The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Shannon Miller Of 360 Health And Wellness Joined Alex Urpí & Michael Urpí On “Today y Mañana!"

Episode Date: February 8, 2024

Shannon Miller, Owner of 360 Health and Wellness, joined Alex Urpí & Xavier Urpí On “Today y Mañana!” “Today y Mañana” airs every Thursday at 10:15 am on The I Love CVille Network! “Today y Mañana” is presented by Emergent Financial Services, LLC, Craddock Insurance Services Inc, Castle Hill Cider, and Matthias John Realty, with Forward Adelante.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Today y Mañana. I'm Alex, this is Michael. We're very excited to have you joining us this morning. It's not as cold as it has been. No, I think people are getting worried that we're getting through the fall spring, because I think this weekend, they said like in the 60s. Okay. So a lot of people are kind of worried that we're getting the fall spring, because then by next week or two weeks from now, we'll get snow. We'll get like, you know, three inches of snow. I'll be like, no. The only thing I always worry about this time of year is the plants. Because I know some trees, if they get warm weather, they begin to start budding. To bud the sand flows.

Exactly. And then what you get worried is that you get hit by real cold frost and then, you know, it can kill the tree. Kill the tree, yeah. We've experienced that. We had a beloved peach tree that died because of it. It was a little too early. Yeah.

You don't want to be over-aggressive. You need to manage your risk appropriately. I feel like we should bring that back later. I think we will come around to that later. Instead of a peach tree, a money tree. There you go. So we've got a great show lined up for everyone this morning. We're going to be joined shortly in the show by Shannon Miller. She's the founder and owner of 360 Health and Wellness. Later, Michael and I will talk some finance. As always, love being here on the Out of Civil Network.

A couple thanks, of course, to our presenter, Emergent Financial Services, as well as our great partners at Craddock Serious Insurance, Matias Yon Realty, Castle Hill Cider, Forward Adelante. Appreciate, of course, all of you joining us. We're already being joined, looked by Monica Miller from Montana joining us

this morning. So our viewers... Monica's becoming our number one fan. Monica is a great viewer. Always has some questions and comments. I feel like, God forbid, Monica lost internet. I feel like she would just drive in town just to make sure she watched the show.

We appreciate all of you, no matter how far you are watching from. Last week we had international viewers. We had Spain, New York, possibly Miami, and Montana. And for Charlottesville.

We're hitting all the points. You've got to hit all the major points in the U.S. So, of course, last since we always love to talk a little bit about UVA. Yeah, we like to touch upon it. Yeah, I mean, they had – I mean, you were telling Xavier the historic victory that they had. I think they held Miami to, what, 38 points? It was – so, to put it in perspective, which I love to see, the defense, obviously,

it's always nice when the defense is back because that's kind of the calling card. You've always been a big defense guy. You say the best offense is a good defense. Well, it's fun, too. I mean, I don't know. Maybe some people get bored with the defense, but I like watching good basketball defense

because it's just exciting to be like this team is on pace to be like their lowest points all year. Miami was averaging 80 points a day. We held them to 38 points for the entire day, which was their lowest point total since joining the ACC in 2004 and their lowest points since 1985 when they first reinstated their basketball program. So basically since they started basketball again,

only once have they scored, first reinstated their basketball program. Wow. So basically since they started basketball again, only once have they scored. Only in that very first year when they first had basketball again did they have a lower point total than the 38 points they scored the other night. Wow, that's pretty awesome. So that was a nice win. We beat them. I mean, it was no beat. We beat them and we beat Clemson.

And Clemson then turned around and went and beat UNC. Yeah, and like you said, their defense has improved because last time or three weeks back when we were talking about it, we were like, listen, the offense is struggling, but you need to have really good defense. That's what made those teams from 2014 to 2019 really good is that it didn't matter whether the offense was having a good day or a bad day. The defense was just going to be great.

So it always gave them a chance to win. And very clearly the offense is not on par with the better team's offensive outputs like UNC or Duke or maybe Kentucky or Kansas, one of those kinds of teams, those top dogs. They're not on par with that. But if you can have your defense play really solid, a really great defense, it gives you a chance. And very clearly, that's what's been happening. Because I haven't seen UVA

putting the points on the board. I mean, they only won 60-38. But 60 for us feels a lot. But I mean, a team's average like 75 sometimes. Well, Miami was averaging 80. There you go. Also, the defense travel.

Sometimes on the road, it might be tough to score, but you can always play defense, even on the road. So it was a good week, and I think we've kind of pushed ourselves back into tournament contention at least. Yeah, you told me. I mean, at this point, you said we're second in the ACC? Second in the ACC. Jerry was saying apparently we're like first four in, or last four in,

in the last four teams that might make it in if it were today, the selection. That's not bad. Which is not a bad place to be. There's still – I mean, we play some good teams on the stand rule, but we still play a couple teams that we should beat. But we definitely have a couple tough matches. And I still think for UVA, a lot of our chances of going into the tournament is going to rely on how we do in the ACC tournament.

Because I feel like we have a good showing that might propel us. It doesn't matter whether we win or not. We have a good showing of our propellant. Yeah, if you didn't have that semifinal. Exactly. Which is nice, because if you're one of the top four seeds, you get that double bye. So you only have to win...

Two games, right? Or one? I think you only have to win one game to get to the semifinal. Wow. If you are... It's nice to win two games to get to the final, but I think if you're a top seed, you only have to win one game to get to the semifinal. Yeah, so that should be doable.

It's highly doable. Yeah, it's still not sure whether we get one of those top four seeds. I don't know how the... Well, we'll have to see how it shapes out. Well, the problem is, remember, we still got – the issue is we still got to play UNC and we still got to play Duke. Duke on the road, UNC at home. But those are really two very tough teams.

That's tough teams. And we only played each of them once, which is good and bad, right? Good in the sense you only have to play them once. Bad in the sense you don't have a chance afterwards to catch up again. Yeah, but I think in this year I think it's better that have to play them once. You don't have a chance afterwards to catch up again. Yeah, but I think this year it's better that we don't play them once. And rather try to beat them in the tournament. ACC tournament.

So, I mean, it's been good. We'll keep mentioning it. Exactly. We'll stay on top of them because we know Tony Bennett's watching. They haven't lost in seven in a row since we had our talk about what's wrong with UVA. Exactly. Well, you know, like we mentioned before the show, we were talking about it.

And I'm telling you, Tony Bennett was listening. He said, oh, man, Alex and Michael are getting on me right now. I've got to turn this program around. Wouldn't want Alex and Michael on your show. No, exactly, yeah. I don't want to get called out on today, manana. No, that's for sure, that's for sure. So it's been, but it's been fun to see.

So we've enjoyed it. Yeah, it's good to kind of get back in the swing of UVA sports. Absolutely. You know, we've had a bit of a lull in the past. We had like a peak in 2019 where I think we won the NCAA tournament in basketball. We made the ACC championship in football, if I'm correct. Wasn't that the same year? Yep, maybe.

I mean, we hit like an ultimate peak. We had won baseball a few years before. Won lacrosse. Yeah, won lacrosse. We won like 1,000 soccer. And then since then, we've kind of had a bit of a lull. So it would be nice to kind of get back into the national spotlight. It will be back.

Monica says, good morning. Good morning, Monica. Thanks for watching this morning. How do you say good morning in morning Monika thanks for watching this morning how do you say good morning in German Alex I think it's just guten tag

I thought it was guten morgen oh guten morgen you could do that you could do either way I know better you could do either way you could say good day

or good morning no but I said good morning yeah guten morgen there you go there you go you should do there you go

that'll do it I know disappointing disappointing we're gonna have to report that to the life. The higher-ups. The life.

The higher-ups. All righty. So I'm excited to jump into today's guest. Yeah, let's go. Let's do it. So we're super excited to welcome to the show this morning Shannon Miller. She is the founder and owner of 360 Health and Wellness. Shannon, thanks so much for coming on this morning.

Thanks for coming on, Shannon. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. No, it's good to have you on. So for those who haven't met you yet, maybe tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you first go down the road of becoming interested in the health and wellness field? Sure. So I started out, I graduated at Virginia Tech.

My initial goal was to be a large animal vet. So that seems kind of silly now that I'm not taking care of animals. But my mentor at the time kind of talked me out of going to vet school, interestingly enough. So then I decided, well, I, you know, I want to, I'm a caring person. I want to take care of people. So why not just do nursing? Um, so I went to John Hopkins. I did an accelerated program in nursing there. And then I was a nurse for a good eight to nine years before I went back and got my master's for a nurse practitioner. So I've been in healthcare for about 17 years. And the first eight or nine of that was in an ER trauma unit in DC. So definitely saw a lot of things there.

I learned, I can't even, that was probably where I learned the most initially in my career, which is why I stayed in the ER for so long. I worked with some amazing nurses, some amazing physicians, and it was such a wonderful environment. The physicians there really wanted you to be autonomous in your care, and they taught you a lot of things. So that was, I'm really grateful for that experience. I went back to get my nurse practitioner just because, you know, I felt like I wanted to do more than what I was doing and went back to Georgetown and got my master's. And then I kind of thought I was going to go back into the ER because that was kind of what I loved. But I found that after having some children and losing my father to cancer, that ER was a little difficult, I feel like.

You know, some of the things that I could handle before was a little harder for me to do. So I went into family medicine, and I worked at a federally qualified health center in Georgia, which also was a wonderful learning experience. For those that don't know what that is, it's kind of like underserved populations, essentially. So people that might not otherwise have access to health care, you kind of help them out. Yeah, exactly. And that was also, like I said, it was a really great experience because I got to learn about different ways to get care for patients and medications for patients. And so I feel like I've taken that with me when I came here, came back to Virginia to work.

And I worked at Sentara for Martha Jefferson and Family Medicine for a couple years. And, you know, I think what kind of pushed me into what I'm doing now, which is the direct primary care model, is health care is just not what it used to be. Or, you know, I don't know if it ever really was, maybe way back when before I was even born. You know, your physician would go to your house. You know, like the doctor that...

House calls. Right, house calls. A horse and carriage. Yeah. The doctor that maybe helped, you Right, house calls. Exactly, a horse and carriage. Yeah. The doctor that maybe helped birth you in the hospital or in your home or whatever was who took care of you all the time. But that model changed. And I know it's because of a growing population and then there's just not as many people going into primary care because it's not... There's no glory in primary care, I think is probably the right way to put it.

And money, right? I mean the right way to put it. And money, right? I mean, money is part of it. And I always say that we're kind of like the people on the back burner in primary care because we don't bring money to organizations generally. And I think that's frustrating because I get health care shouldn't be about money, even though it is. And it's run by insurance. Insurance, I know we've talked before,

is that it just, the way that process works kind of really does force sometimes, I mean, just last week's guest, you know, when he was a doctor, he was saying, you know, you know, in and out, in and out, in and out. And there's this pressure to do that because you're just, you're spending so much time on insurance. Yeah, and exactly why I kind of got to this place in my life pressure to do that because you're just, you're spending so much time on insurance. Yeah. And,

and exactly why I, I kind of got to this place in my life where I was like, I cannot keep doing what I'm doing. I will burn out. And there's no, this is what I love. You know, I love taking care of people. It's just my personality. It's who I am. And it's why I went into medicine. It's why I became a nurse practitioner was because of that, that aspect of being able to spend some time with my patients and care for them and listen. And, you know, if you're in a primary care office or as patients, you know, I'm not sure what your experience has been, but it is a revolving door. It kind of is. Shuffling or herding cattle is pretty much kind of how I say it. You're in and out.

And it's not fair, and it's not fair to the providers because we certainly didn't design that method of care that was insurance. Tell us a little bit about, so what is, for people who don't know, what is the direct primary care model? How is it different? So I think one thing to say is there's two different, so direct primary care and concierge. I sometimes think they get confused.

People are not sure what the difference is or boutique care. And so direct primary care is just membership-based care. So I am not billing your insurance in addition to your membership dues. You're basically paying a monthly flat rate for the care that you get, no matter how many times you come in, no matter how many times you talk to me. There's no extra there. And there's lots of services included in that monthly fee too. I also get discounted lab prices, which are incredibly cheap compared to even with what insurance pays for. Concierge Medicine, for the most part, they do monthly memberships as well, but they also

double dip and they can bill your insurance. So it's a little bit different. Direct primary care, this whole movement across the country, is basically to get back into real care for your patients and not away from that insurance-based model so that maybe over time, if enough of us do it, they're going to have to lower their prices. So you have to be competitive. Because we're not billing. And so eventually, again, it's going to take time and

i may be long gone before it happens but that's the that's the goal is to make to get enforce insurance to bring their costs down so people can afford to get care so basically once people so in other words people kind of join and say i want to be part of 360 health and wellness in essence. And then for the monthly membership, whenever you need to come in, you come in. And I mean, you don't, and I think that's the other thing. That's the other benefit of the monthly membership versus a normal traditional insurance based office. Like I know patients get frustrated because when they call their, their doctor's office, they just maybe have a question. Well, they're kind of forced to schedule an appointment. There's not really a way to talk to the provider without doing so.

And the reason is because we can't bill in an insurance-based model unless you come in or it's a virtual visit. And I think it's frustrating for both of us, the provider and the patient, that that's how it has to be, but that is the case. And so in direct care, that's completely gone. If you have something that you need to ask me, you can text message me, you can send a message on the patient portal, you can email me. It doesn't have to be a visit.

Now, of course, you can visit. I mean, there's obviously times where we need to have in-person visits, and we do. And the nice thing is that you're kind of encouraged to actually use, to make use of what's being provided. Because I know sometimes, you know, you've got, I know for some insurance, right, you've got a lot of people, I know mine, it's $40. You pay the $40 per visit. So you're always like, is it worth it? And especially sometimes, depending on the purpose of the visit, they don't even cover, the insurance won't even cover that.

They'll be like, sorry, this visit was $80 because you weren't sick. It was for travel purposes. You had a question on should I take any vaccines before going to X country, right? And so you're encouraged. You're always like second-guess yourself. Like do i really want to call my doctor because this is going to cost me 40 bucks exactly and that's and that's a worry too because sometimes you may have a problem and you're like do i really want to call the doctor

or go or you wait till it's so bad exactly then sometimes you wait and then the issue becomes even worse and then you're like oh i shouldn't have waited yeah but it's interesting what you talk about with the primary care because i feel like it's partially to establishing a personal connection with your doctor because I'm going to be honest, I don't even remember which doctors I've gone to in the past 10 years, but I do remember we used to have a family pediatrician doctor that my brothers and I saw when we were growing up. At least I remember until I was 12 years old.

I still remember Dr. Penn, old I still remember Dr. Penn yeah and I still remember him he was a wonderful older man with glasses and we had that personal connection it's like I always knew Dr. Penn

and you just get to know your doctor so well you actually just feel comfortable it's like you're gonna go see Dr. Penn it feels like you're just gonna see

your old grandpa you know who's gonna you know hit your knee and do all that fun stuff but now it's kind of like yeah I mean you're always kind of

tepid to change you know you we like having the same what's the word i'm looking for we like having the constant yeah consistency consistency that's what i was looking for you know so it's like you same way you wouldn't don't want to constantly be having different dentists you don't want to really have different doctors you want to have that personal connection where it's like oh i know this person i have a quick question that I can text them. Or I could just give them a quick call saying, hey, I'm having this pain here. Is this something I have to worry about? And you could be like, no, you just probably pulled a muscle. You banged it. You know, something akin to that. Yeah. Yeah. And I do think, I mean, continuity of care is super important.

And when you've got a lot of cooks in the kitchen, it makes it harder to get that patient to have the better care, essentially. And then part of the other thing that's in my practice, the health and wellness aspect of it, is just I do integrative health, too. So that's kind of combining functional, more holistic medicine with traditional medicine. So what are kind of the range of different services that things that you that you can help people with? Yeah, I mean, so I would say it, I try to focus on root cause medicine too. So if patients are, you know, have chronic illness, whether it's diabetes, blood pressure, hormones, or thyroid, or any of those things, or chronic fatigue, any of that stuff. You know, most traditional medicine, they don't recognize that there are other ways to manage

those types of illnesses. And we just prescribe medications to treat symptoms. And that's not ideal. And I will say that's what I was taught for a long time in traditional medicine. And then I think over time, towards the end, before I kind of moved into this model and before I started doing a lot of studying and doing functional medicine, um, that is what I was taught. And it got to the point where patients would come in and I knew something was going on with them. I knew something was wrong, but based on the labs, things looked fine. And so then you just end up with this, like, I'm sorry, like the labs are fine, but that patient's still suffering. So it just kind of was, I got to the point where I was

like, there's gotta be more. Like, what am I missing? What have I not been taught? And I just started reading. I started seeing things. I, you know, I was working in a practice or am still part-time, you know, and I saw some other ways to manage care, and I just dove in and did a functional medicine program, and it's very eye-opening. So I can help people with things like that. If they've gotten nowhere with care before or they want to look at a different way to treat their chronic illnesses,

there's definitely ways to do that. And so what I do is I have my patients come in, we do an intake, we do a 60-minute sit-down, let's chat, let's figure it out. If we need to do that. And so what I do is I have my patients come in, we do an intake, we do a 60-minute sit down, let's chat, let's figure it out. If we need to do labs, we do labs. But there's sometimes we don't have to. It's just kind of looking at symptoms and what ways can we change it. Lifestyle, nutrition, should we add supplements, you know, those types of things. You know, and I still do traditional medicine too. Not everybody is on board with natural medicine. But I think there's a happy medium somewhere for both.

There's a place for both. There are certain things that, like you said, sometimes the way we've been doing medicine in the West often just puts a Band-Aid on certain things and doesn't get to underline. Or give you a pill. Or a pill, right? But there are times when if you need

surgery, you need surgery, right? You're not going to cure, you know what I mean? If I ever broke an arm, there's no point. Get the leeches on it. Yeah, no leeches. Yeah, exactly. It's the combination sometimes. It's not overlooking one or the other. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's

definitely a place for traditional medicine, just like you mentioned, like surgeries and there's cardiac care and pulmonary care and certain things that of course we can't always a hundred percent make better. Um, but, but there is more to our health and our wellness than, um, than just traditional medicine and prescribing the medications because you get side effects from them and they're expensive and that's the other thing that's frustrating you know all these companies make these incredible medications that for some people could save them but then they can't afford them so you know it's it's a frustrating kind of it's just it's frustrating well it's just and it's the thing that if you can like you said if you if it's something that can be solved through

better nutrition or a supplement you know balancing out something that you're missing a vitamin that you're missing or something that you need or a lifestyle change then it's better to do that than to put a pill on it that'll have additional side like the pill might make the symptom go away right the traditional medicine might make the syndrome but then you'll have these other side effects and you might need to take that for the rest of your life. Right. Versus a lifestyle change that may not only help that issue, but other issues that you don't know you have. Exactly. Yes. No, 100 percent. And I think, too, what's important to know is that we live in a society of now and we always want things to happen now we want we want to be fixed now we want that that fatigue to go away now and and i will say in functional medicine when we're doing that approach

it does take longer so i i think it is it's got to be a person that is committed to changing their lifestyle um because that's what's going to really create that lasting wellness um and i think that's a hard that's a hard sell sometimes. And it's hard to do. I mean, changing your lifestyle is incredibly hard to do. That's interesting you mentioned changing lifestyle because I feel like that's been a pattern I've noticed among people post-pandemic. Have you seen that as well?

People kind of come in saying, I feel like my life was unhealthy before the pandemic. I'm trying to change that. I'm trying to get healthier. Yeah. No, I definitely think there is quite a movement. And you can see it just through any social media. Like you see people talking about it and there's more supplement commercials and more push, I feel like, to look at some natural, holistic ways to treat.

So, yeah. I mean, I think that it's definitely up and coming. And I do think some of our younger generations are more in tune to treat. So, yeah, I mean, I think that it's definitely up and coming, and I do think some of our younger generations are more in tune to it. I think it's harder the older that we are, unless you were already using that kind of modality. It's hard to change people. It's hard. To change the way you think, if you were raised by that.

In fact, Kevin Hiddens, thanks for watching the show, an audience question here. It's actually kind of related to what you just asked. He said, did you have to make any pivots in your approach during or post-pandemic because of how people's lifestyles may have changed? Maybe they didn't go to the doctor for a while, so things kind of built up. Or were there any changes? Because he said it seems to him that recovery and reintroduction to what life was is still a work in progress for some people. Yeah, I mean, I think that's kind of a tough question.

I mean, I think trying to come back into medicine and into normal care post-pandemic, I mean, I definitely feel like I was trying to push a little more of lifestyle intervention because I think as we learned through COVID how the virus works on the body and what things we can do to help ourselves kind of recover prevent you know illnesses like that it definitely I do think it allowed for a door to be open into introducing these other types of care and methods and and things like that yeah um but maybe open people's eyes a little just you know i mean you've but we open people's eyes to like there are things you do to be healthy that protect you from numerous viruses and sometimes it's you get accustomed to like you know oh well he just got a you know he got a bad flu and it and it got it but maybe the things you can do so that if you get the flu you're not as susceptible to it because

you're in a generally healthier state sometimes it takes a new virus to come along and say I probably should have been doing that for the flu and for other things to prevent the flu, cold, RSV all these things that can put you in a bad spot if you get a bad one

but sometimes it takes something unexpected to kind of say, I wonder if I should have been doing that all along. Yeah, and I do think it opened up a lot. I mean, people didn't have anything to do, so they were home and they were reading, and it was like this Google thing where everybody was just reading all sorts of things. And there is a problem, I think, in our country with autoimmune disease and cancer and just things that are just, like, steadily increasing, which is very, it should be alarming for everybody because, you know, the answer or the question, rather, is why?

I mean, if you look at our information compared to other, you know, countries, they don't always, they're not the same in terms of what's causing their death versus what's causing death in America. And that's linked to a lot of things, but a lot of it is our food system, our nutrition, where our food comes from and how it's harvested, those types of things. So whether it's an industrial or organic.

And hence you need the integrative part, the functional medicine part, because sometimes traditional medicine can't solve that no issue it doesn't have a there isn't a pill that will undo the lack of nutrition in your food supply like you need there are other methods that you have to work on for that yeah absolutely and and i mean again all of this is wonderful but but it is costly. And I think that that's the tough part. I try to do my best to make sure that I'm affordable for patients so that access to care is there. That's really important to me. But it is, it's a long process for myself when I create plans for patients. And it's difficult too for them to make some of the

lifestyle changes, especially if they don't have the income to support it because organic foods, you know, organic grass-fed meats, they are not cheap. So do you work with people also to see what, in other words, what would be the ideal plan for them, but also what's a plan that maybe is attainable for now for their budget? Yeah. I mean, you have to meet a patient where they are. And I think that's an important concept because sometimes I think people will pay all this money to see providers that are similar and then they're told all this information, but they're like, I can't do it.

You know, so I think if we're kind of substituting some things here and there, you're going to have some benefit. And so I just try to encourage them from my standpoint, what things can we change? What things can we substitute right now and do that? I tend to have, I guess, like a plan for, okay, if your situation changes or your budget improves, here are things to be thinking about that you can make changes in the future. But so kind of like, here's what you can do now and here's what you

can do later. Yep. Absolutely. And then, you know, I think too, what I have found with patients that are, that maybe struggle with the nutrition change is maybe they can't afford it or they can make some of the changes, but they don't know how to cook the foods. And so that's, that's been on my brain for a while. Like, how can we help or give this information to the public so that's that's been on my brain for a while like how can we help or give this information to the public so that they they can cook the foods and make them taste good because i get that a lot well this doesn't taste good well it could yeah it could you gotta learn how to cook but right so i mean i think that there are a lot of there are a lot of places that we could provide services like that. Just showing people how to cook the food, I think, would make a huge difference.

Cooking classes. Yeah. I mean, it all makes complete sense. I am one person, but it is one of the things I want to do. Absolutely. What's it from us, our audience? Thank you, Rosalita, Rosalita Todaro, watching this morning. Thank you so much.

Our audience always asks, what's it like being an entrepreneur as well? Like kind of taking that leap and like having your own business. Scary and stressful. I wish I had better words. No, that's 9 out of 10 entrepreneurs would tell you that. Yeah, yeah. I don't know what I

expected. I knew it would be hard. But I just felt like it was something I needed to do. You know, no matter what I was doing before, there was something missing and I needed to have the ability to try it. You know, if I fail, I fail, but I'm not, you know, I want to do the best I can to make it successful. And I think that the direct primary care concept is harder here. I mean, I'm out in Zion Crossroads, so it's a little bit more rural. So I think that the direct primary care concept is harder here. I mean, I'm out in Zion Crossroads, so it's a little bit more rural. So I think that concept is difficult for folks

because they don't understand, well, I have insurance, why should I pay a monthly fee? But I mean, my patients would tell you it's worth it. So, you know, it's taking a leap for patients too, you know, to see somebody and trust somebody. And I do think that once patients come in and they talk to me, you know, sometimes they leave in tears. They're happy. Like somebody sat down and listened to what they had to say and heard them. And they feel validated in what they've been feeling. And I think that's important.

That's fantastic. It's thinking of insurance and healthcare in a new way. And I really like that. I like that notion. I like the personal connection you're trying to sell as well. Because I feel like that's important to have. As a patient, you want to trust your doctor. You don't just want, oh, here's your doctor for the day.

You're like, I don't know this person. But you want to create that connection. This way, yeah, it builds that trust. It's like, hey, listen, this is a problem that I have. What can we do to solve it? And I think that's important. Yeah, absolutely. That's fantastic.

Well, Shannon, this has been an absolute pleasure. Really appreciate you coming on today. If people are interested in like, okay, I want to find out more. I want to schedule something. I want to talk to Shannon. What's the best way to get in touch with you? So my office is located in Zion Crossroads. It's got a Troy address,

but it's kind of right in that Zion, Troy area. So I have a website, www.360health-wellness.com. If you want to book an appointment, the easiest way is to go to the webpage. There's a book now button. Easily allows you to see my schedule and do self-scheduling. If you want to book an appointment, the easiest way is to go to the web page. There's a book now button. It easily allows you to see my schedule and do self-scheduling. My phone number is 540-517-7170.

You can call or text it, and I can help get you set up as well. I didn't mention I do also IV therapy, hormone management, and some nutrition and weight loss stuff as well. So kind of all, it's all encompassing. Very holistic. Yeah, yeah. Way of looking at it. Yeah. That's fantastic.

Wonderful. Be sure to check it out, www.360, the number is 360health-wellness.com. Shannon, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you so much. I've learned a lot and I'm glad to know you're here doing what you're doing appreciate it alrighty as we transition here that was good to hear

and I like the personal aspect of even just now kind of having like your own personal doctor kind of being you know just for me I always like that approach of, you and I always talk about that personal touch. And I don't, sometimes you get, even myself, like, I'm like, I don't feel like going to the doctor, because it's like, I don't know what

doctor is going to show up behind. Well, I kind of, in some ways, let's face it, the way things have worked is you're now always, it's almost like you always have a third person in the room with you and the doctor, which is the insurance company. And it's hard to get them out of the picture because so much is connected with that. And it really, it's funny, as a financial person, I always kind of bristle at the way health insurance is done because, like, insurance, if you think about life insurance right you don't get life insurance so that if you stub your toe something happens or if you lose your job you get paid something you get life insurance to insure against a catastrophic event which is you die right with home insurance for the most part do you get home insurance so that if you spill wine on your couch you can use home insurance to get a new couch no you get home insurance for the most part so that if you lose

your whole house and everything in it you you can do have something to ensure you identify this catastrophe but the funny thing is with the way health and health care and health insurance work right we've embedded it so much that you use health insurance to do a checkup with your doctor which is not catastrophic at all like i mean if if i have a catastrophic event happening you know it every time you call if you ever call like your primary care doctor your family medicine doctor right it literally the if you get the message or the uh like you call them and it's lunch hour, last thing they always say, it's funny, every time I call,

the same thing, the voicemail says, if this is an emergency, hang up the phone and call the 911. In other words, if you have a catastrophic event, you shouldn't be calling, like, hey, can I do a checkup? You know, I'm bleeding profusely from my leg. I think my intestines popped out. I think I might have severed an artery. Can I come in tomorrow for a checkup?

No, you call 911 and get to the emergency room. Is this something I should be worried about? Could I possibly die within the next 30 minutes? And yet we've embedded health insurance with that, with the checkup, where it's like, this is not an emergency. I might have a cold. I said, oh, well, I'm going to have to talk to your health insurance provider.

Why? Why is this involved? So it's just interesting how you've done that and how there may be ways in the future to separate that out so that you have insurance for catastrophic outcomes. But you have a different model for how you interact with your doctor or your nurse practitioner. Yeah, and health is important because you only got one body. And sometimes I think the problem is we kind of neglect it until it becomes an issue. And then when it becomes an issue now, it's a lot more work to kind of get yourself back healthy. And then for other people, sometimes they don't even have that opportunity.

So it's kind of important to make sure you're healthy and you know make sure your body's working as it needs to work yeah it's funny i feel like we treat it worse than we treat other things like like our home but if you if you saw like a little water spot in your ceiling right you wouldn't be like i'll wait till it's like a big spot and then i'll call them in to fix you're like oh dang i gotta get that fixed there must be a leak somewhere with your body it's not working really well listen i i've seen it within ourselves and with other people because we even treat our pets better we're like oh my gosh wait a second you know our dog's not even you live for like two seconds like oh this is this emergency taken to the vet you'll pay as much money and then for us it's like i woke up my legs crooked

i'm limping you know i got sore this i'm likeping, you know, I got to sort this, I'm like, ah, whatever. You know, I'll tough it out, you know, I'll do a deal with it later. I'll be alright. Yeah, I'll be alright. It's amazing. How we do certain things. You know, but, what can you do? What can you do? And it's funny, I mean, obviously health is always on the top of that like, New Year's resolution

list, I need to get healthier and stuff. Although this year, number one, was a different kind of wellness, which is actually financial wellness. Why did I know you were going to get to that? I thought I did that pretty well. You mentioned that and I feel like I'm wondering whether that was actually a push because I know we've been very busy this year with a lot of new people coming in asking about financial plans and wondering how to manage money and you know out of curiosity Alex like what it like the

most questions that you've been asked like people come in you say like you know financial advisor it's like what can you help me with what have you been experiencing yeah that's that's a good question is it's it's true there's some other people that are a little confused they walk tonight what do I even ask I mean we've had people come in and ask like 500 different things. Some people come in and start asking about mortgage advice. We're not really mortgage people. But luckily, Xavier is so knowledgeable on everything.

But that's something that your financial advisor can help you with. And so I think the key is really what you want to ask your financial advisor is, first off, you want to know from them what are the range of services you're actually looking at. In other words, are you merely going to provide me with a financial plan? Are you only going to help me manage retirement assets? Do you do all of these things together? Will you charge for the different aspects? We've had people come in and not realize that you know I mean our comes our first

consultation is free right they think it's an hourly model well that's something important to know in other words if we and then it worked out for them because we're not like we're not gonna try you come in for the first time we're not like being like all right 250 bucks an hour yeah not like lawyers where it's like you know my dad used to talk, he'd talk 50 minutes about family, and then he had like one question, 10 minutes, and then he got billed for the entire hour. Yeah, I think he got rid of that lawyer.

Yeah, $350, and he's like, hey, what? So it's not, you know, but you want to know that. You know, is this something hourly? Is this something that I'm just paying you? Is it all inclusive? So it's important to know first what you're looking at, right? But then also feel free to ask the questions.

I mean, a good financial advisor should be able to help you with several things. First off, in other words, not just how should your portfolio be invested, right? Because that's one that I think a lot of people think about, right? Do I have the right investment? That's the most generic question. The most generic, right? Your financial advisor should also be able to help you. a lot of people think about. Do I have the right investment? That's the most generic question. Your financial advisor should also be able to help you.

How much do you need to save to get to this point? And what's the best way to do that? In other words, you may come out saying, alright, I need to save $500 a month to get to my goal at retirement. To retire when I want to retire, given

the things I want to do in retirement, given my current income, given my current expenses, what do I need to do? And your financial advisor or your financial planner, they can help you figure out, okay, do I need to make any changes in expenses? How much should I save?

Where should I save? And that's a key one. Sometimes you might just be like, oh, I just have to save 500 bucks a month. Well, 500 bucks a month into your 401k is different than 250 into your 401k and 250 into a Roth IRA is different than 250 into a 401k

and 250 into a taxable brokerage account. Those are going to give you three very different outcomes, right? For some people, certain things aren't going to be possible. Like your income may prevent you from putting the money into a Roth IRA, right? In which case, well things aren't going to be possible like your income may prevent you from putting the money into a Roth IRA right in which case well you're gonna you might be better off with a 401k but what if your work doesn't offer one now you might be looking at a combination

of a traditional IRA and a brokerage account right and those are going to have different tax implications both now and in the future and they're going to change the numbers. So it's important to make sure when you're having your financial crisis, they should be asking, what types of accounts do you have? What is your income? So you've got to be comfortable sharing information because that's going to go a long way

to helping you figure out what is the right plan for me. And what kind of information would people need to share? Go ahead. I mean, it can vary. Some people are like, you know, we've had people walk in and say, here's my tax return from last year. Oh, I don't know where to start, right?

But a good way to start is always can you actually, and this is good whether you're going to see a financial advisor or not, can you break down your expenses into categories? Because one of the first steps that you're going to have to do to figure out what you need to do is know where your expenses are coming from in other words if your if your idea of your expenses is this is my credit card bill at the end of the month and i pay it off then you're right it's going to be hard to make changes if you're a financial planner comes back and says well you need to cut 50 bucks a month out of your

budget you're like well where is I mean, I get a credit card bill at the end of the month. I think being able to itemize how you, where you spend your money. And it could be big categories. It could be dining out, travel, groceries, hobbies. Exactly. So to know that is going to go a long way.

And that's something you can work on even before you go visit a financial advisor, right? You don't want to know how much money do you make. What is your income? And what is your income not just that shows in your paycheck, but what is your gross income? Because financial planners are going to take into account state taxes, income taxes, payroll taxes, Medicare taxes. There's taxes that will eat into your income. When you're making a plan, you've got

to account for that because if you sit there and say, well, I'm going to get $3,000 a month, but you're going to have taxes withheld, which means your final paycheck isn't going to be $3,000 a month. It's going to be $2,500. So you can't spend $3,000. And if you have to save, you

can't spend $2,500 too. Exactly. So you don't have to be able to share that information. Know that. Know what tax. You don't have to know what tax bracket. You have to know your income. You have to know your expenses.

You have to know. You should know things like what is your mortgage rate? Yes. How many years are left? That's a big one. That's a big one. How much you pay per month on mortgage. Any student loans.

What are your student loans? How much you pay per month, how long until you pay them off. Well, what's the balance? How many years are left on this mortgage? Exactly. Because you don't want to take into account, if you do a plan, you don't want to know when you stop paying the mortgage. That's a big piece. At that point, that expense goes away. It's not a recurring expense beyond the life of the mortgage. And also, is it a fixed rate mortgage or is it an adjustable rate mortgage? If it's a fixed rate mortgage, it doesn't go up with inflation. Whereas a lot of your other expenses, groceries, if you have your groceries, rent, and gas, all three of those things are going to change with inflation. If you have a fixed rate mortgage and your mortgage payment is $1,500 a month over a 30-year period, that's not going up with inflation.

Your property tax and your home insurance might, but your mortgage principal and interest, if it has been amortized over 30 years to give you a number, it's not changing. So it's a non-inflationary expense, and it goes in an entirely different category. Because you don't want to accidentally think that's going up with inflation, because it's not. So you'll think that you're way worse off than you actually are, if you were to mistake it. And another important thing, too, is to talk about mortgages as goals, too. Because if you want a new house,

you have to say, OK, when would you think about moving it? In 10 years. And now you have to start planning. It's like, OK, so at some point, you're going to have to get a new mortgage. And then you kind of guess, OK, how much is your house worth now? How much might it be worth in 10 years? And that's why you also need to update your financial plan as well.

Because your financial plan today is not going to be the same as it is three years from now. Because inflation could be different. The market could be different. Think about it. When we ran financial plans for people in 2019, we told them this. We said, look, a financial plan, Xavier likes to call it a living document, right? Things change over time. You might get a new job.

Things will change. And when we were running financial plans in 2019, we were kind of, remember, inflation at that point was like 2%. The world was normal, Alex. It was normal. And we would put into the financial plan, look, we need normal. And we would put in some financial plans. Look, we need to have a

worst-case scenario in here because inflation may not always be 2%. So what we'll do is we'll have that scenario where inflation goes from 3% to 5%. And then goes back down to 3%. And two years later, of course, we're calling everybody

saying, it went up to nine. You got to come back in because you know how we told you we were being aggressive with inflation at five? It's at nine. So we need to look at your financial plan. We need to review your financial plan once again. But we need to make some changes here because it's not five. It's nine. And that changes because the two biggest impacts on the financial plan is inflation and expenses.

Because inflation is how expenses change over time and it's uncontrollable. And expenses is that which is being changed by inflation, which is controllable. So it's – those are your two big pieces to look at. But it's – I mean there's a lot that goes into that. And even from a – let's say you're not even interested, you're not even thinking of financial planning. You're like,

I just need to talk to someone to how my investment should be managed. Well, the time frame is going to have a lot to do with that. If you're, if you walk in and say,

I don't need a plan. I just want, here's my retirement stuff. How, tell me what stocks I should buy. Tell me, you know, what funds I should be in.

Well, what's the plan for this account? Is this your retirement account for 40 years from now? If that's the case and you're 25, we're going to be really aggressive. And if you're 65, we're going to be really conservative. We're not going to take risks. Well, it's also important about the people's needs. Sometimes people come in and they're like, hey, I need a cash flow. I need this amount per month.

Can you get it? Well, that portfolio is going to be very different than someone saying, I actually don't need this money now. This money can grow because I can still provide for myself. Exactly. Well, just think about it. You might, an ordinary 70-year-old might need a conservative portfolio generating cash flow. But if this ordinary 70-year-old is like, yeah, my social security is like twice what

I pay. I'm so scared to have a pension and it's like three times my monthly expenses. So I really just want this so that my grandkids inherit it, right? Well, we might not actually be a conservative portfolio. We might be looking at an aggressive one because we don't care about cash flow. What you're looking for is it's purely a long-term play. Exactly. You only got a 10, 15--15 year period god willing for the client

but exactly and vice versa you could be sitting there you're 30 and normally this would be an aggressive account but you say yeah but this is a Roth IRA and I want to buy a house in five years and this is going to be my down payment well we're not going to be super aggressive with something that you're going to pull in five years now you're still going to be somewhat level of aggression right because you don't need it immediately but there's going to be it's going to be a different portfolio and as the five years approaches it's going to become less and less risky in other words when we get to the point where you're six months out from potentially buying a house it's not going to be 100 in stocks because you don't want to go in stocks because you don't want

to go buy a house. You don't want to go get pre-approved and you'll be like, yep, I have an $80,000 down payment. And then six months later you go to buy the house, you call it up and say, well, it's actually 50 now because the stock market crashed. That was pretty aggressive of a portfolio. Well, all right. Well, it's a minus. I know. I understand. I know. 30 out of 40 is a minus 30%. That can easily happen in six months in a stock market crash.

That's true. Right? A recession comes, you could easily see minus 20. So you could go from minus 20, but take it from 100 to 80. Yeah. Which, promise now, you're going to go back to your lender and say, I don't have a $100,000 down payment that you calculated my mortgage based on. I only have $80,000. Totally different mortgage payment, totally different

scenario. So when you reach that point where you're six months out and you're going to get a mortgage, you may still want that Roth IRA invested, but you want it invested very conservatively. In other words, what can we do so that it earns you some

interest and can grow, but it basically is not going to move much in price. It's interesting. There's a lot of different goals and people really need to think before you see a financial advisor what the future holds for you short term and long term. A good financial advisor can help you think about

that. In other words, you may sit there and say, I don't know what my goals are, and a good financial advisor can help you think about that in other words you may sit there and say i don't know what my goals are but a good financial advisor can help you all right do you like to travel do you yeah would you buy a house in five years do you have a car well yeah do you have a car payment on it no no it's an older car do you think you might need a new car in seven years oh yeah i'll probably need a new. So a good financial advisor will help you through that process of figuring out what it is that you may want or need. But it's important to know both short and long-term goals when you talk to a financial advisor or financial planner. Those are some key aspects. And financial planning, if you go for a plan, it should cover a lot of things. Sometimes people might just think, oh, a financial plan

will tell me how aggressive I should be in my stock portfolio. It's more comprehensive. It should have an insurance component. In other words, your financial planner might not be selling you insurance. We don't sell people life insurance. But we figure out in a financial

plan, oh, you have two people, they're both earning money. What happens if one of them dies? Do they have enough life insurance that the other one is still in good shape? Or you don't want a scenario where your financial plan says, yep, you're both good until 99.

You run out of money in 99. But if person A passes away and that pension isn't there anymore, the other one runs out of money at 75. That's a big problem. So you need to take into account survivorship analysis. And which might tell you, your financial planner might say, look, I don't sell insurance. But my plan is telling you, you need this much life insurance in order to, you know, make sure that this spouse makes it till 90 if something happens to the other spouse. So you want those types of elements

in your financial plan because there's going to be parts of your financial plan life that don't revolve around your savings or your investments, but impact your insurance, your long-term care health insurance, your Medicare. A lot of people come in, don't know that Medicare is not free. They're like, oh, when I turn 65, I'll go on Medicare. Yeah, do you intend to,

Part A is free, but do you intend to get the Medicare supplemental to do the gap? Oh, yeah, yeah. That's to trust you. You don't want to decide that quickly because you don't want to wait until later because there's a penalty for waiting.

There's things to think about even though you might sit there and say, well, what does my health insurance have to do with my finances? From a financial planning standpoint, it has a lot to do with it. You need to also prepare for, God forbid, an emergency that might cost you, especially as you get older. Exactly. Well, which is a way to think about it. Sometimes people might say, well, all

I need is, you know, I talked to some guy and all I need is an annuity. Give him 100 grand and they'll guarantee me, you know, 1,500 a month for the rest of my life. You want your financial planner to A, read the annuity and make sure it's really for the rest of your life and not for 20 years and then at age 85 it stops. But also B, can you take out more? In other words, if you convert all your money to your annuity and you get $2,000 a month, what happens if there's an emergency?

Can you get $50,000 a month, what happens if there's an emergency? Can you get $50,000? Or can you not? Because if you can't, then you have no emergency. So you can't turn your whole month, as attractive it might sound, you can't turn your $200,000 into a guaranteed $1,000 a month for life.

Because if you need $50,000, you can't get it. I think that's the advantage of having a brokerage or a Roth is that the money is still yours no matter how much cash flow you have. Exactly. So there's other ways to work it out where you might say, all right, well, what if I invest in income generating investments

like stocks, bonds, dividend paying stocks, high yield bonds? Are these things that could generate me $1,000 a month but I still have the principal? So there's different things you can do to make sure that you're looking at a comprehensive picture and making the right decision. And I would say talk to your financial advisor before you make decisions. Don't be that person that calls and says, Alex, I bought a new house for an investment property. Was this a good idea? And I'm like,

well, if it wasn't a good idea, there's nothing I can do about it. You bought the house already. In other words, don't be afraid to call your financial advisor. They shouldn't be charging you for a phone call. It's like Shannon with the doctor. You can call and ask a question.

You don't have to be like, oh man, is this going to cost me? Don't be afraid to call them. If they don't know the answer, they probably can refer to someone that does. In other words, we're not accountants. But if we don't know the answer to an accounting question like, should I itemize or do a standard deduction,

we can at least point you in the right direction by saying, well, here's what a standard deduction is. If you think you've got a lot of itemizing, you should talk to an accountant and ask this question. There's things that can be helped with. If you go and say, should I

sell my house and buy a new one? We can be like, look, we're not a mortgage broker. I can't tell you what the interest rate that you're going to be quoted by a mortgage company is. I can't tell you that this bank will lend to you. But I can figure out some raw numbers and say,

if it's this interest rate and if it's this house, you can afford it. So I can give you that answer, and then we can tell you, these are some mortgage brokers in town. You can go to a mortgage broker and then find out what the actual rate that you can be quoted is. So there are answers you can get even if we can't give you the final answer.

We may not be able to give you buy this house from this lender at this price because we can't control the lender and the real estate market. But we can tell you if it's this price and this interest rate, this is what you're looking at. So don't be afraid to make those calls. That's good. Alright. That was a lot of information, Alex. That was very nice. I hope it was helpful.

I think it was. There you go. Great questions, as always. They just popped into my head. I think it was. There you go. Great questions. Great questions, as always. As always. They just popped it to my head. It's amazing how you do that.

I'm always very impressed. On the fly, yeah. Always very impressed. By the way, it was a great show. Learned a lot. Great to have Shannon on and appreciate what she's doing

in the community. Next week, we're going to have Matias Jones. He's going to be back for a monthly meeting with Matias. He was here in January

and he'll be in February. It's always great having Matias. Always great having him on. I always learn so much. We's going to be back for a monthly meeting with Matias. He was here in January. Now he'll be in February. It's always great having Matias. Always great having him on. I always learn so much. We talk about so many different things. Entrepreneurship and life work balance. Ask me tough questions about my New Year's resolutions. Ask you tough questions about your New Year's resolutions.

So that'll be great to have him on. Appreciate everyone who tuned in. Oh, Dr. Elizabeth Irby was watching the show this morning. So thanks for joining in. Did she see your Miss Guten Morgan? Well, hopefully she didn't see me forget how to say that it was such an obvious one, too. The morning that knows that she wrote in Guten Morgan is the correct way. So I just blanked on that.

I mean, I remember that. I blanked. It's such an easy one. I blanked on it. So that's okay. Hopefully I'll be forgiven for getting that one wrong. But thanks for everyone who tuned in. Kevin Hiddens, great question.

Thanks for tuning in. Obviously, Monica, thanks for tuning in. Rosalia, thanks for tuning in. So just appreciate everyone who watches the show. Makes it possible. Makes it possible. Makes it possible. Appreciate, of course, Judah behind the camera, making us all look good.

Making everything, helping Judah Derry put together our nice banner. Yes. For some today, manana. Of course, appreciate Emergent Financial Services. Castle Hill Cider, Matthias Young Realty Credit, Sirius Insurance. Thank you all for tuning in.

Look forward to seeing you all next week. Thank you for being with me. I just have a quick thing, too. If you notice the tuning in. Look forward to seeing you all next week. Thank you for being with me. Yes, I just have to quick think too, if you notice the thing, it forms an X. It's like Xavier. X-Man for Xavier. There's a today, mañana, X. Oh man, Judah did that on purpose

to get Xavier. We put lines now through this. Nicely done, nicely done. The subliminal message. The X-Man is always on. His presence is always felt even when he's not here. So of course, love being on with you. I'm looking forward

to next week. So I can't remember if it's you and me or David or me, but we'll find out. We'll keep people in suspense. That's the idea. Suspense. Exactly. So you'll just have to tune in next week to find out whether I'll be on with Xavier or with Michael. Or maybe even Nicholas. Or Nicholas.

He may have made a surprise appearance. You never know. You never know. So we look forward to that. We look forward to seeing you all. But until that time, stay warm. Enjoy this weekend. And hasta mañana.