Fascinated by the distinction between crisis-based care and lifestyle/performance care, Eric attended the University of Delaware and Life University College of Chiropractic. In 1986, Dr. Plasker began his own family and performance-based practice on Atlanta’s famous Peachtree Road. To date, Dr. Plasker has helped over 10,000 patients from around the world to create health and wellness in their lives. Through his company, The Family Practice, he has trained over 10,000 chiropractors how to be more effective communicators and educators for their community practice.
In this episode of TechTalk Podcast, Brad Cost, Dr. Jay Greenstein, and Dr. Eric Plasker sit down to discuss:
Being the Doogie Howser of chiropractic & how Eric ran with that!
The importance of offense, defense, and special teams in the business world.
The 100 Year Lifestyle: how 100-year-old Max altered Dr. Eric's life for the better.
SHOW NOTES:
1:49 – Becoming the Doogie Howser of chiropractic and opening two offices! “I was like a Doogie Howser of chiropractic. I decided I was going to be a chiropractor at the age of 15 after I got hurt playing football. My mom took me to the hospital where the orthopedist took these pictures, gave me drugs to take, and told me not to play for 30 days. I heard drugs equal don't play and I wasn’t doing that. I was going to play no matter what. The next day, I had a chiropractic appointment with Ernie Landi in Spring Valley, New York. He adjusted me and I played that afternoon without any pain. I decided in that moment I was going to be a chiropractor. I went to the University of Delaware, then Life University, and have been on a rocket ship ride ever since. Early on in my career, because I didn't know anything at 23 when I graduated, I was passionate and willing to tell the story. I was willing to make mistakes and learn. One thing led to another, and I had two offices. My second office, when I opened it, grew from zero to 100+ patient visits a day in less than nine months. Before I knew it, I had thousands of chiropractic customers around the world. That was really inspiring because I realized that I could impact and influence the health of communities without even being there. That totally changed my life.”
4:23 – Favorite & most hated classes in chiropractic schooling. “My favorite classes were technique classes. I loved getting my hands on people and adjusting. I figured if I was a great adjuster, I wouldn't have to have everybody be a guinea pig for everybody else. Everybody would come to me for adjustments, which was what happened. I became president of the Gonstead Club, so technique was definitely my wheelhouse. I don't know that I ever hated a class, honestly. I didn't have the time to hate. I was doing my thing and having a great time. I had lots of friends - we were taking trips, going to seminars, seeing different places. I didn't sweat the small stuff and had a blast.”
6:22 – Offense, defense, and special teams. “Initially, because I was a 23-year-old graduate and never had a business before, I thought it was just about going on offense or getting new patients and taking care of them. I didn't realize that being in business required offense, defense, and special teams. Offense was the production. Defense was making sure we dotted all the I's and crossed all the T's. And special teams? Early on, something happened that changed my life story. We had an office in a front frontage spot at a shopping center. One day, this old lady lost control of her car and drove through my office. She hit a staff person and a patient. Thank God nobody was killed, but the crazy thing about it: we did everything right and still got sued. They didn't win because I didn't do anything wrong. It costed me like $15,000 in legal fees, but I had my insurances, good lawyers, and good offense, defense, and special teams. Everything was right, but I never realized the importance of that. A lot of young people don't understand when I say offense, defense, and special teams of a business. You have to cover all those bases. A one-in-a-million accident can happen, and you have to be protected and covered. You don't want your life's work to be taken away from you.”
16:51 – Max is the origin of the 100 Year Lifestyle. “I had a 100-year-old man change my life. This 98-year-old guy comes in, crippled, broken, alone, and asked me if I can help him. I said, “Max, I have no idea, but let's give it a shot as long as you're alive and breathing.” I start to work with him very slowly and he starts to move. He stands up straight, walks with pep in his step, starts waving and eating – he is doing fantastic. Max never missed an appointment for a year. He comes back a year later and he’s now 100 years old. He walks in without an appointment one day, goes to the front desk, and my CA screams his name loud like she's seeing a ghost. I'm in the back adjusting, but I hear his name being yelled and I got excited because I hadn't seen him in a long time. I come around to the front and I’m like, “my God, Max, where have you been? We've missed you so much.” He grabs my hand with his arthritic hand, shakes it, looks up at me and says, “thank you, Dr. Plasker, thank you” and died in my reception room in my arms. We call 911 and the ambulance takes him away. I tried to revive him, but rigor mortis had already set in, and his spirit was gone. Now, I'm still young, barely 30 years old. I couldn't get this out of my head. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before. To this day, I've never held a dead body like that. I started wondering that if Max knew he was going to live to 100 when he was 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 years old, how would he have lived his life differently so that he didn't get there crippled, broken, alone?”
20:51 - Starting your 100-year lifestyle at 20, 30, 40, 50. “I started to do the research and found out 100-year-old people were one of the fastest growing groups demographically in the world. We have to create a plan for them. If you knew you were going to live this long, how should you start living your life today at 20, 30, 40, 50? I wrote The 100 Year Lifestyle in 2007 and The 100 Year Lifestyle Workout in 2010, which became the #1 fitness book in America the week it was released ahead of The Biggest Loser. All of the marketing and patient education that we were using to create millions of new and lifetime patients for chiropractors all over the world was branded as the 100 Year Lifestyle to follow the book and it took off like a rocket. That's what we do. We are committed to getting the planet under care. We are going to do everything that we can to utilize this brand to attract the planet. We are in the middle of the next wellness revolution, but the healthy longevity revolution has just begun. We're at the cusp of it. We're about to come out with 100 Year Lifestyle third edition and have a 100 Year Lifestyle guidebook with chiropractic at the center of all of that.”
31:28 – Knowing the data FOR the betterment of the brand. “When it comes to living to 100, here's a couple of things that we know. We know there's assisted living centers popping up on every corner in this country. We also know that they’re filled with people that didn’t know they were going to live this long and didn't take care of themselves. That's data. All of the data around longevity does not have anything to do with health span. It has to do with lifespan. We know, from a chiropractic perspective, it’s an indisputable fact that a healthy spine and nervous system is essential for a healthy, long life. It's not necessary for a long life, because there's a lot of people being kept alive on 25 medications because they didn't know how to take care of themselves. From a health span lifespan gap perspective, the data is crystal clear that we have a greater life expectancy than we ever thought possible. In the 100 Year Lifestyle model, the chiropractor is the primary healthcare provider. This is what people are reading in these international bestsellers that have been distributed all over the world. Is there ever going to be a time that you're not going to want a healthy spine and nervous system? When should chiropractic start? Well, when is the first time it could be injured? At birth.”
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CONTACT ERIC
Call at 404 -213 -5945
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