We learned the iceberg in chiropractic school as a way to picture the nervous system: symptoms above the surface, root cause below. What most of us were never told is that the model didn't start there. It started in organizational change theory, and it maps almost exactly onto why our practices keep circling back to the same problems no matter how many times we try to fix them.
In this solo episode, Dr. Alex traces that iceberg back to Otto Scharmer's Theory U and uses it to unpack three of her own practice pivots: the insurance contract that cost her half her income overnight, the $12,000 virtual offer that succeeded and still didn't fulfill her, and the current pull toward niching down to pediatric-only care that she keeps almost, but not quite, committing to.
What you'll hear in this episode:
- Where the iceberg model actually came from, and why chiropractic school only ever taught the surface version of it
- How an insurance audit in Alaska forced a change Dr. Alex had wanted to make for years, and why external crises are usually the only thing that moves us
- Why a successful $12,000 virtual care package still left her repeating the exact burnout patterns she thought she'd escaped
- The real reason so many chiropractors resist niching down, and why it's a worth conversation more than a marketing one
- How a coaching program that didn't fit her practice preempted her eventual bankruptcy, and what that reveals about outsourcing your own discernment
- The four layers beneath the surface of the iceberg, and which one actually has to move for change to stick
Connect / Resources
[Links to be added by user]
CHAPTER SUMMARY
1. The Iceberg Isn't Just a Chiropractic Metaphor
Dr. Alex revisits the iceberg most of us met in school and reveals where it actually came from: Otto Scharmer's Theory U, a model built to explain how organizations change. She sets up the rest of the episode by asking what's really underneath our own practices.
2. When the Insurance Company Made the Decision For Her
She tells the story of contracting with Blue Cross Blue Shield in Alaska, the audit that erased more than half her income in a weekend, and the 90-day contract that wouldn't let her leave even after they stopped paying. It took that crisis to finally move her toward the cash-based model she'd wanted from day one.
3. The $12,000 Package That Still Wasn't It
After burnout forced her out of insurance, she built a successful virtual functional medicine offer and sold it well. But she packed her coaching days so tightly she didn't have time for the bathroom, the same pattern that had broken her body in the first place. Success didn't equal fulfillment.
4. Niching Down and the Worth Conversation Underneath It
She names why chiropractors resist serving one population: not a business problem, but a fear that saying no means the practice won't survive. She uses her own pull toward pediatric-only care, and the men who keep walking in anyway, as the live example.
5. Why the Coaching Model Didn't Fit, and What That Cost
She unpacks joining a three-year coaching contract that didn't match her own strengths or vision, and how trying to force her practice into someone else's model preempted the bankruptcy that came later.
6. Four Layers Below the Surface
She walks through the full iceberg: the reactive events we see and put out like fires, the repeating patterns and cycles underneath those events, the structures and rules that produce the patterns, and the unconscious beliefs at the foundation that actually have to shift for anything to change and hold.
7. The Practice Beneath the Practice
She closes with a challenge: notice one repeating pattern in your own practice this week, download the free iceberg graphic, and reach out with what's surfacing for you as she steps more fully into her emerging work as a change consultant for practice owners.
