Building the Premier Legacy

What happens when rejection becomes the catalyst for something extraordinary? In this revealing episode of All Things Skin, the tables are turned as Dr. Missy Clifton shares her remarkable journey from being fired from her first dermatology position to founding Premier Dermatology—now a cornerstone of innovative skincare in Northwest Arkansas. With raw honesty, Dr. Clifton reveals the fear and uncertainty she faced when starting her own practice after being told she would fail. "I was absolutely terrified," she admits, describing sleepless nights and the immense pressure of supporting the team who took a chance by following her. This vulnerability transforms into a powerful narrative about perseverance, showcasing how that initial rejection sparked a twenty-year journey of growth and innovation that continues to evolve. The conversation delves deep into the entrepreneurial mindset that drives medical innovation, with Dr. Clifton crediting her business acumen to watching her parents run their own companies. "My mom wanted to build something incredible as her legacy," she explains, contrasting this with her father's more lifestyle-focused approach to business ownership. These dual influences shaped her balanced perspective on building Premier Dermatology while maintaining boundaries that previous generations of entrepreneurs often lacked. Most fascinating is Dr. Clifton's evolution into integrative health and preventative medicine—a path she pursued after experiencing her own health challenges and witnessing gaps in patient care. Her passionate advocacy for looking at the "whole person" rather than just treating symptoms reflects a progressive approach that's transforming how we think about skincare and wellness. "Your skin is a representation of what's going on inside your body," she emphasizes, highlighting the interconnected nature of health that drives her practice philosophy today. Ready to be inspired? Listen now to discover how one doctor's unwillingness to accept limitations created a healthcare legacy that continues to push boundaries and redefine what's possible in dermatology and beyond.

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Premier Dermatology is located in Bentonville, Fayetteville, & Bella Vista, Arkansas!

Chapters

• 0:00 Dr. Clifton's Early Career Journey
• 6:35 Starting Premier Dermatology
• 13:02 Building a Legacy in Northwest Arkansas
• 21:26 Balancing Work, Family, and Sacrifice
• 31:40 The Shift to Integrative Health
• 44:09 Daily Health Rituals and Community Impact

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

So we did something a little interesting today at the podcast studio for All Things Skin. We were running late with one of our guests so our second guest wasn't able to jump on today. We're going to reschedule that, but we did a little interview with my pal, Chris Colon from Columbus Media Group, who is my social media guy, my guru. He's like why don't we just chat about you and talk about your story and how you started Premier? So tune in to an episode of All Things Skin podcast where we talk about the Missy Clifton story. Would love to have you join us.

Speaker 2: 0:38

Tell me about starting your career in dermatology.

Speaker 1: 0:40

Well, you know it's a it's a long road to become a dermatologist. So you know, it's like four years after college for, you know, med school and then four years for residency, so it's a long road. So I was really excited to actually be out, you know, have a job. You know was recruited to Northwest Arkansas by a physician named Dr James Wharton great dermatologist, super smart guy. He had started Northwest Dermatology so I was employed by Northwest Dermatology for a year.

Speaker 1: 1:13

That did not really pan out to be the best plan because he was at that time he was very much kind of an old school general dermatologist. He really wasn't interested in being kind of on the cutting edge of things, and I think the first thing that we had kind of an argument about was something called photodynamic therapy, because at that time it was a fairly new treatment for precancerous lesions, for people that have a lot of precancerous lesions on the skin. Instead of just freezing them like we used to For people that have a lot of precancerous lesions on the skin, instead of just freezing them like we used to, you actually put a medicine on the skin that gets absorbed by those precancerous lesions and you put the person under a light and it destroys all of this. So it gets rid of those precancerous lesions in bulk. So it was an amazing treatment, kind of cutting edge, and he was totally opposed to it. Didn't feel like there was enough research, didn't feel like there was enough research, you know, didn't feel like there whatever, even though it was becoming standard of care. And it now is standard of care. So it's real. That was interesting.

Speaker 1: 2:12

And then I think the straw that kind of broke the camel's back between us is that he was not at all interested in doing aesthetics. And you know I've been trained by Suzanne Yee. I've been trained by Dr Sandy Johnson. You know these are, you know, ladies that are badasses in their own right, that own their own amazing dermatology. And Dr Sandy is in Fort Smith. She owns her own practice there, she and her husband. And Suzanne is a plastic surgeon down in Little Rock, very well respected for decades and decades. So I had learned from these really amazing people how to do aesthetics and I was really good at it and I loved that. And I was the first woman in Northwest Arkansas doing dermatology at that time and really I was the only dermatologist doing anything you know Botox or filler related. Some of the plastic surgeons were kind of dabbling in it at that point, but fillers were pretty new, botox was pretty new and I knew that was something I wanted to do. So after a year he said you can't do those things here at Northwest Dermatology, so you need, you need to go find an opportunity somewhere else. So basically I got fired from my first job. That's how that went, which is not a real fun thing for the overachiever girl that likes to be perfect and first in her class and do all of the things right. So that was a huge ego blow.

Speaker 1: 3:40

And you know there were gosh, let's see. There was Lindsay, there was Tara, there was Christy, there was Ashley. There were five of us that left Premier Dermatology or, I'm sorry, northwest Dermatology to create Premier Dermatology. And you know we were. We were told that we would fail, that you know that I didn't have any business acumen. You know that there was no way that I would be able to you know pay for their salaries, that I would be able to offer insurance and 401k. You know I was basically told that there was no way that I was going to succeed. And my former partner and all of the people that were coming with me were told that as well. So you know, you have that kind of negative talk and when you're first out of school and you don't have a business degree and you're so I was literally terrified, I mean absolutely terrified.

Speaker 1: 4:33

How old were you? Oh gosh, let's see. So I was right out of residency, so that was 1999. That was the beginning of residency. It was over in 2003, so this was the end of this was 2004.

Speaker 1: 4:50

So you were 22, wow, yeah. So I was a tiny little baby. No, I wasn't 22. I was almost 30, yeah, but still, you know, I was a baby and I had no idea what I was doing. So, thankfully, I had really good people that did go with me and we did start Premier Dermatology and, amazingly, like I built it and people came. It was like a really wonderful thing. It was a huge thing. But I remember being thinner than I've ever been in my life because I didn't eat, I didn't sleep. You know, I was absolutely terrified to hang out my own shingle. So it was a huge, huge thing when I was actually able to pay the bills and pay for my people's salaries and actually give them 401k and benefits and you know all of that stuff and you know all of that stuff. So fast forward 20 years later, and you know, I don't even recognize that terrified little human that I was back then. So, but it's come full circle.

Speaker 2: 5:57

It's been a big transition, for sure. When you think about back then, I feel like there's always the old guard and the new guard and there's people that are constantly trying to push and do new things and learn, like you, and I think there's other people that are very much opposed to that. I think for me, the idea is that they it's a threat. I built this thing, the old way of doing things, and you're you're about to mess with that. Right, why is? Why do you think that you're the latter? Why do you think that you're able to kind of look at things and go I constantly want to push and do new things and innovate. What's? Why are you more? Look, I built this beautiful thing over 20 years. I just want to protect this. I don't want to grow anywhere. You just got another certification and you're adding more and more to Premier every single day, right.

Speaker 1: 6:45

Why? Well, I just think that that medicine and innovation waits for no one. And you know, if you want to provide the best treatments, the best services, the best you know medication offerings, the best skin care offerings you have to constantly be educating yourself. This industry beyond, probably, you know, there's lots of industries that are constantly changing. You know biotech, whatever, but aesthetics, the world of aesthetics, is changing every single day. There's a new product, there's a new service, there's a new line of skincare. You know, and if you don't stay on the cutting edge of that, you're going to get very behind very, very quickly.

Speaker 1: 7:30

And you know I think you know this about me I've always had a huge chip on my shoulder about people thinking Arkansas is, you know, like this little podunk redneck place where nobody has a brain and you know nobody's able to do anything. You know extraordinary and you know nobody's able to do anything. You know extraordinary, yeah, and you know I guess that's one reason I love being in Bentonville, because I'm surrounded by entrepreneurs like you know the legacy of Sam Walton, you know JB Hunt, you know the Tyson family. All of these people, you know that have really done extraordinary and exceptional things here in the community and brought the best of the best to Northwest Arkansas and I want to be a part of that.

Speaker 1: 8:10

You know, and the last thing I want people to do is say you know, missy, she was lazy, she got complacent, you know she started resting on her laurels and you know she built this practice and then she just kind of quit. And you know, that's just not my personality. If there's something new and something fantastic that I think is going to be a huge benefit to my patients, I'm going to do everything in my power to buy that thing and bring it here, because I want Northwest Arkansas to be, you know, just like New York, or you know, dallas or Los Angeles or Miami or any of these places where aesthetics are. You know, king, why not here? Yeah, why not me?

Speaker 2: 8:49

You do love your devices.

Speaker 1: 8:51

I do love my devices more than shoes, more than purses. I love buying lasers and devices and things like that. What's?

Speaker 2: 9:00

cool. I feel like Sam Walden essentially established the culture here in Northwest Arkansas. You probably know more about this than me, but when I moved here, one of the first things I was told is he made it a rule that if you sell at Walmart, you have to have a physical presence here, because he wanted to build this area up. But what you're finding is the other people in his line of succession, his kids and his grandkids they're doing the same thing, and I feel like it's established a culture of build here. Other people in his line of succession, his kids and his grandkids they're doing the same thing, yep, and I feel like it's established a culture of build here. Don't start here and then grow elsewhere. Yep, grow here.

Speaker 1: 9:32

Let's make our home as cool as we can make it. Yeah, I mean, look at what Alice has done. I mean Crystal Bridges Hello, that's in our backyard people it's the most amazing collection of American art in the world and we I mean, we get art from all over the universe and we're in Northwest Arkansas, guys. She's bringing a medical school, like a holistic, integrative health medical school, to Northwest Arkansas.

Speaker 2: 9:57

Can you talk about that? I don't know how much you can say about that, but can you talk about it? I mean, it's awesome.

Speaker 1: 10:01

I mean, literally, it's awesome. Alice Walton School of Medicine Awesome, that's crazy that that's her name. Did you know that's what it's called, awsom? Yeah, that's cool, it's awesome. That's awesome Literally. So I just, you know I'm so I guess I look up to her so much.

Speaker 1: 10:21

I think what, what she and her family have done for this area, it's just incomparable really. Everything from mountain biking to cultural, to restaurants, to, you know, new hotels, new things that are moving into the area, that would not be here, you know, if it wasn't for the efforts and the incredible amount of financial resources they've thrown into our community and our area. So, you know, I want to give back. You know, I feel like, thankfully, I've been pretty successful, thanks to all the incredible staff members and partners that I have. Thanks, you know, to the amazing patients that trust us and, you know, want to be a part of what we're doing here. So I just, I want to leave a legacy of she we're doing here. So I just, I want to leave a legacy of she. She left something cool for the community. She built something here that was good for the people of Northwest Arkansas.

Speaker 2: 11:11

She built a legacy. That's the goal. Yeah, yeah, that's the goal. When you think about the team that left your old dermatology practice to help you to start premier, I know Lindsay is one of them. Shout out, lindsay Jeffs yes.

Speaker 1: 11:24

Who are the others that?

Speaker 2: 11:25

came with you the other six.

Speaker 1: 11:27

Okay. So there was Lindsay Jeffs, who is now my cosmetic practice manager. She was a little kid who worked on the front desk and checked people in and out when she started, and then she morphed herself into a cosmetic coordinator my very first cosmetic coordinator. Lindsay literally knows everything about my practice, top to bottom, in and out, and if she ever leaves I'll have a nervous breakdown because you know, she just, she just knows it all. She's so great and so helpful. And then my two nurses. So Christy McClellan and Tara Hawley now is her last name. They had the guts to jump out and come with Dr Clifton. Tara was with me until just a year or so ago. She's now teaching nurses at the university. Christy is still with us. She's my phone nurse. She's also part time teaching as well, because you know, I think maybe we had the same drive. You know they they want to leave a mark too. You know they want to leave a legacy in what they're doing, and so now they've gone back to teach. So I'm so proud of both of them. I think that's so cool.

Speaker 1: 12:47

Ashley was another one of our front office people. She was with us for a few years and then she started a family, moved out of the area. And then we had one other nurse that died tragically from an overdose. So that was really the worst thing. Losing Mary Carol was really a real hard start. She'd had lots of demons, amazing, and just god rest her soul. She, she helped us get started. She was great, yeah, um, and so that was that was really the team.

Speaker 1: 13:15

And then, you know, my ex-husband was, you know he had no business, you know, being my office manager, but there was really nobody else to help me out with that. And so he, he did that for the first year and really was instrumental in helping me get started and getting the location. And it was a strip mall on 28th street, tiny little place on 28th street in Bentonville, but it worked, you know it. It was a place to start and we gradually built up to take over the entire strip mall and at that point realized that basically our flow was a nightmare trying to get patients in and out because we were snaking through three different buildings trying to get everything done for that patient. So like it's time to build. So at that point uh, that's when we built um, the flagship location on in fountain plaza.

Speaker 2: 14:06

Now- yeah, when you think back on those times, I think for me personally there's a lot of people that are able to go from. I shouldn shouldn't say a lot, but there's a decent amount of people that are able to start a business and then build it to a certain point. But it's really hard to kind of scale beyond that, and I also think it's really hard to find people and build people in a team that's willing to trust you enough to take a big jump like that. Yeah, what are the things that you did to establish those relationships with them where they said, yeah, I'm willing to risk my career and leave a stable thing to take an opportunity to start something new with you. That's really hard to do.

Speaker 1: 14:45

It was, and I have no idea why they trusted me. I really don't, I really have no idea, because it was a wing and a prayer at that point we really I had had, you know, both of my parents own their own business, you know. So I have, you know, worked in both of their places. I mean, my dad owned a sporting goods store and my job was to go and scoop the minnows and weigh the minnows and sell the minnows. That was my job at his store. My mom owns a gift store bridal registry so and I'm the queen of, you know, gift wrapping.

Speaker 1: 15:18

So you know, I learned by watching them, you know, I think, more than anything, I learned that it ain't easy and when you're the boss, you are the head toilet paper cleaner, you're the head sidewalk sweeper, you're, you know, you're the head everything. When you first get started in something like this, and if you think that you're too good to do any job at that practice, then you're probably not going to be successful. And I think, hopefully, I think that the people that came with me knew that it was a team approach and that I needed them just as bad as they needed me and that, you know, none of us wanted to fail and I think that the kind of the negative words that were thrown at us were like fuel to that fire and it was almost like we'll show you, you, son of a gun, son of a P. Yeah, we'll show you, and I think we did. And you know, I'm an an only child, I think you know this my mother is I call her my non-asian tiger mother because she's always really expected me to be, you know, number one at everything. You know she was the one that would get extra work from me, from my teachers, you know, in high school, and I needed to do extra work just to stay ahead on the weekends, and you know she would read my notes into the old school tape recorder, yeah, and play the notes while I was trying to sleep, because she thought that that was going to, you know, go into my brain.

Speaker 1: 16:47

So I don't, I don't know that that worked, but you know, yeah, so I've always been sort of, you know, had that drive of you're not going to, you're not going to fail. It's not an option. You know, first of all I'd have to tell my mom I failed and that would be the worst thing ever. Yeah, yeah, that'd be pretty bad. Nobody wants to upset Mimi and she's like you're going to listen to this tape again. Again, we're going to, we're going to rewind and go again. So I think it was ingrained in me that failure is not an option and that if you're going to do something, you know you're not going to half ass it, you're going to, you're going to put go all in for it. And I think the team that came with me knew that mentality and I think we just were able to be successful because we knew we were in it together and we weren't going to let it fail.

Speaker 2: 17:36

Yeah, but do you think that your parents being like that had a bigger impact, or them being entrepreneurs and passing you down their lessons had a bigger impact on you?

Speaker 1: 17:45

I think a little bit of both. My mom and dad were very different entrepreneurs. My mom was much more driven to be, you know, number one. Her store is probably one of the coolest gift shops you'll ever walk into still to this day. I mean, she's 80 years old and she's on Instagram doing her little. You know stories about the different things in her store. I mean, she's just a she's a force to be reckoned with and you know she wanted to to build something incredible. That was her legacy. She wanted to. You know she wanted to to build something incredible. That was her legacy. She wanted to, you know, make enough money.

Speaker 1: 18:19

She started out as a teacher. She realized she very quickly could not live the lifestyle she wanted for herself or her family on a teacher salary and so she started Malin's gift shop with my grandmother Mildred and Lynn Malin's gift shop. Malin's gift shop with my grandmother Mildred and Lynn Malin's gift shop. And she, you know she worked seven days a week sometimes and would go up in the middle of the night. She would pick me up, take me up to the store in the middle of the night because back then she was doing mats and frames for pictures and she would do all of that at three or four in the morning and I would sleep in the recliner at her store. So you know I learned what hard work looked like. I learned that from early and I learned that you're you know if you're going to do it right, you're, you will make whatever sacrifice you have to make to do that. And you know that was her, her drive.

Speaker 1: 19:08

My dad, you know, started murphy's sporting goods because he likes to hunt and fish. So it's like you know, I'm basically just going to make my hobby my job. And you know that was freaking brilliant and you know he loved it. And when he just when he wanted to go fishing, he turned the sign over and said gone fishing. And you know, so his reason for being an entrepreneur was so that he could live the lifestyle he wanted to live and go fishing whenever the hell he wanted to.

Speaker 1: 19:39

My mother's, you know, motivation was totally different, but I think I'm a very good blend between the two of those, you know, because I don't work seven days a week, you know, I don't work on weekends. I think my life is a lot more balanced, probably than my mom's life is. And you know friends and you know social things are very important to me, never been that important to my mom. That was very important to my dad. So I think I'm a real good mix between the two of them. And yeah, I mean, the expectation was always there. I knew that if I failed, that was not really an option. But I think you're right. I think it's their example and the way that they worked and why they did the things they did. That sort of morphed me into the kind of business person I am today.

Speaker 2: 20:29

Yeah, a lot of people don't think about how important that is. Like your daughter's in the process of starting her own business, yeah, so proud of her and the lessons that your parents taught you.

Speaker 2: 20:44

you're now able to both pass that down, but also include the lessons that you've learned. Yeah, and pass that down to her too. Oh, yeah, and it's. You know. I think you hear a lot of people talk about generational trauma, but I think it goes the other way too. It's like you get to take all of the good things that your mom has learned and that her mom has learned and that her mom has learned. So maybe your journey is a little bit easier as you start your stuff, because you don't have to make the same mistakes.

Speaker 1: 21:07

Yeah, and you know, allie's entrepreneurial approach is very different than mine. How so? You know, she knows, right now that her, you know, being a mom is that's definitely going to, that's her thing. She has, that's all. She's always wanted to be a mom. And I don't, I don't think she'll work when she has children. You know, I think she will actually take time off and I think she will. You know, she'll do things differently than I did.

Speaker 1: 21:37

You know I got pregnant with Allie in residency and I had zero choice. I had five weeks to take off and that's it. So you know, and you know, when you're in residency it's not like you can say, hey guys, sorry, I'm just going to skip out and have this baby, that that that doesn't work. So yeah, you know I didn't have that long time home with them and you know they went to daycare. You know, early, young the twins, you know, when they came along I was so panicked that, you know, I hired one of my nurses to be my nanny because I was like I can't find anybody, I'm not sending these two to daycare, I can't. You know, we'll be sick all the time. And so, you know, my approach was always I have to build this business because my family's not going to be financially OK. If I don't, you know I was, I am probably forever will be the breadwinner, and that was a lot of pressure. And I think you know Ali Ali's going to marry a guy that's going to be very successful financially. I mean we love Dakota, he's got a drive, he's got a great job and I mean I think their their goal is for her to be home with children, and so it's just she's going to have a, she's going to have a different outlook on, you know, being the boss, and I think she'll, she'll build this up and she'll franchise it and she'll have it as a well-oiled machine that she can just kind of run from the periphery and I think that'll make her very, very happy and then she can be in it as much as she wants to be in it and kind of away from it as much as she wants to be away from it.

Speaker 1: 23:17

And that was just never. It was like it's this is this premier dermatology and aesthetics thing is just not going to go unless I put all of myself into it, and so that's probably the biggest regret I have is that I didn't have the time, you know, to stay home and to be with the kids, like I, you know, potentially could have. But you know they've learned from the good stuff I've done. They've learned from the not so great stuff. I've done so.

Speaker 1: 23:45

And I think any parent out there, you know that thinks that your kids are only going to learn from the good stuff and that's what they'll remember. I mean, I don't know that that's really what you want. You want them to know that you're human and that you made choices that maybe you shouldn't have made and made mistakes and you learn from them and it makes you better. And so I don't know, I just I don't think she's as. I don't think she's as scared as I was and I don't think she feels the absolute urgency that it has to be. It's got to work, it has to be the most successful thing in the planet. You know she, she wants, it's going to work and she's going to do amazingly well. But I think her focus is just a lot more balanced, probably, than mine was. I'm very proud of that. I think that's a good thing.

Speaker 2: 24:30

That's amazing. I'm curious when you say regret like what. What do you regret? Like, if you could go back and redo the premier journey, what would you? What would you change?

Speaker 1: 24:44

You know, I think I probably would have earlier on. You know, tried to make my, make my days a little shorter, maybe not work quite as much on the on the nights and the weekends, you know, try to make my, make my days a little shorter, maybe not work quite as much on the on the nights and the weekends, you know, on things. But in retrospect you know my kids are uber self-sufficient and they're really they've got their act together. I mean, they all know how to do their own laundry. They all know how to make themselves something to eat laundry. They all know how to make themselves something to eat. You know, they all know how to do stuff that a lot of kids this day and age don't have a clue how to do because they had that mom that was home just doing everything for them. So you know in the same breath that I regret not having a ton of time just being home with them. I also don't regret it because I think I've made them a lot stronger, you know, and more self-sufficient humans, because I wasn't there.

Speaker 2: 25:40

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 25:41

But there's always the mommy guilt. Mommy guilt is a thing that I don't care what mom, who you are, whether you stay at home, whether you work outside the home, you're going to be guilty of something. You're going to feel like you didn't do something right Because you can't be perfect yeah, can't.

Speaker 2: 25:59

What's interesting to me, though, is that I don't think a lot of my friends that I talk to about business. They will say stuff like you're really lucky, like you have freedom and you control your time and like you can do what you want, but the reality is you just work significantly longer and harder and you can't ever really turn it off, and it's. I think it's easy to say like in retrospect I wish I could go back and change some things, but there's a piece of me that believes you kind of have to. You got to give everything if you want to be as successful as you are, and I think people don't understand how much you have to really give up and sacrifice. You know you lose friends, you lose touch with family. You don't get to go to weddings or events because there's stuff that's happening. I think it's very easy for people to look at you now and go well, she's lucky. It's like bitch, I ain't lucky. Like I worked really hard, I gave up a lot.

Speaker 1: 26:52

Yeah, I think there's this quote. I can't remember who said it, but luck is where, preparation and what is it when?

Speaker 2: 27:03

preparation meets opportunity. Yeah, they all. Everybody gives that quote to Winston Churchill, but I think it's called like the Churchill paradox or something where everybody gives every quote to Winston Churchill. I don't know who said it, but I do like that quote a lot.

Speaker 1: 27:16

Well, it's true, because you know opportunity is one thing and you know people say, well, oh, you've been so lucky. Yeah, well, you know, ok, yeah, I'm lucky, but I absolutely studied my ever loving backside off. You know I had to be first in my class in college to get into med school, had to be first in medical school, you know, to get into dermatology residency, you know, it's not like it just doesn't fall in your lap, you know. And then when you get, when you get to that point you're like golly, if, especially if, I'm going to start my own company. That point you're like golly, especially if I'm going to start my own company.

Speaker 1: 27:58

It's not just about me now. Now, it's about all of these people. Every nurse, every front office person, every back office person, every manager is depending on me to make it fly. And yes, they have to do their part and yes, it's a team effort, 100 percent. And you know, everybody's replaceable for sure, and I realize that I am replaceable.

Speaker 1: 28:19

But when you're the, when you're the one where literally the buck stops, you know you have to make a lot of decisions and you have to make decisions that you hate, you know. And sometimes you look at the numbers and you realize that you've got to let some people that have been with you for a very long time, that you love as people. You got to let them go because they're not bringing in you know the revenue that they need to bring in to cover their salary and to cover you know what's happening, because if I let those loss leaders go, then I can't afford insurance and 401k for everybody else. Then I can't, you know, continue to do all the things in the community that we want to do, and so letting people go is really, really hard.

Speaker 2: 29:07

Yeah, I can't even imagine, especially people that have been with you for a long time. Yeah, it's awful. It's awful. It's like you said, though, it's it's business and unfortunately, you know, sometimes you got to do those things that you don't like to do.

Speaker 1: 29:22

Well, and you know, being responsible in a in a business standpoint and being responsible to people and socially is that's a hard balance. You know, I recently had to let go of two estheticians that are wonderful people, I absolutely love and adore them, um, but you know, there just wasn't the volume there and you know it just, it was just one of those things that you, you can't. You can't make certain things happen for certain people unless they have the drive to make those happen for themselves too. Yeah, and that's really hard.

Speaker 2: 30:00

There's a pressure I think that people don't understand when you were talking about like these people rely on you. There's a pressure that I don't think most people get when it's like if you do something risky and it fails, it's just you. When it's like if you do something risky and it fails, it's just you. But when three, four, five, six people go, I believe in you and I believe in your vision and I'm willing to get on this plane with you as you're trying to put parts on the plane while it's moving. There's a different level of pressure and sleeplessness. I think that comes from that Because, like you said, if it fails now, seven people are now affected, not just me At the beginning, when you were working, I'm assuming, seven days a week, a hundred hours a week. How do you manage that and balance that? What are the best practices that you've found over the years that can help you to kind of calm your anxiety down a little bit, calm the stress down a little bit? I think writing everything down.

Speaker 1: 30:53

Um, you know one of the stress down a little bit, I think, writing everything down. You know, one of the things that my mother taught me is plan your work and then work your plan. And that's probably the most profound piece of just practical advice anybody's ever given me. Because you can. You can dream about things. You can think, oh, I want to go this way with the practice, or I want to go that way, but if you don't really write it down and say this is the goal that I want to have and this is when I want to reach it and this is how I'm going to reach it, then it's just a dream, you know, it's not really a goal unless you're really willing to put in the work to get to that goal and the time to make it happen. And that's why I got this, you know.

Speaker 1: 31:40

Second, board certification in laser surgery. You know, because I didn't want us to be, you know, not offering the best and the most safe and the most, you know, cautious treatments that we could. That's why, when this wellness thing, you know, really hit my heart, I decided to actually get board certified in anti-aging and integrative health instead of just, you know, halfway doing it like most of the people out there are. You know, I wanted to make sure I was legit and that I'm doing it right. So I just feel like I have to constantly stay educated and constantly stay on top of things. And it is because I have this deep seated thought is that I don't, I don't want it to fail and I want, you know, my staff members to know that they're going to have a safe place to come in and go to work and they're going to get paid and everything's going to be fine.

Speaker 1: 32:31

Even still after 20 years, you still feel that I worry about it all the time. I worry about it all the time. That never goes away. Never goes away, and every year, as insurance gets more and more expensive, it's just like okay, so how do we cut costs? How do we? You know, and that's the other thing you know you look at the things that are making money in the practice and the things that aren't. And to be a responsible business person, you got to make really crappy decisions sometimes. And you know, man, I bought devices that were stupid and didn't work, didn't do what they said they were going to do, so we just sold them you know, I'd love to ask you which devices, but we don't need to put them on blast.

Speaker 1: 33:12

I really hate to slam on some people, but I could. There's some devices out there that I could slam on because they are a bunch of snake oil. But at any rate, I kind of digressed there. I don't know what we're talking about now.

Speaker 2: 33:25

That's all right. So you start the flagship place in Bentonville, you get the second board certification the team is now scaled to what you're at today and you get your third board certification recently in anti-aging and integrative health. Where did you first hear about that and then you've talked about? It was Allie, but where? How did that first come on your radar? And then, at what point? Were you like man? I really need to dive deep into this.

Speaker 1: 33:56

Yeah, I mean, I think it was that was a personal thing. You know, when I started going through menopause and having, you know, this weight gain and this energy loss, this brain fog and horrible night sweats, and you know, just feeling like death, and you know horrible night sweats, and you know, just feeling like death, and, you know, started doing the research and you know, allie at that point was, you know, deep into her master's in biochemistry and she's nerding out, you know, on all things nutrition, which is just her huge, her passion. And so I started, you know, looking into things like that. What can I do from a nutrition standpoint, what can I do from a health and wellness standpoint? And it just it seemed so glaring to me that a lot of the doctors in the region were not keeping up with. You know, what's the cutting edge in bioidentical? You know, hormone replacement therapy. A lot of doctors are still providing or still writing synthetic estrogens and synthetic progesterones which have actually been linked to cancer and linked to causing, you know, other other issues down the road, whereas the bioidentical hormones were just not really much of an option. I wasn't seeing a lot of that around here, and then I was seeing tons of patients coming in on the GLP-1s.

Speaker 1: 35:16

You know losing lots and lots of weight so so quickly, losing tons of muscle mass, losing the structure of their skin or their face and their body, and you know just not doing it healthy and not doing it well. And I'm like you know this is a this is a thing. Everybody you know that's doing this needs to be making sure they're keeping their nutrition. And you know, doing their exercises appropriately so they're not losing muscle mass. And you know losing the weight slow enough and building collagen in other ways with treatments. And you know collagen oral collagen, optimal human you know all of the things to help your body stay healthy.

Speaker 1: 35:54

And so I just saw that there was nobody doing all of it and nobody making a holistic approach to the whole person. You know some people are throwing them the weight loss medication and just seeing them every few minutes. And you know there were some doctors around that were putting pellets in people and never even checking their labs again. You know I mean I saw men that were coming in with their hemoglobin and hematocrit at dangerous like stroke level high because they've been on such massive doses of testosterone that their body was making way too many red blood cells and it was dangerous.

Speaker 1: 36:30

You know, I'm seeing women that are that are given synthetic estrogen instead of giving bioidentical hormones, and I just thought we got to get the word out first of all that there are options out there and there are safe options out there, and there's a right way to do this and a wrong way to do this stuff. And it's kind of the wild wild west and I just wanted to be the voice of reason and I didn't want my colleagues to say why is a dermatologist, why do you have the right to do that? So that's why I got the board certification, because I wanted to be able to say well, I wanted to do this right for myself and for my patients, and so I'm a dermatologist, but now I'm also a wellness and integrative health specialist. So yeah.

Speaker 2: 37:17

So that's what's super cool is there seems to be a push to preventative medicine, which I know we've talked a lot about. But instead of waiting for something to happen and then we'll see how we can do what we can do, right, there seems to be a big push online. I don't know if it's really hit the healthcare industry is heavy yet but online with people like Dr Peter Atia and Andrew Huberman, you kind of are now looped into that category of people that say, well, let's really focus on where you're at now and prevent the things that could potentially happen For somebody that you know. I think you're going to hear a lot of skeptics that say, like, oh, it's like voodoo, you know nonsense.

Speaker 1: 38:01

What would you say to those people to say you know, look, this is why it's important to focus on preventative stuff, so that we can avoid all of this, right? Well, it's. The biggest flaw in all of medicine is that, and it's how all doctors were taught, and so you can't be hating on your doctor because they they were not taught to prevent disease from happening. We were in medical school. That was not even. It wasn't even a topic of discussion. What was taught is somebody's going to come in and they're going to have high blood pressure. Somebody's going to come in and they're going to be obese. Somebody's going to come in and they're going to have diabetes. So you're going to put them on a blood pressure medicine, you're going to put them on a statin, you're going to put them on metformin or insulin. You're going to put them on all these drugs and then you're going to follow their labs and see how they do.

Speaker 1: 38:42

Rather than someone with a family history of those things is coming in to see you and you just say, ok, you look great, see you later. You actually talk to them. Oh well, you have the family history of this. Maybe. Maybe you need to be on. You know something preventative. Maybe you're a little heavy. Maybe let's get you on that GLP-1 now and get you back to that healthy weight. You know, maybe you need to be on the right supplements and the right, you know, probiotics prebiotics to prevent disease, you know, to prevent these things from happening, and so that's the. That's the approach that needs to be taken in medicine, but it's going to take a long time because the you know it's going to take. It's going to take a total, fundamental switch and how doctors are educated. And that's what Alice Walton's doing with awesome, and that's why I think it's so incredible, because she is going to teach students in that preventative medicine approach and that's that's something that has never been taught in a traditional medical school so alice wallen's school of medicine, aka awesome.

Speaker 2: 39:49

Is it going to be both preventative and then like traditional medicine? Yep.

Speaker 1: 39:53

I think she's doing a fusion of Eastern thought, western thought, integrative health, traditional medicine. She's trying to find the best of all of the realms and bring that together in a more balanced educational approach for physicians, and I think it's the way medicine, the only way medicine can really change what's happening in America is to switch back to that preventative profile and stop the disease before it start, you know, really starts.

Speaker 2: 40:25

Vizia tool that will do a full analysis, Like we filmed the video where we're showing here's the results but then here's how we use those results to build a preventative plan. Right, what could you walk me through with Premier kind of how you approach this new integrative? You know, preventative style of medicine for skin care.

Speaker 1: 40:53

Yeah. So when people come in now we're doing, of course, the Vizia skin analysis, which shows, you know, where your sun damage is, you know how healthy or unhealthy basically your skin is, how hydrated or dehydrated it is. And then we're doing a questionnaire. You know we're not traditional medical history. We want to know what your family history look like. You know, and right now, what's your weight like? You know what's your total. We measure your muscle mass, we measure your fat mass, we measure your bone density, we measure all of these things. We even do a metabolic assessment, called a PNOE, which tells you what is your metabolic age, what micros and macros do you need to be taking in? What kind of you know workouts? Should you be doing resistance training this many times a week, or cardio this many times a week? Or you know, maybe you should be doing Tabata or interval training, things like that, several times a week? So it's going to customize that kind of overall approach to each and every client and then we make customized plans based on do you need a weight loss medication? Do you need a growth hormone agonist? Do you need to be on glutathione or NAD because you have lots of inflammation in your body? Do you need to be on thyroid replacement.

Speaker 1: 42:12

We're looking at the whole person, because your skin, of course, is a representation of what's going on inside your body. Your skin's your biggest organ. If you're not healthy on the inside, you don't have a chance to look great and your skin, you know, look fantastic, you know, on the outside. So it's a much more holistic approach and it stems from many, many years of my patients saying I just wish you could be my doctor for everything. I'm like, well, I can't be your doctor for everything, but you know there are certain things that I can, I can do really, really well. And now, with this advanced degree, I feel like I have the tools that a lot of physicians don't have. Degree, I feel like I have the tools that a lot of physicians don't have, and the wellness part of it has just become an absolute passion for me.

Speaker 1: 43:01

It's just, it's been a little bit of a switch, you know, kind of a shift away from traditional medicine and a little bit of a shift away from my partners. You know some of my partners are much more on the traditional old school dermatology. We're going to stay the course and just do this. We don't really want the innovation, we don't really want to be a part of the wellness side of things. We don't really want to do all of that aesthetic and laser stuff that you're doing. So there's a little. There's been a little, you know, a little hiccup with some of that Sounds familiar. Uh-huh, there's a little hiccup, but the beautiful thing about that is that you know practices evolve over time, people evolve over time and there's no harm, no foul. You know they can do really good things for the community with their approach and I can do really good things for the community with my approach and we'll just do it and still be friends.

Speaker 2: 43:52

I love it and still be friends. I love it when you think about, when you say that like the skin essentially is a representation of like health inside your skin looks phenomenal.

Speaker 1: 44:02

Well, thank you, thank you very much.

Speaker 2: 44:04

What is your routine? What does Dr Clifton do from the time that she wakes up to the time that she goes to bed?

Speaker 1: 44:10

Oh gosh, there's lots of steps there, chris. So I do my optimal human, which is my greens and my prebiotic probiotic powder. I mix that with a protein powder from Momentous every morning. That my daughter has got me turned on to that I love. I add my fiber to that All in one shake, uh-huh. I add my collagen to that. I add colostrum to that for immunity support. It's a thick shake, it is, so I usually put some fruit and some water you know things like that in it, and so it tastes delicious. And that's what I do every single morning, along with a handful of supplements that I believe in that I talk about on the podcast a lot and talk to patients about all day.

Speaker 1: 45:00

I try to work out. At least four or five times a week I go to J Street Gym, which is a hardcore lift weights, you know, with very serious people that don't do anything, but they go and they lift weights. I mean, it's a serious thing at J Street. Nobody's socializing, nobody's chatting you up. You get in, you lift the weights, you get the heck out. So I do that a couple of times a week with my boyfriend, who is probably the most fit human on the planet. It's very, very fit. He's jacked, he's jacked. So. And then I love Pilates. So I do Pilates a few times a week.

Speaker 1: 45:39

I'm a big fan of red light therapy, so I stand in front of my red light wall at least three or four times a week. I do a red light helmet for hair growth. Let's see what else do I do. I love saunas. We're actually buying an infrared sauna with red light therapy for premier. That has seven different settings for anti-aging and you know different things that you can literally pick your program. So that's going to be a big part of our wellness initiative. So you'll have to, you'll have to try that out when you're in doing some some filming with us. Chris, you have to go in the sauna, would love to um, you can bring your girlfriend.

Speaker 1: 46:15

It's big enough for two. You guys can sauna together. I'll ask her. It could be good for you. Saunas are hugely good for you. Drink tons of water. I try to eat super healthy, although pizza is a huge weakness for me. So every now and then I really splurge and have some pizza. What's the move? Every now and then, I really splurge and have some pizza. What's the move? Pepperoni Full on pepperoni. Yeah, I'm a big pepperoni fan. I love it.

Speaker 2: 46:40

The infrared sauna. Can you talk about that? For a little bit? I didn't even. I don't know what that is. What's the difference between a regular, like traditional heat sauna and an infrared sauna?

Speaker 1: 46:49

So it's just the heating mechanism is different in the sauna, so the infrared actually penetrates deeper into your skin, stimulates your mitochondria, which is, you know, the energy production cell of your body. So very anti-inflammatory, you know, heat is just soothing to the body, but the infrared heat in particular is healing and it's very stimulatory for recovery. You know it helps your body if you've had a hard workout, if you've been through a surgery or been through a stressful event. It helps with recovery. So all of that is just great for longevity. Yeah, big on certain supplements like TA-65, which lengthens your telomeres. I take that every day. I take Vasconox and ArteriaSyl because I have that's a mouthful.

Speaker 1: 47:41

Yeah, these are medications for your vasculature to stabilize your endothelial lining of your blood vessels and to lower your blood pressure. So I take that every day, trying to. You know what else do I take, gosh? So many things? Oh, I take my Nutrafol, of course. What else do I take Gosh so many things? Oh, I take my Nutrafol, of course. For my hair, yeah, just all kinds of things I take.

Speaker 2: 48:01

How important do you think supplementation is like to a daily regimen, like I think a lot of people just think you can take a one-a-day pill and that's perfectly fine. Yeah, I think.

Speaker 1: 48:21

The most fit people in the world. They don't just take a one a day. Yeah, a lot, of, a lot of people are taking, you know, a lot more longevity type type supplements these days, and there's just so much you can't get from diet alone. If you, you know, if you literally grew your own farm and sat around juicing and you know canning and all the things all day, you know you might be able to do it. You know, go out and kill your own chickens and harvest your own eggs and all of those things. But most of us ain't got no time for that. So what I do is, you know, just try to put it all into into a shake. I love a big shake in the morning because I feel like that gets my day started and I literally have to schedule my workouts or they won't get done. You know it has to be on my calendar, just like a meeting with you to do social media. That meeting at the gym has to happen. So those are some of the things I do.

Speaker 2: 49:10

I do want to talk a little bit about your charity work. We went and shot at Appleseeds Farm in Fayetteville. Yeah, how did you find Appleseeds Farm? Why do you enjoy working with them?

Speaker 1: 49:24

My really good friend Savin, who's in my book club. I also have a book club and bunco group for my mental health because my girls are awesome. They keep me grounded.

Speaker 2: 49:34

Shout out to my bunco group.

Speaker 1: 49:35

Yeah, shout out to my bunco group in my book club. But so then she knew about apple seeds. And you know, arkansas. You know I have a huge issue with Arkansas. You know want it to be the best of the best, and Arkansas is number I think it's number two in the United States for food insecurity. So a lot of our kids don't have access to healthy food. Some of them don't even have access to food at all.

Speaker 1: 50:04

And I just think, you know, especially in such a wealthy, the affluent looking community, it's hard to believe that there are that many people, especially that many children, that may not have a meal, you know, through the weekend they may go home and go to bed hungry and I just I think that's tragic. You know, I know a lot of people. You know they have a drive to go overseas and, you know, do mission work and this, that and the other. But to me, if you don't start your own community and you don't try to fix what's around you, you know the rest of the world is not going to get much better either. So I think if we can focus on the things that we see that we can have an impact on locally, you know, hopefully that's going to build and make an impact globally too.

Speaker 2: 50:49

Yeah, I think we've. We've obviously covered a lot. I wanted I thought this would be really cool to kind of have a conversation with you about your journey and your life. Is there anything that we did not hit on that you think would be important to talk about? Because I do think now there's a lot of people that are watching you and a lot of people that are following your journey. And I know for me, like before I started my business, there was a lot of people that I followed that it's like well, if they can do it, then then I can do it. And that person is like me. And you know, you don't really see a lot of women business leaders getting pushed in media now and I think social media has allowed it where you can find them a lot easier. And you have people like Sarah Blakely, who started Spanx. You have people like Layla Hormozy that's doing Acquisitioncom, and now you have Dr Missy Clifton.

Speaker 1: 51:39

Well, thank you for putting me in the ranks of those ladies. That's very kind, of course, that's very kind.

Speaker 2: 51:47

What's the message that you would give to those people? The high school girl or the college girl that goes?

Speaker 1: 51:50

I want to do that. I want to do and realize that you're a part of a community and that you're serving that community and anything that you can do, you know, to get yourself out there and give back to the community and show that you want your business to be, you know, not just a moneymaker for you, but something that is a service and something that is a part of a growing or thriving community. You know, I think as long as you keep that perspective, you will be successful. As long as you know you have to work. You know it's not easy and you know you can't just start something and then not show up to it and not keep. You know, working at it every single day and not keep looking at the numbers.

Speaker 1: 52:47

And every month we sit down and I look at the numbers, year over year, month over month. Where are we? What's happening? What's working, what's working, what's not working. You know devices get old, Devices need to be upgraded. We sell them, we look for the next great thing. Go to meetings. You know you just keep educating yourself and putting yourself out there. But then you come back and you get grounded and you stay a part of the community and you'll be fine, Just work. Plan your work and work your plan.

Speaker 2: 53:20

I love it. Well, thank you for letting me turn the tables on you today. That was fun and interview you.

Speaker 1: 53:24

So, guys, thank you so much for tuning in to an episode of All Things Skin. We sure appreciate you being one of our listeners. Not only do we thank you for listening, but please continue to follow us. Give your our listeners. Not only do we thank you for listening, but please continue to follow us. Give your reviews on any of the podcast platforms that you're listening on, and we can't wait to see you on another episode of All Things Skin.