Latest / The Chiro Money Show / 029 | Rich Is What People See, Wealthy Is What Your Family Feels w/ Dr. Parm Rai
Transcript
- Scott: All right, welcome to the show, Dr. Parm Thank you so much for being here. Chris and I got introduced to you back a couple months ago in the fall of 25 at the Lux Conference out in Vancouver. It was a pleasure to meet you there and to see the community that you had built and get some incredible speakers at that conference as well. So thanks for being here today. We're looking forward to the conversation. Chris: Welcome back to the Cairo Money Show, where we're helping chiropractors make better financial decisions so they can build stability in their finances and a lifestyle that they love. We're your hosts, Chris Scheele and Scott Campbell, financial planners with Align Wealth. Scott: How we doing today? Chris: Pretty good. Scott: you got that intro memorized yet, Chris? When do we think we'll... ⁓ Dr. Parm Rai: Thank you for having me. I'm excited for this. As you guys were just chit chatting, I was away for a little while, so this is best way to jump right back into work and all things that I love. So this is good. Chris: No, I still gotta read it every time. Maybe by episode 50, Scott. Scott: I'm sure our listeners have to be wondering, Chris is so good at that intro, does he? He must have it burned in his memory at this point. Chris: Yeah. Scott: There you go. Chris: getting back right back at it. Love it. Okay well curious ⁓ Parm about ⁓ you went into chiropractic in the first place. I always love hearing from people that are passionate and love and like have so much energy for what they do. Clearly that you were one of those people who you're always smiling always happy. Why did you get into chiropractic? Dr. Parm Rai: Yeah. Chris: I'm not a memorization kind of guy. Scott: Well, we had a great, we have a great guest lined up for today's show. We had Dr. Parm on the show as our guest today. We got introduced to Dr. Parm at the Lux Talks Conference back in the fall in October out in Vancouver. So a little bit about Dr. Parm. He is long time chiropractor, 22 years. As a chiropractor, he's based at a Langley, BC. He's the founder of Dr. Parm Rai: you I am one of those few unicorns that never got adjusted before chiropractic school. Yeah, yeah, I know a lot of times it's like, oh, there's always a few whenever I'm speaking. I'm like, which one of you is it? So my father had always been to a chiropractor. This is when I was born in England. We lived in England. My parents lived out there for about 18 years. I was 11 when I moved to Canada. My dad always used to have this issue with his knee and this is when I was seven or Scott: Trusting. RAI Chiropractic and yeah he's the man behind Lux Talks. What do our listeners need to know about Lux Talks Chris? Chris: Yeah, Lux is just a great community. the whole idea is just like supporting and kind of innovative, working together instead of being siloed in like their own little practices. I think Dr. Parm said in the interview something along the lines of we're stronger together and there's so we can offer each other, support each other and grow in community ⁓ and we can succeed. Dr. Parm Rai: years old I saw this he would just blow up like a balloon it was massive he didn't know what was going on he did as much as he could do the best that he could back then you know typically your traditional way of anti-inflammatories or something for swelling or pain. And then somebody in his workplace said, you should go see this guy. And he's like, I don't know what he does, but he does stuff and he might help you. And obviously he was a chiropractor. That's how so many stories are. I don't know what he does, but he does something. so they figured out, yeah, they figured out that actually his knee issue was coming from his spine and his pelvis. And so, yeah, and this was an old school Cairo. I believe it was a Palmer grad. Scott: for Yeah, it sounds like it's one of the fastest growing chiropractic conferences as well. Growing quickly. think this is their third year back in October of 2025 and just growing and expanding. It sounds like they have really great lineup of speakers for Lux Talks in October of 2026. So definitely go check that out. Yeah, Chris will be there. Yeah. true. interesting. Chris: I'll be there. Yeah, Scott will be busy doing his Iron Man, but I will be there. Dr. Parm Rai: living in the middle of England in this tiny little small town that we lived in. And so my dad would visit him a number of times. He was more your classic acute patient. He wasn't into wellness care or anything like that. He's just a hard worker. When he was hurting, he went. And I saw that from an early age. Like his knee blew up. He knew it was time to go to the chiropractor. And he continued that on even when we moved to Canada. I'm not going to say it was the caros or maybe it was my dad. Like ⁓ never really got the whole family into care. Okay. So, ⁓ I did. Scott: same weekend as Iron Man California, I'll be bowing out of that conference, unfortunately, but Chris will be there to represent. Chris: You have a good excuse at least. Scott: think so. Hopefully it's worthwhile. So what did you appreciate about that conversation with Dr. Parm before we dive in? Chris: yeah, you'll crush it. Cool. ⁓ Yeah, know, I just really appreciated hearing Dr. Parm journey into chiropractic and kind of the impact it's had on him and the he was able to have early on in ⁓ his And also at kind the big picture, you talked a lot about like designing his life ⁓ and... Dr. Parm Rai: see that it helped him so much. It helped him function properly. It helped him earn a living and ⁓ chiropractors number was always in his back pocket. I I wanted to do something in the healthcare field. ⁓ I didn't really like the whole prescription model situation even back then. And one of my friends actually was like looking into chiropractic school and so it's an interesting thing. I almost like kind of stumbled upon chiropractic school. ⁓ Say okay you know what I'm gonna apply. Chris: getting the most out of life and trade-offs and different things and just in general the way this guy approaches everything just with this positive optimistic attitude with desire to build community and build people up around him and yeah just a super fun easy conversation. Dr. Parm Rai: I went through the things that you do to try and get into a school and got into LACC, which was great and nice to move down to Los Angeles. And at that point, I still didn't know if I was going to be a chiropractor. So I know the origin story is very different from many origin stories. ⁓ When I understood that I wanted to become a chiropractor, because I thought I'll give it the first year, I'll see how it's going, see if I like it, if I enjoy it, I stumbled upon the Gonstead Club. Scott: Yeah, always smiling, great energy. You know, he's one of those people that when he's in the room, he makes everyone around around him better. Should we dive in the episode? All right, here's our conversation with Dr. Parm Chris: Thanks Let's go. Yeah. Dr. Parm Rai: So Gonstead being the specific technique within chiropractic, stumbled upon them in the first four to five months of school down there. ⁓ so second trimester, I guess you could say. And that's where I, that's, that's where the origin of story of chiropractic came to me. And that's where I started telling us about chiropractic, what it does, how it does it. We even read through the green books, which I thought was crazy at the time. It like, what is this BJ Palmer readings that they're talking about? ⁓ It's in tongues at times. I went to Parker seminar at Parker seminars. that's when it started sinking in, when I started surrounding myself with chiropractic, the that I come from and many other chiropractors that obviously listen to you come from. Yeah, that's where I truly knew chiropractic was for me. And the thing that really put the icing on the top was in fifth trimester, which is even before I went into clinic, thankfully through Gonstead and lots of training and certifications, I went to El for a chiropractic mission. trip ⁓ this is where I was like okay this is it for me I supposed to be in San Salvador the capital city and they me out of there because somebody was missing in this tiny little ⁓ town called Pedro and I was there by myself and I would see anywhere between 75 to 100 people a day and these people no preconceived notion and this is a fifth try Chris: Wow. Dr. Parm Rai: Right? They had no preconceived notion of what chiropractic was, what it will do. They just knew somebody was here to help them. And the changes that... Chris: Yeah. Dr. Parm Rai: I saw with my eyes and the changes that they experienced, that was it. That was like, okay, I'm never going to leave this profession. Why would I would ridiculous to do that? And so that's my origin story. I know that's a little bit long winded, but not the usual, how it helped me necessarily, but I saw how much it helped others. And I absolutely love that. And now obviously me, like I'm, I could never go ⁓ chiropractic in my life personally, without getting adjusted as well. Chris: ⁓ Yeah. ⁓ Scott: I think Chris and I are both with you there too. Dr. Parm Rai: Yeah, yeah, no doubt. know people, often it's like, ⁓ you know, if you could get rid of one thing, be massage or this or that or whatever else, like you always got to keep chiropractic. Chris: Yeah, totally. Man, that's so cool. Can you tell us a couple of things that you saw with like, do you have some core memories that stuck with you from some of these people that you were that you were treating? Scott: agreed. Dr. Parm Rai: Yeah, so you've ever been to El Salvador, and this is part of the pre-framing the story, like I'm a tall guy. I'm just around 6'3", just 6'3 or so. I don't need to amp it up too much. I'm already up about 6', I guess, so I'm good. ⁓ Just every inch. But people from El Salvador are probably like 5'5". They're very short, like around five feet, five foot four, five foot six type of thing, especially in the town that I was in. basically came up to my waist. so... Just how crippled even at that height they were it was insane because they were just hard-working people of the earth just farmers coffee growers etc And so all they did was just use and abuse their bodies for their livelihood And so ⁓ of them was ⁓ though actually ⁓ had been in this village forever. I don't even know how old this lady was At the time, you know, I was in my early twenties. ⁓ looked like she was 80 or 90 years old and wasn't any appointments ⁓ every People just had to line up. They actually put me in the, in the town's medical office. It was a big deal because in Salvador chiropractic now as well, even now is a very integral part of their healthcare system. So chiropractic did really well in El Salvador that way. so to the point where the mayor is giving me like awards and stuff for being there, they're really into chiropractic. And this was 20 odd years ago. So this woman would line up, she was in a wheelchair, she had her helper, would line up every single morning, be the top top 10 people, first 10 people in the line. And she couldn't walk. She weighed as much as probably my leg. All right. Maybe even less. And so I would pick her up out of this, out of her wheelchair, put her on the table. I would be scoping them first, checking for areas of subluxations, palpation, adjust her ever so lightly, pick her back up and put her back in her chair. And she did this for a week straight while I was there. Every single day she was there, first 10 people. And the day she was there. You gotta remember, I'm still young and not even like actual, you know, I don't have my degree at this point either. I don't know if I should be saying this or not, but, ⁓ so she, they wheel her in ⁓ she creates a havoc. She's like, no, no, no, don't come close to me. Don't touch me. Don't, don't ⁓ anything. I'm like, ⁓ my gosh, I effed up. I must've adjusted wrong. I did something. It's a huge hall of blue. Like she's just not, I thought she wasn't happy. Scott: Thank Dr. Parm Rai: She grabs both sides of the wheelchair, lifts herself up, walks across the room, which is in all honesty, it wasn't a big room. Okay. She walked like three or four steps and sat down on the table. Everyone's in tears. Everyone's in shock. I started crying. This was the first time she had got up and walked with her own legs in years. People couldn't even remember. that Scott: Wow. Dr. Parm Rai: right there was a game changer for me and that was just one of the stories of all those people that we saw all the way from kids that were in wheelchairs and couldn't even feel their legs to I wish we could always follow through unfortunately in those type of situations we disappear and unfortunately they don't get a continuity of care but we're kids that couldn't even feel their legs now are feeling like spiders on their legs I still remember this child he's like 10 years old telling me but through translation I didn't speak any Spanish either by the way this is the wild part most of the time I didn't even have a translator They would just like point to what's going on and then the translator would come a couple hours out of the day or here and there and so I would know if they're progressing well or not or obviously actions speak louder than words. seeing all these different things to some some crazy things or just a side funny story is like somebody came and she was like I got a problem my ankle I'm like no problem let me take a look at it. She had two feet on one on one ankle. ⁓ Chris: Mm-hmm. you Scott: with me. Dr. Parm Rai: Chiropractic, I can't do much with that. I was like, what? Okay, yeah, different type of doctor. But it's some pretty wild stuff that we saw and some miracles that. Chris: You Scott: No doubt. Dr. Parm Rai: So many chiropractors see on a daily basis in our office, right? And a miracle can be defined in so many different ways. Somebody walking across the room is a miracle to someone obviously doing much more than that. It really depends upon the individual. So it was pretty amazing to see those things. And that's when you really, that created a really core foundation for me. And from there, like the only way it was up really. Chris: I love that. So good. So, obviously you finish your schooling, you got your degree. ⁓ Scott: You Dr. Parm Rai: I'm a fish on now. Chris: You're official and you've been practicing for over 20 years now. Dr. Parm Rai: Yeah, I'm going into my 22nd year. Yeah, it's wild when I even say it out loud. Scott: Wow. Chris: second year. Yeah. And now. Scott: And all those years have been in Langley. Is that right? Dr. Parm Rai: Nope, after graduating in Los Angeles, I moved to England. So I was originally from England. So yeah, practiced in Manchester, right downtown Manchester. And then in my old hometown as well, I practiced out there for a little while too. And then eventually I moved back to Langley. Scott: ⁓ so you've practiced your FOIL. Okay. Dr. Parm Rai: That was an economic move actually talking to you guys about that. One of my good friends, he was in Ireland and he was in Ireland for six months practicing and he moved back here and he's like, hey, I found this spot. So I was thinking about opening up in England and I was going to stay out there, but he's like, ⁓ I found this spot in Langley. We could cost share. And I was like, ⁓ okay. So yeah, it kind of made sense to do that at the time. So I came back for family obviously as well on top of everything else and the rest is history. Chris: How long did that last with your friend? Dr. Parm Rai: The partnership, the business partnership lasted about two years, year and a half, two years. We had a three year lease on there then he broke up and did his own thing. We're still very good friends. Obviously, that's one of the things that you really got to make sure that you have in place. We knew that even at a young age. So we actually had a lawyer draft up a business contract, a partnership contract. What goes on? It still isn't always the best conversation, even when you are going through it, not only when you're going through the paperwork, but once it's actually happening. But thankfully, I can I can see a wholeheartedly like I see this guy on a very regular basis. Call him. He's my chiropractor still. So he's one of my very close friends. we still we holiday together. So I'm thankful that we still have that friendship, but it can go sideways quite a bit too. But that first year and a half, two years doing that cost sharing helped a significant amount. Chris: That's impressive. That's impressive that you're still that close of friends after a breakup. Yeah. Dr. Parm Rai: Well, the break up was good because again, we had set parameters already, right? We had those horrible conversations before we went into partnership, which is people don't want that ⁓ why it's a hard easy rather easy hard. It's super, ⁓ it's no big deal. We're buddies. It's going to be fine. I've told anybody and anyone that anybody that gets into a relationship with in a business with a friend or a family, especially it doesn't matter who it is, even if it's a stranger, make sure you have something in writing. Chris: Scott know about this. This is top of mind for us as we've gone through Yeah, official partnership recently and Yeah, I got a shout out the charter I'm not sure if you've heard of that book dr. Parm but wonderful book about ⁓ creating an effective partnership and it really up a lot of those ⁓ difficult things you don't want to talk about that You should talk about at the outset not when something goes wrong Scott: Crucial. Dr. Parm Rai: you Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Same goes for wills and everything else. Partners or husband and wives don't want to talk about, ⁓ we don't want to talk about that. Well, no, you should talk about it and then put it away and then you're good. Yeah. Chris: Exactly. Yeah, you got to take care of it when you don't need it. Don't wait till you need it. Yeah. That's right. That's right. Okay, we're getting off track here. I got to bring us back. Tell us about Lux. I so obviously chiropractic you had this impactful journey and that's kind of form the paved the way of what like leading you to path you're on and what you're doing today. How does community fit into this? Dr. Parm Rai: Yeah. Well, that's why you guys do what you do. Yeah. Chris: Lux is all about bringing other chiropractors together so that you guys are, you know, growing together, not competing. Where did that come from and what's tell us a bit about it. Dr. Parm Rai: From day one, just even business wise, I think it's important that like I grew up in a household that was business oriented. My dad even always used to tell me that like we got to build together like build with your community if it's like we had fish and chip shops when in England they had two fish chip shops they knew the other fish and chip shop owners it wasn't like they were in competition it was like we're all in this together right so it just made that and I've always gone with my mantra that humans are designed to grow together not apart and chiropractors are no different unfortunately chiropractors become islands on their own like individuals on their own individual islands And that's not a good place to be. You're not going to grow like that. And so, and I was seeing there was a need for more community my community, in my specific area in Langley and the lower mainland. ⁓ we had other groups beforehand like EPOC, et cetera, and they kind of broke off and then things kind of fizzled out. ⁓ I there was a need where chiropractors could get together. ⁓ They talk about their challenges, what they're going through, their hardships, their wins. Sometimes, ⁓ you what? It's nice to share your wins with somebody else other than your wife or your dog, right? So it was really needed. And so we started with more of like a monthly, a group and we still have that monthly group. Now it's every few months where we down together. have a half an hour of just hanging out and just some social time. ⁓ And then have a specific hour to hour and a half of a speaker or a specific subject. And so we can ⁓ all ⁓ and together at the same time. And ⁓ that evolved into what you were at last year. That was our third Lux, big Lux, I guess you could call it. We started in Langley, which were with about 60 people and we had some speakers come through, which was great. Then the previous year or two when you guys joined us last year, we were at UBC Robson Square and we had about 130 people. Last year we just had just under 150. This year we're going for close to 200. We've got some phenomenal speakers and just having everybody together growing together together is just a beautiful thing. Scott: So cool. You had some incredible speakers out there October. We were fortunate enough to break away and sneak in and hear a bit of those speakers ⁓ do their thing and share their wisdom with the that you had there. ⁓ I'm Dr. Parm When it comes to Lux, you obviously big picture and I know we'll talk about vision boarding a little bit here later in the conversation, but what's the vision for Lux? Where do you see that going, say five years from now? What does it look like? Dr. Parm Rai: Well, one, I think we can all agree we don't have enough events like this in Canada. Obviously our or brothers or sisters, we're going to call them down south. That's where mainly a lot of these big conferences, et cetera, are. My vision for Lux is it's ⁓ right on track actually is to grow to become not only Western Canada's largest. I think at this point, if we, when hit the numbers that we're talking about, even for this year, we should be ⁓ the Canadian chiropractic conference when it comes to philosophical base, but also ⁓ the way we know chiropractic. So our vision is for it to keep growing, bring in much more caliber, you know, even better and bigger every single year speakers grow to three, four or 500 people ⁓ attending And not just for chiropractors, you'll see even on ⁓ this lineup that we have non-chiropractic speakers as well, because we want it to be chiropractic focused, but for the whole team, even for your patients to come and understand not only chiropractic, but health and what true health is and how important it is. So there is a significantly bigger picture than just learning how to do a day one and day two. Chris: I know you and Scott had chatted prior to this conversation and ⁓ one of kind of key takeaways he had from that was like this ⁓ feedback that one of these people that ⁓ understands the between rich versus wealthy ⁓ and what means to be intentional with what you're building, with your finances in general. I guess ⁓ the question to start with, how do you define ⁓ or how do you see that rich versus wealthy? Share a little bit on that. Dr. Parm Rai: Rich versus wealthy. Rich itself even has a negative connotation to it now. ⁓ feel like when people say I'm rich, you think of a social media influencer or something like that. ⁓ for I believe like my definition is that rich is what people see, right? And wealth is what your family feels. Rich is what you see what you know your overall income or whatever else sure it's coming in but wealth is understanding that you can stop working you can have time that you need you can eat ⁓ dinner with family every single night you can go on a two-week vacation and not worry about am I going to be able to pay my mortgage or my car payment I feel that's what true wealth is wealth is where you created freedom for yourself to be able to do what you want whenever you want it to obviously within reason ⁓ rich is what you're trying to show other people. Scott: Yeah. At what point in your career or was there a time in your career where a switch flipped where you started to realize that there is a gap between the difference between looking rich versus actually living a wealthy lifestyle and wealthy life those that you surround yourself with your friends and your family. Dr. Parm Rai: Yeah, I think it was always instilled in me because I come from immigrant parents, right? That went from India to England to Canada. So they've been immigrants in two different countries at this point and very hard working. Keep your head down and work away and you're going to get where you need to be. Where I started seeing the shift of is more so ⁓ more. Scott: Yeah. Dr. Parm Rai: the more income I was making and the wealthier and the circles that you start hanging out with, you start realizing some of those circles and people in those circles as well may not be as wealthy as you thought they were. And that's where it kind of clicked, right? I was at one point in my early 20s, I knew I was gonna have this conversation. I was in that mid-20s mindset. I was like, you know what? deserve more. I should get something. And I went and bought a 350Z. I ⁓ probably should have put a down payment on a house at that But I was like, ⁓ you know what? I'm going to take this because I always loved that car and I bought it. ⁓ And that was the last time I did that kind of decision making. And I always kind of, that was my anchor to not do those types of decision-making processes either. So, but then as I grew in, like I said, I would say I've seen more of that in the last decade, maybe even the last five years, where, especially where the people that I surround myself with and the people that I talk to and the more, ⁓ more hear about it's like, ⁓ well, look, ⁓ they like they're balling. They look like they're doing great. It's that age old, you know, question you ask chiropractors, how many people do you see? I see. like four to five hundred. Well, is it four or five or is it actually three? It doesn't really matter how many people you're seeing. You don't need to, you know, pump up your chest for somebody else. And unfortunately, that's where people are falling. And it's not just chiropractic in the world. It's everywhere around us. People are falling into this trap that they need to show off to others rather than just, you know, sure that your family feels, you feel what the wealth is. Chris: It's a comparison trap. every industry has it. Every industry has their version of how many do you see a week? ⁓ whatever the question is, right? Like we all have it. Dr. Parm Rai: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Scott: or all the other things that come with running a chiropractic practice and being a business owner, have to, you want to put yourself out there as saying I'm successful, It's human nature to want to have a practice that looks beautiful and ⁓ pulling up and parking out your practice in a certain car and you're wearing the right clothes. that's very, natural. Like tendencies to want that. Like we all crave status to some degree, Dr. Parm Rai: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's more so instead of saying how many people you see you should say show your P & L's Yeah, you know what a pnl is so ⁓ the big thing. That's what I would say to any young chiropractor too, right? Don't get into that trap of how many people you see or what your revenue is Look at what your profits are more than your revenue Chris: That's right. Do you know how to find your P &L statements? Let's that's a good starting point. Scott: right. ⁓ Chris: Right. Yeah. Revenue is a good indicator, but we also the bottom, bottom line, what's, yeah, what's the profit and how are you compensating yourself? I think before we get into any of that, we need to understand. I don't know if you agree, but we need to understand what we're trying to build. Like what's the intention? What, what's important to you? Like everyone's a little bit different, right? Even in chiropractic. Scott: for sure. Chris: Some people want to work a lot of hours. Some people want that balance between family time, you know, doing other ⁓ do you see that playing out right now ⁓ this like status achieving kind of world that we're in lately? Dr. Parm Rai: Well, is an interesting word. I was reading a book and it talked about there isn't any balance, it's trade-offs. Which makes sense, right? Balance, it's this is word, term, this coin that everybody's using and I hear a lot with, especially all ages, I'm not gonna harp on the graduates, but they want balance. Well, what does that actually mean? It means that ⁓ you trade something off. If you want more freedom, or you more time off, well then you gotta trade off making more money. so it's more like what is balance? Well, it depends upon what you're looking for exactly. Like for me, when I was younger in my career, I had a really understanding wife as well. So I did put more hours in. I was on a plane every month going to seminars or doing workshops or whatever it was. But I did that well before. well, before kids got into the picture, because I knew once the kids were in the picture, I always had a mindset of what that looked like for me. And my balance was, even to this day, my kids 13 and 11 years old, we eat dinner five days a week together. Right. That's a, that's a huge, that's a huge deal for me. And it's so it's become a big deal for them. Like if one of them has practice or sports or something like that, they say, okay, well, let's just wait for him to come back or her to come back and then we can eat together. And you can't put a price on that. Right. My, and the ability to travel able to go and show, like we were talking about, we just went, came back from Korea, like taking them to new places, learning new cultures. That's, that's my balance. That's where like. Chris: Yeah. Dr. Parm Rai: Money to me is a tool and freedom is the goal and that's what I work with. Scott: Yeah, I love that. mindset shift of the word balance and balancing what you like lifestyle balance you hear that quite a bit versus trade-offs and maybe if you are early in your career and you do want to have work-life balance and be at the practice 20 hours a week I think that's a great goal you know that's one of the reasons why I kind of got into working with chiropractors initially was they they seem to value that generally speaking they they wanted that kind of lifestyle where they weren't working 50 60 hours a week they wanted to work 20 or 30 hours and that balance of like being at the dinner table with their their family and their kids. That's all important but that comes with potential trade-offs financially. You may not be able to earn as much income, you may not be able to drive the car that you want to when you're 30 or live in the house that you want to grow your family in early in your career because of those trade-offs. Dr. Parm Rai: Yeah, and I'm not making anybody wrong or right. It depends upon what you want. Just like you, like you said there, Scott, like if you want that balance, that bounce or that trade off straight off the bat, great, go nuts. Like I think that's amazing. As long as you know what you want, you can't complain about, well, I'm not seeing, I'm not getting enough or I don't have enough income or I can't go on holidays as much as I want to. if you get to spend that time with your family. great. So or trade-offs, I like to call them trade-offs now more than balance. ⁓ think it just makes sense. ⁓ also what you value, right? And so I knew from the get-go where I wanted to be. We about this earlier in our other discussion where I had a vision, I had my goals written down. I knew exactly what I wanted and I went. balls out to get them straight up. And once I got to that point now, thankfully, it's the again, hard, easy or easy hard, I chose the hard easy, which I'm thankful that I did. And I had that mindset from early age from my parents and the people that I surrounded myself with too. Scott: I remember when we initially chatted, you brought up your dad and how he kind of instilled the early philosophy of paying yourself first. Has that been there? I know you mentioned that you bought the, I forget the name of the car that you bought, the Z30, 350Z. But. Dr. Parm Rai: Three people at the same time. Chris: Yeah. Scott: Tell us more about kind of that mindset because it sounds like you've had some intention with how you wanted to build your career going from hard easy and you had this ultimate vision for you and your family to create freedom. Obviously that takes some intention to build that freedom and that part of that requires you to kind of pay yourself first to invest for the future, future you. How have you thought about that as you've gone through your career? Dr. Parm Rai: The pay yourself first and when I say pay yourself first when he was saying like As he's as he's working away and doing what he does Pay first is like at least even squirreling money ⁓ away, Put it away instead of spending it right there and then and that mindset has stuck with me Like even to the point where I'm telling my kids like they have an they get an allowance or they do like they get money for their birthdays They have to they have zero choice that they have to put 20 % away Chris: you Dr. Parm Rai: always tell that they I've been telling them since they're however old they are now the 13 & 11 so the last Whenever since they started collecting money that you got to do that The mindset was that I understood when looking at my parents and that that's exactly what they did they could have Got the flashier car to a degree or the nicer clothes or go on a different trip rather than just we did road trips. That was it. Those are our vacations, road trips. We never got on a plane or anything like that. And that because they were creating long term wealth. And that's the reason why my parents, like my dad, in his late 50s. He still has a passive income coming from other things that he did. And my mom retired. Well, she's got a few years younger than him. Right. So, and they've lived amazing life and they're still around and they go to the gym six days a week. That was their, that was their goal. Right. And so that mindset has followed me all the way through. And yes, I bought that 350 Z, but after that, it was always. Could I have bought the other things that were materialistic and fun? Yeah, but I always decided, that instead of buying ⁓ a nice looking ⁓ I thought about putting down payment on a That was just my mindset. Chris: when you bought that 350z Did you use your money that you had set aside like your put your your pay yourself first money? Dr. Parm Rai: ⁓ I, I had enough at the point to have a little bit left, but like I said, I splurged and that that's the one thing I often think about is, I ended up buying a house maybe a year after that. Could I have bought that house a year earlier? Probably, but I bought it three 50. ⁓ this is how we learn, right? We all learn from our mistakes. Hopefully it's like, is we grow. So that's where I'm at, where I'm at right now. Chris: Okay. Okay. Dr. Parm Rai: I thank the 350Z. Chris: Yeah. Scott: Sure. Yeah, can't discredit that. a life lesson for sure. A fun one on that note, for sure. had mentioned like you ⁓ have been focused on down ⁓ money down for buying real estate and whatnot. You had told me ⁓ we previously chatted about your story about desire to buy a Porsche 911 and... ⁓ Dr. Parm Rai: Yeah. Scott: you had some delayed gratification for that purchase. You could have bought it a year sooner, but you were focused on building wealth. Can you share with our listeners kind of that backstory of that vision cast of like, need to buy a Porsche 911 one day. Dr. Parm Rai: so Porsche 911 has been my dream car, favorite car for a very, very, very long time. And so when I started doing vision planning and goal planning, had like, actually, that's funny. This is not planned. I'm just gonna grab this. This is a vision board that I made a few years ago and it's still up here. And you guys can see that it's at the bottom. can see Lux Talk is obviously a big deal for me as well. So this is a few years ago. We've already been to Greece, so that was on there. I know we got a nice yacht there. That's more so, we'll talk about that later. So you can see that right there. So that Porsche 911 has been on one of my vision boards for a better part of a decade. Chris: Yep. Scott: Okay. Dr. Parm Rai: And the reason why I was there is because it was the last material thing that I would ever want, or to, obviously we can always grow upon it, but this was my biggest goal to get one of the biggest goals that I wanted materialistically. And every year I would look at it, I think about it, but then end up like I was telling you, Scott, putting investments into something else or getting into, my friends would say, why don't you just go buy one? was like, well, yeah, but I could also invest into this. so delayed gratification goes a long way. I think ⁓ we need to talk more about that with everybody in our society. We that instant dopamine hit now. This was obviously a great dopamine hit, but it took me a better part of a decade. Not because I couldn't, it's because I wanted to delay it. Because I had so many other things that I wanted to put in place so I could live the life that I could. And then last year I went and got that 9-11. ⁓ Scott: I love it. So cool. You know, when I think of that story and what, you know, like you said, you could have bought that 911 sooner. Like I'm sure you had the income to qualify for a loan to buy the Porsche if you wanted it, right? But. Chris: So good. Scott: You know, the train of thought, think when I think of rich versus wealthy, rich is what you see. If you bought that 9-Eleven, you know, eight years sooner, everyone would have saw it and everyone would have had their opinion on Dr. Parm you know, based on what they see, right? You're driving that 9-Eleven, right? But the things that you did alternatively to buying that 9-Eleven, making additional investments and growing and, you know, things that you've done with lux and your practice Some of that stuff you just don't see. wealth is sometimes very much hidden, it's in the background, and people can't make judgement on that because it's not visible to us in the public eye. Dr. Parm Rai: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. that's just like you're saying, like money is what people see, wealth is what you and your family feel, right? the way I define those and it just hits every time I think about that. Chris: You Yeah, like you said, just keep thinking about this, like you could have financed the Porsche, but maybe that would have, that would have, ⁓ Dr. Parm Rai: Put it under Rai chiropractic. Chris: Yeah. And then would you have got to the point where you started sacrificing family dinners to go earn more revenue so that you could pay off the Porsche? Like. Dr. Parm Rai: Yeah, the number of people I unfortunately know that do have lovely luxury cars and more power to them, but they are stressed about their payments, especially when interest rates keep going up. They go, okay, I got this awesome car, but I also have to pay this much more. And, you know, what are the three biggest stresses in our lives? It's health, finances, and relationships. Thankfully, come to a point in my life where none of those are a stress in my life. But when finances are strained, well, it's triune, right? Those three, if one is broken, it's like a three-legged stool. One doesn't work without the others. And so it becomes an issue. And so thankfully I'm not in that position and ⁓ I never been just because of the mindset and the foundation that I had. not only from, again, mentors around me, but my parents and everything I saw as well. Scott: Chris and I were chatting earlier today about another topic and you're sharing in terms of, you know, could have financed the Porsche and, you know, it could add financial stress. And I just think about 2026 right now. I was telling Chris earlier today, 2026 is going to be the year where we see the most mortgage renewals across Canada. And A of people locked into mortgages in 2020 at very low rates. And I'm sure the same can be said about financing cars and lots of different things, right? All the toys got financed at these really low rates. you know, now that these renewals are coming up, that house that you thought you could afford in 2020 now starts to feel like a bit of a pinch because the mortgage is going to go from $3,000 a month to $5,000 a month That puts strain on your cashflow, makes you have to feel like you need to get back to the practice and work harder to make more money to kind of catch up. And meanwhile, that comes to the trade off. Now you're not maybe living the life that you want to and spending the time that you wish to with your family and your friends and being at the dinner table five nights a week. Dr. Parm Rai: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Any any investment, any property that we've bought, I implore everybody to ⁓ this as like, I always look at what is the absolute worst case scenario? And am I going to be able to am I able to not just survive, but am I still able to thrive even if that worst case scenario happens? And thankfully, we do have multiple properties. Do we have mortgages on some? Absolutely. Am I worried about the interest rates? No. because we planned it that way. We understood that we have enough here and there and wherever we need to that if really hits the fan and everything goes absolutely sideways, I just had this discussion. My business partner is my wife, right? My wife is the finances person. She does all the bookkeeping to accounting and everything else in between. She's our business manager. And we have these discussions like actual meetings. And I was like, okay, how's this looking? Cause especially interest rates are going up now apparently and i was like oh no we're good that's how it should be. Yes, we had amazing rates back like ⁓ and even though it's going up, we're still doing just fine. It's because we planned it that way. Right. ⁓ issue is like if you don't know ⁓ numbers that you need, if don't know what your case scenario is, then you're just guessing and guessing sucks. Like, do you really want to guess with your livelihood? Do you want to guess with your family time? Do you want to guess with, you know, your personal freedom? That's wild to me that people even just do that. Chris: Yeah, mean, realistically, there are many things that are out of our control that we can't predict. Like, nobody can predict the future. But the way you frame that of to understand what the worst case scenario could be prepares you for ⁓ those ⁓ of outcomes ⁓ could affect you. And if it's anything better than the worst case scenario, hopefully that's just gravy for you. Dr. Parm Rai: Yeah, and comes, it's like a circle back to our first conversation about business partnerships. You talk about the worst case scenarios first, tuck it away, and then you're prepared for it, right? why we do, that's why we work out. That's why we do, ⁓ why you train our brain to think better is just so that way when the worst case scenarios come along, you're to take it on. Chris: Yeah, that's right. Scott: Yeah. Chris: Can I ask you a question we did not have planned, but you mentioned your wife, your wife is your business partner. You guys literally scheduled a meeting. Like you have scheduled meetings to talk business separate from real life. Dr. Parm Rai: ⁓ okay. Yes. Yes. Otherwise it just gets blurred. It's too much. It's a yeah. So we set meetings at one point it was like every Friday at 10 a.m. We look at our finances, we look at what's happening in the chiropractic office. We have a hot sauce company too, which is actually kind of taken off now, which is great. started that a couple of years ago. We a bunch of properties. So she does a lot of the property management too. So we at that. ⁓ Obviously we at Lux as well. One of our staff who you met, she's like my, like if Joyce is my right hand, she's my left hand. She does so much for all of our companies. so Steph works from our home office a few days a week. And so we sit down and always have meetings and discussions as well. It's so important to be on the same page. This is why, you know, talking about chiropractic for the chiropractors that don't have a weekly meeting with their team. What the like, I swear a lot. I know I haven't sworn at all on this podcast. I'm trying to be nice, but like, what the fuck are you doing? You know what I mean? Like, why are you not having a meeting? I'm sure you two, I hopefully like you're in a partnership. Scott: you Dr. Parm Rai: You're probably a scheduled meeting. We're going to sit down and talk about this. You need to be able to communicate with your team, with your spouse, with your kids very openly. So everybody's on the same page. It's kind of like, you know, ⁓ has kids, if you keep screaming at them about them doing something wrong. ⁓ that's fair. But if they don't understand why they're doing it wrong, what are the solutions? How can they do better? What can they do to change their patterns? Well, then you're doing it's fault. If something's not working in your office or in your life, the first person that you have to question is yourself. Chris: I could not function without our weekly meetings. We have our like detailed like what's going this week meeting. And then we also have our big picture, like directional. And then on top of that are monthly or quarterly reviews ⁓ of finances and all that stuff. ⁓ how can you not? You need know where things stand. Dr. Parm Rai: You can't get away from that. Like within our office, we have our team, but then within our team, we have our marketing team. have obviously our doctor team we have. So each one of those teams gets meetings as well. And it seems like, ⁓ my God, how many meetings are you going to do? Well, it doesn't have to be two hours long every single time. The part is that everybody is able to discuss what's happening, where they're at, what their goals are. Is something going right? Is something going wrong? That's the only way you're to grow. If you don't know where the problem areas are, if you don't know even what your wins are, but while it is working, while it isn't working, you're not going to get very far. Scott: Can we end with a fun personal question for you, Dr. Parm I can wrap in health and intention here. I can see that you have a lot of intention with your day-to-day on taking care of your health. You're out walking a lot. I see you posting in your home gym on the rower with the slam ball, all this good stuff. So Chris and I, we've dipped our toe in the Hyrox arena. Every time I see your posts, I'm like, all right, Hyrox is coming out your way to Vancouver this year. Chris: We talk. Dr. Parm Rai: Sure. Thanks Yes, yeah he did, yeah. Thanks. Scott: looking for a man need a doubles partner. Dr. Parma. Are we interested some point? Dr. Parm Rai: Oh man, okay, you just said potentially potentially. Yeah, I remember so you guys have mentioned that last time I missed out on the bar hang last time too. I was just kept running around but we'll have to get that in there too. The Hyrox is definitely and I have a few other friends that are running it too. They did the last one in Vancouver. I definitely have to put a little more training into it but there's a good potential that I'll be there. Scott: Alright. Chris: Yeah. Scott: You did. Let's go, Dr. Parm we'll hold you to that. We'll hold you to that. Dr. Parm Rai: Yeah, I appreciate it. It's a two day rule, right? Day one, you're Miss one day, you're human. Miss two days, it becomes a habit. So it doesn't matter what you're doing, if it's financial planning, if it's ⁓ or mental or anything in your chiropractic office that you want to change, just keep it with the day two rule. Scott: I saw you posting about that when you were away for two weeks in South Korea. I'm sure you missed the odd day, but you always got back on the horse. Got to the gym. Dr. Parm Rai: Yeah. ⁓ Two weeks that we were away, it helps having an accountability partner, which is my wife. Two weeks we were away, I think we only missed three or four days of not working out. And again, the kids are still sleeping, go downstairs, get it done. It doesn't have to be an hour workout, even if it's 15, 20 minutes, it's better than zero. Chris: You have such a strong mindset. How do you stay so positive and just so strong in your mindset? Dr. Parm Rai: Life is a bonus man. Like if you look around you see what's happening in our world right now. We're sitting in front of like I'm sitting in a beautiful office right now in my house. I had a hot shower. What is it like they say like 95 % or 80 I ⁓ know what the percentage is 80 plus percent of the world doesn't even have a hot shower right now. If you had a hot shower this morning, you're winning. Right. So that's the way I look at it. have my people around me that keep me accountable to my mindset as well. Do I kind of, can we all dip and flow? Yeah. But big picture. We got a beautiful life, man. We're living a life of bonus. Like if you, if for me, especially I've hit every single material goal I've talked about, I've hit every single financial goal that I wanted when I was in my early, I wrote down things when I was in my early twenties, what I wanted and I far surpassed those. If I was happy with what I wanted back then, everything else above that is a bonus. So currently I live a life of bonus. And so how the hell can you get down in the dumps with that? Chris: power of writing down goals you you fix Dr. Parm Rai: Yeah, it's awesome because I have. They're right here. this is one of my journals. This is a, this is the one that I put all my business and thinking, et cetera, and goals. And I have another one right here. Like this is my desk that I'm sitting at. That's why they're within reach where I just talk about just the free thinking, but I have stacks of these books so I can go back years and look at what I wrote down, where I wanted to be, what were my goals for 1998. And it's pretty amazing to be able to look back and say, okay, that's what I did. I'm not a digital guy at this point. I know. I'm still old school, turning 47 this year. I still like writing things down. Scott: nothing wrong with Chris: nothing wrong with that. Dr. Parm Rai: Cool. Scott: All right, well, we'll look to wrap it here with you, Dr. Parm This has been an awesome conversation. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to join us. Where can people find more about you, practice, Lux, what do you want to share with our listeners? Dr. Parm Rai: Our practice, Restore Align Inspire, RAI Chiropractic. You can find us online, you can find us on Instagram. Lux for sure for those of you who listening who have never even heard of Lux Talks, make sure you come out to that. It's in Vancouver, right downtown, luxtalks.ca. That's our website, that's also our Instagram handle. This year is gonna be amazing. We got... Billy Dee already on the books. got Dr. Lana Cook. going to be a pretty fire ⁓ Chris: Awesome. Love it. Thank you so much, Dr. Parm for joining us. Scott: Yes it will be. And I was just waiting for you to say Dr. Parm and Chris and Scott will be there from Align Wealth ⁓ okay, sorry. Missed that. We'll bring the pull-out bar back. We'll bring the pull-out bar back. Dr. Parm Rai: That's your boy. Yeah, I just said that. said Align Wealth is going to be there. It's going to be amazing. You got to accept. Well, I do want to say thank you so much for having me on. know we met in person for the first time last year at Lux. I just love your guys energy. I love your positivity. I love what you stand for. ⁓ need more companies like you, not only in our profession, obviously many other professions, chiropractors and everybody else on this really need, or especially in our Western world, need people like you for them to understand where they need to be and what they need to do. So I really love you positivity. I love your energy. Thank you so much for having me. Scott: Thank you, Dr. Parm We appreciate it. Chris: Beautiful. Dr. Parm Rai: Cheers.