Dr. Cindy M. Howard is a board-certified chiropractic internist and nutritionist in private practice and the owner of Innovative Health & Wellness Center in Orland Park, Illinois and also holds a license in the state of Florida. She owns DC consulting; assisting private practices improve their communication skills and improving patient adherence while building a better functional medicine and nutritional practice. She speaks nationally, presenting on health topics including Pre and Post Concussion Nutrition, Headaches, Sexual Health, Male and Female Pelvic Disorders, GI Disorders, Nutritional Blood Analysis Interpretation.
In this episode of TechTalk Podcast, Brad Cost, Dr. Jay Greenstein, and Dr. Cindy Howard sit down to discuss:
The meaning behind the Positively Altered Podcast.
Dr. Cindy's journey to expansion of fame across multiple industries.
Finding the positivity in any situation, especially when a door unexpectedly closes.
SHOW NOTES:
4:00 – Genesis of the Positively Altered Podcast. “Here's how the story goes. At one point in time, Kristi Hudson, our dear friend who has also been a guest once or twice on the show, said that we would like to take over your show and host in your place. One of us was going to wear the headband with the Piggly Wiggly shirt and the other one of us was going to get the white glasses that Brad wears and be the hosts of TechTalk. Since you guys didn't ever take us up on that, she created a podcast with her team at ChiroHealthUSA, so I had to come up with my own.”
4:48 – Podcast-fueled excitement. “Learning something new. I took this on, thinking I was going to rock this and that it would be so easy because I can talk to anybody. I got the gift of gab. I know a lot of stuff. This was going to be a piece of cake. I recorded the first one and it sucked. It was boring and mechanical. We planned the questions, and I felt like Barbara Walters starting out with her very first gig when she didn't know what she was doing. I watched it and I went, yuck! For people who do things on stage, whether it's singing, acting or speaking, when you have to rewatch yourself, it's very difficult, even when you nail it. When you don't nail it, it's extra painful. It was just cool to learn that I had a lot to learn. I always welcome the opportunity to try something or learn something new because I get bored and stagnant if I don't. I went through a small chunk of time where I didn’t want to do this, but now I've gotten to the point where I've learned to enjoy the process. It's still a little painful because I'm still learning but now, I actually look forward to it and it's fun because the people that I'm inviting on, most of them at this point, I already know on some levels. We're having a good time, engaging in conversation, and, even more importantly, getting their word out about what they want to share. I get to sit back and let everybody share what's important to them that other people can learn from.”
7:06 – The Positively Altered Podcast’s purpose. “That's an awesome question, because I think my answer today will be very different from six weeks from now and six years from now. Originally, the whole idea was to have a health spin, whether it’s mental, physical, spiritual, or chemical. Pick something that's related to technology and plays a role in our health. For me, it was about having a no filter conversation, which, sometimes might be very scary, sometimes might be very inappropriate, sometimes might be very fun. I don't want to hold back. I want people to use the words they want to use and say the things they want to say and not feel like we're being watched or judged. Just be transparent. In all of the things that I do, I pride myself a lot on being transparent. I want the guests to find a comfortable space to just be true to who they are.”
8:39 – Ask the silly questions! “You're going to laugh at this a little bit. One of the questions I ask is, if you could make snow any color other than the color it is, what color would you pick? The reason I actually came up with that question is because I actually don't like white snow. I would make snow purple. For years, I've always thought, how cool would it be if snow was purple? I don't know where I came up with that, but now I'm curious what other people would think. Some people just really answer very basic, very simple, and not with a whole lot of thought process while others are elaborate and creative and almost like they've had that same kind of weird question floating around in their head for years, just waiting for somebody strange to ask them. And so, I ask! We're going to run through those questions until I get bored and then I'm going to come up with five or six more and we'll change them up.”
14:42 – Walking through to a positive outcome. “I've been raising three kids who don't listen to me, right? You talk and it goes in one ear and out the other. I think they're still sort of getting some of the content, but one of the things that was really exciting for me when I started to step on stage 16, 17 years ago now was that there's this audience that actually wants to be there. The kids have to be there. The audience wants to be there. They're choosing to go and it's fun for me to share information. I've always done that from a continuing education standpoint in the space of nutrition, chiropractic, and internal medicine and it's been great. It's very fulfilling and really fun. I'm like the Rolling Stones. I saw them in 1981, and it was their last world, yet we’re in 2024 and I think they were just here in Chicago on their last world tour part 27. I still want my part 27 in chiropractic. I want to stay in the space. I love the space. I love the people. It's been very good to me, and I love the way I feel when I present. Now, it's about a broader audience. It's about getting into that space of more lay people who have challenges, right? Any adversity in your life, whether it's something really horrible, in the middle or something really simple, that you're trying to overcome. How do you walk through those things in a way to get a positive outcome? Through my story of walking through Hodgkin's lymphoma and a bad divorce, I feel like I have a lot to share in terms of some tools to help people walk through with a better, different, unique attitude that they might not have looked at. I feel like the calling now is to be in front of more people, to deliver a little bit different message, to stay in the space that I'm in. Big keynote presentations, corporations, organizations, charity events - that's where I'm now putting my reach and making my connections. I'm really comfortable in my chiropractic space. Now, I want to get out and be beat up a little bit in a way that facilitates more growth so that I can really excel in a different space on the speaking stage. I'm super excited to see what that brings.”
17:47 – Dr. Cindy’s number one challenge. “I'm not very popular. I'm the cool kid in chiropractic. I'm one of the popular kids that people like to hang out with. When you get out, it's very interesting. I have this ego of being able to speak pretty much anywhere I want, which isn't exactly true, but you make the connections, and it works. Now, I think I've got this really great story, but then I look at all these other people who speak in the keynote space and I'm like, wow, they have really good stories too. So, what differentiates me? I think my transparency, humor and delivery offer a little bit of a unique twist versus just having a good story. I'm starting now from scratch of answering, who are you? What do you do? What's your message? Are you really funny? It's like starting a new career.”
19:01 – Slammed doors lead to crawling through windows. “Isn't it Denzel Washington that didn't start doing movies until he was older? There are all those stories, and it is true with whatever you do. I wrote a book, and it sat for six years before I hired a bunch of people to help me edit the book. I then hired people to help me publish the book. Now, I have an executive assistant, a book manager, a social media manager and a graphic designer. I'm signing up with speakers bureaus. I'm recording videos and I'm hiring people to do that professionally. I’m taking new headshots. Is anybody nauseous now just thinking of all the things I'm spewing out? Add up the time commitment, personal commitment and financial commitment. But why would I do that? Well, because I know what the end looks like. I know what the vision is to get there. I need help and resources because it would be lovely to just wake up one day and be famous. It really just doesn't work that way. We see the superstars, the famous people or the high-level CEOs, but we don’t see the high-level CEO working in the mail room and the movie star’s 412 rejections. I'm from Chicago and we all know the Michael Jordan story of how he didn't make the high school basketball team, yet he’s the best player on earth. We see the stardom, the shoes, the marketing. It's those of us that just keep plowing through the mud to get through on the other side to be successful. I don't care what you want to do. It doesn't matter. Just go do it and don't give up. Every time the door is slammed in your face, realize there's a window right next door that you can crawl through.”
22:46 – The importance of being famous. “It really comes down to accessibility. When people know who you are, there's a level of accessibility that opens up for you to make more change. It's not for the bigger boat, it's to help by writing the check and giving back. It’s for the people who tell me, I read your book or heard you speak, and you changed my life. If Dr. Cindy is coming, maybe they're going to be more apt to come to the event because I'm famous, right? It isn't about being plastered on magazines or TV. For me, it's about accessibility to people to help change lives.”
34:36 – Becoming TikTok cool. “My children learn everything they need to know from TikTok, so I figure if I become TikTok famous, when their friends talk about this new great idea in the health space, my kids will ask from who and then realize it was their mom that taught them! I'm going to suddenly become TikTok cool, so I'm on board and we're creating some clips for my social media in the Dr. Cindy Speaks space. It's really funny because I saw the other day she set up an account because I got the email, and I took a screenshot of the email because it said you have one follower. I was so excited. I've got one follower on TikTok, and I cannot wait until that's like 100 and then 1,000 and then 1,000,000. I took that picture because then we're going to create a little backdrop of how one follower morphs into one million.”
38:17 - Where to see Dr. Cindy. “I’m going to busy for a little bit. I'm going to be in Orlando for the National at the Florida Chiropractic Association. A week after, I'm in Tennessee and then a week or two later, I'll be in Missouri for the nutrition group. I'll be in Georgia and Ohio and Idaho sometime.”
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