Dr. Scott Bertrand | AllCore360 | Spinal Injuries, Core Stability, & Changing the World Through Medtech

Dr. Scott Bertrand, the inventor of the AllCore360 therapy optimization platform, shares his journey, beginning with two significant spinal injuries that led him to question conventional physical therapy methods and ultimately steer his career towards chiropractic care and MedTech innovation. He discusses his invention, which revolutionizes core training by focusing on isometric exercises, benefiting a wide range of individuals, from spinal injury patients to elite athletes. Scott's personal experiences and challenges fuel his passion for MedTech and his desire to impact lives positively. His story is one of perseverance, innovation, and the power of using personal challenges as catalysts for creating solutions that can change the world.

Guest links: www.allcore360.com

Charity supported: Sleep in Heavenly Peace

Interested in being a guest on the show or have feedback to share? Email us at podcast@velentium.com. 

PRODUCTION CREDITS
Host: Lindsey Dinneen
Editing: Marketing Wise
Producer: Velentium

 

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Episode 024 - Dr. Scott Bertrand

[00:00:00] Lindsey Dinneen: ​

[00:00:05] Hi, I'm Lindsey and I'm talking with MedTech industry leaders on how they change lives for a better world.

[00:00:14] Diane Bouis: The inventions and technologies are fascinating and so are the people who work with them.

[00:00:20] Frank Jaskulke: There was a period of time where I realized, fundamentally, my job was to go hang out with really smart people that are saving lives and then do work that would help them save more lives.

[00:00:33] Diane Bouis: I got into the business to save lives and it is incredibly motivating to work with people who are in that same business, saving or improving lives.

[00:00:43] Duane Mancini: What better industry than where I get to wake up every day and just save people's lives.

[00:00:47] Lindsey Dinneen: These are extraordinary people doing extraordinary work, and this is The Leading Difference.

[00:00:55] Hello, and welcome to The Leading Difference podcast. I'm your host Lindsey, and I'm so excited to introduce you to my guest today, Dr. Scott Bertrand. Scott is the inventor of the AllCore360 therapy optimization platform, and currently the chief research officer with AllCore360 America. He is retired after 35 years of caring for the chiropractic needs of a wonderful community in south Atlanta. He is a proud a 101st Airborne veteran and honored member of Mensa, but most importantly he's married to his wonderful wife, Lori, has two incredible children, Stephanie and Luke, who have blessed him forever with five precious grandchildren. Thank you so much for joining us today, Scott. I'm so excited to have you on the show and hear from you.

[00:01:40] Dr. Scott Bertrand: I appreciate the opportunity to speak with your audience and to you.

[00:01:45] Lindsey Dinneen: Excellent. I would love, if you wouldn't mind starting off by telling me just a little bit about yourself and your background, and let's start there and then we'll get into some of the other fun things.

[00:01:58] Dr. Scott Bertrand: Let's go back to where probably my medtech life started. I had two separate spinal injuries that kind of thrust me into the healthcare world. One when I was 19 years old and I had a fracture in my lumbar spine, and when I was 19, I was brought up in a blue collar, middle income family and my parents, you know, believed that medical providers were set next to the Pope. I, it was whatever they said, whatever they did, that's how we looked at it. And I thought, I felt no other way. I had, I'd injured my spine and fortunately I wasn't paralyzed at all, but I was definitely beat up and pretty painful.

[00:02:36] But I went into the therapy process at that time just excited to recover. In my mind, the medical doctor would fix me. That's all. I mean, I knew I was broke, but that was his job, and I believed that's what he would do. He goes on and, you know, I'm not putting fingers at anybody. I realize that he was doing the best he could with what he had at the time he had. So I, I'm not, this isn't anything negative, but he refers me to a physical therapist, of course, which he would. I excitedly go to my physical therapist and instantly he requests me to do things that were incredibly uncomfortable, very painful. And I remember kind of leaning back and going, "whoa, wait a minute, that this problem isn't a good thing. This is quite similar to the trauma. Let's probably not do that." But, you know, he kept insisting that I needed to do these movements, and these movements were brutal.

[00:03:30] I was 19. I was an athlete. I had been in the 101st Airborne. I was a, I guess you could quote, kind of a tough guy, but, you know, this was incredibly uncomfortable. And I, I finally, after several visits going back and forth with him and complaining that this was obviously not the right approach, he just looks at me and says, "Hey, you know what, Scott, what you need to do is suck it up." And, you know, this really wasn't a suck it up thing. I mean, I know what suck it up is,

[00:03:57] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah.

[00:03:58] Dr. Scott Bertrand: That really wasn't it. And I was incredibly disappointed and everything just kind of fell into my like, oh my gosh, maybe they don't know everything. It was kind of a, oh my gosh moment for me, but I ended up going, you know, this isn't gonna work for me. I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to quit.

[00:04:14] And so I look over at him and he takes a stamp and puts "non-compliant patient" stamp on my file. I remember going, wait a minute, I'm not "non-compliant." There's nobody that wants to get healthier than I do. He released me and that's how I was. That's my name. I'm a noncompliant patient. So I was really frustrated at that time and I thought, this is really not right. I, but what it did do though, is it focused me in healthcare. You know, I'm a young man and I'm not sure what my career is gonna be. I don't know what I want to do in life exactly. But I went, oh my gosh, some missing links here. And I, at least I need to know more about it for my own self, you know, my own health.

[00:04:54] So I started pursuing a career in health, and I ended up going into the chiropractic profession because I had injured my spine. And these people seem to be the ones that were the spinal professionals. So I go to school I'm going through this process. I'm learning about the spine and the body, the miracle machine we drive, which these are the first kind of early things that are going off in my mind going, oh my gosh. We're blessed with a miracle and we're just trying to learn how to take care of it.

[00:05:23] I'm getting ready to graduate from chiropractic school. I'm at my brother's wedding. I dive off the high dive. I shouldn't have been up there to begin with. I hit somebody in the pool and I break my neck. Okay? It's like, oh my gosh. Here we are again. I'm thrust into this space again. I'm not paralyzed,

[00:05:38] Lindsey Dinneen: Oh

[00:05:39] Dr. Scott Bertrand: and I say that because I've treated and worked with so many people who are...

[00:05:42] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah.

[00:05:43] Dr. Scott Bertrand: That I don't wanna put myself in that basket. I wasn't, but I was, you know, it was a shocking experience to say the least, and incredibly uncomfortable, and it took a long time to heal, but it's been a good eight, nine years since the first trauma, and now I'm almost a chiropractor. I'm graduating from chiropractic school. So I've got a really strong background, at least anatomy and physiology and how the body works, and excitedly. I go off to therapy again, and I look across the table and he asked me to do the same movement again that they recommended 10 years ago.

[00:06:13] I'm like "whoa, wait minute. I know that doesn't work. Let's not do that. What else do you have?" " No, that's what we do." And I go, " no." And we went back and forth. And then he said to me, Scott, "you need to suck it up." The second "suck it up" got me to walk out of there and say, "look, there's something massively wrong with how we're treating this. I don't know what it is yet, but there's something wrong and it needs to be corrected."

[00:06:36] Medtech is coming up with some innovation that addresses a concern in the medical world that hadn't been addressed that way before. So there's a long process between "I have a problem and I'm trying to figure it out," and "I come up with a solution." I don't wanna underestimate the time that requires. There's a long gap of time in there, but then, okay, now we have a solution. And I guess really, Lindsey, that's kinda where it starts. I invent the AllCore360. That's an interesting conversation if you wanna go into that. But that's what threw me into the MedTech industry.

[00:07:10] And that's where I realized that, when you come up with something in MedTech industry, it's not like a better windshield wiper, which Lord knows we might need better windshield wipers, and that's good. But when you're impacting people's lives and the way that we got to do that, and it's a global reach. It's not just like across the street, across the neighborhood. When you can impact a human being, there's a strong possibility you can impact us all. The awareness of knowing that I can help the world was the motivation in everything. That really was, I think, that's what drives everybody in the medtech industry.

[00:07:44] It's an innovation that can impact society in a way that it needs, but it can do it on such a grand scale and it's not . I know you have a lot of medtech industry, so I know I'm preaching to the choir, but it's not about money. You'll be rewarded certainly, but you'll spend your money, but I'll never be able to spend the hug from the mother who I took care of their daughter and help her to walk. Not only does, I can never spend that, that just gets interest. That just gets better and better, and then they tell somebody else and it grows and it's, it's a, it's just a wonderful industry to be in. Tough, hard, really hard, but oh my gosh, are the rewards amazing.

[00:08:24] Just anybody in that space and is struggling and Lord knows I know how hard that is, please don't give up. It's so worth it. You know, we all say if we could just take care of one person. Back to what I said, if you can take care of one person, you can probably take care of 'em all. And that's, that is pretty exciting. And I've been able to do that. That's where we're at now. I've, you know, it's taken my whole life to get here and decades, but, you know, we're here now and we're really, I'm really proud and I could not be more happy with what the company and our team has been able to do.

[00:08:57] Lindsey Dinneen: That was fantastic. I loved hearing it. I love hearing your background and what motivated you to get into this field, so thank you for sharing, especially some of those really personal stories of challenges that you had to overcome, which ended up being the catalyst for. This new stage. So I wouldn't, I certainly wouldn't wish those injuries upon you by any means, but I am, I want to recognize and thank you for taking those kinds of really challenging periods of your life, but using them as catalysts for good. I think that is very commendable and not easy.

[00:09:34] Dr. Scott Bertrand: No, and I appreciate you saying that. And I kind of joke, but only a little joke that this kind came to me. This invention came to me after months and months of studying on all the issues I was trying to resolve in that kind of hypnagogic state. You know, that's that dream state. It actually came to me in a dream, and when I realized what it was, I realized that was a gift. I'm giving this gift, and now the job is to share that gift. You know, in medtech it's a lot easier said than done, but that's kind of the next step. And they know we've been able to do that. We finally have and it's been a blessing that I've thoroughly enjoyed.

[00:10:14] squadcaster-bf62_2_10-20-2023_140435: Yes. Yes, absolutely. And like I said, thank you so much for sharing about that. And there's so many questions that I have that popped up from it. But I'll start with, I would just love to hear more about your company now and your incredible device and how it works and how it's changing lives.

[00:10:32] Dr. Scott Bertrand: Oh, wow. Thank you for even giving me the opportunity to share that because that's unique and that's why, I guess it's an invention. It's not been out there before. So to do this real quickly, the, the design of the device is to train the core. And when I started, the core was an apple core. People didn't know what cores were. We used to call it the trunk, but anyway, it was, it's the core. And so what we're gonna call "the core" is from the base of your skull to your pelvic floor, that tube of muscles that is who you are. We plug arms and legs into it, and if you're an animal of flippers or fins or wings or whatever, but we're all just this tube of muscles that is that core.

[00:11:12] And so the design of our, my device is to train that core. And so the, here's how we do it contemporarily. We take the core instead of, you know, really realizing we're a tube, we're a round tube. We call ourselves a box. I'm not sure where we came up with that, but now we say our tube has its front and a back, and a right and a left when tubes don't have front and back and right and left. But for some reason we called ourselves a square and then, and that was our first mistake, but we just all just accepted that like, "okay, um, our eyes are pointing forward, so let's make our box pointing that way." So what we did is we took this square, we decided what the square could do.

[00:11:54] The square could bend forward at the waist. It can bend backward at the waist. It can bend to the right at the waist. It can bend to the left at the waist, and we're gonna challenge it that way to make it better. You know, I think what happened was people did that and they got better. There were, it does that kind of works. It wasn't a horrible thought. It was just a, an incomplete thought. So what the AllCore does is it takes this 360 degree machine, it's really a 360 degree machine that can go in any direction. It can bend and twist in any direction, and it takes it and challenges it in every direction. If we took our box example and we bend forward, bend backward, bend right, and bend left, that's four degrees. That's four separate degrees of movement.

[00:12:40] We've only left out 356. What about all those other movements we just left out? And I'll tell you where one of the lights went off that I, this is kind of what makes it so unique, I believe. We are, we train the core isotonically, and by isotonically, I mean, we bend and twist and move. So right now, 99% of the people that run down to their local workout gymnasium center, they go in to do their core and they bend in half. Let's call it like a sit-up. They do sit-ups. When I was like 15, we were doing sit-ups, so you know, that's not anything new. Okay. And then they, we got really clever and we started calling our sit-ups "crunches." That's the same thing. A crunch is a sit-up, but we somehow thought that was even better. And then we went we can make a machine to do that. And then we had a crunch machine. But what we have, it's the same concept. It's bending in the middle of our bodies.

[00:13:40] This was one of the, oh my gosh moments. They, one of these things that eureka moments, if you will. I walked out of the gym one day and I'm a gym rat. I live there. I, that's what I did. And I realized that . If for some reason I'd never walked into the gym, I would've never done a sit-up in my life. Sit-ups are not things we do. These are not positions we get our bodies into. There's no sport where everybody lays on the ground and bends it half 50 times. I started to go, "why in the world are we working so hard to do this one movement when we never ever do that movement?"

[00:14:19] And I thought, "oh my gosh." My next Eureka moment comes in. Now I'm outta chiropractic school and I'm working really hard and I realize we're working with this miracle machine body and I, all of a sudden, I had to start laughing at the way we treat the body 'cause I was reading old medical journals and old history medical journals. I mean, there was a time when they thought smoking cigarettes made you a criminal. I mean, I know that medicine only took what we could take and we believed it and we taught it and we treated it. But what I really realized now, the things we think are true now may not be true in the future, unfortunately, but what I realized, what medical providers and medtech providers really need to do this to me became the bottom line.

[00:15:02] We were blessed with this incredible healing miracle machine. To ever think that somehow our brain that read that book knew better than our body did on how to take care of our body was ludicrous. Our body knows how to do everything. We're the best survival machine on the planet. This machine knows how to heal. It knows how to do everything. In fact, it's a lot better if we just stay the heck outta the way. The more we get involved, the more we screw it up. So here's what I think physicians really need to do, and this is what I kind of decided to do at the medtech, is realize what the body does to survive.

[00:15:43] Because that's really all it's about. It's about survival. There's no extra parts on the body. I mean, everything on the body has a survival value. And if you want to improve the body, you help the body in its ability to survive. So what I did was I looked at the core, and this is, these are these eureka moments. I looked at the core and I said, "what really is the survival value of the core? Why am, why do I have a core? I mean, what do I do with it that helps me survive?"

[00:16:12] It dawned on me almost immediately. The core, as much as we think the core is designed for movement, there's not a lot of survival value to movement. I'll take that back and say, if a rhinoceros was coming after me, I need to step outta the way. So I understand there is a survival, I gotta move, but let's say I didn't move when the rhino hit me. How was I damaged? I was damaged by being bent around the rhino's head. My body went beyond its normal range of motion. So what really is the core designed for?

[00:16:48] And here's the key. It's designed to isometrically maintain your posture in the most efficient, safe position possible. Your perfect posture is so perfect. It's almost hard to get damaged where you're in that perfect posture. When you bend to the left and pick up a weight, you took yourself out of the perfect posture and oh my goodness, he blew a disc. You know, you took your posture, got it out of position, and then challenged it. So that's not how you should challenge your posture. You should take your posture, put it in a perfect position, and then isometrically challenge it because that's how we use it: isometrically in the 360 degrees of its potentiality.

[00:17:31] It needs to be able to do all those things isometrically, and at the end of the day, the AllCore360 takes your body, your only athletic ability has to have the ability to sit. You know, sometimes you go to the gym, you look across the floor and you go, "oh, that looks like a great exercise, but I know I can't do that." The AllCore, all you gotta do is sit and what that does is that adds everybody on the planet. That's your senior citizens. That's people in wheelchairs, that's people that don't have legs. It addresses so many people in the population. All you have to be able to do is sit and we can make your core better.

[00:18:10] At the end of the day, like I said, the core is everything. So what's the survival value of the core? It's not to bend. It's to stop from bending too far, 'cause if you bend too far, something breaks. So what you do is you stop it from bending and you stop it from bending in every direction, and you do that isometrically. That's how you need to challenge the core in the way it was designed to perform. Once you do that, once you develop a very balanced, coordinated strong core, that core can go hit golf balls and baseballs and do anything it wants, but you can't train a core by hitting golf balls and baseballs and all those things.

[00:18:49] You train the core the way it's designed to perform. You make it efficient and strong and high endurance and balanced. What you're really doing is taking your God-given miracle machine and making it the best it can be. As opposed to what most of us do is we take this incredible miracle machine and we beat it up until we kill it. So it's a better way to look at it. We really should take care of it. But yeah, so it allows most of the population, and 99.95% of the population treat their core in a balanced, optimal fashion and it only takes 10 minutes, three times a week.

[00:19:29] One of the problems with therapy, and one of the problems with fitness is always I don't have the time. I don't have the time. My goodness. 10 minutes. It takes you longer to put your gym shorts on. All you gotta do on this machine for 10 minutes. That's how it works. And because of that, people really -- they're compliant. Back to my non-compliant patient status, if it's only 10 minutes, you can kick people to come and do 10 minutes.

[00:19:56] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah.

[00:19:56] Dr. Scott Bertrand: To have someone come in and do an hour and a half, and now they need all kind of other things in their life that they can use for excuses.

[00:20:02] Lindsey Dinneen: Right.

[00:20:02] Dr. Scott Bertrand: 10 minutes isn't a big commitment for the remarkable, miraculous results it gets for some people. That's kind of how it works. And it's, like I said, it's a it's a blessing, and it started in this spinal cord injury space because what it did for people who only have their cores, I mean, this is what they have. They don't sometimes have arms and legs. This is what they have. So it started in that space, but when those patients and clients started sporting six packs and losing 10 pounds, all of a sudden, everybody wanted it. Everybody wants a six pack, everybody wants to lose 10 pounds. And that's great.

[00:20:39] So we definitely are in this spinal cord injury space, this extreme rehab space, this weekend warrior rehab space. But we're also in that elite athlete space. We're at a lot of colleges, university, sporting clubs. They're seeing that, it's much better to prevent injury than always trying to fix it. Doctors go into the world praying that they get to take care of people and they teach 'em how not to get hurt. But really what they do, they get thrown into this world of broken bodies, the people that don't take care of their bodies and they don't listen to you and you never get a chance to teach them even how to take care of it. Right? So it was an opportunity for us to really impact lives. We don't need a lot of time, we just need you to show up and this, and it works that way.

[00:21:21] Lindsey Dinneen: Wow, that is incredible. And yeah no, it is incredible, and I love that there are two extremely important case uses for-- more than two-- but I was thinking about it in terms of, like you said, injury prevention, just in general, health, wellbeing, physical optimization, versus also, then you have the Yeah, versus also, then you also have treating,

[00:21:47] Dr. Scott Bertrand: Right.

[00:21:48] Lindsey Dinneen: Right. Yeah. So I think it's incredible

[00:21:51] Dr. Scott Bertrand: That opens up such a big market.

[00:21:53] Lindsey Dinneen: It could exactly right because everybody could benefit from this. This is literally something that could impact everybody's life who participates. Holy mackerel.

[00:22:02] Dr. Scott Bertrand: And the nice thing was, it's if you knew where there was one or you used one, I. What I get to do every day, although oftentimes it's cry because these stories are so overwhelmingly wonderful, but I get to hear on a daily basis almost about these recovery stories and it's because we weren't doing it right. It's not that-- I mean, I appreciate the fact the AllCore is the, it's my device and our device, and it's doing what we said it would do-- but it's the body. The body-- if you treat the body right, it just does the right things. It just needs someone to kind of just help it a little bit. It's a miracle. We just need to kinda encourage it sometimes, and that's what this really does.

[00:22:43] And the, again, because it's the results and the responses are so rapid, people enjoy maintaining the schedule. And the longer you maintain the schedule, the more and more of those results improve. And once you finally develop a balanced core, like I said, I've been an athlete my whole life. But I didn't have a balanced core. I thought I did, but I didn't. And when I developed a balanced core, I was, I'm overwhelmed and I can, I can't tell you how many athletes that are starting to experience those same things. You would think an athlete would come in and get on our device and max it out, you know, show me something that, wow, only an Olympic athlete can do. But I can have an Olympic athlete come in and when they get on the machine, I can say to them straight to their face, "I've got a woman in a wheelchair that can make you look horrible." And that is the honest to goodness truth. What the core actually can do when it's taken care of is an amazing thing.

[00:23:43] I wanna make this one really quick story. So I had a beautiful woman come in that was, had been in a wheelchair for decades. And we had to transfer her from her wheelchair to our chair. It's just a matter of lifting her and setting her down here. And I don't wanna sound negative when I say this, but when I lifted her up the first time, she was soft, you know, fluffy, kind of, you know, 'cause she couldn't, she didn't have a lot of muscle tone and Lord knows, how could she? She spent her life in this wheelchair. So I, it didn't surprise me. I would put her in the wheelchair or we put her in the machine.

[00:24:19] Lindsey, I will say probably in three months, maybe, when I would reach over to help her, instead of reaching around somebody that was fluffy, I was reaching around somebody that felt like a granite statue. She was solid rock, and I saw that happen and I saw what that did for her life. She could get in and on and off the commode on her own now. She could get in outta the car. These things that make a difference with independence, these things that are so important that we take for granted.

[00:24:49] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah.

[00:24:49] Dr. Scott Bertrand: I saw these incredible recoveries and I knew then that I was absolutely on the right path. It wasn't about our six packs and our low back pain. It was about these people that had been almost forgotten and deserved so much, and now they're having an opportunity with hope and getting some great results. So that's the reward of MedTech. That's why, and all your listeners, hang on. It's worth hanging on. It's taken me three decades. I mean, you can't expect to go out and be tampering with people's lives and not expect it to take a long time to get there. People aren't just gonna let you start messing with them until you can prove you're doing the right thing. But it's so, but don't give up. Do the research, keep doing it. And that one person that you help, maybe you'll be a million.

[00:25:33] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah.

[00:25:34] Dr. Scott Bertrand: I know that's what's gonna be happening to us.

[00:25:37] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Oh, yes. And thank you for that encouragement because I, like you said, it's a long road. So it's helpful to have people on the other side of it going, "Yes, it's possible. It's absolutely it. It'll take time, but you can do it." yeah. So, looking back ?Over your life, I'm just always curious about this, you know, do you think, is there any way that six year old Scott could have possibly had an inkling of what was to come in the future? What your path may have turned out to be?

[00:26:09] Dr. Scott Bertrand: I, you know what's funny? I'm so that, that's such an interesting question. I'm writing a book and the book is, you know, it kind of goes through some of my life and I was just doing this the other day and, yeah, there was a six year old Scott that had an occurrence that happened to him that made him stop and think and go, "my God, I'm driving a miracle." and I was only six. And I remember it like it was yesterday, and it stuck with me. Long story short I was, I shouldn't probably be alive, but due to just natural reflexes, I got outta the way of something. And what I had to say, and I realized is I moved on from that potential horrible trauma that my body moved me out of the way.

[00:26:50] Scott didn't, little six year old Scott wasn't smart enough. My body pulled me outta the way. And that reflexive action, that right there is what the AllCore relies on. So I don't know if that was the very first little thing, the very, you know, the little spark that said, Hey this machine you're driving is not just a bucket of bolts. You know, this is pretty impressive. And I got to, I still get to see that miracle every day. It's amazing.

[00:27:17] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Yes, it is amazing. Yeah, thank you for sharing that story. That's pretty, pretty interesting how that ended up being a, you know, of course, like, like you said, six year old Scott wouldn't have known where that would've led, but hey, It's, it's just, it's cool to see those threads looking back.

[00:27:35] Dr. Scott Bertrand: Yeah. That's what they're the little seeds that found some fertile ground somewhere down the road that'll let 'em grow. But they, it's all those little things. And I can go through my life and point out about a dozen of those and that. You know, you go through life with all kinds of paths that present themselves, and you right or left. And where you are today is dependent on all those choices you made. But I can go back and look at so many of those and go, "thank God I turned that way because that allowed me to get here." And

[00:28:05] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah.

[00:28:06] Dr. Scott Bertrand: That's almost pure luck. I don't know. So,

[00:28:09] Lindsey Dinneen: Or Destiny or both?

[00:28:12] Dr. Scott Bertrand: You know, I prefer to say that too. I think we're all put on this world for a reason. I think one of the things I say to people all the time, and the two biggest moments or greatest things in your life is the day you were born and the day you realize why you were born. And that, I realized that day, when it finally came to my mind why I was here that my job on this planet was to make sure that people knew that there was an alternative, and just make sure it happened before I died. You know, I just I remember one time sitting on a couch and all of a sudden realizing that if I don't do this, it might not get done. That was a frightening place, it really, it scared me. I was kind of thinking in my mind that someone else will come up with it, and I was okay if somebody else did. I just knew it needed to happen, but all of a sudden I realized maybe somebody else isn't going to, and I knew it was my job, so.

[00:29:09] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Yeah, that, that brings up an interesting point. I mean, my initial thought was that quote from Spider-Man where there's the whole " with great power comes to great responsibility." And, you know, and it's not exactly applicable here, but the idea of when you've been presented with a series of challenges that have led you to a possible solution. Yes, I think there is some sort of feeling of I have this responsibility to, to help because this isn't just about me anymore. This is about the planet. Who else could I impact if I can bring this successfully? And there are, and that's probably something really helpful because, I'm sure as a founder and you know, and you're leading your company, there are days where it's tough and you have to go back to your why of, you know, why are we here? Why are we, you know, going to all this effort and expense and whatnot.

[00:30:12] Dr. Scott Bertrand: Right, right, right. You know? Yeah, exactly. It's every company, and I think a lot of people have, we all have dreams, you know, we have dreams, we wanna do this and do that, and dreams and goals, and those things and they all drive us forward, and they're good motivation. But when it goes to a mission, when it goes from a dream to a mission, it's a total different thing. It's a mission is one of those things that you think about it when you go to sleep, but it wakes you up in the morning and starts beating you on the back until you go ahead and get it done. I was almost fearful of if I didn't do it, God was gonna throw me off another roof and break something else. I needed to get this done.

[00:30:50] Lindsey Dinneen: Oh no.

[00:30:51] Dr. Scott Bertrand: Hit me twice. He told me what to do. He's like, pay attention here, gotta get this together. So, but anyway, I did. It took me a little while, but you hit me in the head a few times. I'll wake up . so, we did, and here we are.

[00:31:06] Lindsey Dinneen: I love your honesty. That's fantastic. In the end, you followed that calling or leading or whatever you wanna call it. So go. This is so much fun just to hear all of your stories and whatnot, but I wanna pivot and take it in a slightly different direction completely for fun. If you were given the opportunity to teach a masterclass on anything that you want, it can be within your industry, but it doesn't have to be. You get paid a million dollars for this. What would you choose to teach and why?

[00:31:40] Dr. Scott Bertrand: I'd listened to the offer. What I've learned, and I could probably share better than most things would be, how important perseverance is at the end of the day. It's the ability to focus and not give up. It's that day to day responsibilities that lead to the final goal. It's, I just know, like I said before, it's not going to be easy. So if you want something easy, you need to pick something else. I would think I would just explain to people not only how to persevere, and by that I mean sticking to a recipe, maintain your vision and your passion because you are the one who has to protect that vision. And then do everything you can again, I guess, to make it happen. But that it's, you just don't give up. No one said it'd be easy and, you know, you gotta do it again tomorrow. But it's there. It's there. It's there. There is a ladder and the rungs are hard, but one step up is one more than yesterday, and I'll take that.

[00:32:40] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. That sounds like a fantastic masterclass. So yes. How would you like to be remembered after you leave this world?

[00:32:48] Dr. Scott Bertrand: You know, this is a powerful thing that we're doing here with the AllCore360 and to possibly able to be the inventor of a device that can really impact millions upon millions of lives. I don't think there's any legacy anybody could ever ask for that could be greater than that, but I think what's every bit is important and I think in medtech and all these innovative companies, I really know that-- it took me a while to realize this-- but you can't do big projects alone. You can't take on gigantic projects of changing the world by yourself. So you really need to develop a really good team. And I took a little too long to develop that good team. But the legacy I would like to leave, not just for the device and my name, this group took on that mission of changing lives just like I did. And they've invested their energy just like I did. So my legacy needs to include their legacy. They need to be just as proud of changing the world 'cause they have, and I could not have done it without the help. So it's that it's all of us, you know, it's that legacy. You know, two generations from now, their granddaughter needs to say, "daddy, you worked on that, didn't you?" "Yes, I did." And I want them to have that pride. I really do. That'd be a great legacy. I could wouldn't ask for more than that, you know.

[00:34:16] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Yeah. That is a great legacy. Absolutely. And final question, what is one thing that makes you smile every time you see or think about it?

[00:34:28] Dr. Scott Bertrand: Gosh, there's several of those. You obviously can go to the birth of children and grandchildren. Those are hard to beat, but I, in, in, if not down that line. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a, I'll tell you a really quick story that, and I'll try not make it too long, but it was one of these individuals that had been in a wheelchair and were working with me on the device. And like I said, these things are always so rewarding and I love them so dearly, and I have many memories, but one that I will always smile. The girl's name was Lori, and like I said, I love Lori.

[00:34:59] But so, you know, it's hard to explain, but the device is a, it's a challenging device, and so, I could put it at a certain angle and it would be more difficult than maybe the angle you did got on. So we could compete, you know, I could do more than you, or you could do more than me. So I was using the device, obviously myself, and so I had a certain range that I went to that I was proud of. In fact, I, you know, I'm pretty tough. I'm down here. I'm doing a really good job. Here comes this gal on the wheelchair, by the way, the gal I'm talking about that turned into a granite statue. It's that gal. But so we start out, and I am way ahead of her, you know, and I am, I'm way ahead of her. Of course I am. But then like a two weeks later, she's gaining on me and three weeks later she's gaining on me and six weeks later she's on my rear end and I'm going, oh my gosh. I finally had, I stopped one day and I just had to look at her and I said, "Lori, How in the world are you doing this?" Because you know, I knew where I was at and she took her finger and put it in my face and went, "how are you not?"

[00:36:07] And I will never quit smiling on that day because she struck me to the ground and basically said, "here I am sitting in a wheelchair and I'm kicking your rear end. What is your excuse?" I mean, she brought me to my knees and I will never forget that. And I'll smile because that showed me power that I've never seen. And I only pray I can be as motivated as she is someday, you know? But I will always smile. It was a wonderful day.

[00:36:36] Lindsey Dinneen: That is incredible. I love that story and I also love the fact that that makes you smile that sort of Very much, you know, confrontation. And this is, she's gonna speak her truth to you. And you know, you took that as a good thing, as a challenge to keep, you know, doing what more of what you can do. And I,

[00:36:56] Dr. Scott Bertrand: She was right. Yeah, she was right. She hit me right where I live and I thought, you know, I don't think there've been many people on the planet that would even do that or even try that, you know? Yeah. It was came right at me.

[00:37:10] Lindsey Dinneen: I, love her boldness.

[00:37:11] Dr. Scott Bertrand: Love her dearly for it.

[00:37:12] Lindsey Dinneen: That's fantastic. Oh my goodness, this has been so much fun. You are incredibly inspiring. I love hearing what you're doing to really make a difference. I'm so thankful it has made a huge difference for you personally. But then, like you said, all of the ripple effects and all the lives you're touching, I think it's absolutely incredible. So I just wanna really, you know, basically say thank you. Thank you for the way that you are choosing to lead your life, and thanks for joining us today.

[00:37:43] Dr. Scott Bertrand: No, that's I really appreciate it and I hope in the time we spent, I could leave your listeners with maybe there is some hope for some of the people that mo so many people I know, people have had a stroke or in a wheelchair and loved ones that could, there's, I just want them to know that, hey, reach out, look around. We're growing as fast as I can grow it, but there may be one close by and I would like to at least try because it's for some, it's remarkable and I appreciate you giving the opportunity to share that.

[00:38:09] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Yes, of course. We are also so honored to be making a donation on your behalf as a thank you for your time today to Sleep in Heavenly Peace, which is an organization that provides beds for children who don't have any in the United States. And so just thank you for choosing that one in particular to support, and we just wish you continued success as you work to change lives for a better world.

[00:38:35] Dr. Scott Bertrand: Lindsey, I so much wish that and to you. I've enjoyed your podcast. I know you're gonna do wonderfully well as you do more and more. Keep me in the loop and I'll look forward to talking with you next time.

[00:38:45] Lindsey Dinneen: Sounds great and thank you also to our listeners for tuning in and if you're feeling as inspired as I am right now, I'd love it if you'd share this episode with a colleague or two, and we will catch you next time.

[00:38:59] Ben Trombold: The Leading Difference is brought to you by Velentium. Velentium is a full-service CDMO with 100% in-house capability to design, develop, and manufacture medical devices from class two wearables to class three active implantable medical devices. Velentium specializes in active implantables, leads, programmers, and accessories across a wide range of indications, such as neuromodulation, deep brain stimulation, cardiac management, and diabetes management. Velentium's core competencies include electrical, firmware, and mechanical design, mobile apps, embedded cybersecurity, human factors and usability, automated test systems, systems engineering, and contract manufacturing. Velentium works with clients worldwide, from startups seeking funding to established Fortune 100 companies. Visit velentium.com to explore your next step in medical device development.