EPISODE 461: Cognitive Distortions

Hey, chiropractors. We're ready for another Modern Chiropractic Mastery Show with Dr. Kevin Christie, where we discuss the latest in marketing strategies, contact marketing, direct response marketing, and business development with some of the leading experts in the industry. 

Welcome to another episode of Modern Chiropractic Mastery. This is your host, Dr. Kevin Christie, and today I'm bringing a solo episode to you on cognitive distortions. And I, uh, had sent an email out about this a couple weeks ago and, uh, you could always get on our e list if you wanna go to the Facebook group and just search our email.

As you can get on there, you could email me. kevin@modern-jockey.com. If you'd like to. We send out a Tuesday email that's, uh, informative and we also send out a Thursday email, uh, letting you know about our podcast episodes and a little quick breakdown of that. Uh, so I wrote a little email about that, but I, I thought it'd be good to, um, do a podcast episode on it.

We. We have a lot of listeners. We have, you know, we get about 50,000 downloads a month on the podcast. The email list is healthy too, but not as much of a reach on the podcast. So I wanted, uh, I wanted to get this out on the, the podcast. Before we do just a couple little housekeeping [00:01:00] things. We're kind of, uh, in the early part of 2026, we, we had a great 2025 at MCM.

We had, uh, 21% revenue growth maintained. Healthy profit margin. We, we grew our, our East Mastermind has been filled for a couple years now. We grew the West Mastermind very steadily, and we're getting close to maxing that one out. But I, I would venture a guess in 20, the 2027 West will be filled. Uh, we've added quite a few clinics.

Uh, we have. Quite a few clinics now that are under our traditional coaching program slash marketing done for you. We have a lot of people that do both, uh, the coaching and the marketing done for you. We have a lot of people that do the coaching and so it's been really cool to see that growth. We had another good turnout in 2025 for the, um, online course we did on cash confidence.

So that was exciting. And we, [00:02:00] uh, brought on, we had some co opportunities, right? We're working directly, we've been working directly with Motion Palpation Institute for quite a few years now. Um, FTCA, uh, we, we've been working with Kenis Medical. Uh, we've been working with, um. Uh, Darcy Sullivan as a podcast sponsor.

We had track set as podcast sponsors, you may know. And, uh, it's just been great to work with them. We added, um, another entity. We added, um, a fix, right? The International Federation of Sports Chiropractors, where I'm on their commission for helping them with marketing. So another great collaboration there.

Uh, we, I don't want to forget, we also work with the North Carolina. State association. So if you represent a state association, we have a really cool program around marketing to help, uh, the, your members with marketing at a very, um, [00:03:00] digestible way. So that's been, that's been cool. Uh, we've done a lot of good work with Cairo up, and so I think one of the things I'm proud of, not only in our.

Just overall business growth at MCM, um, but how we've helped chiropractors, um, grow their business, how we've helped, um, other entities like, uh, state associations and other companies. I think that's been, been really fun to, to do and, and see that, um, grow as well. I think our. Uh, I'm just, I'm proud of the collaborations we have at MCM.

I don't think every coaching group or entity, um, has that, uh, for various reasons, and I'm, I'm proud that we do have that. Um, the Chiropractic Success Academy's been going strong still. Me and Bobby, maybe of FTCA. We started that in 2018, and that's still. Going strong. So that's exciting. And, uh, just, yeah, a lot of, a lot of cool things and looking forward to 2026 with a few [00:04:00] other new wrinkles and, uh, growth opportunities for us and for chiropractors to, to grow.

And one of those is, uh, London Masterclass, June 20th. Go to. Uh, Bitly, BIT LY slash MCM UK 26. I'm co-presenting with Dr. Chris Chippendale out of the uk and it'll be all on the patient experience. The first five people to do the early bird will. Also have dinner with Chris and I and we do have early bird pricing right now until the end of March.

So hop on that. We'd love to see you there. We're gonna really dive deep into making sure you have a, uh, improved patient experience. It's not just gonna be didactic lecture, you're gonna get some heads down work, build out a great patient experience. So check that out at bitly bly slash mc uk two six.

Alright, so. Let's dive into it. I'm gonna kinda read what I had, uh, [00:05:00] wrote about this, and that'll be the, the episode there and I'll probably inject some little caveats and such. Um, all right, so I recently listened to an app series on changing how you think by Dr. Seth Gillihan. He's a licensed psychologist and author of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, made Simple and also, uh, retrain Your Brain.

He was discussing the concept of cognitive distortions, often referring to them as thinking errors as systemic biases in the way we think that contributes to stress. Sorry, that contributes to stress, anxiety, and depression according to Gallahan. These are not just wrong thoughts, but specific patterns of irrational thinking that lead us to view reality inaccurately usually negatively.

He emphasizes that while everyone engages in these thought patterns, occasionally they become [00:06:00] problematic when they are frequent and intense. Now. I'm gonna read some of the distortions he discussed. Now there's more, right? That's where it comes from. These books that he has, cognitive, uh, behavioral therapy, made simple and retrain your brain.

So don't have all of 'em, but, but definitely worth the read in those books. All right. First one he talks about is all or nothing thinking, viewing situations in black and white categories. If a situation falls short of perfect, it is seen as a total failure. That's, uh, not a good one. Next one is catastrophizing.

Obviously we deal with this with our patients, but we, um, well chiropractors deal with this with their business, right? Uh, predicting the worst possible outcome will happen, even if it is unlikely. Next one he talks about is overgeneralization seeing a single negative event as a never ending pattern of defeat.

Next emotional reasoning, [00:07:00] assuming that your negative emotions reflect the way things really are, if I feel it, therefore it must be true. I think our society has a massive problem with this. Honestly, I think this is what we're seeing a lot in our society. They, they think their emotions are a reality and then take it from there.

We do that in business as well. Entitlement expecting that things must go your way or that you deserve a specific outcome without having to work for it. As I read through those, I want you to kind of put the framing of a, as a chiropractor, you know, this obviously can pertain to your personal life, but I want you to put the framing of it as a chiropractor or a business owner, right?

So you think about that all or nothing thinking catastrophizing, overgeneralization, emotional reasoning, entitlement, entitlement's a big one, right? Expecting that things must go your way or that you deserve a specific outcome without having to work for it. Um, there were [00:08:00] quite a few more, but you, you get the point there.

And the goal of the series was to improve your thought process for everyday life. And yet, and he provides a framework, uh, for that, uh, Gillihan suggests a three step process for dealing with these distortions, often referred to as the. Think Act B approach. So one is catch it. Notice when your mood creates a downward spiral and identify the specific thought.

Two is, check it. Examine the evidence. Ask is this thought 100% true? Or what is a more accurate way of viewing this? Next is change it. Replace the distorted thought with a more balanced, realistic thought. Not necessarily positive thinking, but accurate thinking. You know, um, this series kind of made me think about how cognitive distortions often play a role in [00:09:00] our, in our growth management and leadership of our private practices.

And what's been cool too. You know, I've been practicing for 20 years and, and I've suffered from this over the years, whether it's in practice. I've had one practices, I've had two practices. I've sold a practice, I've bought real estate. I've been associate, like, I've kind of run the gamut and, and, uh, I'm very pleased with where I'm at now in my mid forties, but it's not always easy and you kind of suffer from these things for sure.

And it what's been fascinating over the last, um. You know, eight or nine years of getting to work with chiropractors and definitely over the last four years, really, whether it's our co 'cause our coaching group has expanded and I've just coached hundreds of chiropractors now. Um, or they've been in our, in our, working with some of our other coaches and talking to our, our coaches like Kurt Ashley now, um, all you.

Brendan Donahue. Want to a little interject there. He, we, we've added a new [00:10:00] associate chiropractor to our practice. He is, uh, one of our MCM coaches shouldn't say to our practice, to our business. He's one of our MCM coaches now, and he has some clients and that's exciting. So we are growing, we're adding coaches and uh, we add them within.

He's someone that I've worked with directly now for probably eight years, and he is just applied the. The work and his practice has exponentially grown and so now he is one of our, our coaches. But yeah, going back to like just talking to our coaches, talking to, you know, being in the mastermind group where these are a lot of high level chiropractors that are all going through things.

It's been, I would say the thing that. Has been really help. There's a lot of things that have been helpful with what MCM has done for chiropractors, but we can kind of be that, catch it, check it, change it for the chiropractor. 'cause you do get left on an island. And that's just the nature of it often. And it, and it's hard for your friends and family to understand it and talk to them about it.

Um, and maybe help with [00:11:00] good thoughts, right? So. You know, catch it. Notice when your mood creates a downward spiral and identify this specific thought. Uh, a lot of our clients will reach out to me or our coaches and say, Hey, I'm going through this. What's, what's the deal with my practice? Or this week or that month, or whatever.

And so then we're able to help them with that thought and kind of check it. And let's examine the evidence, right? So I'll, so the coaches will say, it was like, is this a hundred percent true? What's a more accurate way of viewing this? And kind of work through that and then help that client with the third part of this, which is change it, right?

Replace the distorted thought with a more balanced, realistic thought. It's not necessarily positive thinking, but it's accurate thinking, right? And giving them a strategy to overcome that. And so that's one thing. That I've been proud of with MCM is to help chiropractors think, act to B. Right? Catch it, check it, change it.

So my question to you is, are cognitive distortions negatively impacting your practice growth and or [00:12:00] career satisfaction? You know, um, potentially, or maybe more than likely, right? And I'll be the, you know, first admit I have and, and do suffer from these cognitive distortions in my own business. And then that's why I never leave myself on an island, right?

I've got my mastermind group, I've got colleagues that I rely on. I've got strategic coach. I've, I just always have coaching and people around me because I know that I'm limited in what I can do myself, right? And so, um. Aside from strategies such as think It, you know, think, act, be one key way to help manage these cognitive distortions in your business decision making is to have a coach and or a group of like-minded chiropractors to serve kind of as your board of advisors.

You need a board of advisors. And my challenge is you, is to find that board of advisors and, um, I think MCM has done a great job. I know M MCMs done a great job. [00:13:00] Of being that Board of advisors and really helping develop strategic plans for chiropractors. So check us out. Go to modern chiropractic mastery.com, modern chiropractic mastery.com, and we'd love to help you out.

Have a great week in practice and talk to you soon.