CHAPTER 1

The Lecture on the Floor

I was writhing in pain on the floor of my soon-to-open, first-ever,leap-of-faith, teeny-tiny wellness clinic.

"Oh NO! Not again! Not NOW!"

It was a Sunday in August of 2004. The clinic space I was about tooccupy was a small suite within a large medical building in ChevyChase, Maryland. Since it was a Sunday, the building was closed anddeserted. I saw and heard no one as I carted painting materials up tothe space on the twelfth floor of the building.

After being a physical therapist for six years, I was beyond excited tostart my own physical therapy and fitness business. In just a coupleweeks, I would see my first patient at TAVO PT & Fitness (laterto become TAVO Total Health). Coupled with the excitement,however, was intense fear and anxiety.

The thoughts of fear and anxiety were relentless: How are you goingto get patients and clients? Why are you starting a business where youknow absolutely no one? How are you going to financially survive? Allyou've got is a treatment table and some rinky-dink exercise things–how are you going to help anyone?

After I finished the few trips back and forth to my car to get everythingI needed, I decided that painting the treatment room would be tasknumber one. The treatment room was only roughly 100 square feetand had no windows. I picked a cheery bright yellow paint to givesome illusion of natural light in the room.

I popped the top of the paint can. I bent down to pick up the littlewooden stir stick and WHAM!!!!

Excruciating pain ripped through my lower back. Within two secondsI was face down on the floor, writhing in pain. The pain was sointense it was difficult to breathe. It was, by far, the worst episode I'dexperienced since I first injured my lower back in 1989. I saw that mycell phone was about two feet from my head. I tried to crawl to myphone but every attempt at motion caused the pain to intensify.

Panic set in. I knew from past experiences with my spine "going out"that I could be out of commission for hours or even days. I tried onemore time to get to my phone. It was impossible. For four long hoursI lay on that floor in agonizing pain.

But, those four hours on the floor were completely pivotal to thetransformation that was about to unfold in my life. Let me explain.

At this point in my life I was thirty-two years old and dealing withmore chronic spinal pain than the majority of my patients twice myage. There were days when I would simply turn my head and kick offa two-week long neck spasm with stabbing pain into a shoulder blade.There were other days where my mid-back was so tight and painful thatI'd have to excuse myself from a treatment session to pop my ribs andvertebrae back into place with a foam roller or with tennis balls. Therewere other days where my lower back had so much pressure within it,it felt as if it would explode if I made a movement it did not like.

This was my daily life. I will go into greater detail within the book,but for now I want to get back to the lessons that unfolded duringthose four hours on the floor.

The voices in my consciousness now had me as a very captive audience.They had four hours to give me the lecture of a lifetime. Of course,I cannot recall the specifics of everything that was "said" but I couldnever forget the core messages, insights, and questions. I will do mybest to convey what transpired in that chunk of time on the floor.