Winning The Game of Life

Another cwazy "coincidence"

2010-08-04T23:38:00.000-07:00

For all of us enlightened ones, it's no surprise that the word "coincidence" doesn't even exist in many languages. For the last ten years or so I smirk and do the air quotation marks every time I say the word "coincidence." Here's just another example of why this word has no meaning.

Last week a friend of mine mentioned that he had gone to a massage therapist in our area who he really liked and who gave him a great deep tissue massage. She mentioned to him that she would like to go out on her own rather than give away 55% of her earnings to her "boss." He mentioned that Holly and I may be interested in talking to her about that. So I met with her and my friend and I was very impressed. We have a spare room in our office that would be perfect but has only been used for storage since we moved there a year ago. So Holly and I decided to clear the room out so the massage therapist could get an idea of how the room would look. We spent about 3 hours down the office on Sunday. I cleaned out the room while Holly organized papers, charts, sticky notes, etc. We threw out several bags of trash. We filled up one bag to be shredded and we have a pile of stuff to give away to Habitat for Humanity. It felt really good when we left there. When I went into the office Monday morning I turned on my little water fountain that I have in my treatment room. The lights in the fountain were now working after not working for about a year. Even funnier than that, they went out again a few hours later and haven't come on since. So this was either a coincidence, or it was a confirmation from the universe that we had done something good and had freed up some serious energy in the process. As I said at the beginning, we enlightened ones know the answer to that. There is no such thing as a coincidence! See you on the other side.

Where Attention Goes, Energy Flows and Results Show

2010-07-18T21:22:00.000-07:00

Amazingly, this year signifies a decade since we graduated from Logan College of Chiropractic. Our dreams to become Doctors of Chiropractic have come true and then some. But ten years ago, if someone asked us what our “why” was, we would have given them the noble but naïve answer, “so we can help people.” My, has our “why” changed! Before we tell you our story, ask yourself these 10 questions first:
1. Do I have a “why?”
2. Do I have “dreams?”
3. Do I have a career or job that I love?
4. Am I willing to make some changes in my life so that my goals and dreams can come true?
5. Is my retirement plan “solid?” Do I even have a retirement plan?
6. Am I financially “free?”
7. Are my children taken care of? School, activities, college?
8. Do I spend quality and quantity time with my family?
9. Do I have any clue as to what the tax advantages are for having a home based business?
10. Am I able to take a vacation anywhere or anytime I want to?
If you answered “no” to any or all of these questions, read on because we can help you turn those “no’s” into “YES’s.”
Holly and I have been together for 21 years. We are high school sweethearts. We were EMT’s together for 6 years. We are partners in every sense of the word. We are strong, positive minded people. We are willing to work “hard” to get things done so we may achieve our goals and dreams in life. And now we’re ready to make our money work for us!
Ten years ago we began our journey to Hilton Head Island, SC. The prior 5 months leading up to that journey were absolutely insane. The first big event was Holly’s graduation August 5th, 2000. Then there was a month of final preparation for our wedding on Hilton Head Island, September 9th, 2000. After spending a wonderful 10 days in Hilton Head we drove back to St. Louis so that we could pack up our apartment. In one week’s time we packed our apartment into a 25 foot Penske truck. Sean also helped 4 other friends move out of their apartments during that week too. Then we began our first very long journey (22 hours) with Sean’s car in tow behind the truck and Holly following, back to Hilton Head so that we could put our belongings in storage there. Sean still had one semester left, which he would spend doing a preceptorship with our Chiropractor back in NJ. One of our most loyal and trusted friends, Bill, from our EMT days was nice enough to meet us in Hilton Head and help us unpack the truck. Next we took what we needed and drove up to Ambler, PA where Holly’s parents were living at the time. We lived with them while Sean commuted to his “job” with our Chiropractor. It was only an hour and a half each way, 5 days a week (sarcasm). But it was an amazing experience and they were generous enough to pay Sean too. Next was Sean’s graduation, back in St. Louis of course, December 16th, 2000 in the middle of a blizzard no less. Oh, and somewhere in there we each took Part 4 of the National Board Exam, the final and most grueling part. After Sean’s graduation, we drove with his brother to his house in Chicago for a few days, which was long enough to experience a 16 inch snow storm. Then we flew back to Philly to start packing our stuff there for the final journey back to Hilton Head Island, SC. We pulled into the parking lot of our new apartment January 3, 2001. Our friend Bill was again there for us and helped us move in. And so began the next chapter in our lives.
So there we were, in a brand new place, we didn’t know a soul, but we had the best business plan in the world and of course every bank was going to throw money at us. Right? Wrong! We were turned down for a start up loan by the first 7 banks we went to. So, after lots of crying, and threats to give up and go back to NJ, we regrouped and took full time jobs locally until we could find a bank that would say “yes!” It was a difficult time. We never saw each other and our savings was dwindling, which seriously added to the stress of not getting a loan and not practicing. But when we least expected it we met a group of local doctors and investors who were planning to build a huge, state of the art Wellness Center. After meeting with them they asked us to be a part of it. They actually went to their banker and told him to give us a loan or they were taking their 7 million dollar building somewhere else. Now we were set. We had our start up loan. One of the investors was a retired dental surgeon, Roger. All we knew about him was that he was a millionaire in multi level marketing, which we knew nothing about at the time. Then, while working his “job”, Sean ruptured his L5 disc in his lower back and on the advice of the Dentist, purchased some of his company’s products. The products actually helped Sean’s back heal without surgery (it still feels great!). The immediate improvement prompted Sean to ask Roger how his business worked. He invited him to his luxurious $1.5 Million home and laid it all out for him. Sean was immediately drawn to the business model. Holly on the other hand liked the products but wasn’t really sold on the business part.
This began a period of ten years where we have had several great companies and products put in front of us. A few of those products are still used in our house every day. So, as a result, we became very product oriented. We only suggested products that we, ourselves had tested. But we weren’t real comfortable recruiting people in the beginning. Because of our various mentors, coaches, trainers and gurus we finally realized that we could be working part time on our fortune, while continuing to work full time on our “careers.”
We are very grateful that we realized that Chiropractic alone wasn’t going to get us the things in life that we wanted. We are blessed to have the things we have: Three gorgeous children, each other, a great house, two cars, a thriving practice, a wonderful school to send our children to, an amazing home based business, wonderful patients. The list goes on and on. These are just a few of the things we’ve been blessed with already. We just don’t need much more stuff in our lives. But being wealthy, in many ways, is our goal. Money is extremely important in the areas in which it works, and extremely unimportant in areas in which it doesn’t. Zig Ziglar, the great motivator, has always said, “Money isn't the most important thing in life, but it's reasonably close to oxygen on the "gotta have it" scale.”
This is where our “why” comes in. Why have we chosen to pursue network marketing when we already have so much? It comes from the way that we run our practice. We came out of school with numbers in our head for what we thought would be a good volume of patients per day. These numbers probably weren’t much different than what the average graduate anticipates. But when you open a business, you don’t get an immediate flood of clients, you get a gradual trickle. Even when we opened our doors I think we were shooting for about 50 patients a day within a few years time. But it was because of that “trickle” that our mindset changed. For us, in the beginning, when our schedule book wasn’t full, we spent more time with the patients that were coming in because we had it to give. And with eyes wide open we realized that these people were getting better really fast. They were telling us on a daily basis that we were the best chiropractors they had ever been to. So very early on we made a commitment to spend 30 minutes with every patient, every single time they come in. And we haven’t budged from that commitment. It’s the main thing that separates us from ALL of the competition. The relationship that is built when you spend that much time with someone is strong and everlasting. For the patients that have stuck with us all these years we have an almost “family like” relationship. What this has done though is limit the number of patients we can see in one day. If I go straight through from 9-6 without stopping I can see 18 patients. And I’ve done that a thousand times. Most chiropractors will see 18 in three hours. So because of the “low volume” practice we have chosen to operate, we will never generate “wealth.” Our practice will not make us “wealthy.” It covers our expenses and leaves us with a little at the end, but it’s not going to give us the things we really want in life. This is why we have chosen to pursue network marketing. Actually you could say that network marketing found us. But when it called we listened and we accepted it as a legitimate way to become “wealthy.”
For us to be “wealthy” we want to have more “experiences” in our lives. Experiences that are so memorable that they become etched into our minds, never to be forgotten. Experiences with our family, now while they’re young enough to really appreciate them. Experiences with our friends, who don’t live nearby, and who’ve been so busy with their own lives that we haven’t gotten together in years. It’s the collection of our experiences that defines us. We have 4 poster boards full of pictures that represent the experiences that we’re going to have as a result of this home based business :
1. Being able to see all of the kid’s games, recitals and events or just helping them with their homework.
2. Being able to donate monetarily and physically to our chosen beneficiaries like Make a Wish Foundation, Hilton Head Heroes, Habitat for Humanity, CODA, The Family Health and Birth Center of Savannah, and our church St. Gregory the Great.
3. College funds set up for our children.
4. Retirement funds set up for us.
5. Trips to: Hawaii, Williamsburg, the National Aquarium in Atlanta, Yosemite, Yellowstone, Glacier National Park, Zion National Park, Grand Teton National Park, Arcadia National Park, the Oceanographic Museum in Monaco, Sydney Aquarium, Underwater World in Singapore, Washington D.C., The Homestead, The Greenbriar, The High Hampton Inn in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Great Smokey Mountain National Park, The Biltmore Estate, The Grove Park Inn, Londolozi Game Reserve in South Africa to name a few.
So the question is, ARE YOU FINACIALLY FREE? Go back now and read the questions we asked you in the beginning out loud. Would you like to be able to answer “yes” to all of these questions? We are going to help 5 people become millionaires in the next 2 years. Do you want to know how?

Every now and then

2010-05-07T01:54:00.000-07:00

Every now and then someone is placed in my life who truly makes an impact on me. For whatever reason, it's rare that I find a person who I can really see eye to eye with. It's very refreshing and when it does happen it renews my faith in people. But it also makes me wonder why so few people are truly content in their lives. I know it as soon as I meet someone. I just sense that, with them, everything is just fine. Which is exactly how I feel about life. I guess it explains why most of the wealth in this world (about 96% of it) is held by just 1-2% of the population. Now, monetarily, we haven't reached the "wealthy" stage in our lives. We chose a profession that has a high cost just to graduate and get licensed. So unless your education was funded by The National Bank of Mom and Dad, or you had a successful career prior to medical or chiropractic school, you're going to enter into practice and the business world in debt. There's just no two ways about it. At that point you have two ways you can go. You can choose to work for another doctor and in return receive a decent salary. But in this case, it's not much different that getting a salary somewhere else. When you work as an associate for another Doc, you have to do everything exactly the way THEY want you to. Not the way YOU want to do it. This concept just never made sense to Holly and I. Some may argue, "how am I supposed to get experience if I don't work for someone else first?" Well, you can do what we did. Which is the second way to go after you graduate, choose your place to practice and get licensed. You can study incessantly. You can get to know people who have experience in doing what you want to do. Become their friend and learn from them. And then just close your eye and jump in. Just trust that everything's going to be just fine. If you're true to yourself and confident in your abilities nothing can stop you! This goes for any profession, job, sport, hobby, etc. This goes for life. I'll say it again, if you're true to yourself and confident in your abilities NOTHING can stop you! For people like Holly and I, and the guy I had lunch with today, this just comes naturally. My parents reinforced it by always focusing on the positive and never on the negative. They gave me the space to figure it out for myself. Maybe they knew they didn't have to worry about me. Whatever the reason, I'll be forever grateful that they allowed me make my own choices even though at times I'm sure they knew I was making a bad choice. But to succeed you have to experience some failures. For me a failure in anything is like pouring gasoline on a fire. It ignites my passion to do it better and succeed. The bottom line is, you don't have to have a huge bank account to be wealthy. For me, my wealth runs infinitely deep. It's only a matter of time until that translates into being debt free. And that's just fine with me. I know that by leading with my heart and therefore by example, all that is good will continue to follow me in my life!

Hilton Head Island/Bluffton Intro to Matteo Family Chiropractic

2010-04-30T22:21:00.001-07:00

Finding True Joy

2010-04-29T00:35:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's been awhile since I blogged but I'm going to be more committed to writing from now on. I want to write about a topic that's a part of my life every day. Having children. More specifically the birth of my first son, Anthony. I hope that someone out there can relate to this. When we found out my wife, Holly, was pregnant we were in a very tumultuous place in our lives. Our chiropractic practice had only been open for about a year. Holly and I were both working full time in the office as well as part time jobs for both of us to make ends meet. I worked until 6pm Monday through Friday in my office and then headed to Papa Johns to deliver pizza 3 or 4 nights a week until the wee hours of the morning. I also worked most Saturdays as well. Holly was putting in about 30 hours a week at Home Depot in the phone center on top of seeing patients. We had no idea how long we would have to keep up the part time jobs. At that point we weren't completely sure our practice was going to get off the ground. There were a lot of questions. And now there was a baby on the way. Even though I felt I was ready to have children in my life it was still one of the scariest times for me. What kind of father would I be? Am I going to be able to provide for this child? Will they be healthy? I awoke every morning with a deep, dark ache in the pit of my stomach. Oh, and we had also just built a brand new home, our first, just to make things really interesting, and stressed to the max! As if we didn't have enough on our plates already. I remember sitting down with our mortgage guy, and he was going through all the things that were going on in our lives. He said to us, "you guys certainly haven't chosen the easy path. If it all works out it'll be so worth it. And I have a feeling it will all work out for you." Let's just add one more thing into the mix to really put it into perspective. Exactly one month before our son was born we moved our office into a space that was double the rent we were paying. I know, I know, what were we thinking. We were confident in our skills. We knew we could handle all of it. But for me, inside, I was scared to death. I was drinking way too many beers every day. Which just compounded the problem and made feel even more physically crappy. But then about 2 weeks before the event, I had a falling out with my boss at Papa Johns and I left. Little did I know that Anthony would decide to come 5 weeks early. When the doctor told us that Holly's water had broken and that she'd have to be admitted we were like WTF! We hadn't even packed a bag for Holly. And the doctor and the hospital were both in Savannah, GA, 45 minutes from home. So what did we do? Holly, her Mom and I cruised on over to the nearest Walmart and bought everything we would need for the event. We took lots of pictures. Holly could barely walk. We headed back to the hospital and waited for things to progress, which of course they did. Holly's Mom and I were right by her side. I acted as Holly's Doula. I adjusted her several times on the hospital bed. It truly was amazing. When his head crowned the anticipation was palatable in the room. Holly was and is my hero. We hadn't figured out what we wanted to do because of him coming so early so Holly had to try a lot of different positions. When the head was visible they brought the mirror over so Holly could see it. From then on she was a woman possessed with one purpose. Get that baby out of me! And very quickly he was indeed out of her. I called it first that he was a boy. We looked at each other and said in unison, "Anthony Michael?" We both nodded our heads. He was still 5 lbs, 12 ounces and very long at 19 3/4 inches. At that moment nothing else mattered. All my troubles were washed away with the tears that were falling out of my eyes. After all of the crap in my life, when I first held Anthony I had finally found true joy. So many feelings flooded my body and mind. But they were all good. Anthony was taken to the special care nursery because he was early. As the nurses were putting him in the warmer and getting him hooked up to an IV (Holly never had her beta strep test so they both had to be on antibiotics) I noticed his head was crooked. So I reached in with my pinky finger and put a little gentle pressure on his Atlas (1st cervical vertebra). As I watched, his head just straightened right out and I thought the nurses were going to need a change of pants themselves. It was an incredible feeling. With that first adjustment on my own child, all of my fears just melted away, leaving only the feeling of True Joy!

Inspired by Julie and Julia

2010-01-01T21:17:00.000-08:00

Holly and I recently watched the movie "Julie and Julia." It reminded me about the power of blogging. I've had a blog set up for a good bit a time now and I've written a few but I haven't done anything to promote it or get it out there to people. Now I'm ready to jump on the blog wagon. Thanks to my friend Matt Loop, I now know how to link my blog to my Facebook account so that all my friends there can see my blog posts. This certainly adds incentive to write blogs as these are mainly people who I would want to communicate to anyway. If I look back just 20 short years and compare it to where I am now, it's almost hard to believe what I've accomplished. Or 10 short years ago, or even 5 short years ago. The growth is exponential. My desire to learn more grows every day as does my capacity to take it all in, process it, and utilize it. I want to bring people into my world so maybe they can do the same.

Wellness Psychology

2009-07-16T21:52:00.000-07:00

Wellness psychology is the study of mental and emotional wellness – in other words, the way to create conditions of thinking and feeling that are consistent with healthy living.

Wellness psychology is a way of responding to the challenges of life with positive expectancy and self-esteem, based on the awareness that our natural state is harmony and inner peace, if we can reduce or eliminate whatever is interfering with that state.Wellness psychology is based more on lifestyle decisions than the treatment of a professional. Learning to interpret the events of your life with positive realism gives you a perspective from which you can assign uplifting meanings to those events. Tony Robbins says, “Nothing has any meaning but the meaning you give it,” and putting a positive spin on things sets an internal environment that is more likely to encourage overall wellness.

But there’s more to wellness psychology than just positive thinking. Rather than waiting around for mental and emotional symptoms, you can be proactive and develop habits that make you mentally and emotionally healthier on an ongoing basis.

Progress

2009-07-01T22:41:00.000-07:00

We are happy to announce that we will be working directly with two of the best spinal orthopedic surgeons in the area, Dr. Jeff Reuben and Dr. Craig Boatright. These two doctors focus on avoiding surgery at all costs and will be referring their patients to us to help accomplish that goal. Visit www.reubenspinespecialists.com to learn more about them. This is a tremendous honor and privilege for our practice!

The Gift of Chiropractic

2009-05-05T22:44:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's been awhile since my last blog. We just moved our main office recently and that event really threw me off my normal routine. As good as the move was for us from a financial standpoint, it does take a toll mentally. And just changing your mailing address with a federal agency like Medicare or Blue Cross/Blue Shield is one of the most frustrating things I know of. These two insurance companies represent 65% of our insurance revenue. We've been in our new office for all of 5 weeks and we have just started receiving checks from BC/BS dated six weeks ago. None have come from Medicare yet. Arghhhhhhhhhhh!

Beyond that however, I get to witness one of the most amazing things on earth every single day. Our body's innate intelligence being expressed. How lucky am I? I'm in a profession where nearly all of my patients can't wait to come back to for their next adjustment. I get praised every day for what I do. I try to tell them that it's not me. I try to explain that I'm just particularly skilled at putting things back in place. But the miracle takes place after I'm done my job. Once things are set, the body takes over and your nervous system functions at it's highest level. Healing takes place throughout the body. After creating children with my wife this is them most amazing thing I've ever seen. And it happens in my office every day. We don't cure, we just set things right. One of my favorite professors liked to say, "you can teach a monkey to push on peoples backs but you can't teach him to diagnose." Once we diagnose the problem and correct it, the miracle takes place. Some day chiropractors will represent the majority of health professionals. I invite you to come in and find out why.

Dr. Sean

Today's Wii-conomy

2009-03-16T14:29:00.000-07:00

Has anyone noticed that almost every household owns a Nintendo Wii nowadays? We personally do not. Not to say that it doesn't sound like the coolest thing going. And it can actually make you more physically fit. Who would have thought we'd reach the day when your video game can give you a workout. Unfortunately, this is just another thing that makes us focus more on ourselves and less on our country as a whole. The "Wii" has helped us forget about the "We" as in "We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, esablish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." It isn't the "economy" we need to fix, it's the "Wii-conomy".

Full Throttle or Not?

2009-02-13T23:27:00.000-08:00

One of the many lessons I've learned in life occurred during my motocross days. Learning at an early age to harness the power of a two stroke motorcycle taught me an early lesson. Other than going through a turn, your motorcycle is at full throttle 99% of the time. But there is one moment when, if you hit the throttle you will most certainly crash. And if you manage to save it you'll never make that mistake again. It's called a tabletop jump. As you're going up the jump you have to let off the gas so the front end points down when you land on the other side. At almost every other time on the track you can go all out. This is a lot like life. If you go full throttle through life and never back off, you will eventually crash. It's only a matter of time. Knowing when to let up is the key. So try to identify the tabletop jumps in your life, so you're prepared to let off the gas, if only for a moment.

Hilton Head drivers

2009-02-13T11:08:00.000-08:00

Has anyone noticed the increase in traffic in the last couple weeks? What is it exactly that turns visitors to this island into complete driving illiterates? Now throw in some road construction, and they're really lost. Oh no, a different road surface, now I'll have to drive 25mph in a 45mph zone. Lord, these people need some help.

2009-02-12T09:20:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody. Welcome to our Blog!