Dr. matthew hodgson

Personal Strategic Coaching

My real journey began when I was working as a Chiropractor in Northern Ireland. My passion was for mountaineering, specifically ice climbing. I spent a long time working and then riding my motorbike down through France to Chamonix to go ice climbing. It was a great life. Then I was involved in a motorcycle accident in Northern Ireland and I was severely injured. I was unconscious and put into a coma for over a month. I had seven crush fractures in my thoracic spine where I had to have Harrington rods inserted and was left paralysed from the chest down. I broke nearly all my ribs and I had a surgical tracheotomy so that a machine could breathe for me and a tube could feed me. I had a metal plate put in my jaw and all my teeth were wired back into place. I had abdominal surgery to repair a tear in my intestines and ruptured spleen. I also had my knee caps surgically removed as they had been smashed. Everyone I have spoke to since have said that if I wasn’t in Northern Ireland where they are used to major injuries with multiple traumas I wouldn’t have survived. I spent over three months in intensive care and lost 25 kilograms before I was moved to a normal ward.

The next task in my recovery was to sit up. Not to sit up on my own as that would take another three months, but just to have the bed raised so that I could sit up. For the first week I kept blacking out. They would start to raise the bed and the next thing I knew I would wake up with my legs raised up in the air and my head tilted below my chest as they tried to get blood to flow to my head. I had to learn how to breathe again, feed myself again and do the most basic of things. I can vividly remember being absolutely elated that I had put one of my socks on by myself after trying for over ten days. So I really learnt the process of chunking down my goals to the most minute step which has really been a blessing in my life since.

I had to learn how to get dressed, how to feed myself, how to move about and how to drive again. After 18 months in hospital I was finally “released” to the real world and I went into a fairly deep depression. All my friends were working as Chiropractors and I thought that that part of life was over for me. So I began to teach anatomy and neuroanatomy to medical students at New South Wales University and then I was invited to be a clinic supervisor to Chiropractic interns at Macquarie University. I felt like I was contributing now and I had some purpose but I really felt there should be more. So I focused on what I needed to do to get back into practice. I chunked things down and realized I needed a technique I could do. I needed to find a way to do a great neurological exam and I needed somewhere with rooms to practice from.

I found that I could use Activator methods and so I trained in that technique, picked everyone’s brains I knew, and borrowed a lot of their time to get to the point where I could do an examination without falling out of my wheelchair! I also found a coach. I found rooms in a medical centre in Erina and we opened for business. My mum was my new CA and on that first day we opened at 10am saw one patient at 10.30 and we went home at 11.15. I was on my way! The end of my first month I saw 25 people in that week. As I think about it now, if I didn’t have a coach at that time I really wouldn’t have known what to do - it was an invaluable resource. It also got me committed because I had committed to paying my coaches fees and when I started I had no income- none! A favourite quote of mine is “Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans.

The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now! - Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

It was this commitment to go for it that enabled that initial success. So I went to work and I worked really hard and grew my clinic in the best way I knew how: with hard work ( Id like to say now I work smart!). I wouldn’t recommend this but I didn’t have a holiday for four years. For my first holiday, I found out about sit skiing and decided this was what I wanted to do. So I went on a trip with the DWA (disabled winter sport Australia) to learn to ski. On the trip I met a wonderful ski instructor named Lorna and things just clicked. A year later, we were engaged.

To give you a picture of where I am now: I have a wonderful family with two incredible children, a fantastic Chiropractic Centre with two associates, we ski around the world together and life couldn’t be better. I truly believe that if I hadn’t been coached this whole time my life would not be anything like it is. Coaching is not a cost, it is an investment.

I believe that Chiropractic is in a unique stage of its history and we need dedicated, successful Chiropractors who are going to be the pillars of health in their community. I believe that the only way this is going to happen is if Chiropractors get a coach. Elite athletes wouldn’t dream of training for the Olympics without a coach. So if you are going to be the absolute best person, partner, and Chiropractor you can be, then you need a coach.