This time of year is always my favorite. All the holidays and all of the quality time with family is a cornerstone to the Hom Family experience.
Last week, we welcomed my parents back into town. And today we picked up my sister and her family from the airport. And we get to host the season.
From the food, to the fellowship, this is easily my favorite time of year. And it always has been.
Maybe it’s because my family is very tribal, coming over as immigrants just one generation ago.
Maybe it’s because I’m a veteran and I’ve spent many holidays away from home and loved ones.
Regardless, I’m grateful for this opportunity, and this time, despite how much challenge and drama that can come along with it, it is the most “wonderful time of the year”, because of how intentional our family becomes.
Over the last year, my wife and I have really done the deep work, trying to uncover and heal some of the bigger challenges and traumas that we have navigated generationally for the duration of our relationship and marriage; but mostly over the last 3 1/2 years as a beacon of freedom and health for our community.
I shared in the last newsletter that my greatest triumph this year is Luka walking. And I invite you to watch the Vlog because he makes a cameo for the first time in a while – nap time and video/podcast time are often the same time over the weekend.
But it’s a real treat to see him walk on film. ♥️
We just finished our very best annual planning meeting with the very BEST team that Future Generations Clinic of Chiropractic has ever had.
For perspective, we have been doing quarterly planning meetings for almost 7 years. I have notes from the very first one that was right at the point of time where we transitioned from “Dr. Stanton Hom” to: “Future Generations Clinic of Chiropractic”.
Almost 30 meetings, attempting to craft, and cultivate a beautiful transformative, healing, and freedom focused experience for us – but especially our children.
Hence, the name – Future Generations.
I wanted to share something I gave the team at this meeting. It’s called “the Story of ‘That Something’” by BJ Palmer – the son of the Founder of Chiropractic, also known as the Developer of Chiropractic.
This is one of the most inspiring contributions BJ ever made to chiropractic and it is the deeper meaning behind our phrase “Expect Miracles”. If you want to know more about the soul of why we exist as a movement – Future Generations – please give this a read.
And feel free to respond to this email to tell me about it.
The Story of ‘That Something’ by BJ Palmer
It’s really cliché to say “best“ these days.
“Best” team
“Best” meal
“Best” service
“Best” outcomes
“Best” friend
So I will tell you with infinite gratitude that this team is certainly the best team this organization has ever known. This is the best team that has ever served alongside me and our 11 year existence.
Why does this matter?
This matters because in the end, when it comes down to it, the ability for us to do anything of service is predicated upon the culture, the community, and the clinical care that we provide – all of which is based upon our team.
All of that could be made or broken sometimes by even one team member. But as we sat back and reflected after going through all of our personal and team wins at the beginning of our meeting, it was unequivocal.
It was unanimous, and it was very palpable.
We all felt the same way.
I’m SO proud of that.
Because it has taken a lot to build the team that we currently have.
One thing that I didn’t realize we were going to have to persevere through as a family over the last year, was the re-emergence of some of my PTSD. Much of it was due to my deployment to Iraq in 2003 and the subsequent loss of some really good men in my unit. Recently, I shared with you that I was visited by some army buddies. They reminded me of the importance of community – just in our class, we have lost two of our brothers to suicide.
I’m not trying to be morbid.
I am reflecting to you, the devotion and commitment that I have personally felt every day for the work that we do.
For the majority of my life, war was fought overseas – soldiers would leave their homes and family behind for a temporary period of time and return home, and God-willing, safely. But after generations of this experience, it’s very clear that most of us, if not all of us, come back different.
Today, it is not an exaggeration to say that there is a spiritual war on our kids, and for most of us who are becoming more aware of it, have realized this has been going on for generations as well.
But now it’s different.
It’s in our homes.
On our very screens.
It’s in our schools.
The curriculum, some teachers, and a host of administrators.
It’s in our “doctor’s” office.
It is in the middle of one of the most sacred relationships that exist in humanity secondary to parenting – the doctor and the patient.
But the powers that be knew they were doing this.
But I didn’t realize it would feel like I had been on a three-year deployment.
And if I’m honest, it’s been lonely.
Of the 12,000 Webster certified chiropractors, 1,000 board-certified, pediatric chiropractors (CACCP), or 70 of whom achieved the highest distinction in clinical chiropractic care for whole families (DACCP), we are the only ones who accomplished what we did over the last three years.
We were the most vocal.
We took the most arrows.
We started and sustained a top-rated podcast.
We hosted THREE major community impacting events when NO ONE was – The Heart of Freedom.
I am infinitely grateful for the many of you who have been with us through all of it and the many of you who are still here because of it.
To our family, it was a simple mantra “what world is my kid going to inherit from me?”. Back in 2020, we only had Alana – hence the singular “kid”.
But, as I have reconciled and healed so much this year, so many of us are here today because our ancestors had that same mantra, just as my wife and I do.
I shared with you in my last blog that my wife’s grandmother is a Daughter of the American Revolution and her descendants came over to America on the Mayflower. My grandfather fought in World War II. He was one of five men who came over on my father’s side of the family back in the 1940’s. He signed up at 17-years-old to fight in support of the Allied forces, as his family fled totalitarian China.
How many of us have similar stories?
When the craziness of 2020 emerged I could almost smell the tyranny that was about to envelop the planet. Within weeks, the Hippocratic Oath, the Nuremberg Code, and virtually every Civil and Human Rights movement was thrown out the window.
And now it’s completely “normal” for free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, and the freedom to criticize the government to be shut down.
Within weeks, the future freedom of our world was gone and today, we have so many of us silently waiting for those tyrants to just give it back.
To the day I die, I will never fully understand how the world became OK with this.
And earlier this year, it broke me. The weight of it all. And without getting too detailed, I will say I needed real help. My whole family did. And as a result of finishing our Completing, Remembering and Creating Process, I wanted to share with you one more answer to one of the questions that really moved me.
“Who were the three people – outside your family – that had the greatest impact on your life in 2023?”
My answers and it is not an overstatement to say these three individuals saved my family in more ways than one and in the biggest ways that we have EVER been loved, served, and cared for:
1. Hannah Abad. As I shared with you in previous newsletters about the radical healing my wife and I have experienced under her tutelage. The dramatic transformations have catalyzed quantum healing that have not only helped us, but our kids, AND our parents. Her ability to sniff out PTSD re-emerging in my life, calling me to heal its root and beginning the building of a real foundation to build our future, including my ability to serve YOU in a more sustainable and profound capacity. Check out Hannah’s video that we all watched during our latest quarterly meeting:
2. Mike Lopez. Mike has been my coach longer than “Future Generations” has existed. He has seen every high and every low. He has facilitated radical TEAM cohesiveness, personal/professional growth, and a whole host of strategic planning and execution – and largely for me, he has simply been a true north of mentorship, friendship, personal ownership, and brand identity. This man has exemplified for me the highest level of character, values, and truthfully, fatherhood.
3. Irene McCord. Last but not least, my “executive assistant” and true Godsend who headhunted Future Generations for a couple years before I knew how badly I needed her. But from the most simple tasks like helping with our family birthdays, to taking on the ever growing list of HR, marketing, social media, podcast, strategic planning (with how many team members have come and gone over the last several years). She has been simply devoted to the mission, often so far behind the scenes in too many thankless scenarios to be truly appreciated in the ways she should be.
For a good portion of this year, I lost a lot of hope in humanity. We have had so much transition, change, and loss of community. So many key team members moved on, my parents left California all together, and our family (because of my views and mission) has been losing friend groups for almost a decade.
Some friends because we were too radical.
Others because we weren’t radical enough.
You know the deal with today’s Cancel Culture.
But these people reminded me of the HUMANness that has been the cornerstone of how I operate and how WE operate at FG. They also reminded me of the devotion and loyalty that we are all capable of. They have also mirrored for me, culminating just this weekend, the unconditional love and service that I have strived to embody everyday of my adult life.
I couldn’t be more grateful.
I couldn’t feel more blessed.
I couldn’t feel more ready to transmute all of that into more love and service.
I can honestly say they saved my life.
And I can honestly say, they have saved my family’s as well.
After our deployments to Iraq, and after losing some of our closest soldiers, peers, and friends, I used to say that “one can only experience a true LOVE of life if we are challenged to question our mortality”.
I thought I’d never have to face that again.
But this was 2023 for our family AND guess what… that line has held up for ME but I didn’t know it would for my whole family.
We have felt the purest of joy as we have healed.
The depth of possibilities as trauma after trauma loosens its grip on us.
But also the opening of the newest and most exciting chapter of our lives that I am still gratefully hardwired to bless upon you and your families – our community.
Which is how I feel called to end this blog. (Thank you for sticking with me by the way)
Since the age of 17, I have been programmed to SERVE.
I cannot wait to see how this year enriches the next several for me and my family yes, but for all of you.
In the end, if there were a 4th ‘person’ who has contributed to my life in a big way, it would be all of you: Our team and our community of patients. It has been my life’s mission to serve Future Generations in a brick and mortar chiropractic clinic, but also the global community as far as our podcast and other platforms have reached.
I will contribute the rest of my life in service to you in whatever way you choose to be a part of our community and inspire my team to do the same.
Whether you are a new parent with a brand new baby just beginning your journey with us or you have been with us for years, THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart.
Thank you for the esteemed honor to serve.
Thank you for allowing me to bear witness to your own unique MIRACLE we have grown to expect literally EVERYDAY in our world.
Love and appreciate you all ♥️
S