Show notes
Meet Dr. Chad Polley, a dedicated chiropractor based in Brandon, Florida. With board certification in neuropathy by the American College of Physical Medicine, Dr. Polley has an extensive background in rehabilitative care. He obtained his Doctor of Chiropractic degree from Life College of Chiropractic in Marietta, GA, following his graduation with a BS in Biology from Florida State University. Growing up as a “military brat,” Dr. Polley attended 13 different schools before college and has lived in Riverview, FL for nearly 15 years. In his free time, he loves spending quality moments with his family at the beach and traveling to new destinations. Additionally, Dr. Polley is passionate about supporting chiropractic students nationwide to prepare and pass their National Board Exams through a rigorous review program. Driven by his commitment to helping patients achieve optimal health and wellbeing, Dr. Polley remains up-to-date with the latest advancements in healthcare. His ultimate goal is to provide exceptional care, empowering his patients to regain their freedom and pursue the activities they love. TRANSCRIPT JAMES CHESTER (HOST): You made it to Chiro Hustle! Sit back and learn from the greatest influencers in the profession on the world’s number one chiropractic podcast. JAMES CHESTER (HOST): Before we dive into this powerful episode, please remember to subscribe to our channels and give us a 5-star rating on iTunes to continue hustling. This episode is sponsored by the Transact Card, Align Life, Brain-based Health Solutions, Chiro HD, Imaging Services, Chiro Health USA, Chiro Moguls, Pure Chiro Notes, Titronics, Sherman College of Chiropractic, New Patients in a Box, Life Chiropractic College West, Pro Hockey Chiros, Pro Baseball Chiros, the IFCO, and 100% Chiropractic. LET’S HUSTLE !!! LUKE MILLETT (PRODUCER): Hey guys, welcome to episode 531 of the Chiro Hustle Podcast. I’m your producer, Luke Millett, and here’s your host, James Chester. JAMES CHESTER (HOST): So today we have the opportunity of interviewing Dr. Chad Polley. If you want to hear how he gets chiropractic students to the next level, stay tuned. Welcome back! This is another episode of the Chiro Hustle Podcast. They have Chad Polley coming on. It’s episode 531. Can you guys believe that, I can, because I’ve done every single one of these. Actually love what we do over here. And before we get into this episode, Chad and I were just catching up before we hit the go live button, but I have to tell people the big Y before we get into Chad’s story. And I think that the big Y is really important to our nation as a whole. And the big Y starts with this. Freedom of speech, the First Amendment. We’re going way back in time, but these things really matter. And I saw how a lot of people were shadow banned and discredited and pushed down and suppressed. And we’ve never censored anyone on this show, which I think is really important for us to say because freedom of speech really matters to us as a platform. And as our audience gets to know us, we’re very much patriots. And we believe in freedom of speech. We believe in medical freedom and family health freedom. Those are things that are near and dear to me. They’re really important for families to be able to make decisions on their health choices, what they decide. So yeah, those things are really, really, really the front end of our big Y. But then as we get more philosophical, we do the show to protect BJ Palmer Sacred Trust. And if people don’t know what that is, go to your favorite Surgeon Engine right now and look for BJ Palmer’s last words or go for and look for BJ Palmer Sacred Trust. You’re going to learn so much more about chiropractic than you previously did, even if you’re a chiropractor and you’ve never read BJ Palmer’s last words and what it means to be a chiropractor and know what the Sacred Trust is, it’s so important. We do support subluxation based chiropractic. It’s a big word, but I think it’s fundamental to the lexicon and the language you know this profession. And then we go into the last bit of the intro and that is we also believe in innate intelligence and universal intelligence. We believe that when man or woman, the physical is adjusted, it connects them to man or woman, the spiritual. And with that being said, Dr. Chad, welcome to the show. DR CHAD POLLEY DC (GUEST): Thanks Jim, appreciate you having me on. JAMES CHESTER (HOST): Yeah, you know, there’s a lot we’re talking about before and I love those pre-interview chats, like I should sell those. That’s where all the goods are when I have those, when nobody’s on camera and we start talking, but that’s when people share like the best stuff. Because you know, there’s a safe space to talk shop and talk about whatever’s going on, you know, but. DR CHAD POLLEY DC (GUEST): Well, Jim, I appreciate you talking about the intro and freedom of speech. And you know, sometimes we take that for granted and we’re filming today on June 6th. It’s the 79th anniversary of D-Day. And I don’t think there’s a day that embodies the idea that freedom isn’t free. And I had the opportunity to walk those beaches four years ago on the 75th anniversary. Like I get goosebumps now just thinking about it. And you know, walking, walking those beaches and getting the opportunity to climb the bluffs and sit there in a German pill box and a bunker and look down on that beach and see the sight lines of no cover, no nothing. And man, we just did not give up. We kept, we were resolved. We knew what our mission was. And you know, we prevailed. And so again, I want to thank you for bringing those things up and just, you know, a subtle reminder not so subtle that, you know, freedom isn’t free. And there are a number of people that came before us that made the ultimate sacrifice so that you and I get the opportunity to hang out and do a cool last podcast. JAMES CHESTER (HOST): You know, the sentiments real. And from reading your bio, I know that you grew up in a military family. So you know, there’s a lot that people have done to serve our country and to be able to make it to where we can open up our front doors without fear. DR CHAD POLLEY DC (GUEST): Exactly right. JAMES CHESTER (HOST): You know, and I think that even the bigger conversation is making sure that families are safe. And that’s, you know, the impetus of, you know, protecting the nation. But also it’s for like making sure that, you know, parents can make good decisions for how they raise their children. That’s that’s America, you know, like, I, I’m sorry, but the last couple years have been a huge strain energetically on so many people, even wealthy people. But the people that don’t have much, they’ve been at the mercy of the decision, people that make decisions for them. And I just want people to know that chiropractors always give love and serve. And you have the ability to come into any chiropractic office, no matter where it is, and get an exam, get your spine checked for a subluxation. And if necessary, chiropractor will talk to you about adjusting you. And I think that there’s nothing greater than a chiropractic lifestyle of talk time and time again that I’ve never met anybody that got a chiropractic lifestyle. It’s life got worse. Right. And I have met people that fell into the pill mill and went the opposite direction and took more drugs and had more surgeries and they were limited forever. So that’s a big part of the show is to let people know that they do have an option and chiropractic does save people’s lives, whether they understand that or not. But every spine that’s under care is one spine that’s healthier and it’s a healthier community and it’s a healthier population. So yeah, man, it’s a great, it’s a great, we’re kicking this off the right way, Dr. Chad. So let’s go into you a little bit as the practitioner and you said that you’ve been doing your professional chiropracts for the past 23 years. But what led up to that decision to become a chiropractor? DR CHAD POLLEY DC (GUEST): Well, you know, it’s funny. I don’t, you know, I don’t have maybe that story where, you know, I was saved or, you know, by a chiropractor when I was told that, you know, I had no other choices. I was, I was at Florida State University. I was getting a biology degree and a chemistry minor on track to do something in healthcare and where I thought I was going to go with was worth a don shot. I want to be an orthodontist. I had braces. My uncle was an orthodontist and I liked that idea. And one night I’m sitting with my wife’s father. We weren’t married at the time and we’re having a beer and he said, you know what? I really think that you should go into chiropractic. And I really had no idea, really no background in chiropractic, right? My, we were a military family. All we really knew was allopathic medicine. And we was an optometrist by training and by trade, but, you know, he was doing, you know, eye movements and brain mapping and really taking it from a holistic space. He was really intuitive. And so I started to explore it and I ended up going to school, having never been adjusted. And that’s probably pretty atypical, right? It’s 1996. I got to school and actually took some time off of school. There was a time where I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to pursue it. My first two quarters at life to be perfectly honest with you were a little tough because it was a completely different paradigm and I had been exposed to my entire life. The Olympics happened to be, you know, that summer I needed to have reconstructive surgery on my shoulder. So I wanted to take some time and just make sure, okay, is this where I’m supposed to be? And had the surgery and sat down with some, some friends that I’d met at school and just had some good conversations about, you know, chiropractic and philosophy and just kind of dug a little deeper. And when I made the decision, you know what, I’m going back and now I’m going full throttle. And really where it came about was even a year after that, when I got into outpatient clinic at life, at least at the time, you were responsible for getting your own patients, right? And just like the real world, you weren’t hanging out of clinic and having people come in or have relationships now like some schools do with the VA, which I think is awesome. You had to go out and get your own and at the time I was working in restaurants and bars. So it’s pretty easy for me to grab, you know, all the serving staff and get them in. But the one patient that changed everything was actually my, was my brother. He’s a couple years younger than I am. He’s got a genetic condition called spinal muscle atrophy. It’s a neurological disorder that affects the anterior horn cell. So it’s a lower motor neuron lesion, just like a subluxation is, right? The problem is not all the messages coming down from the brain could lead the spinal cord and then innovate, innovate his muscles. So, you know, he was weak. He was a wheelchair and it’s a progressive type of disorder. We started seeing him three times a week and it was pretty incredible. The changes that we were able to make in pretty short order, not just range of motion, but strength, being able for him to move around much easier, whether it’s transitioning from his wheelchair into, you know, into a car seat or, you know, under the commode. These things that were now being done with much more ease, which gave him something, independence that sometimes he had to rely on other people for. And you know, he’d never been adjusted before. And in fact, no one had ever talked to us about chiropractic before, not one single person is that got a neurological condition and no one talked about how important it was to keep, you know, a spine healthy and to check for subluxation. So, you know, when I got to see those chances and really experienced them and not just that it was a patient, but more importantly, it was my brother and a family member that really kind of got me, you know, locked and loaded in terms of, okay, here’s what I’m doing. Here’s my purpose. Go. JAMES CHESTER (HOST): Yeah, certainty comes from a lot of different perspectives when we get faced with something like that. And sometimes somebody near and dear to us can be our number one catalyst that doesn’t have to be your football injury or your car crash or your fall, your slip. Sometimes it’s why we rise up is because of someone else. And I think that’s really a cool story, man. And people don’t like if people knew like most of the things that are going on with their like downstream health, if they just knew that getting adjusted like gave better human performance and adaptability and quality of life and you know, all the activities that daily living as the insurance companies look for. Like if you can bring people back to like quality of life quotient, every adjustments worth every dollar, every time at every clinic, you know, and I think that that’s the big story is so many times people don’t realize that like if somebody says, hey, you have something neurological, it’s not a pill potion or a lotion that’s going to give you like long term effect. Like sure, take that stuff, whatever. But like my good friend Eric Plasker always say chiropractic first chiropractic second chiropractic third chiropractic and drugs fourth chiropractic and drugs are surgery fifth and whatever intervention you’re doing, just make sure you keep chiropractic along with it. You know, and I think that that’s that’s the most important thing for like the rehabilitative state of people is they’ll stop doing this. They’re like, Oh, my, my doctor told me not to go to you guys anymore. Like well, that’s not a good idea. Right. So yeah, I think it’s pretty cool. And you know, I think the other cool thing is you guys had to go get your own patients. DR CHAD POLLEY DC (GUEST): Oh, yeah. JAMES CHESTER (HOST): Like don’t, don’t go hunting in my fridge. JAMES CHESTER (HOST): What did you do to go get people to come see in patient clinic or student clinic? DR CHAD POLLEY DC (GUEST): Well, again, I was, I was pretty fortunate with where I worked. Again, I bartended and waited tables, you know, through college and then through chiropractic school. So, you know, I had a captive audience. They knew what I did. I worked there through actually even before I started to go to school there. So, you know, they knew me, I had a great rapport with everyone. And I mean, let’s face it, servers, you know, bang themselves up bartenders, bang themselves up. You know, one point you’re going to have neck issues, back issues. And you know, so that was a little easier, I think, for me, simply because of the situation that I was in. But I knew I knew people that struggled with it. JAMES CHESTER (HOST): So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you’re in the service industry before the service industry. DR CHAD POLLEY DC (GUEST): Exactly. JAMES CHESTER (HOST): So, while we’re on this topic of building the student practice, what were some things that you did successfully to grow your private practice over the past 23 years that you really enjoyed doing, not things that you loathe doing, but things that worked that you enjoyed? DR CHAD POLLEY DC (GUEST): Well, I mean, I just, I enjoyed, I enjoyed people. And I think building it around, you know, the patient experience is really important. You know, we’re not, we’re not, I was going to say a typical doctor, but I mean that in a positive way, right? You don’t walk into my office and, you know, there’s someone sitting behind a glass panel asking you for, you know, your ID and your insurance card. We want to make this an experience we come out from, you know, behind the front desk. We shake their hand, we call them by name. We sit down and we’ll help them through the paperwork. We let them, we give them an office tour. We let them see what we’re, you know, what we’re all about. And so just from day one, we want to let them k…
Full show notes at the publisher 
Our TOPPODCAST Picks 
Stay Connected
