"I am not sick, I am not in pain, so therefore I don't need to be fixed"
Good morning.
It is great to see so many people here this weekend. I had this whole talk planned out up until about a 2 weeks ago. I was at work on a Monday night and I was talking about this brilliant speech that I was going to give in a couple of weeks, where everybody was going to be so excited and enthusiastic about chiropractic when I'd finished. And then to my surprise someone asked me what is chiropractic? And I started rambling off terms and definitions about what we do and why we do it and how essential it is for everybody to be under chiropractic care! Now I truly believe in the things that I was saying and that the person I was speaking to understood a lot more about chiropractic when I was done.
Then a week later the same person strolled back in to the bar and out of curiosity I asked him if he had gone to see a chiropractor yet? And he replied WHAT FOR? I am not sick, I am not in pain, so therefore I don't need to be fixed. I looked at him a little strangely and again started on my chiropractic spiels about maintaining the body in the state of 100% health.
This made me wonder whether I was lacking the skills to effectively communicate this message or did he just have other ideas that about the topic! I couldn't understand his logic and it just reinforced to me the lack of knowledge about chiropractic in our society.
This talk is supposed to be about my huge visions of chiropractic for the future, and I believe that this involves the education of our people about chiropractic because if they truly understood more about this brilliant profession they would be fighting to get in our doors.
We need to empower the people in our community. We need to let them make their own decisions about what they want their health to be. But before they can do this we need to provide them with all the information so they have the ability to make the most informed decisions they can. With this knowledge why would they want to choose anyone else to care for them apart from their chiropractors?
I have visions of new patients walking in off the street with no symptoms wanting to maintain this optimal health, or wanting to lead a more fulfilled life. It will be great to see a chiropractor working alongside the obstetrician at the birth of all children, or being the primary contact with the general public for their health. The possibilities are endless to what we can achieve if we just go out and do it!
There has been a tremendous swing away from medicine in the last few decades and that is great. But the individuals in our communities have walked away from their medical doctors with no real direction, it is time to inform them about chiropractic and lead them into a new future of great health and vitality under our care.
We need to show the public that we are as much committed to their well being as they are! We need to create an environment that oozes health! Nothing sells more than results so lets get the results out there so the community can believe in chiropractic as much as you and I do! Chiropractors need to believe in themselves and what they are doing to best achieve these results. To believe in what they do whole-heartedly means that they are giving something that is more than just mechanical; it is something that inspires; something that changes lives for the better.
These things are not far out of reach for chiropractic. We as a profession just need to stick our hands up and grasp the opportunities we have. We need to shape our own destinies. We need to take all the steps we can in order to create the tomorrow that we are committed to! Tomorrow is one that is filled with hope, optimism and anticipation for both the community and ourselves.
This is why I can hardly wait to be apart of something this amazing is a dream come true.
So I thank you from the bottom of my heart!
Braddon Atkinson