Respect the bell curve

Before I get into today’s content I just wanted to give a quick shout-out and thanks to the 13 brave pioneers who joined the Beta version of my Core Concepts in Chiropractic Nutrition program.

I originally intended to have 15 participants but then realising the amount of support I was going to be providing during this Beta phase I decided to cut it down to 10.

And then I discovered that my new tech system can’t cap the numbers joining a program and so we ended back up at 13. Doh!

Anyway, I’m delighted to have everyone on board and look forward to working with you over the coming months.

Here are just a few of the early comments from our private Facebook Group:

“I have just watched the welcome video from Simon and I am really excited for this course… from the intro I feel like Simon has written this course for me (especially the info video emails for patients to stop me bamboozling them with my nutrition excitement!!).”

“I like what I have seen of Simon’s presentations so far which seem to blend Clinical observation with the available ‘evidence’ so I am looking forward to exploring this with you all as the videos go on!”

“I have studied a lot of nutrition theory but I feel Simon that your course will have done a lot of the leg work for me for implementing these principles specifically into a chiro office!!  Looking forward to seeing how the course evolves.”

I’ll be bringing you more previews of the content along with participant feedback as the program develops so make sure you stay tuned to my weekly email lessons.

Talking of which, let’s dive in today’s…

We all love silver bullets.

You do one thing and a magical effect occurs and the patient is transformed.

These patients think you are a genius and even you’re a bit surprised something worked so well.

These are the stories you hear when you go a technique seminar.

The amazing results the guru on stage tell you about: “…expect miracles daily”.

And we want to believe them, we really do.

This new technique, this new supplement etc, this is the one.

The one that will make my clinical life “easy” (As Ryan Holiday says “The Obstacle Is The Way”).

And you go back to clinic and yes there are a few patients where it really is the one big thing, the silver bullet.

They are right in the middle of the bell curve in terms of treatment response and it was their “silver bullet”.

Watch out for your ego on these occasions as these patients love telling you how amazing you are.

And as the brilliant Ryan Holiday book says  “Ego is the enemy” (really worth a purchase by the way)

But for most it’s a spectrum of effect depending on their “jigsaw” (and in reality your ability to diagnosis and treat).

Mastering anything new skill/knowledge takes time and learned practice/spaced repetition. Beware “Monday morning mastery”slogans, you can’t master anything in a weekend.

For some, it’s simply not applicable or not an issue aka it didn’t work (they don’t talk about those on stage, do they?).

But as we go up/down the bell curve the results drop off.

These patients are a jigsaw.

They have more than one massive piece to find.

This is by far the most common scenario.

But the good news is common things are common and we can use the 80:20 rule.

Most patients (80-ish %) have the same deficiencies and the same inflammatory provocateurs  (FIT-SSO: Foods, infections, toxins, stress, sleep, obesity).

These are the low-hanging fruit.

The 20% that are more challenging, these are the ones we really learn from, they stretch us clinically.

These make you feel a little uncomfortable and if you want to be master clinician you must learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable.

Learn to live on the edge of clinical uncertainty.

You don’t want a whole day of them that’s for sure (maybe 20%?).

But a whole day of no challenges is flat-out boring and you’ll never grow as a clinician (everything is a spectrum).

So next time you are at a new technique seminar and they are telling miracle stories, put your hand up and ask what they do with patient’s who don’t get better.

The smart, more aware ones usually say something like “If they follow my instructions they always get better”.

That’s the get out of jail card, they didn’t follow my instructions.

One guy says his technique sorts everything as long as it’s not “infections, tumours or fractures”.

It’s actually a really, really, good neuromechanical technique, it helps me a lot and I use parts of it daily in practice.

Randomly, he lives a few miles from my sister-in-law in the USA, and so I had some treatment with him (very good it was too) and then observed a few patients.

He had a patient with a frozen shoulder… complaining about lack of response from previous sessions with him.

In reality we all have them, even Jesus Christ himself probably had lepers complaining about how they aren’t completely healed.

Hat tip to the brilliant Dr William Brady of Integrative Diagnosis who tells his members “you have to respect pathology” – i.e. some people are really f***ed up and beyond help with your skillset/techniques.

And that’s OK, look them in the eye and refer them out.

They will respect you all the more and often refer people to you.

Action to take today: Stretch yourself with those 20% more problematic patients, you’ll thank me later. Failing that, fix the 80% FIT-SSO factors.

As always, don’t waste those valuable adjustments.

Speak soon

Simon