One doctor's 35-year reflection on success and failure in practice.
Editor's Note — January 1, 2026.
I published this essay on January 1, 2020, with no idea what the next six years would bring. At the time, it felt like a personal reckoning with decades of frustration around goal setting. Since writing this, my work has expanded in directions I never deliberately pursued: from authoring a book and lecturing widely, to helping lead one of the fastest-growing IV therapy franchises in North America. None of these were goals I set in the conventional sense. They emerged the same way everything meaningful in my life has — through sustained commitment to the work itself. I'm sharing this essay again, unchanged, because time has only strengthened its conclusion.
One summer night, almost 30 years ago, while watching late-night TV, I purchased Tony Robbins' Personal Power program on audio cassette tapes. I was seventeen.
I have, since that time, spent my entire adult life fascinated with — sorry, scratch that, obsessed with — goal setting.
My conclusions on goal setting may surprise you, but before I get to these, I'd like to share with you the story of this obsessive pursuit.
When I was a young teen, thirteen or fourteen, I became fascinated with bodybuilding (which you would never guess looking at me now). My brother Theo and I even convinced our dad to help us convert our garage at home into our own little Gold's gym — Santa Monica edition.
In young urban hipster-speak, the goal was "swole," and like most young bodybuilders, my brother and I began consuming all things Joe Weider and Arnold Schwarzenegger. This included Arnold's autobiography, which blew my mind. In it, Arnold details his epic transformation from a small gym in Graz, Austria to world champion bodybuilder. The blueprint was simple: set goal, work systematically, achieve goal. Rinse and repeat.
Bigger goals just required more time and better systems. Nothing was out of the realm of possibilities. That was the message.
Enter Tony Robbins (1990)
His late-night commercial was just the tonic for my burgeoning skepticism. After several months of being mesmerized by Tony and Fran Tarkenton, gleefully kibitzing in helicopters and castles, I knew I was ready for a "proven system of success." I convinced my parents to let me borrow their credit card, made a phone call, and voilà — several weeks later, a box appeared on my doorstep and in it, a 30-day roadmap to success.
I learned to better manage my physiology, I improved the quality of my thoughts, I wrote down short- and long-term goals and tied all the pain I could imagine to not achieving them.
Thirty days later — nothing had changed.
Thus began the recurring pattern of setting goals and trying to will myself toward them, which never worked.
Enter Parker College of Chiropractic (1995)
Dr. James Parker, the founder of my chiropractic alma mater, before starting his college, was the founder and developer of Parker Seminars, the largest chiropractic seminars in the world. As students, we had access to weekly success seminars as well as free admission to the Parker Seminars. I devoured this part of the curriculum. Napoleon Hill, Dale Carnegie, Brian Tracy, Jim Rohn, James Allen, Og Mandino, Norman Vincent Peale, Stephen Covey, Viktor Frankl, Deepak Chopra, Robin Sharma, Wayne Dyer.
By the time I had completed my chiropractic degree, beyond the requisite medical knowledge, I was so loaded with success "know-how" that practice success was — in my mind — virtually guaranteed. I confidently signed an expensive five-year lease for a practice location in a town I had never lived in and barely visited. What could possibly go wrong?
The short answer: almost everything.
Enter Naturopathic Medical School (2009)
After ten years of private practice, of managing multiple providers, running corporate wellness initiatives, speaking across Canada and the US, I reached a crossroads. The constant pursuit of business goals had exhausted my spirit.
It was at this point that I decided to completely strip my practice down to its proverbial studs. My practice was going to be solely focused on one relationship — the one I had with my patients. I wanted to create a safe space, without pressure or expectations. One where I could explore and develop my art.
Without the pressure of expectations, I enrolled and was accepted into the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine. As busy as I was, I was free of the burden of expectations. I spent six years learning, expanding my scope of practice, and developing my art.
It was completely transformative. Both for my soul, and, surprisingly, for my practice — all of the goals that I set all of those years ago, have long since been eclipsed.
Find your art. Love your art. Work on your art. Goals will emerge in the pursuit.
Herein lies the secret to goal setting. Find your art. Love your art. Work on your art. We all have unique talents and abilities; one of the requirements of happiness, satisfaction, and success is nurturing your unique talents and abilities. Goals, and consequently goal setting, will naturally emerge within the pursuit or development of your art.
I spent years failing to achieve my goals because they were never mine.
Making money is like losing weight. Both are actually intangible. It'd be nice to have a couple of extra bucks just like it would be nice to lose a few pounds, but hopefully you can now see the folly in setting these as goals.
People blindly hope for success when the opportunity to achieve it lies in their hands each day. Whether you mop floors for a living, make burritos, or manage people, your success is tied only to the depth of your relationship to your art.
Before you set any new goals, awaken to this possibility.
Find your art. Pursue it.
Postscript (Six Years Later).
With the benefit of time, a clear pattern has emerged. The stretch of my life that looked the least strategic from the outside turned out to be the most productive. When I stopped trying to force outcomes and instead committed myself fully to the work — learning, refining, paying attention — the results followed more naturally, and more quickly, than they ever had before.
The book didn't begin as a publishing goal. It grew out of years of unanswered questions and lived experience. Leadership roles came not from chasing titles, but from staying in the work long enough to become useful. Even influence — something many people now try to manufacture — arrived only after clarity had been earned.
Find the work that holds your attention when no one is watching. That's still where everything else seems to begin.
