Dr. Allen Miner: Welcome to the UAC Best Practices Podcast. This is where we talk with our members about best practices from their businesses, from their chiropractic practices, from their lives, from their finances, their families, whatever it is that we can gleam some insight. And it’s designed to give you a quick nugget of something you can apply to your life. So, Dr. Brian Capra, my co-host, I’ll kick it over to you.
Dr. Brian Capra: All right, well thank you everybody again for joining. Hopefully we can get a little nugget that you can take today and plug it into your life and make a big difference. Dr. Sonya Wolter on the podcast today and we got some time to talk last year, this time we were at the Kentucky Derby together, just so happens to be my birthday weekend. So, reminiscing about that as one of the best things I think ever is my best birthday ever. And got to do it with the UAC crew. So that was…
Dr. Allen Miner: We try to do a bucket list event every year. And last year this bucket list and that was truly bucket list. This year we’re going with the group to Sweden in this summer. But that was awesome, Sonya, you hosted us over at your house the night before, which is lovely. And so anyways, welcome to the show.
Dr. Sonya Wolter: Thank you. Super excited to be here. And yes, Derby was epic. I cannot wait for Derby 2.0, we’ll do all the party all of the things. It’s so good.
Dr. Brian Capra: I can’t believe it’s a year already. Yeah.
Dr. Sonya Wolter: I know.
Dr. Brian Capra: Okay. So, what you got for us today, Doc?
Dr. Allen Miner: Yeah, So, something we were talking before we started recording about, you’ve got a great family, you’ve got tight family, you practice with your husband and give us a… I’d love to hear a best practice you’ve seen in through all the ups and downs and running businesses and in raising this chiropractic values kind of a family. What can you share with us?
Dr. Sonya Wolter: Thank you. So, I would really like to share on one of the core values of UAC and like you talked about is family, or at least what I’ve perceived as the family. And I’m getting sentimental this time of year one, it’s Derby, but two, my youngest son is getting ready to graduate high school. And so of course it feels like we’ve missed a lot because of all the Covid stuff, but I’m like, we are empty nesters. Am I too young to be an empty nester?
Dr. Sonya Wolter: What are we going to do with our life?
Dr. Brian Capra: Never too young.
Dr. Sonya Wolter: And I’m like, we’ve tried pickleball and like, I don’t know that my knee can take the lateral movement. My super son practices. So, we’re trying to figure out our life. And so, I’ve been really reflecting on, okay, these kids are gone, and have we done enough? Have we prepared enough? What should we have done? And it’s so cliche, you hear you only get 18 summers and that is so true. And so, I wanted to share some of the things that we’ve done…
Dr. Allen Miner: Awesome.
Dr. Sonya Wolter: With our kids that I think have been helpful and believe me, they probably still need therapy and their deviance and whatever, but…
[laughter]
Dr. Sonya Wolter: No, I’m just joking. They are wonderful, wonderful kids. So, and one that I wish that we would’ve done a little bit more are like yes days. Asking them, “Hey, what would you like to do?” And no matter what it is, for the most part you say yes.
Dr. Allen Miner: Oh, that’s awesome.
Dr. Sonya Wolter: Yeah. And at our yearly planning, you guys, we sit down at the end of the year, kind of figure out the next year and trips. And a lot of it revolves around business trips. Right? And so, we’ve drug our kids to all these business trips, but we always ask them what are some of the things that you want to do? And for example, the things that they come up with are like nuts. It’s not the stuff like on Travelocity. They hear lyrics and songs and YouTube and TikTok and who knows where they get this stuff? And so, my son has taken like four years of German, and he loves his German teacher. And so, he’s like, before we go to Sweden, can we go to Germany? And we’re like, yeah. So, in July we’re taking the whole month of July off and we’re going to do these random things that he wants to do in Germany for his graduation.
[laughter]
Dr. Sonya Wolter: And that’s going to be super, super cool and then…
Dr. Brian Capra: That is awesome.
Dr. Sonya Wolter: Sweden and see everybody. But we were kind of talking Cal Jam a little while ago and the last time we were at Cal Jam, right? So, we’re going on to LA and that was like four years ago, if you can believe it. 2019 when they had it, we’re like, “Hey, we’re thinking like Hollywood” and stuff that you would think that you would do with your kids. We’re like, “What do you guys want to do out in LA” to make it a little fun for them. What we ended up doing, what they wanted to do, Isabel wanted to see the lifeguard tower on the Weezer album.
[laughter]
Dr. Sonya Wolter: Whatever.
Dr. Allen Miner: That’s awesome.
Dr. Sonya Wolter: Yeah. So, we went and saw the lifeguard tower on the Weezer album and then Ben he was really into like BMX biking at the time. And so, I don’t know if it was a YouTuber or what some BMX guy, he wanted to go to the BMX shop or see the high school where this BMX guy would ride and do all his tricks or whatever. And so, we stopped by there and the guy was there, and it was everything.
Dr. Brian Capra: No way.
Dr. Sonya Wolter: Yeah. Everything you thought it would be like. We walk in and hopefully this is appropriate for the podcast, immediately, contact high, it’s billowing, all the all around us and stuff.
[laughter]
Dr. Sonya Wolter: And so, Ben was like probably like 13 or 14 at this time and he’s starstruck like the guy’s there and he’s just working the bike shop or whatever. And so, we’re like, “Can we get a picture?” And he’s like, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe you asked for a picture with this guy.” And it was so cool. That was probably one of the highlights of his life is just seeing this random BMX kid.
Dr. Brian Capra: Yeah.
Dr. Sonya Wolter: And then he left with this shirt that said on some shit. And I thought, oh my gosh. As parents, like are we like that’s the logo of the bike shop. I’m like, as parents, did we fail him? Or like we come like; you can’t wear that like outside of the house.
[laughter]
Dr. Allen Miner: Sonya you’re touching on two things though that I think are really critical here. A. You seem to obviously value, and I know you, you create these amazing experiences and seem to value that maybe more than than material stuff. I’d love you to speak about that. But also, you’ve built your business in the position where you guys are able to up and leave and have these experiences from a life in chiropractic that are now enabling you guys to do these really cool things that have bonded your family. Any… Was that always a priority and a value for you? Is that something that you’ve cultivated? Is that something that came innately for you?
Dr. Sonya Wolter: It may have been innate, but maybe time and resources weren’t there in the early days. Right? You just weren’t able to, you were the only doctor. And particularly with both of us.
Dr. Allen Miner: Yeah.
Dr. Sonya Wolter: I was always a little bit more willing to kind of close-up shop and leave more than Todd Walter, he’s a hard one that got dragged out of there. But we realized, you only get one shot at this. And I…
Dr. Allen Miner: Yeah.
Dr. Sonya Wolter: It’s not morbid, but Isabel was in… She was studying abroad, she was in Europe for five months and we’re like, she’s gone. She’s basically left the house.
Dr. Allen Miner: Yeah.
Dr. Sonya Wolter: And so, we… You want to be able to do these things as they’re leaving the nest. And so, yes, from some of the things that we’ve learned at UAC, we want to build a business, not be owned by the practice, and held hostage that, if we want to leave, if we want to go to a sporting event, whatever, something at the derby, there’s a party, tickets come up, I wouldn’t be able to leave at any time…
Dr. Allen Miner: Yeah.
Dr. Sonya Wolter: Relatively and do those things and not have the business miss a beat. So, we have done those things and we do things in the office called fire drills for example, that, hey, they know if Todd Walter is one of our adjust, I don’t do adjusting anymore. So, he’s one of our adjusting docs still. He loves it. So, if he’s gone, who steps into that next role? Who’s going to be doing the ROS, who’s going to be doing the re-exams and they know, hey, he just doesn’t show up one morning because our flight was late or whatever. It doesn’t miss a beat. Patients don’t know…
Dr. Allen Miner: Awesome.
Dr. Sonya Wolter: Anything like that because it’s…
Dr. Brian Capra: And that’s great.
Dr. Sonya Wolter: Hand in practice. So yes, it’s been years in the works, but…
Dr. Brian Capra: I have a question for you. The concept of giving my son a yes day scares the hell out of me. [laughter] Still did you have any fear and how did you get over it that they would ask for something so crazy, that you couldn’t actually do it?
Dr. Sonya Wolter: You can just set the rules, Brian, like make up whatever…
Dr. Brian Capra: I guess so right…
Dr. Sonya Wolter: Like make up a monetary amount or a thing. Usually, they’re… How old is your son?
Dr. Brian Capra: 15.
Dr. Sonya Wolter: Yeah. So normally they’re like, I want to go to the Nike, whatever the Nike store thing is and pick out the thing. That’s the stuff they…
Dr. Brian Capra: That’s easy.
Dr. Sonya Wolter: Yeah. That’s the stuff they want to do.
Dr. Brian Capra: Then it’s in China or something, [laughter]
Dr. Sonya Wolter: No, you’re just going to like New York City or Dallas or something. You’re fine.
Dr. Sonya Wolter: Yeah. But you could set the parameters. So maybe it’s not yes then, but maybe it’s yes in the summer, they want to go see an NBA game or whatever.
Dr. Brian Capra: Yeah.
Dr. Allen Miner: That’s awesome. Well, how about, last question Sonya, how about UAC? What’s… How’s it played a part in y’all… You and Todd’s life and any insights for people, or something to share about it?
Dr. Sonya Wolter: Yeah, UAC has been amazing. So, we’ve been members… I don’t know, five or six years now. And at first, I have to admit I was kind of skeptical. I thought, is this one of these things where people who have businesses just want to sell us all their products? And it has not been like that at all. It has been where I have found very like-minded, successful practitioners, who have businesses of all kinds. Right? That you guys have really, inspired us to play bigger, do more. I know sometimes we talk about the network net worth and how it’s expanded. We were already doing okay before we joined UAC, but I bet we’ve at least doubled, our net worth since starting…
Dr. Allen Miner: Who invited you in?
Dr. Sonya Wolter: Years. Lynne and Mark. Yeah, we went to school with them.
Dr. Brian Capra: Nice.
Dr. Sonya Wolter: Highschool. Yeah, so I’ve met some of my best friends. I love our accountability group and especially, during those hard times, as I’ve shared with you guys, Kentucky was one of those states that got shut down during Covid.
Dr. Brian Capra: Yeah.
Dr. Sonya Wolter: And so, we felt we were on an island, without UAC, our accountability group, I don’t know what we would’ve done. They just inspired us to play bigger. And so, every time we come, we learn so much. It’s killed me to have to miss a few of these. But I’m so excited to be in Sweden. I cannot wait.
Dr. Allen Miner: That’s awesome, Sonya. Well thank you for sharing and you guys are such love marks for the group and…
Dr. Brian Capra: Yeah, thank you so much.
Dr. Allen Miner: Really, I still… I’m going to put my name in the hat. I haven’t gotten invited to one yet, but I always hear about what you guys ended up doing when we’re in a city and I’m like, and it’s… I know it’s always you that comes up with it. The one that grabbed me was when we were in Miami. This group’s over at the Versace Museum. And I was like, that sounds cool how you always…
Dr. Brian Capra: That’s nice.
Dr. Allen Miner: That’s why with your kids, I figure you just always seem to have that sparkle of things that you do and that creativity, it’s a gift really is…
Dr. Sonya Wolter: Well, and I hear you have that too. We just need to collaborate now.
Dr. Brian Capra: Who knows?
Dr. Allen Miner: Absolutely. Well thank you Sonya. We appreciate you guys.
Dr. Brian Capra: Thank you Sonya.
Dr. Sonya Wolter: Thank you guys so much.
Dr. Allen Miner: Have an amazing day. We’ll see you. Bye.
Dr. Sonya Wolter: Bye.
Dr. Brian Capra: Bye.
