There is no easy answer to getting our message out to the world at large and having it accepted. Forty-five years of trying to do it enabled me to build a large, and by most standards, successful practice but I did not even budge the mountain I was trying to move. Not one hospital or pharmacy closed (except for the purpose of building a larger one). According to research that has been done, the number of people going to a chiropractor has not even kept up with the increase in population. Percentage-wise there are less people going to chiropractors today than there were 45 years ago, despite the fact that when I began my practice, advertising was illegal and no one was doing regular lay lectures. That is not to suggest that advertising and lay lectures are worthless but their value has not had the effect of increasing the percentage of chiropractic practice members nationwide. True, it has benefited individual practices, but that is not reflected on a national level.
We have the greatest tool of communication today that the world has ever known, the internet with all its potential. If that alone was enough the world would understand chiropractic by now since a message can reach the entire world or at least the internet community in a matter of hours, if not minutes. I think it was B.J. himself who said that a thought can go around the world in a few minutes but sometimes it takes years to get it through 1/4 inch of skull bone! Somehow we are all waiting for the magic bullet, the talk, lecture, epigram, statement, word or phrase that will turn the whole world into lifetime chiropractic practice members. I have been convinced that there is no such answer, any more than Dr. Ehrlich could find the “Magic Bullet” cure for disease (Google Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet and read about the 1940 Warner Brothers’ movie with Edward G. Robinson
So. where do we go now?
P.S. I retweeted and posted this on Facebook. Anything else I can do?
I believe the answer lies in education, first of our practice members and then of our immediate community. How many chiropractors are actually doing lay lectures with their new people? How many chiropractors are actually doing a continuing education program with their practice members??
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The orientation/lay lecture is designed not to educate the new person in ALL they need to know about chiropractic, but rather it’s simply an introduction to chiropractic to get them started. It forms a basis to which can be referred back to as more education is given to the pm.
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The continuing education program is where the real change in thinking occurs in the practice member. Reggie lays it out perfectly in his 10 hours of philosophy where he says we should start out with a discussion of inductive vs deductive reasoning, allowing the pm to decide which one should be more imortant to them in the running of their lives and the lives of their family. (It’s probably not a bad idea for some chiropractors themselves to get a better understanding of the differences of ir vs dr and decide which is more important in THEIR own life. That alone would clarify many things in their own practice.) From there a discussion of the Triune of Life, then Limitations of Time and Matter and Cause and Effect, then a discussion of symptoms. GASP, yes, a discussion of symptoms is extremely important (for all those naysayers of NTOSC who say we don’t talk about symptoms) , but it needs to be done in the proper context with the proper foundation already layed down.
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It’s like building a practice. One doesn’t go from 0-500 a week overnight (well, unless your name is Joe D! 😉 ) The same is true with educating your people and having an effect on them, the community, etc. That takes time. A good friend contacted one of the top copywrite gurus of today and asked him what he believed was the best means available today to effectively get a message out. He said that while we have access to more means today than ever (audio, video, written form, internet, etc) nothing will ever replace good old knee to knee, live talks. Like Joe said everyone is looking for that magic bullet outside of themselves to get the job done. As Reggie has said time and time again, we all possess the ways and the means, it’s just a matter of planning the work, then work the plan.
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Someone above mentioned a problem with all the different messages out there representing chiropractic. Fact is we can’t do a thing about what all the others are saying and doing. The best we can do is shine our light as brightly as possible, reaching as many people as each of us can possibly touch. Then and only then can we hope to have an effect on the world.
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http://www.reggiegold.com/Audio.htm
If for any reason you have a problem obtaining these cds, contact me at ticdoc55@gmail.com and I will lend you my set.
I don’t have any statistics now to compare to 45 years ago, but I think there are more chiropractors in number today but less practicing chiropractic. The Yellow Pages have more DC’s listed than about 20 years ago and I do think more people go to chiropractors, but for the wrong reasons. Right now there are 4 DC’s in the general area who do radio programs on weight loss weekly and a fewDC’s do ads on nutrition and weight loss. More messengers with the wrong message.
A sad but astute observation!
What happened to THE DANCE OF MORE?
You have got the wrong Joe to explain THE DANCE OF MORE!
I know Joe.
I presumed, perhaps incorrectly, that Claude’s reference to this ADIO statement, if I understand it close enough, was an optimism that you and he were perhaps on the same page with.
Maybe I was in error.
Maybe it’s always about the glass half full or half empty.
Hey, I left the profession, because I couldn’t resolve ADIO vs OIBU.
Those Chiros that fill the profession with all the ancillary stuff?
I couldn’t sell it? Congruently.
But the fact that you, a mentor and scholar, see the demise of a Truth called chiropractic, being swallowed up.
I know why I left the profession. As I return, I hope to know why I’m back. That’s why I ask so many, perhaps annoying, questions.
Thanx for bearing with my DANCE
David, you write”But the fact that you, a mentor and scholar, see the demise of a Truth called chiropractic,… being swallowed up” I see the great possibility of the profession of chiropractic being “swallowed Up” unless we as part of the profession prevent it. The “Truth called chiropractic” will never disappear. It may exist as something else (like Spinology) or never be manifested but truths do not disappear.
Joe,
I completely understand.
Why would a Truth, like Chiropractic, in all this time, NOT rise to the top?
The 33, could be totally orated in a debate, in a scholarly way, with anyone and everyone. Medicine and pharmaceutical to POWERFUL?? $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
That’s why I mentioned Clout.
If Obama said, I go to my Chiropractor once a week, so I can have the fullest expression of innate intelligence vs David Suskin saying it, well, different result.
What happened?
Why didn’t any of the great speakers and intellects aggressively take on the MAINSTREAM?
As yes, you quite astutely pointed out that mankind bases reality on what it senses and/or feels.
Reality, knowledge based on pure logic, is where the 33 roams, although observation bears out the major premise.
I too am very guilty of basing my understands on what I sense, or feel.
Yet we have all this terrorism in the world which is based on a book, but I’d say it’s distorted by harsh, brutal anger, feelings of grandeur, a whole lot of cultural bias, delusion, basically FEELINGS.
And yes it has nothing to do with our plight, but maybe the cause of that blemish in mankind bears the same domain of power, ego, and control.
I probably SHOULD NOT get political or religious.
It’s all about Clout.
Chiropractors ranks very low.
Open the eyes of an.MD, to the 33 Ps.
Then, and only then will there possibly be some traction.
While the truth might not be popular,
If the Truth IS the Truth, it should resonate with one of the
Clout Mysters.
Or perhaps raise the controversy. That sells head lines.
Obviously, when DD thought that he had found the cure for deafness in a way that was superior to medicine, it was, for him, a superior “discovery” for getting sick people well than medicine. At that point, whether we like it or not, DD gave up the uniqueness his discovery of chiropractic, which is to allow the body to fully express the innate forces of the innate intelligence of the body. Period. DD unfortunately compared chiropractic to medicine, while not realizing that chiropractic is separate and distinct from everything else and inclusive of everyone. –
– It is understandable that the excitement of DD to witness Harvey Lillard’s hearing restored was indeed an awesome distraction from the chiropractic objective. It makes a nice di-psycho split that mixers just love. Yet, there is a much more foundational point. The great and supreme idea, is that the NEW insight is that, innate intelligence maintains the living body in active organization. In this insight, lies a superb example 😉 of thin-slicing the texts of DD, BJ, and RWS and finding the golden thread. Once you see it, you cannot not see it.
The first public words on chiropractic were written around 1896 by DD when he was advertising in Iowa. On the day of the first publication, the first chiropractor and his future followers began their long journey away from chiropractic’s central objective and morphed into what Joseph called a “fortiori” that was to supersede the medical methods of getting sick people well. –
– Knowledge of this history now gives new and even more meaning to the chiropractic objective, which is the LACVS for a full expression of the innate forces of the innate intelligence of the body. PERIOD!. When the chiropractic objective was first “seen” for what it is, on that day, the freedom that chiropractic offered was not only for sick people, but for ALL people regardless of their respective physical, mental or social positions! And all peoples, were restored their rights to a full expression of the innate forces of the innate intelligence of their bodies. Reggie understood this and drew out the immense consequences. He loved to say, “The power that made the body heals the body… sometimes”. He understood that chiropractic is way beyond freedom from sickness and disease, way beyond freedom from symptoms and pain. He understood that chiropractic is about LIFE, about innate intelligence maintaining the body of a “living thing” in active organization, which means maintaining the body ALIVE. We are now, ALL of humanity, free to express the innate forces of the innate intelligence of the body, and of course this morphs into the radical possibility that chiropractic has to offer for the transformation of the world which is the LACVS. We are all “walking around like the sun” and we don’t know it.
Claude,
You have so much to say. So poignant.
Why not say I to. 20/20 or 60minites or Sunday morning (2). What? You don’t have an agent? Find one. Go prime time Claude and Joe!
Joe,
You’ve seen many thousands of PMs. You’ve observed and performed many Chiropractic Objectives, and seen as an aside, many results.
You state:’Not one hospital or pharmacy closed (except for the purpose of building a larger one). ‘
Understanding chiropractic as you understand it Today, would you have expected that?
David, I have absolute confidence in my God, the principles, the philosophy and the objective of chiropractic. I have no confidence in humankind. That combination has created a life of fulfillment and one without disappointment. My only expectation was/is that I would love, honor and obey the first four and just love the latter. I have not always succeeded, perhaps because I too am part of humankind.
Joe,
Your thoughts are written so clearly, what reads between the lines is all the more profound. Thank you for that introspection.
By the way. I did look up ‘Magic Bullet’. Quite an interesting flick, its subject, it’s date, it’s star and how it applies to this post.
“You can dish it out, but you can’t take it, see!” Oops wrong movie 😉
Joe,
If I may ask,
What were(is), your core principles that allowed you to have the agenda that would enable you to bring Chiropractic to reach the world?
We know something that can make every human being’s life better, but we can’t get it into mainstream conscientiousness. That has got to change. There must be a way for this to be “re-discovered”.