The report below comes from Acupuncture w/out Borders recent and ongoing work with refugees in Greece. I just want everyone of my readers to know about all the great work done by this "little engine that could" organization! I love what they are doing!  This kind of thing is how we stand up for what we believe in! How can we grow this kind of work in the world? Visit the AWB website for ways that you can get involved. Good wishes to us all and thank you for reading. AWB Trauma Healing Work (and Zumba!) at the Ritsona and Oinofyta Refugee Camps in Greece – August 2016 Update! This August ..read more

Every month of every year there are literally scores of "special days." If you search resources such as Chase's Calendar of Events (which is published anew each year) for special days, you will find no lack of possibilities. Here are a few ideas: 1. October 16th is World Food Day. You could offer free treatments for one day to anyone who brings in a full grocery bag of non-perishables. When they are all collected, take the donation to the local community homeless shelter or other organization that offers free meals to homeless folks. Better yet, get 5 other acupuncturists in your community to ..read more

A few weeks ago I was on the phone with my friend Marilyn Allen (whom many of you know, I am sure!), discussing ways that business education and levels of success could be improved for acupuncture students and practitioners in the US and how we could continue to participate in that effort. We agreed that, while anyone can learn what needs to be learned with respect to budgets and bookkeeping, taxes, insurance forms, and charting, the difficult and more important part of practice success had to do with patient communication and management. Why? You can (and as a new practitioner you probably ..read more

In January of 2015 Bob and I were lucky to be invited to Sikkim as companions of one of our Buddhist teachers. It was a really interesting journey and Sikkim is a beautiful, steep, Himalayan landscape with wonderful scenery and a pretty comfortable climate, even in January. Still, travel there is slow and arduous. What looks like it's "right across the valley" can take an entire day of switchbacks down one and up another mountain to get to! The most difficult challenge for me, however, was that two days into the trip I fell and badly sprained my ankle. Though Bob treated me almost every day f ..read more

Have you re-considered your front office procedures recently? How is your phone answered? (I hope you are not still answering it yourself all the time). Whoever is answering it, have you written down exactly how, at what speed, and with what tone of voice you want the phone to be answered? For example…have you ever called a company in our industry that you weren’t sure if you got the company you thought you called? You need to make sure that when anyone calls they are immediately Sure of whom they called Know that the person on the phone was happy to answer the phone That the person will he ..read more

A wonderful quote from Allyn Lewis's blog article "The Mental Cost of Owning A Business That We Need to Talk About" "Being a human is a far more powerful way to market your brand than any Facebook Ad, finely executed sales copy, or super high profile press placement will ever be. Being authentic is a long term strategy. It’s not a fast track to a few quick sales like other methods. It’s the foundation of a successful creative entrepreneur. When people can trust, relate, and connect with you, in time, they will buy ANYTHING you tell them to." That's it. Think about it ..read more

So little time...so many things to do in one treatment, right? I love to use massage therapy during, before, after, or all three along with acumoxa therapy treatments though there is often little time for it. Still, I have a few basics to share with you about how I work massage into my treatments since I think the power of touch can never be overestimated. Here are a few ideas that I use regularly with my patients. 1. Rocking the body from the occipital ridge. This move can be used as long as you don't have needles in the head and the person is lying supine. Standing above the patient's head ..read more

http://www.michellemcglade.com/tbe028/ Licensed Acupuncturist. Maureen Feeney, female business owner extraordinaire is sharing the ups and downs of growing a successful acupuncture practice in Omaha, Nebraska. Hold on to your pants because this is a brutally honest look at what it is like to hire and fire your first employee. Maureen talks about the mistakes she made and the difficulty of having to fire someone. She also dives in to a powerful lesson in business, first and foremost you are running a business! This is something we hear all the time, but until we really experience how it fe ..read more

Speaking strictly for myself, it's easy to feel a little down at the end of the year. Some people LOVE the holiday season and the dark, yin time of year. Others, not so much. What's going on with this phenomenon? I suppose it's well documented and you could find all sorts of prescriptions with a single internet search. Here are my ideas about what is going on, for me at least. First of all, I think many of us are more affected than we know by the smaller amount of yang qi from the sun that we are receiving unless you live pretty far below the Mason-Dixon Line. It mostly dark outside where I l ..read more

This was advice from a recent article in PC World, and I agree. How often have you been endlessly lost in cyberspace clicking on emails and Facebook posts, only to find that all of a sudden it's 11:45AM and that's all you've done today? If this sounds familiar consider: a recent study done at UC Irvine suggests that checking email fewer times reduces stress and increases productivity. What should we be doing first thing in the AM instead of being lost in cyberspace? Tons of things could get done and leave us knowing that we accomplished something (which reduces stress) before the day has had ..read more