Secrets Revealed in the Wellness Industry

This interview is an excerpt from Kevin Gianni's Renegade Roundtable, which can be found at http://www.RenegadeRoundtable.com. In this excerpt, Dr. Jason Deitch shares on communication is a wellness team and how the wellness industry can adapt and inspire people.

Dr. Deitch is the co-author of the best-selling book “Discover Wellness: How Staying Healthy Can Make You Rich.” Dr. Deitch is also the founder of Discover Wellness Center and the Chief Wellness Officer of the Master’s Circle and WellCall, Inc.

Kevin: So how does a natural health practitioner communicate with a doctor? How does that transpire?

Dr. Deitch: When you say doctor do you mean a medical doctor?

Kevin: Yes, a medical doctor.

Dr. Deitch: OK. I interchangeably use the term ‘doctor’ because I look at chiropractors as doctors. I look at us as what I think of as wellness doctors. Quite honestly there’s a whole misconception as to what a chiropractor really is. Many of these terms are poor terms to use these days. In fact I actually teach and coach chiropractors to stop saying, “Hi, I’m a chiropractor” because as soon as somebody hears you’re a chiropractor they already peg you as somebody who’s a neck and back pain specialist and don’t see you as anything beyond that because that’s the definition of it, according to our cultural consciousness.

So what I recommend people do is try to start explaining who they are and what they do by the benefits that it offers people, not by their training. So to say, “Hi, I’m a massage therapist,” pegs you as something that people perceive you to be, which is often times inaccurate. “I’m a nutritionist.” So people have perceptions or attachments as to what those labels really mean. They’re often inaccurate. I believe that if you were to start describing yourself more along the lines of... For example I’ll often introduce myself as a wellness doctor. I’m not just a bestselling author, I’m a wellness doctor. Typically the response I get from people is, “What’s that?” Which is exactly the response I want because then it allows me to get into the benefits of what it’s like to work with me not to get pegged into, “Oh, you’re one of those.”

I think we all have to create new definitions for all of that and respect and understand that for the most part medical doctors’ jobs are to treat disease. There’s a place for that. It’s important. There’s a growing continuum of people trying to learn where they are in that process but there are a lot of people who fit into that big, gray area where they may be outside of the “biometric norms” and have to make a decision. “Do I control my cholesterol through medication or do I start taking care of myself better and see what I can do to not have to go down that path?” “I’m overweight. Do I wait until I’m pre-diabetic or diabetic or do I try to do something so I don’t have to go down that route?” I believe that all of the lines are changing.

I think there are more medical doctors who see the devastating consequences of just putting people on drugs and are looking to figure out ways in which they can help more people on their lifestyle. Unfortunately they don’t get paid to do that. Insurance companies don’t reimburse for that. So it’s a very difficult business model for them to adopt. On the other hand, chiropractors have a wonderful opportunity because the reality is we are basically people who help people make better lifestyle choices without the use of drugs and surgery, which is really the essence of what’s required these days.

All of us need to get a better understanding, whether you’re a massage therapist, a naturopath, etc. We write about all of these in the chapter I mentioned to you earlier about creating your wellness routine. We really have a tremendous respect for all of us coming together to understand what role we play. You take any team - baseball team, football team, whatever it may be - people have different positions on the team and you can’t become a championship team unless you all understand how you help each other get here or win. It’s a job, no question. I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m not saying it’s going to happen overnight. But I am saying this is really the most exciting and powerful time that the wellness industry has ever seen and my hope, goal, vision is that if I’ve got something to say about it we will try to unite the personal training profession, for example, the massage therapy profession, the chiropractic profession, Pilates - pilates is tremendously powerful and influential these days. We all have a role in helping people understand that they need to take more responsibility for their healthcare. There’s no one right, perfect way for everyone all the time. We will do so much better for ourselves and for our patients and our communities if we can start working together and cooperating and understand that referring to each other is a great thing, but everybody participates versus everybody going through the scarcity and being divided as a profession.

I have come out with another book specifically for providers, I know that there’s a lot of providers listening, so if I can please mention a website it is: thefivesecretsrevealed.com. You can use number five or spell five out. What I’ve done is I’ve written a new eBook that is the five secrets of America’s top wellness centers revealed. What I did is I basically have interviewed for the past almost 20 years now... As I mentioned, many of my closest friends are world- class wellness doctors, many work with professional athletes, A-list celebrities, we’re very involved on a variety of different levels from research and science to politics and so on and so forth. I’ve found and discovered that there are five secrets to making the transformation. I put it together in this very short ebook. It’s easy to read. It’s actually fun to read, so to speak. You can go to thefivesecretsrevealed.com to read the book. It will get you into this conversation where you can learn more, what we’re up to and what’s going on. It really is, I believe, the future of where healthcare needs to go.

Kevin: You said, “The five secrets revealed.” You’ve got to reveal one before you go. [Laughter]

Dr. Deitch: The first secret really is that there is a mindset of a wellness doctor that is different than a traditional doctor. I don’t mean traditional medical doctor but even in the “holistic healthcare field” there is a different mindset, one towards promoting health and wellbeing versus being what I think of as a holistic healer.

The difference is that a holistic healer is really somebody, and again, I’m just making my definitions and distinctions, you can argue the words and create your own words if you like, but my point is that there are many people, chiropractors, massage therapists and so on, nutritionists, that use non-pharmaceutical approaches to treat symptoms. Essentially that becomes their goal. Their explanation is, “Look, you can either heal your symptom through pharmaceutical means or surgery or you can use non-pharmaceutical methods and approaches.” I don’t say that that’s wrong or bad or anything, I think it’s wonderful, but wellness is really something different. Wellness by our definition, again people can argue that wellness is early detection of disease and that’s what they confuse it for often times, but what we’re trying to teach is that wellness is really about teaching people to take self-responsibility. It’s about helping people do the things for themselves that they’re capable of.

We often times use the metaphor of money. Most people don’t consider themselves wealthy because they’re not bankrupt and yet that’s the way most people define being healthy. Most people think they’re healthy because they’re not diseased, sick or injured. It’s completely inaccurate and it’s time for us to use terms that really are more reflective and accurate in what it is that we’re trying to accomplish. Health and wealth are in essence the same. Wealth is something that most people seek to attain. They work hard to attain it and it’s something that is constantly evolving and goring. If I give you 200 dollars you’d probably want 400. If I give you 1,000 dollars you’d probably want 2,000. There’s more. And health really is the same thing. There’s more to it. It is something you can build, it is something you can grow. You can be healthier at 40 than you could be at 30 and so on and so forth, depending on your self-responsibility and what you do. That’s really the education we try to, again, inspire more than inform, inspire people to learn and really take part in.

So that’s the first secret. The wellness industry must adapt to the changing environment that is taking place by focusing on really inspiring people to want to improve their health, not just to use us as a drugless solution to just simply fixing a problem that they’re going to go back and end up probably recreating because of their lifestyle anyway.

Kevin: That’s great. I know that you have to run so I want to thank you for your time.