EPISODE 353: The Deep, Free, and Rich Life

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Dr. Kevin Christie: [00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of Modern Chiropractic Mastery. This is your host, Dr. Kevin Christie. And today I'm bringing you a solo episode. I'm going to dive into kind of a trifecta of things that have really helped me with guiding me on what. I guess success is right at the, it's a term that's laced with a lot of doubt thoughts, you know, what is success look like, but I think ultimately it's how you define it.

And I, and I've used these three frameworks in particular, the first tune and kind of the third is a little cherry on the top, uh, to help guide me and, and ultimately feel like I'm making progress. And also, um, You know, help with, with a path. I think a lot of times we, we see all these shiny objects that get us off the path because a, we don't have a vision or a [00:01:00] framework for what we're trying to do, uh, or, or B we have it, but we're not really sold on it where we haven't collaborated with our partners.

partner, significant other on it. And those shiny objects get us off the path there as well. And so in today's episode, I'm going to dive into, uh, three different frameworks and what, what they are and kind of how I use them. The first framework is from strategic coach, and that is the four freedoms. You may have heard me talk about that a bit.

Uh, the second framework will be. Cal Newport's, uh, the deep life, which I really like. And then the, the third will be Ramit Sethi and that's R A M I T S E T H I. And his concept of, of having a rich life. Uh, he's got the book, uh, called, I will teach you to be rich. And so let's dive [00:02:00] into those today. And what I use that for, because I think a lot of us struggle.

In the day to day, whether your practice is doing well or if it's just skating by or it's not, um, I've talked to a lot of chiropractors and all three of those categories and all three of those categories still have chiropractors within them that are not happy. And not fulfilled and struggling in their own way.

And I think ultimately having a framework to, to help guide you will, will help. And so let's, let's dive into the first one, which is again, strategic coaches for freedoms. And that is the freedom of money. Freedom of time, freedom of purpose and freedom of relationships. And let's break that down. Freedom of time, you know, as a chiropractor, most of you are chiropractors, you're most likely not [00:03:00] going to have the ultimate freedom of time where, you know, if you're in the meat and potatoes of your career, Where you can kind of do whatever you want, right?

Uh, I liken the example of John Lee Dumas, who has the podcast called entrepreneur on fire. And I've been fortunate enough to meet him in Puerto Rico and, uh, listen to his podcast on and off for years. And he, you know, his. Podcast course back in 2016 is what got me into podcasting. But this is someone that is an outlier who, um, you know, he is probably got a $3 million a year business.

He publishes his, um, his, his monthly financials on his website and it's usually like two to $300,000 a month in revenue and 40 to $60,000 in overhead. And he batches his episodes and he. He doesn't work a lot and he talks about that and he really has quite a lifestyle and he talks about how he doesn't want to build a [00:04:00] business any bigger than it is.

He could, he could have 50 employees, you can start working towards building this thing, but ultimately he's got freedom of time, freedom of location, all those things. And as chiropractor, we're probably not going to have that type of, You know, four hour work week, most likely maybe down the road, but if, again, if you're in a thick of your career, um, we gotta be real, um, just real, you gotta be realistic with what freedom of time looks like for you.

And so, um, it may not be a four hour work week. It may not be able to travel wherever you want to be and be in different locations throughout the year. Like some people, right? Nomadic lifestyle that we've heard about, but. Um, compared to a lot of other professionals and doctors and lawyers and other, you know, people with full time careers and jobs, we do have a lot more freedom of time than most.

A lot of you have. to half days a week, Monday through Friday, you have Saturday, Sunday off. Some of you have Fridays off, so you work four days a week. [00:05:00] And, and I know other chiropractors that have less. Uh, you know, I've had it where I wasn't treating patients before. I've had it where I was treating patients two days a week.

Now, granted, I was doing a lot of things with MCM and, and also CSA, but, uh, there are people that have. Um, even more time off from that. And so there is a really good, potentially when you work hard and build a nice practice, a good freedom of time that you have in carving that out and even designing your hours that suits your family.

I know some chiropractors that get in the office at 6 45 AM, but are done by 3 PM every day and that their particular community it works for with that. I know some people that are the opposite. They're kind of like to sleep in and they start their day at 11 and end at seven, right? So there's a lot of different ways you can have some freedom of time.

And so you want to see how you're doing with that freedom of money, right? Doesn't mean you are financially free in a sense where you could retire and all your bills are paid by your investments, but it just [00:06:00] means that you have cash confidence. The way I've been looking at it more with this freedom of money is that you have cashflow confidence in your practice.

I really like Greg Crabtree's structure with, you know, having liquidity where you've got two months of emergency savings. You've got an unused line of credit in your personal life. You've got your emergency savings. You've got those layers of protection where you've got that financial fortress that I've spoken about around your.

Uh, practice and I've, you could, you could search on our website. If you want to listen to that episode, I did one on having building a financial fortress around your family. Uh, but ultimately you feel like you have the security financially of cashflow confidence, right? And, and you're making progress within.

That. And so there's a whole lot more that we dive into. We go through a whole in our coaching. We, we do a whole four buckets of finances, but we're [00:07:00] really trying to lay a roadmap for you to have freedom of money and, you know, contributing to your retirement in a healthy manner each month, paying down debt in a healthy manner each month.

It doesn't mean you're driving Lambo's and you got, okay. you know, uh, money coming out of your ears. Right. But you can definitely have freedom of money. And that's a big one. Next one is freedom of purpose. I believe as a chiropractor, you inherently have that as a healer, which is great. There may be other aspects of your life.

Maybe it's spiritual, uh, that you get purpose, your family. Uh, but we are. Checking off a big box as a healer, typically now what happens is if you're not careful and you get burned out and you're not, you know, you don't have freedom of time and freedom of money and you're, you're just really grinding it hard for too long and you can't get out of it, that'll start to erode the freedom of purpose potentially of, of.

What you do as a [00:08:00] chiropractor and you may become jaded and you may become burned out. And then you lack that freedom of that purpose. You get from healing that you might've gotten 10, 15, 15 years prior. So, uh, monitor yourself on that one. And then fourth is freedom of relationships, right? That's gonna be your, you know, friends, your family, obviously.

Uh, but it's also going to be your working relationships. Uh, I feel like I've got such a good sweet spot with this freedom of relationship where, you know, Uh, within my family and friends doing really good with that, uh, I really like the patient base that I have. There's always going to be 10 percent that you don't like, but I enjoy my patient base and the conversations I have with them.

And that's great. And then ultimately I do a lot within the profession and, you know, and. Travel and our mastermind and speaking and really have connected with a lot of our colleagues. And so I have a ton of relationships, which I enjoy. And so I feel like I'm doing well in the relationship category. [00:09:00] And, uh, I always monitoring that like right now, I'm probably pretty low on the freedom of time, but the other three I'm feeling rather good about neck can alter sometimes, you know, if this was a year ago, I was feeling really good about freedom of time, wasn't treating patients, uh, focusing a lot on MCM and growing the practice as well, uh, but right now a little bit low on the freedom of time, but there's definitely a plan in place to achieve that.

And that's what this is about, right? Yeah. Is, is gate you're using as, as gauges to see where you're at and then do you have a plan to improve the freedom of time? It may not happen tomorrow. It may not happen next year, but if you're working towards that, that's going to really help you out. And so for me, out of those four, uh, freedom of time is one where I'm building a strategy.

And right now to get better at the other three, I want to continue and maintain.

All right. The second one is the second kind of framework. Which I really like is Cal Newport's deep life. Give you a little [00:10:00] background on that. He's got a podcast. He talks about this. He's right. He's written a book about it has not been released yet. I think it's later. This year in 2024 about the deep life, but he does have a blog and you could just count, you could just Google Cal Newport, um, the deep life.

And he was a one that wrote the book that, uh, called deep work, which I really liked. And I was really, I don't know how to, how to actually do deep work. A lot of us are not, we're doing a lot of surface level stuff, but he talks about what's it like to have a deep life. And I think. Ultimately, that's a great marker of success is if you feel like you're having a deep life.

And some of these categories will, you know, you'll see some kind of, um, you know, a little bit of similarities to the four freedoms, but different. This one he's got is five C's that make up the deep life. And the first one is community, right? So that might be a lot similar to freedom of relationships, but in his communities like, you know, Are you [00:11:00] checking off the box with friends, family, uh, you know, your colleagues, your community, things of that nature.

Right? So that kind of, you know, I won't dive too much deeper into that, but are you checking off the box of that, whether you go to the freedom of relationships or the, uh, community bucket in his deep life, the next one is craft, which I really enjoy. I think that's a big one. And I think a lot of you, um, Enjoy what you do for a living.

We all have a lot of friends and family that make enough money and do well financially, but hate their craft. They just really, they don't have a craft. Sometimes it's just like a job that they don't enjoy at all. Pays the bill. So they're stuck in it forever. We have a unique ability where. If we can really just focus on our craft, keep on getting better as a doctor, I recently asked Mark King, uh, on last week's episode, uh, about like how, what age did he feel like he felt like he really had it locked in and it was, I think it was either [00:12:00] 43 or 45.

Uh, so it takes some time, but enjoy that process. You know, if you're 30. And you're getting better and you, but you're in the weeds clinically, just realize that it gets better, but just keep on honing that craft. And people that, um, really enjoy what they do for work and get a lot of satisfaction out of it, it really helps build that, that deep life.

So, um, you know, really get yourself clear on what kind of chiropractor you want to be, what kind of doctor you want to be for your patients. What kind of patient base you want to have? Like, what's that ideal practice and start working towards honing that craft. And, and that's the second, uh, C in his deep life.

The next is going to be constitution. That's gonna be your health. Okay. Uh, that's going to be your, your physical health. It's also going to, uh, be your, your mental health and you're doing how you're doing with that. And so. Um, you really got to check those boxes. I think, you know, as, as a doctor, you don't need me to [00:13:00] sit here and preach on that.

But if that's an area or there's an area within that bucket, you need to clean up. I highly recommend it for 2024. So that's a constitution, which is your health. The next yes is contemplative or contemplative. And that's going to be, you know, whether you're religious, maybe you have your religion or spiritual of some sort.

Or even if it's philosophical and you, you, you know, stoicism is your thing or meditation, something that's, um, more into that contemplative aspect to where you're, um, thinking about things a little bit more, uh, deeper than just what's on the surface there. And so wherever that is for you and whatever you find for that, uh, totally, totally, uh, your decision, obviously you don't need me to.

To, to say that, but that's a big one. And I've found that for my life to be really big. You know, like for me, [00:14:00] um, I've done a lot with meditation. I've, I've done a lot with philosophy like stoicism. Um, I do a lot of like self-help and learning and reading. Um, I am religious, uh, Christian faith and so I, that's been really helpful for me and my family, you know, and belonging to the church and getting involved with that.

Uh, but that, that bucket's a big one. And you gotta make sure. Um, however you slice it, you got something going on there. Okay. Um, and then fifth is celebration. And that's just going to be, what are you doing to enjoy yourself? Right? You're working hard and you're taking vacations. You, if you like fishing, are you fishing?

If you like golfing, are you golfing? Like what's going on in your life where you're able to really celebrate the winds, enjoy yourself and have. Enjoyment in your life. And that really rounds out what Cal Newport talks about as, as a deep life. Okay. And then, you know, the cherry on top for [00:15:00] it is, you know, Ramit Sethi's, you know, what's your rich life.

And it, again, it, the way he talks about, it's not in a superficial manner. Like, you know, you gotta have the cars and the boats and the. And the airplanes and the country club memberships and all that, but you know, if you're working hard and you've, you're doing pretty well financially and you know, like you, you feel a, you feel good, you're financially secure and you're, um, you're contributing to your retirement as needed.

You're, you're, you know, you're saving money, you've got emergency savings, you don't have bad debts, you know, you're, you're just in a really good place financially and all the other aspects. Thanks. Bye. There's nothing wrong with having that dream as a family of maybe it's that, you know, second house on the lake.

Uh, if you do like fishing a lot, maybe it's a little fishing boat. Maybe it's three week vacations to Europe once a year, right? It's a, [00:16:00] maybe it is a, it's a car, you know, it's a, it's a 1971 muscle car that you've always dreamed about having, and you want to have that. Maybe it's a motorcycle. I don't care.

Like, I mean, The list goes on, but if you're working hard and you're enjoying yourself and you're checking off all the other boxes, what is your rich life for your family? Maybe it is the country club membership and you want to get the kids into golf. Uh, yeah, it's just like, there's a lot of cool things that you don't have to do everything, but if you work hard and you, and you do, you know, you do the right stuff financially, why not celebrate a little bit?

Why not have something that's something that you enjoy, you enjoy, or your family enjoys, your wife enjoys, your husband, whatever. There's nothing wrong with, with, um, having that little cherry on top. And to me, um, you know, I think that's something to aim for. It doesn't have to be the, the [00:17:00] guiding light. I think the first two frameworks would be really good frameworks.

If you start doing an audit of yourself and seeing where you fall into those buckets and then lay out a game plan from there. And that's something that we try. Um, to really instill with our coaching clients is that, yeah, we push them, we want them to work hard. But at the same time, we want them to have a vision of what their practice is going to look like, a vision of what their life is going to look like, and, and then, uh, kind of a reverse engineering of, of making that happen so that you are enjoying what you do for a living.

You show up to work and you're kind of in that flow state because, you know, the money's taken care of. You got, you know, you got your half days coming up and you feel secure financially. You got that, uh, you know, you, you've got the relationships good and everything's good at home, uh, or it's getting better, right?

Like nothing is always perfect, but are you making progress in the right direction and no one can tell you what success is. You [00:18:00] can define it for yourself and I believe these three topics or frameworks can help get you there. You'll just have to think on a little bit, collaborate with your. Significant other and then go from there.

I hope that was helpful. That's how I think of things. That's how I look at, uh, how I'm progressing and succeeding and what fulfills me in my life. And I hope you can find the same.