TNR Happenings, February 17, 2025
Tao of TNR Is Less Than A Month Away!
There are many different paths to follow when you help people with health problems. Many doctors focus on methods and techniques or default to academics. Others let regulatory boards push them around, limit them, and tell them who they can treat, slowing down the process with bureaucracy, paperwork, and minutia. I have met many doctors over the years who don’t have a sense of belonging to something bigger than their practice. Their dreams atrophy, their economics get lessened, they hold their tongue to be good little girls and boys, and they let bad reviews on social media keep them up at night. The days of the antelope pissing on the lion continue. Flying in formation is the time-honored path of sustaining your drive, that push to keep helping people despite insurance interference, government interference, and society at large. Curb your training, and you will be worn down. A Head-to-Head slot on Sunday remains, and it should be filled this week. Discounted tickets are available until February 28th. Call today to reserve your spot!
Love Has No Color News
Did you know that it wasn’t until 1924 that Native Americans were granted the right to vote, which has endured state by state up to the present? Imagine the logic it takes to explain this to young children. How many people off of Reservations read their children a bedtime story about the infamous Carlisle Boarding School, where Native American kids were ripped from their homes to be homogenized and white? This was completely invisible and was swept under the rug. Sometimes, we can get myopic about what Love Has No Color means to people on Fort Peck and other Reservations. It’s much more than an initiative on a single Reservation. Kenny Smoker has been approached by Reservations as far away as Alaska about Love Has No Color visiting theirs. Trivia fact: did you know that Love Has No Color has been on three different reservations to date? It’s true. The other two are Spirit Lake in North Dakota and Lame Deer in Montana. One of our members reading this set the land speed record by covering hundreds of miles in a couple of hours to reach the other Reservation.
Companion Tickets to Grief Retreat
We will be having our yearly Grief Retreat on May 16th and 17th. It will consist of two full days, and yes, Kenny Smoker and I will be co-hosting this. This event is capped at 20 participants for logistic reasons. We have eight tickets spoken for currently. There are companion tickets available at a reduced price for people sponsored by a TNR member. The companion ticket is for someone in your life who is struggling mightily and would benefit from having me in their life. It might be issues with their business or relationship woes, and they could use TNR coaching, or they might need a heavy-duty dose of me with Miracle Training. Either way, they won’t commit to the process without getting to know me. This will allow them to get a taste test of me and help them decide to get the help they need. If you are interested, act now, especially regarding companion tickets. Talk to me directly about the companion ticket price.
From the Mind of Miyagi
Did you know that one of the key motivators of people is gratification? Instant gratification runs the show with advertising and seeps into all businesses and relationships. Instant gratification is worshipped above almost anything else: 154 characters or less; whiten your teeth and women will swarm all over you; Dummies Guide to x,y,z; 12 visits of Chiropractic care will restore your health; five steps to wellness; BSOs to save your sagging practice; the intimate partner that will solve all your problems (buy a foreign bride). We all know better, but the gratification monster lurks deep within the lateral recesses of our minds and holds us hostage.
On the other pole (tension of opposites, paradox) is satisfaction. The promise of gratification is always immediate, and the reward of satisfaction is longer-term. You know what your self-agenda wants: IMMEDIATE! Let’s say you are on the treadmill of losing weight. You feel deprived and starved, and you deserve better, but besides, it’s not going so well. Your gratification knows there is a pint of Hagen Dazs in the freezer. Your satisfaction says you will reap the rewards of not crushing a pint of ice cream in the future. Guess who wins! Gratification wins nearly every time. It uses emotions and feelings to wear you down and hold you hostage. This is one of those up-to-and-including deals, including taking your own life! There is a key ingredient to satisfaction, and its name is discipline. It’s the courage not to obey the emotions and feelings of gratification. Outgrow and override gratification to arrive at satisfaction. The gratification part of your self-agenda (mind) is much more interested in the immediate payoff. But in exchange for an immediate payoff, you don’t achieve the goal of losing weight. A short-term solution creates a long-term problem. More often than not, the exchange gets made, instant satisfaction gets the nod, soon to be followed by the eater’s remorse, and the goal of losing weight slips further and further away.
A potential practice member comes in and immediately starts to thrust his/her views of what you should be doing and how many visits it should take. Besides nonsense, what is this exalted expertise on health based on? What will you do? Will you cave under the barrage of the ignorant (instant gratification) for a few hundred measly bucks, or hold tight and welcome people serious about attaining health goals? How many times have you caved? Are we speaking of practice, marriage, or parenting? We are talking about all of them. Every time you cave, you push away people willing to work toward a goal. Ask yourself who you want to be in integrity with: people who follow your guidelines or mock them. You create incongruence in your office every time you cave in. Every time you compromise when you know better, you also start compromising in other parts of your life. Don’t do it!
The idea is not to become rigid and inflexible; rather, to have a fluid, gentle firmness and the ability to say no to people’s demands when they are not even in the same zip code as yours. Don’t reward bad behavior. Remember, you are the doctor, the parent, the one with superior knowledge. Why take influence from a person who will not give you their all? Always remember, the air filter on your car is not mad at large particles of dirt; it just doesn’t let them enter to ruin your engine.
Miracle Training
I have guided thousands of people over the years, including my practice members and my coaching clients, and something that I have heard many of them say is this: “Dr. Kevin, I have a family member/relative/friend that is in big trouble. I wish there were a way of getting them to experience you. I know they would benefit greatly, but getting them to take the first step is tricky.” Denial, “It’s not so bad”, “I can’t just pick up and live in a hotel for 3-6 months”, and ”my job” are ways people rationalize being struck or in life-threatening trouble. The Grief Retreat companion ticket introduces people you know or love who need me in their lives but won’t take the first step.
This is not a touristy pump-up for a couple of days trip. There is a purpose for offering these companion tickets, and I’m counting on all of you to not waste them. Uninterested, skeptical, or cynical people are not a good fit. I'm looking for open-minded people who will mix in an intense setting like this.
DCME Confidential
Question 1: My potential DCME patient says her condition is not that severe. She comes in for Level 1 insurance-fueled care. She also always reads on the internet about different treatments, theories, and diagnoses and brings me articles. I’m at the end of my rope! What should I do?
Answer: This is typical of people who would be better served with a bona fide Level 2 instead of putting a square peg in a round hole. Please take a look at the last article on gratification vs. satisfaction.
Question 2: My DCME client pressures me by always asking what’s next. She expects adventures and it feels like she is never satisfied. I’m running out of ideas.
Answer: You are not there for expensive daycare, entertaining her, etc. It sure sounds like friendship and the omission of leadership. If you seek her approval, you are in the wrong business. You have to be firm and not give in to trying to be her friend.
Marley
