Welcome to More Patients, More Impact, More Income. The podcast for real holistic medical practitioners who want to grow their high impact, high income practice without selling out. Now, here's your host, Chris Axelrad.
What's up? What is up? So, last night, just kind of had the wild hair, if you will, pondering of all things the Seven Deadly Sins. Right? And where the hell does that come from? But you know, I think bottom line is that, you know the further you go in terms of building really not just your practice, but your life, there's two ways to go. There's one of two ways to go. Alright? There's the people that just plow forward and really don’t reflect, at all, and they just really fixate on this external definition of success and allow their identity to be shaped by what they think others want them to be. [0:01:11.1]
And so, it's really, really hard for those people to achieve what I consider to be real success in life, which is you actually are happy. You actually enjoy your work. You enjoy your business. You enjoy your life. You bring joy to other people. You help other people grow in their lives. You know, as healers, to me, that's what this is all about. That's what this work is all about. It's about being, transcending all the bullshit and the noise, and being that person and that presence that lights people up, you know. And when they come into your clinic and when they're with you and when they see your marketing, I mean, in every aspect, when they contact you, and contact is not just calling you. Contact is not just showing up at your clinic. [0:02:06.7]
Contact is when they read your blog post and they see your video or they see your post about free talks that you're doing or whatever, that's, you are contacting people. And when you really want to show up with that light and that spirit and that uplifting energy in your community, you have got to learn to reflect upon yourself and start to look at what success means to you, and also take ownership of the fact that if you are finding the success you want. That's not on anyone else. That's not bad luck. You're not a victim. Nobody is pushing you down. It all comes from in here, and that's why I've been, you know, contemplating on this whole concept of the Seven Deadly Sins because, you know, that's one of the old school kind of warnings, right. [0:03:04.3]
There are these seven things, these seven states, these seven emotional states that if you feed this states, it just kills your joy. It kills any chance that you're going to live a meaningful, joyful, purposeful life, if you let these states take over. And the word "sin" and I don't know where, I think I was talking to a patient about this… See, I talk about shit like this in clinic, which is probably one of the reasons why patients probably, 90% of why they keep coming back, is because they're like, "Man, I gotta go back and see what this motherfucker is going to say next time." You know, every time, there's something that they get, like that they weren't expecting from our conversations but we were talking, I was talking with a patient about this, I believe, and you know, this whole idea of a sin, you know sin is taken totally out of context in religion. [0:04:00.5]
The word "sin," the Latin root is "to omit" or "without." Right? So, it's not something that you're doing on purpose. It's not something that you're intentionally doing, like being greedy, for instance, which is the sin we're going to talk about today; the deadly sin of greed and what that means. You know, you're not doing that intentionally. It comes from something that's missing inside of you. It comes from something that you feel like a loss and it drives this need, and so, the key is - also before I even get into this, I want to talk a little bit too about the fact that, you know, there's people who are going to like say, "What the fuck does this have to do with.. You know, you're talking about the Seven Deadly Sins. You're talking about all this, like psychology. What the fuck does that have to do with having a successful practice, whatever." [0:04:59.5]
And what I'm going to tell you is it has everything to do with it because as your practice grows, as your impact grows, as your knowledge grows and your ability to help people grows and you start to expand in what your definition of success is and you start to see the possibilities that exist for you, the only thing that is going to limit you, the only thing that is going to limit you from reaching that vision that you see is things that you refuse to let go of within yourself; your own limitations and your own limited definition of who you are. That's the only thing that's going to hold you back, and the more that you are reflexively going through life without reflecting, it's interesting, reflex, reflect -- never really thought of that before, but there's probably some connection there. [0:06:04.6]
The more that you are reflexively going through life, reacting to things, assuming that your idea about, you know, how the world works is accurate and not reflecting on your own inner psychology, man, your impact is going to be limited, your ability to reach the kind of success you want. And that's the key. Success is relative. You have to define what success means for you. What success means for me and what success means for you? Totally different. And that's cool because that allows you the freedom to say, "Look, this is kind of what I, no, not even kind of. This is for sure what I feel is success, and this is for sure what is going to bring me fulfillment and joy and help me to live my purpose." And maybe for you, it's x, y, and z. Maybe for me, it's a, b, and c. And that's cool. [0:07:03.1]
Because the more that everyone is clear on what success and fulfillment means for them, the less they're going to be fucking worrying about what everybody else is doing, criticizing what everybody else is doing, and getting wrapped up in all of these deadly sins that we're talking about. And when they say "deadly," again, like, in my post last night, if you didn't see it, I was talking about the fact that they don’t mean like you're literally going to die. What they mean, though, is… well, sometimes you do. I mean obviously, greed, which we're going to talk about here in a second really quick, greed is obviously capable, if you're really, really out of control with it, you can make some really crappy decisions and hurt yourself and possibly die. Right? Okay, so that's true. But I think that what's really kind of the meaning of that, when they say "deadly sins" is that these are the things that kill your joy. They kill your impact. They kill any chance of you living a life of purpose and meaning. [0:08:07.1]
And it's important to look at this shit if we're going to be real, impactful, high impact healers. And we're going to do real work and really help people, it's important for us to look at this stuff. And people who don’t want to look at this stuff, in my opinion, are not only doing themselves a disservice, they're kind of doing their future patients a disservice, and their loved ones a disservice because at the end of the day, man, the more we can clear the way for our true power and our true creativity and our true heart to come out, that is what allows us to really just have the most positive and powerful impact on everybody we meet. Not just our patients, our family, our loved ones, our friends, you guys in this group, each other. That's what gives us real freedom and real power. [0:09:00.1]
So, let's talk really quick about what greed really means, in my opinion. Of course, this is all just my own little jam. Right? Probably some of you guys, it means something to you. Remember, a sin is an omission, so when we think about, you know, omission, we're thinking about something that's missing. We're not thinking about something people do on purpose. It comes from something missing inside of ourselves. So when we talk about greed, what we talk about is really unchecked, self-centered desire. It's this unchecked desire that it's just like no matter what you have, it's not enough. You need more. You need more. You need more. Okay? And again, why do people do that? In my opinion, it's not out of malice. It's not like, "Oh, I hate these people, so I'm going to take all this stuff for myself and take stuff away from them." It's that they have this unfillable hole inside themselves because they hate themselves. They don’t love themselves, and on some level, they just feel, they just don't feel like they belong. [0:10:05.3]
And they define their value on what they have and not who they are. And so, greed is something that… this happens to a lot of practitioners. In fact, I had a podcast about this, I just realized, so it's weird, I was already on this track where I'm like already thinking about this stuff, and it's already in my podcast. So this probably won't even go in the podcast, but the next six will. When you're in that state, it's a very insidious state, and it affects us as practitioners more than we realize, and it's very subtle. What is the opposite of greed? The opposite of greed is gratitude. That's actually the cure for greed - gratitude. To be grateful for what you have right now, to bring yourself back into the present and be totally and unabashedly and truly grateful for the people in your life, for the patients you already have, for whatever office you're already in, whatever situation that you have already created for yourself, to show gratitude for that. [0:11:14.5]
Greed seeps in when we're constantly dissatisfied and no matter how many patients we have, we feel like we want more. Like we just, it's just not enough, and we feel unhappy, and it takes the joy out of our practice because we're not paying attention to the people that are there. And it takes us out of a state where we're present and able to give that unconditional loving kindness that people really need from us, aside from the medicine part, which is important, but as holistic practitioners. In my opinion, if you're a holistic practitioner and you're still functioning in that allopathic mindset, like these are just people and I just have to give them the pill, and the pill does everything, which is exactly what the problem is with the allopathic mindset and the allopathic system is that there's no humanity in the process. All emotion and thought is, you know, for the scientific purposes, eliminated from the equation, and people are treated as like robots and machines to be manipulated and tweaked. And there's no attention paid to the relationship, and there's no attention paid to the connection that we have with patients. [0:12:30.8]
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When greed, even in the smallest sense, when it's seeping into your mindset, it seeps in and it's very insidious, obviously. This is why these are the Deadly Sins, because they're very hard to detect. [0:13:02.7]
And it's more about something that’s missing inside of us, where we feel this need to fill this hole in ourselves with stuff or with power or with whatever. It's just no matter what, it's never enough. And in your practice, what'll happen is that… what I see happen, and this is with myself too, and I have to like constantly check myself, and but I see it also with other people, is you want your patients' results, not necessarily for them, but so that you feel better about yourself. And you want them to get better and you obsess on that, and you want all, you want all these results to build yourself up because you need that in order to feel like you're actually worthwhile. Right? And it's frustrating. And a lot of people screw themselves because if they don’t see results within two or three treatments or within a month or within you know six weeks, they start to beat themselves up, and they start to, you know, think negatively. [0:14:15.2]
And you know what? That's just making it about ourselves when we do that. We're not really focusing on our patient anymore. We're focusing on ourselves. We're using the fact that we are not God to totally destroy ourselves, and I've had patients who literally, now I can tell you, bar none, 100%, just like an alcoholic who knows they're never going to drink again, I can tell you, 100%, that I don’t do this shit anymore. Okay. I will wait a year for a patient to get results, and if they keep coming back, I'm going to keep fucking treating them, and I'm not going to tell them to go away, and as long as they keep coming back, I'm going to keep treating them because it's not about me, and it's not about the results. [0:15:03.8]
It's simply about being present and being grateful, and you know, not wanting shit. Not, you know, this constant like it's never enough, it's never enough, it's never enough. Same thing with the number of patients that we have, of course, I love to be busy. A typical day for me, now, like a slow day for me, is 18 patients. Pretty busy day for me is 25, 26 patients. That's great. It's great. You know, I'm grateful. But at the same time, my feeling about my work, my purpose, and my love for my work, it has nothing to do with the numbers. Nothing to do with the numbers. Nothing to do with the dollars. I always say, man, I'm cool, like, I'm lucky, I'm grateful. I have a house, right. I have a roof over my head. I own the house, so to speak, although the bank really owns it and I'm paying them. [0:16:00.7]
But I would be fine just living in a one-bedroom apartment, as long as I get to do what I love to do every day. And you know, you can't fuck with that. When you have enough, you have won. And that's how you escape the cycle of greed is let everything be enough. If you look at this quote that I put in the description, this is straight out of Nei Jing , previously chapter one of Nei Jing, and I'll always say this, you know, like you can basically just read chapter one of the Nei Jing and I love the translation, the Shambhala version, by Moa Qing-Li, I believe, wrote it or Doa Qing, one of the Li brothers, I guess that's what they call themselves, and I've met Dr. Dao, really nice guy. I think they run one of the schools in LA, from what I remember. Probably some of y'all went there. I actually went and saw a talk there one time, but anyway, so I love that edition. You can read the first chapter, in my opinion, read the first chapter of the Nei Jing and then that's it. [0:17:07.1]
You don’t really need to know anything else because they're just so much wisdom about how to live and how to live in a way that cultivates this connection, the source and this genuine contentment and loving kindness that just leads to everything, being amazing in your life including your practice and your everything. But this quote is "Previously people with a calm and honest existence detach from undo desire and ambition. They live with an untainted conscious and without fear." When greed starts to seep its way in, okay, then you are always wanting and wanting and wanting, and you're always trying to do shit to prove yourself, to prove yourself, and you think that you're doing it to prove yourself to other people. [0:18:01.1]
And then of course, you may end up getting some recognition from other people and the people who recognize you, when you're in that ambitious kind of greed kind of state, the people who recognize you typically are people who also value that kind of status and that kind of recognition. The point is that that is just a, we could say it's, look, it's not bad, of course. I mean, it's awesome to win awards. It's awesome to be recognized, but at the end of the day, if that's what you're focusing on, if that's what you measure yourself by, then you're measuring yourself by something transient and impermanent and that can go away at any minute. I mean, as we speak right now, you can see what's going on in our government by around a certain person who, you know, pretty much has reached the, is this close to the pinnacle of like, on earth, for his career and it's all, I mean, who knows what's going to happen, right. [0:19:13.4]
But you see how precarious that is because you never know. You never know. And at the end of the day, when you are not focusing on those things and you're just living your purpose, enjoying every moment and doing the things you love to do, you're free. Because you always have enough. And you know what? Most people don't and most people never will. On some level, people, in fact, look -- most of the people that come see us, part of their illness is the fact that there's a hole inside themselves they're trying to fill and they just never have enough, and they're filling it with food and they're filling it with doing shit all the time and not getting enough sleep or you know, whatever it is. [0:20:04.1]
And they're just, again, like a sin is an omission; it is not a transgression. A sin is something missing. It's a hole in the bucket and they don’t even realize it and they're just leaking energy. They're leaking lifeforce. They're leaking joy. They're leaking so much of what life is supposed to be, and then they end up sick. They end up sick. You know, even like if you think of someone who is holding on to frustration and anger, and they won't forgive and they won't let go, in a way that's greed because they're wanting somebody to apologize. It's never enough what other people do. People are always falling short, and they always want more and want more and want more. And that anger builds up inside them, it builds up inside them, and maybe they end up with heart problems or central nervous system disorders or, I mean, you know, so many emotional roots to some of these diseases are so deep and we, as practitioners, in my opinion, are called upon, almost in a way… you know, I talk about, you know the fact that we come from a Shamanic lineage. [0:21:17.4]
We, in a sense, really as in the lineage of Chinese medicine, in particular, we really are descended from a Shamanic tradition. Not so much on the allopathic side, and that Shamanic tradition calls upon us to be that change, to embody that transformation within ourselves, not just try to make it happen in our patients. So, there you go. And again, how you overcome greed - very simple. Just implement a daily gratitude practice. Like one of the things I teach in the War Room is every day, just before you go to sleep, think of five things you're grateful for - five things. Five things, maybe a person, maybe something that happened that day, maybe an opportunity, maybe just nothing, you know. [0:22:16.2]
And it can be the same damn thing every day. I really don’t care, you know. It can be the same thing every day. You can give thanks, as long as you're giving thanks and you mean it, that's all that matters. And gratitude as an emotional state starts to loosen up all of that want and it starts to fill that hole in your bucket that greed represents in just saying those five daily gratitudes, and I really think that also as holistic practitioners, if we ignore the emotional side, I'm not saying to like, because look, if you came to shadow me in clinic, which by the way, if you join War Room, you can come shadow me in clinic for two days, follow me around. I'll answer all your questions. [0:23:04.0]
You can see all the shit behind the scenes going on and learn everything that we do in our clinic, but you know, I don’t talk much in clinic. I really am not a talker and I am quiet most of the time. So it's not like I'm sitting there with my patients like getting all into this, you know, trying to be a psychotherapist, but here's the thing, like I do and I'm relentless, not letting my patients off the hook when they are beating themselves up or when they are generating states of anger and things like that, I'm going to make sure that I, in a very gentle and very loving way, remind them, hey, you know what, like you could just choose to not be angry. Why are you not forgiving this person or whatever it is, you know, and I'm always making sure that I'm helping them to, really trying to help empower them. And again I think, if nothing else, that's the retention strategy in my clinic basically boils down to we have amazing conversations and I think they just want to come back and see what's going to happen next time. So, anyway, guys. Peace out.
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