March 2005

Present time chaos

by Dr. CJ Mertz

When I started the Waiting List Practice, I was 28 years old, and one of the first and most important principles I began teaching was what I referred to as "calm intensity." It may seem as if these two terms don't go together, until you look a little deeper. Then, a floodgate of understanding will open inside of you that will provide the pathway for immense joy and enormous growth. A visual picture of calm intensity may look like the ever happy, loving and peaceful Dalai Lama on the outside and a ferocious fearless lion on the inside.

I taught my clients that being too calm or too intense would eventually defeat their purpose of saving more lives, and real growth will always appear to be just out of arms reach. You must become truly dedicated to your work to do the things that are necessary to achieve calm intensity. The prosperity, however, which rewards those who learn to live and practice with calm intensity, is unlike any others I have ever witnessed anywhere.

The consequence of not learning calm intensity is practicing out of fear or worry, anxiousness or self‑doubt. You will not possess the courage to take calculated risks of faith and discipline to follow them through to victory. Calm intensity allows you to place an ad in a newspaper or on a radio completely detached from the outcome they will bring. On the other hand, calm intensity allows you to become deeply impacted and emotionally connected to the true level of suffering that exists in your community.

Being more troubled about a response from an ad than the horrible conditions of thousands of families in your community, is a result of the lack of calm intensity. Ultimately, ads stop running and the adventurous pursuit of reaching out to your town subtly dwindles to nothing. Waking up in the morning and realizing that some of your first conscious thoughts are trying to solve problems plaguing results is another common result where calm intensity isn't present. You see, learning to reach calm intensity is problem solving and virtually eliminates the conditioned reflex that only causes more fear, doubt and worry.

You may think I'm only referring to times of challenge or poor production in your practice. I receive numerous calls every week from chiropractors around the world in desperate need of help because they are overwhelmed, consumed and panicked by the sudden increase in growth they're experiencing, and not knowing what to do next. Growth can be quite scary if you do not learn how to nurture it properly. More than two thirds of the chiropractors seeing more than 500 patient visits per week are currently training, or have been trained through the WLP system. I can confidently say that most if not all have learned the principle of calm intensity in their lives and are benefiting from it greatly.

The 1980s and '90s saw a huge emergence of "present time consciousness" teachings. By the year 2000, it became clear to me these teachings had been grossly misunderstood by most of the chiropractors I met. PTC had become synonymous with calmness and had little reference to the concept of intensity. Now is the time to clear up this mess, and enter into a space that will generate great abundance in your practice.

Growth only occurs in the state of "controlled chaos". If your practice pendulum swings too far towards control, you'll experience retention and stability, but growth will elude you. If you swing too far toward chaos, you'll experience a lot of "busy‑ness" with the phone ringing and new patients booked over the top of one another, yet again real growth will escape you. To achieve growth you must learn how to create controlled chaos. You must first learn to walk with calm intensity.

I'm going to suggest when you see the ever‑familiar acronym, PTC, you claim it as present time chaos. It's not only the ability to work confidently in the midst of chaos, but to have the presence of mind to willingly invite it into your practice in the first place. You don't need a new identity or personality, as some would lead you to believe. Instead, your quest is to consciously allow the peaceful‑warrior inside you to emerge and guide your decisions and actions. No fear, no worry.

When you discover why and how to attach yourself to the right principles and detach yourself from results, your abundance will multiply exponentially ‑‑ it's law. If growth is for growth sake only, it cannot sustain itself. But when growth is deeply connected to making a big contribution to elimination suffering and saving more lives, then all that remains is finding controlled chaos and walking across its coals. You'll feel an aliveness and a sense of fulfillment that will drive you to a newer, higher level in practice.

(Dr. C.J. Mertz is the ICA President, the Executive Director of ChiroUSA as well as founder and head coach of the prestigious Waiting List Practice chiropractic training organization. See our 300 patient per week opportunity on the back page of this issue. If you would like more information on WLP coaching services call Kate Golle at 877‑TEAM WLP)