It seems as though it will never stop. Of course it always does. The first year I moved here was the winter of 1977. We were living in a small apartment with 3 small, but growing children. Using AMC practice management principles from Dr. Owen, I had gotten off to a great start, even though the practice had been set up just a few months ago.

We were seeing 70-80 patient visits a week by that time. Then the snows started in January. Have you ever noticed how snow storms, the really bad ones, seem to come in weekly “waves”? That is exactly how it happened that year. Just when the practice was up and running smoothly – WHAM!

It would have been easy to get very negative at that time, and I did for a while. The feeling was that God, or the elements, or someone, had it in for me and wanted to make sure my practice and my family suffered. Then I remembered something that Dr. Owen had taught me. He said that, in life, there is a universal principle of balance. When it is raining (or snowing,) in one part of the country, it is sunny in another. In general, things always seem to achieve a balance and equilibrium.

Yes, the snow did hurt my practice…temporarily. If I had gotten negative, and stayed that way, I could have made the situation even worse. I got to thinking about what Dr. Owen had said, and I figured out how that principle could apply to my practice in a positive way, and how it can apply to your practice too.

With an attitude of balance, I realized that the number of office visits I lost due to the snow could be replaced by extra visits which were a direct result of the bad weather. My patients, and potential patients, were out straining their backs removing snow. They were slipping, falling, and getting into car accidents. Without the snow, not nearly as much of this boost to my chiropractic practice would be happening. Armed with the tools I have learned from AMC, these seemingly negative events in my practice were transformed into strong positives.

This is just one example of literally thousands of attitude and success principles I have learned from Dr. Owen and AMC. Stay tuned for more.

As a result of that one question, I went to Logan college in St. Louis in the fall of 1964. By going straight through winter and summer, I was able to graduate in 3 years. I had finished 3rd in my class. The 2 ahead of me had 4 year undergrad degrees. I had come straight out of high school, so I was just barely old enough to get a license at age 21. I had even gotten an A+ in the one management class that was given in my senior year.

My wife, who was 5 months pregnant when I graduated, and I immediately moved to Florida to open our first office. The old joke told is that, in that first office, my entire practice totaled just ½ of one new patient. That is a new patient who never comes back for their report.

Now what do I do… pregnant wife, no practice and lots of bills. In addition I did not have the foggiest idea how to turn things around.

I wasn’t a very religious person then, but obviously the good Lord was looking out for me, because I heard about an upperclassman from Logan who had sought the help of a chiropractor from Jacksonville after he got out of school. He was making $4600 a month with this man’s help! I know that may not sound like a lot, but you need to understand that gas was 25 cents a gallon and groceries were only $8-$10 a week for both my wife and me.

The doctor from Jacksonville was named Tom Owen. I first met him in 1968 and I can honestly say that Dr. Tom has had a greater and more positive impact on my life than anyone I have ever known before, or since. He helped me to start my first successful practice in Lancaster Ohio in 1969. With his help, and the success principles that he taught me 40 years ago, I was able to develop close to a million dollar a year practice during my active practice years. I am retired now. However, the main purpose of this blog will be to share what I have learned in my forty years of practice, and to open up some discussions which will hopefully make your practice full of golden years, as mine was.