EPISODE SUMMARY
Guest: Dr. Al Cobb
Dr. Al Cobb talks about growing up as the youngest of 5 children in Knoxville, Tennessee. His passions were sports and Christian ministry. He played quarterback in College and acquired a Bachelor of Arts in Biology from the Virginia Military Institute. After graduating from Virginia Military Institute, he moved to Knoxville, Tennessee to be on staff with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Christian Ministry was and still is his passion.
His career in ministry came to a halt after he had a panic attack, and it spiraled very quickly into depression, anxiety, and what most people will call depersonalization or disassociative type of tendencies. This led to a journey of seeking solutions for healing, including nutrition, counseling and, eventually, chiropractic.
At Life University in Atlanta, Dr. Cobb decided to learn as many chiropractic techniques as possible and took a lot of seminars, including a Blair Primary Seminar taught by Dr. Gordon Elder of the Blair Chiropractic Clinic. After the seminar, Al Cobb and Watson Fondren started the Blair Club at Life University, which is still growing and thriving.
Dr. Cobb says: “ Essentially everybody is as different on the inside as we are on the outside, and even the left and the right are not the same. This is what Dr. Elder was explaining. Then the brilliant mind that Dr. Blair had to be able to start to figure out how we take that concept and apply it to be as specific as possible. I loved the nature of the technique that, one, I could still use my hands, and two, that I could be gentle and specific. It was very congruent with my values because I don't like to see people for the rest of my life. I don't think that there are different opinions on this, but if I needed to adjust you for the rest of my life, am I doing a good job?
Dr. Cobb’s advice for starting to heal: You have to accept your brokenness.but realize that help is available, and then tell someone and seek help.
Dr. Cobb practices the Blair Upper Cervical Technique serving the Communities of West Texas and Eastern New Mexico in Lubbock, TX at the Blair Chiropractic Clinic.
To contact Dr. Al Cobb:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/al.cobb.35
Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/alcobb51/?hl=en
E-mail: drcobb@blairclinic.com
To contact Ruth, go to https://www.blairclinic.com
ruth@blairclinic.com
https://www.facebook.com/rutelin
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Welcome, welcome, welcome to What Pain In the Neck, the podcast. Today, I'm here with a special guest, Dr. Al Cobb. Welcome.
Hello. Hello. It's good to be here.
Yes, it's great to have you here. I'm really excited about doing this interview and finding out more about you.
Yes, I'm excited too.
Why don't you start by introducing yourself and your background?
All right. My name is Dr. Al Cobb. I am a board-certified chiropractor here in the state of Texas.
You're not from Texas, where are you from originally?
I'm not from Texas. I am from the great state of Tennessee.
That's where you're born and raised?
I am. I will insert Go Vols into that statement. I grew up in Middle Tennessee, small town. I'm the youngest of five. We all grew up playing sports and-
What sports did you play?
I played pretty much all of them. I was soccer, baseball, football, basketball. I eventually found my love for football. Being the youngest, I was always around the sports fields, all around the sports complexes growing up, so sports was a massive part of my life. Got a chance to play football in college at the Virginia Military Institute.
What made you choose that college, or did they choose you?
The biggest portion of it was that they were going to pay for my college, so I was on a full-ride scholarship there.
Excellent.
Mom really wanted me to have the degree from VMI. It's an amazing institute. I learned tons of things, learned how to be a person of integrity and character, at the Virginia Military Institute because being a military college we ran ourselves on an honor code, a single sanction honor code. If you had one offense that you were found guilty of you were dismissed from school.
Oh, wow.
That's lying, cheating, you're stealing, you're tolerating anybody who does. That was a very formative season of my life.
It taught you to discipline.
It did. It taught me discipline, work ethic, time management, and how to work together on a team.
When you were there, what was your degree? Now you're a doctor, did you always want to be a doctor and work in healthcare?
Oh, no, I had no idea I would want to, I thought I would work more on soul care.
Soul Care, what does that mean?
Soul care. I have a Bachelor of Arts in Biology from the Virginia Military Institute, and I thought that I would want to be in ministry for my whole life. I wanted to be a pastor and in senses, I still am. I help people with their souls, I give people hope and encouragement.
It's a little bit false dichotomy to divide the soul and the body.
Absolutely.
If you're-- well, chiropractic talks a lot about thoughts affecting the body and vice versa.
Yes. Anything you do to the body, you do to the soul, and vice versa. It's an important dichotomy that can't be missed.] We've all experienced this when someone's sick and hurting their soul is not the same either.
Then you actually had an intimate-- you experienced this yourself?
Yes.
You were doing ministry?
Yes. I left the Virginia Military Institute and moved to Knoxville, Tennessee to be on staff with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. I did small-scale ministry at a high school in Knoxville, and also with the University of Tennessee baseball team and on campus there. Mentoring young men and young students, teaching them what it looks like to follow Christ here in the world, and to make decisions that are wise.
That was your passion?
Oh, that was definitely my passion. I loved it and I still love it. I was meeting with the young man this morning about just some things that he was going through and disciplining him in Christ. I still love it. It's still my passion. It's actually my story how I got in chiropractic.
Why don't you tell that story? You already set it up of about how soul and body goes together. You had an experience with your body where your soul didn't do what you-- basically, you weren't yourself, right?
Right. I wasn't.
Why don't you tell that story?
It's oftentimes that we're not ourselves when we're suffering. I'll tell the story. It was the summer. I had just finished about one year in ministry and had a ton of stress on me, and was not making good decisions with my body. I was eating very horribly, not taking care of myself with movement or exercise, and I was just running myself into the ground with the ministry, which is very common in the world now.
Basically, you were eating fast food and not exercising and not resting, is what I'm hearing.
That's exactly right.
That's how I'm interpreting what they're saying.
Me and the rest of America, I think. That's exactly what had happened. Then eventually there were some other life circumstances that I'll keep personal, but I eventually had a panic attack and it spiraled me very quickly into depression, anxiety, and what most people will call depersonalization or disassociative type of tendencies.
I want to ask you a little bit more about that if that's all right?
Sure.
When you say panic attack, can you describe what was going on in your body, and what was it like? Then you can take it on to some of the more long-term effects. First talk about when you say panic attack, what is attack? What is it actually?
Oh, it's an attack.
Give the details.
I was having a conversation and in an instant, in my mind, I perceived a couple of lies in my head. One that I made a horrible decision, two, that I can't make good decisions. In that instant my blood pressure spiked, my heart rate really increased. I started to have chills all over my body. I felt like my blood pressure was skyrocketing and started getting really hot flashes, and it felt like I was sick just in an instant.
How long did this last?
That only lasted for several hours, I think. What ensued was what really got me. If anyone that listens this knows me, I've never been a person that has stressed, I've never been a person that you can look at the stress on their face or want to panic about anything. I've always been even keel and being a quarterback in college, I had to be. I was very laid back, very relaxed, so this was very new to me.
I had that moment of panic, and then it spiraled me over the next months and year or two into what I mentioned earlier, depression, anxiety, and what we call depersonalization. I was never diagnosed formally.
Again, can you describe what your life was like, what your brain was like, what day to day, what were you living with? What was it actually like?
It was hard to get up, first of all, because it was hard to sleep. It was very impossible for me to fall asleep. I would sleep just maybe two or three hours a night because I would lay in my bed and just ruminate on horrible decisions or ruminate on the future, fearing the future, fearing decisions I would have to make, and fearing what it would look like in the future. Then also fearing the mess that I've got going on in my life. Now how am I going to get out of it?
Did you tell anyone? Did you seek help?
Yes, I did. I told the people that I lived with. I told my immediate superiors at work, so they knew exactly what was going on, but they couldn't help me because it was hard for me to understand it for myself then also to explain it in a way that others could understand it. Which I think is a lot of where the mental health crisis comes from in the world that we don't know how to communicate it or perceive it from others.
Then also knowing what to do. You found some kind of solution?
Sure. It took a long time.
Why don't you describe what the journey was to get out of it? The journey for me, it started knowing, one, and you can have your own opinions on this. I didn't, for myself, want to have any antipsychotic or antidepressant medications because I didn't think that it would be beneficial for me, so I decided not to do that. I started to look any and everywhere to help my own body. There was no help that I found in going to the medical doctors, I didn't really get any benefit from that. Again, that's just my personal story, butI decided to just really start to research. I listen to podcasts like this one.
Okay. [laughs]
I listened to tons of TED talks, I probably listened to 50 plus TED talks on the topic of gut health and how it affects the mental state of the brain and stress physiology. I started to really become a nerd for all that stuff because I was suffering. When you're suffering, you'll do pretty much anything to find out what's going on.
Okay, so did you try all the things?
I tried a whole lot, I switched my diet up, different diets, keto, vegetarian, vegan, carnivore, I've done a whole lot of different things. The biggest things that helped me were, one, my faith. I think that was massive, understanding how people communicate and experience suffering because your perception of that suffering will determine a lot of how you walk through it, and if you can walk through it gracefully. I started counselling, that was massive for me.
That was helpful to you?
Yes, to be able to communicate how I felt with someone who was trained to be able to help me, and steer me in the right direction and really just listen. I'm still friends with my counsellor from Knoxville. He was the last person I met with on the way out of Knoxville coming here to Lubbock. It was very formative for me. I would also say, movement became very important.
The food that I ate, I started to eat whole foods, shopping in the farmer's market because that was what I started to realize. I started to realize too how the gut, how the stomach and the intestinal lining played a massive role in that conversation too. A lot of that led me to start pursuing how to live a holistic lifestyle as opposed to just finding remedies to help in a moment. I was trying to work out as much as possible and then one day, I threw my back out. Thankfully, I knew a chiropractor who had helped us with a lot of things in the ministry there in Knoxville.
You used to go into a chiropractor's?
Yes, I had never gone to a chiropractor before.
You had just met one?
Yes, this was 2018.
That was your first experience with chiropractor?
2018, yes.
Wow, and here we are in 2023 and [unintelligible 00:12:42]
Yes, five years ago.
Okay, wow.
It has been five years.
Just tell that story.
This chiropractor, very focused on holistic health, and very like-minded in that sense that the body is designed to heal and the body is intelligently created, all you got to do is relieve the interference, whether it be emotional, physical-
Wait, wait, you threw your back out?
Yes, I threw my back out working out.
He put your back in but now you're talking holistic health. You're talking about, you went to him for back pain but now you're talking holistic health, so how does that fit together?
I went in there because I'm like, "Man, I got to fix this." He started to explain to me, like I just said that the body is created to heal itself if you remove the interference. That's all I had been learning up until that point, through the podcasts, through the YouTube videos, through TED talks, through the books I had been reading, that was all I had been learning. When he started to say that to me, I was like, "This is exactly pulling all of it together." That was the last piece of the healing the nervous system.
He adjusted you and your back felt better?
Yes, he didn't just adjust my back, they took a full picture of the nervous system and just like we do in the office, you come in and we look at your nervous system. That's all we're trying to do, is maximize the nervous system and optimize your health through helping you adapt to the external environment. That's all that they did, a very light technique. He adjusted my atlas, of course through that technique.
The atlas is the top bone in the neck?
Yes, sorry.
The first one right underneath your skull?
Yes, ma'am. That was the beginning of the rest of my life when it comes to health because that was the moment the lightbulb came on in me and I started to realize the body is this extremely intelligent organism, that is impossible to address just one thing at a time. Also at the same time, if you don't address the nervous system, you'll never find the results and healing that are possible for you because you're not getting to the root of that issue.
When you said the lightbulb came on, so, your lightbulb moment, do you care to elaborate about that?
Yes, and just like I said, I had been researching and reading and learning. I was trying to do all of these things to help my body, whether it be probiotics, or other herbs, or supplements, or just mindfulness or counselling, but then I realized there's a reason for all of this, and there's probably likely a root issue that has it's home in the nervous system. Now my body is just on fight or flight trying to survive. Now I just need to figure out how to let my body go back to the state of rest, and ease and adaptability.
You're saying getting your atlas adjusted did that for you?
Yes.
That's what it took to put it together?
Yes, the last puzzle piece.
Can you tie some of what you went through in reverse of that? Have you had trauma to that area?
Yes, absolutely, in playing quarterback in college.
I don't know how you could play football and not traumatize your neck.
Yes. I don't know, I would say probably not. Anytime you have a neck injury, you're going to have a brain injury, because it's going to stretch and rattle that nervous tissue in the brain and that's sitting in the school. That's one of those things, and I honestly, I think back and I can remember taking a soccer ball to the head just several weeks before my panic attack. It could have been something-
That could have been the final throw, yes. Okay.
Absolutely. I've had concussions in the past and neck injuries, and we know the effect that it has. We hear all the stories in the Blair world about people with post concussion syndrome and have depression and anxiety and then they start to get adjusted, it's like the lights come back.
Yes, absolutely. We do have actually, stories of people saying, "You need to go and see the chiropractor for an attitude adjustment." I agree with you, it's what we see day in and day out, people start to heal up from all things that a lot of people don't think of is connected with chiropractic. Most of the people that we see that heal up don't go and become chiropractors. Why don't you tell how you got from there to there. [laughs]
Yes, so as I continue to go to the chiropractor, and I was still in my healing journey, I eventually decided, "Hey, I've got to figure this thing out on my own and it's impossible for me to stay in ministry as I'm continuing to try to pour out, when I don't have anything that's being poured into me." I was running myself on this loop and running myself ragged trying to continue to serve these kids and walk with them in hard seasons of life when I was in a very, very dark and hard season of my life as well.
The Lord was gracious to me and provided a way to slowly transition out of ministry. I didn't have really anything planned for what was next. I decided to trust the path that was in front of me. Eventually, I had considered other career paths. I had tons of connections in Knoxville from my roles there and from connections that I had made, but I really, really wanted to help people. I wanted to help people that were in my situation that were suffering and hurting.
I looked into sports psychology programs and got denied at the University of Tennessee, gratefully, because I started to shadow the chiropractor that I had been seeing there in Knoxville. I shadowed him once and I said, "Hey, I'm going to come back tomorrow," and then three months later, I was still there.
[laughs] Just hanging out in his office..
Yes. Sitting at the front desk, helping people check in, starting to watch them adjust, and learn why they adjust, and how they take X rays, and what those look like, and what it could possibly look like to help people as they're walking through their care plans. I became a big advocate of chiropractic at that point. I eventually sat down with my chiropractor, he mentored me very well and I told him what I had passions for. I said, "I want to help people that are suffering and I want to love them well and serve them." I also want to do it holistically and I would love to do some type of counseling or physical therapy or training or something like that. He said, "Hey, you can do all those things as a chiropractor." I sat back in my chair and said, "You know what? That sounds all right to me.
[laughs] Okay.
Within the week probably, I applied to chiropractic school, and gratefully I had a degree in biology, and so I didn't have to have any more prerequisites done. I applied to Life and, yes.
Life College of Chiropractic--
Yes. Life University--
In Atlanta.
In Atlanta.
Yes. Okay.
Because it was only a four-hour drive for me, I wanted to stay close to my family. I did a leadership weekend with them, which is where you come in just to see if it would be something that you are interested in. You tour the campus and you spent some time there. They teach you what chiropractic is and what it would look like to be a student there and what your future could look like serving patients. I got to share my story of why I would possibly like being a chiropractor.
They stood up with a microphone, they pretty much made everybody do it, and I said, "I don't know if I really want to come to school. I don't know why I'm doing this. I don't know what the next steps look like for me." I shared my story and why I wanted to help people who were suffering and hurting. Afterwards, someone came up to me, and was very interested in my story because they went through something very similar.
At that point I said, "Dang, I've got to be a chiropractor, don't I?" That was it. That was it for me. I came back and said, "I'm going to be a chiropractor. I'm going to go to school." Within two months I was in school.
You were in school, and then all of a sudden three and a third year goes by and then you graduate.
That's all right. Yes.
Do you want to say something about that journey?
Yes. I can fly through that journey. I got to school, interestingly enough, I moved to Atlanta pretty much one year to the day from my panic attack. I think that was very significant to say-
It was a fresh start.
Yes, it's a fresh start. Yes. It's been a year. I'm healing and I'm continuing to move forward.
Yes, and you, not only were healing, but you were setting yourself on the path of helping others heal.
Yes. Absolutely. I started school there. I had obviously ideas of chiropractic, being around a chiropractor for eight months at that point, and really invested for about four months. I had ideas of what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it, but the best advice I was given was go experience everything at school, and the best thing about it-
You tried all the different techniques and learned, took all the seminars.
Oh, yes. I probably took 10 to 20 seminars within the first five or six months of school because COVID shut it down in about eight months in. I took every seminar I could go to. I went to every club I could possibly go to because it's important to know what you like and what you don't like, but also you'll pick things up along the way that--
What you're saying is you learn something from all of them?
Yes.
A lot of people listening to this don't know even that there are different-
Oh, yes.
-techniques within chiropractor?
There are hundreds.
Yes. Although maybe people are listening to this show may have figured that out by now. Somewhere along the way you ended up with what's called the Blair technique?
Yes.
Why is that?
When I first got to school someone was mentioning upper cervical chiropractic, and I knew that it had to be important or else people wouldn't just adjust one bone or just several bones at the top of the neck for the health of the whole entire body and spine. I knew it was somewhat important, and then I decided to eventually get to something like that. I even wrote down-- I came across a note that I had in my iPad the other day. It was like my future practice goals or dreams.
One of them was finding upper cervical technique that I liked. It was important for me to go back and see that, because now I can see how far I've come, and I actually found that one technique that I like. I was talking with someone there on campus and he said, "Hey, man, check out these couple of techniques." Thankfully they're only like seven or eight chiropractic techniques that are upper cervical specific. Blair being one of them, I looked in the knee chest, which is a different technique and great technique, but not for me.
I didn't like that one as much, but eventually I ran into a Blair chiropractor who is not as strict on the Blair principles anymore, but still very strict on the fact that this is how we adjust the upper cervical spine, and this is why we adjusted that way. He started explaining to me. A buddy of mine, Watson Fondren, who was one of my roommates, and eventually helped start the Blair Club on campus with me, he said we got to go to a seminar. I honestly was hesitant to do that, and he booked his trip up and I was thinking to myself, "Well, I've got to book my trip now.
Is that competitive side of you?
Yes. That's exactly it. Watson and I flew in, I think it was the end of 2020, we flew from Atlanta to Colorado and ended up in John Steinberg office there which is Zenith.
Yes.
Zenith there in Colorado Springs. That's where I actually met Dr. Elder. He was teaching the seminar there that weekend. This was two and a half, three years ago, I guess likely two and a half. About two and a half years ago is when I first met Dr. Elder. I tell that story all the time because it's full circle now. We got there and had an amazing weekend at the primary seminar, the first level of seminar that we do here at the Blair Technique. The light bulbs came on again.
I was like, "Well, you're telling me that everybody's created differently and then that same person is created differently to where we need to really analyze these structures in the neck."
Yes. Essentially everybody is as different on the inside as we are on the outside, and even the left and the right is not the same?
Yes. That's exactly what Dr. Elder was explaining. Then the brilliant mind that Dr. Blair had to be able to start to figure out how do we take that concept and apply it to be as specific as possible? I loved the nature of the technique that, one, I could still use my hands, and two, that I can be gentle specific. It was very congruent with my values because I don't like to see people for the rest of my life. I don't think that, there are different opinions on this, but if I needed to adjust you for the rest of my life, am I doing a good job?
Are you really fixing something? Yes.
Am I doing a good job and am I trusting that the body is intelligent? Self-organizing and self-maintaining and that it can heal itself as if there's no interference? As opposed to you come in every week for your really expensive Advil. That's not what I wanted to do.
Yes. What you're saying is you want to fix it and then leave it alone.
Leave it alone. That was November of 2020, and then the next quarter, thankfully we had a couple of Blair chiropractors and professors on campus, and there was already a club on campus years prior. All we did, Watson and I went to the professor that was a Blair chiropractor, and we said, "Hey, we wanna start this club and we've got to do this." Now it's a very booming club on campus.
You started something, yes.
Started something. I knew I wouldn't finish it, but I started something and I knew that I would find some attraction on campus. Now there that has bloomed into a very blossoming club there on campus. People are learning the Blair technique in school more often now just because we wanted to selfishly train it ourselves.
Yes. Maybe because of some of your efforts the current students don't have to travel all the way to Colorado Springs from Atlanta.
That's right. That's right. Yes.
Okay. You're from Tennessee and you went to school four hours away, and here you are in Lubbock, Texas.
Yes. That's right. That's an interesting journey. I got out of chiropractic school-- At the end of it, you have to do an internship. I did my internship in Knoxville because I wanted to be back in Knoxville for various reasons. I thought I would be able to practice the Blair technique with the clinic that I was doing my internship with, and through just a varying circumstances, it ended up being different than what I thought it would be. I wanted to do the Blair technique primarily, and that didn't really go with the congruency of the office, and that's okay. I think we should all evaluate our decisions based off of that, especially here in the clinic, we are all congruent as well, so it wasn't a bad decision. I think it was wise. I decided to start a little clinic on my own in Tennessee. I was referring out for imaging and starting to grow a little bit of clientele and really enjoyed it because I was able to see some clients there and really help them and change their lives a little bit. I felt very good about that.
One thing just kept coming up to me in my mind as I was going through that, and it was, man, it would just be so much easier if I was able to learn this alongside someone. I wanted to be an associate. I wanted to take the time and submit to the authority and the structure of someone else watching over my shoulders, especially--
Yes, the mentorship, there's so much, they don't teach you-
So much.
-in school once real life happen, it's like business and hard cases and just onslaught and Medicare and auto accidents. It's just one thing after another.
Don't get me wrong, there was-- I think I'm pretty good at what I do. I really think that.
You are, and I agree with that.
I had trained it for over two years at that point, and I had a lot of access to a lot of the same tools that we have here in the office, but being an athlete, I would've never gotten to the level that I was playing in college if I never had someone training me.
Yes, so being in an associateship is like hanging out with your coach.
Yes. It's exactly it.
All right, and that teamwork.
Every Monday we're here training, we're doing the adjustments. We're pretty much watching the film going back saying, "Hey, you could have done this better." That's taken my skills from what I thought were pretty good to even another level, and I know that there's even more levels now.
Oh, yes. There's more levels, and also even day-to-day, you look at the CT scans together, you need to collaborate pretty much on every single case. That's exciting.
Yes, and I love that because now I get to serve people in a community that I've really grown to love over the last seven weeks that I've been here, and I get to learn from one of the best in the field which is Dr. Elder.
Dr. Cobb, I love your story. I would like to schedule another interview soon where we talk, where I hear about stories of what you've seen as a doctor. What have you been able to accomplish, and some of your favorite stories. We'll save that for episode two, I think. Before I do that, one thing I really want to say, I want to circle back. What would you say to a young man or woman that has been successful, they're on track, they've maybe done athletics, or maybe it's music or theater.
They do what they love, they're serving their community, and then all of a sudden life falls apart. Mentally or physically, it could be anxiety attack, depression, or maybe, I don't know, migraines. Physical or mental pain, all of a sudden life falls apart, what would you say to that person?
Oh, man. I would say to accept it, to accept the hardships that are coming, accept where you are, and learn how to walk through that.
You're saying the first step in healing is to accept that you're broken?
I would say that, I would say for me it was-- I could have denied where I was. I could have denied the reality of the situation, but accepting where I was and what had gone on and how I had moved forward, because you can't move forward from a spot where you don't think you are.
Actually, that's a really important point. I do see that a lot of people that I talk to, obstacle to healing is almost like they gaslight themselves. They're saying, "Oh, I just probably have slept wrong or--"
Absolutely.
Or maybe I need a new pillow or something like that.
Yes, and I could've swept it under the rug, and I probably would've gotten out of it some way, but I'm sure I would've been right back in it. I think you also have to accept that this is where I am, and now I can move forward because--
Both of those are important.
You have to accept your brokenness in a sense, knowing that I've got to figure something out.
Yes, both of those are important. Figure out that you're broken, but the help is available, and seek it--
Yes. You've got to have that hope.
Then seek it out.
Yes. Knowing that you just got to push, you've got to push through, you can't just stop. You can't be stagnant. The healing journey, one of the chiropractic principles is, principle number six, that every process requires time. There's not a process that does not require time. Knowing that, "Hey, it's going to be okay." If you are moving forward in any direction, even if it's just half of a step every day, if you're moving forward, then you are heading in the right direction of healing.
Wise words. You are here in Lubbock, Texas, you're a Blair upper cervical chiropractor, and you are seeing patients.
Yes, I am.
We'll put all the information in the show notes on how to get ahold of you. Whether it is book an appointment, or maybe take you to lunch and learn more.
Yes, absolutely. That would be awesome for me.
Is there anything else that you would like to say that I haven't asked?
Oh, I don't know, especially knowing that we're going to do a round two. Part two to this. I think that's important. I think just reiterating the fact that life is a process. As I mentioned, I was meeting with the young man this morning and I said, "Hey, man, don't ever let anybody think that they-- don't ever let anybody say, "I've got this figured out." Don't believe that there's going to be a point where you 100% know everything in life because it's a lie. We're all just trying to figure out and feel where we are in life and how to move forward.
One of my mentors is Dr. Muncy, and he had been a Blair, upper cervical chiropractor for more than 40 years. He's most well known for being an excellent teacher, but the one thing that I heard him say over and over is, you never stop learning.
Never.
He would just say that all the time, so he was one of the preeminent teachers, but his life really was about learning.
Yes. I would say that too. I would also say, don't suffer alone. Find someone to share with. Find a community to suffer with, and thankfully, I had people that gathered around me and rallied around me, so they could push me forward.
Suffer together, but look for a solution.
That's right. Don't just sit in it.
Don't just wallow in it.
Absolutely.
Dr. Cobb, do you have a life verse or a quote or a habit or something that just motivates your soul to be excellent every day?
Yes, I would say so. I mentioned that I was in ministry, so obviously I'm a Christian. I am--
I think we picked up.
I'm a follower of Christ.
[laughter]
The daily rhythms and habits that I have are centered around that following of Christ. One of mine would be a morning, quiet time or morning devotional to center my heart. I know when I come in here, and I haven't read my Bible that morning, I haven't spent time in reflection, my day is just hectic, but when I spend time with the Lord in the mornings, I realize I'm sitting across from patients and really listening to them, really caring for them. I'm slower and I'm not hurrying and I'm able to sit with them.
Speaking of a life, first, one of my favorites is in the book of Jeremiah 9:23-24. It says, "Thus says to the Lord, let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might. Let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boast, boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I'm the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in all the earth." For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.
That's one of my favorite verses, because there's so many things that I could boast in, in this world. I could boast in the fact that I'm a doctor of chiropractic. I could boast in the fact that I'm young and have my health and could do anything that I really wanted to, but the reality is that I get to boast in the fact that I spend time with my creator, that I know him and that he can be known, so I would say that.
That motivates you?
Yes.
Thank you so much for your time.
Yes, absolutely. Thank you.