The Search For Success
The Search for Success is a podcast for high-thinking 18–24-year-olds facing career anxiety, uncertainty about the future, and the pressure to build a stable, meaningful life. Through case studies of people who’ve lived the process and philosophical reflections on discipline, mindset, and daily decisions, the show breaks down how success is actually built over time. Designed for young adults seeking clarity, purpose, and direction, this podcast helps listeners think more clearly about their path—and take control of it.
The Search For Success
Kellie Krasovec: Where Medicine Meets Humanity
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What does it truly mean to build a life in medicine and more importantly a life that matters?
In this episode, I sit down with Kellie Krasovec to explore the deeper foundations behind a career dedicated to healing. We go beyond clinical practice and into the mindset, values, and defining experiences that shape not just a medical professional but a human being committed to serving others.
Grounded in the idea that “where the love of medicine is, there is the love of humanity” by Hippocrates this conversation unpacks the intersection of purpose, discipline, and compassion.
Kellie shares the five foundational pillars that guide her life offering insight into how she navigates pressure, responsibility, and the emotional weight of caring for others. We also discuss what it takes for young people to pursue meaningful work, stay grounded in their values, and build a life with both impact and intention.
This episode is about more than medicine. It is about clarity, purpose, and the principles that shape a life well lived.
Today's conversation is about the intersection of medicine, purpose, and humanity. My guest Kelly brings more than clinical expertise. She brings a perspective rooted in compassion, responsibility, and a deep commitment to serving others. In a world where healthcare can feel transactional, she reminds us that at its core it's about trust, connection, and truly seeing people. We'll explore her journey into medicine and the values that guide her, both professionally and personally. But ultimately, this isn't just a conversation. Kelly, welcome to The Search for Success. I think when we think of industries that we kind of interact with on a day-to-day basis, health, in my opinion, could be one of the most important things. I read this thing, and I actually, when I was here with my eye problem and my neck problem, I thought of this quote, and it was when when you're healthy, you have a hundred problems. But when you're not healthy, you have one problem. And I think that kind of speaks to the importance of your health with your mind, your body, and your soul. And that kind of led me to you. And I think this is this conversation, the perspective that you can give to some of my audiences who will be around 18 to 24 year olds, who will have to experience ups and downs of their health, mind, body, and soul. And honestly, I'm just unbelievably excited to get into it and I'm excited for your perspective. So I think one of the first questions I want to ask is where does your story with health and healing really begin?
SPEAKER_00Probably where it really begins is with growing up in my teens and twenties being having a lot of like, you know, quote unquote mental issues, mostly depression. And hopefully it's not too much to say it was like suicidally depressed for for many years. And so that's probably where it began, because that's that's once I got once I can you ask me another way?
SPEAKER_02I think I want to ask kind of like where did where did you find yourself and how like how did you find yourself in the industry of health and healing people and did that and if that started with with you needing to be healed, or did that start with kind of just this innate ability to feel that you need to heal people?
SPEAKER_00Thanks. Yeah. No, so it started because I was not getting the help that I that I needed, even though I was seeing plenty of doctors and taking plenty of medications, and then when I and then but also I had I had a boyfriend, an ex-boyfriend who was in a horrible motorcycle accident, and had his friend who was on the motorcycle with him died, and he had a severe closed head injury. The doctors were he he was unconscious for a week. When he woke up, the the doctors did not think that he was going to make it, and his family was very scared and didn't didn't come to the hospital all that much. And so I basically moved into the hospital for five weeks and was able to help him learn how to speak, walk. I mean, like I helped bathe him. And I got to see the miracle of what the body is capable of. And I can't remember exactly how old he was, but it was like right around 20 and 20, 21, 22, something like that. And and I think that's where I got interested in medicine as and health in general, because before that I was always afraid to even go into hospitals. Like I would get faint from the smell of it. Why? I don't know. I don't know, but maybe because it was because it was a mystery. The body was a mystery, health was a mystery. Things were, it was just what you know, you went and got shots or you had surgery, or but or there, you know, an older relative was, you know, in the hospital, you know, very sick, about to die. It wasn't it wasn't a place of healing, but I got to I got to see I got to actually see healing take place and what yeah, anyway.
SPEAKER_02I think like the the there's a there's a huge difference between Western medicine and eastern medicine. And I think that the idea of fear of hospitals and comes from the how we heal in in the West rather than how we heal in the East. And I know we're in this beautiful office, and I just the our surroundings are different. I mean, you could argue this is another type of hospital, right? But when clientele comes in here, they're not as fearful and they they don't they don't sweat, they don't quiver. And it's because I think of just the way that we're surrounded, and I and at least for me, that's how I feel when I'm in hospitals as well. Because there's so much negative connotation that comes with these hospitals, and that kind of leads me to this question of so you said that at 21 this incident happened, yep, and you felt that you were able to heal your ex-boyfriend.
SPEAKER_00No, I was able to watch the bot his body heal and because I'd never seen such like I said, his his friend died, he couldn't speak, he couldn't I mean he like it was like guttural stuff, he could bite, he could yeah, but I watched as his brain and his body healed. Now it and it took years be beyond that, but and so that was my you know, when you were saying like where my first I don't know uh interest in in medicine, I think that's where where it started because I it it was all like behind closed closed doors or behind white coats before before then. And I got to anyway, I got to see, I got to see a lot, but the big thing was hearing from the doctors that he probably would not survive, and then watching him not only survive but be put back together. Thrives and yeah, throw and he thrives now. Wow, he's still a good friend of mine. But but on a personal note, where I got into it was from having these cyclical depressions and going to so many psychiatrists, taking so many drugs, and the time that I had my last and you know, one of my deepest depressions, I asked a friend for the name of a therapist, and I just decided I didn't want to live like this anymore. I didn't sleep, I didn't and I went to see a doctor who said, You should see that's acupuncturist in our office. I was like, You are out of your mind. Like, I'm scared of needles. Um, and but I went because I was I was desperate and I wanted to see, and I didn't understand that all the these other symptoms that I I was having, the fact that I wasn't sleeping, the I'm sure you want to talk about this, but the fact that I didn't have periods, uh I didn't realize that these were all connected because in the in Western medicine, I have to go see a gynecologist for not having periods, I have to go see a psychiatrist for emotional stuff. And so anyway, so I went to, this was back when insurance covered more things, and I went and saw this acupuncturist once a week for six months, stopped taking pharmaceuticals, I started sleeping, I just I got my life back. I literally, and I yeah, anyway, and I don't I have never gone through like another significant depression since then, but they gave me tools, not just herbs, but they gave me tools about lifestyle and diet that that nobody else had had given me. And yeah.
SPEAKER_02So was the depression an imbalance hormonally, or was it through different experiences? And I know that's might be a a little tough to answer.
SPEAKER_00Well, it's it's it's probab I mean the way we I think the way we look at it these days, we look at it as more trauma-based, but we didn't really talk about stuff like that back then, because I'm quite a bit older. And you but yeah, so it's but hor I mean, everything affects everything. So when you're dysregulated, your hormones are dysregulated, your gut is dysregulated, your emotions are dysregulated.
SPEAKER_02So, where where did this new awakening kind of bring you in and the pursuit of eastern medicine kind of take you to now here in Vale?
SPEAKER_00So I had I started using acupuncture in Chinese medicine, Eastern medicine as my main form of medicine after that, even though I didn't understand it. So got rid of carpal tunnel syndrome. What while I was living in Vale, or when I had first moved to Vale, my brother a couple years later was diagnosed with MS and multiple sclerosis, and you know, the family got everybody was pretty upset and torn apart and nervous, and were they were encouraging me to go get diagnosed because as full-blood sibling I had a 40% higher chance. And so there was a lot of fear around that because I was my brother, who's like 6'1, was tripping over steps, and anyway, it was it was it was very much of a concern. But I saw an acupuncturist at that time in Edwards, and she gave me a couple books to read about people who would who had overcome it, but I didn't understand it. I was using the medicine, like just going kind of like we were talking about like going to a Western doctor. I didn't really understand how I was being helped, and kept trying to understand it in Western terms with her. And she said, You have to go study, you have to go study. And so I I was like, All right, I'm gonna go study. And and I was really, really fortunate, kind of skipping skipping ahead is when I when I went to Chinese medicine school, it was a group of I think 27 students in the entire class when I the that I started. And one of the women who was a student had had MS for about 15 years. So she so I I because I went with this idea that I'm gonna understand how how to cure my brother's MS, or yeah, and and there was there was somebody who had been living with it for a long time, and that's why she was there too. So I think it was kind of synchronicity, yeah, uh serendipity. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02When you talked about kind of studying the healing that you have or that you were experienced, how when when when clientele comes in here, like my mom, do you suggest that they first understand what the what the medicine is before they do it and do and doing that correlates with the the outcome of their healing? Because if you just kind of go through the motions. Yep. Like I remember like for my personal story, when I came in here the first time, I was unbelievably hesitant. I thought I didn't I didn't I thought Eastern medicine wasn't I thought it was like kind of Fugazi. I didn't really believe in it. And then when I went into it, I remember you told me to close my eyes and see if I can fall asleep. And I remember that I I couldn't because I was kind of like I said, hesitant about it. And I remember that that the when I came out of it, I didn't just heal as much as I did the second time that it came by when I did take your advice and I just fall asleep.
SPEAKER_00That's pretty common.
SPEAKER_02So I think that like there's a difference between like I mean it's really like an internal and external healing rather than just external. And I really try to understand the the acupuncture.
SPEAKER_00I don't I don't think growing up in the Western model, we haven't we we don't learn about the agency that we have in our own healing, right? And so I think excuse my stomach. Um I'm gonna the the question you asked before that about uh understanding yeah. So I I I and then it's probably because of going through that with my with my brother and and myself too, but I think people want to know how to feel better without having to go see somebody all the time, right? Yeah. So I try to, even though it sounds really funny when you it's just like a different language, right? We're we're talking about the same body, but Chinese medicine and Western medicine have a different language of of how how the work how the body works, even though we're talking about the same system. So I try to I I try to explain a little bit about how the lens through which I'm I'm seeing an imbalance or or an illness so that so that it makes so somebody understands what I'm doing and then what they can do in their in their private life to to maybe not cause more issues. I'm trying to think of a like of a specific like for for for instance, something like anxiety is often like a heat in the heart, an agitation in the heart.
SPEAKER_02So an actual temperature increase?
SPEAKER_00Heat, like yeah, like energetic. Gotcha. So if they drink a lot of coffee, that has a lot of heat, a lot of fire. And so if m if nobody's talked to them about, oh, maybe you should just cut down one cup of coffee, I just want them to pay attention. All right, if you love coffee and you drink it, see, do you feel like a rise in anxiety afterwards? Because you will, if if that's what what if that's the cause of it. So and that's a super simplistic example, but but that's why that's why I like to talk about like organ systems and stuff when somebody comes in so that maybe they can they can piece the stuff together as they're going throughout their their day and their their life.
SPEAKER_02I mean, the topic that you bring up and the theme that I acknowledged is the connection piece between coming into here and being treated for anxiety, or if it's a scar, or if it's if it's tight tissue. There's other things they can do outside of their lives with their lifestyle that will also help them with this this issue. Yep. But in Western medicine, like you said, you have to go to a gynecologist and then you have to go to another specialist and another specialist.
SPEAKER_01Or a neurologist.
SPEAKER_02And there's no connection piece because they're also separate.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But with Eastern medicine, everything is intertwined. And that's why I like to kind of bring up the mind, body, and soul. Yep. So my next question is what importance would you bring to that kind of statement of being healthy with all three aspects of oneself?
SPEAKER_00So I I I probably would use spirit instead of soul, just because soul to some people I think brings more I don't know. Anyway, mind, body, spirit is kind of how I would put because it's all it's all in the same body, the same system, the same family. Like all of our everything is connected. And so if you are one of the things that was explained to me when I first started having acupuncture was if I'm if I am emotionally depressed, then I am physical physiologically depressed. Everything slows down when when your emotions are tamped down. So that one of the reasons it's difficult to sleep. One of the reasons you don't either you don't have an appetite or you're you're you have like an unending app unending appetite and it and it slows down your bowels, it slows down like you don't want to exercise. Everything kind of slows down. So one of my like one of my favorite suggestions for for depression, which was offered to me way back then too, is go take like a 10 to a 20 minute walk. Because no matter where you start that walk, you take it, you're you you come back a little bit of a different person. You come back to a different place than you were. Do you know what I mean? Not just like physical place, but emotionally. And but when you move your body, you're you're invigorating your blood, your your lungs are helpful, pumping blood. So yeah, I I don't think I answered your question, but it's totally.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. I think to kind of transition into more Eastern medicine, I wrote down that Western medicine often focuses on treating symptoms, while eastern eastern medicine tends to focus on restoring balance within the body. And my question for that is for people who don't understand what acupuncture is or the benefits of it, could you talk a little bit about kind of the common misconceptions around that and kind of your answer to those misconceptions?
SPEAKER_00I think I've been in it so long that I don't know what the common misconceptions are, other than like you were say, I don't remember the word you use, but like woo-woo. Like you know, people think it's it's woo-woo and it's just, you know, quote unquote energy medicine. Of course, everything is energy and everything is energy medicine. Um but I think yeah, I well, okay. So I'll just from my personal is I a lot of times people come in and they think that they've been ex they've experienced dry needling, which is a you know, form of acupuncture, like a trigger release acupuncture. So they they know that it's used for pain, physical pain, but they don't have an experience of that it's helpful for emotional pain, it's helpful for digestive complaints. Digestive stuff is like one of the one of the places where Eastern medicine and acupuncture thrive because we came with all the whole system that wants to work uh work efficiently. Oh, I'm getting a little losing my train of thought. Misconceptions, that's what I'm going back to. So yeah, I don't I don't know what uh do you have what do you think the misconceptions are?
SPEAKER_02I think the way that we approach medicine, it's it's easy and it's accessible, kind of, to go to different hospitals and have someone with a high paying salary to tell you what your problem is. But most of the time, there are people too, and they're also kind of just guessing. And I think that this like verbal healing, if someone tells me what a diagnosis is without any other context, and they're using big fancy words that I'll never understand. Yeah. I I tended to shy away from that. Yeah. Because I feel it was a disservice to a kid my age. Yeah. And even someone like my dad, who's been around a lot longer, who also didn't understand what was going on, and it and I think it brings the fear back into it. And on the other side of the aisle, with Eastern medicine, it's it doesn't have that that big of a reputation as normal medicine.
SPEAKER_00Not mistakes.
SPEAKER_02So people tend to be hesitant because of the reputation of it.
SPEAKER_00Got it.
SPEAKER_02And I think that I think it's just a lack of an open mind that especially Americans have, and young, stubborn adults, maybe like myself. And until that mind is now is opened, you won't be I feel that you won't be healed in those in your spirit and your and your and physically. So that's kind of like how I would interpret that question. So how do you when someone comes in like myself, how do you build that trust and kind of that reputation in that exact moment when someone walks through these doors?
SPEAKER_00I listen. I listen deeply. I ask point I I I I as I think I don't know, you probably didn't ever fill out any paperwork, but I'm still old school. I have people fill out paperwork that gives me a history of all of their systems. But and we we go through and I then I want to know what are if you had a magic wand, what would be the top three things in your in your life, in your body, in your health that you would want help with? Because I don't think we understand that they do tend to be connected, interconnected. So so uh I listen is the is is the big part. My when somebody first comes to me, my that appointment is an hour and a half, and we spend usually spend anywhere between 30 and 60 minutes going through the review of of symptoms and complaints. And uh you know, I mean we all know that going to see you know your MD for a follow-up is they've got seven minutes with you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00When somebody comes back in, it's an hour appointment, half of that is for acupuncture, and about 20 minutes of that is following up to find out how how what we've done in previous appointments has has affected affected affected their health now, what things have changed. Has anything worsened? But I I think it's it is something for people to be listened to these days. Oh my gosh, yeah. Which which I I think I'm in my bubble of that's how I live my life and how I how my how my work life is. And so I I forget that that people are not people are not seen and heard and listened to and believed.
SPEAKER_02I think it's either Plato or Socrates, and it's God gave us two ears and one mouth for a reason. Um and I and I I think that's really cool. So this experience is it's interpersonal and it's holistic. And like you said, when we when you go to a follow-up with an MD, it's seven to eight minutes and they have somewhere else to be.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I and I do think that's a disservice.
SPEAKER_00And it's often seven to eight minutes in order for a prescription to be refilled.
SPEAKER_02Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00And how can you know? I mean, maybe you can. Maybe, maybe, maybe you can, but how can you really know how somebody is improving or changing or can't. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02When someone comes in here and maybe they're not as open or vulnerable as you may need them to be to be able to help them, what are some things and strategies that you you put in place to try to get them to come out and speak of their problems?
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Well, I don't I don't think it's necessarily not everybody is comfortable talking about, but as you know, I'm I'm highly dependent on pulse diagnosis. There's a there's a lot of information that comes through by listening to somebody's pulse, by seeing somebody's tongue, by getting an intake of what they eat, how much they sleep. And so I don't necessarily need somebody to be emotionally vulnerable because that's especially somebody's gone through a lot of trauma, that's not something that they're comfortable with because maybe that maybe they have had their boundaries crossed, if you know what I'm talking about, yeah, have had their boundaries crossed. So I have to respect respect that. So I let their body, like their body tell me. There's lots of ways to for me to diagnose what's going on, come come up with a diagnosis other than them being vulnerable with words.
SPEAKER_02I like that. To move on a little bit to kind of our body, and I I fear being repetitive, but I researched a man you might know him, Hippocratus. Hippocrates. Hippocrates, thank you. And he said that natural forces are within us the true healers of disease, healers of disease. How can you help an individual tap into the the power of their own body to kind of heal themselves?
SPEAKER_00Well, they're doing it anyway, maybe just giving giving them guide work. I I put together a lot of dietary information for people. Yeah. I I I I give I give them information and and and everybody has to make their own choices, but there are there are little things, you know, like how we know okay, so we know celiac, right? Yeah. Somebody who has celiac disease cannot have wheat. It's like putting, are you old enough to know what sugar in a gas tank means? Probably not. No, but it might help someone. It's it's it's uh like putting poison in their system. So everything starts short circuiting, everything uh gets the the the gears get sand in them or whatever. So that's like a a really easy one. But there are there are lots of things that we do or breathe or eat or drink that depending on on the person may be kind of poisonous, even if they don't have like a a physical physical allergy to it. So so like with the coffee thing. Well, we and we all know like if if somebody if I don't know if you've ever known anybody who had like a drug or alcohol problem, but when somebody has to get sober because their their addiction is doing something that's that's harming them, that's it's I'm digressing again that they they know they can't use or or or or drink or what what whatever it is. And so looking just for those lit little things that somebody can somebody can do, whether it's you know, l exercising a little bit more, exercising a little bit less. Up here, up here we tend to exercise a little bit more. Yeah. We never stop moving. But yeah, I don't know if I answered that question.
SPEAKER_02But no, you did. I think that I think giving agency to the individual to to let them know that they can do this on their own, I think gives power to that person and a power that they m felt that maybe was stripped away from them from maybe past experiences with doctors.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Like I said, these big fancy words, all it's doing is taking away agency out of your own life and putting it into someone else's.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I and I'm I'm a big fan of people getting involved in their uh taking care of themselves. Like I don't I know there's a lot of folks that want, you know, when somebody comes in with a problem, they want them to commit to coming in, you know, for like 12 treatments or 20 treatments or something. I think people, one of the things that I like to do is some somebody I find is coming to see me because they're ready to move forward. They heard from somebody else that uh, you know, that this I'd seen out so many people and nobody could help. And you know, in two or three treatments, I felt better. And so I do try that's I do that's why I do tend to tell people what I'm doing and why and how I'm diagnosing it, even though it doesn't it it sounds funky, but it's like a it's a Chinese medicine, Eastern medicine is is the language of the way nature breathes, the way the world breathes. Sorry.
SPEAKER_02No, it's great. I kind of want to dive into kind of like the art of healing and because it truly is an art and how you can approach it. Because like we've said, there's some fallacies to the way that some people try to heal, and I think that the way that you do it is a lot different, and I think that could be insightful to others to hear, and then maybe for them to think a little bit deeper about the way they treat their bodies and the way they treat their minds. I like this quote from Rumi, who is a Lebanese American author who said, The wound is the place where the light enters you. And I think that being hurt is an opportunity for you to kind of grow from that. And I think that people like you can help get them to that point of healing. So I want to ask, what we kind of talked about this with listening, but what role does listening play in that healing process as an individual who's carrying out these actions?
SPEAKER_00I mean, listening is everything because that's where somebody gets to to share their their story, share their use the word you were there, use their wound share their wound that and it Yeah, I don't I I I mean I think I think listening is everything. I don't want to You may because somebody maybe is carrying something around that they just had to get over fast, you know, like maybe they had like up here, maybe they had a concussion or broke broke a bone some broke something and they just never quite felt a hundred percent again. And even if they're coming in for something like I don't even know, like a cold or or s some something else, like that that injury or that illness may still be part of uh part of what they're they're dealing with. Like we all lived through COVID together. There, you know, there's there's still a lot of people experiencing symptoms of long COVID. But if you the if you're just taking, you know, they're coming in to see in 2026, but I don't I don't find out that they had COVID three times, one you know, one time that they were hospitalized or one time that they lost their sense of smell and taste for three months, then I'm I'm really missing a big part of their their medical history.
SPEAKER_02How has your your journey as as a healer changed since you first started?
SPEAKER_00Hmm. I think I see, I think I see the the patterns and the connections a lot more. And part of it's just experience. I've had my hands on you know so many pulses, I've talked to so many patients, but I I really see it's it's not just uh like a quick fix, somebody comes in with knee pain, get rid of the knee pain. I want to I want to know what might have contributed to to there being pain in that knee if they've torn other you know muscles or tendons. But it it's the it's it's the patterns and the connections, being able when I first was practicing, it was more about relieving their symptoms and which I still want to do, obviously, but now it's almost like I see the jigsaw puzzle of their complaints and I'm looking for those couple missing pieces that that somebody hasn't somebody hasn't found, so that I can put it put it together to to let let them leave as whole as possible.
SPEAKER_02I think that'll be important for the next topic, which is kind of lifelong learning. But before we get there, I want to ask how can an individual without your experience help one of their friends and help one of their neighbors if that's just listening, if if they're going through trouble emotionally, trouble physically. I know there's a lot of injury here. So my best friends have been out of sports for years on end because of an injury, and that not only affects physically, but it also affects their their mental state. So how can someone without your experience kind of just be a good friend?
SPEAKER_00Gosh, I um I don't know how you it's uh by recognizing the humanity and the commonality in uh in each each one of us. Like w we had talked about having friends on I don't want to go into that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I was thinking about talking about having friends or family members on the spectrum and having yeah, so how how would you I think it's the listening piece that it's so important and trying to do the best you can to get people to open up because I know in my own personal life there's there's people who who don't like to open up and aren't as vulnerable and but I can tell that there there is something going on and they're going through something, and I think giving them the space to come out on their own rather than if I were to kind of put them down in a chair and ask them like more of like an intervention style, I feel like that's that can't be healthy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, listening to one's one's it's it's learning like discerning authenticity as well. Yeah. And offering your authenticity to somebody. Maybe that's a better because that that's I I find that to be the older I get, yeah, the more and more important that is to me. And I think that that's for patient patients coming into they they know if I'm being honest with them, which I am because I don't really have that. That's good. We need more honesty. But the that's outside of it, is just offer somebody your authentic care.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And then if you if you're vulnerable, then then they will be. Yes. And to take agency and being a good friend. Yeah. And then giving them the opportunity to also take agency in their own lives and realize that if anything's gonna get done, it's gonna happen because of them. And I think a lot of kids struggle with that. I think they they they want their teacher or their parent or their friend to kind of get them where they need to be rather than understanding that it's it's it's them that have to do it and do kind of that hard, that hard work. So yeah, I think that's I appreciate that. And I think that your expertise in this industry, in this field will bring so much to to my listeners. I want to talk about kind of being a lifelong learner. Do you think that you think there's still things for you to learn?
SPEAKER_00There's always things for me to learn. I'm never gonna stop though. Good. I mean, I read incessantly, I study incessantly. I mean, are you a curious person?
SPEAKER_01I'm I like to think so.
SPEAKER_00I am interested in the way everything works together. Yeah, though you know, it's it's business-wise, it started. I never thought that I wanted to have anything to do with fertility when I first started. And I think it's because I didn't have really great education on it when I was in Chinese medicine school. But I had a friend when I was about a year, just brand new practicing, and was having a problem getting pregnant, and asked me, Is it can acupuncture help with fertility? I was like, it can. So I just started going down a rabbit hole. And and it's really exciting because there's so much research about assisted reproductive technologies and acupuncture helping it. So the the research and the classes and the education was out there. And so when I somebody was actually when I when I was actually able to find lots of this information and help, we don't have, you know, we don't have any like Western fertility specialists up here. So for so many years, it was so fun helping people uh grow their families without them having to go, you know, go find oncologists, uh not oncologists, reproductive are easy, reproductive well anyway, the fertility and Western fertility specialists. So yeah, anyway, I I digress again. But yeah, there's in these days it's more neurological conditions that really get me going, and there's lots of research and there's lots of training, and yeah.
SPEAKER_02So I think like right now, and I I was trying to write about this yesterday about how how we have evolved as humans. And you could argue that we maybe haven't evolved humanity-wise, but like you said, the the amount of resource and research that we have, it's a duty of ours to tap into it and and to make ourselves learn.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I think that's kind of why we were put on this earth is to learn as much as we can. I understand that you're obviously a master of your craft. How was it starting a business, even a profitable business?
SPEAKER_00Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_02That was a that was a challenge within itself.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that was a challenge within itself. I moved back up here to join somebody else's practice, and a couple of days before my license for Colorado came through, they decided that it that was not going to work. So I had to find a place to rent and I had nothing but student loans. I was just hemorrhaging money. So I just kind of built it step by step, brick by brick. And yeah, so it that was difficult in the beginning. Because we I have not had help, but wow, that's all right. I've you know what I've learned is I can do pretty much anything I put my mind to. I finally, I finally almost two years ago was able to buy my office. So now I have so now I've got two mortgages. But yeah, no, it's that's one thing. I the same thing in Western medicine and and eastern medicine is you do new do not get business business advice in school. And yeah.
SPEAKER_02I think we'll we'll talk about this a little bit later, but I can I can sense your passion. And I think that passion led to the byproduct of success and you starting your own practice and having recurring clients and unbelievably nice things to say to you. It's because of your passion that kind of drove all that kind of external gratification that you got. And I think that a big theme of this podcast is to try to get young adults to do things that they're passionate about. Yes. And then allowed too short not to. And then success will be a byproduct of that passion. Like you said, it's life is too short to not do what you love. And I think that's a pretty good segue into um some other things about success. How has your definition of success changed since you were a young adult?
SPEAKER_00So I think I probably didn't have an internal idea of what as what success was other than what I maybe grew up with. I thought it meant financial success, you know, like I when I first went to college, I was trying to get a business degree. And and it w yeah, well anyway, it but I took a history class, which was just one of those weed out classes, which you'll get to to learn about. And that teacher opened my mind and opened my. I grew up in Texas. We didn't have, we didn't, we did not have lots of great history in my in my grade school, high school. And so I just I I thought it was boring. It was just remembering dates. But when I got to college, there was somebody who just brought the world alive. And I got very, very interested in in history at that point, which is probably I think why I love this medicine that is so old. You know, Western medicine's like 170 years old, Chinese medicine is about 5,000 years old. Wow. So so what being interested in learning and reading and and history, I I picked a medicine that that feeds all those those curiosities. But yeah, I don't think I had an idea of what success was other than financial success. And I don't think I even knew what that was. But as especially the, you know, maybe like the last 10 years, especially since since COVID, it's it's more about what can I do to make your life better, the next patient that comes to life better, so that their family life can be better, so our community can be better, so our country can be better, so our world can be better. Like I really do that you know, the ripple effect, I really do think make you make somebody move easier in their their body, their their day, their work, their their coworkers, everything gets a little bit easier if they're if if they have an ease in their in their body. So one person at a time.
SPEAKER_02And it's step by step, and whole change can happen in in a positive manner. I was talking to a really good friend of mine yesterday who's kind of kind of gone through his own epiphany in terms of what he wants to do next year. And what we talked about was that kind of our duty to learn at this day and age, for especially for being 18 years old. I think that our job is to learn as much as we can about everything. And then in the second part of our lives, we'll apply that knowledge to something and try to find success within that. And hopefully that's that's driven through passion.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And then the third part of your life, which I'm trying to get my grandpa to figure out, is that you gotta give back.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You gotta write something, you gotta give it to someone, you gotta give that knowledge back. And I and it it does kind of step back to like the step-by-step pieces of your life. But that takes a lot of reflection. I think wisdom starts with knowing yourself, and then you can start to learn other things. I wanna talk a little about kind of like your sense of calling. And I want to ask, I can kind of assume the answer, but have you truly found your sense of calling in life?
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_02This is what you were meant to do.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, this is yes. And I know your job is not supposed to be your life, but Chinese medicine is so much more than just acupuncture my and and coming to to work. I really do uh I see the inner connectedness of of everything. And I find that yeah, no, I've and I love I love helping people where maybe they have not been able to find help before. I mean, I just yeah, one day I should write a book. You should. And just need to, we just need to get that little uh correct some sort of circulation, some sort of some sort of imbalance in their their their body. And yeah, anyway, I don't I don't that's uh being super yes, I'm very, very I'm this is my calling. I'm very passionate about it. I love what I do. I can't imagine I will ever retire because yeah, I feel that that would not be growth.
SPEAKER_02You know, if getting paid to do what you love sounds like a great thing. Yeah. My friend asked this of another individual who came into our school and he said, Is purpose something you're born with, or is purpose something that you kind of create and find? What do you what's your opinion on that?
SPEAKER_00I mean, I think it's I think the recognition of purpose is something that you find out later. I don't know. I I think it's probably I probably both are both are true. I think some people feel I mean, I don't I don't know if you had stuff when you were younger, you just knew you wanted to do when you got older. You know, like I wanted to be the first female indie racer. And then once there was one woman who did it, I was like, ah, gotta take that off the list. I gotta find something else to do. Yeah. It changes, but yeah, I didn't I didn't think that I was gonna be I thought I I I thought I was going to be a professor and so that's probably why I like teaching them how how this works. But yeah, but once you when I I love making helping people feel better.
SPEAKER_02Good.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So we have two traditions that that I started with this podcast towards the end of the show on my website, which is the search datenforsuccess.com. And there's a there's a place on the website where you can leave a question for a guest, and I will pick and I pick one. So a good friend of mine, his name is Griffin. He asks, if you could identify three to five foundational pillars that guide how you live your life, what are they?
SPEAKER_00Be authentic, be kind, have healthy boundaries, healthy boundaries, not just boundaries, healthy boundaries. I'm gonna give you those three.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So Kelly, I mean, this has been a really great conversation. I think even for me, the reason why I started this is selfishly, I want to learn too. And I decided to turn on the camera or turn on the mic and try to share that the wisdom that you obviously have and the passion you have. You have an innate sense of kindness to you that we need more of in this world. So I I I seriously cannot thank you enough for being onto the show. And the last thing I'm gonna say, remind me how to pronounce the name Hippocratus. Hippocrates. He said, where the love of medicine is, there is love and humanity. And I think that's kind of how I want to finish off with that final quote.
SPEAKER_00In Hippocrates is where the first do no harm comes from.
SPEAKER_02The first what?
SPEAKER_00That for in in medicine, you have taken oath, you first do no harm. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I like that. Yeah. Uh Kelly, thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much. I'm so impressed by you.