Latest / The Power of Doing What Matters / Calm Inquiry: Jason Saul on Finding a Third Way Through Persistent Pain
Transcript
- Jason Saul: When we have severe pain, it's you're freaking out. Is this ever gonna go away? Is this permanent? How did this happen? What do I need to do? And, so at some point when it becomes chronic, where it's more than a, a month, you need to move out of freak out phase and move into a calm inquiry phase, which is, like, this discovery you're talking about. And so I learned that with you and how to not just be like, "Oh, I'm having pain." You know, you taught us to, say, "Well, that's a signal. That's interesting. Why am I having that?" Jason Saul: Yes. Yeah, so, yeah, I was trained as a lawyer and, when I was in grad school I started focusing on government and thinking about how do we measure things, and how do we know what works. And that was kind of like the recurring theme that came back throughout my life of how do we measure what works through different types of behavioral and social interventions. So I ended up writing books about that and teaching at the University of Chicago now, and then also starting, a consultancy and a data business to measure what works. And so my whole career has been focusing on measuring outcomes. and, when it comes to certain health outcomes some of them are stubbornly difficult to achieve. Which is where you came into the picture, because I was like, this is an outcome I can't solve. I can measure it, but I'm not doing well on it, so, I need a new intervention. And I tried a bunch of interventions that did not, get me to the outcome. Dr. Clayton Skaggs: Yeah, maybe speak a little bit, Jason, to what were some of those interventions you tried? Jason Saul: Yeah. So just to segue from my career of measuring outcomes to my personal health, you know, one of, my one of the outcomes I wanted to achieve was to, get out of back pain. And, I don't even know how I got into back pain, but I wanted to get out of it. Yeah. And it was one of those things where it just, I've been an active, healthy person my whole life. I do have type 2 diabetes, which kinda came out of nowhere, but, found out was hereditary. But otherwise, you know, that's managed and, you know, I've been active and healthy and play tennis and work out and yoga and things like that. And then literally just one day I had this horrible back spasm and it just like, you know, kind of like lightning, through your spine, kinda paralyzing. And, I went and got some physical therapy and then it just became more frequent and frequent to the point where, like, I just, It couldn't stop happening every day. And so I tried a variety of interventions, you know, the, range of protocol that everyone does where you go through physical therapy and then you get, some type of, shot in your back. Whatever those, steroid type of anti-inflammatory shot. I did- Dr. Clayton Skaggs: Epidural? Yeah ... Jason Saul: the epidurals. I did two or three of those and did, Just nothing helped and at, at some point, you know, they recommended surgery, which I regrettably did. And the surgery kinda helped with the back spasms, but then I woke up and had like pain down my left leg. And, like numbness, all the way down to my foot. And I'm like, "Where'd this come from?" And the surgeon's like, "Oh, you know, don't worry about it and it'll go away. It's just inflammation from the surgery. and that happens a lot and it, you know... It'll usually go away within a month or two, and if it doesn't go away within two months then, it'll just be permanent." I'm like, "Wait, what?" He's like, "Yeah, sometimes it just never goes away. It just depends on the patient." And I'm like, "Well, you never told me that. You said this was 98% effective." University of Chicago surgeon, who actually also operated on my mom for the same thing. And, so then, the numbness never went away. And, I had stabbing in my calf, and it was really painful to walk every single day. And I mean, it was, terrible. So, I went through a number of other subsequent interventions, which also didn't work, including a revision surgery, and then all kinds of like medieval stretching machines, and physical therapy, and different shots. And basically, the conclusion of every single person, including like the leading, you know, pain doctor in Chicago, was just like, "You're screwed, kid." You know, pretty much, "Looks like someone messed up the surgery, or there's something wrong with you, or there's some type of scar tissue. But, you know, it's looks like it's gonna be permanent, so, you just have to like, you know, reduce, restrict your mobility, you know, stop traveling as much, spend half the day in, in the swimming pool, and just kind of adapt your lifestyle accordingly." And that was pretty much the conclusion that all the different doctors came to. Dr. Clayton Skaggs: Yeah, I'd forgotten how, complex your story was, and there, there certainly was a lot of uncertainty mixed in there for you. And unfortunately that's a lot of what we hear is, it's similar stories. And that's not to say that surgery isn't a good thing, and sometimes it's really indicated. And, and, yet sometimes it's done on cases that, maybe could've moved in a different direction. So, so tell us a little bit about, what got you to us then. How'd you, come to the institute? Jason Saul: Well, it, it was interesting. I had, at that point, you know, I did two back surgeries, every other type of physical therapy modality that you can think of. And, yeah, everybody's conclusion was there's nothing you can do. It's scar tissue that's built up that's restricting your nerve and irritating your nerve. And, on a just sort of happenstance, I was talking to a friend of mine, whose husband had really bad back pain. He, has had all kind of a lifetime of back pain and arthritis, and he was a former competitive tennis player. And, and his name was Paul, and Paul said, "You know, you should think about reading this book called The Back Mechanic." And, it was by Stuart McGill, who's actually an engineer, not a doctor, as I understand. And so I ordered the book and read it and, it all made sense, but I was like, what am I gonna do about this, right? Like, I could follow some of these stretches and exercises. And then I started looking up and researching who were the leading McGill practitioners in the country and kind of all, all arrows pointed to this place called the Central Institute for Human Performance and Dr. Skaggs. And so I reached out and talked to one of the receptionists who worked for you, who is also a patient, interestingly, and just sort of spoke about the magical solutions that you guys had and how, there's hope and there's, more than just, despair, at the end of the story. And so that's how I came to you and I came down for an initial consultation for a couple days and that was the beginning of the story with us. Dr. Clayton Skaggs: Oh, wonderful. Yeah, so, yeah, Stu McGill, you know, biomechanical, professor at, up in Canada. He and I have done, research for over 20 years, and he's just done a great job with his book, in, in terms of getting the message out there, that there's more to these, these back conditions than, just pain or, structural challenges that, that, that need to be pursued. So his message is, has really been helpful. And, yeah, I remember you, you certainly, had some challenges early on and you're, now about, what, 18 months with us, right, at the institute? Yeah, that's about right. Yeah, and, so maybe speak into a little bit of, what that journey's been about, some, some initial improvements and then, some, you know, some challenges along the way. Jason Saul: Yeah. It's, it's just been, a fascinating and sort of- life-changing experience, and I think honestly an incredible life lesson, right, on a couple levels. One, never, ever give up. Advice my mom gave me when I was a kid, that stayed true to this day. the second sort of life lesson is find the people that are the best in the world at doing something and trust them. And, you know, the third lesson is, you gotta put in the work, right? And she kind of bring those three things together to our initial meeting. And when we first met, you, looked at my MRI and I'm like, "Oh, he's gonna see something, and there's scar tissue- there, and he's, gonna help me figure out how to break up the scar tissue." and you kind of weren't even phased by that. You're like, "Yeah, I saw that MRI. Yeah." "Jason, you're focused on the what, and we need to focus on the why." And I don't really know what you meant by that, but as you explained it, you said that the what is, the place where it hurts, and the why is what's causing it to hurt at that place. And that really was the, I think, the, the frame for the intervention that we went through over these last 18 months, was the why, and like why is that hurting? "Well, it's the scar tissue." Jason, I'm not sure that's what it is, right? There's scar tissue all over the place, and that's a convenient answer, but like why did you get the back pain in the first place? 'Cause you didn't... You weren't born with scar tissue, and you got pain." So, you know, and obviously you couldn't form scar tissue the minute you woke up from surgery in... To 15 minutes. So there's something else that was like, you know, causing that pain. And we went through, a lot of assessments and measurements, which I like, and, I, found it to be so unique and refreshing because the way every other medical professional measures things is limited. They use limited instruments and so it's a very antiquated system. If you think about like heart disease, or risk of a heart attack, the measurement systems start with a stress test, which is like a 1960s era way of thinking of like walk on a treadmill and see what happens. You know? Like clearly we must more have more sophisticated instruments than that. But they're actually still not that good. And the same thing with like a mammogram with my mom, you know, these things missed, breast cancer in her. And so the instrumentation the doctors had used to measure the problems going on in my back were like an MRI or, you know, lift up your leg type of thing. And again, those just didn't offer the insight. And so what was, I think, remarkable about the first time we met was you invented your own measurement instruments, which again, to me, I'm a measurement guy, I, always find fascinating. And I think a lot of times what I've found in my own work is that you can't figure out whether, You have an outcome or how to get to an outcome unless you invent ways to measure the outcome appropriately, and a lot of times people use false proxies or simple metrics like, "Oh, well I trained a bunch of people in my garage on a skill, and now I hope that they get a job." Well, I mean, measuring whether they went through a training program is not the same as measuring if they actually got the job. And similarly, just measuring my MRI or looking at my MRI is not the right measurement to determine how to get to the outcome of reducing back pain. It's just a, a picture. And so the measurements we did, the, What do you call it? What's the acronym for it? The- The Dr. Clayton Skaggs: MBI and the MBI ... Jason Saul: yeah, Dr. Clayton Skaggs: the Movement and Behavioral Imprint, yeah. Jason Saul: Yeah, the Movement and Behavioral Imprint I think is just so novel and innovative as a way of measuring things that were heretofore unmeasurable, right? An MRI can't measure the things that an MBI can. And so the MBI really exposed the issue, which was effectively, a weakness in the left side of my trunk. You showed me how my left shoulder was tilted to the left. And we went through a, a lot of discussion about how this happened and the origin, and then, once we identified that issue, we then went through a series of interventions, from behavioral to, to musculature to neuromuscular and things like that, that, were designed to remedy that intervention, remedy the issue and, get me to, you know, where I wanted to be. So I think it all started with the innovative and frankly, like, really, remarkable invention of how to measure things differently that you have developed, which opened up a new pathway medically for me because the only other... Since the only measurement was MRI, the only options were physical therapy or surgery, and those just weren't appropriate. And so you found a third way. You invented a new measurement tool, and you opened up a whole new third way for me, and I can talk about that, that pathway that we went down together a minute. But I just wanted to, stay for a moment and talk about I think what's most remarkable about your diagnostics. And my father, who was a, a physician for, 50 years, a neurologist and pediatrician, used to say, "Jason, you know, the mark of an excellent physician is how good a diagnostician they are. Anybody can write prescriptions, but how good are they at diagnosing?" And I think that's the thing that was just so, special about you, Dr. Skaggs, is you're just a remarkable diagnostician and what's made you your ability to innovate and invent new instruments to help you do that. And, so I think that, that was the beginning of, how we got this resolved was starting with that diagnosis and starting with the measurements. Dr. Clayton Skaggs: Oh, well, well, thank you, Jason. And that is our focus of, what we try to do there at the institute is assessment and that, that did start with, some of my individual work and now it's our whole team where we, we focus on, that why and focus on assessments because assessments allow us to know. They allow us to know whether someone is moving better, is showing better activation in areas that were weak, allows us to know, that they're actually standing in a better position, giving a better health expression, through, through our visual measures. And I mean, if, we know, then we can give you certainty, the client, the patient certainty that you're okay. And that is, that, that's what's really essential to move down this path when you've had persistent pain, you've had, you know, interventions that haven't worked, is, having a circle that we... like we've talked about, that helps you know you're okay. And, I know we've had a number of discussions relative to that because you, along this path of 18 months, you've saw signals from time to time and, Jason Saul: Oh, yeah Dr. Clayton Skaggs: you know, the measures and, us knowing, help, you know that, "Oh, yeah I'm still getting a little bit of that, that buttock pain but I, I'm okay because I... look how much better I'm moving. Look, how much better I look." So, so, so yeah that, Yeah, is a distinction and important for folks. Jason Saul: And I think, you know, that, that set off a, set us off on the journey, right? 'Cause the measurement was the beginning, but I think, you know, what what stuck with me was when we sat down after those first two days of evaluation and you said, "Listen, Jason, here's the thing. Like, you need to do exactly what I say every single morning and every single night. Don't do anything else. And, if... Trust me, and you follow, this plan, within six months you'll start to feel better. within a year, almost all your pain will go away, and within two years you'll be the GOAT of Jason." I think that was your quote. And, I kind of didn't know whether to believe you or not, but I was like, and I told you, I said, I'm just gonna trust you 'cause I don't have any other person to believe in at this point, and you have a track record." And so I trusted you, and I would say almost to the day, everything you predicted came true. Along those first six months I... it got a little worse, it got a little better, but I still had this pain. And I remember sitting down with you and talking, and I was like, "I'm sitting here and I still have, like, pain down my leg. I wanna say I'm getting better, but I kinda don't know if I am. Some days yes, a little bit, but it's hard to really know." And but I just kept sticking with it, right? And then at about the six-month mark it started to, lessen, the, pain in my buttock, the pain down my left leg, and the numbness in my calf and foot. And and then we started to mix weights in, and I remember there was a moment where you said, "Hey, you know, we can't just do these neuromuscular exercises. You're gonna have to build strength and rebuild certain musculature." And it took me a while to kinda get back into a rhythm of weightlifting and I did. And then at that point, you know, what you write about in your book, The Power of Doing What Matters, is, like, this idea of a phase transition. And, it's really an incredible metaphor, 'cause it's not just in health, it's in life and in your career and in many other aspects of the world. It's an incredible concept. but after six months, really between six months and a year, I had a phase transition and I was like, "Am I gonna have this? Is this ever gonna happen?" 'Cause it's like incremental, sometimes a little less pain, but I'm talking about like 10 to 20%. Then all of a sudden after we started doing the, the weight routine and the exercises, just one day the pain was almost gone. And I'm like, "Whoa, whoa, what just happened?" I mean, it's just mind-blowing. I'm like, "How did this happen," right? And at that point- I realized that the consistency of losing the pain doesn't even matter at this very moment, at six to eight months in. The fact that it could go away means that it could always go away, right? Like, even if it could go away for once, it means it wasn't permanent. And I think that's the big hump people have to get over when your chronic pain is you've had pain for so long, in my case it was, like, five years. You feel like it's permanent, you know? The doctors are telling you it's permanent, so, like, you're mentally, you're burning these neural pathways that are saying, "This is permanent." People are reinforcing those neural pathways. And so the first hump to get over is to believe that it's not permanent. You gotta know some- you gotta have a reason to believe that this can be overcome. And so I think that was the big first hurdle for me. Dr. Clayton Skaggs: I love that. And, and, certainly what you're speaking to there, that belief to know you have the capacity and know you can, cannot have this, control your life is, is, the other word in the book, self-efficacy, right? Yes. we talked about that. And, it does, take, you know, a combination of steps sometimes. We can often alleviate it at the institute, but the real power is, when you're doing things and you see that link that, "Wow, you know, I, just did this, this intense exercise and I was okay," or I, I just woke up th- this morning or I went through the airport and I'm, not having that pain anymore." Boom. and, and just like, how it came on, that isn't one thing. And, it's... and so one thing- Jason Saul: Yeah ... Dr. Clayton Skaggs: it isn't gonna solve it 'cause one thing didn't cause It, it... It was a combination, a, a continuity of things over time that, got you there, and it'll be the same that keeps you doing well and, thriving in the future. Jason Saul: It's true, and I, wanna say something about that, Dr. Skaggs, because it really, it's the team you put together that made the difference and there were three different levels of intervention that we worked on that all synergistically, you know, helped me get to the outcome. The first was, maybe it's more behavioral, but just sitting down with, Melissa, who is the, I guess she's a PT, but, the exercise and, like, physical therapist that we work with on your team. Dr. Clayton Skaggs: Yeah. Jason Saul: And we literally relearned how to walk. You know, we talked about how to walk, and she studied my gait. We looked at, how I'm holding my head. And I'll never forget she had this, like, sort of stinky socks metaphor of, like, you know, pretend you have stinky socks, in front of your face and, like, pull your neck back. we talked about how to sit, during meetings. Sit on the front edge of the chair. Don't sit all the way back. get up every 20 minutes. Walk around. We talked about how to stand, the, Bruegger's. All of these things that, like, are meticulous, careful, direction that is not like a typical physical therapist or a doctor would ever tell you. And so those, those sort of, like, postural and behavioral mechanical pieces were, like, layer one. And, then layer two was, like, the, the neuromuscular exercises we did every morning and every night and doing those exercises repeatedly and adjusting them and technically doing them the right way, which helped reduce inflammation, increase mobility in my hips and different things. And then the third layer was, like, the, the, the weight training. And so it was, like, the combination of those three layers that honestly if we didn't do all three of them, I feel like we wouldn't have gotten to the, promised land. Dr. Clayton Skaggs: Well, that, you know, that's an excellent review of our process, and, it, is, critical and our team is, is extraordinary. There are many of our practitioners have been there 10, 15, and, more years. Melissa's actually a certified athletic trainer, and that's one of the disciplines that we have. We also have physical therapists on staff too. You know, I, just love your, articulation of all that. And, you know, I think your, your compliance has been amazing, and your, discipline with, all those things. And, and maybe speak to how you, do that, how you stay consistent even when you're having signals. Jason Saul: Yeah. It's not easy. I have to say, I, think it's sort of like religion. You know? You gotta believe in God, and then good and bad things are gonna happen in your life, but you gotta sort of have a through line and say, "Just because something bad happened doesn't mean God doesn't exist." And, it, was that belief, I read your book, I researched your work, I met with you, I spent time with you, and I said, "All right. I'm gonna believe in, this religion that Dr. Skaggs is preaching." and I had to believe in it in order to follow this, this level of rigor and commitment, right? I mean, you can't just... And, I have friends that I've referred you, that I've referred to you who, didn't believe in the religion, right? And they stopped after a couple weeks or a month or two. But you gotta believe in the religion, right? And if you believe- in the religion, you're like, "I'm gonna follow this faith, and I'm gonna, you know, do my penance every morning, and every night I'm gonna do this." And you gotta do it through thick and thin. And I remember sitting there at 11:30, 12:00 o'clock midnight in the dark before I went to bed doing these exercises. I remember my kids coming in the morning, at 7:00 o'clock, "Dad, you're still doing the same... You were just doing those last night, Dad. Like, how long are you gonna do this for?" "Guys, we gotta commit to something, and, you know, we gotta see it through." And so it was just day after day, week after week, month after month, and I believed that there was gonna be a phase transition. I believed in you and I believed in your track record, and I, had faith in the methodology, right? And so, like, it took that faith to support that level of commitment. Otherwise, you just, you know, you're just wasting time or you're just chasing a, a, a rainbow. So it was really the faith, Dr. Skaggs, in you and in the method and then, you know, that led me to make the commitment, and it was hard, right? It was hard. After three or four months, I'm like, "Golly, is this, really worth it? What am I doing? I'm not really seeing that much progress," right? And, I was like, "All right. I'm gonna give it a year. I'm not gonna give it six months. I'm gonna give it a year," right? and you have to give it enough time, and I think that's... People are so impatient. They just wanna go get surgery, myself included, or they just want it to go away or get a shot. And there are certain things about your body that are just not quick fixes. and I think as you had told me that, you know, it took you 30, 40 years to get to this place. It's not gonna take three or four days to get out of it. And I mean, that was a really powerful statement. Dr. Clayton Skaggs: Yeah. Yeah, thanks. And, what you're speaking to there for sure is trust, and, it does at some point with our work require that, because it's a lot of new, concepts. It's certainly contrary to, a, a lot of what's still happening within medicine, care for persistent pain issues. But in, in a lot of, in a lot of medical approach as well. Well, that, that's a great setup, for, our reading this, this week. And, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna go ahead and read this, this short poem that I wrote this week on, What Happened?, and I hope that'll spur even a few other- Sure ... stories or comments. What happened? I have a signal of pain. I have a signal of pain after not having it for months. I no longer have a signal of pain. What happened? I did not make the team. I made the team. I got fired from the team. What happened? I gained three pounds of muscle. I gained 3% body fat. I played golf without back pain. What happened? I won. I played the game. I lost. What happened? I did my breathing practice consistently for six weeks. I feel muscles working in ways I never have felt. A balloon popped. I barely flinched. What happened? Someone who wasn't sick died. Someone who was sick and supposed to die didn't. Someone who was sick got better. What happened? I had an amazing training session. I had a very undesirable training session. My training session was okay. What happened? I have a herniated disc in my back. I have knee pain. My stomach hurts. What happened? I focused on myself. I focused on others. I slept well. What happened? I saw extraordinary colors in the sky. Someone that I did not expect to open the door for me. It rained. What happened? Stay in discovery mode. Stay awake. All right. Well Probably a few that we could, circle around there . Jason Saul: Yeah. I mean, I was thinking about this, and I, read it, last night on, on the way back to Chicago, and, a lot of your teachings go back to a childlike form of inquiry, right? Like the way that we sat on our back as a child, the way we rolled over, our mannerisms, our behaviors, and, even this childlike inquiry of, like, spill a glass of water on the table and your grandson was like, "Oh, what happened?" Dr. Clayton Skaggs: Right. Right. Jason Saul: And, he wasn't blaming anybody. He wasn't blaming himself. He was just sort of this open-minded inquiry of, "Oh, what happened there?" Right? No one cried or freaked out, and the mom was very calm in her response. And so, you know, in, that same metaphor here, you know, you were very calm when we first met, and I'm like, "What happened? What happened, Dr. Skaggs?" You're like, "Okay, you know, don't blame yourself. Don't blame the scar tissue. Don't blame the surgery." Like, let's engage and figure this out. And, I think that we, have a very, like, easy trigger for stress response and anxiety around pain. And particularly when the pain doesn't go away, it's like, "Oh my God, what's going on? What happened?" I remember- you know, early on after the surgery I had and I, my leg was numb and I'm like, "What happened? What happened, doctor? When's this gonna go away?" You know? I was like, "This can't be." And, I mean, you realize that's not gonna solve that. It's gonna make it worse, and you gotta stay calm, and you have to just have this kind of calm sense of discovery, inquiry of like, that's interesting. I, wonder why- that's happening," right? and it takes a level of maturity, and frankly, a support team like you guys to be able to make that inquiry without freaking out because, we are all freaking out, right? When we have severe pain, it's you're freaking out. Is this ever gonna go away? Is this permanent? How did this happen? What do I need to do? And, so at some point when it becomes chronic, where it's more than a, a month, you need to move out of freak out phase and move into a calm inquiry phase, which is, like, this discovery you're talking about. And so I learned that with you and how to not just be like, "Oh, I'm having pain." You know, you taught us to, say, "Well, that's a signal. That's interesting. Why am I having that?" And, actually it led to a, a diagnostic, you know, revelation for me, which was like, "Why am I having this numbness down my leg?" And I realized that every time I flew on an airplane, I got off the airplane, my whole leg was numb. I was like, "Huh, maybe this has to do with sitting." and then I kept thinking about, every time I sit in the car for a long period of time, or I'm sitting in a chair and I wake up, my, my leg is more numb, so maybe there's something going on there and it has to do with this sort of like weak trunk stability or like weakness in the, in, in the glutes, which maybe my lower back is recruiting those weak glutes to overwork. And, you know, we just began to do the inquiry, and then we did some trial and error with the weights and with the different exercises. And that calm inquiry allowed us to have the, range of discovery and trial and error to hit the target. And I think that your, beautiful metaphor about hitting the target is so right because when you first told me that, I'm like, "But how are we gonna hit the target? We can't even hit the target. How do you know what the target is? Where is the target?" How are we gonna get close? Are we gonna miss it? Where are we gonna go? How do we know if we hit it, you know? And I mean, we could be hitting it, but I'm still in pain. Then what, you know? And, so it was just that whole, like, methodology of inquiry, of a series of so sort of Socratic questions, which frankly I learned in law school, of like, wonder where this pain came from. Wonder what's triggering this. Wonder what it's correlated to. And again, like the whole support system that you've built empowered me to be able to do that. 'Cause it's easy to say, "Just stay calm. Just, you know, say, 'Huh, wonder where that came from?'" It's easy to say that, Dr. Skaggs, right? It's hard to do it without a support system, and you guys provided an amazing support system to enable us to do that. Dr. Clayton Skaggs: Great. Thank, thank you, Jason. And, I, love calm inquiry. That's, that's a great, We might, we might use that. And, you know, the, getting back to the, the trust factor and, really letting go, I mean, that, that is our, that's our pursuit along these tracks with clients is to create enough trust to allow them to have calm inquiry, to let the resilience come through because it, is... It's within every case, every, every client that we have, the potential is in there. And, to get them to the point where they can have that peace, have that space to, discover on their own, to discover what we've been talking about, is really the game changer. And, I, just... I think your words are really gonna be powerful for folks. And maybe for our listeners, share now that, you know, you are, you know, you're traveling around. You know, I think in our last encounter you said, "I, you know, I'm going on these trips," and you, travel a lot, and, "and I'm not having pain anymore." you're, you're doing, great. Jason Saul: Yeah. I mean, you know, it's one of those things where you pray for the time when you can actually do a podcast and claim victory and say that, you know, we're 95% there. And it's, an extraordinary moment to sit here with you, Dr. Skaggs, and actually say, "Yeah," like, "I think we're, I think we won." And, so, Yeah, I, mean, I remember traveling to Hong Kong to teach at the University of Chicago campus there, and traveling with my son and, I got off the plane and I couldn't walk. My leg was so numb, almost completely numb, and I'm walking with stabbing pain in my calf, and I'm like, "I just... This can't be my life," right? And, now, I can get off the plane and I can walk with almost no pain. And, I can even see the gradations of improvement along the way with certain exercises and strength building we're doing. But, you know, I've made adaptations. I bring, like, a cushion that I sit on during the plane flight to kind of buffer some of the, impact and, you have to keep doing the exercises, and I swim and I work out and, but yeah, I am walking pain-free. And, it is a, glorious moment to, to be able to say that, and I will give you 100% of the credit for that. I did the work, but without that guidance, without the support system that you've built, which is really stunning, it never would have happened. I would still be sitting here, still walking around in pain, draining my energy, reducing my, my ambition for life and for family and for professional accomplishment. All of these things were... It was a drag on all those things. And I'm like, "This can't be my life," right? And, you gotta put your faith in someone and find people and, you know, I, pray that there will be 100 more Dr. Skaggs, and I hope that you can replicate what you've learned and bring it to the world because I cannot tell you how many people are sitting there in agonizing pain that could easily have a solution for 10% of the cost of what they're paying for these surgeries and all of these physical therapy sessions that go on forever, once a week for 30 minutes or an hour, never do anything. And, there's so much, misinformation out there, and frankly, misguidance from surgeons who, are negligent in telling you that they have a 98% success rate. And, so I, think there's a, a moral duty, for your patients, to go and spread the gospel that, there is, there's truth here and there's a path. And frankly, for the medical system Both the government and insurance companies to realize that there's a much more cost-effective way to get to this outcome. And if you look at the cost per outcome, which is a concept I use in my work, the cost per outcome of working with you was fractional compared to the cost per outcome of these surgeries and actually getting no outcome. So the cost was even higher 'cause it was a cost per no outcome. So, I mean, really just hats off to you for the tremendous accomplishments, in your field, and, I'm proud to be a, a graduate and, and an ongoing, you know, student of your work. Dr. Clayton Skaggs: Well, well, thanks. Thank you, Jason. and, I'm just gonna add that you know, we've won and, or maybe we're winning. Jason Saul: Yeah. Dr. Clayton Skaggs: and, there's, there's, still more to do to working towards that greatest of all time for Jason. Jason Saul: Yeah. Dr. Clayton Skaggs: and, and yeah, we're probably moving into your master's degree in, Jason Saul: in, Dr. Clayton Skaggs: in your pain literacy and, resiliency, certification. and, I think you'll... you're, getting closer and closer to that, I don't even think about, my back or leg issues anymore, so, that's exciting. Very exciting. Jason Saul: It really is. I'm so grateful, and I, Dr. Skaggs, I hope people can hear this message, and I hope, we can help so many more people because, you know, there's, a lot of people that could benefit from this, and it's... and I'll just, you know, I just wanna add that, like, you're practicing a very different kind of medicine than what is typically seen and, the typical medical interventions are very binary, right? Here's biologic, take this prescription, take this drug, take this steroid, or here's this knife, and we're gonna cut you open and cut off this piece of your disc or something. Those binary options are really, limited in a world of AI and new dimensions and non-linear thinking, and you're introducing a third way, a, a different way of mixing, lots of different disciplines of medicine together to, provide a really novel intervention. And frankly, you know, the most, I think extraordinary thing is a novel measurement system that is leading to different types of interventions that wouldn't otherwise be obvious. and so I really hope that you'll bring your learnings to the broader field of medicine and disrupt and transform the way people are doing things 'cause it's, expensive, it has bad outcomes, and people are suffering. None of those things are good. Dr. Clayton Skaggs: Well, you know I agree with all the things you said, Jason, for sure, and we've had a number of conversations on moving this to, you know, the, more folks, 100 million people doing what matters, of, course, is, my phrase. And, we, hope to get these measures in other practitioners' hands, down the road so, so they know whether a client or patient is, better or not. And, that's really, the only way to, move forward in, these cases if, is if you know. And, then if you, the practitioner, know that someone is actually standing better, moving better, getting stronger, getting less inflamed, then, then they'll know. Then they'll be more certain and, can get out of the way and, build a robust life. Yeah. Jason Saul: That's absolutely right. Dr. Clayton Skaggs: Well, thanks so much, Jason. really appreciate it. And, I know you're, you've got a lot going, and so for you to take the time is, is really a, a compliment to, me and the team. And, certainly have enjoyed, working with you and going down this journey. Jason Saul: Yeah. It's a pleasure. It's a pleasure. I'm happy to do it. [Outro] The Power of Doing What Matters podcast. Imagine 100 million people doing what matters. 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