I just had one of my coaching clients send me this email today.
“I had a new pt today from my talk. He’s a big guy, poor lifestyle in his early 30s. He told me he is afraid (brought to tears) he is not going to be around for his 9 week old son, in fact he wakes up everyday scared. He was there because of what I said at the talk at his office and he was crying out for help. It brought tears to me also. This guy gets the whole story and big picture and seems very motivated!
My dilemma is that he has been under chiro care for neck and back type symptoms which have cleared up, but his chiropractor never talked about the importance of clearing up the nerve interference and subluxations and made no mention of how important it is for this guy to live a reasonable lifestyle. Again he was at the talk I gave the other day and of course I talked about how important the nervous system is and living a reasonable lifestyle and that’s why he came to see me. So his neck and back are feeling better however I tried to hint that his function will take longer. I would recommend more care not less, haven’t seen x-rays yet but scans especially HRV is not good.
I suppose what I want to ask you, in a long winded way, is, is there anything different you would say or do, or really highlight? He told me he can be impatient and if things don’t happen quickly he moves on. This is a long term project in my view, I’m scared of what will happen to him if he doesn’t commit. He needs to understand the changes he wants to notice are ones that will probably take some time and a bit of patience will be needed.”
Have you ever run into this?
If you are out doing talks and really delivering the goods you will have a lot of people who GET IT and want what you have to offer. Many of them will have seen “limited scope” chiropractors who limit their scope of practice to neck and back pain. And these people will WANT more, they will want what you have to offer!
So how do we deal with a patient like this?
In our communications program we teach our doctors to find out what the patient REALLY wants in relationship to what we can REALLY do for them and then simply show them how to have it.
Let’s break that down a bit.
We must find out what our patients really want from us in relationship to what we can really do for them. The odds are we can do much more for these people by clearing up their nervous system and showing them a reasonable lifestyle than what they thought when they first came in to see us.
Most people come in thinking that we can only help them with their neck or back pain. But the truth of the matter is by correcting their nerve interference and helping them live a reasonable lifestyle they can most likely not only feel better and prevent problems in the future, but they can literally reverse the effects of the aging process and have a better life!
So in our consultation, examination and report of findings we have to help them realize the value of a healthy functioning nervous system and reasonable lifestyle and the present and future benefits to them. Again odds are this will be a much bigger picture than what they thought when they came in.
Therefore once we know what they really want in relationship to what we can really do for them we simply need to show them how to get it.
In this person’s case in our consultation we would help him get extremely clear about the “why” behind the “how”. In his case the “why” is because he wants to be around to see his child grow up. In essence he wants to live and he wants to be healthier.
Once we help pull this person out of the river in Egypt called “denial” then we have to be extremely clear and honest with him about what it will take to get the results that he wants. We must address the fact that he can be impatient and the reality is this will not serve him if he really wants to be here for his child.
In our offices, we look at a scale of -10 to 0 and zero to positive 10 where -10 is near death, 0 would be feeling good but not functioning at our optimum and 10 would be not just feeling great but truly functioning at our optimum.
Once you help this person recognize that they not only want to feel good but they want to actually be healthy, they want their nervous system functioning at its optimum and they realize that to do so not only will they need to be adjusted for a significant period of time to correct the present damage but they will also need to live a reasonable lifestyle so they are not re-creating the same types of health problems over and over again.
So you can see that regardless of the person who walks into your office we always do the same thing. We find out what they really want in relationship to what we can really do for them and then we simply show them how to have it.
As always, we are very interested in questions and comments.
Much love and aloha.