Je & Anna

“It is such a wild and sometimes crazy, difficult, and even painful journey. But it is so sweet. And we are so grateful.”

Jeff and Anna Hunter, owners at Upstream Functional Medicine, started their crazy, sweet journey with FPC over five years ago. Since then, they have become highly involved in the elite mastermind group, are among the most successful within the community, and have established themselves as well-known leaders in the functional medicine sphere. When they started, they had the same hope of freedom that all newcomers have; they faced the same type of fears and uncertainty and had to overcome the same types of challenges. Their journey began in November of 2017.

Without any savings or substantial income, both Jeff and Anna quit their full-time jobs to start their practice and became relentless in their effort to build a successful business. They worked six days a week for the first three years and for months Jeff’s days would start at 4 a.m. Through it all, they closely stuck to the advice of the FPC coaching team.

“We had one day off a week and outside of that, we worked,” Anna said. “That one day was really important for us so we used it wisely because we knew the other six days were going to be really intense.”

“I wasn’t going to sacrifice time with my family,” said Jeff. “So, we just brought them along for a lot of it. Both of our girls have been to FPC Quarterly’s. It was a great experience for them, and they loved it.”

“We still spent time together,” Anna interjected. “But it was preparing for dinner talks as a family, and reviewing resumes, and painting the office. We brought the kids with us because it’s what needed to happen.”

In April of 2020 when the Hunters were six months shy of graduating from FPC’s 3-year program, Jeff was featured on the cover of Hope For Health and the article talked about how they built their business from scratch and had gone from zero to $800 thousand annually. Jeff’s story touched on having the right mindset and following the instructions but did not adequately emphasize a key attribute that’s required to truly succeed at anything; a trait that Anna describes as “grit.”

“Jeff was going to do whatever he had to, to make it work. There was no other option. Neither one of us wanted to do a presentation every week but it’s what we were supposed to do, so we did it. It was a lot of grit and determination.”

“Growing up my worst fear was speaking in front of people,” Jeff said. “Nothing about me is built for that. If I was put on stage, I could hardly speak.”

“He would freeze up,” Anna said.

“It’s an area of real weakness for me,” Jeff added. “I didn’t like having to do weekly presentations; but it’s what I had to do to get where I’m trying to go so, I wasn’t going to resist it. I was going to learn how to do it and I was going to get good at it.”

By the time they hit their 3-year mark, the Hunters had put in years of hard work and had successfully maneuvered through the challenges that came from building a sustainable practice. They learned how to accept rejection, they had opened credit cards to float the business, they ended talks that resulted in zero closed, and they consistently rumbled with feelings of overwhelm.

“Every three months we'd show up at quarterly and I would hear all these things that we needed to do, and I would just feel like, ‘how the heck am I ever going to do this?’ And I would go find a porch and just cry,” Anna said.

“She would cry at every quarterly,” Jeff added.

“There was fear and uncertainty,” Anna continued. “And I would just feel the weight of everything so I’d try and go off alone to cry, but a friend would always find me, and they’d just sit with me. That comradery was such a gift.”

Jeff described the connections that he and Anna made within the FPC community as “critical” to staying on course.

“It’s easy to get discouraged when you have two or three negative experiences in a week. So, just having somebody to talk to that can relate, and hearing them say ‘oh man, that's hard.’ We never felt like we were alone.”

At the end of 2020, Jeff and Anna became official FPC graduates and were witnessing their goal of having a referral-based practice reach fruition. By that point, they had learned enough to continue on their own but decided that their graduation would serve as a mile marker in their journey, not their finish line.

“We had some major perspective shifts when we joined the FPC Mastermind,” Jeff said. We set three-, five-, and 10-year goals and started asking ourselves what we really wanted in life and thought about how we could make the business work for us in order to get there. We re-framed everything.”

The Hunters, now in their fifth year with FPC, are still having record months and seeing a steady 30 percent increase in their yearly revenue. They are currently hitting about $2 million annually and believe that the challenges do not dissipate, they just shift as past goals are met and new goals get outlined. Last summer they bought a house and five acres of land in Colorado and this summer they are taking the entire month of July off to travel.

“We are sitting at our kitchen counter in our home surrounded by trees and there is a breeze outside. We are in absolute beauty. It’s gorgeous. And it’s because of our business and FPC and how far we've come, and we are so grateful. So, so grateful.”

By: Mariza Elizondo

I’m sure a lot of you have heard of the gut-brain connection and enjoy reading and researching about it, but have any of you heard of the discipline-confidence connection? Probably not - I just came up with it. The concept, however, has been around for as long as humans have, and it focuses on the relationship between self-discipline and self-confidence. The more disciplined you are, the more confident you’ll become in your abilities.

It’s important to understand that a lack of self-confidence it isn’t the actual problem; it’s merely a symptom of an underlying issue. At the root, the real issue with low confidence is a lack of self-discipline. So, if you try to address concerns you have with your confidence and disregard discipline, you will be focusing on a symptom instead of what’s causing it. To understand the real issue, you must tackle it at its root, as we do in functional medicine.

Simply defined, discipline is “giving yourself a command and following through with it.” This is so powerful if you fully embrace it; and embodies the “practice what you preach” idiom. If you follow through on things and do what you say you are going to do; your confidence will inevitably grow. But when you give yourself certain commands such as waking up at a particular time, working out, or focusing on your business and then fail to follow through on them your confidence will suffer. Of course, you won’t have confidence in yourself – you’re not doing the things that you are promising!

As leaders, it is critical that you master self-discipline. This is important, not just to facilitate confidence, but also to model the behavior that we are expecting to see in others. Just like our children, other people are more likely to do as we do and not as we say, so leading by example is key.

James, a friend of mine in eighth grade, had a father that was not a good example of health. He smoked a lot of cigarettes, was very inactive, and mostly just sat in his favorite chair; chain smoking and drinking beer. One day while I was visiting, James’s father became upset with us, and while I don’t remember what we did to cause his frustration, I do remember his words.

“Damnit James. Do as I say, not as I do.” His words stuck with me, and I recall not understanding the hypocrisy. Unfortunately, James has now followed his dad down a similar path of smoking cigarettes and not prioritizing his health. If we want our kids or practice members to do better, we must do better. We have to be the ones to lead by example so that our family, friends, and practice members follow suit.

Do the things that you are asking your practice members to do. If you aren’t eating healthy, exercising, or prioritizing your self-care, you are not modeling the behavior you are expecting to see. If you are not blocking your calendar to spend quality time with family and friends, and aren’t focusing on your purpose, you aren’t leading by example. If you are asking people to “do as you say, not as you do,” you lack discipline and will not have confidence in your ability to help them.

This discipline-confidence concept and practicing what you preach can be translated to several areas of your business. For example, if you lack confidence in requesting referrals or if you expect your practice members to provide them, think about when the last time was that you provided a referral for another business. Providing a referral also takes discipline because it requires a behavior after the transaction has occurred. A behavior that you should be modeling if you are expecting to see it in others.

By addressing the root and focusing on mastering discipline, you will create a positive impact on every area of your life. You will gain confidence, become a better leader, and create a ripple effect that can be seen and felt in the lives of those around you. Take ownership, master discipline, practice what you preach, and witness the world around you improve in every way.

By: Luke Wempe