Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Welcome to UAC hot seat. We are here with Niels Pedersen and sweet old Peter Martone. And we just want to hear Niels, what is it that you have experienced with UAC and how have you like started with UAC?
Dr. Niels Pedersen: Oh, man. So, I think the easiest thing to answer that is we started off with UAC, I was trying to think about this as I sat down, I mean, it’s been like seven or eight years, I think, which is kind of crazy to think about. I should have asked Caitlin before…
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: It was definitely before Alex was born. So definitely at least seven.
Dr. Niels Pedersen: Yeah. So at least seven years, eight years. You know, and I think we were introduced by the Pampas originally. And I mean, time has definitely flown in a positive way because of how well it’s gone. And I mean, how things are going with UAC is it’s probably the main conference, main group, main thing that we plan to be a part of moving forward. And the one thing that we always look forward to being at. So, I mean, from both business relationships, personal relationships, it’s probably my, it’s probably the favorite thing that we’ve done for a very long time. And I guess is that the answer you’re looking for, maybe?
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Yeah.
[laughter]
Dr. Peter Martone: Your answer is the good answer, baby. That’s it, man. I love it. What do you look most forward to? You like the just the connections and, you know, I mean, because when you and your wife come, you guys always bring it. You’re connecting, you’re always at the dinners and you always show up. I mean, I love that. I love your engagement.
Dr. Niels Pedersen: Yeah, I appreciate that. And I think that’s exactly it. I mean, it is the connection. I think the level of conversation that we get to have at UAC is it’s just up and above any others that you’ll have anywhere else. I mean, it’s because of the people that are there. The people in this room, the others that you’ve had on the podcast, all the ones that have not been on here yet. You can have conversations, whether it’s about your business, whether it’s about your relationship, the troubles you’re having, the successes you’re having. And you don’t have to feel, I mean, this is maybe a weird way of saying it, but you don’t have to feel bad about it. I mean, there’s so many times where we’ve been, you know, having different challenges with our office or well before offices, now membership, where it’d be hard to say, to sit across from somebody who you know is not doing as well as you are asking about a problem that they’re jealous they don’t have. I guess is maybe one way to put it, where it kind of removes that level of concern. It’s immediate rapport building, where if I could sit knee to knee with one of you guys and say, “Hey, I’m having this problem,” you know, and not have to worry about what they’re kind of analyzing, thinking about. It’s just going to be true answers.
Dr. Niels Pedersen: It’s going to be true, a true response, and that without any of that kind of back-end thought, you know what I mean? And so that’s it. And I mean, honestly, some of our best friends now, one of them is on this call right now, is we believe it or not, have moved from one place to another. And one of them was definitely one of the biggest reasons was driven by Dr. Stefanie Rodsater right there. And the connection and friendship that her and my wife, Caitlin, who’s been on here, have had and just the friendships that we’ve built among that, I mean, is kind of one of the things too, which is why we come all in. Like those are the families that we have. And that’s where, you know, I know my family won’t be watching this, but it’s something where I look forward to it more than going to visit my family, you know, because you get that love, appreciation, knowledge, education that you don’t get anywhere else, I think is the end product for sure.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: That’s awesome. Bigger problems come with bigger vision. Like that’s one of the coolest things about and knowing that you’re putting yourself out there with people who are on the same big, vision mission as you make such a huge difference. I’ve loved that you guys have moved here. I love it. You guys have quite a story. Tell us how you kind of got here. I know like one of the coolest things that I think a lot of people would love to hear about is you guys went on this van excursion for a long period of time. Tell us a little bit about that and what business wise, what made you guys like kind of come to that?
Dr. Niels Pedersen: Yeah, so I think that’s and that’s where I think when we look at it and when we’ve been part of UAC, let’s just say eight years for majority of that, we were known as the van couple, you know, and so with its transitioning a little bit. But I mean, if we reach back a little bit farther. So, my wife and I, I grew up in Chicago, Illinois. My wife is Canadian, which I’m currently in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where she’s from. We met in chiropractic school. We were in, oh-uh, am I frozen. No, okay.
Dr. Peter Martone: You’re back.
Dr. Niels Pedersen: We met in chiropractic school in Minneapolis. And, you know, really, it was one of those things where I was kind of going to school just to go to school, it’s something I could do. But she really brought the philosophy and everything in to how to look at practice and chiropractic and so on. And we ended up moving to Denver, Colorado, where we started our very first practice. Right from scratch, knew nobody, very wellness-based families, pediatric, pregnancy, which was great. During that time, I got sick. And it was one of those typical, we hear all the responses where, you know, a lot of us have this story. Went to different medical doctors, went to other people, and even as chiropractors thought I was doing a lot of the right things. But that’s what ultimately introduced me to functional medicine. And it really just, it changed my life at that point in time. So that’s something I dove into pretty aggressively. And with no marketing, with no real plan of growing a functional medicine practice or side to our practice, we started putting these concepts into our difficult patients and really saw that develop. To where we had to make a decision of, are we going to stick with the physical side of chiropractic adjustments, you know, traction, all that sort of things we think of in terms of physical, or do we want to do the nutritional side?
Dr. Niels Pedersen: Because back then it was not functional medicine. It was kind of this weird stuff of you telling me all these labs and supplements and so on. But we decided to open up our seller practice, the physical side of our practice and open a functional medicine office. Let’s just say it went very well. And within the first year, we grew to over a million dollars in serving lots of great people, seeing lots of great stories. And so we did that, we replicated it in Seattle. We had two practices. Another long story short is that during that time, my wife and I were actually trying to get pregnant and have a baby, which we were not having success with. And one of the things we determined that it might be is like we’re running these two practices. I mean, we were doing close to four million between those, saving lots of people’s lives and helping a lot of people seeing a lot of great results, but ultimately really running hard. I mean, the year before COVID, we traveled. I mean, I know this is not strange in this group, but we were traveling around the road for 28 weekends that year. And we made a joke because we had a dog at the time where she spent more time at our friend’s place who watched her than with us. [laughter]
Dr. Niels Pedersen: So, we kind of decided to do this whole van life culture. It was a couple of years right before COVID and we still had our locations in Denver and Washington. So, we saw clients Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and then traveled Thursday night through Monday night in a small van. And if you haven’t met me yet, I’m about 6’5″. 260 lbs. [laughter] So, that’s a very funny story in itself. But it kind of created this idea of enjoying life now. And we were still able to run our practices, we were still able to see the results that we expected both in those practices and those people. But we started to kind of say there’s got to be a different way to do this. There’s got to be a different way to experience life and so on. We still weren’t having any success with the fertility side of things. We are the definition of unexplained infertility. But we all have our journey. And so, COVID started coming around, our lease was ending in our Seattle office. We had partners in our Denver office, and we were starting to say, okay, maybe we start to look at this a different way. And that’s what’s led us to the last basically, man, six years? Has it been that long since pre-COVID? To where ultimately, “We closed down,” closed down the Seattle office, turned everyone online, let the lease run out and expire, and we transferred our ownership to our partners in Denver.
Dr. Niels Pedersen: And ever since then, we kind of were allowed to dabble with how can we impact the world in the most effective way? And we had some fun. We pretty much, we were vagabonds for a while. We were definitely, as the joke goes, living in a van down by the river. Half the time we were, you know, hours away from service. And so we really enjoyed life for a while still serving the people we had and kind of playing with ideas that has now stemmed into what I… What I do is basically the back-end copyright marketing kind of email sort of support for my wife’s program, Doc Talks Detox and we have a drainage Academy and community that supports over 1000 people in that membership alone. But I also do clinical consulting practice consulting for functional medicine lab analysis those types of things. And so, that’s developed where we have, we were actually fully mobile in the van for about three years, where it was just before some of you went to Sweden, we decided to either we were going to buy a house, or we were going to book a one-way ticket to Europe. And who knows that’s where we may have ended up. And so, since then we ended up buying a house 10 minutes down from Dr. Stef and Dr. Nick.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: It’s The best.
[laughter]
Dr. Niels Pedersen: It’s a lot of fun we get to see them weekly and have some of those great conversations we were talking about. And so, really what’s happened is when you keep that purpose when you’re able to have those conversations I fully believe that it’s a lot of that that’s allowed us to build and create what we have now which one of our top values is freedom. And so, we can run our business we can support the people we have whether it’s from a beach in Mexico because we spent six months in Mexico during that van excursion, whether it’s in, you know, Winnipeg, Canada, whether it’s in the forest of British Columbia or just back at home in North Carolina. And so, that’s kind of the story that’s where it all came about. I mean we could spend an hour just talking about the van life of things we could spend an hour just talking about memberships. But I mean we’ve kind of dabbled in a lot of it and I think that’s the thing that I think if we look at some of our what we bring to the table and superpowers if you will. You know, my wife Caitlin is great at taking very complex ideas and making it simple. And then I do something similar where I call it, I use jock science, you know, I’m a big guy I was an athlete where I say, you know, I might not know all the big words sometimes, but I understand the process and I can explain it pretty well. And that’s what we do I guess is that what you’re looking for, maybe?
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: That’s Awesome. Niels, will you go into just a little bit like I mean the profitability, the difference between having your functional practices, having two practices, pretty much killing it and now moving to an online space and like what that experience has really done for you guys is like pocketbook and that experience. Yeah.
Dr. Niels Pedersen: Yeah, I mean, and you can’t see me but like my emotional trigger is goosebumps and I just got some goosebumps just thinking about that advantage. You know, so I think let’s just put it this way in the big picture, we had to the two practices, lots of employees which all of you know doing just about 4 million a year in collections. And I’ve already made more in this year than I ever did in those highest performing years, let’s just put it that way. And we’re in June beginning of June. With all the employees with all of that, it’s just my wife and I, we have an online VA, and we have a, like, someone who helps us edit our videos and do that does that sort of stuff. I mean, the amount that we pay monthly to do all of those, and so Caitlin has, I think she’s up to like 1.3 million followers between all of her platforms. Over 1000 members in our membership, and you know what we pay to do all of that is less than what our rent was in Seattle. You know.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Incredible.
Dr. Niels Pedersen: And so, it just it’s obviously there’s different ways to deliver all these things. You know, Dr. Martone on here is getting into the, you can see right behind him, sleep tight. We were just talking about challenges. You know, I talked about impact. I did a presentation to some practitioners a couple of weeks ago and I talked about impact of getting into the online space. Let’s not even talk about profitability. Let’s not even talk about the… Like, that’s great, don’t get me wrong. But when we were cranking in our offices, we could maybe accept 15 new people per month for the cases. Each office, maybe a little bit more in Denver because we had more staff. So, let’s say 30 people a month. We did one challenge in, when was that? March this year, where we had over 30,000 people register for it. And on one of the lives, and for instance, the lives, just the lives, we had over, we had 1.3… So, 1,300 people live on that video. And we would have, and just, we have over 50,000 people in a Facebook group just for the information that we share online, where we would be happy about getting 50 people in a room back when we would do our events for the physical offices. So that’s what we build, and that’s what we celebrate, I guess, is because I’m definitely a big fan of what you put out, you receive.
Dr. Niels Pedersen: You know, karma, the circle, whole concept of things. And that’s the biggest draw, that’s the biggest driver is to think of the impact we can have worldwide, you know. And not just in our section.
Dr. Peter Martone: And what I like is that, and Garrett really talked about this quite a bit, Pedersen is you have those three types of capital. You have the relationship capital, the mental capital, and then the financial capital. And as we all, you know, progressed through our practice per se, its practice, you’re building experiences, you’re coming up with your, you know, you’re coming up with your why. And what becomes a little bit anxious is once you get to a certain point, and Jeff Spence did this is the evolution of the champion. And you know, where you’re just pounding through in your 20s, you don’t really know where you want to go. Then your 30s, you think you’re everything. You figured everything out. And then towards the late 30s, you hit roadblocks and, you know, you start stumbling.
Dr. Peter Martone: But right around, you know, late 30s and 40s, things become a little bit anxious because you’ve done all of this. You’ve gained all of this information. And then you’re like, “Holy shit, I need to make more impact.” So, then what ends up happening is your evolution to wanting to create more becomes a little bit of like a holy H-E Double Hockey Sticks. Where am I? What can I do? And then in your 50s, which as Jeff says, is your biggest production years. From your late 40s, all the way through your 50s and you’re just gaining that stride. So, I love how you guys were able to take, you know, personal experience, take then your mental equity, your mental capital, and now be able to leverage it where you are aligning that with your freedom, which is your number one core values.
Dr. Peter Martone: And when you’re… And your business should just be an expression of your core values, shouldn’t define who you are. So, I love how you guys have defined yourselves, figured out where you are and what you’re doing. And now you’re just creating this entity that really makes you live in alignment with your life. And I love that. I really commend you. And I love seeing you guys grow over these last eight years.
Dr. Niels Pedersen: Yeah, I appreciate that. And I mean, spot on. I mean, I turned 41 in July, so, [laughter] I’m right in that sweet spot, as you will. And, you know, I think in speaking to that, too, is how many of us, even though successful in practice or what we’re doing, almost feel like sometimes we have to force that. Where I mean, with Patrick Gentempo was obviously way more involved in UAC in the earlier years. But he always talks about where, what does he say? He says, “You can only grow to your first level of incongruency,” or…
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Contradiction. Contradiction.
Dr. Niels Pedersen: Yeah, contradiction. You know, it’s the same thing. So, we always felt like we were churning and churning. And then that’s kind of I think what you said it much more beautifully than I did. But when we started to kind of find that sweet spot with all those things, it comes so much easier now. And there’s still the hard parts, and it’s… But there’s so many other positive that are on top of that that make it well, well, more worth it.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Running an online business with your wife. Give us a little bit of the ups and downs and like any advice like working with your spouse like that you can give to everybody else because I know there’s lots of couples out there.
Dr. Niels Pedersen: Yeah, I think here’s the one thing that Caitlin and I have always done really well, whether it’s online, whether it’s in the office or so on is you have to define roles. And I think there’s nothing that’s ever going to overcome really the relationship part of it because, you know, how often again we’ll use our relationship with you and Nick, where we could sit around and I can say something to Caitlin about a problem that she’s having or something that she’s running into with the online membership and you might say the same thing and if she thinks it’s the best idea ever, where if I said it’s, you know, might as well be in the garbage can. But I think, you know, having the roles defined as this is what I do, this is what you do. And then just having that open space to say sometimes we’re not going to be happy with the way things are and we just got to talk it through as if we’re in like a conference room together versus in a household together in a relationship. You know, we’re not going to talk about it on date night, for instance, even though it will come up but it’s like that’s not the time to hash out our problems.
Dr. Niels Pedersen: But I think anyone who’s in UAC and who’s listening to this probably understands that, but I think just as a reminder of this is my role, this is your role, and this is strictly business conversation. It’s not, it has nothing to do with my opinion of you or what you’re doing. It’s just strictly how we’re looking at our goals, what’s getting done, what’s not, what those challenges are, what those successes are.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Awesome. Niels, tell us your superpower. What should people in UAC come to you for?
Dr. Niels Pedersen: Man, okay. So, I think it’s, I mean, we all kind of have this internal thought and I think that adjusts as we learn and as we grow as individuals. What has kind of been shown to me, I think, is more of my outlook and my ability to perceive different complications in the whole functional medicine integrated model of things. Because we did that so successfully and because we still kind of do that online, but more focused on the membership. And then just like clinical analysis, those types of aspects. I don’t always, when I don’t have a plan in terms of just talking in a group, I don’t always communicate the way I want to. But when it comes to those complex structures and policies and things, that is something that I do very well. So, one thing I didn’t share about when we sold our first chiropractic office and started the first functional medicine office, we were planning to move to Canada and start over there. But I didn’t have my immigration, I didn’t have my boards, I didn’t have anything. So, I wasn’t just going to be a lump on the log. So, what I did is I was like, how can I work while in Canada without those things?
Dr. Niels Pedersen: And my answer was online marketing. And this was back in 2014. So, before it was really something everyone talks about. So copyright, communication, marketing, the language that is used in emails and landing pages, things like that, is kind of where I succeed as well. And then the structures behind it on how to get someone from looking at you’re marketing to joining your program, doing a plan, so on, using that detailed information, I guess.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: That’s awesome.
Dr. Peter Martone: Yeah, you’ve done great at it. It’s good.
Dr. Niels Pedersen: Thank you. Yeah. And so, plus, you know, I’m really bad at telling stories. So, little one-liners are my thing. [laughter]
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: You’re doing great. Just kind of in closing, tell us what UAC has really meant to you. I feel like maybe we’ve kind of started off with a little bit of that, but just tell us a little bit about like what UAC really means to you, Niels.
Dr. Niels Pedersen: Yeah, UAC, it’s my favorite people, I think is the easiest way to put it. They’re my best friends. They’re my family. I do have my family members, we’re close with my wife’s, Dr. Caitlin’s family. But that’s who I look to when I need something. That’s why when we’re there, we go all out because those are our people. And that’s what it means to me in the easiest form.
Dr. Peter Martone: Yeah. And as Jeff Spence would say, it accelerated your Champions Blueprints, where you’re 10 years ahead of where you really most 90% of the population is. So, it really has, I mean, I love seeing you. I mean, you don’t look older than 41, but I, you know, just your maturity level is definitely, you know, past your years. And it’s been great hanging out with you and seeing you guys develop over the years.
Dr. Niels Pedersen: Yeah, and I appreciate that. And, you know, my wife might not always agree with that last statement where my maturity level is, I can definitely put on the proper face when needed. [laughter] It’s the big thing.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: I see where she’s coming from, Niels.
Dr. Niels Pedersen: Yeah, well, you see a little bit more of that when needed. But, you know, that’s, I think, and that’s what lines that all up. You know, I can sit here because I don’t do a whole lot of public facing things. And I get really nervous with going to, that’s just my personality. Going to, conferences, groups of people or whatever. And I still get nervous going to UAC, but it’s more of an excitement, a positive anxiety. Or even sitting on here, you know, talking about myself or the impacts it all has is hard for me, but things I’m all willing to do because I love the group. And how often can we as high achievers, ultimate achievers, if you will, how often can we do that in a room? You know what I mean? And not feel like we always have to have that 100% professional face on. So…
Dr. Peter Martone: Thank you, man. It’s great. It’s been great having you in the hot seat. I love it.
Dr. Niels Pedersen: Good.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Me too. Me too. And you have the biggest heart and I just adore you, Niels. I’m so grateful for UAC to just bring us closer together and I love that you live so close to me now and I get to experience all that so much more often. So, thanks so much for joining us today. I appreciate you.
Dr. Niels Pedersen: Thanks, guys. Appreciate all of you guys for sure.
