Dr. Lynne Mouw:
Fitz, we’re so excited to have you today, and we’re just excited to dig in and get to really get to know you today. So, give us a little background just on where you’re practicing, who you are, all the things that way.
Dr. Josiah Fitzsimmons:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, practicing in West Des Moines, Iowa. I’m the fifth out of nine kids, so I grew up competitive, and played football in college. And so when I was going down the path to be a medical doctor, and then when I got hurt playing football in college, I went to the local chiropractor and he’s like, “You know you can be an entrepreneur and a doctor.” And I was like, “I don’t even know what an entrepreneur is.” And so he painted this picture of what they, people say, entrepreneur is and control your life and work whenever you want to, and all the stuff they say about it. And I was like, “Well, that sounds awesome. I’m going to do that.” So I went to the chiropractic school with that in mind and I knew I wanted to open up my own clinic. And so with that in mind, I was just really going on learning all the business aspects of things as fast as I could. So I ended up learning from over 50 different offices around the country. I visited over 50 clinics while I was a student, including the Mouws while I was a student and traveled all around the country.
Dr. Josiah Fitzsimmons:
I started doing screenings for doctors. So, I would fly, they’d fly me all over and do events. And my second trimester, I signed up for one guy 98 new patient appointments in two days at a home show. And so, all of his buddies then started calling me and saying, “Hey, come screen for me”, [chuckle] and so forth like that. So, I was just flying around the country pretty much every weekend for the next three years. And my wife came with me, she learned the operational sides. Our son traveled on like 20 airplane rides by the time he was a year old. And so then graduated 2017 and opened our office four months later and we already had 400 prepaid appointments our first day open.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
Wow.
Dr. Josiah Fitzsimmons:
And then grew fast with the largest ribbon-cutting in West Des Moines history. And we were seeing 400 people a week within two months. And just grew really, fast from there. And now we just hit five years and we have 36 staff, nine doctors.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
Yeah. I know you have…
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
Incredible.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
A huge team. One of the things that I remember being at a UAC with you and I believe we were working through challenges, and you had shared, and at the time some of the advice I think that was offered was, you were at a place where you needed a COO, chief of operations, so to speak, somebody to come in and help you to scale. That was probably going back 2-3 years ago. Talk about how that scaling happened, how you’re able to bring those people in, what skillsets those people bring, and where that’s gotten you in your team.
Dr. Josiah Fitzsimmons:
Yeah, no, absolutely. I think that a lot of those offices I shadowed were topped out with maybe 1 associate, 5-7 staff at the most. And so, we grew past that at such a fast pace, all those offices I learned from, I kind of ran out of all those offices, the knowledge that I had gained in such a small window that I was really trying to figure out, what do I do next? How do I grow? There are just not many clinics that were bigger than us after a year and a half, two years, that I could really look to. So that’s where I really had to dive deep just into understanding just business in general, look more, start looking more outside of our profession of how do you properly have organizational charts and what’re the lines of accountability and communication and what are the different departments within an organization? So we really did a deep dive into just understanding that, hired some different consultants, read a lot of books, and so that’s when we broke all of our company into different departments. And so we started off, we created a front desk team, a back office team, a clinical team, and then a sales team. And so that was kind of our initial breakup.
Dr. Josiah Fitzsimmons:
And then we started appointing managers and hiring managers over all those seats. And then as we continued to scale, we realized really in a true org chart, like that was all just under the operations department within the office. And then you have kind of the outside additional functions outside of operations, of actual marketing, true finance, not like back-office billing, but actually like P&Ls and growth and true CFO type activity.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
Directions.
Dr. Josiah Fitzsimmons:
And then HR activities, recruiting, and so forth like that. So that’s kind of the level that we’re at right now, are we really built all those management people out, and now we’re really progressing into that executive suite of team members.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
That’s great, Josiah.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
That’s so cool. Yeah, I have a question. Yeah. Just looking at that and that story and seeing where you came from with chiropractic school and then seeing all those offices, where do you feel that drive comes from? I think that it’s so amazing to see in school and seeing all, doing all that for all these other doctors really driving people, where is it coming from? What is pulling you and now with this at the level that you’re at right now, you can tell you’re still driven to be like, create more and succeed more and have more, where’s it come from? I always think about Steph Curry, I’m like, you’re the freaking best. How do you keep practicing and wanting to be even better? He’s constantly getting better, and I just think it’s so cool. So, give us a little insight on that, like your mindset through there.
Dr. Josiah Fitzsimmons:
Yeah, no, it’s a great question. I think it probably stems, like I said, from when I was a kid, just being competitive, fifth out of nine kids if you didn’t eat your food as fast as possible you didn’t get some. We never played board games for fun in my house. We played to win, and the board game got flipped over usually before the game got ended. [chuckle] I just really grew up in that competitive household, six boys in the household and so I always just had that competitive nature with sports growing up. But then I think when I hit high school, I was really good at soccer. I traveled to Italy to play soccer in elementary school.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
Oh, that’s cool.
Dr. Josiah Fitzsimmons:
And in high school, I started getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And I’m like, “All right, I’m going to be better at football.” And so actually maybe during my sophomore year of high school, I realized I could probably play in college. And I came from a poor family growing up. Food stamps, the nicest car we ever had growing up, they probably paid like $400 for. And so, I knew if I really wanted to achieve things, I needed to make it on my own. I bought my own bike, I bought my own clothes, and I slept on an air mattress, growing up plenty of times. And so, I just realized if I want something, I need to be the one that takes advantage and control of my life. And so that was kind of the first big test where I committed fully that I’m going to play division one football and I put in the effort, did all the things, did all the research on supplements and nutrition and weightlifting and all those things to try and make myself the best athlete and achieve that goal of getting a full ride, division one offer. And I think that was probably the light bulb moment for me, where I really realized if I don’t want to achieve something in life, it’s just an attitude, a matter of really my attitude and my effort to commit to something.
Dr. Josiah Fitzsimmons:
And so now as a company, we have eight different core values, but the one that really resonates the most with me is that core value of constantly growing, because that’s something that just for me, it’s always, most exciting. The climbing of the mountain has always been a lot more than hitting the peak and the journey along the way. And that’s really where I have the most fun, I would say, as in growing myself, growing businesses, developing, and growing in general.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
I love that. I respect that growth aspect, but especially that hustle piece, like there’s so much respect in that hustle, especially coming out of school and just doing it very early on and continuing to do that, continuing to push because so many doctors that we know they rest on their laurels, right? You get out of school and you push, but you build a nice practice and then, what we say is, success can often be our worst enemy because you achieve some and it doesn’t stop you from pushing. So, in Strengths, we know that competition is a piece, it’s an actual strength. So, talk about that, who do you measure yourself against now? Who are you measuring against right now?
Dr. Josiah Fitzsimmons:
Yeah. Well, Strength Finders actually. I know you’re big on that. My number one is a competitor. My number two is an achiever. And so, yeah.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
Intense.
Dr. Josiah Fitzsimmons:
Yeah, we took our whole team, did a StrengthFinder training offsite. I had a strength coach two hours last week. I did it on all our teams.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
Great.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
Awesome.
Dr. Josiah Fitzsimmons:
Yeah. No, I think for me it’s just something that pushes me every day to get better. And I’ve always felt if I’m not doing something to improve or to grow or to get better like if I’m just stagnant I would be really bored. I’m not a person that just wants to sit on the beach. So maybe.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
Would you say it’s maybe that competition with yourself, always comparing yourself to yourself? Because I feel like that’s got to be what it is, like it’s got to be a piece of it.
Dr. Josiah Fitzsimmons:
Yeah. No. I think there’s a great video. I think Matthew McConaughey talks about competing against your future self, kind of that competition with the person in the mirror. I think that is definitely a big aspect of it, especially when you start achieving things, you can kind of look around and think I’m doing really good like you said and start to relax. And so that’s where I think I’ve always had to find that next target to keep striving for. And at the same time, I really tried to reflect on how as much positivity comes out of it. There can be some detrimental just to me having better balance in my life. And that’s something that I’ve really had to focus on too, are my wife, my kids, and everything outside of work. With work, you can get a lot of that adrenaline and excitement of achieving but there are a lot of ways to be successful in life personally, professionally, health relationally, as a husband, and as a father. And so, I think, just trying to strive in all aspects of life and not just only financially or only from a business perspective.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
Where do you feel like your weakness lies there? Where do you feel like you still need to put more into it?
Dr. Josiah Fitzsimmons:
Yeah. I would say the biggest thing that I kind of group it, family, business, and personal, I would say. In the last few years, I would probably say I probably neglected just my personal self where I go in the morning, I try and be really focused on my family, focus at work, focus on my family, go to bed and I think some more focus just on myself as a whole, just have some more clarity days or longer break days to do some more introspection just because of my personality. I’m always, like I said, taking action, that’s something that I really try to do more of is having just more of that white space on my calendar where I can have more alone time with my thoughts, think more deeply rather than just moving on to the next thing.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
I love that, as achievers we sometimes just need to write that in on our to-do list.
Dr. Josiah Fitzsimmons:
Yeah, absolutely.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
You can achieve that.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
Plenty of time to think. Yeah, no, it’s really true because that’s the key to us getting more of that balance as achievers. That’s great. So, you have got this big team, I’ve got to ask this question, more people, more problems. [laughter] What is your biggest obstacle you’re facing right now in growth of your team?
Dr. Josiah Fitzsimmons:
Yeah, I think it’s accountability. I think is if I had to put it into one word, I feel like that’s the biggest thing, to really maintain a super high quality of customer service and delivery. The bigger that you get, you really need to create those proper lines of communication and accountability within your organization. And having the right people in place, to keep each other accountable. We do a great job with KPIs and metrics, but it’s just having more conversations on a proactive basis. When people get five degrees off, bringing them back to center versus letting someone get 30, 40, 50, 90 degrees off center and then try and have that conversation. I think it’s probably speed of accountability if I could really even break that down on a finer level.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
So good. I feel like we struggle with that too. So, I love hearing that ’cause it does confirm like how we all a lot of the times have a lot of the same issues with that kind of stuff, so it’s so good. What’s been your experience with UAC so far? What has been your, I don’t know, I guess, like biggest takeaway, biggest kind of pull from UAC so far just in your experience that you’ve had so far?
Dr. Josiah Fitzsimmons:
I think that you know, just when I first joined, I really wanted to just be around people that could show me more of what’s possible. Think people that have achieved bigger things than me and just be surrounded with those people. And I think one thing I really appreciated with UAC is that really the top people in UAC that I’ve had great conversations with do really have a fantastic balance in their lives of being successful husbands, fathers, spiritually, financially, personally, all areas of life. And that’s something like I said that I feel is kind of the ultimate goal. It isn’t to just be super successful in one area and everything else being neglected. And I’ve really been able to see that, and I feel it at firsthand.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
That’s awesome.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
Yeah. I think…
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
You can go ahead.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
Oh, go ahead.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
I was going to say, I think that is really the spirit of the title of Ultimate Achiever. I think you hit it on the head. So many of us in that room could, stomp our chest and spit out figures and talk money, but we don’t because we understand that there are so many aspects of success and we’re all pursuing, most of us are pursuing all of them, right? It’s getting all that balance. We have core values in the UAC, entrepreneurialship, accountability, inside information. Stef, help me out. What am I missing?
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
Oh, sorry. Family?
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
Family.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
Fun?
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
Fun. What core value means the most to you right now? And what are you doing about it?
Dr. Josiah Fitzsimmons:
Yeah, can you say it one more time?
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
Inside information, accountability.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
Entrepreneurship, fun, family.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
Entrepreneurship, family, and fun. Thank you, Stef.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
Yeah, no problem.
Dr. Josiah Fitzsimmons:
No worries. I mean, I would probably say just off the top, I like the inside information. I think that when you get to a certain level, it’s not the big things that are going to make the difference, it’s all the small details. And that’s really been like an, “Aha” for me I would say, especially in the last year without having an MBA, going, and becoming a doctor. We don’t learn all those business activities to really know organizational chart and all those different KPIs and structure and so forth like that, that really, I think, propel a business to the next level. And once you figure out those foundational blocks to be successful, really at the end of the day, the leaps to the next level are kind of those little golden nuggets that really can move the needle. And I feel that when you’re surrounded with successful people, those are kind of those small nuggets that really help get you to that next level, it’s not the big foundational things. You’re doing those, you just need to have consistency with the foundational things, and then you really need to start implementing those small tweaks to go to the next level.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
So, well said.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
Josiah, our Scottsdale event is coming up in February, It’s like really family focused. Will you tell us like a little bit about your family and let us know if you’re bringing them?
Dr. Josiah Fitzsimmons:
Yeah, no. I mean, my wife and I have been married now for eight years. We were high school sweethearts, so we’ve been together 14 years total, and she’s awesome. She’s really the boss of the office. She runs the operations. We just hired a director of operations. She wants to transition more to part-time in the office. But we have two awesome boys. Brecken is 7 years old. Parker is two and a half. And they’re just a ton of fun. Brecken, all he wants to do is play football every single day. Brecken was speaking full sentences by like 1-year-old, 15 months. And Parker let’s Brecken talk for him, and he likes to say about five words, and so it’s just fun seeing the dynamic. But they’ve both been super easy kids overall. We had home births, adjusted them since they were a few minutes old and neither of them have ever been to a hospital in their lives. Never seen anybody but me and super, super healthy. Just living life, the right way. And so yeah, it’s a lot of fun.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
Love that.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
We can’t wait to meet them.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
Yes. And hopefully, we do get to meet them in Phoenix and see your lovely wife again. Our Phoenix event is coming up on February 17th, 2023. February 17th and 18th. And if you’re listening and you have not reserved your hotel… Stef, have you reserved your hotel?
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
I think so.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
Okay. Yes, me too. But please email Christa at christa@uacchiro.com because that room block will sell out. And it is a family event and many people will be bringing their kids. I know we’ll have Lila with us. Stef, are you bringing your family?
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
Yes, they’re coming. They’re coming for sure.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
Awesome. All right.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
Awesome. Do you want to wrap this up?
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
You go wrap, you go right ahead, my dear.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
All right, well, we have just a little closing thought. I always just love to know your true superpower when it comes to, like just overall business and what you feel like you bring to the room for UAC. I love to hear like that superpower of yours. I always think of people in UAC as heroes.
Dr. Josiah Fitzsimmons:
Yeah, no, I think that’s a great question. Like I said earlier, I really feel the growth mindset for me is a big part of it. But I really feel in combination with that, if you guys know the Kolbe Index, I’m actually a really high quick start, but also a very high fact finder. And so, it’s kind of an interesting combination where I’m very good at optimizing and figuring out a lot of information. And then once I get it all figured out and then I go really, really fast. And so, you know, our processes and our office are really, really streamlined. We actually had a consulting company that came out to our office for two weeks, and the smallest company they’d ever evaluated before us was over $100,000,000. And they said that our processes, systems were more well fine-tuned than any of the hundred and plus million-dollar companies they’d evaluated which was a great testament to that. And so I feel like it’s that combination, like I said, of growing up, growing and pushing growth, but also not leaving a wake of disaster simultaneously but actually doing it the right way.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
That’s awesome.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
That’s amazing.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
Thank you so much Dr. Josiah.
Dr. Josiah Fitzsimmons:
Absolutely. Thank you very much.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
For being here with us. All right.
