The human mind has a penchant for negative thoughts. Much like in a subluxation, these thoughts cause blockages and survival constraints that keep us from achieving our dream practice and our ideal lifestyle. Whether you’re a chiropractor or not, this conversation between Dr. Kevin Pecca and his awesome guest is going to resonate with you. Joining him on this episode is Dr. Barbara Eaton, an Alaska-based chiropractor and chiropractic business coach who is on a mission to create badass chiropractors who are instinctively successful through her 56-day Chiropractic Bootcamp. Tapping into her own story of struggle and perseverance, Dr. Barbara serves up the lessons about mindset, alignment and success that she learned in the course of her personal journey in the practice. Join in for this uplifting moment of enlightenment and inspiration.
Listen To The Episode Here
Survival Constraints With Dr. Barbara Eaton
Dr. Barbara Eaton is a Chiropractor and Chiropractic Coach out of Alaska. She is extremely passionate about the chiropractic profession and even more passionate about helping other people grow their business, their personal lives and achieving their greatest desires. She is the Founder of the 56-Day Chiro Bootcamp and you can find all of her information online at www.DrBarbaraEaton.com. Please welcome, Dr. Barbara Eaton.
We have such a wonderful guest. I'm excited to have Dr. Barbara Eaton out of Eagle River, Alaska. Dr. Barbara, how are you?
I’m fabulous, Kevin. How about you?
I am fantastic. I heard you speak at a Blair Upper Cervical Conference and you completely owned the room. You winded up with energy and it is so great to have you on the show. Thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you. It’s nice to spend some hours with you in Orlando.
One of the things I love most about your talk was your own actual story of perseverance and why you're doing what you're doing now. If you could give us a little background on yourself, where you're from and how did you end up in the seat you're sitting in now?
I first want to acknowledge your audience, whether you're a chiropractor, a practice member or in some way attached, and acknowledge all of us that we're all connected. I'm a Christian and I believe that the Bible says God created us in His image. To be honest, even at 51 years old, it didn't make sense to me. It finally has started making sense to me in that if you think of God's image and how are we all connected, think of it like a big ocean. The ocean is filled with all kinds of stuff. When God went to create Kevin, me, you and the audience, he took this bucket and he scooped it out of all of this stuff to give us form, shape and separateness but to give us an equal playing field, which is quite phenomenal.
That then is how we're all connected because we all started with the same stuff. When we go from there, then how we use that stuff is then what creates our journey and what creates our experiences in this game we call life. From there, I want to go right to chiropractic school. It's interesting as human beings how much courage we have. To lay in one other context, this is specifically for chiropractors. I went to Logan and our school was divided up into trimesters. In the first trimester, we had gross anatomy, histology, biologies and all of that stuff, the big concepts. As we went on, it got more and more narrow in trimester nine then, which was tri ten is when we graduated, it was case studies. They said, “Here's this guy, Kevin. Here's this case history. Here's what we found out. What's his differential diagnosis?” Can you imagine if they did it backwards? If in tri one, instead, it was like, “Here's Kevin, here's his history. What's wrong?” We'd be like, “I don’t know.”
I don't know about the nerve system. I don't know about the immune system. I don't know about the incurrent system. I don't know about these big concepts. What's interesting is that's why some people wrestle so much with personal growth and development. They try and make sense of self before they understand humans. We have to understand human first. As human, we're made in God's image. We have mind, thought and consciousness. I want to bring that back to courage. When I graduated from chiro school, I was pregnant and I had a toddler.
A year later, I'm like, “I'm ready to get this show on the road.” I had tons of courage. I got this mind. I got these hands. I got this heart. I have this fancy education. I don't have any files in my mind of what it means to be a business owner. Yes, I'm a natural leader. Had I learned leadership? No. Have I learned how to set up systems in my office? No. Had I learned how to do marketing, how to measure it, how to improve it? No. Had I learned how to take strangers into friends, friends into appointments, appointments into profits? No. In my mind, I didn't have those files that my knowingness could tap into. When we have knowledge plus intelligence, we have harmony. When we have ego plus intelligence, we have chaos.
We jump in most of the time with all of this courage. I know I want to help people. I know I can help people. I'm going to open a business. We fluster our way around and naturally don't do well because we don't have those files attached into, get discouraged and then start doubting ourselves. Mind to thought, thought is random. We have 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day as a human. Eighty percent of thoughts are negative. It’s not my rules. I'm not making it up. It's the National Institute of Health. Ninety-eight percent of the thoughts that we are recycled from yesterday, so it's like Groundhog Day. Thoughts are random, thinking is choice. We don't think about all of those thoughts. We grab hold of some and then think about them and go on this journey with them. That journey then leads to feelings. If we start with 80% negative, what do you think our thinking is going to be?
It’s going to lead us into a journey of somewhere we probably don't want to be.
Thinking is going to be monsters or mansions. Monsters, both of which create behaviors, monsters lead to survival constraints. This is what happened in practice. I was all ready to go ahead. I had all this courage. These things happened, thinking thoughts and behaviors, “I must not be any good.” People don't want to be healthy. It's the insurance company. It's my state association. It's this, it's that. We point to all of these other things instead of looking within typically because we don't even know how to accurately look in without a club. It's not a club. It's look, see, tell the dirty rotten stinking truth in order to get freedom and then take responsibility. In this process of courage, going back to when I started practice, I was like, “If I have to learn how to be a leader,” because I'm going to open a practice. I'm going to lead a team.
I'm going to lead people and lead my community. If I want to be profitable because I’ve heard these stories of chiropractors making millions. I want to be in that club. If I'm going to be able to support my children, if I'm going to pay off my student loans, I better learn now. I don't want to develop a bunch of bad habits that I have to undo. I hired my coach five months before I opened my practice. We set up my systems. We set up what my marketing was going to look like. We role-played. When the gun went off and I opened my practice in December of ‘98 in a town of 5,000 people. It doesn't take a lot of people. It’s Christmas time in Michigan, all cash and a new doctor.
What made you land in Michigan? Is that where you're from originally?
Yes. I took that training. I took that experience. I took that courage and I went from $0 to $180,000 in 89 days. It was fast. Knowledge, intelligence, harmony, ego, intelligence and chaos. I kept growing my practice and my coach said, “Do you want to go to chiropractors?” I was like, “Sure.” I developed an online program at the time. It was teleclass because we didn't even know the internet back then. It was called, $0 to $180,000 in 90 Days or Less. I taught docs while I was in practice what I did. Long story short, stuff happened. I ended up selling my practice, moving out of state, getting a divorce and still coaching. I got married in 2009 and my husband and I decided let's go balls to the wall.
We both went through nasty divorces, which everyone's is nasty and we're both somewhat broke and decided to go for it. We ramped back up and everything's great. In 2013, I had a breast reduction and then like this COVID thing, a lot of people started coasting. I made up all these stories like, “Maybe I don't want to work that hard. I’ve worked so hard my whole life. I have a husband who I can be a kept wife and this isn't so bad.” To the point where having done $500,000 many times in my business prior to this, in 2016, I made $46,000.
What was going on?
It’s survival constraints. I wasn't being me. I was living in chaos. I was wrapped up in thought, feeling, behavior and survival constraints. I didn't have locked into my GPS what I wanted. If now you landed in anchorage and I said, “Kevin, let's meet at Moose's Tooth.” When you get in your rental car, you're going to put it into here or you're going to be driving all over the place lost, frustrated, out of gas and never get where you're going where you want to go. Most individuals do that in their lives. They don't have a GPS of this is what I want. It’s not what can I do, what do I want? If this is what you want and you plug in this is where I'm starting, then your knowingness will take you there if you ask it. When you get off track over here, your knowingness is going to be like, “Kevin, that negative thought, investigate it. It's out here. It's not in alignment with where we're going.”
I had been all wrapped up out of there. I stopped dreaming. I stopped being all in and it's this slope. It's like Chutes and Ladders going down. In 2016, I had applied for a job as a regional sales manager for Snap-on Tools. My husband was thrilled because he's a tool guy. I don't know anything about a tool nor do I want to but here's the deal, $150,000 at that time sounded like a lot of money. In 2017 at the beginning, I snapped out of it. I got my head on straight. In 2019, I did $1.2 million. Why am I sharing that with you and with your audience? I want to tell you right now where you are now does not have to be where you're going to or where you're headed, but please understand where you are now, unless mind, thinking, feelings, behaviors and survival constraints change, it will be a repeat of the past. It's how human works. Human works to repeat yesterday unless we have a pattern interrupt, which is no different as a chiropractor. Physical, chemical and emotional stress greater than our body's ability to adapt causes subluxation.
It's like me trying to talk to you with my hand over her mouth. If I yell louder, you're not going to hear me. If I talk faster, if I talk slower, you're not going to hear me. That interference has to be removed. That's exactly understanding humans. Understanding, thinking, feelings, thought and consciousness. No one can make you feel that what you don't already think. You feel because the thought is there because that thinking is there. Remember, that thought is the mind’s energy. You're the blueprint that's in your mind. The blueprint for our lives is in our mind and then subluxation happens and then we get caught up in these survival constraints. Just like a chiropractic adjustment allows life, a chiropractic adjustment allows maximum expression. Chiropractic care allows innate potential. It's no different here that innate potential is blocked. Knowing this is blocked when we're subluxated and therefore actions.
How do you meet your clients where you were in 2016? Is step one, find out where that destination is you want to be? What if people don't know?
I was on a call before this and the doc said, “Part of my problem is I don't know what I want.” I'm like, “That's like subluxation.” Your body innate knows what to do but when there's subluxation, the communication isn't happening from above, down or inside out. Your body has the ability to be well, but there's interference. In those situations, what we do is we go through. I, as your guide, ask you questions and then your truth is revealed. Your truth is there. We go through and give you the permission to dream again. I'm not saying it's a journey that is done by yourself. When you're under chiropractic care, you're a partner together in this journey. When we live big lives, it's not done as a solitary journey. It's never has been.
One of the things that resonated with me with what you said was, “Live in a place that feeds your soul.” It seems like you found that place when you and your husband moved to Alaska. Do you have any clients that have this booming, thriving practice but it's not in a place that feeds their soul?
You can still create the life of your dreams. If your practice is in a place that you don't love but it's how you fund your lifestyle. The purpose of our business is to fund our ideal lifestyle. Everyone's ideal lifestyle looks completely different. When we tap in GPS coordinates, it's going to take us to our dream. I'm not going to your dream. This may offend some of you, but that's okay. I don't believe that there is a blueprint from any coaching group or any school that is perfect for another person. It would be no different than saying, “I'm going to scan you, Kevin, and then I'm going to use your scan to adjust me.” That’s not going to work. You're probably going to create more subluxations.
There are coaching groups or even schools of, “This is what practice looks like.” That's your practice. That's your pattern. That's not mine. What happens is docs then try and fit themselves into somebody else's scan, somebody else's pattern. They bump up against the frustration. They bump up against burnout. It's your own plan. Going back to, let's say that you have this awesome practice but you don't love where you practice. We create structure then so that you're there serving and build your team. Another thing that most chiropractors haven't been taught is leadership.
The three requirements of leadership are cast vision, vision can never be accomplished by yourself. It has to be so much bigger than who you are. Create culture. What is the culture of your business? What is it that we're signing up for as a team, as people in your community? What is the culture, and then hold accountable? If you want to have a practice whereby you're spending time out of the practice, then the structure in your practice is going to look different. It doesn't mean you're anchored there like golden handcuffs. With structure, it’s different. It's your life.
What’s this 56-Day Bootcamp you have going on? I saw it on your website.
I create bad-ass chiropractors who are instinctively successful. There are levels of competence. There's unconscious incompetence. I don't even know what I don't know. That's what happened when we opened our practice, we went like, “I don't even know.” There's conscious incompetence. I know that I don't know. There's conscious competence, which is I know that I know. There’s mastery. Mastery is like that innate to innate dance. We're in the moment, we show up and respond to what's showing up. We're not caught up in our feelings and our thinking. We're in our knowingness and we check that person. Their innate and our innate is doing this dance. That's what I do in the boot camp. I teach docs how to be in your knowing while you're in practice and while you're doing your life. There are trainings, community and support. There's laughter and fun. There's mama bootcamp. I'm coming for you to help you live your ideal life.
You're obviously a bad-ass female chiropractor. From looking at your website, it looks like you cater to mostly the female chiropractor. Do you have any male clients as well?
Yes, and let me tell you a little secret. Who is typically the first one in a family that starts chiropractic care, mom or dad?
Probably mom.
For the most part, she's the one that's calling the shots, especially as the kids are young. Who better to teach a man how to attract a woman into his practice and care well for her?
A woman. Guys are more than welcome to join the 56-Day Bootcamp as well?
Men do exceptionally well.
I was looking at that video promo you had and I wasn't sure if it was tailored specifically to women or not.
One of the things in the bootcamp that I teach is identifying your avatar. Your avatar is your ideal client. Let's say that I want to serve mamas and babies. It doesn't mean I say no to dads. It doesn't mean grandma and grandpa can't come in. It means my messaging is to mamas and babies. It means when I say yes to doing events, it's for events for mamas and babies. It means that when I do a Facebook Live, it's geared towards moms and babies. When I go fishing in social media groups and spending time cultivating relationships in social media groups, I'm going to mamas and babies. Mamas and babies have attached to them in relationship and connection, daddies, grandmas and grandpas and they're welcome to come in too. It's like in the bootcamp. My messaging is for women, men come along. Lots of husband-and-wife teams are in the bootcamp.
That's a great point that you brought up that I completely forgot that I said I was going to do is social media platforms and forums. How do you go about doing that? Is that something that you stick to Facebook with or other platforms? There have been so many times where people say, “I found you on a Facebook forum,” or something like that. That is yet an avenue I have personally introduced myself to. How does a chiropractor go about doing that?
I'm going to relate it to fishing because I love to fish and I'm good at it. In Alaska, we fish mainly in the ocean. We do river fishing too but my favorite is in the ocean. That means typically halibut, different species of rockfish and salmon. My favorite is lingcod. What happens is it's important as a good fisherman that I know how do they feed? Where do they live? What depth? What do they like? All of those things. If I'm targeting halibut, then I'm going to use a jig. I'm going to bounce on the bottom. I'm going to be near a structure because they like to lay on the bottom in the sandy things. They like structure up here for the little fish that are going by.
They like motion. I'm not going to fish them on a slack tide. I need to know all of those things and that's going to increase the likelihood that I'm going to catch a halibut. I'm going to be somewhere between 150 to 180 feet of water most commonly. That means if I'm in 30 feet, I'm probably not going to catch a halibut. It doesn't mean it won't happen. I'm probably not going to catch one in 800 feet. It's important to know these things about my target. Marketing is much the same. What groups have pooled together your ideal practice members? Go fish there. When you go fish there, show up and respond to what's there. Answer questions, be the one who looks for questions that you can answer that you can provide value. I encourage you to do it with a video.
The cool thing about a video is you can use it in other formats. If I'm answering a question right now, let's say in a chiropractor's group and it's about value and worth, I'm going to throw up the video I did. With that video, I could also send it to Rev.com, get a transcript, give it to my team for editing and for a blog. I could give it to my team for editing for an email. We could take out chunks of it for posts. There are so many different things that I can do with it. I can clip out a minute of it and use it for a boosted post on my Facebook page. The important thing is to start by fishing in the pond that has the people who've already congregated together that you love serving.
Is it as easy as putting headaches, TMJ or fibromyalgia in the search toolbar on Facebook and finding groups that pop up? Does that work?
I guess I like to work that’s a little easier than that. I would ask my practice members. I would put on my whiteboard, Facebook groups and I would ask them through my whiteboard topic, “Kevin, what are your favorite Facebook groups to play around in?” “I like this one and this one.” I'm going to write them on the board and then the next person. At the end of the day, my CA takes a picture of it and then I'm playing in those groups.
Dr. Barbara, where can people find you? Where are you located? Social media, websites and everything like that.
It's hard not to find me. Obviously go to my name, DrBarbaraEaton.com. When you go there, click on the videos. We have amazing videos. You'll probably see some chiropractors that you know. Please go to the Praise page. The reason that the Praise page is so vital is when you read someone's story, if you can see yourself doing that, that's your knowingness saying, “Kevin, get after it.” You can do that too. If you read somebody and you're like, “Eh,” your knowingness isn’t grabbing that. Leave it be. Something I say to all bootcampers is to remember that your story can be the launch pad of somebody else's transformation. We're all a community. Remember that ocean that we all started with? You could go to my website. You can also find me on Facebook, Dr. Barbara Eaton. I'm on Instagram, @Dr.BarbaraEaton. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm on Twitter and I'm in all of those places as my name.
Dr. Barbara, 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 give the audience? It could be absolutely anything.
Discipline is remembering what you want.
Dr. Barbara, thank you for coming on the show sharing your story and sharing all the amazing work you're doing for helping chiropractors, people and families achieve what they want. I would love to do it again sometime in the near future.
Yes, let's do that. Thank you. Thanks to all of you. God bless you.
Important Links
- 56-Day Chiro Bootcamp
- www.DrBarbaraEaton.com
- Rev.com
- Dr. Barbara Eaton - Facebook
- @Dr.BarbaraEaton - Instagram
- LinkedIn - Dr. Barbara Eaton
- Twitter - Dr. Barbara Eaton
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