Full Transcript 0:00 God, I'm really getting crushed off stage. 0:02 I need someone there. 0:03 So now you can hire an MA or administrative assistant, someone. 0:06 God I am really going to get crushed clinically, so maybe you need to bring in someone to help you, like a coach, with lifestyle coaching and nutrition, 0:12 etc. 0:13 . God! 0:13 I really am not getting any leads. 0:15 Now I have to go out there and bring someone who can help me with marketing. 0:18 It's understanding where are those three spots you would help and intentionally and strategically bring people in. 0:24 And you could do it without a lot of resources. 0:28 Welcome to the Integrative Medicine Roundtable, where practitioners lead, brought to you by the North Carolina Integrated Medical Society, 0:35 join integrative health care leaders, clinicians and innovators as they share practical insights, emerging research, and the conversations shaping the 0:43 future of patient care. 0:48 Hey, welcome to the Integrative Medicine Roundtable. 0:51 I'm Dr. 0:51 Deb Matthew and I have the privilege today of interviewing my good friend, Dr Tracy Gappin. 0:57 Dr Gapin has been a renowned urologist and he saw the light and found that there was so much more that he could offer to his patients. 1:08 And he pivoted his career and opened up the Gaffin Institute and now he's gone beyond that. 1:15 Um, and these are some really exciting things to help other practitioners also make that leap. 1:19 And so I'm really excited to have you here today so that you can tell us all about it. 1:23 Oh, thanks so much. 1:24 Yeah. 1:24 So, um, as you said, I am a recovering urologist, spent 20 plus years, injuries and medicine. 1:31 My focus was robotic surgery, prostate cancer, really men's health was my jam. 1:36 And about halfway through my career as a lot of doctors experience, I hit a wall. 1:40 I wake up one day and I am fat, miserable, unexhausted. 1:45 And I just, just couldn't go on anymore. 1:50 Went to go see a doctor myself. 1:52 My wife actually convinced me to finally do this and doctors are terrible patients as we know. 1:56 And so I went for my first physical, I'm 40 years old, and this concierge doctor in town tells me I am fine. 2:04 I just need a statin because my cholesterol is high and that was it. 2:07 Well, damn it I know I m not fine, like I realize then that I needed more help and here I was the men's health expert and I didn't know what the hell to 2:16 do either other than just diet and exercise. 2:19 You're about and so that got me I'm studying going out rabbit holes of epigenetics and that started looking at function learning functional medicine and 2:28 then hormones the right way it'll teach you this in medical school how to do hormones right away and in peptides and really the science around what we 2:34 now call you know longevity medicine. 2:37 And I was able to get healthy and I started sharing this with my patients and my practice and. 2:43 I realized that you know traditional medicine is great it serves its purpose when the second car accident heart attack you need it. 2:50 But when it comes to, to optimize and when he comes, you know, helping with the energy and drive and feel alive again and it feel amazing, 2:57 there was nothing there for that. 2:58 And so I, I jumped off the figurative cliff and built an entire business around that and I now love what I do. 3:05 I truly wake up every day and love, what do I and, and can't say that was the case before. 3:11 So now fast four years later, well, my real passion I realize now is helping other doctors do the same thing. 3:18 Because rather than helping one patient at a time, I could help millions by helping other doctors do the same thing. 3:22 That's mighty. 3:23 Can you talk a little bit more about what is it that you do in your practice day to day? 3:27 Because your practices is very unique. 3:29 Yeah, so I have an amazing team around me. 3:32 And so, and I've constructed it intentionally. 3:33 So, you know, I, decided very early on that I don't want to be the practitioner. 3:38 I would rather, um, assistance guy, when I'm an entrepreneur at heart, Um, i'd rather build the system, the model for my team to implement. 3:45 and so the first thing I had to do was really be very clear and construct what is my approach, what's my methodology, how am I unique? 3:51 How am i different? 3:52 how can I help people? 3:54 And then I started building the systems behind that. 3:57 And so I have a medical team and the medical teams is mid-level nurse practitioners, PAs, even other medical doctors as well. 4:04 I've a very clear methodology and approach on how I manage diagnostic testing. 4:08 What tests do we do? 4:09 How do you put them together? 4:11 How do we construct a medical plan in terms of hormones and peptides or supplements and occasional medications and and how do you decide what to use when 4:19 and you know, I call it clinical intelligence. 4:20 So how Do you put all that together? 4:22 So first is the medical team then I have a coaching team and I Have I've gone through a lot of different health coaches and what I learned is that FDN, 4:31 Functional Diagnostic Nutrition and Integrative Restorative Health, IRH, those programs have very specifically trained coaches that are great for what 4:41 we do, which is, you know, focus on optimization and performance and a functional approach. 4:45 And so I've built a team of coaches, again, trained in my methodology, but they use their expertise to do the work that they do. 4:53 And then I combine that with advanced diagnostics, we combine it with wearable technology. 4:57 We have a custom app that we built where you can see your wearables data, your genetics. 5:02 You can also see all your lab results. 5:04 we have custom agent on there where we can actually pull your data in to ask questions and it will give you real answers based on your own data. 5:11 And so I built this entire system around my approach and methodology and I'm not seeing patients. 5:16 Like I want to be clear, I built this massive business and I have a couple of VIPs who are paying me a lot of money if they want see me personally, 5:21 but that was by my design. 5:23 So a lotta doctors want keep seeing patients. 5:25 That's great. 5:25 You can do that. 5:27 But the model is all around building a team so that you can reach many more people than just a solo practitioner ever could. 5:35 So if somebody is out there and they're thinking, wow, that sounds great, I'd like to do that too. 5:39 I have a whole bunch of questions about like, how did you get here? 5:42 So one of the things, like I've been to your office and I seen it's beautiful and it looks nothing like a doctor's office. 5:50 It's a beautiful space. 5:51 Can you maybe just for a couple seconds talk about why did create the environment that you did? 5:57 Yeah, great question. 5:58 So I think when we are building our practice, you have to start with first, who were you served? 6:03 And so I'm really, intentional about the boring stuff that I've done billions of times, but every time you do it, it matters and you get it even better 6:11 and better is who you serve it. 6:13 Who is the ideal client, your avatar that you're serving. 6:15 Get very clear on not just what do they drive and what podcast they listen to. 6:21 That's the base. 6:22 I'm talking about like the psychogravants. 6:23 What are their real fears? 6:24 What other emotion? 6:25 what drives them? 6:26 And what they really care about. 6:28 And what would serve them. 6:29 And so I focus on my avatar. 6:30 What are their goals? 6:31 What other challenges? 6:33 And then how could I build it around them? 6:35 Then I focused on me and I think about what do I do? 6:39 Well, what's my, you know, in strategic coaching, talking about your unique ability, What do do well and how can I use that to help my Avatar with their 6:47 challenges and goals that we just established? 6:49 and then I can start to construct an offer around that. 6:52 And so everything is very intentional. 6:53 The design of the office was very intense. 6:55 All the design, of my offer, the packages, what testing is included. 7:00 It's all. 7:01 Congruent, if you will, and so then when I'm out speaking, so I do a lot of stages and small group talks and podcasts and we have our own podcast about 7:10 to launch and do fun talks like this with you. 7:13 Whenever I. 7:13 Do this, it's always very congruent. 7:15 Everything I I am sharing aligns with the offer. 7:18 Which align with my unique ability, which align to the avatar and all make sense. 7:22 And so then when I'm on a sales conversation, it's actually easy. 7:25 I just basically repeat everything that has gotten them to that point. 7:27 And that's what basically aligns it all together and has helped me grow. 7:31 Being very authentic to who I am, I never like a Salesperson, never selling stuff that I don't believe in and in alliance with my avatar. 7:40 What happens a lot of times, true with me, is my Avatar is really me. 7:45 or like so many of us, and we build a practice, a program, an offer, it's around us. 7:49 And so I am, you know, I, as the miserable, burned out, sick urologist I was, that's really who I serve now. 7:59 Now, how did you learn how to do all of this? 8:02 Because none of these I presume you got from your urology residency program. 8:07 So, so if there's somebody who wants to like jump off the cliff like you did, How do they learn How to Do All? 8:14 Yeah. 8:14 Um, it takes time. 8:16 There's a, there's, a lot of work involved in doing obviously many years that, you know, about 12 years now I've been building this and I see a couple 8:22 of different sides there. 8:23 First is the clinical side. 8:24 That's actually the easy side, like we, as doctors, we know how to learn medicine. 8:30 Exactly. 8:31 So if you're learning hormones, you can go to Donald White's EHRT training, or you could go world like medical, for example. 8:37 If you need to learn peptides, go seeds, SSRP, A4M. 8:42 You can learn functional medicine, IFM or Kalish Institute. 8:45 Learn all these different modalities or places you go for that. 8:50 I support them, I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel and create those trainings. 8:53 They're out there. 8:54 But that's the easy part. 8:56 The part that I love and that was the hardest part to learn is how do you build a business, right? 9:01 And it's around building your team, building a culture, build in your offer. 9:05 How do we do the marketing that aligns with it? 9:07 How did he do? 9:08 The sales conversation, how did you built a sales team? 9:10 and then how'd you do all the digital tech stuff behind it, the website, The landing pages, they email the copy and all that stuff. 9:16 Um, and so that's the hard part. 9:19 And I look at it as there's, there're three parts of the practice. 9:24 And this is actually the first time I've ever shared this actually publicly. 9:27 I share this with doctors and never on a podcast. 9:29 So I look at it like a theater. 9:32 You have front of the curtain, right? 9:34 You're getting a show. 9:34 The front curtain is like all your marketing and your messaging, your website and conversations like this. 9:40 That's all where you share what you do, how you can help people. 9:43 And then you have behind the curtain. 9:44 That's where you actually do the work, the actual programs and services offer that you do. 9:48 And. 9:48 Then you up off stage, which is your team and the administrative support and, and. 9:52 The medical assistants and DAs and everyone else helping you. 9:57 and what I find is there's always one of those three areas that need to focus on. 10:01 In the beginning, you're doing a lot of work getting behind a curtain and dialed in so that. 10:05 You have a solid offer and you know what the heck you are doing. 10:08 you, know how to take care of patients and really giving your results. 10:11 Your selling results, your selling outcomes, right? 10:13 And then you can go front of stage and start selling and promoting it. 10:16 And you realize after a little bit, oh my God, I need help. 10:19 I'm working too hard and being burned out again. 10:22 That's when you need to start hiring more people off stage. 10:25 So I think it has got a constant evolution of those three. 10:28 and so I have like a sequence, a process of how you do that. 10:32 But those are the pieces that need all come together. 10:37 If we've got somebody who is contemplating is trying to do something like this. 10:44 So they need to learn the clinical part of it. 10:46 How, at what point should they take the job? 10:48 Like, do they to be an expert at the critical part before they start, or what would they recommend? 10:54 Yeah, so when I decided to make this move, I first learned epigenetics. 10:59 I took a course from one of my mentors, Dan Stickler, a Peron. 11:02 And I learned how to look at, snip by snip, genes related to, you know, nutrigenomics, and sleep, in phase one, phase two, 11:09 detox, I was learning gene by gene, how do you interpret them, and now it's all automated, it is all AI generated, super fast and easy. 11:17 But I went out there with that as an offer. 11:19 My first offer was the Edge blueprint. 11:21 It was ugly, in hindsight it was cringe worthy, but it got me started. 11:27 I started selling that, simply reading your genetics and telling you based on that what should you be eating and how to eat, 11:32 macro ratios, what supplements do more or less of, or how can I improve your detox, all these amazing insights from just a genetic report. 11:39 And I built on that. 11:40 And then I was constantly learning more. 11:41 So I'm learning behind the curtain. 11:44 Now I am offering more, now I offer a program that incorporates more services than the FGX. 11:50 Because now, I've learned some formulas of peptides I can integrate and weave in there now. 11:54 My program has refined, become more improved. 11:59 I could charge more money because I have more confidence now but I did all of that while still running a urology practice. 12:03 and so I talk about not jumping off the cliff. 12:06 I never recommend any doctor just quit their practice and start doing this. 12:09 I talked about the bridge model, which is start slow, start by just a single offer within your practice, put something out there and, 12:17 and scar to collect money to prove to yourself that you can actually charge cash for this, get confidence, understand your avatar, 12:24 what they want, where their challenges and goals are, And then keep improving your skills as you evolve it. 12:30 So eventually. 12:32 You build an offer, you build a team and a practice and now you can jump off that cliff and you know your parachute is going to open. 12:38 But not until then can you lead your practice. 12:40 And what I did was I had a half a day a week dedicated to this work and then a whole day week and the two days a weekend. 12:47 At some point I was doing this three days week in barely doing urology and that's when I kind of knew it was time to move on. 12:52 So I would be very strategic and intentional about making that move. 12:58 But I think what I'm hearing you say is you don't have to be the world's expert on everything before you start somewhere. 13:05 I still learn it. 13:06 We're here at Synergy and I learned stuff this morning about mold that I didn't know before. 13:11 So you're always learning. 13:12 You will never know it all. 13:14 This is where I rely on a team. 13:15 I relying on surrounding myself with experts and knowing that we're never going to know what all, but you have to start somewhere. 13:22 And I loved one of my mentors taught me this, you know who it is. 13:26 He taught the concept of imperfect action. 13:29 You just have to go, you just start as ugly and as imperfect as it is, just be raw and be real and just put it out there. 13:38 And you're going to learn so much by just starting. 13:42 Instead of trying to make it perfect, doctors, we like to try to be perfect. 13:45 Never mind, let's be just right before we go. 13:47 But the longer you delay, your hurting yourself because that's time that you could be gaining experience and getting traction out in the market. 13:54 I think that in medical school, like in our medical training, we are literally trained to be perfectionists because the worst thing that any medical practitioner 14:04 could do is make a mistake, right? 14:05 People can die if we make mistake. 14:06 But in business, being a perfectionist is the opposite. 14:09 We need to able to take imperfect and make mistakes and we learn from our mistakes, and repivot, but the faster we can make the mistakes the better we 14:16 get in the business. 14:18 Exactly. 14:18 We are literally sort of bred to be bad business people because of our fear of making a mistake. 14:24 That's right. 14:25 I think that holds a lot of practitioners back. 14:27 Yeah. 14:27 So I, I thing that the concept that I would, that would put out there is you want to ahead of your skis in some extent in terms of the business side, 14:35 putting the offer out of there in term of being outside your comfort zone. 14:39 It's supposed to uncomfortable. 14:40 This should not be easy. 14:41 But everybody would do it. 14:43 Exactly, right? 14:44 But you should always stay within your lane clinically. 14:46 Like, I'm not suggesting that you start creating protocols and stuff that your not comfortable with from a medical perspective. 14:51 No, first do no harm, still apply, but you can still put yourself out there more in terms of the business and the offering. 14:57 I think we underestimate how much we really know and how we can help people. 15:01 When I first started, I remember thinking, hey I gotta learn this, this before I can go. 15:06 And what I really learned is you just need to know one thing. 15:10 Start with that one and then keep adding things and behind the curtain as you start getting more and more knowledge, now you can start offering more. 15:17 But you gotta start somewhere. 15:19 So for people who are trying to have their own practice, there are some pain points that are common to most people. 15:27 Marketing and trying find patients, hiring and managing a team and finding the right people and having them stay. 15:34 Have you had those kinds of challenges? 15:37 Definitely. 15:37 Yeah. 15:38 Staffing is probably one of the biggest challenges that we will experience as we build our team, our practice, or business. 15:44 I love starting with an accountability chart, right? 15:49 You think of an organizational chart but we really want to think about it as an Accountability Chart, which is where you are very clear on where your business 15:56 is going, not right now, but five years from now so that you have all the pieces in place and there is the sales and marketing, 16:02 there's the operations, and then there are some finance divisions of your company. 16:06 And you want to have it mapped out. 16:07 Even if you're in multiple spots now, you'll want start to think about what are the different positions that you will need to build, 16:13 right? 16:14 And now as you start build your business and your practice and the offer, now you can start identify, God, I'm really getting crushed. 16:22 Off stage, I need someone there. 16:24 So now you can hire an MA or administrative assistant, someone. 16:27 They are gone. 16:27 I'm really getting crushed clinically. 16:28 Some of you need to bring in someone to help you like a coach or you know, help with lifestyle coaching and nutrition, et cetera. 16:34 God, am really not getting any leads. 16:44 and intentionally, strategically bring people in. 16:46 And you could do it without a lot of resources. 16:48 So I'm not suggesting that every person works for you full-time employee with benefits and all that. 16:53 You can hire virtual assistants for eight bucks an hour and get a really incredible value from them. 16:59 I am a big believer in staying in your lane and identifying what is your unique ability. 17:06 If it's not what you should be doing, you need to hire out. 17:10 I think of, you might need to fire yourself from that. 17:13 Absolutely. 17:13 Right. 17:14 I'm thinking of it now that I am worth a thousand dollars an hour. 17:17 That's the mindset we all need. 17:19 We are worth $1,000 an hours. 17:21 At one point early on in the business, I mean, go high level. 17:24 And then our CRM like nested with automations and email series on that's not about that $8 an our work. 17:30 So once we have that perspective, we start to realize I should not be wasting my time because I can't build the. 17:35 If I do $800 an-hour work, And so that's where the accountability chart helps get really clear from a systems perspective on who do I bring in and when. 17:44 So you have some really important insights into like how to get to this place in a business and because you and I have been in. 17:52 A lot of coaching groups and masterminds and things like that together over the years. 17:56 I know that both of us have really benefited from learning from people who have walked the path ahead of some people, who are ahead. 18:03 What is your take on mentorships and leadership coaching and things like that? 18:08 Do you recommend that for Pete? 18:10 I am a, a constant learner. 18:14 Um, I, um, huge believer in coaching. 18:19 I have three coaches of my own. 18:25 I never stopping, right? 18:26 There's always something to learn. 18:27 And I find that the, the personal development and the leadership development side of it is probably more important than any else we learn because as I 18:37 build my team, they look up to me as a leader and how do I. 18:41 portray myself. 18:42 How do I speak to them? 18:43 How to I build the team the right way and put the pieces in place? 18:48 That's more important than anything. 18:49 The clinical stuff you can learn ends up being the super easy stuff. 18:52 And so I'm a big believer in mentorship. 18:54 I created my own mentorship as I know you do as well to help doctors. 18:58 go down this path is tough and it's confusing. 19:01 It's overwhelming and, um, and as hard. 19:04 Um, but I believe that everyone needs a coach, whether it is for fitness, weather is, for, you know, health, weathers for business, 19:11 whatever. 19:11 And so, I, believe it was so important that you had somebody guide you and success leaves clues. 19:17 because I think that like the challenge with finding the right team is often getting really great people to want to come and work with you, 19:24 but then you want them to stay working with and not like go off and do something else. 19:29 And I feel like a lot of people think the problem is they need to find the people. 19:34 They don't often understand that you have to become the leader for them who want be on your team and the way that we do that is what you're talking about here. 19:42 So can you talk about What is it that you do to help the people who are trying to create this kind of practice? 19:49 Yeah. 19:50 So when you're building your team, I think it's really important to really create the identity of your practice. 19:57 And it often mirrors your own identity, of who you wanna be, what do you want your practices to be? 20:01 And this starts with core values. 20:03 We have our five core value, and every business should have a certain number of core-values. 20:08 Our first core is a perfect client experience. 20:10 Like day one of our practice, we said that. 20:12 Perfect client-experience. 20:13 Everyone knows they align around the fact that whatever we do, Our our main point has to it's called QBR Queen B's role from a book called Clockwork, 20:22 Michael McKellips. 20:24 Everything we do has. 20:25 To provide a perfect clients. 20:26 We all do that. 20:27 Everyone else fails. 20:28 So when we set that culture, everyone. 20:32 adopts and follows and lives by those core values, now you can start to build a team around that. 20:38 I'm a big believer in testing. 20:39 So disc testing and personality, personality testing, and Colby testing for every one of our employees, every applicant, 20:46 any position in the company. 20:47 We are very clear on what that disc personality test should look like and what the Colbys should like. 20:51 And when someone interviews, it's not, oh yeah, like her, she's great. 20:55 No, do they fit the role that we're looking for and do the fit in their culture and in, in that the team that were trying to You can teach content. 21:03 You cannot teach character. 21:04 Yeah. 21:06 So you have a coaching program now where you mentor people. 21:11 That's right. 21:12 What is that called? 21:13 How do people? 21:15 Yeah. 21:15 So, um, a peak launch Institute is the, my entity and we have what's called a momentum mentorship. 21:20 And it's where I work with doctors one-on-ones. 21:22 We do one on one calls every month. 21:24 we had group calls. 21:25 Every month where probably the biggest value is, uh, learning together. 21:30 so, I shared actually an experience where. 21:33 I lost my medical team recently and I had to rebuild that and share with these doctors what I'm going through. 21:39 As mature as my practice is, we all experience it. 21:42 So learning together like that is so valuable. 21:44 And so we have a group dynamic call every two weeks. 21:48 We have in-person event every quarter where at peak launch in south Florida, We all come together and we learn and they see how we run live events. 21:57 And I have a program, a digital program as well that goes through, I think I made like 105 videos of every aspect of building the business from the businesses side, 22:06 the clinical, sales, marketing, all of that kind of put together. 22:09 And then my book is coming out in October called Doctor 2.0 and so everyone in the mentorship gets a copy of the book. 22:15 That's so exciting. 22:17 If you were going to have to start all over again, what advice would you, do you know now that you wish that would have known back then? 22:26 Move faster? 22:28 Trust yourself, have confidence in what you believe in and put yourself out there. 22:34 Be uncomfortable. 22:36 How are you different? 22:37 How were you unique? 22:38 What sets you apart? 22:39 And there is some things, most doctors don't think they're different. 22:42 They are, they are special in a certain way. 22:43 Give me an example, one of the dots I'm working with, he's in Park City, Utah and he is leading ER medicine and wants to open a men's health center. 22:50 You would think me as a Urologist running peak loss, background is health. 22:54 I don't want to help him. 22:55 Of course, I want help everyone else. 23:00 And so like there's not a sense of competition. 23:03 There's a since of camaraderie. 23:05 For him, with Mark, I was like, you know, help me understand how you're different and unique. 23:10 What we got clear on with him is he loves to help men who want to perform better on the mountain, whether it's hiking or skiing. 23:17 So we doubled down on that. 23:18 It's just not mental, it is not testosterone. 23:21 I help man perform on a mountain. 23:23 That's a very special, unique message that he's going to attract the right clients for his practice. 23:30 And I love that. 23:30 He's now rolling and thriving because we got clear on what that messaging is. 23:34 So get clear and who you are, get clearer on, on. 23:36 What you stand for and put yourself out there and don't be shy. 23:40 Don't hold back. 23:42 People are going be drawn to you as a human being and what you. 23:45 Stand for not the clinical stuff. 23:46 That that's people want to lead with the, uh, the hormones, that peptides, those are just the tactics. 23:51 Those are the how. 23:52 What really matters is who do you serve and how could you help them? 23:55 And I think sometimes that's hard. 23:57 Like it's one thing to kind of maybe like to figure that out for yourself. 24:02 Sometimes it helpful to have somebody to look at you and help see that in you when it is hard for you. 24:09 That's right. 24:09 Yeah. 24:10 You know, the analogy to that is I've heard that I love is sometimes when you're in the jar, you can't read the label. 24:15 Yeah. 24:16 Or you can't see the picture when you're in the frame. 24:18 That's right. 24:19 Yes, exactly. 24:19 So working with somebody can make a big difference. 24:21 If somebody wants to know more about you, your practice, maybe they want to even be a patient, or they're interested in learning more, 24:28 about your mentorship program, how can they find out more? 24:30 Yeah, thanks so much. 24:31 Our practice website is peaklaunch.com. 24:34 And any doctors who want a look at just jumping on a call with me to learn more how I can help them with their practice is PeakLaunchInstitute. 24:40 com. 24:41 Well, thank you so Thanks for joining us on the Integrative Medicine Roundtable where practitioners lead. 24:50 If you found value in today's conversation, follow our podcast, share it with a colleague, or visit us at ncintegrative.org and join our community today. 25:00 We'll see you at the next roundtable.
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