Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Welcome to the Hot Seat, Jody Serra.
Dr. Jody Serra: Thank you. Stef. Thank you, glad to be here.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: We’re excited to have you on today. Jody, you have been a chiropractor for a long time. You have had some incredible experiences as being a chiropractor. Why don’t you just start off telling us a little bit about like where you practice and your very favorite, maybe experience that you’ve had in chiropractic?
Dr. Jody Serra: Well, I practice in a little town called Lebanon, New Jersey. It’s in western New Jersey out towards the Pennsylvania border. So, it’s kind of country. I know a lot of people don’t think of New Jersey as having country, but we do, horse farms and whatnot. And…
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Hunting. [laughter]
Dr. Jody Serra: Hunting, fishing. Yeah. You know, good roads to ride my bicycle on. My favorite experience with chiropractic, I think would have to be my first ever experience, which was getting adjusted. I was a junior in high school and I had struggled with asthma from the time I was around six or seven years old. And again, you know, I’m older than you guys, but in the ’60s and ’70s, you know, they treated asthma. They just gave children and teens a watered-down version of adult medication, which was all kind of epinephrine based. It was almost like being on methamphetamine, you know, you would shake, and I couldn’t gain weight, I couldn’t sleep well. It really didn’t… It controlled my symptoms, but that was it. And I did the allergy testing with shots, and they make a little elixir that they give you a monthly injection. They may still do that, I don’t know, but it didn’t work at all for me. I got sicker and sicker and really weaker and weaker. Couldn’t play sports, missed a ton of school. I missed, you know, 30-60 school days in year.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Wow.
Dr. Jody Serra: And as a junior in high school, a classmate of mine said, you should see a chiropractor for your asthma. And I was like, why would I go to a chiropractor? Man, my back feels fine. And he goes…
[laughter]
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Like, what you talking about?
Dr. Jody Serra: My uncle is a chiropractor and he’s helped people with asthma. And I’m like, no way. So, I went to see his uncle and you know, he was a guy who went to Palmer. He had played rugby at Palmer. He was a stocky, heavyset guy, and I went in for my first, you know, I went to his office just to talk to him about this. And I walked in, I said, “Hey, your nephew, John told me you could help me with asthma.” He said, “Get on the table.” So, this guy adjusted me without saying anything else. I mean, he had probably the absolute worst day one, day two was like, it was like day zero.
[laughter]
Dr. Lynne Mouw: No patient adjustment.
[laughter]
Dr. Jody Serra: And he adjusted me. I walked out. My mom had driven me there, but she waited in the car. She was like, how’d it go? And I’m like, terrible, I’m never coming back here. She’s like why? I said, “This guy cracked my back, I think he broke my neck, I got a headache now.” But that night I went home, I slept better than I had in 10 years. It was like a miracle. It wasn’t like I was cured, but I could breathe better. Just sleeping was something I hadn’t done in years. And I went back to the guy, and I walked in, the first thing I said is, “Don’t touch me. But explain to me how this is making me feel this much better.”
[laughter]
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: What the heck did you do to me?
[laughter]
Dr. Lynne Mouw: But whatever you did, do that again.
[laughter]
Dr. Jody Serra: Yeah. Whatever you did… So, he put, he actually had, he did have some charts on the wall, and he said, you know, the connection between your brain and the body, and you’ve got some interference and you have these little glands called adrenal glands. They put out adrenaline and epinephrine, which were two words that I remembered hearing in the ER when my parents would bring me there at like two in the morning when I couldn’t breathe. And instantly, you know, an injection of that I could breathe better. So, he’s like, your body isn’t producing the right amount of that at the right time and that’s what’s causing it. So, there was that break in the connection and I’m like, what do I do? He’s like, just come until you’re better. Which I did.
Dr. Jody Serra: I went three days a week for probably close to a year. Was able to taper off the medication. And actually, started to, you know, for the first time since I was seven years old, really start to feel healthy and healthier. I started to jog, started to run, and then I went to college at West Virginia University, and I used to run around the campus, ran into somebody who’s like, he was, went in one of my classes and he was dressed like in a little uniform, I’m like, what are you doing? He’s like, oh, you know, I’m practicing with the rugby team. Like rugby, man, I’ve never even heard of rugby. So, he’s like, you should come out. So, I came out and, you know, played rugby at West Virginia for four seasons and then, you know, played at Palmer of course and won a national championship with them.
Dr. Jody Serra: So, I went from never playing sports in grammar school or high school to winning an NCAA national championship in rugby. So, my favorite moment would be just that whole day zero and day one of actually just feeling that change in my body. It was like… And I know people get into chiropractic for different reasons, but that was, you know, that is, something that changed my life enough that I decided this is what I’m doing. And we’ve helped a lot of kids with allergies and asthmatics, and I’ve had sort of an unshakeable belief and an unshakeable passion for a chiropractic, and I feel like that is something that’s helped me in practice and in life, you know what I mean? Like, nobody can change my mind because I know what happened to me and stuff.
Dr. Lynne Mouw: Love it. Chiropractic miracle. We see them every day. Right? And we just…
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Oh, yeah.
Dr. Lynne Mouw: I love it. So, what year did you graduate? You went to Palmer, you played rugby. When did you graduate, Jody?
Dr. Jody Serra: I know they had horse drawn school buses back in… I graduated in, ’82, 1982.
Dr. Lynne Mouw: Oh, my goodness. Well, just, you’re like the fittest, youngest looking chiropractor…
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Seriously.
[overlapping conversation]
Dr. Jody Serra: I’m 65, 65. Just saying that seems bizarre, but yeah, I appreciate that. And you know, it started in that, era like, you know, running with the rugby team. Our coach was from New Zealand, Duncan Hales, former New Zealand All Black. So, he just had us running all the time. Like, what do we do in the summer, Duncan? He is like, just run. He goes, run hills, run sprints, run long, slow distance, do whatever you want, just keep running. So, you know, I got out of Palmer, ran a lot of five Ks, 10 Ks, you know, half marathons. I never did a marathon. But I started to notice like my knees and my back from all the running just didn’t feel that great. So, I started to cycle and rode with a club. And then that club had a team and I ended up racing with that team for a number of years, probably 15 years. And I still ride today. I could still literally get on my bike, well, probably not in March, but by July or August I could ride a hundred miles if I wanted to. And actually, I’ve done, I know you guys have a connection to Iowa. And you’ve heard of RAGBRAI?
Dr. Lynne Mouw: Yeah, yeah, for years.
Dr. Jody Serra: I was talking to Mark and the gang the other day. I did RAGBRAI like five times.
Dr. Lynne Mouw: Oh, my goodness.
Dr. Jody Serra: Yeah, it’s great. It’s the fastest you’ll ever do a hundred miles in your life because you’re going from the west side of the state to the east side of the state, there’s always a tailwind. And Iowa’s pretty flat.
Dr. Lynne Mouw: I was going to say, if you’re going to ride across the state, Iowa’s a good one to do it.
[laughter]
Dr. Jody Serra: But it was great. It’s like a rolling party of like 15,000 people that go town to town, and there’s…
Dr. Lynne Mouw: Never done it, but definitely a bucket list. I did not know that you’d done that. That’s awesome.
Dr. Jody Serra: I talked to Mark about doing it. He said, it’s not out of the question.
Dr. Lynne Mouw: That’s a great accountability group event.
Dr. Jody Serra: Oh, that would be fantastic.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: So, fun.
Dr. Jody Serra: And it’s, I mean… Go ahead.
Dr. Lynne Mouw: No, I’m sorry to talk over you. Obviously, you have a passion for athletes. You take care of lots of them in your office, including some very famous ones. You want to talk about that a little bit and just tell us about how you formed those relationships and… Yeah.
Dr. Jody Serra: Okay. Again, I would go back to the beginning, like in the ’80s, a good friend of mine, we used to work out at the YMCA in Davenport together, Nick Athens, who practices on the west coast, was taking care of some of the 49ers. And I happened to be visiting him just on a… It was more of a just friendship kind of thing. And he is like, “Oh, some couple 49ers are coming in to the office, come down to the office.” And so, one of the guys was a running back from Davenport, Iowa, actually his name is Roger Craig. He played football at Nebraska. And he was like, where’s your practice? And I said, it’s in New Jersey. And he is like, “Well, maybe we’ll come see you when we’re out there.”
Dr. Jody Serra: And I’m like, “Yeah, you’re more than welcome to.” Now, back in the day, teams did not have team chiropractors. They had a team doctor and a team trainer and some physical therapy, but no… Chiropractors were really not, in the ’80s, early ’80s, ’70s, early ’80s, they were not, even… The players were not allowed to see a chiropractor according to Roger. It was kind of forbidden because would void their contractor or whatever. So, they kind of would smuggle us into the hotels and stuff and we’d adjust them, but they reaped the benefit of it. And Roger loved to get adjusted. He’s a big advocate for chiropractic. I know he’s spoken at Palmer Homecoming. So, but it’s funny, back then there weren’t cell phones, so I just, I gave him my office number or my business card. And back then our staff world has a little pink slip that they’d write down so-and-so called, the message. Just on my desk, there’s a message like, “Hey, Roger Craig from the NFL called. I went to my front desk. I’m like, “You could have gotten me.”
[laughter]
Dr. Jody Serra: But I called him back and I connected with him. He had a great game against the Giants, and they were back in six weeks to play the Eagles. So, when he came back again, Joe Montana and Jerry Rice and the whole really, a lot of the starters got adjusted. So, it was so exciting, at that time I had to fight the urge to not be like, I’m not worthy. But they appreciated it and I got… I mean, over the years, they referred… They moved to different teams, and they referred a lot of guys. And so, it became part of my practice outside of my practice. And we ended up seeing baseball teams and things too. Most of it San Francisco Giants, but then Chicago Cubs.
Dr. Jody Serra: And it’s funny, I never really connected with a local team until one of the 49ers got traded to the Redskins. And I had worked on him when he was with the 49ers. And one of the players that I worked on with the Redskins got traded then the next season to the Giants and that guy looked me up. So, got connected with the Giants. I went to the playoffs in Green Bay with them. And when we were working on, we were at their team hotel for three or four days, working on them, Odell Beckham had come in, and this was Odell Beckham’s second year in the league. So, he was a big deal. And I had said I was working with a partner of mine. She did laser therapy, and Steph, you know Wylene.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Yes, the best.
Dr. Jody Serra: So, I said to Wylene, I said, “We’re getting to work on Odell, so we got to let’s hope he has a great game, because if he doesn’t… Because it was our first time working on him. And of course, if you remember against Green Bay, he had a terrible game. He dropped a touchdown pass. He just was… He was bad. But the next day he called, we were all back in New Jersey, he called, he’s like, “Can you come to my house?” And I said, “Yeah, we can do it.” So, we became close to him, worked with him the next three years. He was in New York and then he got traded to Cleveland. And I offered to find him a chiropractor in Cleveland, but he suggested, let me just fly you out for a game. We’ll see how it goes. So, he did, he flew me out for like a preseason game, and it went well, it’s only an hour flight from New Jersey and stuff. So that just became… His manager called and said, he’s going to take care of all of your travel and here’s what he’s going to pay you, which was more than I was going to ask him for.
Dr. Jody Serra: So, I’m like, “Okay I’ll do it.” He goes, “The only thing is you have to commit, Yeah, you have to do it all 17 weeks.” So, I was like alright, I’ll do it. And it was cool, it was great. But at the end of that was when COVID started, and so that next year I don’t think I saw him until the playoffs when he got traded to the Rams. And then we saw him through the playoffs, and I traveled with him again through that. And then to the Super Bowl, which was… That was not this Super Bowl, but the one before. And then locally, I work with Saquon Barkley, he’s with the Giants and stuff, and there’s rumors of Odell coming back east. So I’m kind of excited about that. He might be with the Jets or the Giants and that’s pretty cool.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Awesome. And how do you feel like you’ve fostered some of those relationships? I mean, I can see it’s things just kind of fell into place, but I know you’re such a relationship kind of guy too. So, tell us a little bit about that.
Dr. Jody Serra: The biggest thing, and I’ve said this because… What makes one of these guys put me on a plane and fly me from New Jersey to LA to work on… There are great chiropractors in LA. But the thing is that my superpower with them is really to educate them as to benefits of what we’re doing. And I did a lot of applied kinesiology in the beginning, which I used to say it’s almost like show and tell, you test the muscle and then you adjust something, you show them how it’s better. But even without that, you still, chiropractic gets great results. But I always, when I took applied kinesiology as a course, there’s… An instructor’s name is George Goodhart, he’s since passed away, but he had all these little sayings and he used to say, if a miracle happens within 25 miles of you, take credit for it.
[laughter]
Dr. Jody Serra: I used to…
Dr. Lynne Mouw: You played some role, for sure.
Dr. Jody Serra: I used to…
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: That was me. That was all me.
Dr. Jody Serra: And I would tell them, this is how you’re going to feel and this is what it’s going to do for you. And the better you feel, the better you play. And I had little mantras that these guys used to repeat back to me, “Better I feel, the better I play.” I’m like, yeah, man, right on. But anyhow, and I guess I’m like a lot of these guys, I’m same age as their dad and they take my advice a little different than maybe somebody who’s their age, maybe. And they also, I let them tease me about being old and stuff. I’m like, what is this Instagram stuff? I’m trying to get on Instagram.
Dr. Lynne Mouw: Love it.
[laughter]
Dr. Lynne Mouw: Jody, you’ve been a member of UAC for going on quite a… I think you joined around the same time Mark did.
Dr. Jody Serra: I joined the exact moment that Mark did.
Dr. Lynne Mouw: Right. You’ve been in his accountability group this entire time. You guys have shifted, morphed.
Dr. Jody Serra: Mark and I, I think it’s been nine years maybe or more. I know I was going to the Super Bowl, whenever the 49ers played in the Super Bowl in New Orleans, that was the year I joined UAC. Because I reached out to Patrick, I said, hey, listen, I’m going to be doing a radio interview and at least one TV interview, give me some pointers. I love Patrick’s eloquence. And he’s like, Jody, here’s what you do. And he just walked me through a couple things, which was cool. And then he is like, oh, by the way, I’m starting up this group. And then the group has already started, but it was in its infancy. And he’s like, if you’re interested, great. He goes, we do meet in New Jersey, which right away made it more interesting. And so, my first weekend there, I met Mark. Actually, my plan, I didn’t really book a room. I was like, I’ll go Saturday, and I’ll go home, and I’ll come back on Sunday and it’s about a 40-minute drive. But we went out to dinner, and I may or may not have had…
Dr. Lynne Mouw: Needless to say, you weren’t driving.
[laughter]
Dr. Jody Serra: Mark’s like, dude, I got two beds. You can stay in my room. So instantly, we were friends ever since.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: That’s amazing.
Dr. Jody Serra: Great. Mark’s a great part of our accountability group too and…
Dr. Lynne Mouw: Well, he loves you. I remember that weekend because I didn’t attend and he came home and he told me about all the great things he heard, but then he was like, and then there’s this guy named Jody. He takes care of NFL players. He is so cool. He feels the same way for sure about you.
Dr. Jody Serra: That’s all he said, or did he say more? No, I’m teasing.
[laughter]
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Oh, Jody. Well, what you got to give us a little bit of insight, but being in UAC for nine years, what’s come out of it? What has this added to your life? Tell us a little bit about what you like, where you’ve grown and how it’s contributed to your, I know you’ve gone through lots of transition and change. Give us a little bit about how UAC has contributed to all of that.
Dr. Jody Serra: That’s a really good question and I hear it a lot that people, the powers in the room that, it’s really the people you’ve met. I mean, look at us, Steph, we vacation together, summer, winter.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: The best.
Dr. Jody Serra: That’s something that would’ve never happened without UAC, do you know what I mean? And it’s, I know you’ve got tons of connections and I do too in that room. And I will say it went from a pretty small group to much larger. And it’s probably more organized and, but I would say the biggest thing that I get out it is really just the connections with the people. And again, I started, my practice was just a straight chiropractic practice, very busy, high volume. But we went through some changes.
Dr. Jody Serra: We actually took, there was a period when everybody was kind of MD-PT and we did that. The practice was even busier, but it was bigger. I think we had 19 employees, three chiropractors, two physical therapists, a medical doctor. But it was stressful. It’s almost like, I recently read a book, it was an old book, it’s called Your Money or Your Life. Have you ever heard of it? It’s probably from the ’70s or ’80s. And it’s about, it’s not how much you earn, it’s the price you have to pay to earn it. At that time, I just was like, there was so much stress involved with running this. And if I was a better businessman, maybe if I was further down the road in my experience with that, I might have been able to do it. But because I know people do it successfully, but for me it just was like my hair was falling out. So, we backed it down to a more normal schedule, less… I now have one associate, one manager, two front desk CAs, two back offices. And it’s great. I have no stress, zero…
[overlapping conversation]
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Amazing.
Dr. Jody Serra: Yeah. So, I think that just talking to different people in UAC, I know that some of the models are multiple offices, some of the models are bigger offices. Some of them are out, businesses outside your business. And that’s fantastic. And I love being around those people because I think it helps me to grow. But in my chiropractic career, Charles Barkley says, “I’m on the back nine.” I might be on hole number 10, but I might be on hole number 17 or 18, but you never know.
[laughter]
Dr. Jody Serra: But I don’t, I really don’t have that much more that I need to, I could really stop working today and live pretty comfortably and just… But I love working and I only work three days a week. I work a day, have a day off, I work a day, have a day off. And I’ve done that for probably the last 20, 25 years. When people ask me if I’m going to retire, I think I kind of already have retired and it could, we’re now bringing my daughter Kelly into the practice and definitely be a transition. I’m glad to have the UAC and my accountability group to help me with some of those things, because other people, even though they’re younger than me, have done that and they’ve done it successfully. And I’m sure there’s people who’ve done it where it didn’t work out. I just want to make sure that it works out.
0:20:54.0 Dr. Lynne Mouw: We learn from each other, right? Yeah. I love that you said you’re on the back nine, I don’t know about that, but it does show your heart for chiropractic because you’re doing it from a pure love, and I just love that and admire that so much. Any parting thoughts? Any wisdoms you want to, wisdom bombs you want to drop on us here before we conclude our time?
[laughter]
Dr. Lynne Mouw: Or juicy stories from back in the day?
Dr. Jody Serra: I am sworn to secrecy. I think that one of my favorite UAC moments, if I can share it, was I’m going to say we were in Park City and I know you and Mark were there and Steph, Nick and Steph were there, maybe Peter Martone, and we had dinner upstairs and I just remember, I don’t think I’ve laughed as hard.
[laughter]
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Laughed our asses off…
[overlapping conversation]
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Oh, my gosh.
[laughter]
Dr. Jody Serra: The stories and just the tears and the friendship and then we went to that crazy little cowboy bar after that. And that was just a moment for the ages.
Dr. Lynne Mouw: That was a memorable night, for sure.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: It was, yeah.
Dr. Jody Serra: And then at some point, I don’t know if Christa sent me the question or if one of you guys sent me the questions like, hey, we might ask you the question, like, who was your favorite UAC member?
Dr. Lynne Mouw: Oh, tell us. Yeah, Christa will put that on the form. What did you say?
Dr. Jody Serra: I would say all of them. But you guys are married to my two favorites.
[laughter]
Dr. Jody Serra: And you guys, you know that before me even saying it, you know that that’s true.
Dr. Lynne Mouw: Yeah. Both very great for sure.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: We love you so much, Jody. I miss your face.
Dr. Lynne Mouw: Love you, Jody. Thank you so much for sharing of your time and your heart today.
Dr. Jody Serra: Oh yeah. No, thank you guys for chasing me down. Sorry, I was half hour early, half hour late last time.
Dr. Lynne Mouw: It’s all good.
Dr. Jody Serra: Well, anyhow.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Thanks for joining us, Jody.
Dr. Jody Serra: Thank you guys. Yeah, I’ll see you in Austin.
