In this episode of the AG45 Soul Aligned Strategy Podcast, host Katherine Breuss interviews Dr. Nick Lundbohm, a chiropractor with ChiroWay Chiropractic in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. They discuss the importance of aligning one's soul with their business and the significance of chiropractic care in maintaining overall health. Nick shares his journey of opening his own chiropractic practice after working under various doctors and the challenges he faced, notably starting his business during the COVID-19 pandemic. They both emphasize the necessity of self-care for business owners to ensure they can effectively manage their businesses and personal lives. Nick explains the different types of stress and the holistic benefits of chiropractic care, while Katherine advocates for the importance of mental and physical clarity in achieving business success. The conversation culminates in recognizing the value of supportive networks in overcoming business hurdles.

Contact Nick - https://www.linkedin.com/in/chirowaymfalls/

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[00:00:52] Katherine Breuss: Welcome, Nick to the Soul Lined Podcast. Um, everyone, I'd to introduce Nick Lund Baum from Cairo Way. Um, I'm gonna pass it over to him though, and I'm gonna let Nick share with you who he is and his business before we get started.

[00:01:12] Nick Lundbohm: All good morning, Katherine. Thank you. Uh, my name is, Dr. Nick lbo. I'm a chiropractor with, ChiroWay Chiropractic in Menominee Falls, Wisconsin. Um, I have been a chiropractor for over 20 years now, and had decided to finally be able to open my own small business about five years ago.

After working for numerous other doctors in different ways and in many different. Chiropractic offices, and found chiro way through a few connections from one my brother and two, a few other connections through business and found that ChiroWay was a, a very good, model for chiropractic for me to be able to run my small business by myself.

ChiroWay is a, up and coming franchise of locations. That allow, convenience and affordability of chiropractic care to allow people to come in more often to receive the chiropractic care long-term, rather than utilize chiropractic care as a short-term band-aid solution. Uh, ChiroWay has added that convenience and affordability to make chiropractic more part of your life rather than something you seek out when you need it.

[00:02:38] Katherine Breuss: I love that. And as we were talking earlier, I studied, chiropractic in Australia, because I have a huge love for the human body, but al our spine is a communication system, I highly support, chiropractic care. I've seen the difference it has made, not only in my own life, my children's, my mothers back in the eighties when, chiropractors back then were considered witch doctors.

[00:03:10] Nick Lundbohm: Yep. Um, and Yep.

Discriminated against. Exactly. All of those things.

[00:03:14] Katherine Breuss: Yeah. And the cool thing was is that you had the, the more, the, the spine surgeons, they wanted to put my mom under the knife and she met this amazing chiropractor, and she ended up going that direction and she is thankful for it.

So,

[00:03:35] Nick Lundbohm: excellent.

[00:03:36] Katherine Breuss: Yeah, I have a huge, huge, huge, love of chiropractors, but as we were also saying, not all of them are created equal. Um, Nick, we, are talking about soul lined and the way that we see soul lined is, It's understanding who you are and what is important to you, and then aligning that to your life and or because we're talking to business owners, your business where most of us spend the majority of our time.

[00:04:10] Nick Lundbohm: Correct. So,

[00:04:11] Katherine Breuss: for you, what do is being aligned and what impact does that have for you and your business?

[00:04:23] Nick Lundbohm: Well, a big part of, I would say that with my business is, and it also ties back into why I ended up with a franchise with Chiro Way, is being able to spend a lot of time, the dedicated time that you need to spend opening and running your business, but at the same time, allowing you to have that life.

That will balance you away from your business, such as your family, such as your children, your hobbies, whatever it is that you have, that is gonna be a unique aspect for everyone. But I feel that as a business owner, that balance needs to be there because you can't spend. Every waking hour on your business, no matter how much of a passion it is for you without having the mental wellness yourself, of being able to be away from your business, and whether that is having someone else with you to support your business, to run your business, for you to be able to step away and have your business run itself, whatever that would be.

I think that is a big. That would fit a big, purpose in, in your soul aligned aspect of balance that needs to be part of your life when you are running a business.

[00:05:52] Katherine Breuss: Yeah, and it's, it's great speaking with someone yourself who is about, health and wellness and. You know, for many of us business owners, and even not business owners, but business owners in particular, we usually put ourself last.

Correct. I see it in from a sense of taking care of yourself physically, mentally, but also financially as Mm-hmm. Um, I see a lot of business owners pay themselves last, from a, a health and wellness. Perspective. Um, what would you recommend in terms of how a business owner should look after themselves to ensure that then they can look after their business and their family and everyone else?

[00:06:40] Nick Lundbohm: Well, exactly, and. I, you, you hit hit it, hit on most of it is, is, is being able to be away from your business. Um, I, of course am, am not gonna say this in a biased manner, but I, I firmly believe business owners would benefit from being a chiropractic patient, mainly from being able to balance that, natural innate ability for their body to.

Respond to stress and, and heal and strengthen, and be in a powerful position to benefit themselves. It, it is something that most people don't realize that they're missing until they add it into their life. Much exercise, much proper nutrition and diet, much getting enough sleep.

Um, those are all pillars that I emphasize with all of my clients. Um, but adding that regularity of getting adjusted that your spine is working the way it's supposed to, which supports your nervous system, which supports the entire body. If that is not functioning at 100%, you cannot function at 100%.

That is not a chiropractic. Religion that is science, and that is a science based philosophy that, I can, and, and I don't to use the word debate because it's not a debate, it's how the body works. And a big part of, of, health and wellness, from my perspective is making sure people are, seeing some chiropractic service, but then at the same time.

Getting their proper exercise, getting their proper sleep at night. Being hydrated is a huge one that people mostly overlook and getting some form of exercise, whether it's, whatever it is that you to do. So, oh,

[00:08:38] Katherine Breuss: it's interesting, the hydration piece. Um, when I lived in Australia, I was pretty good at it because it was warmer and we were outdoors a lot and whatnot.

And since moving here. Gosh, I'll, I'll go through majority of the day and it'll be towards the end and I'll sit and go, oh my I've only had this amount of water and I

[00:08:58] Nick Lundbohm: very much

[00:08:59] Katherine Breuss: completely forget. And to your point, it does make an impact. I can see how differently my system, functions two.

Okay, a lot of people, and because I, yes, I do love chiropractic. So I'm gonna go a little bit more into this from a health perspective. Um. Most people, when they think of chiropractors or chiropractic care, they think, oh, you're gonna crack my back. And it's if my back is outta whack or something that, that's why I would go to you.

But I know that it's a lot more than that. So, I love that you brought up the neurology and 'cause the spine is the, it's the communication to everything. Correct. So what, in terms of, you mentioned stress, how would chiropractic. Care help someone with regards to stress.

[00:09:51] Nick Lundbohm: Okay, stress is threefold.

Everybody knows the word stress when we're talking about emotional stress, that is, how is your life at home? How is your life at work? What's, outside stressors are you dealing with? 24 7. That is emotional stress. However, people fail to realize that, there is another ver, there are two other versions of stress that is physical stress and there's chemical stress.

Physical stress is what you physically put your body through every day. You know? Do you, does your job require a lot of sitting? Does your job require a lot of repetitive motion? Does your job require a lot of standing? Working. You know, I have a lot of hairdressers that are clients of mine. You know that physical stress of your body is going to physically affect your body and you can even call exercise physical stress if you are doing regular exercise as you're supposed to.

That is a good thing. But what does exercise do to your body? It's a question I ask all my clients that come in that do a little exercise, they're I take good care of myself. I exercise. Okay. What does exercise do to you? What is the point of exercise? Hmm. It breaks down your muscles. It shows you that you are weak in order to have proper exercise.

You are wearing yourself out. You're doing a lot of lifting, you are running, you are doing yoga, you are stretching muscles beyond what they are. Currently capable of doing because that breaks down the muscle tissue, tells your body that you are, Hey, we are slightly weak. We must heal this and become stronger.

Whether it is a stronger muscle, whether it is stretching the muscle, whether it is increasing your lung capacity, by doing aerobic exercise, you are breaking down your body, your body must heal to get you back to a better position That requires. Um, utilizing calories that requires, building your body up.

So it is a stress on your body to have to do that while at the same time doing your body's normal functions. I. And then to go all the way back to what we were saying, another version of stresses, that's chemical stress. That is what you take into your body. It is what you put onto your body. It's what you consume.

It's what you use to wash your hair. It's what you are exposed to with every day as far as your environment. I. Um, levels of pollution, how much inside you are, whether you are breathing in allergens on a daily basis, that your body must combat with whether you are constantly exposed to pathogens in your job.

Are you a nurse? Are you a other healthcare practitioner that sees a lot of people? How is your immune system functioning? Those are all chemical reactions happening in your body. 24 7 365. You add up your physical stress, your chemical stress, and your emotional stress, your unique stress,

[00:12:54] Katherine Breuss: that's

a lot of stress.

[00:12:54] Nick Lundbohm: It's a lot of stress. And when you are dealing with that 24 7, 365, eventually your body is not gonna have the capacity to overcome everything on a daily basis. And you start running at what we call a deficit. The human body is a self-regulating, self-healing organism. It knows how to be healthy. And before I get onto too long of a, ramble of this because it's something I can talk about for forever and ever.

So if you, if, if you have anything, feel free to jump in before I go too long into my, new client orientation where I try and explain to people that when you have all that stress every day. Your body has to react. It has to adapt and overcome. You know, one of my favorite, one of my favorite Clint Eastwood movies is, is Heartache Ridge, and I'm dating myself, and he's always talking about how the Marines are one of the greatest branches in the history of the world of warfare because Marines adapt, overcome, and succeed.

That is exactly what your body does. It tries to adapt. It overcomes what you're dealing with, and it succeeds by healing. Hmm. The problem is when you build up too much tension in the back, in the, in the muscles, in whatever it is that you're dealing with, and subluxation occurs. Hmm. The definition of subluxation is a vertebrae that is not working through its normal range of motion the way it should be, and that is going to cause, go back to the neurology that you were talking about, impingement of the nervous system.

And when you are pinching on the nervous system, it's not working as as it can be because your body then has to heal that as And you are running at a deficit of trying to get back to that adaptation point of normal health and wellbeing.

[00:14:48] Katherine Breuss: Yeah. And I see that as, When your body has stress mm-hmm.

You've got your your mental stress, your emotional stress, you've got your physical stress.

Correct.

And to me it's it's a fog then you're living in,

[00:15:07] Nick Lundbohm: mm-hmm.

[00:15:08] Katherine Breuss: You have the mental lack of clarity. You are making decisions, in a fog. Then if you add on top of that, you've got the physical.

Stress, whether that's chemical, whether it is physical, and then that it is in itself a fog. And again, decisions aren't necessary as clear because messaging and, and all of that isn't working as Right. And I say that we are the engine behind what we do and we are. And I do see taking care of your physical body, being soul lined as because it's not your mental clarity and your mental understanding of who you are and what you want.

You, we are our body are the house we live in and correct. So if that house isn't clean and clear, that's gonna add a whole nother layer of fog.

[00:16:05] Nick Lundbohm: Correct. And again, it, it, it goes all the way back to taking care of yourself and as business owners, you, you already touched on that. It is one of the last things that most people consider because their business and their family comes first and they tend to come later on.

[00:16:22] Nick Lundbohm: Um, the entire point of adding chiropractic into your life is to make that simpler. Because when you have a properly functioning nervous system, everything else is easier, your exercise is easier, your mental clarity to make those decisions is clearer. The, the, the intake of your chemical input.

Your nutrition, your, everything else is something that functions better. Your body processes that stuff better. So it is all, it all goes back to your nervous system. The, the, the key communication system in your body, the thing that runs everything. And if you're not taking care of your immune, your immune, or your nervous system, your own innate intelligence is going to be depressed, which is going to depress.

The rest of your life.

[00:17:17] Katherine Breuss: Hmm. I love that you said you're innate intelligence, but you've hit it. You've hit it. On the head. Mm-hmm. Um, and we all have that innate intelligence and it's there, sometimes it doesn't feel it's there because it can feel, it's, it's through the fog, it's

[00:17:32] Nick Lundbohm: exactly

[00:17:33] Katherine Breuss: of lack of clarity, whether that's through our body, through our mind, emotions.

And the more clarity we have, then the easier it is to know what it is we want, where we wanna go, and then to be able to align to it. Um mm-hmm. So, you'll love the fact probably that we use the word align because, chiropractic is all about chiropractic.

[00:17:56] Nick Lundbohm: Exactly. It's, it's a solid, solid analogy.

[00:17:59] Katherine Breuss: It is. Um, and I could sit and talk about, I could, I could sit and talk about, chiropractic work all day long because it is, it is phenomenal and, and what can occur, when you do go to a qualified and experienced, Chiropractor, the change is not only physically in your body, but also mentally, can shift and change.

Um, which, I said earlier, I need to come and see you because mm-hmm.

[00:18:35] Nick Lundbohm: Correct.

[00:18:35] Katherine Breuss: I don't do it as, I don't do it as much as I used to. Mm-hmm. And, and that shame on me, that is a time aspect. Um, So I'm at fault. I'm at fault as Sometimes I'm always putting my mask on. You know how they say, on the airplane, you put your mask on first and then you help

[00:18:53] Nick Lundbohm: others?

It is. It is. It is. And that, that is a, that's a wonderful analogy too, is that you do need to be able to take care of yourself. In order to help others. Um, and whether it's a, whether it's because you're a business owner, whether it's you're be a, a, a family, family person taking the primary role in your family, you still need to take care of yourself in order to take care of others.

And, and I that, that. Aspect of, being aligned is something that I found with Chiro Way and why I have a Chiro Way franchise. Um, because they do allow you to take care of yourself, in order to become a better practitioner to then take care of your clients. Mm-hmm.

[00:19:41] Katherine Breuss: Yeah, because imagine, it's, it's, it's obvious when we say it out loud and we're talking about it if you're not taking care of yourself, then you're not gonna be able to show up as for others and take care of others.

it sounds obvious. You know, when, when we see.

[00:19:56] Nick Lundbohm: Mm-hmm.

[00:19:56] Katherine Breuss: And yet though, time and time again, we don't do that. You know, we, we put ourselves last, mm-hmm. And. And, and it does no one any, any good. Um, mm-hmm. And part, and you've, Nick, do you have a family? I do. Yeah. So as as parents as Mm-hmm.

You know, we can put everybody else first and then we're run down. Just I have to say on the weekend, by the end of it, I was run down and I was putting everyone else. First and I, and I could feel it within myself, and I wasn't showing up. I wasn't as present with my children.

I was a little bit snippy. Um, and I literally was stop, pause. What's happening? Mm-hmm. And I was in my head, and, and, had a tornado of thought, which I, I took me to a completely different place that I didn't necessarily wanna go in that moment. Um, and I wasn't taking care of myself, and I literally had to, at least I was smart enough to say pause before, I became grumpy.

[00:21:06] Nick Lundbohm: Mm-hmm. Correct.

[00:21:09] Katherine Breuss: Now, what would you, I'm gonna shift gears a moment. Um, and, as a business owner, you, you've been in business, you said five years. Um,

[00:21:21] Nick Lundbohm: as a business owner, I've been, I've had my office for five years, correct.

[00:21:24] Katherine Breuss: What has been the biggest challenge for you as a business owner?

[00:21:32] Nick Lundbohm: As a, as a business owner?

You know, ki it's, it's unique to running a chiropractic business. I guess, you can probably talk to anybody. It's a business owner and, and they'll say the same thing. Their business is unique. Um, when it comes to running a chiropractic office, there is a. I, I hate to use the word stigma, but making yourself known to the general public of, of where you are, who you are and, and what you are.

And, and, that was one of the more difficult things for me to learn because I needed to be different. I needed to, Get out there and let people know where they could find me and why they'd wanna find me compared to somebody else. Because even though not a lot of people, as far as if you took the percentage of the, American population that regular, regularly see a chiropractor, we're talking probably 10 to 15% based on a lot of estimates to, to have that population as your, there's a lot of my key.

You know, potential, clients. There's a lot of chiropractors in a general given area for them to choose from. Mm-hmm. So making yourself that unique, they all, anybody that started a business, there's always that unique selling point. What is your unique selling point that people can, decide to utilize your business or services?

Um, that was one of the initial challenges that I faced was I. You know, getting that message out there of how we are different, why we are different from a traditional insurance-based chiropractic office.

[00:23:29] Katherine Breuss: That's a I'm glad you brought it up because Yeah, you're Every business, I would say 99.9% of businesses, have to ask themselves what is unique about us, the USP unique selling point.

Mm-hmm. Um, and this is where I would. You know, when, when we work with businesses is to first look at themselves and go, who are you? Like, who are you? Mm-hmm. And then how does that align to the business? And then who is that business and integrating that because that's who then you attract. Um, and there's a lack of resistance there when it's more of wearing someone else's model, if that makes sense.

[00:24:12] Nick Lundbohm: Mm-hmm. Yep.

[00:24:14] Katherine Breuss: Um,

[00:24:14] Nick Lundbohm:

[00:24:15] Katherine Breuss: So what would be one, if you had a, a piece of advice, one piece of advice for another business owner? Because it can feel lonely as a business owner. The, we all have struggles of varying sorts. Um, what would be your one piece of advice to other business owners that, may be struggling or, or maybe not sure how to do something?

What was key for you?

[00:24:43] Nick Lundbohm: it's something that is, again, from a business owner aspect, it, it, it talks with about everybody talks about the first five years in business.

[00:24:52] Katherine Breuss: Mm.

[00:24:54] Nick Lundbohm: And I have a unique position of, yes, I've been in business for five years, but do the first two years of my business even count.

[00:25:05] Katherine Breuss: Because, when did you start? Yeah. So tell me, tell me about when you started your business.

[00:25:10] Nick Lundbohm: So if anybody can do math in their head, and I'm sure everybody loves this. Um, my official opening date of business was April 13th, 2020 because I signed a lease, a five year lease in January of 2020. In June of 2019 is when I decided to.

Branch away from being a, an associate doctor that I had worked at for, a number of years for other doctors, and decided that I finally had the ability to open my own office and, had the conversation with my wife to, to take that step. Uh, met with the franchise or, the franchise of Caraway and signed by my franchise agreement and got support to open my new business.

And January of 2020, we signed a lease and began a build out and started planning a grand opening. And that grand opening was scheduled for the middle of March of 2020. And as that date approached, more and more problems in the COVID world, a arose and the the stay at home orders began, closing of all non-essential businesses and, stay away from people and don't go into work.

Unless you have to. And as a business that had not opened but was supposed to open, what were we supposed to do?

[00:26:39] Katherine Breuss: So were you considered essential or no?

[00:26:42] Nick Lundbohm: We are chiropractors in the state of Wisconsin considered essential business. Um, we are due to our license labeled as primary care physicians, through the state of Wisconsin.

So being a brand new business, we chose. To pause our opening to see what was happening and what was going to happen in the world at the time, because there was a lot of uncertainty. People didn't know. There were some obvious fiery debates between many, many people, but at the, but it was not, going to, going to my office and opening at, March 12th, didn't seem the idea.

Mm. Now when we got into April, it, it seemed not a lot is gonna change because in my situation, I may have. The choice of not opening, but I didn't have the choice of not paying my rent. Yeah. Because I signed a five-year lease two months before that. And at that time there was no support in place for small businesses that hadn't opened, or small businesses that didn't exist.

[00:27:59] Katherine Breuss: That's tough.

[00:28:00] Nick Lundbohm: I can't, There was the decision of, I am a non, I am an essential business. We can open, and I did have half a dozen people that were Hey, we don't care about. We don't care about, not that they don't care about COVID, but COVID wasn't gonna scare them away from coming into my office because they understood the need for chiropractic care and how it can improve your immune system and improve your position of handling COVID.

That's a whole nother discussion we can have for 45 minutes probably, of how the immune system and chiropractic care can support your body's ability to fight off viruses and germs and flu and COVID. So I had enough clients to begin to get things open because I had a landlord that needed his rent money as much as anybody else.

I, I didn't, I didn't look at that as a bad thing from his perspective, because he needed his rent money as to run his businesses, and I had to pay rent. So I needed a source of income to support me. So it was, let's get open and let's see what we can happen to do.

[00:29:12] Katherine Breuss: So how did you, what was key to getting through that phase mentally and emotionally?

Because I can imagine the toll that that probably took.

[00:29:25] Nick Lundbohm: It was, and a big part of it was having some support from outside your business, whether it is your, whether it is your family, whether it is friends. Um, ChiroWay is a franchise, I did have franchise support. Um. It was tough to make that support work because it was another unique situation that nobody had dealt with before, which is how do we respond to COVID and how do we make our protocols COVID safe based on a lot of these requirements that were placed on businesses, that we had never had to deal with before?

So how do we make those work for us and stay compliant? Even though it's a lot of things that we disagree with, but whether you disagree with them or not, you can't run a business in defiance of laws, regulations that come down to run your business. So we had to find ways to make our business COD compliant.

I'm using my air quotes to be able to be open and stay open. So that was a bit of a challenge, but the support of having other. Business owners in your group that were trying to do the same thing is a big thing. So, we touched on earlier about having business connections, having networking connections.

Um, a lot of people have a stigma of having business connections. People that do the same business you do. And that is something that is more key for a business owner than people realize is that you're not in competition with other business owners that do the same thing as you. If you find ways to support them.

[00:31:10] Katherine Breuss: Yeah. Oh, I love that.

[00:31:11] Nick Lundbohm: 'cause they will in turn support you. So having fellow people to do the same thing. In your support network is a, is a very big thing. I love that. And,

[00:31:24] Katherine Breuss: and one of our, we've got this five A model and the, and the fourth A is advocates, mm-hmm. Or advocate. So you advocate yourself, you advocate for others, and you find the advocates for you.

The ones that elevate you, not hold you back and make this. Mm-hmm.

[00:31:42] Nick Lundbohm: Correct.

[00:31:43] Katherine Breuss: So Nick, thank you for sharing that story. Um, and I'm glad that your business is thriving five years later.

[00:31:53] Nick Lundbohm: Mm-hmm. You know, I've always, I've always, that's, that's one thing that I always have to keep telling myself too, is that I.

You know, everybody always has that old, rule of thumb that the first five years of business is the most difficult and a lot of businesses fail before they reach five, five years of, of operations. And I can still look at my past and are, and present and, and wonder why I'm maybe not as successful as I would to be.

After five years, but I always have to constantly remind myself that my first two years were COV years that are very difficult to count as official years in business. Mm-hmm. And I still tell myself I'm probably only in year three of operating a, a business that that needs five to six years of good growth to be a successful chiropractic business.

[00:32:50] Katherine Breuss: Nice. I love it. I love it. And, and I, I will say, the work that you do, chiropractic work is incredibly impactful.

And, communities need it. Um, and that hats off to you. I wish I had finished. Thank you. My degree. Um, I did it out of more of curiosity and love and studied undergrad of medicine with chiropractic and then COVID hit, I couldn't do. Yep. I I couldn't finish it. I was close. But, I love it and it is a

Um, honorable profession. Um, and I thank you for that and I will be coming to see you because you are closer than Brookfield for me as

[00:33:37] Nick Lundbohm: It's, that is the convenient location as far as having a caraway office set up as So it is something that an is easy to, for people to stop in.

[00:33:49] Katherine Breuss: Well, Nick, it has been a real pleasure.

I appreciate your time, sharing, about you. And your business and what align means to you, and wish you all the best, in your business and I will be coming to see you.

[00:34:06] Nick Lundbohm: Awesome. I appreciate it, Katherine. Thank you for having me.

[00:34:08] Katherine Breuss: All Thanks Nick.