|| F3 Show #6 || You Are Why We Are Here
With Dr. Tommy Pinkston
Dr. Chris Wolfe sat down to talk with Dr. Tommy Pinkston, a fellow F3 participant and optometrist out of North Carolina. F3 is a network of free, peer-led workouts for men in the United States with an estimated 40,000+ active participants. Besides being able to connect on F3 during the show, these docs also talked about the importance of purpose within yourself and your practice.
You can check out their full conversation here, or by searching “EyeCode Media” in your favorite podcast app.
Podcast
Dr. Chris Wolfe: [00:00:00] And welcome to the Criswell podcast. Then I could media today. I had a great conversation with Dr. Tommy Pinkston 36. From North Carolina, we had a lot of fun talking about, talking about our practices, talking about vision source and what all of those things mean to us. I really enjoyed our conversation.
It’s always fun to get to know Tommy better, and I hope to have some beat downs with him in the future. Uh, as always, please ensure, be sure to subscribe to the podcast, write a review, share it with your friends and. Support us. I want to talk about the MyDay multifocal for a sec. We have the opportunity to do a preclinical trial with this lens this last summer.
And there were a couple of things that I thought were really helpful. The first one is that it is different than a lot of the multifocals that we’ve used before in our practices where patients, especially early emerging presbyopes really manage the, it didn’t cause a lot of additional, uh, distance blur for them.
And the other thing that was really helped. Because we’ve never been involved in a clinical trial before was to understand. [00:01:00] Uh, the sort of questions that we might ask our patients, and we ask our patients a lot of questions about their patient, about their satisfaction with a contact lens. But what we weren’t doing was actually having them score that themselves.
So one of the parts of this that was really interesting to me was asking patients on a scale of one to 10, how they would score their vision, how they would score their comfort in their current lenses. And then how they would do the same on their new lenses. And it showed me a lot of times where patients would say they were happy, why rate their vision as a six or a seven.
And, um, and then it also reframed their thinking about their current satisfaction in their lenses and allowed me to open up the. To offering other solutions. So if you haven’t tried something like that in your clinical practice, I would encourage you to, and I would also encourage you to try the MyDay multifocal for your patients.
What do you think about your macular degeneration supplements for patients in category one through category. I think you have a really good way to distinguish between [00:02:00] what type of supplement you’re using and why you’re using it. I’d encourage you to check out the evidence behind Macchu health. We’ve used it in our practice for a number of years now, and we have a real great solution for patients in category three and four, as well as supplements for patients who don’t need the full a reds formulation.
We’ve been really impressed in our practice, by the way it performs and also by the patient acceptance of those. And Mackey health has also been a great partner in our practice to help us with resources and tools to help us describe and define why their supplements are more bioavailable than some of the things that patients can find at a supermarket or a drug store.
And the most important thing for me about having a supplement in our practice for patients to have access to is I can know whether or not they’re getting exactly what I’m prescribed. That seems to be really helpful for my patients because they’re not scouring through the aisles, trying to pick up something and having that 10 minute evaluation of what type of supplement they need.
So if you haven’t started using maca health in your practice, [00:03:00] yet, you can find all your information in the show notes and they definitely have something that is worth your patient’s time and worth your patients. Um, so thanks for doing this.
Dr. Tommy Pinkston: Yeah, man. I’m excited to connect and plan out. I’ve watched you do a coding stuff for a little bit, and I realize you’re an F three guy and that’s cool, man.
Yeah, that’s pretty awesome, man. Uh, and it sounds like we’re talking about prison, doesn’t it? Uh, we’ve started at F three chapter and the almost four years ago, um, in our, we have a small town of about it’s about 10,000 people in Western, North Carolina. And so we started a buddy. I don’t, I, he came up to me I think, and he’s like, Hey, we should, we should start this group in Waynesville.
And I was like, all right, let’s do it. You know? And so we hadn’t even been to it, been to a workout, like, we’re just like, we read about it. And we went to church together, him and I, and I was like, this sounds like this sounds like something that we would right up her alley and we’d kind of [00:04:00] run and just done some, you know, little workouts sooner, but nothing legitimately like.
And then we went to Asheville, which is about a 40 minute drive and, you know, became official S3 S3 guys. And, and then they’re like, all right, you guys going to do this? And so, you know, how they just kind of, if you show leadership capability, you’re going to be thrust into that, whether you like it or not.
And so we were, we just jumped into it and we started hitting the ground running and then they helped us, um, really that were helpful in terms of just teaching us how to get that launched. And we just found out a good close knit group of core guy. And that was about four years ago. So that was pretty awesome.
Dr. Chris Wolfe: Yeah. I’m going to read you something. Um, and I’m gonna change the words because I think the audience who don’t, aren’t familiar with definitely S3 parlance will understand a little bit better, but I want to get your reaction. Uh, a new guy worked out one morning. He puked and otherwise in his mind, and only in his mind, disgraced himself at the end of the workout, he got his [00:05:00] F three name in the circle.
And was dragging his butt back to the car and he stumbled accidentally into the leader for that day, who was obviously admiring his PEX in the window of his Lexus. The new guy must’ve felt a little weird because he went ahead and blurted out what was on his mind. He apologized for quotes, slowing the group down.
Uh, I don’t know how many times I’ve read this and I, uh, I can’t get through it without doing what I’m doing. Um, the leader laughed and replied. He hadn’t slowed anything down quote, anyway, that you told the FNG or the new, the new guy, quote brother, you’re the reason we’re here in the first place. You are why we’re here.
And I mean, I thought about that. I thought about that for, um, you know, years and. And I [00:06:00] don’t know why I’m so moved by it because, uh, it really like, could I go along life without, you know, the men that is around me? Uh, yeah, I could, but I think one of the things that moves me about it is that I think there’s so many other people that are going through life.
Um, just say clowns, right?
Dr. Tommy Pinkston: It’s it is. I mean, it’s a powerful, it’s a powerful group. And I think, I think for, for men, no matter where you’re at in life, you know, whether you’re a 15 year old kid or you’re 80 years old, there is something just uniquely primal about needing to have male leadership. And invigoration is just part of, I think, who we are.
And I think that. Naturally, you know, we get in business, are you getting professional life? You want to build these walls? Like I have no imperfections. I am a strong man. And, and there’s this [00:07:00] conflation of weakness, not being manly and in a sense, right. And so then you go to S3 and you think like, okay, I’m a professional.
I’m, you know, I may have my business or whatever I’m doing professionally and I’ve got my family, but then the workout for lack of a better term, it’s going to kick your ass the first time you’re out there. There’s no way around it. You’re going to get your bucket. And you have just got to be ready to be humble.
And I think when you’re that vulnerable with that many open men, without even knowing what you got, usually, you know, one or two guys, three, if you’re really, you know, if you’re really already part of it and then. You do you have to be vulnerable in it. And I think it’s, it’s very different than most things that were a part of professionally or personally that, you know, Hey, it’s, we’re, we’re happy.
You’re here and we happy you’re suffered and we’re better because you suffered. Right. And we’re better because of it. There’s no, it’s not about winning or losing. It’s about just being, being vulnerable. I think that’s the powerful thing about, um, about any really, um, powerful group, but particularly with that [00:08:00] three, it’s just, you know, you, you show up.
And, uh, it, it’s powerful because of the fact that we’re all there in it’s about the struggle. It’s not about the results, right? It’s not about that. I can do a hundred pushups quicker than you can or vice versa. We can, who can run faster. Like that’s, that is, that is for other times that, you know, in other avenues, this is more like, Hey, we’re going to struggle together.
And that struggle is going to make us stronger as a group and stronger as individuals. And I think it’s really hard to, to know what that’s like until you’ve been a part of that. And I think guys who. Who’ve done collegiate sports or like being a part of the military. They kind of understand that a little bit.
Cause it’s not, you know, it’s not about whether our team won the championship. I mean, it is, but it’s really not like you have those, those collective, uh, uh, of relationships throughout your life and you have three, I think just it’s like that on steroids. It’s just, it’s, it’s hard to
Dr. Chris Wolfe: describe. Yeah, it is. I think the, you know, my reflection and seeing that again, um, I was in really good shape when I started doing F three.
I just wanted a different workout and I didn’t realize. Um, [00:09:00] you know, the other aspects of it, but you see, I mean, that story, uh, I see guys like this all the time, new guys that come out and they’re apologetic for being the last in line. And you see just, um, you know, the, the best in shape of all the guys kind of coming back and they don’t have to, they’re not, they’re not.
Um, I was reflecting on this with this morning at, uh, in a pre-run with, with some of my buddies and they’re not like dragging you along. Come on man, you could do this. Cause that would be off putting right away. If you didn’t know the guy, we had an event this weekend that, um, that I wasn’t aware it was a competition at first, but it, it was like on Friday it was a Saturday event.
It was a fundraiser. Um, and there were about 20 groups of about four to six people in every group. And, um, and one of, one of my, so we won, we wound up winning, but I should send you the video. They put it on. Uh, the last thing we ended with after six miles of running and probably over a thousand different reps doing other things, we ended with 50 burpees [00:10:00] and a 50 yard duck walk.
And I promise you if I wasn’t, if somebody wasn’t there in this case, because I knew them and trusted them. Right. And I have been through the hard parts before. If I hadn’t been through that, if they would’ve just gotten after me, when I first got out and I didn’t have a trust, you know, I didn’t trust them.
And they were like, come on, let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go. Like, I would’ve, I would’ve just, I would be like, oh, I don’t, I don’t care about you guys. But the fact that we have done that for years, um, well, almost two years. Uh, and, um, and they were kind of getting after me. I, I had already been through difficult things.
They knew what I needed when I. And, um, yeah. And so I think the point is, is that, you know, knowing that you’ve been around for a long time and you see the guy that’s, you know, a hundred pounds overweight and he’s there for the first time and he’s just trying to keep up. Uh, but not saying anything to him when he doesn’t need something said, he knows, he knows he’s out of [00:11:00] shape.
Um, all he needs you to do is be there for awhile, and then he needs you to kick him in the butt when he needs it. Once you’ve built that relationship.
Dr. Tommy Pinkston: It’s yeah, you don’t want to come across patronizing. It’s very important, you know? Cause it’s like, well, yeah, I’m here cause I’m trying to get better. So just, just hang with me for a minute, you know, but I mean, I, I think that the physical aspect is only one part of it.
I think what I think most guys really come back for because I’ve talked to some guys where you joined after three and your fitness levels go up and then as your fitness level, You’re part of this group and then not that it stagnates, but you could get a better workout elsewhere. I mean, I don’t, I don’t mean that, man.
I just mean like, if you really want to go and you could do CrossFit, you could do like, yeah, I don’t mean that that’s not a negative thing against three. That is what keeps you coming back is not that it’s the hardest workout you could possibly do. It is for some guys. And I don’t mean that. I don’t mean that mean, I think for, for, for me and for a lot of guys, as you keep coming back, you come back because it’s a challenging workout and you can make that as challenging.[00:12:00]
But I think the mental aspect for me, like, you know, I just a little bit about me. I, so we joined F we started at three, about four years ago and I I’d lost my father. Seven almost seven years ago. So I lost my father to suicide unexpectedly. He was in his mid fifties. And so that whole mental aspect of men’s health for me.
And I don’t tell this is probably the first time I’ve publicly even said that. Um, and the reason I say that is cause I don’t, you know, we don’t know each other very well, but you’re gonna have three guy. And we, we come from similar kind of similar backgrounds, but, um, That is something I think that men don’t really realize because it’s underneath the surface, right?
You have successes that you try to, you know, show off on social media or whatever it is, or, and then there’s this part of a vulnerability that is part of that group that, you know, when you have a really tough time or that you need to, you need your body to just say, Hey, I just, I just need somebody to just listen to my issue just for a minute.
Just be vulnerable. That’s the first that you’re going to go to. Right. I mean, that’s the guy we may be doing middle push-ups. I’d be like, yeah, [00:13:00] Um, I’m struggling. Right. I might be coding help. It could be whatever, but like, it’s just, it’s that availability to have that vulnerability. Cause you know, you’ve suffered, um, physically with these guys and that you feel like there’s a trust built where, you know, you might have a professional colleague that you trust.
Very good, but you’re not going to have that vulnerable conversation about stuff, you
Dr. Chris Wolfe: know? Yeah. I think that’s the hard part is that, you know, especially in a profession that’s small and also great. Um, there’s if you. Well, I think it’s worth having a conversation about vision source within this too. I mean, I’m just bringing this in because I think there’s a professional aspect to that, right?
Like everybody thinks about vision sources, like a buying group, right. That’s the first thing that comes to their mind. But it, it actually is, is way deeper because you’re, you’re breaking down, you know, you’re, you’re starting to trust each other’s opinions about what they’re doing, what you’re doing clinically, what you’re doing in.
And then pretty soon you’re, you’re trusting each other’s judgments and encouragement when, because you know, they have your best [00:14:00] interest at heart, as opposed to even our, you know, in a lot of ways, like our state associations can fill, fulfill a lot of things, like, especially politically that nobody else can do from an educational standpoint, you know, there’s, there’s things they can do that nobody else can.
Um, but there still is, you know, once you get to the heart of it, there’s still this little bit of like, oh, this guy might still think he’s my competitor and he’s right down the road. I don’t think he’s my competitor, but he might think he is. When I asked him something or he comes to me with the question, the question is like, are you going to be as sharing as, as I’m going to be right.
There’s this little, I think, in the back of our heads. And I think vision source allows us to remove that this isn’t a vision source conversation, but it allows us professionally to remove that. And F three does the same thing. And so it breaks down those barriers, as you say, and gets us away from having friends.
Professional friends, but we can’t be vulnerable around them. Right. So I probably went too far on that reading that I went on, but I guess,
Dr. Tommy Pinkston: no, you’re fine, man. I, I, I think it’s helpful. I mean, like, [00:15:00] right. We only, I I’m, I’m very much the believer that we only grow when you’re vulnerable or in times of discomfort.
Right. Whether that’s physical is comfort, right. Like if I, if I, um, if I just do everything that’s comfortable, right. Professionally, personally, it’s going to be stagnant. Right. It’s going to be stagnation. And so I think that’s important just even for. From a per, uh, professional standpoint, right? Like I can only grow where I’m vulnerable and I have problems, right.
If I have all the things figured out, then I don’t need any help. And that’s just very naive of me to think about from a personal and professional standpoint. So I think there’s a lot of, um, there’s a lot of parallels between both groups, right? I mean, not only the vulnerability, but trying to engage leaders, right.
You want to kind of help groom the future leaders of your profession and just like you want to help groom the future leader. Of F three or whatever within those circles. Right. If even you can see, you know, I love it when the guys come and you say, Hey man, it’s your time to queue? And you’re like, like, nah, I’m not ready.
I’m like, well, You’re never going to be ready. So you just need like, and you kind of have to push them a little bit and some are [00:16:00] really eager. And so it’s interesting to see those leadership, those people, um, kind of go through the ranks and kind of figure out like, Hey, you know, I think I’m ready now. I’m like, man, you’re ready six months ago.
Like it’s all right, you’re gonna mess it up. It’s going to be awful. No people are gonna be complaining about it. Just keep going. Just tell them to do it hush and keep moving, you know? And so, um, I love seeing that type of thing and getting people involved. And in those organizations and seeing them be successful.
I think for me, I think that’s huge. Like just in optometry in F three, it’s just, it’s cool seeing
Dr. Chris Wolfe: I’m not, I wish I was better at that. I think there’s some really good guys that are, that are great at identifying leadership capabilities and others. I think that’s probably not as not a great, um, thing that I do.
Have you gotten better at that or are you just naturally good at it?
Dr. Tommy Pinkston: Um, I don’t, I don’t know. Um, I don’t know. I, I feel like I’ve tried to get better at that over time. Um, I really enjoy [00:17:00] building, building things I guess, and not necessarily like physical things. I think I really enjoy building groups. And so like from a professional standpoint, The practice management of like building a team, like how do we get this team to work together?
Very, very much like a three. Okay. How do I get all these people to work together in the same direction? We’re going to have friction. Like there’s going to be a dissent in ideas potentially, but how do we not turn that into a disagreeable environment? And then how do I ultimately turn those dissent or those disagreements to move in the right direction?
I just like, if I say, Hey, we’re gonna do a hundred burpees. No, one’s going to love that idea. Nobody. Right. Even me, but like maybe we split it up. Maybe we break it up in a tent. Like how are we going to do that, to accomplish the goal. So at the end of the day, we’re kind of all better for it. I, I re whether I’m a good editor and I enjoy it.
And so I think kind of you, you end up getting better at what you enjoy. Um, and so it’s, it’s something for me that I just, I really, I find cool, like, just to see whether it’s, you know, to see our technician step up or to see an occupation step I’m like, this [00:18:00] is, this is awesome. Like, I’m so proud of you like that.
To me, that’s, that’s better than like, I love seeing the financials obviously, but that to me seems more fulfilling at the end of the day. You
Dr. Chris Wolfe: recently, um, just refinished or, or built an entirely new offices.
Dr. Tommy Pinkston: Yeah. So I’ve got a partner. Um, we, we, um, built, finished an office in October, so we bought a building about two weeks before COVID hit and then we were on cloud nine and then COVID hit.
And then that was wild. And so we hung onto it for about a year to make it short and didn’t do much with it and then read it. A building art practice was in a small downtown area for 60 plus years. And then we moved to, we were in about a 2000 square foot facility, and now we’re close to 5,000 square feet, eight exam lanes.
We’ve gotten associates. So that just, we’re just kind of settling in. We’ve been in that building what, eight months now. And so that was quite a big undertaking, but kind of what we’re doing now is, is restructuring. Like, okay, how do I get all these team members on the same page? How are we going to communicate?[00:19:00]
Where’s our communication structure? Like how do we do things again? It’s not opening up an open office, but going that big very quickly, the, the leadership and the communication can be, can make or break, you know, from, from an office standpoint.
Dr. Chris Wolfe: Yeah. I mean, we’re going through similar, similar transition periods right now.
So we’ve got my, my dad who, uh, is going to stop clinical care on July 1st. Uh, he’s been two days a week for the last, I dunno, a while. And, uh, and then I lost, um, one of the doctors had twins, uh, Dr. Baron had twins about, uh, four months ago now, not quite four months ago and she’s coming back in June and then we hired a new doctor.
Uh, and so we will have kind of the same thing, but in the same physical plant that we’ve always been in. But, you know, um, once, once my dad decided to retire and, um, and I, you know, I bought them out then, uh, I don’t think that. [00:20:00] There was just some changes that I wanted to make. And it wasn’t that I wanted to kind of completely redo stuff, but it is that like how many people now we’re going to have instead of having two doctor equivalent days, I wanted to hire a new associate and not have to be like, well, you’re just going to get two days and go fill in for someplace else for three days.
And I expect that you’re going to be in our practice at some point full time. I said, look, we’re just going to hire you on. You’re going to learn. Will it’ll it’ll work. And I, I, I do believe that, but that means that, like, how do we have the infrastructure on a couple of days, a week to handle three doctors when we’ve only handled two?
And how do we, um, before, and, and do we add more people to the team which costs more money and how do you manipulate the footprint? But it’s really interesting. Like we’re in the process right now of looking at land and building a building and, uh, and those sorts of things. It’s interesting to see what you can do with the existing space you have.
And we don’t have a small place. We have, you know, we have enough space, but just figuring out, okay, well, where’s going to be the cogs and the wheel. And how do we [00:21:00] overcome that is, is fun.
Dr. Tommy Pinkston: Oh, it’s, it’s, it’s fun. I, and like I said, just figuring out how to get people to communicate like. Like, how do you get different people’s goals, right?
Cause you have, I kind of look at it as we’ve got three, we’ve got sort of four separate individual smaller teams. Right. I’ve got my front desk, which takes, we call it patient intake or patient care. Um, I’ve got technicians, I’ve got opticians and I’ve got insurance, right. Plus I’ve got a whole Dr. Phil, I got five.
Like, and those, those all have separate goals and sometimes those goals can conflict. And then if I give them different goals based on the landscape or the layout or something, Then it can easily create. Cause if I’m getting mixed signals and mixed leadership goals, then I can easily be a hindrance to that communication.
It’s it’s it can be time-consuming but it can also be fun when you get the team to click on all cylinders. This is awful, you know, it’s just it’s it’s so it’s so fun. I, I really enjoy that part of it. The flip side, it can be a headache. Yeah, no, it
Dr. Chris Wolfe: can. Cause if they’re, if they’re firing on the wrong [00:22:00] cylinders, you know?
Yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean, if, again, just as a man, I mean, you can, you can feel when you’re off, right. When, when things are just like, yeah, leave it. You walk away from clinic that day, or just walk away from your day altogether, you know, you reflect at the end of the day, you know, what was my, what was my relationships like today?
Was I, was I in this for myself for was I, was I trying to better somebody else’s life today, uh, in all my encounters. And you can feel like maybe you can’t identify it, but it’s, it becomes very apparent when you can, can become aware of those. And so I can, I can completely feel when our office isn’t clicking.
I don’t know if everybody else can, but it’s not that we’re not, you know, we’re producing well, um, we’re, you know, the things are getting done, but there’s just something amiss. I can feel that. Um, have you ever really been able to put your finger on that?
Dr. Tommy Pinkston: Yeah, so I think a lot of it comes down to like, Ken [00:23:00] did, we will, repurposable all that we did today.
Right. So it doesn’t necessarily mean like. We could’ve sold a lot of glasses or seen a lot of patients or a lot of receipts, but that’s, that can be great, but that’s not necessarily an indicator for was the day purposeful. And like, like you said, some days, if I gauge that, it’d be interesting to sit down and like make tallies like today, I felt purposeful on what we do.
Right. But like have conversations and about with your staff or w you know, just like with that three or with vision source, like did today, you meet your goal of being personal and impact people’s lives, regardless of the finances, regardless of the numbers, which is again, all important. But did you do that?
And some days you can say you truthfully did that. And some days like I just mailed it in today, like I didn’t do anything wrong, but I just, I just wasn’t there. Um, and that’s hard to do, but your staff feeds off that, right? Like if I’m short and I’m not necessarily in the best mood and I’m going to be a jerk, but if I’m not in the best mood, they’re going to feel that right.
And they’re going to feel they’re going to go home and feel just as frustrated as I am, or they might get frustrated at me and then we might have this other bigger issue. And so I [00:24:00] think it’s very empowering. Just long-term to think like, okay, today, what is, what is my overall goal with this whole thing, right?
Yes. It’s seeing patients, but what’s the purpose? Like, why am I actually doing here? And I think the same thing with, I think really, that’s why we talk about these groups. Like we talk about vision source. We’re talking about three, like we’re talking about talent tree, but like we’re not necessarily doing it because of one specific action.
Like I’m not just refracting somebody. It’s a larger vision of, okay, they’re here for a purpose and I’m going to impact them. Whether I like it or not. And so I need to be a positive trajectory as best I can in, in that. Um, and so it’s hard though. I mean, some days, you know, it’s, it’s very hard, you know?
Dr. Chris Wolfe: Yeah. I think, um, yeah, I think there’s days where I’ll come home and I’ll even mention to my wife, Jamie, I’ll say, you know, like you said, we’re not hurting anybody. We’re doing a good job. Right. You’re doing a good job, but I have to sit back and like, I just don’t feel like I helped anybody today. You know, like, of course she did, but.
It does. And it doesn’t have to be like a miracle every day, but you [00:25:00] know, you, sometimes you have those days and sometimes that’s a me problem, I suppose. Um, where, you know, like you said, it’s probably more about what was my purpose for the day. You know, it was my purpose to just kind of get through the day.
Cause I know today tomorrow’s going to be Thursday and I get to do something I’m, I’m kind of burnt out for the week and now I’m going to do something different or was it because I had other stuff on my mind that you know, about things that weren’t important to that. Um, and so you just try to have less of those days, but I think, uh, being aware of them for me has, has helped because when I have those days, I can know like, all right, something was amiss.
I gotta, I gotta get right. You know, I, I was, I, wasn’t where I want to be. Tomorrow’s a different day. We could start over, you know what I mean? And I think, um, you know, I think you can get into problems when you don’t have that person. Fortunately I’ve I don’t, I don’t get to those problems, but you know, I’m intentional about it.
Dr. Tommy Pinkston: And I th I think there’s, again, we keep going [00:26:00] back to vision source and S3, cause we’re both members of that, but I think that are you purposeful and are you fulfilling your own purpose? Whatever that may be, we’ll give you or not give you fulfillment. Right? Like if, if you’re just an eye doctor and you’re just, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
And you’re saying, okay, I’m just going to go from eight to five and that’s my goal and that’s my purpose. Cool. You’re going to feel fulfilled by that, but kind of like thinking back to at the end of the day, I want to feel fulfilled with whatever I’m doing. Right. And I think having those groups like vision source for S3, not only makes you be really responsible to yourself about what your purpose is, but also.
Kind of check in with yourself on a regular basis. Right? I got, I got people that’ll hold my feet to the fire. Right. If we go to a vision source group, listen, man, you’re not coding. Right. You’re going to tell me I’m done. You’re right. I’m kind of messing up here, like right with S3. Like, dude, like if I know you can, if you’re mailing in a workout, right.
I’m going to be like, Like, I’m going to give you a hard time. If I know that you’re mailing it in, or we’re going to have a conversation, or we might have a vulnerable conversation about, Hey, you know, I’m stressed at home or whatever. [00:27:00] And I think all of that kind of plays into it with these groups and kind of, there’s a social aspect.
I think that we all want to be a part of something. And that also, um, will kind of just keep us driving towards that purpose and ultimately being fulfilled because I think that’s, that’s the issue, right? You, you, you get to the end of your career or your life and you don’t, you don’t find that purpose. I mean, you look at, you can, you can find plenty of people at any profession that are just not feeling fulfilled with that, because there are, there are other missing puzzle pieces that aren’t maybe financially tangible, but they’re huge in terms of feeling that
Dr. Chris Wolfe: fulfillment.
What do you think is the percentage, if you, if you reflect on our profession in your sense, I mean, we probably run around with the same types of guys, right? If, if your situation in your vision source group is similar to ours, This may not happen, but when you, when you think about the profession in general, um, w w what do you think is the, the number of people that are just sort of in it to eight to five?[00:28:00]
It, and it’s a job to them at this point? Any, any sense on that?
Dr. Tommy Pinkston: I don’t, I don’t, I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. And, and maybe that’s because I is maybe bad, but maybe I try not to. To to, I don’t, I’m not in those circles as much. I don’t feel like. And so I try not to maybe get involved with those circles just because I can, I have a tendency to be negative if like, if I let my own thoughts and kind of, I can kind of get involved with that too.
Um, and so I don’t, I don’t know. I would love to say it’s low, but I honestly don’t know. I, I could, I feel like if I just spit ball, I’m just completely being immature with. With my, um, with my guests, but I think that’s every profession. I think that’s part of unfortunately life. I don’t think that’s just an optometry thing, I think,
Dr. Chris Wolfe: because I agree with you.
I think it’s probably it’s. I don’t, I would be not, I wouldn’t have the answer either. I’m not trying to lead you down a path. I don’t know. Um, sometimes the sense that I, I think, I think probably not by and large, I think probably [00:29:00] not, but, um, or I don’t think it’s very many people, uh, are, are like that, but I do wonder.
Um, in the culture, right. Have we come to a point where we’re seeing more of that now then, um, you know, with, with where there’s no kind of sense of cohesiveness, right? We’re not all moving toward the same goal or we’re not all have the same or even just a vested interest in others, you know, like, like, I, I, I care about the success of your practice because I care about, I mean, we don’t know each other that well, But because I care about you as an individual, right.
And it doesn’t take a lot of back and forth that way. And so have we gotten away from caring? Um, has it been, is it easier to not care? Uh, from a cultural standpoint,
Dr. Tommy Pinkston: those are heavy questions, man. We’re going deep here. I mean, no, no, you’re fine, man. I, I, [00:30:00] I. I feel like I’m in my first step through work, I feel so unprepared.
Like I know there’s going to be workouts, but I have no idea what that, um, I, I think we are in a great profession. I think most people I would agree with you are happy and that don’t just clock in and clock out. I mean, I think most optometrists are very caring. Um, good-hearted people that really want to do the right thing.
And we’ll go above and beyond for each and every patient. So I don’t think it’s even a large minority of people that are kind of unhappy, but I think you’re right. I think culturally, there’s something to this the way that, you know, if you think of just the internet and how social media and our phones have changed things, we’re instantly connected to people, but we’re also so far away from everybody.
From a community standpoint, like, so a little bit about us. We moved from my practice in Atlanta for about four years and it’s great. And it’s a cool town and it’s awesome. We had all these people around us, but we’re not from there. But we had this very small circle of friends that we knew from [00:31:00] college.
Right. And I’m in this huge city of millions of people. Right. And then I moved to a small town of like 10,000 people and I have immediately a much. More connected community that are really, really, truly invested in my kids besides like, and Atlanta was like a handful of people went to college with, so like those are college buddies.
It was great. But now I have these people that don’t even know me. Right. But we have this immediate connection, I think to some degree kind of what you’re saying is like, there is this disconnect and I think that bleeds over to some of the. Fulfillment, right? Like how what’s your village? Like whether you have, we have funding, you have kids too.
I have kids too. Like how do you build your village around yourself? Right. Professionally and personally, I think that does have a lot to do with your happiness, right? Cause if I I’m just going about this alone, the struggles are going to get a lot, lot harder. Like the struggles every day are going to get a lot harder than if I’m doing it kind of with a group or at least somebody who can understand my shrugs, but listen, I’ve been there.
You know, I hear you, we’re having the same issues. We can bounce ideas off each other. And so [00:32:00] I think. I can make it harder when you feel kind of isolated, you know, I don’t know if that answers your question.
Dr. Chris Wolfe: I think it does. I think you’re right. I think it’s easier. I think it’s easier to be isolated now.
Look, you, you know, you could, you can click off this button in the next few minutes when we’re all done. And you can forget about this conversation all day long. I suspect you won’t and I won’t either, but it’s like you said, it’s easy to just kind of go to the next, go to the next thing, go to the next thing.
I mean, I can look at my, I can look at my list of, to do’s today and, um, you know, I, I mean, I’m, I’m going to be a task. Today’s going to be a day that I’m just going from one thing to the next thing, the next thing I’m not going to be able to sit back. And usually Thursdays are a day where I actually like to sit back and reflect a little bit and kind of think about, like you said, how’s our team doing?
How can we do things better? Or is there an idea that we’re not using doing right now that we can integrate? Um, and you know, I’ve just got meeting after meeting, after meeting, right. And it’s not that I don’t want to be at those meetings. It just means that if that was my day, five days a week, and that’s all I.[00:33:00]
Uh, or that was that I think that would be really, for me, it would be really hard. It’d be really hard. And I think it is, um, you know, the, the old thing of like, you can make it uses for a lot of stuff. Right? Like we’ve heard all of them, right. It’s too early. It’s too dark. It’s too rainy. It’s too cold. I’m not in good enough shape or, um, but, but those, those are issues that we all that anybody could say.
Yeah, same thing. He’s like, you know, do I want to do I want to, uh, integrate. A new piece of technology into my practice, or do I want to integrate vision therapy in my practice or scleral lenses or whatever? Um, boy, that’s going to be difficult. I don’t know if I can do that. Am I the kind of guy that can do that?
And uh, you know, and then if you don’t have a support system around you to, to reinforce those things, it’s very difficult. I’ll tell you. I think that’s where people struggle.
Dr. Tommy Pinkston: Oh, for sure. I mean, it’s. [00:34:00] So I S I was talking to somebody else and I kind of said this, like, you know, if you come to F three and are you hurt, are you injured?
Right. And there’s a, there’s a, there’s, there’s similar words, but they’re very different. Like, are you truly injured? If so, that’s stopping you and get it right. And that’s a, a roadblock to doing this. Like, you need to stop, but you’re just hurting. That’s a little bit different, right? Like, and that’s kinda the same thing, professional.
Is this something that’s re truly going to injure my like professional success or is there just going to be some discomfort, which I don’t love. And I really don’t like it, but ultimately it’s probably going to push me through. I think that’s hard. It’s easy when you’re doing something physical, like, okay, my legs broken, I’m injured.
I’m out. I know that. Right. Versus like professionally, it’s like, okay, well, I’ve got all these staff issues. I’ve got these monetary issues. I know I should do it, but these are all roadblocks. So I’m done I’m out and say it. And it’s like, it’s very easy to do that. And that’s, that’s a. Much more harder to navigate situation because [00:35:00] there are things that, I mean, I know I should do with our practice.
I’m not, well, I’m not going to do it right now because I’m not gonna do it. It’s just, it’s part of life.
Dr. Chris Wolfe: What’s your, why what’s your why in practice and in practice, do you, what’s your identity?
Dr. Tommy Pinkston: So my personal one or our practice one, let’s start
Dr. Chris Wolfe: with your practices.
Dr. Tommy Pinkston: So we just went through this. We’re using traction.
Uh, ah, yeah, we went to, yeah. And so it’s huge. We’re in the middle of traction. Kind of overwhelmed right now with all we have going on, honestly, cause we’re trying to do all these things and do enough to make people uncomfortable, which we probably tend to do a little too much too aggressively as a leadership group.
And so then the staff kind of pulls back. So we’re in the midst of that, but, um, right. We went through it and our little tagline that we figured out is, is just be awesome, like beat. We’re going to be essentially try to be the best we can be. And that looks different for every single patient encounter.
Right. For a couple of years, we’ve told our staff, like, I want to be the best practice in the state. I like, and I don’t mean that in terms of financial, I don’t mean the [00:36:00] biggest of the best, but like we’re in a small town and you need to be able to walk into our, our office and feel like you could walk into Charlotte or Raleigh or Atlanta or.
New York, I don’t care. But in terms of, uh, of what you’re offered in terms of how you’re cared about, like that is the field that we’re going for. And so we’ve after back and forth, we kind of just said, that’s what it is. Like, just be awesome. Right. And if that’s handling a patient, that’s upset, be awesome at it.
I don’t know what that looks like, but figure it out, right. If that’s taking, going above and beyond and seeing the, our patient or whatever you wanna do, like kind of, that is kind of what, or exactly what we want our staff to do. And our staff does very good about. Elderly patient walking in, they’ll go get an umbrella and walk them in.
And it’s just like, that’s, that’s amazing. Like that’s exactly what it is, has no revenue generating amount, but that is going to completely differentiate. And that’s kind of what we want to be about. Um, and that’s kind of hard sometimes because you know, both of us understand that there’s a lot of financial impact that we have to watch what we have to make sure we’re [00:37:00] watching those numbers.
Um, and that’s sometimes hard because you have these financial conversations with your staff and you’re like, Hey, here’s where. And it can sometimes get lost in translation because you’re talking about all these definable metrics, but at the end of the day, that has, it has a lot to do with it, but not necessarily what you’re going for in terms of bringing it back to again, the purpose.
Like I have to do that to fix my, to get to my purpose, but the purpose is we want to be awesome. And how we, how we approach
Dr. Chris Wolfe: how we approach patient care. I love that. I think, I think, um, that I think is a little bit unusual. I started asking this question. When I, when I’m talking, I’ll, you know, especially like if I’m doing a protocol, if I’m talking about like right now, it’s dry eye.
If it’s my opiate management, if it’s I asked, I asked the question. If I look around this room, how many of you believe you are the best place in your community to get eyecare? And, you know, I’ll get a couple of hands go up and they don’t go up. Like they don’t shoot up. [00:38:00] Right. They’re kind of like this, they’re a little bit afraid to.
And then I, and I often as I’m talking about it, and then I’ll, I’ll say, do you know if I was in a room of cataract surgeons, the worst cataract surgeon in your community? If I asked that, if I asked that question, their hands are going to shoot up. And I think there’s, I think there’s a lot of things that are enduring about our profession, that, that actually make it make it, so that we’re a little bit timid to, to put that out there.
Um, it doesn’t mean that you are, that. You know, if you believe you’re the best and you put that out there, like if you’re going to be awesome, you have to live up to that. If that, if that is something that you’re really going to hold yourself to, you have to live up to it. And so in a lot of ways, it’s not an arrogant statement.
I think it can come off that way. I think he can come off. Like I’m not going to raise my hand really high because I don’t want everybody to think I’m a, you know, I’m a weirdo or arrogant, but, um, but it, if you really believe that that means you have. Put your money where your mouth is. So you’re going to have [00:39:00] to, you’re going to, even if you’re so like what, what that entails is if, if I don’t do dry eye in my practice, but when you come into my practice, I’m the best place for you.
If you have dry, because I’m going to figure out if I can’t fix it, somebody else is going to fix it. Right. And so that’s, it’s just a different mentality. And I just, I think that’s where people struggle is they haven’t identified. They haven’t identified whatever it is. It may not be being awesome. Right.
But whatever that thing is, Then it, it makes you kind of float in the wind. Right. Cause if you’re going to be awesome and somebody comes in with a problem, it’s very easy to figure out, like, I’ve gotta be awesome. I gotta make this problem go away for this patient. Right. Right. And, um, but if it’s like, I don’t know, or we’re, you know, we don’t really have a clear identity as a practice, so I’m not really sure how to handle this.
How would Dr. Pinkston think if I do this. Man that’s going to cost $250. Cause I’m going to have to give them a refund where you awesome. [00:40:00] Right then you’re awesome. Okay. Done. And then you never have to worry about that stuff,
Dr. Tommy Pinkston: right? I think you’re right. I think optometrist in general, we don’t want to be seen as cocky or arrogant and sometimes.
I’m sure. I get kind of called that when a little bit when I speak. Cause I get very passionate about it and I think it’s very important. I think that the disclaimer in anything like that is like, I’m not trying to be awesome at your expense. Like, so if you and I are, even if we have vision source practices in the same town, it’s not that I want my practice to be better at the expense of your coworkers.
That’s not all I’m saying is I want my practice to be the best practice that I can possibly do. For my practice, which might look different than your practice. Like, so like I might not do IPLS or sclerals or whatnot. If I get my hands in it, we’re going to go completely into deep into the pool. Like we’re jumping in all in and we’re going to figure it out.
But until then, if we’re across town, like, Hey, Chris does a lot better job with that. He is awesome at that. And you’re going to [00:41:00] be in much better hands and that’s kind of. Kind of knowing what you’re good at, in my opinion, like writing, like figuring out, okay, I’m, we’re really good at this. We’re really good at this avenue of eyecare.
We are going to be, we’re going to be the best. And frankly, we’re probably going to beat our competitors at it, but that doesn’t mean that that takes anything away from our competitors. Either. They’re going to be better at other things. And I think that’s okay. Like that’s perfectly fine. Like we all have colleagues that like, are better at a certain things and there’s, there’s nothing wrong with that.
Like I wished them the best of success. And I wonder for that, I want to have a practice that I can build that I can have referrals for fusion IPLS and I’ll do that. Cool. There you go. Here it is. I’ll send them all to you, like take care of the patient. Like I would, and we can have a good thing going here.
And so I think that’s really important that it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t mean that it comes at any of it smells just like you’re like your. We’re doing pushups out there at burpees or whatever. It’s not that I’m trying to beat you. I’m trying to push my limit. And then if I happen to, to finish verse or you have any finished first, so be it, we kind of come together at the [00:42:00] end and we circle up and it’s still, we’re all kind of part of this collective community.
Dr. Chris Wolfe: Yeah, man, I think, I think that’s, I think that’s it. And I think it has to be built on trust. Right? Like your, you know, you made the point of, um, you made the point. Not caring about the guy across the street, you know, or cross your town, that that’s a vision source doctor or not. Right. I mean, frankly, you know, I think there’s the, there, I, I do really believe that a rising tide rises all ships.
And so it doesn’t or elevates all ships. Uh, it doesn’t have to come at the expense of someplace else. I think where it does rub people wrong is if they, if they don’t believe that the other person has their best interests. That’s where I think it becomes a challenge. And that’s where I think vision source and F three, if we’re going to cycle back to that point, it, it eliminates the, the, um, the curiosity about whether or not somebody has your best interest at heart, right?
When they give you advice or they ask advice, they, you, you have been through [00:43:00] enough hard things with them to know that they, um, they’re going to give you genuine advice and they’re going to ask for it when they need it. I think that’s really important.
Dr. Tommy Pinkston: Yeah. And being vulnerable, right? Like being vulnerable to like, listen, I I’m, you know, if somebody calls you up and they think you have a great practice and you’re like, listen up.
That’s not, not my thing I got. And I think even that, like, sometimes we can, you know, we can put people on pedestals, like, okay, that guy he’s got it all figured out. Right. And you call them up. Yes. The rice bag, man. I don’t, I have no idea what to do. They’re like you’re in a tough spot. And then some degree, I wish I had an answer sometimes, but whether it’s personally professionally, like, okay, not everybody has it figured out.
That’s okay. Like, there’s this mystique of that. Everything’s perfect. And that’s just not the case professionally and personally, you know?
Dr. Chris Wolfe: Yeah. Ted, Ted McElroy does a really good job about articulating this stuff. And I’ve learned a lot from him is, you know, um, as I’ve aged, I’ve kind of, uh, I, I want more input from, from outside.
I want [00:44:00] more, you know, when I, um, there was a while that you could say, well, he’s, he’s just a hot shot. You know, I know everything. And then once you realize, like at some point you flip it and you don’t know everything anymore, and then you acknowledge, you don’t know everything. And that’s where, that’s where it becomes really fun.
And I don’t know when that was, it’s been a few years, quite a few years now, but, uh, you know, having other people come in and say, Hey, what do you think about my practice? Um, and what do you think about, uh, like how should we do things and making them experts to your team, uh, has been a lot of fun and, um, And super rewarding and just an area of growth that I never, you know, you, at some point in your, in your life, you, you think you’ve got everything figured out and then until you realize you don’t and, uh, and it’s just so much, so much more fun that way.
Dr. Tommy Pinkston: Yeah, it is. I mean, uh, I guess that’s why kind of what you were saying, like, what’s your purpose? Like that’s, I think that’s the, the pushing. Pushing yourself and your practice, you know, your [00:45:00] family, just yourself to be better. Like, I think that’s all what we’re all trying to do. I think everybody’s trying to do that in their own different.
Until you figure out what that looks like and how you articulate that. I think that’s the key part, you know, it’s figuring out what, you know, where you’re at and where you’re at on that journey. You know,
Dr. Chris Wolfe: Dr. Pinkston, that’s, that’s a great way to finish this. Although, as we were talking about F three, I think we should finish this.
Like we would normally finish after workout, so I’ll let you go.
Dr. Tommy Pinkston: All right. Jordy, Jordy 36. Tell me things to
Dr. Chris Wolfe: Christopher wool, 40 cataract.