Season 1 Chapter 5 - Influential and Interconnected the Synergy Success Cycle in our lives

Welcome to the Synergy Life Podcast. Our purpose is to help multiply the positive experiences of your life in all areas. Dr. Janowitz, best selling author of the Synergy Health Solution, is the creator of the Synergy Success Cycle, a framework that helps uncover what makes top achievers successful in areas of their life. We interview amazing people who are excelling in light and help our listeners gain valuable insights so they can apply them to achieve their best life possible.

Chapter five, Influential and interconnected. The Synergy Success Cycle in our Lives. In this segment, we're going to dive into Dr. Janowitz personal journey and how he applied the Synergy Success Cycle in his own life. Dr. Janowitz, you mentioned earlier that you had some health issues when you were a child. You suffered with scoliosis, and that really motivated you to become a doctor. Tell us a little bit about your personal challenges and how you apply the Synergy Success Cycle in your own life.

Sure. Well, thank you, Jenny. So, you know, first of all, everybody's journey is as unique and valuable and special as anyone else's journey, right? So this is just my journey. This is how I came to where I am and to where I've been able to achieve the success that I've been able to achieve in my life right now. And, you know, before I dive into that, you know, people think, you know, success is kind of an illusion. People only see the accomplishments that people have. They see, they look at maybe the house or the marriage or the kids or the fancy cars or bank accounts or different things, right? But they don't see, as we talk about it in the book, they don't see the persistence, the failure, the sacrifice, the disappointments, the dedication, the hard work, and really a lot of the discipline, Right? And so I think it's always interesting to hear somebody's story, which is the whole purpose of doing the podcast where we interview people, where we can really see not only where they are in their greatness, but what did they have to go through to get there. And so I had a lot of negative health issues in my own life. When I was a child, I had a strabismus, which is a lazy eye. And so I just remember at that time where I would look at somebody and my eye was going somewhere else. They thought I was. I remember constantly people would be, like, looking behind them, thinking I was looking at somebody else. And it was very disheartening as a child. And all I wanted was my parents to fix my eyes. I'm like, if my eyes were straight, life would be different because I really kind of felt a little bit invisible at that stage, and so very weak, very disempowered emotionally. So I thought getting my eyes fixed would be the way to go. My parents saved money. Middle class family, worked hard, saved money. My dad had two jobs, and they went ahead and I got the eye surgery done and my eyes were fixed. I was like, well, this is great. I'm gonna have great eyes. Life is gonna be different. Right. And what happened was I didn't know until a year later how the surgery works. So what happens is when you have a lazy eye, you have the eye and then you have muscles on both sides, and what they do is they literally have a lazy eye. Occurs when you have a normal muscle and a weak mus. So the eye naturally would get pulled to the normal functioning muscle. So what they do, in an effort to straighten it out, they cut the normal muscle to be as weak as the weak muscle.

I always thought it was the opposite, that they strengthened the other one. So when I read that, I was so shocked.

We didn't know either, because so many times you could be so committed to the outcome, which might. Which I was and my parents were for me, that we don't always look at the process. So I don't think anybody would ever say, you know, we're going to make your child as weak as their weakest link. You would never sign up for that. But we didn't know. We just wanted the results. We didn't know that you can strengthen it. There are other ways to do that. The problem is that if you decrease one area of your health, it has a negative effects on other areas of your health as well. Right. I mean, nothing is in isolation. And so the same nerves neurologically that impact your eyes also neurologically impact your spine. And so my muscles became imbalanced then through my spine, and then I developed a severe scoliosis. And so one problem not handled led to a new problem, which was then the scoliosis. Right. And so then I was confronted with another issue of having to have a rod put in my back. And so very scary. So if I felt weak before, I felt even more weak now.

So at this point, the doctors wanted to put a rod in my back.

It was confronted with the possibility of that. And so what happened is I come to this crossroads and my dad had back issues. And I say, thank God he did, because he went to this chiropractor, Dr. Elliot, who has since been a friend and mentor in my life. And Elliot sat down with me as a Chiropractor explained to me the principles of chiropractic, explained about my spine, gave me some options. And he said, hey, you could have the surgery and it could be done very quickly, but obviously, if you put a rod in the back, it's going to make the muscles weaker, Right? If you have a broken arm and you cast it, it's going to be weaker. Or you can do the work and make your body stronger and do chiropractic and physical therapy. So I made a conscious decision as a child to devote this healing art and do chiropractic and rehab and exercises to work on strengthening my weakness. And not only doing that, just the concept of strengthening the weakness was a huge shift for me. And the doctor seeing my own capabilities greater than I on it myself was a huge shift for me. And I went to the chiropractor in elementary school, in middle school, in high school, I worked for my chiropractor. I was the first one in Miami to do an internship. And I worked in his office because it had inspired me so much. And I remember even in fifth grade at show and tell, I actually brought a picture of a spine in the nervous system. We talked about that earlier. And in show and tell, I taught my fifth grade class about the spinal nervous system and chiropractic.

Wow. In the fifth grade. So those are some smart kids walking around. They knew the concepts at a young age.

They learn that a lot more than patients now, but it was incredible. So to learn those concepts. But the point on it is that.

My weakness, my own internal weakness and my own health issues was something that I wanted to shun and hide. But in reality, I feel like that's actually made me a much better physician, much more compassionate, much more in tune to when somebody is suffering or they're scared or they're worried or anxious or depressed. I've been through all those myself, and I've had to overcome them by employing this strategy. And when I went through all this, then I went to chiropractic school, and I. And I aligned myself with people who were in a fraternity that was a professional fraternity. They exposed me to personal development. They exposed me to people like Tony Robbins and all these other people to really how to become even better. Then I actually started a coaching program within chiropractic school to help other students help with their own limiting beliefs. And then we've applied that to the practice and then to the coaching that we've done. But I saw the synergy success cycle in all those areas where I felt powerless and Weak through my health, which gave me a purpose of just wanting to hide and not be scene, which then gave me attracted me people of that capacity, right. Or repel people in a lot of ways too. And then had very poor processes. And then once I started to make that shift in my own health, things changed. I saw that I can do these things. I was a stutterer. I was all these things. And once I developed this sense of purpose of wanting to help people. And it's something interesting concept we unpack in the book called the Purpose of Tipping Point. And we might talk about it later, but the purpose tipping Point is when you find a purpose that is greater than yourself, you get out of the way. I talked to my trainer this yesterday morning and said, you know, you got to shoot some videos on helping people to have exercise because he's very talented. And he said, I'm camera shy. I'm camera shy. I said, you know, you have to just get out of your own way. When your purpose becomes bigger, when the message becomes bigger than the messenger, you get out of your way. And so for me, it was going through my health issues where I started to have an expanding purpose, attracting different people in my life, learning new process and getting greater results. So I recognized the synergy success cycle in my own life. And now my mission is to help people to recognize it in their life, potentially shift that pattern from a negative downward spiral to a positive spiral, and then give them strategies and. And technology of assessing that and improving that through the questions in the book you talked about earlier or exercises that we can do.

When I read this chapter, it explained a lot to me because I didn't know all of the details of your personal struggles. So I appreciated the fact that you are a doctor and you shared your personal health issues with your patients and anyone who reads this book. Because a lot of the times I know personally when I go to the doctor and they prescribe me, even if it's just physical therapy or medication, I feel like they're not very compassionate. They don't understand what their patients are going through. You know, they ask you to tell you what, tell them what their level of pain is 0 to 10. And it's like.

Who created this form? I don't know how to answer this most of the time. And the doctors are just very out of touch. But when I read this chapter, I said, oh, my goodness, now I really understand where his compassion comes from. Because you've lived it, you've experienced it, you know what pain is and you know what it is to overcome the challenges that people go through. I mean, they're different. Like you said, everyone has a different set of challenges. But these were pretty extreme that you went through. You went through them at a very young age, which really developed your character, and you found your purpose at a very young age, which not everyone is that fortunate. So you got a head start on this, and I think it's wonderful that you shared that so that people can understand that you do understand what they're feeling. You've been there, you've walked through this process. And if you're a believer, God tells us that you can take all bad things and turn them into good. So a lot of the times when you're struggling with a health issue, you're also struggling with the mindset of, why me? Right. Why am I going through this? What did I do? And you go through this negative thought process, but in reality, they can be a blessing.

Yeah, it's really. We talked about hope earlier. And the other thing is that people are so frustrated. Like, you can just feel the frustration of people when their mind wants to do something and their body is not able to, or their mind has just been so beat up now, they can't do those things. And, you know, I've been a patient, obviously, as well as a physician, but even going to doctors, and it's so frustrating when a doctor or their assistant is taking your health history like they're taking an order at a restaurant. You know what I mean? So when somebody has a pain level and it is, say, like you said, at a 7 or 8 out of 10, I mean, that is a big thing. And, you know, even if someone, you know, has, like, I'll read an mri, and an MRI might say minor disc bulge. Well, it's not minor when it's yours. It's not minor when it has it. I tell people the MRI or the testing does not is not a reflection. It doesn't read the patient. You know, they're not always correlating. So something that's minor in a report could be major in your life. Right.

I love how you say that, because it's happened to me. They say minor disc bulge, minor, you know, degeneration. And I read this, and I would say, well, if this is minor, what is major? Because for me, it's major.

Absolutely.

And it affects my daily life and my ability to function, and it doesn't.

It devalues what you're feeling. And so I do agree, and I thank you for.

Sharing that. You appreciate me sharing my health history because I think it does make me a better doctor. Well, I'm certain that it does, because I get emotional when I hear people's stories. Because at some level, it's, you know, we're all connected here, you know, and it's a reflection. Yeah.

When I look at people, I don't just see a blank person that I don't know. I don't just see a stranger. I look at people and I say, that's a story walking. That's a story walking and living. Everybody has a story.

Yes.

And you really have captured that in your approach to treating your patients. You don't just treat them as a number. You treat them as a story. Everybody has what they've experienced in the past, what they're experiencing now, and what their goals are for the future.

That's right.

And you have the ability to focus on all three. So that makes you very special.

Thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate that.

And I would have never guessed that you had any of these health issues until you told me.

Well, I want people to be focused on them, you know, and I want to focus on them. I just want to have the heart to. To serve. But the focus is all about the patient.

Right. But this is so important to know. It really sets you apart from other doctors. I mean, if they are experiencing it, then they should share their stories, too, because it just. It makes me feel more confident to know that I'm being treated by a person that knows what I feel like.