This is Dr. Mark Radermacher from TPMI. Welcome to your functional philosophy topic. A couple of days ago was an intensive seminar that doctors only attend, and the purpose of this intensive seminars was to cover the specific topic of adjusting dialogue. One doctor is the doctor, one doctor is the patient, they role play back and forth. Suggestions are given, critiques are made, and sheer brilliance is laid bare. One doctor raised the question, “how in the world can a person describe and define health in just a couple of minutes?” Intensive seminars are all about the chiropractic doctor.
WORDS MATTER
This isn’t something that is really easy to do in a couple of minutes, but as a chiropractic doctor you could do a sequential two visit, or maybe three visit building of this particular topic of understanding the definition of health. Think this through. If it just takes a few minutes to define, maybe it could take three minutes, four minutes, five minutes. How would you do that? You might not realize this, but most doctors do not tackle defining health with patients because they’ve never written it out, because they’ve never really thought it through in common sense terms. You are the chiropractic doctor and you need to do this. In other words, a chiropractic doctor comes up to you and says something like, so if you really think about the definition of health, it’s about one sentence, 100% of the cells working 100%, 100% of the time, period. From one chiropractic doctor to the next, with all the background knowledge, a chiropractic doctor has paragraphs and chapters from books and lectures all come into the forefront, and that single sentence makes a tremendous amount of sense. Say that sentence to a patient and they’re going to look at you like a deer in the headlights. It doesn’t mean anything.
VISUAL GRAPHIC
What if you helped a patient understand the definition of health by saying on one end you’ve got a wall and that is death. On the other end, you’ve got a wall, and that is 100% health, now whereas death is something that’s going to happen at some point, 100% health never happens. It is a goal worth chasing, but you’ll never get all the way there. So, between these two walls is a wire, and on that wire is a ball and it can glide back and forth. It can move more toward death or more toward 100% health. And if you start teaching them things like: it’s not the speed the ball moves that matters most, it’s the direction. In other words, which way is the ball gliding on that wire more toward death or more toward 100% health, that’s what matters. But then to ask the average person, and that’s the average patient, by the way, as well, if they have any control over their health, the number one answer you will get, is “no”.
WHAT PATIENTS INCORRECTLY BELIEVE
“Whatever is in my genes. It’s what I was born with. It’s if I’ve become exposed to some big bad germ, I can’t help it and my body can’t help it and I get sick. You know, it’s just I have no control”.
REAL HEALTH
If you begin teaching patients that: number one, their diet, number two nutrition if they need it, number three, exercise, especially exercise that fits that body and that desire at that time in that life. Because not everybody’s going to dive in and do two hours of exercise six days a week, nor is everyone going to be pleased with a five-minute walk twice a week, so it has to fit, right? Or whether it’s number four, the successful reduction of stress, and there are others. The point is, a patient has complete control over those items in that list.
HEAD OF THE LIST
However, if you also teach patients that there’s a heading or a title to that particular list, and that is if their nervous system is not functioning to the best of its ability, there’s no chance of any health. You can imagine a patient might be working for months or years on the points in that list and getting very little benefit. They could become very frustrated if they don’t get the chiropractic care they need, if indeed they do need it, in order to let their nervous system function to the best of its ability. In this instance a lot of time and effort along with emotional frustration will drive them to the sickening conclusion that they’re not really going to impact that ball on the wire if their nervous system is in trouble.
SPEED VERSUS DISTANCE
As a chiropractic doctor you can explain that if they’re even moving slowly toward 100% health and even though 100% health is not attainable, it’s the direction, that really matters. It’s not the speed, it’s a directional quest. It’s the constant attempt, the effort put in to get their chiropractic care and for themselves when they’re outside the clinic to work the list, that matters most to them.
HEALTH IS NEVER ON HOLD
It is only then, they are doing everything they can to move more toward health. As a chiropractic doctor, you need to teach as well. If they decide to do nothing about their health, they have to learn. And, they must learn they cannot come anywhere near expecting that they can successfully put their health on hold. They can’t put their health on hold any more than they can put sickness on hold. In other words, they have to learn if they do nothing about their health the ball on the wire is not going to stay in one place. It never does. It is constantly moving one direction or the other slower or faster. But if they do nothing, the ball on the wire is only going to move, whatever the rate of speed, toward the wall defined as death, they will lose more and more health. And they will move sooner toward death.
CONVENIENCE DOESN’T MATTER
This attitude of, when I get around to it, when I have the time, when I’ve got the money, when I’ve got the interest, when I’m old enough to where I know it really matters, then I’ll start doing something about my health…too late. People need to learn from you, as a chiropractic doctor that health is something they can impact. And that it is the direction, not the speed that’s most important and what it is they need to do to impact that health and getting chiropractic care when they need it is the top, the title of the list.
OWN YOUR TALKING POINTS
Think this topic through, you are a chiropractic doctor, write about it. If you don’t write your own talking points. You can’t teach by asking specific questions of the patient, and that’s the best way to teach. You can’t just hear this and then go talk about it. You can hear this video and then write about it. And once, as a chiropractic doctor, you’ve written about it, you’ve got 3, 4, 5, of your strongest talking points that you’ve written down. That’s how you teach any topic, but this particular unsung hero and usually untaught topic of the definition of health needs to be something you, as a chiropractic doctor talk about successfully. You need to blow life into it. It can’t be the 100% of the cells working 100%, 100% of the time, asking the patient, to “repeat that after me”. And then tell them they now know the definition of health. That means nothing. Begin to figure out how you can blow life as a chiropractic doctor into the definition of health that you will use to teach the average patient coming in to you.
YE OLD FOUNTAIN PEN
In the meantime, enjoy writing. It’s best for a chiropractic doctor to write with a fountain pen, than it is to type this out. Believe it or not, there’s something about the information flowing onto the paper. You’re thinking it, you’re writing it, you own it. That’s how you really learn how to communicate this sort of information better and better, and enjoy doing it. Until next time, have a very good day.
TPMI, the company that trains the chiropractic doctor how to best communicate.
