From Burnout to Freedom - How Physicians Can Scale a Business Beyond the Practice

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This is the Beyond the Story podcast, a show that goes way beyond the story.

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And now, Sebastian Ross! Dr. Greg, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Thank you so much.

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Excited to be here. Excited to have you here. I know we've been rocking and rolling, getting you booked on some of our clients' podcasts, and I know that you and I connected through, I believe, the great Dan Martell's Elite Coaching Group. That's right. Good old Dan Martell. That's right. That's it, man.

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Great community, great group of forward-thinking business owners, and just really fortunate to be part of that community. Been in since November of last year, I think. So I've been a real game changer specifically with the podcast side of things. So yeah, man, great to connect with you. Great to get you on the show here and learn a little bit more about you and your business. I love telling people stories on this show, and for context purposes for our listeners, I always like to go back to the beginning of the story. Now, the beginning of the story is different for everybody, so you define exactly what the beginning is, but take us back to where this all started and what really brought you into present day with what you're doing. I know that you are, uh, you've got a, a chiropractic practice there in, uh, the state of Missouri as well. That's the extent of what I know, but that's the beautiful part about podcast interviews. I can better understand here. So bring us back real quick, Greg. Yeah, absolutely. So interesting. I'll talk about the chiropractic practice, but it's not a chiropractic practice anymore.

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So stick around if you want to hear up to that point, if anybody's watching or, or listening to this. But I'm going to go back to the beginning because it is, it is very important and I'll make it short, sweet, to the point and keep everybody on their toes. So everybody stick around for this. But I grew up in a really small farm town out in the middle of nowhere.

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We had more cows than people in Missouri. My family, both parents were, you know, happily married and blue-collar workers, worked extremely hard. And so my dad was that, that old generation, well, kind of the boomer generation, if you will. But he was very hard on you, you know, never going to be good enough. You can always do better. You can always do more kind of mentality. And so it instilled a really great work ethic in me. And the way I took it was the way to be successful is to work harder and work more.

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And then also, I took their raising me as you're never going to be good enough and you are wrought with insecurities because of the way they raised me. So that's when I went to grad school. I was 19. I graduated as a doctor at 23. And the reason why that drive was there was simply because of how they raised me. The problem was, is that I had this crippling insecurity of like, well, I'm never going to be good enough. I'm not, you know, whatever. And I don't say that as woe is me.

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I'm just saying that's where it started. Luckily, I met my wife. My wife was the first person that was like, hey, you know, you have value. There's something here that's amazing. Like, you really are a great person. And that was the first time in my life I actually considered that to be a possibility, that I had value, that I was a great person. So I got out of college. I had a wife, a 1-year-old daughter, and I started a chiropractic practice. I was 24 years old when that happened. A year and a half into practice, we had our second child. He was born with dwarfism, threw a big wrench in where we thought we were headed. In fact, threw so much of a wrench that I wrote a book called A New Kind of Normal because we thought this was where we were headed and this is where normal was. And guess what? We didn't know. Life throws you curveballs. So then it threw me in this new direction. We didn't know he was going to have dwarfism.

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He was born with a lot of medical issues with his lungs. He ended up having a trach and vent for 8 years. So if you can imagine trying to run a business during that time, really our focus was keep him alive, keep the family together. It wasn't grow a business, it wasn't build into anything. After 8 years of him being on that trach and vent, he started to get better, which then allowed me to actually look at where we were as a company and in our life. And, and I said, well, I can't keep doing what I'm doing the way I'm doing it in order to actually build the life I want to build for my family.

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And so what I ended up doing was I switched my chiropractic practice to an integrated regenerative medicine practice. In doing that, I intentionally pulled myself out of the day-to-day So it ran as a business. Now that's very rare in this industry. Most doctors get stuck in their practice.

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So now I am also not only the CEO of PC Medical Centers, which we are expanding into multiple locations, but I now do— I'm the doctor, uh, business doctor for Doctors in Business. So I help coach doctors in their business to where they can actually build the business that they want around their life, not get trapped in it, which is where most of them end up.

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And so that brings us to present day, How I Met You, Sebastian. So now you have an overview and you can ask as many questions as you'd like.

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Wow, that's quite the story. I mean, I love the fact that you decided to say, okay, life shows up sometimes personally, professionally, but I'm going to keep going because that's what you were taught. That's what your parents taught you to be able to do. It's what the majority of us taught us to be able to do. And then when life showed up, family-wise, you're like, what can I do in my business and my life based on what I'm currently experiencing right now to leverage it, to, to, to, to get something from it? Um, how did that change your mindset and also your family dynamic when you decided to say, hey, you know what?

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It happens. Sometimes we get dealt a good hand. Sometimes we get dealt a, a unique hand, if you will. But I'm going to choose to play the hand either way. Yeah, the hardest part and the thing that really gutted me the most was I started a business or a practice thinking that was the direction that I needed to go.

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And then after a decade of doing it, I realized this isn't going to fulfill the needs that of why I started the business in the first place. That was the killer. It was like the realization of everything I've worked on for a decade is now not where my passion is. It's where I love helping people. But at that point, I was maxed out on how many people I could help.

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I wasn't making the income I wanted to make. My wife, every time I would go to take a vacation, she would go, are you sure we can take time off for that? Are you sure? You got to shut the practice down. Oh, my gosh. And I hated that for us. I hated that for her. I hated that she was scared.

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Seeing your spouse scared for you to take time off because she's worried about the financial implication is just a killer. And so in 2020, when the world's shutting down, that was when I decided. I said, you know what? I'm going to take this practice and turn it into something that will be more effective, more impactful, help more people, and fulfill my goals in life, which is help a lot of people, have a lot of fun doing it, and make a lot of money in the process. Because in the process of making money, which I view as the scorecard, meaning if you've helped enough people or a lot of people, then guess what? You are going to have more financial resources, which then plays into I can help more people and have more fun. And so it's this nice little cycle. I learned that from a mentor of mine, Dave Meltzer, by the way.

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Yeah, I know that's his statement. Have a lot of fun, help a lot of people, make a lot of money. But I love it. That's like, yeah, that's That's why I started the business, to have a lot of fun, help a lot of people, make a lot of money all at the same time. And so now, 6 years later, I have a phenomenal team. We are in multiple different facets moving and helping a lot of people, and I'm able to expand my reach not just from me treating one-on-one individually, but from helping doctors be able to help more people as well. Now we're helping thousands and thousands and thousands of people instead of me helping 100 people. A week or in a period of time. And so that's why it's so awesome. That's why I'm excited about it. So, so walk us through this. Like, what's an everyday— what, you know, an average day look like for you and the type of work that you're doing so our listeners can really understand what you're doing? Because if they hear this episode and think, hey, this may be something I can, I can, you know, take advantage of, help us help them understand that. Well, a lot of my day is built around the things that I love and the things I want to do. Now, it's not all perfect.

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Don't get me wrong. I don't want people to think, oh, he's just, you know, blowing smoke or living this fantasy. But I do pay attention to— when I met— I met Dan Martell back in 2023. We happened to be at Bradley's place recording some stuff. He was doing Bradley's podcast and I happened to run into him and he really got me on that concept of buying back your time.

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I got one of his first copies because I was like, oh, let's check this out. But I put it into practice. A lot of people buy a book They don't ever put it into practice. They just have it. So I put it into practice and I did a time audit and I looked at my time and I'm like, what lights me up? What gets me excited? This lights me up and gets me excited. So a majority of my time is spent doing videos. It is recording podcasts. It is traveling to meet new people. It is speaking on stages. It is teaching my group, my coaching group. It is pouring myself and my education and what I know into the people that are in my team to where they can grow and expand so I can provide more opportunity for them. And that's where my sweet spot is. Now, if there's a doctor out there that owns a practice that's like, look, I just wanna treat patients and that's what I love to do, great, we'll build your practice around that. Then we need to hire the people into the practice that handle the operational side, the HR side, the marketing side, the sales side. You are then the physician that treats, which is awesome. I've done that for people as well. So it's really understanding what you love, and building your life around majority of that. You know, I love playing golf. I play golf all the time. I play guitar and I sing. As you can see my guitar right here. I do that occasionally as I want. And I have an assistant that fills those holes of like, man, I want to do this thing and I'm so excited to do it. Then we put that into the calendar and we start building it. So that's the majority of my time and what it looks like. Oh man. What would you say the best part of your job is? Pouring into other people, having other people have that aha moment where they have a result, a success.

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Um, you know, hey Doc, my life, my job is easier now because I put into, into practice your philosophies or strategies.

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Hey Doc, I made an extra $20 grand this month, whatever. I, you know, I impacted more people. Um, my wife and I are doing better than ever, so on and so forth. It's— that's the biggest, uh, win for me is hearing the success stories of other people, uh, and the people actually take action, you know, because learning something is, is one thing, but knowing something by taking action and understanding it is a totally different thing, as you know. Yeah, it really is. Well, it sounds like you've done a good job of being able to— I'm big on work-life balance. I don't know if balance is bullshit or not, but I've built my business, I've built my life around my business, or my business around my life, not the other way around. That's how you actually have a lifestyle business. I play a lot of golf too. In fact, I'm playing 18 tomorrow with a group of guys from BNI, and we're just kind of blowing off the morning, going out and chasing that white lady around for a little while. And, um, you know, that's, that's really what— actually how I got— that's how I got into the coaching side. That's exactly how I got into the coaching side. It was a Wednesday and I shot a, um, a story on Instagram and I was out on the golf course and I was like, there's nobody out here on the course. So we're part of a country club. I'm like, there's nobody out here. My buddy, um, calls me later that afternoon. He goes, hey, are you literally at the golf course right now? I said, yeah, you want to come out? And he goes, I can't come out, I got a treat. What do you mean? Like, how are you out of the golf course? I said, because I pulled myself out. I told you I was doing this for 4 years. Like, this is what I've been building. Yeah. He's like, teach me how to do that. I want to do that. And so that couple years ago is when that started, and that's what became the coaching program. So funny how that works out, isn't it? It's amazing. Well, I grew up in a radio station. My dad was a DJ for 30 years. I had zero interest in following into his footsteps, and I ended up in the podcasting world. And I've been, you know, this is year 10 for us.

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So kind of wild how that, uh, in fact, I was on the golf course a couple years ago telling a buddy that story and he said, man, our genes sure are powerful, aren't they? And I'm like, well, I don't know shit about genes, but my grandfather's name was Gene. Maybe that had something to do with it. So, uh, what are you excited about for the rest of, uh, I say the rest of, my goodness, we just started 2026 for crying out loud. But what are you excited about for 2026 specifically? Well, I mean, we— I have a new understanding. You know, when you— I talk about leveling up all the time, hitting the next level, hitting the next level. And I have a new understanding of where we're headed. And I can actually see as a visionary type person, I can actually see the things going, clicking into place.

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You know, what I've done over the last 5.5, 6 years in building what we've built there was a lot of pain in that because I had to stretch myself. I had to learn new things. And so what I'm really excited about is the impact that we're making in not only the businesses that I own or the partnerships that I have in other businesses, but it's taking the frameworks that we've developed and putting them into them and seeing them flourish and grow to provide more opportunity for other people. And then on the coaching and the social media side, I'm really excited about the social media side and AI, putting AI into all these businesses and seeing that take over and things happen faster and better. Really, really exciting. So I don't know, there's a lot of amazing things that I am excited about, but probably social media, AI, where that should be implemented into businesses, and then the amount of, you know, people that we're actually connecting with and helping them grow faster. I mean, this is stuff I wish I had when I was in my early 20s starting my business. I wish I understood it. I wish I had the information. Yes, my focus was diverted for 10 years where it needed to be. I mean, keeping a special needs kid alive and all the things we were doing for him, and we were doing what we needed to do at the time. But I wish I would have been able to implement this information. I would have been a lot further along. But everything happens when it's supposed to happen. And, you know, when the student's ready, the teacher shows up. And that all happened about 2019. The student was ready, the teacher started to show up, and then this nice flywheel started to turn. And now that we're 6 years in, it's really, really ramped up. So funny how that works out, isn't it?

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Yeah, it is. It is. But if you spend most of your time doing things that you love, you'll have this energy, you'll have this excitement. Yeah. And that's what I've really focused on. It sounds selfless— selfish, I'm sorry, but it's really more selfless in the fact that the more I am doing things that I love to do that light me up, the more that the reason why I was putting on this put on this earth starts to shine. That let your light shine. You know, this little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine. Yeah. The more you can do that, the more it gives other people permission to do the same thing for themselves. And that is why it's not selfish. It is more selfless in nature. I'm doing the things that I love to do that get me excited to help other people and expand my own world so then other people can come into it. And guess what? Now their world gets to expand. And that's why it's selfless. And I'm really excited to do it.

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Absolutely. Well, Dr. Craig, it's been great to get to know you and, uh, better understand exactly your story. Thanks for your time today, uh, and coming on and hanging out with me for just a few minutes on here.

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I look forward to staying in touch with you. Of course, we appreciate, um, the relationship we've been able to establish here with getting you booked on our other clients' podcasts and look forward to continuing to further that. As we wrap things up here,

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figure out what lights you up in your life. And the way, way you do that is by experiencing life. Go out, do things, try things. If you like it, keep doing it, do more of it. If you don't like it, if it doesn't resonate with you, stop doing it, do less of it.

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The more you follow that path, the more your life starts to be exciting and the more you love to do it, as opposed to the average individual, which is just walking around with the life that they settled for. So I'm here to help go to my Instagram @drgregpersley, and, uh, I would love to, you know, pour into your life as well. I'd look forward to talking with you on there. Absolutely. I'll be sure to include Dr. Greg's Instagram link in the show notes of this podcast episode, so be sure to connect with him further. Dr. Greg, thanks again, my brother. I appreciate you, man. Hey, thanks for having me. Appreciate you. Got it, man. Until next time, friends, thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of the Beyond the Story podcast.

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Best. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. If you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. We sure do appreciate it. Signing off from the podcast LaunchLab.com studios. We'll talk to you next time.