Latest / In Tune Podcast / 5. Dr. Stratton Poulson - Chiropractic, vitalistic or mechanistic?
Transcript
- Dr. Nick Harvey: Welcome to the In Tune Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Nick Harvey a chiropractor from Australia. This podcast is focused on getting deep with chiropractors globally and understanding their journey, their why, and what shaped them to be the chiropractors they are today. So come with me as we interview some great people within our profession so we can push chiropractic forwards. My guest today is a Chiropractor from Dallas, Texas, and he's the founder of Apex Chiropractic and Apex Chiropractic Education. He teaches adjusting to students and doctors around the world, online and in person. He was a massage therapist for 13 years before he ever set foot in chiropractic, and he's got more than a million and a half people following his work across YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. Doctor Stratton Poulson welcome to Intune. Strat Poulson: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm happy to be here and excited to talk to you. Dr. Nick Harvey: Me too, brother. would love to get started, Stratton, on where things began in your chiropractic journey. obviously being a massage therapist f for so long and I know you're a bit skeptical about chiropractic, I'd love to know where it all started for you. Strat Poulson: Yeah, so you know, I was a martial artist for pretty much my entire life. I mean still am. I started with taekwondo when I was three years old and then when I was around ten, my family and I moved to Texas and I got into karate. and I did that all the way till I was nineteen. I used to teach like the kids classes when I was fourteen, fifteen, and I started teaching adults classes when I was like sixteen, seventeen, and did that till nineteen. And you know, in martial arts, you know, people are always getting hurt, there's always injuries, things like that. And so I would find myself kind of like rubbing people's shoulders or rubbing their low back when they would get injured at the studio. And so I thought, you know, okay, maybe I could do something with this, but I don't know what. And I remember one day I was checking somebody out for some equipment, some sparring equipment at the front. And I made the joke, I was like, yeah, maybe I'll be a massage therapist or something and, you know, just sit up on the sit on the beach, sip my ties and, you know, have a nice cushy job and I I heard someone from behind me go, easy job, huh? And so I turned around and ended up being Russell Rust, who is the owner of the massage school that I ended up going to. He goes, It's so so easy, I've got a class starting on Monday, why don't you be there? And so I I went to massage school and did that and I remember you know I I was young because I started massage school I was probably about seventeen and I graduated, got my license kind of right at my eighteenth birthday. And I wasn't very good. I kind of was a teenager so I was dicking around in class. I wasn't super focused on it. So I remember going into my internship And I was just not where I needed to be. You know, people would come in and you know, I'd work on for an hour, hour and a half and they'd get up, I'd How you how you feel and they'd either not feel better or sometimes they'd feel worse. And so it took me a a couple of years to get to where I should have been when I graduated massage school. And over time, you know, I got better and ended up becoming a a great massage therapist. but I kind of got bored, I'd done all the CEs, I'd done kind of everything that there was to do. I was going into like Thai massage and ART and all these different areas and I wanted to advance my career, make more money, help more people in a different way. And I'd had some patients who I'd or clients at the time who I'd struggled with, and you know, they'd come in and they'd just randomly be better and be like, how's your low back? Like, it's it's perfect, it's gone. now and I'd well what did you do? And it'd say, well went to the chiropractor. And at the time, when I was a massage therapist, I I was like, well, you know, your muscles control where your bones are, and so those chiropractors, they're fighting a losing game because the muscles are really in charge of everything. I had my own kind of massage centered bias. And I thought what a lot of people think about chiropractors, which is they're witch doctors, they're gonna crack your neck and kill you. They're not real doctors and so I had all those same thought processes. and around the time that I was considering doing something else, I was considering like physical therapy, I was considering going and doing medical doctorate. I happened to get injured in jujitsu, which I started jujitsu when I was like twenty-three. And I had got thrown in practice and at the time I didn't know it, but had just basically thrown a rib out. So I'm having like sharp stabbing pain in the shoulder blade area. But this was like going on for a couple of weeks and it was not getting better. I couldn't train. I was supposed to compete in a tournament with my team at the end of the month. and I was like sitting on the sidelines watching practice instead of participating, my teammates were like, Hey man, you know, we're we're tired of hearing you complain. Why don't you go to the chiropractor? And this was multiple days in a row, so I'm kind of a stubborn guy. and no, no, I don't want to go see one of those witch doctors, they're gonna kill me, you know, type thing. And so finally it's like the third or fourth day in a row, one of my teammates goes, Dude, shut up, come get in my car and he I get in his car, he drives me to the joint and I go get adjusted at the joint. The chiropractor adjusts my rib and I get up and I'm like eighty percent better. Immediately. And I was like, wow. So I looked at the chiropractor and I still don't really trust chiropractors, right? But I well, what do I need to He's like, well, come back tomorrow. I was like, okay. So I come back tomorrow, he adjusts me again. I'm like ninety percent better. What do I need to do, Doc? Come back tomorrow. Okay, adjust me the next day, a hundred percent better. I went to the tournament, competed, and I think I won like silver at the tournament with my team. But I'm still, you know, I'm kind of a stubborn guy, I still was Well, chiropractors are good, but only for ribs. And so you know, I had another jujitsu injury and I hurt my neck and the chiropractor fixed it. And then I hurt my low back and then the chiropractor fixed it. And so I finally it like sunk in. I like, Okay, maybe there is something to this chiropractic thing. And so I didn't tour any chiropractic schools or anything at all. I just I got on Google, I said chiropractic school near me. Parker came up, it was like fifteen minutes from my house. I was like, okay, I'll go to Parker. So I called them up. What do I need to do? They said, go finish your undergrad and then call us again. So I went and finished my undergrad, started at Parker, and that's how I became a chiropractor. So what's interesting about the story is I really relate when patients come in and they're very skeptical, they're nervous, they don't want to be there, their friend or their wife or their husband forced them to come and i I think it helps me relate with those patients 'cause like I get it. I get exactly what it was like to think that this is all bullshit and you're scared to be here and you don't want to be here and kind of tuck them off the ledge and reassure them and help them have a good experience for their first adjustment. That's that's something I personally love is working with patients for their very first adjustment. Most chiropractors do love that. but I find it to be an honor to introduce someone to chiropractic in a positive way. But that's that's how I got here. So it's not what I set out to do. And you'll find as we get into kind of the rest of my story, there's a lot of things that are not what I set out to do that ended up kind of being great for me. but that's that's the the origin story. Dr. Nick Harvey: Yeah, awesome. And what was your journey like through Parker? Was it everything you expected it to be? You know, I I know a lot of people, whether it's college or university, it it can be everything they expected more, or or sometimes people feel really let down and and feel like they wanted more of of X, Y, and C. So what was it like for you? Strat Poulson: So I would say that I I had a good experience at Parker. I have the same kind of qualms that pretty much anyone is gonna have about their chiropractic school. There's certain things that you wish were done differently, there's certain hours that you wish you had more of. But for the most part I had a good experience at Parker. The one thing I will say is you just didn't get nearly enough hands-on practice. And that's something like I said, when I was in massage school, I was a teenager and I wasn't taking it very seriously. And so I'd I'd had that experience pretty fresh. my mind of what it's like to have someone that's kind of depending on you to help them and to not be able to do it because you were dicking around in school and you're not good enough. So when I started chiropractic school I think I was twenty six, so I was older than a lot of my peers because a lot of people came straight out of undergrad and I had been in the workforce. And so on day one, when we're sitting in like introduction to anatomy, I had in my mind, clinic, right? At some point there's gonna be a patient looking me in the eyes and they're gonna need me to be good enough. And I'm not gonna repeat this mistake. So when I was at Parker, thankfully that there was a lot of clubs. I know they've kind of cracked down on a lot of the adjusting clubs, unfortunately. And there was also a lot of like open adjusts, so time where could go into the lab, there was a doc just posted up in the corner, usually scrolling Instagram on their phone and you could just sling adjustments on each other. and so I started as soon as I possibly could. I think it like try two or try three where they let us. you know, touch people. going to every single club I could. I was going to every single open adjust. And so for my entire time at Parker, it's still one of my things that I'm most proud of is I never missed a single day of open adjust from the moment I was allowed to till the moment that I graduated. The way I teach seminars here in Dallas, I'll ask people I like, anyone remember and I'll I'll mention the doc by name, anyone remember this doc 'cause they're the doc who was always in open adjust. I said next time you see her, ask her if I ever missed a day. And it's funny 'cause they'll come back and tell me, like, hey, I talked to Dr. So and so and she said that no, you never missed a day. and so the thing that's interesting is we had a lot of opportunities, but a lot of my classmates they were either studying for an exam or they wanted to go to Taco Tuesday or whatever, right? And so people didn't come to open adjust and take advantage of those opportunities. So I got quite a lot of hands-on practice between seminars, adjusting clubs, and open adjust before I got into the student clinic. And so when I got to student clinic, I didn't have that experience. I felt like I was ready. I could adjust well. I knew how to move a bone. I knew how to find what was going on. Not as good as I do now, but I was I was better than most of the other interns. and so that was all due to that kind of dedicated practice. But I wish That amount of preparation was part of the curriculum. Because I tell people this all the time when they ask me, what do I need to do as a student to have the best possible time? I was like, if you do just the bare minimum that's given to you in the curriculum, your opportunities to practice adjusting, you will not be anywhere near the level that you need to be at when it's time to go to the clinic, and you won't be anywhere near where you need to be when it's time to graduate and work on real patients. And so I think that's the main qualm with most chiropractic schools is that students It's so different than other professions, right? Y you you have to get this hands-on skill. And it involves both the soft skills of palpation and listening to the body. And also the the less soft skills of being able to generate force with your own body and impart that onto the patient. And you just don't get nearly enough practice. You get a lot of, you know, you're academics and obviously you need to pass boards and that's the main thing that the school's there to do. But it's it's difficult to get the hours that you need to really develop a mastery of the adjustment with just the standard curriculum. And so that would be the thing that I think is is the biggest issue with all the schools. Dr. Nick Harvey: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. at our university here in Melbourne, we weren't allowed to quote unquote adjust people until our fourth year. So it was just absolutely crazy to me. And I I saw a lot of the people in our cohort struggling at that period too. And, you know, they're they're two years from graduating and they still don't know how to do the thing we're mo meant to be most proficient in. So we started practicing early, you know, we we would we would catch up, we had friends that we'd adjust with, but it still wasn't enough. And e even the open adjusting you had sounds fantastic. So I think a lot more schools need to incorporate that because I see a lot of chiropractors coming out that that aren't proficient in that too. let's say for example there's the students listening in that, you know, maybe have have the ability to go to some of the open adjusting and and maybe some of them don't as well. What would you start to teach them and and and what can they do? in their spare time to start becoming more proficient at adjusting. Strat Poulson: So I mean the adjusting comes down to kind of two skills. Like I said, you have the soft skill of feeling and being in tune with the patient, and then you have the less soft skill of actually delivering force and so I kind of I talk to students and I say, you know, hey, I think I had a bit of an unfair advantage just based on my background. With the massage for many, many years, I got very, very good at the soft skills, at palpating the muscles and at feeling what's going on with the patient. And then through the the lifetime of martial arts, I had a really great background in generating force with my body. And so I tend to see like what I teach students, you know, students who were massage therapists, they have really great palpation skills. They're always able to find exactly where they need to be. And then students who were athletes in some regard. are usually very good at the force production. But we need to do is we need to marry those up. But Parker did a pretty good job at, you know, they'd have little tricks like they'd have you put a die, like a playing dice, in your pocket. And you know, you'd put your hand in your pocket without looking and identify, you know, this the side of the dice that has five dots. and then pull it out and show someone. And they'd say, okay, now show me three dots and you'd feel for the dots. So things like that can help you begin. More important than just being able to palpate though, eventually we have to be able to feel the state that the patient is in. And you know, it's one of the things I really think is Dr. Mann does a great job at it with mana mastery, mana. mastery. Kairos also does a really good job at it is teaching people to tune into the body and wait for that perfect moment where the patient's relaxed and they're they're able to receive the force in a comfortable way and able to accept that force. Because I see a lot of docs they kind of step up to the table, set the patient up, not really having much regard for how the patient feels in that setup, and then just slam the adjustment whenever the doctor's ready. And you can move joints that way. Right, you can make noise, you can move joints, and people will get better. Right? Chiropractic is so good that you don't even have to do it well and people will get better. But what's really separates a masterful and artful chiropractor is not only having the right line of drive, the light, right contact point, all the technical aspects of the adjustment, the right force delivery, but really being able to tune in and feel that exact moment when the patient relaxes. The muscles go soft, they feel comfortable with the position that they're in. They're not torqued out at massive end range or massive pretension. And when you deliver that adjustment when the patient is totally at ease, you get a powerful adjustment that feels really smooth to the patient. It's really easy for their body to take that force in and do what it needs to do with that force that we've provided. And I know that sounds I you borderline, I'm not a very like vitalistic or you know, subluxation based chiropractor, but I'm probably the most vitalistic mechanist, or you could joke, the most mechanistic vitalist, because there really is something to that, and we can get into you know what everyone thinks that is. But regardless of if you're gonna get really woo-woo with it or if you're gonna go really like traditional philosophy based with it. Why would you not want to deliver the adjustment in a way that is as comfortable as possible for the patient while still giving them that powerful experience? And so for students, they could start with something as simple as just holding someone's head. And I recommend that they do this head holding drill. So you you hold the patient's head. And you may get set up as if you were going to adjust, but you know that you're not going to adjust. And the patient knows, the student patient knows that you're not going to adjust. The goal is not to adjust. The goal is that every time you feel that neck relax and you feel complete relief from the tension, you want to either snap your fingers or do something to mark it. And I'll have them hold the head for two to three minutes. And there will be times where you feel the tension go up. And then times where you feel it drop. And every time that tension drops and you'd be ready to adjust, you snap your fingers or you do something to mark it. I'm just trying to teach the students to feel what it's like to hold a patient and wait for the proper moment. And then mark that so they can get really familiar with that experience. Dr. Nick Harvey: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I think that level of mastery and that level of artistry does take you adjusting at that high level. And it takes a lot of training from experience to have the mechanics down of knowing exactly how you're going to adjust. Because then you've got to be in this level of unconscious competence where you can just adjust from ease. You know, it's just coming through you. It's just like second nature, like your background in sports. That's that's where the place has to come from for you to be able to feel exactly what's going on and be fully in the present moment. So that's another area I'd love to deepen into as well is your philosophy and how that evolved and you know, where you're at. You said a bit of a mechanistic violist. I'd love to know how that looks for you and yeah, where you're at with all that. Strat Poulson: Yeah, so my philosophy has changed a bit throughout my time in the program. Again, like it's it's probably no surprise that I started the program very mechanistic in my mindset because I was not familiar with chiropractic really at all. I had gone to chiropractic for like a sports injury, not for like wellness and just general health and expression. the chiropractor that I first interacted with was at the joint, and so it wasn't really a very vitalistic philosophy that was taught to me. It was not about innate. intelligence and flow and your body's way able to ability to express health. It was really like, hey, your ribs are out, let's, you know, smash on those ribs, you're gonna feel better and you're gonna be able to compete at the end of the month. So when I first got into chiropractic school and I first started getting kind of confronted with some of the philosophy, and I was like, man, this is just really out there for me. This is really woo-woo. I don't know if I like this. And especially because I was originally considering physical therapy or medicine, these more conventional kind of approaches. But I was a little woo-woo. Because from being a massage therapist, you learn about at least a little bit about energy. So, you know, the way I describe it is if you're not woo-woo, but you want to kind of get a a feeling for energy. Imagine like you walk into a room and you can just tell by looking at someone in the corner of the room they're just like they're seething mad. They're so angry. You can feel that before you even really recognize what they're angry about or or how angry they are. There's there's this vibe that emanates off of them. And that is some type of energy. And I do think that there's there's only so much that we can empirically test for. You know, science has limits, our instrumentation has minute limits, our methods have limits. So I'm open to to a lot of what we're doing as chiropractors. I think you can't really measure. You can't put it under a microscope, you can't put it in a test tube, and get a result out of it that makes any sense. So we're kind of doing our best guess. So I I leave a lot of room for that. And there is something special about the adjustment. you could call that releasing innate intelligence, you can call that, you know, reducing the subluxation or Or whatever you want to call it. So there's something special other than just moving a bone, stimulating some nervous system receptors, you know, releasing some muscles that happens when we do the adjustment. I'm kind of happy with not really knowing exactly how that works. You know, I don't care. I know that there's something about your intuition that can guide you to the right place. I know there's something about your intention when you approach the body that changes your outcomes. There's something about the space you hold in the room with the patient that changes your outcomes. But I'm not super comfortable kind of explaining things like that that are a little more amorphous with patients. So a lot of the conversations that I have with patients are more mechanistic. It's more about this area is strained, this area is you know not moving properly. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna try and find the areas that are not moving properly in your spine, they're not doing their fair share of the work, and that's stressing your whole body. adjust those areas, they're gonna move more properly, and you're gonna have strain going to the right places instead of too much strain on the wrong places, and you're gonna see a lot of this calm down, you're gonna feel a lot better. And along the way, you may feel like you have more energy, you sleep better, you may feel like you're not depressed anymore. Those are all happy accidents as far as I would kind of classify them, right? I'm treating your neck, I'm treating your jaw, I'm treating your low back. But patients do come in and they report these, you know, miracles, right? And things you know, it's like, well, does that make any sense, Doc? I'm like, I don't know. Honestly, I don't know. I've had it happen before. You're not the first patient that's told me this. I don't know exactly how it works. I think we're a little behind the eight ball when it comes to the research on this. And for me at the end of the day patients know this and people who get to know me better know this. I'm a pretty pragmatic guy. So for me, if it works, I'm happy to continue doing it. I don't need to know exactly how it works. It is fun to get into the neurophysiology, to get into the nitty gritty, to get lost into the weeds. Obviously I know the names of receptors and the names of neurological trigger tracts and stuff like that. But at the end of the day I'll kind of joke like in some of my seminars like that's it's nerd shit a little bit, right? You know I'm more interested in can we do something with you that will make you feel better better and then that improves your quality of life. And I'm not super concerned about how it works. Now whether it's contextual effect and the therapeutic alliance and the therapeutic relationship like the evidence-based crowd likes to say, whether we're releasing the flow of innate intelligence, whether we're freeing the body up to to function at a more optimate level, optimum level like the more vitalistic crowd likes to say. I don't care why it works. I know that it does work and then I'm happy that that's the case because that gives us something that we can do to help people and change people's lives. So I mean that's a little bit of my philosophy. It's kind of I've had people tell me your philosophy is kind of a no philosophy. I'm like, I guess, you know. Dr. Nick Harvey: if you're a chiropractic student or a chiropractor and you're curious about how you might be able to improve your adjusting, I've created a free quiz on inflow artistry all about going deep into what I believe are the five most fundamental foundations of adjusting. It's completely free. It'll take you about 10 minutes to fill out, and it'll give you a detailed report of where you're doing well and where you might be able to improve. If you're interested, the link will be below in the show notes, or you can go to inflowartistry.com. dot-ayy-you slash quiz. No, I love it. I think you've got this openness to possibility. And you know, I think there's even in the vitalistic crowd, it's it's hard to measure and conceptualize what we're talking about. But I think this philosophy stems from experience. Like i I I've spoken to a lot of docs that got into the profession and had these adjusting moments where it just shifted so much in their life. And that was the moment they felt what chiropractic could do for them, even though that maybe couldn't articulate it and maybe and and and we started to bring in these words of innate intelligence and other things and but it it's still so difficult to measure. It's so difficult to measure. and I just read this quote the other day that art exists because there are things inside us that cannot be said any other way. Which I think is such an expression of chiropractic that it's so hard to conceptualize and articulate what happens on the table that the best way to do it is just to express it. And to give people that experience and let them find that within themselves. I know you've been running seminars and you've been teaching chiropractors a lot. I'd love to deepen into where did that start for you? How how long have you been running them for? wha what do they look like as you go along in those seminars? Strat Poulson: Yeah, so I've been teaching for a very long time. it kind of ends up I always joke, it's like I can't get away from it. It's like teaching kind of just chases me down. 'Cause I started doing martial arts and then I started teaching martial arts. And then I started doing massage therapy and then I used to teach at massage schools and I even taught massage therapy CE courses and taught other people how to do the techniques that I'd learned. And so I didn't really set out to teach when I got into chiropractic, but I went into chiropractic school and there was like a soft tissue club. So they had me come and teach some soft tissue techniques because I'd been a licensed massage therapist for forever. So I was teaching other students at the school how to do some simple ART and some soft tissue techniques, and that got really popular to the point that they wanted me to teach like a whole weekend course. And so I actually did my first chiropractic seminar. It was soft tissue for the chiropractor. And I was in like tri eight or tri seven. So I was in like either my end of my second year or beginning of my third year. And I held this weekend seminar, it was for chiropractic students, and it was just soft tissue. Okay, how do you do short bits of soft tissue through clothing like you would do in a chiropractic appointment to help patients? And it was primarily ART and other techniques like that that I taught to them. And So I did that and in the meantime I'd been going to chiropractic seminars and adjusting seminars while I was in school and I started my practice and started kind of social media and started posting videos of me adjusting patients and I started to get comments from people, hey, I've never seen that technique before, where did you learn that? And people started reaching out to me wanting to learn. And so I decided, okay, well maybe I'll try my hand at at teaching and adjusting seminar. And I thought to myself, if I do this though, I want to do things differently than the way that they're done. historically. And so when I, you know, was in school, you'd go to a seminar and, you know, all sometimes the the person teaching the seminar would sit there and just talk for two, three hours. I mean you'd be sitting there just listening to them talk for two hours. And sometimes it was just about their life or their practice or how great they were, or how much money they made, or you know, how bad their ex wife was. I mean, it's a you know, so I was like, okay, well when I hold my seminars, it's gonna be very, very little lecture, pretty much all hands on 'cause that's what the students want. They want to learn how to do these techniques. And also like you're not paying money to spend your weekend with me to hear about my life. You're paying me money to learn these techniques. The other experience I had is, you know, when I was at these seminars, sometimes you'd learn 30, 40 techniques in a weekend. I mean it was just overwhelming. And you know, you you nail a few of them while you're there, but other ones you you don't get down and then maybe it's a week or two after the seminar and you're asking your friend like, hey, where where was your hand supposed to be and how are you supposed to do this? It's like, I don't really remember either. And so I remember, and maybe it was naive, but I remember reaching out to someone who taught one of these seminars. Said, hey, you I I'm having trouble remembering this technique. Like, can you give me some guidance or is there any other like a video or something I could watch? Like, well don't worry, like I'll be back next year And I was like, okay, sure, like I'll I'll wait 'til next year and I'll pay you again to hopefully catch it that weekend. And so, you know I wanted to is like if I'm gonna hold seminars, I want to do this differently. So it's ninety-eight percent hands-on, very little lecture. And then what I do is I include online access to the videos of the techniques with the seminar. So if you come to me for an in-person seminar, you're gonna get lifetime access to the videos of the techniques I teach that week and just include it. Because my philosophy is that you didn't s come to spend your weekend with me. you came to learn these techniques. And so whether it you nail everything the weekend, fantastic. You're better than I was when I was a student. But even if you don't nail everything, you can go back to it and refresh and and continue to learn. And that's not something that was really done in the industry. I mean, most of the seminar companies did not include, you know, some of them had online modules for sure before I did online modules. That's not my unique idea. And but I can't really think of a single seminar company that included online video access with an in-person course before I started doing that. That you know, maybe there was someone that I wasn't aware of. But I started doing that about, you know, five years ago. And slowly now over the last few years I think it's catching on. There are other seminar companies now that they give you online access included with your in person and you know, not to pat myself on the back, but you know, that that was something that I started in the seminar culture. but it really grew out of I kind of always end up teaching. It's I think it's what I'm called to do. I think I was maybe called to be a chiropractor, but I I believe I was certainly called to be a teacher. It's it's what I've done for my entire life and I enjoy it and I like to pass that knowledge on. and it it helps sharpen you because you'll get asked questions, you're like, that's a great question, I don't know. Or someone will point out like a flaw in the logic that you've presented. You're like, I need to I need to examine that. but mostly I I just love helping to kind of spread the art and spread a little bit more of that intention. a little bit different approaches to technique and things like that, but try to spread that that intent behind the adjustment so that people can help serve patients at a higher level. You know, you were talking about the experience and that philosophy. Like I didn't have that till I was in school. So when I first was adjusted, I thought it was amazing because my rib didn't hurt anymore. But I didn't have that like lights on life changing kind of moment till I was in school. I went to a seminar, I believe it was centropy, and I got that old Virgil Crane style like supine oxiput lift. It was the first time I'd ever had an adjustment where I got up and I was like, I feel like I can see clearer. I feel like I'm in a better mood. Like I feel lighter, I wanna be nicer to people, I feel like my heart is more open. I felt more connected to the people around me and to the world like this fog that was separating me from everyone was lifted. And that was the first time I really got a taste, I think it was like try three or try four, of what chiropractic can do when you're really intentional. So when we're not just approaching someone to move some bones and make some noise and crunch, you know, okay, you know, does that feel better? And so after that I was like, okay, there's there's like a secret sauce in the intent here. I started kinda hunting that down. I kinda mixed up your questions here a little bit, but that was part of the journey there. Dr. Nick Harvey: No, that's all right. That's all right. I was gonna say you're sounding like a bit of a vitalist to your strat. but I think the intention is is so important and it's the it's the foundation of what we do. And that's what I was wanted to deepen into with you as well. Is do you think the difference in experiences you've had, because I think we're all called to be chiropractors, but do you think the the difference in the experiences you had was one because you started to understand the philosophy? And and the the deepened part of chiropractic and what it is we actually do. And then obviously the intention behind the adjustment, who was giving you the adjustment, was also different, versus maybe your first one where it was more a mechanical helping that. And then that that's what I want to get into is that intention. How important do you think that is? And does that change the outcome? Yeah. Start from there. Strat Poulson: Yeah, I think what's interesting to me is I think that the experience of chiropractic matters more than what the patient believes. that first adjustment I got, I was dragged to the chiropractor, didn't expect to feel better and was not happy to be there, and then still managed to get up and feel better and have a great experience. And at that point that I went to that centropy seminar, a lot of the things that they were talking about I was not on board with. Like they were talking about philosophy and some of these concepts and it was getting a little woo-woo and I remember sitting there at the seminar going, I think I might have gone to the wrong seminar. I think I might have picked the wrong seminar. Now there were things that I liked. Like I really liked their concept of adjusting from ease. And the idea of just having the patient be comfortable instead of torqued out for the adjustments. I loved that right off the bat. But like in and this is no shade dysentropy, I love the guys, you know, Pateneer and like, you know, fantastic guys, right? But you know, they opened their seminar with like a bunch of like breathing exercises. That was not my jam. I was like, this is already a bit too woo woo for me, and then they started talking about some of these concepts. And so I was around you know, the ring of the room, around the tables as they were adjusting everyone at the end, doing these lifts and stuff to everyone who wanted to get adjusted. And I was sitting on the periphery and I was thinking. I don't know if I want to do this. See what this is all about. I was not sold. I was not sold on the philosophy. I was not sold really on any of it, besides adjusting from a place where the patient was comfortable. And they rocked my fucking world with that adjustment. And it was a night and day before and after for me. And I wouldn't even say that after that moment I went to school and I was like, all right, there's really something to this chiropractic philosophy. I was like, there's really something to this adjustment. And what I learned over time is there's really something to this intent and the presence that these docs bring to adjusting that changed the experience for me. And so I think The good news about that is you don't need your patient to believe in chiropractic at all to have that experience for them. And you don't need the people that you're adjusting to believe that what you're gonna do is going to change them on a deep and profound way in order to still do that. And I've had the same experience with my patients where patients come in completely skeptical and they come back, you know, Doc, you've changed my life. Right? This is unbelievable. I'm I'm noticing all these things that have nothing to do with my body, that have to do with my mentality and my affect and my attitude. I've had multiple patients come in and tell me that they don't want to kill themselves anymore. You know, like and those are always powerful moments and and those if I linger too long on that I'm gonna get emotional about it. But you know, there is something going on there that is deeper than making joints crack. And it has to do with the intent of the chiropractor. And I think thankfully for us, doesn't really have anything to do with the belief of the patient. Dr. Nick Harvey: I could not agree more and I think it's so important to have these conversations too because I feel there's chiropractors that sit so much on each side of the fence, it's chiropractors that are really philosophy vitalistic that get into the profession and will resonate with the way certain things are taught. And there's there's other chiropractors that are more logical in their thinking and they f they struggle and find it really hard to resonate with that. But I think we eventually converge in the middle at some point and That that's through the adjusting, that's through the intent, that's through the presence that we bring. And it's so powerful and it it it changes the outcome that we see in clients. So thank you for sharing that. I know you've been doing social media for a while, and I know social media can be a tough place, excuse me, for chiropractors. I'd love to know what you've figured out through that process. You've obviously built some big presence on social media and and what that experience has been like for you. Strat Poulson: Yeah. So, you know, social is one of those things that again, it's like a a common theme in my life. It's like not really what I set out to do. I didn't really set out to be like the social media chiropractor. But I all the way through school, I wanted to work at the Dallas VA hospital. and I thought to myself, the real doctors work in the hospital. I wanna be a real doctor, and so I wanna work in the hospital. And so if you had to ask me all the way through school what I'm gonna do, I'd I'm gonna go work at the hospital. And I did my internship, my last term at the Dallas BA hospital. I got there and I just thought, no. I've made a horrible mistake. It's just like bureaucracy and red and yellow tape. And now I've been told, 'cause people have heard me tell this story on podcasts before, and some of the docs that kind of like manage those programs of read shots me and said, Hey, you know, we've made a lot of changes and made things a lot better. All I can speak to is the experience I had. But the experience I had turned me completely off from working in the hospital system and so I thought, so I'm about to graduate. I haven't done a single interview, I've got no associateship prospects, I've got literally no plan, and then boom I graduate. And Thankfully I'd maintained to a small degree, certainly not a busy massage practice, but on evenings and weekends I was massaging some of my private clients at my office. And so I said, okay, well I've got to do something. So let me swap out the massage table for a chiropractic table. It was me, a ten by twelve room, and a laptop and a chiropractic table. And that's how it started. And so I remember opening up and on my very first day I had one patient, just like a nine hour. shift. I treated my very first patient and then I sat there all day. And the next day I think I had one more one more new patient. And I sat there all day and I said, God, I've got to do something. And so I knew social media could work to get patients. Like it's it's obviously advertising. And during school I'd been I remember seeing Dr. Ian, who I believe is a famous, you know, Gonsted Australian chiropractor, And he had some trouble with the authorities or I don't know I'm not fully up to up to speed on what happened there, but the famous video, at least when I was in school, was the kid who pulled out a stump. He comes in all hunched over and Dr. Ian gets him standing upright over a series of a couple visits, a couple adjustments. It was so inspiring to me. I was in like the the thick of it. I was in like, you know, our our heavy academics neurology and pathology and all that. it it kind of inspired me about what we could do for people. And so I had that image and then some of the the early big kairos like Dr. Tubio, Dr. Hightower, who's not even a chiropractor, I think he's a naturopath. but anyways, that didn't bother me at all. so I knew that there were people showing chiropractic on the internet. I knew that they had weightless practices and were book solid and I thought, you know what, I'm gonna start shooting some videos. And so I mean I I had gorillaed it. I back when I first started Instagram videos were still square. I don't know if anyone remembers that before reels. but so you know I started shooting videos on the front facing camera of my iPhone and they were grainy and the quality was terrible, the lighting in my room was terrible. everything about those first videos. And if you scroll back far enough on my Instagram, they're still there. So if you want to go take a dive, it'd probably take you 15 minutes to get there. You can go watch some of my terrible first videos. but what I did is every time I posted a video, I just tried to make something a little better. So I eventually caught on that using the the rear facing camera was better. I eventually did like a twenty five hundred dollar lighting redo in my room so I'd have better lighting. got better microphones and I just tried to make each video a little better. But even when my video sucked, very quickly I started getting quite a few new patients from Instagram. And so Instagram's really what hit first for me. That was kind of like my proof of concept, so to speak. And once I started getting new patients and I realized I wasn't gonna go out of business and go bankrupt and dishonor my family. I was pretty sold on the the social me social media thing. and then from there it was just, you know, you're committing to a consistent cadence. Once I got comfortable with Instagram, then I moved over onto TikTok. I eventually moved into the longer form content on YouTube. I figured, you know, hey, if I'm shooting the whole session and then clipping ninety seconds for Instagram, I might as well put the whole session on YouTube. And then later I learned after I got bigger on YouTube that it's actually great search engine optimization. It helps you rank higher on Google. It helps nowadays AI see your practice that you exist and recommend you. But a lot of it was just this kind of slow process. And it was not really my intent to to be full social media Cairo when I first started. Dr. Nick Harvey: Hey guys, I just wanted to quickly let you know I'm going to be running two-day adjusting seminars across Australia and New Zealand at the end of 2026 and into 2027. They're going to be two days of going deep into what I believe are the fundamental principles of adjusting: holding a high intention, getting deep with your presence, adjusting from positions of ease, and most of all, expressing the art at its highest form. If you're interested, there's a link below in the show notes, or you can go to www. inflowartistry.com.au. All right, back into it. Yeah, awesome. And from that, you've built a really big brand, which is exciting. And that's the next step I was going to get into with you as well is talking about that early journey. Cause I know you started a practice straight out of school. you're you now tell new grads that's the best path to go, is just a solo dock in in that associateship. and that's obviously where you've built what what you've got now. You've got an associate working for you. you've got a big busy brand, you've built that from the ground up. And yeah, for those young aspiring docs coming out of school, which direction do you lead them in now? Strat Poulson: So I think that what you really need when you're having this conversation with yourself is to be really super honest with yourself. And honest in a way where you're not trying to self-soothe. Because in order to run a successful chiropractic clinic, you do need to be entrepreneurial. And that takes a certain kind of personality type. Now you don't have to be outgoing, but it helps. But you do need to be the type who rather than working nine to five is comfortable working 24-7, especially in the beginning. I mean I had not a single day off. I would go when I first opened my practice, I would wake up to my alarm and I would be on my phone responding to patients and dealing with social and doing that. I would go to work all day, I would come home, I would edit videos, and I would pass out at night while still trying to respond to people on social. I'd literally wake up with my phone on my base or on my chest because I'd fallen asleep while I was responding to someone. And I did that day. After day after day after day after day. And that's not glamorous, right? That's not what, you know, everyone loves to hear the story of, now I've got these multiple clinics, I'm making all this money, you know, the clinic runs without me, da da da, and I did it all myself, right? That's a really attractive story. People don't like to talk about how much it fucking sucks in the beginning. So you need to be someone who's willing to go through that. You need to be someone who's excited to go through that and build and go through that yourself. And not everyone's like that. And so if you're someone who would prefer to show up, do your work and go home, to do great patient care, deliver incredible adjustments. But I wanna show up fifteen minutes before shift. I want to treat patients to an incredibly high standard all day. Then I want to bounce and I don't want to respond to texts. I don't want to respond to phone calls. I don't want to think about marketing and advertising budgets. I don't want to get phone calls about, you know, there's a leak in the ceiling, right? All the things that come along with owning your own office, then an associate position is a perfect position for you. And there are a lot of us out there who can be rock star associates and have no interest at all in any of the hurdles and the things that come along with owning a practice. But I I worry because some students it's like everyone wants to be an entrepreneur. Calling yourself an entrepreneur is like a status symbol. And I don't know why, 'cause being an entrepreneur is a is a horrendous experience for for almost all of us. And any entrepreneur will tell you, you know, it was it was horrible. And and then the ones that are now telling you about how great it is that they made it, they're the rare few that actually did make it. Most people have an entrepreneurial story that looks like working your fucking ass off for one, two, three years, having everything fall apart and then going and getting a job working for someone else. That's most entrepreneurs' stories. So the the real thing is don't be an entrepreneur because you feel like you should. Don't be a business owner because you feel like you should or you want the status of being a business owner. You have to be honest with yourself about whether you're willing to put in the hours, you're willing to grind, whether you're going to enjoy that to some degree because you're building it for yourself. and if you are someone who can do that, then you've got a lot of things that you've got to learn. Being an entrepreneur is not about being a small business owner, is not about knowing how to do everything. It's about knowing how to become the next version of yourself. So I didn't know how to run at. So I had to look for mentors. I had to read books. I had to watch YouTube videos and teach myself that skill. There's a lot of things like that where you're you're not gonna be prepared for every situation, but you need to be the type of person who can then go learn how to do it, implement those steps, and then tweak it and get better over time. and if you're someone who is not interested in that, because a lot of people aren't. I mean, who really wants to watch videos about, you know, learning how to run ads when you're on your day off and you really could be at the park with your wife, or you could be going to a nice dinner, or you could be playing with your dog, like or going to the pool with your friends. so that's the main thing. I think students can get a overly sexy idea. of what this is all like. And most days it's not sexy. And most days it's not flying in private jets, right? Most days it's just nose down into your laptop and grinding away. And so you want to be, you know, honest with yourself. And so like I my associate, absolute rock star associate, great doc, love him. he has absolutely zero interest in doing any of the shit that I do. He loves coming into work. Everything is there for him. He treats patients, does a great job, then he goes home and he's like, I'm not available. I'm not a doctor after three PM on on Wednesday. And I love that for him. And then for me, I am the doctor all the time. And so I'm I'm always answering phone calls, I'm always responding to texts and putting out fires. But you gotta decide what kind of person you are and what you're gonna be happy with there. Dr. Nick Harvey: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And one of my mentors, Dr. Tony Ebel, I believe he talked about a statistic that 80% of people just aren't cut out and they don't want to be entrepreneurs. They want to just show up and and they perform better at that level as well. So I'm very grateful for my few years out of school being an associate and then us owning the business for the last two years. It hasn't been all glitz and glamour. That's a lot of work, as you were saying, a lot of 247 work. There's never it never stops. There's never not something to work on for the business. So yeah, i I think you gotta be really honest with yourself in number one, do you wanna do it? I think the the best thing I've received from owning the business has been the investment in self and who I've had to become now that I'm owning it. So if it's purely financial for you, which it shouldn't be coming out, that's that's the wrong thing to idolise. But owning a business isn't all that great. You can you can probably make a lot more money being an associate to begin with. But if you want that investment in self and you want to grow bigger as a person, that's what I I deepen into as well. Did you want to touch on that? Strat Poulson: yes. The other thing that I feel like students don't realize about the associate versus owning a practice type situation and why I do recommend people start a micro practice if they think they're the type of person who would be good at it or who could tolerate it is a lot of students have this idea that they're going to go associate for a year or two, learn how to run a practice and then they're going to open up their own. And I always like to point out the flaw in that logic. When you are hired as an associate, you are hired to do a job and that job is to treat patients. And so for me as the owner I am interested in enabling you and empowering you to treat patients, do exams, and do adjustments at my clinic. I don't have any reason to put time and effort into training you on business systems, on marketing, on how to run a clinic. And so if you're trying to get that out of your associate position, the likelihood that you are going to get that out of that position is very low. You're going to need a practice owner who Hires you and takes a special interest in developing you as a person. And I want you to think about it for a moment because if if I take a special interest in developing you, teaching you how to run a practice, teaching you how to run ads, teaching you how to build your social media, teaching you how to get new patients, teaching you workflows, systems, all I am doing is enabling you more and more and more to leave. And now I have to replace you at the very worst, or you take some of your patient base with you. Now I've got to try and figure out how am I going to build back up or how are we going to operate without you. And so not only are you asking an owner to take their own time, which doesn't generate any revenue for the practice, to train you, but you're also essentially asking them to get you ready to leave. And they most likely don't want to do that. So I have seen enough of my peers now, I've been I'm now going into my sixth year of practice. Many of my peers had this thought process of I'm going to go associate for a year or two, three and learn how to run a practice open my own. Well they're now five years, six years later into practice and they leave their associate position, they realize, shit, I don't really know anything more than I thought I would. or th that I did about how to own or how to run a practice. All I know how to do is treat patients, talk to patients, communicate, maybe take some some payments and some financials, but I still don't know how to market. I still don't know how to build systems around a practice. Now you might get some of the experience of things you do and don't like, that could be very valuable. So Maybe you work in a you know Pettibon style clinic and you go, wow, this is really not for me, or it really is, or a Gonsted style clinic and you say, hey, I really love this, or hey, I really don't like this. That can be valuable. So learning what systems you like, what things resonate for you. But if you're going into the associate experience expecting to learn how to run a business, you are most likely going to be sorely, sorely disappointed. And so if you want to do that from the outset, you're better off maybe getting an associate position, doing your job, and on the side start consuming self help material, start learning from mentors and learning how to run a business in a practice and then go do that, right? Or say fuck it, starting a micro practice with just a small room, a laptop and a table, and doing what I did, which is essentially just bashing your head against the wall until you figure it out. Dr. Nick Harvey: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think I think starting the business journey, you have to do it early. And I would be, even if you're in an associate's associate position right now, I would be thinking about the business systems and building that, getting a coach, getting a mentor. But the practice you're in, just starting to think about how things run. Well, how do these clients come into the building? What what are the processes we have? How are the CAs trained? All of that stuff, start thinking and start watching how it's all done. So you can start building that mental frame for how it's being operated. I was lucky enough, I had a few associateships out of school. I did a few locums, which is where you you go into a practice and cover for, you know, a month or two. And that was really special because I got to, as you said, feel a lot of what did work and what didn't work. I I felt a lot of how I wanted to practice and how I didn't want to practice and That built a lot. And I was constantly thinking, you know, what's working here? What are they actually doing? How how are they operating? And I felt I built a really good frame for when I finally came out and we purchased our practice to know exactly what it is I wanted to do. And even from then, things have pivoted a lot since then. So it's not always going to be set in stone. But you've got to start building that frame and foundation, even if if it's just mentally to begin with, start thinking. I think that's a good place to start. I'd love to deep in into your seminars and and just get a good understanding for everyone listening, you know, what it is you teach, what people are coming in with, what what a lot of chiropractors are missing or and and what patterns you're noticing in chiropractic as well. Strat Poulson: Yeah, so the majority of my seminars are like strictly adjusting. And we don't do a lot of lecture or there's no like PowerPoint slides or accompanying material. usually it's a weekend seminar. Saturday all day is full spine, starting from the occiput going all the way down to the sacrum. and then Sunday is usually full extremities. So we start usually with the TMJ. And then we may do some A to P like anterior rib type stuff. And then we move into every extremity joint. So shoulder, elbow, wrist, fingers, hand, hip, knee, ankle, midfoot, toes. I try to give you a really well-rounded experience with adjusting as much as we possibly can. And throughout that experience, it it really helps me kind of take a look at where everyone is and I'm always surprised because sometimes we have docs who've been in practice for 30 years and I've got try two students who are way better than them. And then you also have you know the reverse. You have docs who've been in practice for 30 years and they're incredible, and then they're working with a partner who's a student and try one who barely knows how to hold a head. So it can be a pretty big differential in skill. But when it comes down to what I see most often It's usually two things. We talked a little bit about it before is a lot of docs are not present with the adjustment. They're they're focused on and even if they're trying to focus, they're not focused on the right things. They're focused on the line of drive, they're focused on their contact point, they're focused on themselves and being about to produce the adjustment. They're not focused on the patient and the state of the patient, where the patient's at ease and relaxed and ready to receive that force, or if they're tense and fighting and they're just they're they're struggling. and so I try to get people to slow down to breathe. Sometimes we do these head holding drills and things like that to get them to understand as that tension dips, you have like this little some people call it a window, right? I think that's actually the origin of the word kairos. I think kairos means like the opportune moment, right? And that's a great way to describe it. you're waiting for that opportune moment, that moment where the patient and you line up, where they're relaxed enough to receive the force and you're prepared to deliver it. And that's that's one huge part that's missing is the intentional adjusting, because you know, lots of people can go make noise, but not lots of people can really be in tune with the patient and deliver an incredible adjustment. And then on the other side of that equation is like when you're lacking the physical side. So one of the most common things I see is both docs and students, surprisingly, just having the wimpiest wet towel, limp wrist adjusting thrusts that I've ever seen in my life. now that's a skill that I have an easier time teaching. I can teach you drills. I can teach you how to create stiffness in your body so that you are ready to to keep your wrist, you know, strong as you adjust. I can teach you things that you can do to work on your quick titch twitch muscle firing and and that psycho motor aspect is easier to teach. It's harder to break someone out of their head. breaking them out of their head so they're not thinking about their self or thinking about other things and pulling them into the moment so that they can focus on the patient and really sense what's going on, that's way harder to teach. It's much harder to get someone locked into someone else's state than it is to get them to produce force. But that's what I see it. I think people will look at my videos and say, you know, I I really like you've got that old school adjusting style. And I always think to myself, like what do you mean old school? I remember seeing a a black and white video of BJ Palmer adjusting and he's got someone on like a knee chest and he's doing just this unbelievable thoracic like toggle recoil type adjustment. And they were really putting force into people. I mean back in the day. And I think that that's what they mean. When they look at me and they You've got that old school style, I was like, I'm a forceful adjuster. I I'm putting heat on my adjustments, but I try as much as possible. to hit them in that opportune moment with intent when they're as relaxed as possible. Because when I blow someone up and they tell me that they were sore for two days after I'm always like, shit, you know, I didn't do a very good job on that one. That's not the intent. You got the powerful adjustment that you wanted, but they're sore as shit for two days. Right? So my goal is to give you a powerful experiential adjustment life-changing adjustment and also have it be smooth and comfortable. And if I can marry those two things together, you get incredible, incredible results. Now do you still get good results if you blow people up and yeah, they feel better once the soreness goes away. Right? But the thing is, especially with some of the adjustments, like I've kind of become more well known for the TMJ toggle and and the the adjustments on the jaw, that's a great example is if you Try to pull some heat off that because you're afraid of hurting the patient or you're afraid of the intensity. And you don't succeed in gapping the joint, making the adjustment occur, correcting the selection, whatever you want to call it, it still hurts. Doing a weak limp wristd thrust on somebody's jaw still hurts, especially if their jaw hurts to begin with. So there's a certain amount of heat that you need to put on it to make sure you're gonna move that joint. And we combine that as much as we can with trying to have the right force vector, trying to have the moment where the patient's relaxed, so that putting that much force into someone is not coming through in a way that's brutal and uncomfortable. Now getting the joint lined up properly is part of that. You know, I I kind of liken that to hitting the sweet spot on a baseball. And this I don't know if Australia has a lot of baseball, but it's a very American pastime, but there's this phenomenon when you hit a baseball and you hit it raw. There's like a reverberation through the bat. It feels bad in your hands. Sometimes it can even hurt your hands because you hit the ball the wrong way. When you hit like a home run, it feels like the ball's not even there. You just hit it, dink, and it just feels like the bat just goes through air and that ball goes flying. Absolute home run. That's what I use as an analogy for when you have the facets lined up right. Like you can do a supine cervical that is powerful and smooth as butter. They're not going to be sore at all. They get up off the table amazed. And that comes from, I like to use like flexion for the cervical spine, so flexion rotation instead of the more conventional extension lateral flexion, contralateral rotation. But what that does is it opens the facets up so that that force goes in one side of the facet and out the other. It glides through like the sweet spot on a baseball. There's no reverberation or concussion of forces. If you get those facets lined up wrong, the facets smack each other during the adjustment. And you get this big reverberation and concussion of forces that goes through the patient's body, feels very uncomfortable. Or you may it reverberates up into your own hand and now like you tweaked your wrist, you tweaked your finger, right? So when you're slamming into this resistance, you can feel it. When you have everything lined up perfectly, you've fine tuned, you've you've really felt the exact unique drive for your patient, you're gonna get this beautiful adjustment where that force just goes straight through, feels Easy and comfortable for the patient, powerful experience for the patient. Feels easy and comfortable for you. And so what I try and do in my seminars is I try and encompass those things and teach as best as I can. Obviously, I have to give you something concrete. I can't. I I always try and encourage, like especially the vitalists, can get in it like woo-woo or kind of like abstract with their language. Like when I was in try one, if you had of like talked to me about feeling the tone of the segment, I'd be like, what the fuck are you talking about? I don't know how to feel it. I don't know how to feel anything. I'm not even sure I'm on the TVP. Right? So there's a certain amount of concrete language you have to use to teach someone else where they should be, what they should be looking for, what they should be trying to feel. But you wanna you wanna try and merge that with practical ways to get people to tune in. It could be as simple as just closing your eyes, because a lot of chiropractors work with their eyes open. And I I think that that is a hindrance. or these head holding drills and these things that we do, but I'm trying to marry. Can I get you to produce force? Can I can I teach you to use quick quick Twitch muscles, can I teach you drills to get better at that? Can I teach you to close your eyes and tune into the patient? Can I give you enough of a concrete explanation that you know where you should be, which direction you should be pushing? You understand the mechanics of the adjustment. And then the last little element to that is like what I would consider the more advanced element is then your intuition. So you know generally the line of drive is I to S, P to A, 45 degrees over the opposite shoulder, right? Well, what about when it isn't? And there's not really a great way to explain. on each particular patient, what's gonna be different about that? Now there's something like I can't remember exactly what the seminar is and so I'm not gonna try and guess. But there's like they talk about watery body types or like the elemental body types, so they're like earthy, deep toned, airy, fiery body types, watery body types. That's a good analog so you have a really flexible person, they're more watery, you gotta kinda contain them, right? You're not gonna use tension based adjusting like long lever torque based stuff. That's a way around it, but we want to try and give some concrete language so that you can understand. But then there is this in this intuition that you develop through really paying attention and focusing when you're practicing. You get this experience of, okay, this type of body, this type of neck feels this way. And it's gonna need a different line of drive or a different degree of force. Or maybe I need more power, less speed to to get through this. Maybe I need more speed, less power. Maybe I need More rotation, more lateral flexion, all those tiny things that a lot of really great chiropractors kinda do just it's subconscious. It's part of your intuition. As soon as you touch, you know. Like, well, how do you always find exactly the right spot? It's like it stands out like a sore thumb. Right? As soon as I touch your neck, oop, there it is. But that's your intention at work. And so it's hard to try and bridge that gap from a student who's like, Okay, what's my line of drive to a thirty year doc where you're talking more about the intention. And I do the best that I can. To try and bridge that divide, give you enough concrete, enough experiential, enough psycho motor, enough soft skill to try and help you approximate that in one weekend. Now are we gonna be successful? No. Right? I can't take you from try one to masterful adjuster in one weekend. But I can teach you the things to look for, I can teach you drills to help you inch closer to that goal. And that's always what I'm trying to do when I'm Dr. Nick Harvey: Yeah, I love it. And I think the biggest thing is, like chiropractic is a process, not an event. So is chiropractic training. It's it's really a process. And I I could not agree more that we need to teach those foundations and those fundamental principles of the line of drive and the contact point and all of the nitty-gritty. And then I think at some point, like you were saying, that does limit you from expressing your art even higher because there is that intuition of when you're connecting with the person, the body's asking for something different. And sometimes it doesn't even make sense in your your analytical brain. It's like, well, why does it want this? And you adjust it and it's perfect. And it feels great. And the they they say it feels great too. And it that's the intuition I think that needs to be deeper trained. But it I I understand it would be difficult to teach people on different levels about that too. just before we finish up the pod, I'd love to touch base on what upcoming courses you have over in the US. I know we were just talking about you potentially coming over to Australia too and what online stuff you offer for docs and up and coming docs. Strat Poulson: Yeah. So you know, I've just recently opened up my new office, hired my first associate. I think we just concluded our fifth or sixth week here at the new office. So right now, like I I just finished teaching in Daytona the other weekend, Daytona Beach, Florida. we don't really have anything on the schedule for the end of twenty twenty seven, or sorry, end of twenty twenty six. Going into twenty twenty seven we're gonna be in in Barcelona, Spain in March. And then we're trying to put together some more dates. I am gonna be teaching here in Dallas, I'm gonna be teaching probably in Atlanta in January or February, probably teaching in California as well towards more like August. I would love to to come out to Australia and so we're gonna link up and make that happen. but when I'm not teaching near you or around you I do always have my online courses available. My online courses are lifetime access for one time payment. So there's no monthly fees, there's no anything like that. Now it's your lifetime or mine, because if one of us dies, right, then there it goes. So if I end up kicking the bucket, those servers will eventually go down because no one will pay for them. But a reasonable lifetime access is included with all my online courses. and so you can find those. If you just look at me up on Instagram at StratPulson, go through my bio, you can find them. seminars. And so I've got all my modules, so cervical spine mastery, thoracic and ribs, lobopelvic, I've got extremity adjusting, I've got a social media marketing module. All that's available all the time. If you come to an in-person course, the videos of the techniques I teach that weekend, you will get automatically included with the price of your in-person sign-up. And then I also do one on one coaching. usually we use that to work through implementation problems so if you get my social media marketing course you start running ads you start shooting videos you're having trouble with your funnel and you need to troubleshoot we do one-on-one coaching calls where we can start to look at the front of funnel end of funnel your conversion process and see where things are falling apart for you or where you're having trouble with implementation. But as far as the seminars just keep an eye out I have a list of upcoming seminars that's updated on my website. So if you see nothing there it's because nothing's announced right now we're getting ready to announce things going into 2027. but we'll be back at it again. Dr. Nick Harvey: Awesome. We're looking forward to it. Well, thank you so much, Strat, for your time today and and being on the podcast. I'm sure a lot of guests will take a lot of value from this. So I appreciate it. I'm sure we will we'll chat again in the future and we'll touch base with a lot of these Aussie docs when you're over here in Australia. Strat Poulson: Thank you for having me. It's been an absolute pleasure. Got to talk about a lot of really cool stuff on on this episode that I don't usually get to talk about. And I've I've really appreciated it. So thank you for inviting me. Dr. Nick Harvey: Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Intune podcast. If you made it this far, I appreciate you being here. And if you enjoyed this episode, I would really appreciate if you could leave us a five-star review and share this with a friend. We'll see you next time.