Dropping a book changed my life! About 19 years ago , I was at Barnes and Noble looking at a specific book on skin care, I accidentally dropped the book and it opened up to the index. This one line…literally one line jumped out at me from the index. All is said was American Academy of Anti-aging Medicine and gave a phone number. I was looking for anti-aging and had never heard of this organization so I wrote down the number and called them later that day. This led me to a conference where I discovered that root cause medicine did actually exist and I was all in. However, with the exception of a few friends, nobody wanted me to be all in and nobody understand what in the world I was talking about. I just kept going to the conferences mainly to fix myself. When Sarah Malloy asked me to coffee one day and took me to her new studio that was under construction she told me she had one room available that was going to be my new office. I politely said I didn’t need an office as I already had an ophthalmology office but she would not take no for an answer. Several months later and 17 years ago this month, I opened my first office. It was a single room with no employees. I answered the phone, sent out the test kits, delivered supplements all on my own. Over the years, I have been so grateful for the push by her, my friends who encouraged me, my bank for loaning me the money and my patients who stepped out of the box and trusted me to help them. I am still so grateful and blessed to have been part of so many peoples’ lives past and present. Thank YOU!!
Recently I realized there was one person that I have not thanked. ME!
I didn’t realize this on my own but after I saw a video by Niecy Nash on Instagram, this really hit home. I want to share this video (you really do need to see this) because she did such an amazing job accepting her award that I think we should all take a step back and accept ours. Look how far you have come! Look what you have accomplished! Has it been perfect – not a chance. Has it been messy – oh yes. But oh what a ride.
I’m thankful to myself for:
- Listening to my God given calling
- Stepping out on a limb and plowing forward
- Diving deep into something so new that I was part of the cutting edge and had to just figure things out on my own
- Being strong enough to withstand the negative views by my peers, my family and sometimes my patients. One patient told me her husband said, I don’t know what that voodoo doctor is doing but keep doing it!
- Believing in myself to keep going even when it was rough
- Trusting my intuition
I found my mission statement from when I first started this practice and one of the biggest parts of my mission was to teach. I knew then that functional medicine was expensive (even more so now) but I wanted to help make it accessible. It’s taken me a long time with a lot of life challenges happening in between to finally commit to myself to start on this teaching mission. This is why I created the Functional Labs Decoded program. They say if you give someone a meal they eat one time but if you teach them how to garden and give them the tools they can eat for life. I want you to eat for life.
- You need some basic tools to understand when normal is not optimal.
- When you are at risk even though your labs are “good”.
- Where to look when you’ve been told you are fine and you know you aren’t.
My next launch for Functional Labs Decoded is TOMORROW and it is so appropriate it is the very week I opened my doors for the first time 17 years ago. Won’t you join me?? While doors officially open tomorrow, if you head over to Instagram and comment on my post YAY ME I will send you a special discount code today only for my program. When you post YAY ME, I’m not celebrating your completed job, I’m not celebrating what you accomplished, I’m not celebrating where you are going. I am celebrating the fact that no matter what you have done, no matter where you have been and no matter where you are going right now in this very present moment you are enough. You are strong (even if you don’t feel like it) and YOU ARE WONDERFUL. And just like Niecy said “Go on girl with your bad self… You did that!!” YAY YOU!!
To your health,
Laura
