Where did you grow up and what was your childhood like? Did you have any particular experiences/stories that shaped your adult life?

I grew up on Long Island, New York. It was a typical middle-class upbringing. The primary thing that shaped my life began in junior high school into high school. I found myself to be a very thin boy. Where there were probably others who were as thin as I was it seem to affect me more severely. I developed severe self-esteem issues. I actually saw myself as a Picasso painting with two eyes on one side of my head. I am sure I gave off a scent of fear and intimidation to those who like to bully others. I always tried to play it off by trying to be the class clown but in reality, I saw myself as not be worthy even to have friends. So for a large part of my time when I wasn’t in school I was home in my room watching television. I developed anxiety by the time I was in high school and would fear going to school for concerns of being bullied. I survived high school and recognized that I needed to change myself if I was ever going to happy. I decided I would learn how to lift weights.

From 19 to 26 I tried every year to start to lift but I couldn’t seem to be put any muscle mass on because my metabolism was so fast. Through this period I ended up in college at the University of Florida and began to interact with girls and saw that they were attracted to me which began my transformation to having confidence and feeling better about myself. Finally at 26, my desire to lift weights and change my appearance paid off. I put ten pounds of muscle that year, ten pounds the next year, ten pounds the next year, and ten pounds the next year. In just 4 years I put on 40 pounds of muscle. I went from 160 pounds to 200 pounds and boy did my confidence soar. The thing about it was I had to learn about weight lifting at a much higher level than just reading weight lifting magazines or following the standard understanding of the sport. My predisposition to be thin met I was going to require a very unique understanding. I ended up taking a high school physics course and applying physics laws to weight lifting.

This gave me an understanding of how to move the weight, how to support the weight, how to stabilize my body while moving the weight; every advantage to help me grow weight as few can. I subsequently put on another 20 pounds of muscle and now weigh around 220 pounds. This self-taught high specialized understanding of weight lifting ended up becoming the basis of the means by which I resolve muscular causes of pain through my method of diagnosing and resolving pain. Who would have guessed that my disdain of myself because of being so thin would become the impetus to develop the very method I have used to resolved thousands of people’s pain and return them to fully functional lives.  

What is something you wish you would’ve realized earlier in your life?

This is an easy question for me. The thing I wish I had learned earlier in life is that the greatest way to experience joy is not in getting but giving. I spent way too much of my life focused on satisfying my ego about how special I am and how important I am and how much people should want to revere me. This was a huge mistake.

What I didn’t realize until recently is that this gift I have to diagnose and treat the cause of pain and other symptoms is simply a gift-giving to me that I am supposed to give selflessly. When I perform my sessions with people I now realize it is all about the person and I am not supposed to focus on the benefits the person gets in relationship to me. I now live outside my ego. I do what I describe as living in the service of God. Everything I do is about giving. The joy I get from this is overwhelming. The feeling of love that comes from giving others without expecting a single thing in return is overwhelming and creates a feeling deep in your soul that is unmatched by any material thing I may receive. Since learning to live this way I have not had a single unhappy day and cumulatively I have experienced more joy than I have the entire prior period of my life. 

What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession or area of expertise?

The overall global idea that being seen in the medical field to identify and treat the cause of your pain is a complete fallacy. The MRI was implemented over 40 years ago. Since then the number of people that suffer from chronic pain has grown to 130 million Americans and over 1 billion people worldwide. The failures of treating the true cause of pain have led people to accept chronic pain as a part of life people’s lives have been ruined because they think pain is something they have to live with. Suicide rates and depression rates have skyrocketed because of this reason.

There is actually no basis of evidence that indicates that the structural variations identified on the MRI such as herniated discs, arthritis, and meniscal tears actually create pain. This is simply a culturally accepted concept. I believe I was led to develop the method of diagnosing and treating pain that I created so that people would see there is an option to the medical establishment. It turns out that in more than 98% of cases the tissue eliciting the pain is muscular which requires a more fitness-based means of resolving the cause than a medical means. This is why I am trying to convince people they will almost definitely end up with indefinite chronic pain if they enter the medical system in whatever form they do to attempt to identify and treat the cause of their pain. 

Tell me about one of the darker periods you’ve experienced in life. How you came out of it and what you learned from it?

Certainly one of the darkest periods of my life came as I was forced to go bankrupt after having one of the most successful practices that existed. For over 15 years I had a practice that reached the point of having a 6-month waiting list to get an appointment; clearly, something that is unheard of in the medical world; especially as a therapist.

The reality is that the cost of chronic pain led to a collapse of the medical insurance industry. Attempts were made to raise premiums, raise deductibles, and reduce payments to practitioners. This led me after 15 years to the point where I was making 70% less than what I was making when I first started. It was impossible to sustain an office so I was forced to close my doors. This was devastating to someone like me.

First of all, it became clear that I could and address pain and other symptoms like nobody else especially considering I had developed my own method of doing so. And yet I couldn’t get paid for doing this. It seemed unfair and almost as if I was being persecuted personally.

Then there was the feeling that I was incapable of supporting my family. Someone with my feelings about my responsibility as a primary earner could not handle this and without any insight into what I was going to do to support the family, this seemed at the time like an insurmountable problem.

Then there were all the employees I saw as my children who I felt I let down knowing they were going to have to find new jobs and I wouldn’t have a home for them to support themselves or their families. Then there were all the patients I knew would end up simply following the normal means of treating issues through the medical establishment that would simply leave them suffering with no sense of having an endpoint to the suffering.

I really didn’t know what my future held and it was a very scary time for me and a very depressing time. I ended up having to get a job doing home care therapy and accepting that I was just going to be able to get by and just going to be able to survive. This went on for years and my depression deepened. Tensions grew in the family and I seemed to have no answers. It finally led to divorce which shockingly was like a sledgehammer hitting me over the head. It seemed to be the very trigger I needed to reevaluate life and what the priorities there are.

I somehow was able to come out of living in the darkness and having that same self-loathing I had as a child. I started to realize that life is bigger than just you. I started realizing that I needed to learn to live for others. I found spiritualism. This is the very thing that took me out of the darkness and sense of living through my ego which I did for most of my life. I am free now and the happiest I have ever been to. They say that if you give yourself up to the universe, the universe will take care of you. I do believe that now. It may be the greatest lesson I can give to anybody and I usually try to spread this message to anybody that is willing to listen. 

What is one thing that you do that you feel has been the biggest contributor to your success so far?

It is my perseverance. It is the belief in fighting the just war. When I recognized that the existing medical system is completely baseless and that I had been asked to create the true method for diagnosing and treating pain, it was clear to me that people had a right to know this existed because they had a right to live without pain; everybody does. In a song by a band named Disturbed in a song called Indestructible, there is a line that says I have “determination that is incorruptible”. That is the way I live my life.

I don’t believe there is any barrier that can stop me from completing what I believe I was entrusted to do. I have written 3 books, performed a PBS special, write for a national blog and an international magazine; I treat patients from around the world through zoom. Every bit of this has occurred purely by the will I have to see that people get a chance to be out of pain. If people ask me how do I know what I know? How do I do what I do? The answer is I don’t have a clue. It is an understanding that has developed over time primarily by a passion to understand what I see and being to explain in a way that allows me to use this knowledge to help everybody that seeks it. But I do know that the reason I have ended up in this place is because something has told me that this is my destiny and that you simply need to follow through and everything that is meant to be will be. I have never understood why I was put on this path but I do believe that the end will be shown to me at some time and it is at that time I will understand why I was put on this path. For now, I just persevere. 

What is your morning routine?

I usually get up at 7 am. I start every morning with a cup of coffee. I like to sit outside on a patio and drink my coffee listening to the sounds of nature. I listen to the wind passing through the trees, birds chirping, animals scampering around. I have found this connects me to the earth more and I feel really grounded. It makes me realize how small I am and therefore there are things that are much more important than me. I usually then get ready for the day.

I usually listen to music while showering. This is another form of connecting with something bigger than me. Music transcends time. I often listen to music that connects me and my daughter. I usually can see her singing these songs while I listen. It makes me excited to think about when I will see her again. Then I might perform a YouTube video if I get an idea for something I want to get across to people. I may respond to emails.

Three times a week I go to the gym to work out. My style of working out is different than most. The gym is actually like a temple or church. I have been lifting weights for 33 years. It has been a constant in my life so it is something that makes me feel safe and is something done just for myself. Lifting has long ended about how much weight I can lift and now is about how to be able to tap into my soul to see if I can incite enough rage to allow me to surpass my physical and mental inhibitions that might stop me from lifting a heavier weight then I am used to. It is a fascinating experience to be able to enter your soul. And feel raw emotion; in this case uninhibited rage. It is what has allowed me over 33 years to never plateau in increasing the weights l lift or getting bigger. The rest of life in terms of business-related activities and other responsibilities come after these activities. I actually really like my mornings. 

What habit or behavior that you have pursued for a few years has most improved your life?

I have to go back to the idea of living selflessly and outside your ego is the behavior I have found to have improved my life the most. The only thing that may be different in my case is that the desire to do so did not come through a long time pursuit but a singular cathartic moment. I would certainly say that most of my life I lived through my ego. This means that when things are going well you think you are invincible. When things go bad, you hate yourself.

The scary thing about this is that this attitude can actually change several times just in one day depending on events that occur. It makes life very manic depressive. It makes life for those around you very hard to deal with. And you recognize this and want to change but the path is not clear. It took the tragedy of getting divorced to make me recognize that an immediate change was necessary. I was living in such a negative place in myself that it led to my wife wanting to leave me. What may have been a worse recognition was that I don’t think up to this point I really allowed my daughter to know who I was or how I felt or how I felt about her. I truly had a massive release of emotion and for days cried like I had never done before. It literally was like seeing a sky completely cloudy and suddenly the clouds disperse and the sky is clear and sunny. It became apparent I was living in my ego and that was a very bad place to be. I found my way to live outside of myself and literally being able to see myself as an observer. I could see how I would react to people and now would see them as equals to me in the play of life. As time passed I started seeing them as more important than me.

I started focusing on how I could help them find joy.  Often times this was in the simplest of fashions; getting somebody a glass of water. Sometimes it meant just sitting and listening to them without any interruption and really hearing what they had to say without only them in mind. I found that this thing I do in terms of diagnosing and treating pain was the perfect format to live like this. I no longer thought about how special I was to be able to do this for people but to simply be in the moment for the person. As people would feel better I would feel the change they experienced in my soul. I no longer thought about how they should thank me for being so wonderful. I was all about them. There is no question in my mind that this one changes my thought process and brought me more joy than anything I could have done in terms of achieving personal success. My life has been forever richened by living for others. 

What are your strategies for being productive and using your time most efficiently?

I think this is an area I developed a long time ago. Compartmentalization is the key to success. I have found myself involved in lots of projects and performing tasks requiring a lot of time. I have now trained my brain to only to focus on the issue or task I am working on at the moment. I can totally block out anything that might be happening other than the thing I am working on or I am involved in at the moment. This isn’t just related to achieving goals.  This may be the most singular important ideal in maintaining relationships. One of the primary aspects of my marital relationship that doomed it was the fact that even when I was home in the body I wasn’t there in mind. I might be involved in family activity and yet I couldn’t compartmentalize at the time and I was thinking about a patient or the script for the PBS special I did or an idea about a book I was writing or even thinking about the future where all this will lead to. I can look back at this now and see how destructive this was. It was disrespectful and it was part of why so much time went by where I was connecting with my wife and daughter in the proper way. With my newfound perspective on life, every encounter is the only thing that matters at the time. I am 100% fully engaged in anything I am doing. This makes relationships soar. People see you differently because you show them how important they are to you by being so focused on them. Activities and tasks are performed optimally because you are focused strictly on them. Compartmentalization breeds success which leads to feeling good about you. I would say this is one of the most important strategies to success, that somebody can learn. 

What book(s) have influenced your life the most? Why?

The primary book that has influenced my life is His Excellency by Joseph J. Ellis. It is the life story of George Washington. Most people don’t know that he was mostly a failure until the last 6 weeks of the Revolutionary war. His greatest characteristic was his ability to take his failures and understand them so they could be used to achieve success at a future point in his life. This is one of the most renowned individuals in history and he is completely self-made. He is a study in perseverance, self-reliance, commitment, virtue. Without him at that time, the US would simply have not existed. I have gone through many hardships in my life and always harken back to his Excellency to see what it takes to stay the course and maintain honor and dignity at the toughest times and situations that life has to offer.

Do you have any quotes you live by or think of often?

The primary quote (I am not sure where it comes from) is that “all that I do I do in God’s service”. After a lot of the hardships I encountered, I became very spiritual. I realized that I am not the center of the world. That in fact, you do better when you try to help others and focus on those that surround you. Regardless of the activity or job or chore I do, I see it as doing service to God. This is to say that whatever I do it is done without any intention of receiving something in return. The gift is that you simply did it to help somebody else. I have seen that the greatest pleasure I have received was when I simply gave my gift of understanding how to diagnose and treat the cause of pain to others so they can now have the ability to resolve their pain and prevent it from reoccurring. I used to see this as a reason for them to extoll praise on me and tell me how wonderful I am and why I should be revered. That was a huge mistake and something I now know was wrong. This was never about me. It was about them. Now that I live to do God’s service I know that I am only a vehicle for the gift of knowledge I was given to be transferred to those that need it. It has made my journey so much more pleasurable and fulfilling.