There was no masterplan.
I didn’t set out to be a chiropractor. It wasn’t in my genes… no one in my family had ever even seen a chiropractor, let alone been one.
Yet that’s where I ended up…
And I’m 100% sure I’m in exactly the right place.
Recently I learned something that took this knowing to an entirely different level. It went from being theoretical to being completely practical, actionable and implementable in my life… in a way it never truly was before.
Today I want to give you the same experience (by sharing a fast, powerful 8-minute tool… I’ve even negotiated a special discount for you here: WHY.os)
Let me tell you a quick story to explain why this matters for you, your family and your business…
When I left school, I found myself with the marks to do pretty much anything I wanted…
And absolutely no idea what that actually was.
When I looked around at my “successful” friends, they were either going into finance (which I had no interest in) or engineering…
So I decided to become a civil and environmental engineer.
I enjoyed my first year of university. But if I’m honest, it was more for the social experience than any great connection to the material I was learning.
There was no real spark.
So when I got a summer holiday job launching the first Planet Hollywood restaurant in Australia, it was an easy decision to delay my next year of study. I was having waytoo much fun.
There was never any question of not completing my studies… my mum was a high school principal, and education was a huge value in my family.
The question was… what was I going to study? By then I’d figured out it wasn’t going to be engineering.
At that time in my life, what was lighting me up most was exploring flow states and pushing the physical limits of my body through rock climbing and yoga. With that in mind, my mum suggested I try studying chiropractic.
I wasn’t sure about it, but it felt more aligned than engineering, so I gave it a go.
Even after I graduated, I still didn’t know if I was in the right place. So many of my classmates had a proud family history in chiropractic. Or a lifechanging experience of personal healing.
I had neither of those.
However, over time it became increasingly clear that I was on the right path.
I loved seeing patients get better.
I loved figuring out complex cases.
I loved seeing people’s lives transform, as they realised so much more was possible for them.
But I still didn’t really know why I loved those things.
There were certainly easier ways to make a living. In fact, my first five years in practice were quite a struggle, both financially and emotionally.
Then I was introduced to a man who became a great mentor, Dr. John Demartini. He taught me that every human being has a Hierarchy of Values…
And their life is an exact reflection of those values.
How Your Values Determine Your Life:
John’s work really resonated with me, and I dived in deep. I took all his courses, and even became a Demartini Values Facilitator, trained and certified to help people uncover their values and build a meaningful life based on them.
John developed a powerful set of questions to reveal what your values actually are…
Not what you think they should be, what you want them to be or the socially acceptable version you think the world expects them to be.
Questions like:
How do you spend your time?
How do you spend your money?
What do you think about?
What do you talk about?
What do you surround yourself with?
It’s a great process, and it helped me gain clarity about what really mattered in mylife.
But here’s my dirty little secret…
Even after going through the process many times, and even leading other people through it…
I still struggled to fully articulate my top values.
The process got me in the ballpark, and helped me strip away things that didn’treally matter (John describes these as other people’s values, injected into your life by some perceived authority.)
But I never completely nailed it.
Until now.
I knew learning was important to me… I’m a voracious reader and student… was learning my top value?
I also knew health and healing were incredibly important to me… so was it Health? Healing?
Spirituality matters deeply to me too. So does family.
So which exactly was it?
It seemed like the precise order shifted during different seasons of my life.
Recently I experienced a powerful reframe of these questions…
In a way I’d never heard or seen before.
Not in a theoretical way, but a completely practical, applicable way that… has already created tangible benefits across my personal, family and professional life.
Of all places, it came from a dentist.
Discovering my WHY:
Dr. Gary Sanchez was one of the presenters at the recent UAC even I attended in Beverly Hills… I mentioned it in [Issue 006 Unreasonable Hospitality]
Gary founded a company called the Why Institute. Through the unique process he developed, he’s helped over 300,000 people around the world “Uncover their Why.”
(Including now my whole family and my entire team.)
It all began when he watched Simon Sinek’s famous Ted Talk– Start with Why.
If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth checking out. It’s been watched nearly 70 million times, making it one of the most viewed Ted Talks of all time.
I remember it revolutionised my thinking when I first saw it… but despite watching it repeatedly and reading the entire book it spawned…
I struggled to fully implement it into my own life and business.
Gary shared the same struggle… so he hired Simon and set out on a mission to figure out how to actually discover your why… and practically apply it in your life.
The good news is… he succeeded.
Gary’s process is pretty cool. Over time he managed to refine it down to a simple, 8-minute online quiz… so straightforward that both my 10 and 13-year-old boys completed it no problem.
What it spits out is a profound insight about Why you do the things you do…
And How you operate in the world.
He calls it your Why.os, short for Why Operating System.
I did it live at the UAC event, in a room with about 90 other docs…
And every single one I spoke to was like… “Man, that thing was freaky accurate!”
Which was exactly my personal experience.
I was so impressed that I contracted Gary to run a workshop for my family and my entire team. Which he did last weekend…
And the results were equally impressive.
Gary contends that Knowing your Why is powerful…
But on its own…
It’s not enough.
You also need to know your How and your What….
How you Live Your Why in the world…
And What you Actually Create with it.
When you put all 3 elements together, it unlocks an almost magical level of clarity.
Here’s mine:
What do you think?
Sound like me?
I’m not sure how deeply you’ve got to know me through reading this newsletter… I try to share the authentic, unvarnished version of myself.
Everyone who knows me well has been like…
“Man, that’s you to a tee.”
It’s a little weird… even a little scary, that an 8-minute quiz can generate that level of insight.
Yet that’s exactly what it does.
Applying Your Why.os
It’s not just the snapshot I’ve shared above. The report contains pages of detail, unpacking your Why, How and What. Including how to apply it in your life. How to relate better to others. Your strengths that you should double down on. Your potential blind spots to look out for.
It’s an incredibly useful blueprint for living your best life.
More than anything, it gives you permission to be truly, authentically yourself…
To stop apologising for your own unique, personal brand of weirdness…
And just be the best version of who you really are.
I’ve used many different personality profiling systems over the years, including Strengths Finders, Myers-Briggs, DISC, the Enneagram and PDP.
All of them were interesting.
But as Gary explained, they all tell you about different aspects of how you operate in the world, without uncovering why you are that way.
When I look back on my confusion about the hierarchy of my values… was it Learning? Healing? Spirituality? Family?
The common thread that ties them all together is My Quest for Mastery in all those important domains of my life.
When that clicked, it was a light bulb moment for me. It was the first time one of these diagnostic tools has completely resonated with every fibre of my being.
I’m not the guy you go to for quick, surface level answers.
(You may have noticed 😂)
However, I’m all about translating what I learn into practical, usable systems and solutions.
It’s the foundation of my philosophy in practice…
In business…
And in this newsletter.
This experience has given me much more than just self-understanding. It’s given me a practical framework for communicating with every member of my team…
And every member of my family…
In their language, in a way that make sense to them…
Translated directly from my weird brain… into their weird brain.
It’s also taught them how to communicate with each other…
How to best work together…
Why they sometimes don’t see eye to eye…
And how to resolve those situations in an effective, productive way.
After the weekend, my entire team is buzzing with excitement about how to implement each of their personal Why.os to better express the values and goals of my practice.
This works for external communication too.
As an example, Gary took my personal Why.os, uploaded it to ChatGPT and asked it to update our branding and messaging.
The result was startling.
As my team read through it, they said… “This sounds exactly like you wrote it. This is how you talk.”
Full disclosure… I have mixed feelings about this.
Not one single word of this newsletter has been written by AI.
Nor will it be. In an increasingly digital, AI-driven world, I believe the power of a genuine human voice, reflecting an actual life lived, becomes increasingly valuable.
(I was recently asked to be a beta-reader for bestselling author Ryan Levesque’s new book, Return to Real. In it he explores these themes in detail. One of his key takeaways was that we should leverage technology to scale our distribution… but keep the actual message authentic. Your voice. Your life.
If you’re interested in this topic, I highly recommend checking out his book when it’s published. It’s a worthy read.)
However, that doesn’t mean we should ignore AI. Using it as a mirror to reflect back my messaging, updated with my Why.os, is one of the most interesting uses I’ve seen yet.
I’m in the process of running my websites and online profiles through the same filter, and using that as a guide to better express what I’m bringing to the world.
My associates are doing the same for their bio pages.
You could do this too.
After our workshop, Gary sent us an action plan that detailed how to refine our internal and external messaging, based on both my personal and our team’s collective Why.os.
It also included strategic information on how to best leverage the strengths of our team, fortify our weaker areas, and hire for maximum impact and growth.
We’re definitely implementing what we learned.
It’s fun. I haven’t been this excited about my practice for years!
However, as powerful as that is… it was the family component that hit home the hardest.
Understanding Your Family Dynamics
Gary said to me…
“You have an amazing team and an amazing family. I don’t see any red flags at all in your team, which is rare. However, when I look at the Why of your 2 boys… I do see a red flag. This is an important area of understanding for your family.”
I can’t overemphasize this enough…
If you’re a parent of more than one child (or a sibling) and you’ve ever been frustrated by why they fight over dumb shit…
This is the answer!
Looking at our family matrix, which was generated as part of the workshop, it makes perfect sense.
Caelan’s Why is Trust. Meaning integrity in relationship is extremely important to him. He will never break your trust… and look out if you break his. If you say you’re going to do something… you better deliver.
Harry’s Why is Challenge. He’s not interested in following rules, or doing things the conventional way (or the way his brother would like!)
Gary said… “Your son will never be a good employee… but he’ll be a great entrepreneur.”
The funny thing is… that’s true already!
Better Balance Orthotics is constantly in need of labour. Every pair is customised by hand, right here in our house. Harry could work as much as he wants in our business…
But instead, at age 11, he decided to start his own 3D printing business. He sells his creations at school and at markets. Recently he reinvested his profits into a 2ndprinter to double his production capacity. He buys his own filament, manages his own stock, and has zero interest in anyone else telling him what to do.
Everyone’s Why is their Superpower.
No Why is right or wrong.
But they are different.
And that can set us up for conflict or misunderstanding.
This is exactly the case with Harry and Caelan. They get on great… except when they don’t.
Now they have a framework for understanding why that happens, and how to manage and resolve it when it does…
In a way that respects both of their unique personalities and unconscious operating systems.
This is invaluable for our family.
My suspicion is, it’d probably be helpful for yours too.
And for your team.
That’s why I asked Gary if I could share his work with you… and what’s the best deal he could offer for The Foot-Brain Connection subscribers.
He’s kindly offered you a 20% discount.
(To be honest the cost is minimal anyway, but it never hurts to save a few bucks where you can!)
You can discover your own Why.os here: WHY.os
I’d strongly recommend doing the same for your team and family… it truly is a game-changer.
I’d love to hear what you learn and how you’re using it to upgrade your family and business dynamics… just send me an email and fill me in.
Cheers,
