EPISODE 479: Becoming Elite with Benjamin Stevens DC

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.

Speaker: [00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of Modern Chiropractic Mastery. This is your host, Dr. Kevin Christie, and today we are gonna talk about becoming elite. And I'm gonna do that with Dr. Benjamin Stevens, and we're gonna dive into, uh, what he's got going on with his elite model operating system of care. We're gonna dive into the clinical side, but we're gonna also gonna wrap it around with some mindset and business and things of that nature.

But he's, uh, he's really done a great job over the years with continuing ed and making it really, um, impactful and fresh and, and trying to put it all together. One of the things we really dive in today on this episode is how so many DCs are getting trained in a lot of great techniques, a lot of great skill sets, but having a hard time really packaging it together, um, uh, to where you're able to seamlessly implement that in your clinic and for your patients, right?

You're getting... I [00:01:00] think a lot of DCs are getting overwhelmed with so many certifications and trainings and having a hard time to synthesize it into their practice. And so, uh, Ben does a great job of talking about that today. And we talk about something he's putting together that I think you're gonna be very interested in.

I'm excited, uh, to be a part of it as well because I think it's something that is, uh, it's needed, right? It's 2026 now. Um, I had a podcast, um, maybe a year or two ago where I went through kind of the three phases of... I, I called it sports chiropractors, but it could have-- you could've renamed it evidence-informed chiropractors or whatever.

But I, I had, um, mentioned kinda phase one was like your, you know, you had some outliers in the '80s and '90s doing some good work with sports injuries and, and the like Um, but a lot of that was around, uh, manipulation, some modalities like electrical stim and, and things like that, and then some low-level rehab stuff, maybe some Craig Leb- early Craig [00:02:00] Liebenson stuff.

Uh, but they were doing good. They were assessing injuries well, uh, for the most part, and that was in phase one. And then phase two was kinda like when I, uh, graduated and came out, where we were now, uh, still strong on manip- you know, palpation and manipulation, and that was a key focus, and then strong on soft tissue, whether it was active release technique, Graston technique, but, you know, getting real strong on soft tissue.

And then we layered on some rehab, right? As kind of a, a third part, but not the, the core product of what we offered. The core product was still, uh, evaluation and assessments, and then obviously joint, um, palpation and, and mani-manipulation, and then some soft tissue. And then there's been this phase three, which has been heavy on rehab, and maybe forgetting a little bit about , joint palpation manipulation and, and some soft tissue, and heavy on rehab, and then heavy on a [00:03:00] bunch of different things, right?

Like eight different things, and having a really hard time synthesizing it. And I think a lot of these docs are great, and I love what their, their skillset is, for sure. But I think now that we've realized with this phase three crowd, is we need m- a little bit better application of it. And, um, uh, Ben and I talk about that today on this episode, and really what he's putting together to help DCs to learn and synthesize and apply to their practice.

So, um, before I, I do dive into that interview with Ben, I just wanna make mention, one of our awesome collaborators is Crossfields Interior and Architecture. I used them for my office, the remodel. I wish I knew them back in 2013 when I bought it, when I bought my office space and started , but I, I did a, a nice refresh in 2022, and they did a great job.

They're just phenomenal at, , great design and, and really having a strategic facility planning and design for healthcare practices. And it's not just what color [00:04:00] paint and what kind of furniture. That's a, a nice part of it for sure, but it's also flow and architecture, and it really is specific to a chiropractic practice, and it does have an ROI.

So if you're in the process of either building out a new space, or you need to retrofit a space, or you just need to remodel like I did, so visit them at crossfieldsdesign.com. All right, without further ado, here is my interview with Dr.

Benjamin Stevens.

Dr. Kevin Christie: All right, welcome to the show. I got Dr. Benjamin Stevens here, and excited to dive into some, uh, great topics clinically, professionally, tying it into practice growth, and, and all things in between. But before we dive in, introduce yourself and let's go from there.

Benjamin Stevens DC: All right. My name is Dr. Ben Stevens or Dr.

Benjamin Stevens online. When you have a very common name, you gotta find some way to make it findable online. So I'm Dr.- You should, you

Dr. Kevin Christie: could've done a, you, you could've done a middle name too, right?

Benjamin Stevens DC: Oh, God, yeah. Oh, I, believe me, there's, there's variants of that. Dr. Benjamin J. Stevens [00:05:00] is, is my name. Yeah, I'm a chiropractor in, uh, British Columbia, Canada.

Grew up in New Brunswick. Went to school at Palmer West in California. Ended up back here eventually in British Columbia, and haven't left since.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. That's, that's awesome, man. And it's, you know, you and I crossed paths through a connection through Mark King and a lot of the work you've done on the continuing ed side.

More than just, I, I... You know, the continuing ed, uh, phrase has a lot of, uh, labels to it or, or misconceptions. I, I think you're more than continuing ed. People think of, like, the state associations and stuff, and boring stuff. You got some awesome- ... material. It is continuing ed, but it's, uh, with a flavor. I know you've, uh, got quite an extensive, um, list of topics that you teach, that you bring in pro- you know, different experts in, and it's just really been cool to see you build a content library of, of experts ar- around that.

But, um, you know, before we dive into that, that stuff, uh, tell us a little about your, your kinda backstory of how you, uh, went from, you know, obviously chiropractor, [00:06:00] practicing full time, doing all that, to now, uh, really on the strong side of, of educator.

Benjamin Stevens DC: Yeah, I mean, just like most people's path, it's never a straight line.

You don't really expect to end up where you eventually do end up. Uh, for me, I mean, I went to school to become a chiro because I found it very, very interesting. A- and that's, you know, I don't really have some big evangelical story like a lot of chiros do. I, I had a couple of good experiences with chiros, but the reality is I got done studying the human body through a kinesiology degree.

I was a personal trainer from 16 up through strength and conditioning in university, and I kinda got to the point of going like, "Well, you can't do a lot with a kinesiology degree. I- what do I wanna go do now?" My sister was a medical doctor and she went, "You don't really wanna do that. You're gonna be sticking your pinky finger up an old guy's ass in your first year of school.

It's not what, not what you want to do." And I went, "Okay, great" , and kind of explored a lot of different things, and I ended up looking at chiro as being, like, a big thing that I wanted to do, um, and just looked at the curriculum, visited schools, kind of talked to a lot of people, and I went, "Yeah, this is, this is a pretty sweet career path."

And for me, uh, [00:07:00] sports was, uh, a huge part of my, my upbringing. Um, I played hockey my whole life and played every varsity sport out there from, you know, basketball, volleyball, uh, played a little bit of soccer, played competitive baseball, all those sorts of things. So sports was something I was really quite interested in, and that led me to Palmer West.

At the time, Palmer West had a very, very strong sports program, and so that's how I ended up there. Um, and this is, you know, kinda gonna connect, but, uh, essentially in my first semester there, I met the guy who y- you probably know, Steven Capobianco, another Canadian. Mm-hmm. Um, the guy who ended up being the kinda medical director for RockTape.

He became a very close mentor of mine. I ended up working quite a bit with RockTape while I was in school, plus I was on field all the time with the sport council. Um, and by the time I graduated from school, I had this very keen interest in being around continuing ed. And when I moved back to Canada, uh, combine

Steve essentially said, "You need to go instruct for us," because Canada is just starting their RockTape educational [00:08:00] component. And so I actually started teaching continuing ed courses when I was eight months out of school. So very, very early on. Nice. Teaching primarily people who were much more experienced than me.

Um, and it was a trial by fire, and I've been, been going ever since.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. Yeah, you know, it's one of those things where sometimes you gotta, uh, Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach talks about making it up and making it real, and sometimes you just gotta put yourself out there and, uh, make it real, make it something that you get better at.

It's no different than the first kind of few months when you become a chiropractor. You know, you're 26, maybe 25, 27, and you're trying to tell this 55-year-old about their health, and it's, they're looking at you like, you know, like, what, did you just graduate from, you know, elementary school when you're telling me?

So you just gotta do it, right? You just gotta do it.

Benjamin Stevens DC: Yeah. No, it was a good, um... Yeah, I mean, you never see these kind of things coming. There's a lot of luck involved in, you know, just creating a network and getting to where you end up eventually, and a l- you know, there's a lot of hard work obv- obviously you end up controlling your luck.

But I mean, I was just very lucky that [00:09:00] I crossed paths with a lot of people that were good mentors for me. I crossed paths with a lot of people that, um, really managed to create a very forward-thinking, and intellectual, and hardworking environment for me to kind of come through chiro school in the first part of my career.

I just, I, I'm forever thankful that that's how it went, um, especially now because I've been spending a lot of time on Instagram lately talking to a lot of people who are new grads who, or even who are in the first five years of practice, that they're just completely isolated. They have no, no guidance, no anyone.

They kind of stuck to themselves during school, and then they, you know, rent out a room in a gym somewhere to open their practice, and then they're just, they've got no support network. They've got no peers. Yeah. They've got no anything. And so I feel very... Even though I didn't do it intentionally, I just, I feel super happy that that's how it ended up going for me.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah, no, definitely. And you, and you definitely share a lot of good stuff on your Instagram. Uh, one thing that kind of crossed my radar was when you shared your, your story of struggle and then overcoming- Yeah ... that and persevering and [00:10:00] getting to where you're at now. If you don't mind, I'd love to have the audience hear a little bit of that.

Benjamin Stevens DC: Sure. Yeah. Um, yeah, so towards my, my parents, I grew up in a very religious household. My parents were part-time missionaries. And so, uh, my father's an engineer by trade, and he would travel the world to kind of impoverished places and countries, and essentially help to set up infrastructure that would help save people from poverty in certain ways.

And so when I was in school, they were going back and forth to Bolivia over and over again. I had never gone with them on any of these trips. And, uh, we just so happened to have a slightly longer than usual summer break during, uh... I, I was coming into like ninth quarter or something like that at Palmer West.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Stevens DC: So, you know, the back end, I was getting close to clinic, and my parents, essentially they were going to Bolivia that summer, and they convinced me to go. And so short version was I ended up, I went to South America. About halfway through that little trip, which was only about four weeks, something started to go pretty wrong.

Uh, I started to feel not great, couldn't truly tell what it was, had a whole bunch of symptoms. Um, ended up having to get [00:11:00] evacuated out of where we were. Ended up in a little single-room hospital in a tiny town in Bolivia- Got... They only sp- they, they only spoke Quechua there, um, and so no one had a sweet clue what was going on besides the one guy who was leading this missions trip, and he couldn't stay with me.

And so I ended up in this, uh, hospital there for a little while. Got well enough to get out of that hospital to fly back to California. Ended up in the hospital at Stanford, um, while I was in school as well. Um, and, uh, the best guess of essentially what happened to me was that I got meningitis. And so I ended up, um, losing 27 pounds in about two and a half weeks.

I went from 180 to 152 pounds on a 6'0 frame, so not- Yeah ... not a small weight loss by any means. So I lost a large amount of my body weight. Um, kidney failure, organ failure, uh, heart murmur, lungs were filling with fluid, could barely stand up straight, had the meningitis headache. Um, got really massively, um, kinda overhauled neurologically.

Lost the ability to hand write. Um, [00:12:00] redeveloped a speech impediment that I had that was pretty severe as a child. Um, I was pretty close to kicking it. Wasn't doing well, to say the least. Yeah. And so I was in the hospital for a little while, uh, at Stanford, um, which I'm forever thankful for them because they just nursed me right back to health.

Um, or nursed me back to as close to health as they could and then kinda kicked me to the curb and went, "There's nothing we... You're not sick anymore, you're just kinda messed." And so, uh, yeah, that was literally, uh, right in the middle of school, and most of my classmates didn't even know, um, because they just...

It happened mostly over one of our summers. Um- Mm-hmm ... and I came back just looking absolutely miserable and things were kinda off, but I, I stuck to myself mostly, so most people didn't really find out about it. But, uh, yeah, I, I ended up having a real rough latter half of school, to say the least. I couldn't concentrate, could barely hold a conversation.

Um, it wasn't great. Most of my fine motor skills kinda disappeared. I was literally tripping walking down the hall, like wasn't good. So...

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. Yeah. And then ultimately- S- you know, stuck [00:13:00] through healing and, and doing certain things to get there and, and, and, and getting full recovery and going there. Now, um, did you get kind of any, you know, learn anything from that?

Any good, any context of like-

Benjamin Stevens DC: Tons.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah.

Benjamin Stevens DC: One of the... It's funny 'cause if you, if you... You know, I, I posted this on Instagram. It was the most vulnerable thing I've ever posted on Instagram. Um, again, I just decided I was gonna start kind of going for it and sharing a lot about my life and my kind of process- Yeah

um, and the things that I feel like I can do for our industry. Um, and this was just within the last six weeks that I finally shared this. Um, but one of the things that was really kind of, uh... I always found, personally, I was one of those people that found school rather interesting. I was never cramming before tests.

I found it relatively easy. I actually liked the content enough that I was just kind of constantly studying to understand on my own. And so for me, school was relatively easy. I was, you know, near the top of my class the entire time I was going through school. Wasn't stressed, wasn't losing sleep. Um, found school pretty fun, and then I was going out every single weekend to go to sporting events or working with rock tape or taking a course.

Like, I was really thriving [00:14:00] going through school. And then one of the things that, uh, meningitis just wiped out was my brain's capacity to handle all of that. It just- Mm-hmm ... all of a sudden I literally just couldn't think straight. It was, um... And, you know, there's probably some psychological overlay to it as well.

When you almost die, it's not real easy to concentrate on a multiple choice board exam. Um- Yes But one, I mean, one of the big- Shocker. You're right. I mean, the crazy part is I was supposed to be studying for, uh, Canadian board exams. I had part As and Bs coming up, and within six weeks of getting back after that, I had to get on a plane to Montreal and go do my board exams.

Um, and I literally didn't study for them, not even a single bit. Mm-hmm. Um, I took a red-eye to Montreal, slammed a Red Bull, did my part As and my part Bs, and passed with flying colors, so I was pretty happy about that. That's great. But it was a real risky time to get sick, I'll tell you. Mm-hmm. Um, but anyway, yeah, one of the things that it kind of took away was a natural mental ease with which I found, um, going through school.

Um, and a lot of that, you know, I think certain people kind of hated me for that. They hated me during school, and [00:15:00] they almost hate when I say it now 'cause I think certain people have different strengths. My strength was just kind of intellectualization of a lot of the material, being able to see the structure for what it was and fitting it all together.

Um, and that all just got thrown out the window. And so a big part of what I ended up needing to rely on were a lot of the kind of alternative skills in my life and my network and my people, and I needed to figure out not just the specifics and the nuance and the content and how to take- All that and make it make sense for a patient, I had to actually start just kind of copying what a lot of people around me were doing and trying to literally say the words they said, do what they did, and take their approach and apply it to what I was doing in practice because my...

I was just a fog for so long. Mm. Uh, it took me the better part of seven years to get back to normal. Oh,

Dr. Kevin Christie: wow.

Benjamin Stevens DC: Um, not an easy recovery by any means, and everyone in my life, they could tell. Um- Mm ... and that's the kind of thing that just, I went from relying on an over intellectualization of everything I did to, wow, there's a lot [00:16:00] more to this career than knowing everything there is to know, than having all the different little pieces of the puzzle.

The masters out there don't understand every piece of the puzzle to the nth degree, but they do know how to put it all together really well. And so I needed to start surrounding myself with a lot of really smart people that were not just smart as far as book smart or researchers or the sciences, that they were really good at a lot of the other things as well.

Um, and I was very fortunate that up until that point in school, I had surrounded myself with so many good people already- Mm ... that I just needed to start leaning on them. Um, and that, that's really what helped me get through the rest of school and it's what helped me do really well in practice when I first started.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. It's, it's amazing to be able to do that, and I think that's one of the things that, um, what I love seeing, you and I have been communicating a lot over the last three or four months and, a- a- and I love what you're doing is you're essentially synthesizing information for people to be able to digest it and apply it to the practice because there's so many good things out there, and I think it gets siloed a lot, right?

Yeah. It's, a- and I think you would agree with [00:17:00] that, and then ultimately the clinician is left to try to piece it together in a way that would work in a clinical... Well, would work in a way that would help patients, would work in a way that would fit in a clinical, a clinical model, can make a business out of it, can, you know...

It's, it's, it's just a lot, and it's been cool to see you, um, be able to, to do that. And before we dive into some of the specifics, I, I wanted to ask you, like, what you've seen as far as, like, the, the gaps in chiropractic or musculoskeletal care that you commonly see that maybe has kinda driven you to, to try to fill those gaps.

Benjamin Stevens DC: Yeah. I mean, that's a broad question. I, I do feel like one of the things that is probably the main gap in a lot of people is, uh, it, it's a mindset. A- and I don't mean, like, they're missing a specific mindset. I think one of the things that our industry and most industries within healthcare are, are kinda guilty of is they start from the s- they start from a solution and look for the problem, and rather than starting from the problem, then looking for the solution.

And I think if you're a great [00:18:00] clinician, you start from the, a very patient-centric approach to what does the patient ultimately need, in what amount, for how long, in what doses, and how does it need to be framed for them to achieve their goal, and for me to be the Sherpa that helps them get there. And I think one of the things that has been very interesting for a lot of people over the years is they go and take a million different courses that are based on a solution when they don't necessarily do a great job of understanding the problems, and so they have a hard time tying them together.

And so what you end up with for a lot of people, especially five years into practice, is they go, "Oh, I need a technique for this, I need a technique for that, I need a technique for this," and they end up kinda, you know, proverbially standing in the corner holding a giant pile of tools, and they don't really have a good concept of when to pick out each one, and it becomes this big kinda jumbled mess that leaves us lacking excellence.

We have a lot of good tools, and we know how to use a lot of them, but we don't really know how the whole thing fits together. We don't have kind of a model or operating system. And so for a lot of people, what they end up doing is certification chasing. They end up chasing new [00:19:00] tools, or they want a new thing for their practice.

Shockwave. Yeah. I posted about this recently, so I'm just up about it right now, but people- ... are just like, "Oh, I gotta get a Shockwave. That's gonna help my practice." And I go, "Okay, what problem do your patients have that Shockwave is the thing that's gonna fix it that you don't have another solution for?"

Dr. Kevin Christie: And, uh- There's probably gonna be a shock- there's probably gonna be a Shockwave ad during this episode, too, so.

Benjamin Stevens DC: I sure hope so. Just

Dr. Kevin Christie: war- just warning the audience.

Benjamin Stevens DC: And to be fair, you know, like, I, I've, I've had Shockwave on... I've had Shockwave within the last month on myself, and I've done Shockwave on a lot of people.

It's just, to me, it's that everyone obsessing about Shockwave in certain scenarios is just a symptom of what I'm talking about, of most people kind of looking for the solutions when they haven't really defined the problem all that well. Yeah. And a pain or a problem that is well-defined naturally leads you to where the solution lies.

And so I think a lot of the time the gaps are not that we don't have enough tools or enough things to do. A lot of the gaps are our mindsets. Um, we feel like we have a certain skill set, and so we scan the horizon for problems that we can solve, and we end up finding problems we might not be the best at solving and try to [00:20:00] solve them anyway.

And I think a really good practice is built around really good problem-solution fit, and the easiest way to do that when developing a career is to constantly assess what the problem is and go looking for the solution rather than go seeking solutions and then hoping it's gonna solve problems you haven't actually assessed yet.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. No, it makes sense, and it's one thing that's like I know there's been a few times in my career, in my clinic, where, um, you know, there's all kinds of things, right? And like you said, there's all kinds of solutions, and a lot of times I've had to sit back and reassess what my- uh, clinic is, what my patient base is, what, what it is.

And, and that's happened a few times when I've decided to add something, is I will kind of audit, like, okay, what are the, the things that I'm seeing in my patients where I, I, I keep on thinking to myself, it's like, yeah, I, I don't have a, a real good solution to that. And if I s- if I see that or I feel that kind of r- you know, recurring constantly, uh, it, it kind of puts up my Spidey senses a little bit [00:21:00] that we're, we're missing something.

But I don't need to load up my clinic with everything and then try to figure it out from there.

Benjamin Stevens DC: That's what a lot of people do. Um, a lot of people, they add, they add features rather than focusing on the, the core of exactly what they're doing and who it's going to best serve, and just putting all their energy into making that really excellent.

We like to add a lot of features. And to be fair, I think a lot of features, especially as you move on in your career, allow you to be ever so slightly better, but there's a point of diminishing returns whereby you don't need every tool in the toolbox. You don't need a giant spectrum of things that you can do.

You need to be truly excellent at a few core things, and then you can add the extras on top of that to get, you know, 1% or 2% better here and there.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. Yeah, we were ... You know, one of the things that ... Dry needling. So in the state of Florida, uh, for a long time chiropractors needed the full acupuncture, uh, which was, like, two hou- 200 hours, and so not many chiropractors did, did dry needling unless they were already acupuncture certified.

But, uh, that changed, and so a lot of chiropractors are getting dry needling, and it gets brought up to me, and I was like, you know, [00:22:00] I love dry needling, and I got a g- couple good PTs in the area that I've referred to over the years, and I'm just gonna continue to do that because, uh, there's definitely a handful of patients here and there that can n- could use it, um, or ask for it, but it's just not something I know I need to add.

I'd ref- honestly just would rather refer it out at that point.

Benjamin Stevens DC: Yeah. A- and to me, that's a sign of a mature practitioner, is if they see a tool, they could figure out how to use it, but they'd rather know the concepts of when and how it's needed and then refer out to someone that that is their thing.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah.

Benjamin Stevens DC: Um, and that's very much been me.

Dr. Kevin Christie: And I love dry needling. I do. I do. It's just I can't do

Benjamin Stevens DC: everything. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm not allowed to do it here in BC, but I mean, like, yeah, I, I refer people for it all the time. Physios do it here, and so that's ... I refer to people, I refer to physios for it a- and, you know, the occasional acupuncturist as well, depending on what it is.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm. Yeah, definitely. So, um, give, give me a little bit of background on, you know, your company and, uh, when did you start, like, officially the company and offering continuing ed and, and some of the [00:23:00] background of that?

Benjamin Stevens DC: Yeah, so as much as I owe Steve Capobianco a huge debt of gratitude for getting me into the continuing ed world and being a big, big mentor of mine, uh, the same thing could be said about Michael Maxwell.

Um, and so he's one of my best friends. He lives on Vancouver Island up here in BC, in Victoria, runs a great practice out there. Uh, so he started Somatic Senses, started it in 2003 when he was in university as a scratch-your-own-itch endeavor. Um, one of the things, especially back then, I think it's a little less common now, but especially back then that was really common, is that people went to kind of college or university, and they ended up in this little silo where they didn't actually really get exposed to the real world all that much, especially in university, because it wasn't very hands-on.

And so he was at UBC doing his, uh, like, human kinetics degree- Mm-hmm ... and was just not getting any real-world experience. And so he started bringing people in, um, and essentially just paying them a little bit and then selling tickets to friends to kinda cover the cost, and eventually figured out if he sold enough tickets, he'd actually make a little bit of money doing it and could keep going.

And so that's how Somatic Senses as a business got started, and that was [00:24:00] 2003. So here we are 23 years later.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah.

Benjamin Stevens DC: Um, and then one of the things that happened, uh, along the line is that just kind of grow ever- grew ever so slowly and it was never, you know, a, a huge business. Um, and then when I moved here to BC, I had the same imposter syndrome, uh, imposter syndrome plus a brain that wasn't really working all that well.

Uh so when I moved to, to BC and I was starting my own practice, I tried to take every last bit of continuing ed that I could. And because Somatic Senses was founded here in British Columbia, that meant I was going to a lot of Somatic Senses courses. Mm. So as a result of that, within the first two years or three years of me being here, Mike and I became very, very good friends.

And so- I saw him at basically every single course that he did. Um, and at a certain point, I think about three years in, something like that, I literally, I walked into a room for a course and Mike looked at me and he went, "What are you doing here?" He's like, "I- you could teach this course. Why are you even here?"

And it was kind of this light bulb moment for both of us where I was like, "Oh, we're, we're kindred spirits here. Like, we're both just, we just wanna [00:25:00] keep learning and just keep getting better." And so that led to a conversation, um, where I found out that he was just kind of getting, yeah, a little burnt out on doing so much- Yeah

continuing ed because it was a pretty big endeavor to put on top of, you know, he had bought into a practice recently. And so he said, "Hey, do you wanna be my business partner? 'Cause I was considering dialing back anyway, but I'd rather have someone like you who's just really all about education and kind of growth."

And I went, "That sounds great." And so I joined him as 50/50 partner, and that was probably in 20- somewhere 2015 to 2017 range. Um, and then in the ensuing years, um, he spent a lot more time... He's a DNS instructor and ended up, uh, being an instructor for Neurodynamic Solutions as well with Michael Shacklock.

And so he ended up doing a lot to kinda get more and more involved in those worlds. And so Somatic Senses became very, very saturated with those as a result. And at a certain point, I went, "Mike, like, you're spending a lot of time doing those things, and I love those things. I mean, I've taken like 12 or 13 DNS courses.

I've taken Neurodynamics five times. I love those things," I go, "but, like, I'm not an instructor [00:26:00] for them and I don't really want to have Somatic Senses be a DNS brand. How about you go and do those things and I'll keep Somatic Senses as what it is and turn it over?" And so what Somatic Senses essentially has is this kind of ongoing revolving door where I go and try to find the people who are doing excellent clinical education, things that are really forward, um, and very, uh, I'm not gonna say very evidence-based, but very evidence-informed.

And, uh, the people that you and I both know that are just excellent in this industry, I go find them and try to host courses with them. And so as a result, Somatic Senses every two or three years has just this evolving roster of new people that are speaking, um, some really smart minds. And I mean, I just get to be friends with and learn from the best people in the industry, so it's still a scratch-your-own-itch kind of business.

Dr. Kevin Christie: No, it's cool. It, it's been neat to, to kinda see under the hood a little bit of what you got going on and, and some of your vision and, and we will get to that in a little bit. But before we do, um, talk to me about your elite clinical model and, and what that is and, and what the, the ultimate goal is for the chiropractor.[00:27:00]

Benjamin Stevens DC: Yeah, so the elite clinical model, I'm calling it an operating system at this point, essentially was meant to be a, a solution to what we had talked about a little bit earlier, which is that a lot of people are out there collecting a lot of tools, collecting a lot of certifications, but they're still kind of just doing pretty okay in practice.

Yeah. And that's a phrase that I'm, like, I, I'm saying often in the last month because I'm having a lot of conversations about this model and about the mastermind that I've built around it. Yeah. And a lot of people are just like, they're 10 years into practice, they're 5 years, they're 15 years, 20, whatever it is, and they're like, "Yeah, I'm doing pretty okay.

I've done..." You know, and the list usually goes like, "I've done ART, I've done a couple DNS courses, like, I'm familiar with McKenzie, I've yada, yada, yada." They go on down the list and they go, "And it's not really, like, but it hasn't congealed into a thing, into something that I am supremely confident in and I'm good at communicating about and good at building a business around."

So they're 50% to 80% booked on and off with variable degrees of predictability. Um, and they're getting good enough patient outcomes, but they're really not building something excellent. And [00:28:00] so the whole idea behind this model was I essentially went, okay, what do all... 'Cause I get to know a lot of really great people in this industry as a result of this.

I've been to about 500 seminars, and I've taught about 200 myself. So I get to be surrounded by the best of the best, and I, and I absolutely love it and I feel very privileged by that. Um, but one of the things I essentially got to do is zoom out and go, what do all the best of the best have in common?

And what do some of the good people have but the others don't? And I essentially wanted to build kind of a, a, an environment and a curriculum and a place where the best could come together and focus on the things that they all have in common. And so the elite clinical operating system was meant to kind of go through a lot of the people that I know and go, what are the tools that a lot of them use?

What are the lenses a lot of them look through? How do most of them communicate? How do most of them go about doing this? Why are they in such insanely high demand and so insanely good at their job, and other people that have a list of similar tools aren't congealing into this big [00:29:00] excellent thing?

Mm-hmm. And in essence, it came down to me building, you know, what I'm calling the elite clinical operating system, which is just based on all these specific foundations that I feel like a lot of these people have. And, and I could talk about what those specifics are, but that's the intention, was to build this operating system of I want to get all the people who are the best at these things to come together and build something so people can learn not just all the good tools, but how to be truly excellent using all of them and build a career around that.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. No, it, it is. What are, what would be some of the aspects of the elite clinical operating system?

Benjamin Stevens DC: I mean, there's, there's not that many of them, so it's very easy to just list them all off. Um, and so- One of them is understanding pain. And so by that I mean actually understanding pain science. I think pain science as a phrase has gotten kind of a bad rap in the last few years because a lot of people have felt that it's gotten really loose.

Um, so it's understanding pain science. And, uh, Dimitri Simopoulous is coming into this, uh, this mastermind to teach about pain 'cause he's one of the best at [00:30:00] taking this pain, making it applicable, and making it understandable. So pain in the biopsychosocial mo- model is part of it. Um, joint mechanics and manipulation, mobilization, whatever that might be, is part of it.

There's very few chiros that aren't actually very good at that, um, that are really truly at the elite level. Brett Winchester is coming in to help with that There is, um, neurodynamics. Neurodynamics is one of those things that, um, if you haven't taken a neurodynamics course from Michael Shacklock and his group, you kinda don't know what you don't know until you show up.

Mm-hmm. Neurodynamics is one of those things that is very, very excellent, and I have a hard time trusting someone to do a good job with nerve issues unless they've taken that course. And that's a, that, I know that's an aggressive statement, and I have nothing to gain from saying that because they teach- Mm

all over the world, and those people aren't gonna come through me. But again, neurodynamics. So we have pain, we have joint mechanics, we have, uh, neurodynamics. And Michael Shacklock himself is gonna come in and teach that one. We have, uh, soft tissue. And so soft tissue is, uh, Michael Chivers is gonna be coming in to teach that one from, uh, [00:31:00] functional, the func- FR, I'm trying to think.

They have a whole bunch of different names now, but- Mm-hmm ... yeah, functional range release. Um, so he's gonna be coming in and teaching that one. Um, one of the smartest minds in that, in that world. If not the smartest mind, 'cause being entirely honest, I just started at the top of the list of who, who's gonna be the best at teaching these things?

Yeah. I just called all of them, and no one said no, which is nice. Um, so yeah, we got Dmitri teaching pain, Brett with the joint mechanics, uh, Michael Chivers with soft tissue, Michael Shacklock with neurodynamics. Uh, rehab and strength and conditioning and exercise, that's a big one. Um, the reason I say that's a big one is because that is one of the biggest gaps that a lot of practitioners have because they don't come from that kind of background, and yet it is one of the strongest bits of evidence we have for almost everything we do, is exercise.

And Cody Dimock is gonna be coming in and helping with, uh, with exercise

Dr. Kevin Christie: rehab. Just played, just played golf with him last month.

Benjamin Stevens DC: Oh, Cody.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah, yeah. We were down at the NPI Sports Summit in Daytona, so, uh-

Benjamin Stevens DC: Nice.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Great guy, great guy.

Benjamin Stevens DC: Well, I'm

Dr. Kevin Christie: glad I went

Benjamin Stevens DC: because I'm terrible

Dr. Kevin Christie: at

Benjamin Stevens DC: golf. Yeah. But [00:32:00] yeah, great- So are we

great guy. And so, yeah, so we've got pain, joint mechanics, soft tissue, neurodynamics, strength and conditioning, exercise rehab, that kind of stuff, which Cody is teaching. Um, and then we've got, uh, e- essentially McKenzie, so like end range loading, repeated motions, directional preference, those type of things.

Um, and Tom Lotus is teaching that one. Um, he's a little bit less of a familiar name to some people, but, uh, for the people that know him, very smart guy, taught at the University of Pittsburgh. Um, and then the last thing, and that, this one's kind of tied in with the exercise part of it and the movement aspect, is stabilization strategies.

Um, and that's very much a DNS lens. And so Michael Rantala is coming to help, uh, coming into the mastermind to help t- teach that one. Nice. And then, um, the thing that I'm, and this is how we met, the thing that I'm- Mm ... very passionate about is that this is not going to be taught as a selection of tools that you just have to figure out how to use on your own.

We are going to have integration modules. And so I have, uh, a list of people who I would call expert integrators that know all of these things, know them very well, that I'm gonna be bringing them in once or twice a year, and we're gonna be doing [00:33:00] nothing but case studies and integration on how to take all of these things and clinically make them congeal into a truly excellent package.

And then the last ingredient on top of all this- is business, is the actual career built around this, which is how we got to know each other was through this. Yeah. And so there's a big difference between having the right tools and knowing how to talk about them. There's a big difference between being able to help everyone that walks through your doors and being able to build a business around that, and a lot of that is it's marketing, it's patient communication, it's report of findings.

It's all the little things, uh, in your business that people don't like to think about but are really one of the main predictors as to whether or not they're gonna have a thriving business or a pretty okay business. And that's where you and I got to know each other because you're gonna be involved in this as well, and you're gonna be interspersed throughout it, um, which I'm very excited about.

And that's actually one of the things when I'm telling people about the mastermind that they're most excited about is like, "Oh, God," like, "this is great. It's actually clinical and business intertwined in a meaningful way rather than us kind of pretending they don't exist together."

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah, and you mentioned that you, uh, you went [00:34:00] to the top of each of those aspects to find the, the number one guy.

Truth be told, I was probably your third option, and the other- ... two said, uh, the other two said no, but I said, "I'll take anything."

Benjamin Stevens DC: I, I'd be interested to know who you think number one and number two are then- ... 'cause it's not the case.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Uh, but no, I'm, I, I'm excited because it's something that I've seen over the last, say, nine years that I've, I've been doing MCM stuff, whether it's the podcast or the coaching or, or mastermind on the business side was, uh, you know, our- my audience is, is the same audience as yours, just great clinical doctors and even sometimes, you know, obviously, uh, physical therapists and stuff.

But, uh, they're just really good at what they do and, and one of the biggest problems is putting it together, uh- Yes ... you know, the, the congealing of it and, and making a, a business out of it and honestly, um, not being ashamed of making a good business out of it. I think that's- Right ... like a subconscious, sometimes not even [00:35:00] subconscious thing that really good doctors that are skilled have a problem with and- Huge problem

it's okay to be great clinically. You can be very patient-centered, and you can do very well financially, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Benjamin Stevens DC: And you should. Not just you can, you should. To me, they have to go hand-in-hand. If you are, a- and I've had this conversation a lot in the last few weeks, if you're an absolutely excellent doc and you have racked up credit card debt and you're worried about paying your bills, you are not bringing your best self to every single client.

You have a lens installed in your career that shouldn't be there of financial stress. You have a lens installed about a scarcity mindset, and that's gonna change a lot about what you do. And for some people, that scarcity mindset is gonna mean that they suggest way too much care that people don't actually need.

But in my experience, it's frequently the opposite, that when people are afraid to spend their own money and when people don't have supreme confidence in their product and when people are in a financial setback themselves, they have a hard time asking someone to actually spend money on something that's supremely valuable.

Yeah. And you owe it to your patients to actually [00:36:00] do what's evidence-based and to be financially successful. Mm-hmm. And I'm not saying, you know, we've all gotta be multimillionaires by any means, but you owe it to them to be stable enough that no matter what you're suggesting to them, you know you're doing it from a place of not needing the dollars that they're gonna give you, 'cause that's when you're gonna give out the best care.

They need to go hand-in-hand. And yet in our industry, and to be entirely fair, in a lot of industries, people have a hard time doing that because it's almost like this kind of dirty phrasing or they don't want... They want so badly not to be the subluxation guy down the street that's x-raying babies and telling people to take out second mortgages.

They want so badly not to be that, that they scare themselves out of actually delivering excellent care. I could ramble about this a lot, but it's just been a theme in the last few months- Yeah ... where I'm talking to a lot of docs where I'm just going like, "You're, you're not doing good care because you're trying so badly not to be that guy.

You're not doing the best version of this."

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. You know, ironically, we see the evidence inform the ethical doctor, the patient-centered doctor that has the, let's call it money struggle, they definitely shy away from recommending particular levels of care that [00:37:00] they, you know, know would help because they, they have that poverty mindset or they're having that financial stress around it, and they kinda go the other way.

And then, like you mentioned, some of the other types of chiropractors that are not as ethical and not patient-centered, maybe not great clinically, they end up recommending care that's just not needed just for the dollar, right? And so you see these divergence happen, and we're trying to get the really good doctors to s- be, have the conviction and the confidence to recommend what is needed and not be afraid of what the cost is for that person, and not putting themselves in that, that buying decision.

And obviously, you know, I'm not gonna just talk about that stuff when we do it, but we're gonna, we're gonna talk a lot about business and marketing and, and, and, and really in a, again, patient-centered ethical way to, to help tie all this together. And, and I'm excited to be a part of it, and I, I do thank you for, uh, for including me.

I was definitely... When you reached out and we started sharing what your vision was, uh, it, it just really clicked with what I had been seeing also. [00:38:00] I just don't have all the, the clinical resources that you do to put that clinical side together that really makes the, is, is the engine to make it go.

Benjamin Stevens DC: Yeah, honestly it's, and I've said this so many times in the last while, it's literally the thing I'm most, I, I've been excited...

It's the thing I'm most excited about in this industry for a very long time. Like, I've- Mm-hmm ... and I'm a very excitable person. You know, especially when it comes to kinda education and helping people get better, this is the thing I've been most excited about for the last little while, and it's been two years in the making.

I started at the end of 2024 trying to figure this whole thing out, and then last year started calling around to a bunch of people that had taken similar programs, um, and started calling around to people like yourself and all the other people that I just mentioned. Um, and that was just, it's got me, got me so excited because I have 100% certainty that if someone comes into this program and sticks around long enough, they're gonna go from feeling pretty okay about their career to just feeling absolutely phenomenal.

And that's like, that just excites the crap out of me, man. I'm very excited for that. It's weird to kinda ask people to have that size of a commitment, but [00:39:00] I'm also excited because I'm asking them to commit something big knowing they're gonna get something even more enormous back. And that's, uh, yeah, it's just, yeah, I'm stoked.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Awesome. If you can tell. Um, share, yeah, no, share, share with us the kinda the format, like what it looks like conceptually for them, like, okay, this sounds great. What's it look like?

Benjamin Stevens DC: Yeah. So, um, essentially it's gonna be modular in that, uh, we're gonna meet every week online, um, and that will be one to two hours.

We'll meet via Zoom online. We're gonna have a small group. There will be some form of teaching followed by some form of Q&A. That teaching is going to be the list of people that I just talked about, teaching in four to six weeks mo- four to six-week modules on their area of expertise. So, you know, Cody's gonna come in and he's gonna talk about rehab and exercise and strength and conditioning, and within the first year we're gonna focus primarily on framing it all through the low back, primarily so that we don't, um, get lost in the weeds over and over again- Yeah

and we can work on the system and congealing it all. Because if someone goes, "What about concussion?" We're off to the races. "What about carpal tunnel?" We're off to the races [00:40:00] again. So we're gonna kinda congeal it down into the low back. And so what we do is we do a clinical module, and then we have a short interval of a business module, and then clinical module, business module.

And so we alternate like that throughout the year. And so we will have someone doing the area that they are a specific expert in, teaching a clinical module, and then we will have a business lecture on a specific topic And so what we do is once a quarter we also get together to work on the actual skills that go along with all of this.

So most of the time that will mean that we've gone through two modules. And so for example, if we go through the module where we have talked about joint mechanics and we've talked about soft tissue, we have Brett Winchester, we have Michael Shivers, we're gonna get those two people together in a room, excuse me, we'll get Michael and Brett together in a room for a weekend, and all the, all of us are gonna get together and we're gonna work on the specific skills, making sure we understand how to use them and how they fit together.

And so we just go on that cadence year-round whereby we have four meetings per year that are in person, and in between those meetings we're just alternating between clinical and business. [00:41:00] And then a few of those modules we're gonna spend four to six weeks at a time focusing on nothing but integration, making sure that, like, the people that have been around and kind of get all these pieces, they know how this plays out in practice.

They know how to do things like communicate it. They know how to do things, uh, like form the business around it. They know how to make it clinically excellent. They know how to take a history that uses the system really well. They know how to do a report of findings. They know how this whole thing. And so this is really meant to install an identity and a cadence of excellence into people so that once they're around for a year, th- everything has switched to where this just becomes their operating system, and then we can throw kind of tools on top of it.

You know? We can just throw dry needling on top of it, muscle testing on top of it, whatever technique we want. But the core of what everybody does will be very, very similar because this is what the best in the world use. So we're gonna modular learn that and repeat it in cycles throughout the year with different variations and probably different instructors a little bit here and there.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Oh, love it. And then, uh, locations. You're gonna kinda alternate locations throughout the year and stuff like that?

Benjamin Stevens DC: Yeah, [00:42:00] so, um, what we'll probably do is during the cold months we'll go south, and during the warmer months we'll come a little further north. Um, naturally because I'm Canadian and a huge part of my following is Canadian, and a huge part of the people that I just love to work with are Canadian, we'll probably be up here.

Um, if I had to guess, we're gonna do essentially the kind of four corners of North America. So we'll probably do somewhere northeast, somewhere southeast, somewhere northwest, somewhere southwest. Um, and that's so that, you know, for the most part everyone gets at least one thing that's close to home, and then they can travel to the other ones as well.

Um-

Dr. Kevin Christie: Well, Florida is in some ways a province of Canada, so- ... don't be, don't be afraid to come down here.

Benjamin Stevens DC: The Canadian-

Dr. Kevin Christie: Don't be afraid ... plus

Benjamin Stevens DC: crocodiles. Yeah.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. Exactly. Crocodiles.

Benjamin Stevens DC: Alligators. Which one is it? I don't remember.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Uh, alligators, but unfortunately we are starting to get in a little bit of crocodiles, which are, are not a good thing, so.

Oh.

Benjamin Stevens DC: Oh no, that's not great.

Dr. Kevin Christie: We get all kinds of invasive things in Florida. It's, uh, people and, and, uh, animals. The inva-

Benjamin Stevens DC: the invasive Canadian species coming and apologizing for everything.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Oh, that's great. [00:43:00] Um, well this is cool. This is great. I'm excited to be a part of it. Uh, where could our audience find out more information and, and, uh, look to, uh, potentially register for it when more comes out for that?

I- is registration open yet?

Benjamin Stevens DC: Yeah, I've got a few people registering. Oh, nice. The way I'm doing it right now is, um, like I'm just doing it one on one, meaning the people- Yeah ... that are in- signed up for this thing, they're all people that have talked to me personally and I've walked them through just to make sure we're gonna be a good fit.

'Cause what I don't wanna do is, uh, 'cause I've had these conversations, I don't want someone to come in who's just looking to kind of add another certification. Um, I don't want someone to come in who's very new, very naive, and it's just gonna be a lot, even though I think it would help them. One of the things I really care about is the peer group involved in this.

Um, I want the people who are in this to be able to help each other, and we're gonna intentionally create forums where we all get to know each other kind of as a cohort. Um, and so I've been doing it all individually one on one. Easiest thing for people to do is to either email me at ben@somaticsenses.com and we can start to talk about it.

Um, probably even easier than that is to find me on Instagram, which is just [00:44:00] drbenjaminstevens. You'll see this face with a yellow background on it if you go find me there. Um, you know, or naturally if they reach out to you, you can just kind of forward contacts or whatever. Yeah. Um, yeah. So by the time this comes out, um, we'll probably be a few weeks away from launching it still.

Um, but yeah, I'm, I'm very excited about this thing.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Perfect. Exciting. Yeah, definitely. You, they, you can email me too or reach out to me, um, Facebook message, whatever, if you need more info, I can send it that way as well. But, uh, I'm excited to be a part of it, excited to, uh, be in the first year of it as well and, and grow from it.

So thanks for putting this together, and thanks for including me.

Benjamin Stevens DC: Yeah. You're very ha- ... I should be the one saying thank you. I like... Don't get me wrong, I could try to do this whole thing myself. I could try to be the g- one that gives people every last ingredient. But to me, I feel like I'd be doing people a disservice to not go find the guy who does the thing in Kevin Christie and say, "Can you come help?"

And go find the person that knows neurodynamics and say, "Shacklock, can you come teach it?" Yeah. Right? And that's one of the things I'm most excited about, is to have all these people in the same room, in the same environment, and to have the people in here [00:45:00] be able to be mentored and interact with these people, and to have the whole system be guided.

I'm supremely confident that it's going to work well, and I need to be thanking you, not the other way around.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Well, I appreciate it, Ben, and, uh, this will not be our last time we're on the podcast.

Benjamin Stevens DC: Sounds good, my man. As you can probably tell, I could talk a lot, so.