My life and my practice stopped being about the patient and started being about me and the money.

(This battle has been the battle all along and it keeps being reintroduced over and over again.) Even in my speaking and teaching, when it stops being about me and starts being about them, that’s when I get inspired and opportunities come to me easily. 

That reminds me of the of the time when my front desk secretary, after putting up with me drifting into being self-absorbed again, so badly that when the patients would call to schedule appointments they would ask, "Is he okay?" and "Is this appointment going to be about ME or HIM?" Well one day we broke for lunch, and when I came back, the secretary was gone. She had left her key to open the office on her desk with a note saying, "I've had enough too!" 

I realized the KEY (from my business and my life) was going to be that I had to FIX ME. I questioned what I thought of myself as a person? Within my career at that time what became my tipping point? Knowing the medical system was flawed by doc/ insurance and patient/ insurance straining a sponge to the edge of legality.

Your services rendered and experience were subsidized by the insurance companies to make your bread and butter and cover you nut. And that was going away and there was nothing you can do about it. That made me reflect and PANIC, what now?

I thought with skill set and experience I would wind up with a level of security in the practice, coaching field. Except I discovered that what I knew how to show people to do had become obsolete or that's the STORY I told myself. The truth is the business skills are still necessary and in high demand but I had to update them to the highly evolved technological world we live in today. What's required today to thrive is to up-date your story. And when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. We start seeing new possibilities that are available once you make these simple tweaks. The challenge is that though they're simple, they are not easy to do!

Before 1992, as a client of Larry Markson (Markson Management Services-Chiropractic practice management), doing what he told me to do—did grow my practice. But I found it to be personally challenging growing the practice, dealing with staffing, my wife, who was my office manager. After our baby was born, she  stopped taking care of the office and left it to me.  I felt dependent on her and stripped of my security blanket. I doubted my ability to do this (run my practice and my life), and discovered I was RIGHT! AND, I you lost all 3.

In a 90 day period, every nightmare of my life took place. I had lived in dread that some day, just like my father, something would happen and I would fall apart. In June of that year, I got sued for malpractice, our house got destroyed by Hurricane Andrew, and recognized that my marriage was coming to an end. To top it off I suffered from adrenal exhaustion and crippling depression.  And there was no-way that I knew to fix any of it. 

Everyone kept saying “What’s so wrong with being the neighborhood chiropractor” 

My response was, "I fu..king hated it."

I learned to embrace my depression and to know it was not really going to go away but it was actually a gift! It gives me feedback about my unrealistic expectations. And reminds me when I forget it’s about service to others and think about myself to much. 

That's when I started studying human behavior influenced by Dr Demartini and NET (Neuro Emotional Technique) with Dr. Scott Walker and have been doing so ever since.  

I changed my attitude of insanity from saying “this time will be different” to "When nothing changes nothing changes." I came to terms with having to acknowledge my need to be coachable. I became the living breathing proof that when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than pain of change, people change. I was in that much PAIN.

So, I hired many coaches, continue to endeavour to master my own mindset and learn the way things need to be done today. NET (Neuro Emotional Technique), Demartini training, Markson Cabin experience, Burge Lyons—Essence of Being, Business Finishing School and now Nima Rahmany's—Overview Experience. All the while taking excellent care of my own whole person, including the emotional component.

I learned that all the tools in the world don’t work if you don’t use them. All the insight doesn’t make any difference unless you pay attention and make the necessary changes. That knowing and not doing is the same as not knowing. Keep to my word and practice in action what I say and preach. I welcome you to The Goodman Factor and invite you to live your GOODEST LIFE.