Innovation and Early Adopters

People think that they love change. They don’t.

They fight resist and block it with every attempt including legislation because frankly impermanence is scary and it’s easier if things would just stop changing so fast.

Years ago I adopted a different stance. That stance was that since all things are impermanent why not just float around? Build dreams follow your bliss but why resist? Resistance is in fact futile and in business resistance is garbage. I’ve no desire to play defense. Offense is where it’s at.

I posted this and expected I’d get some flack. I’ve an uncanny knack at bumping into people’s sore spots physically and psychically. When I posted it I expected the response I got which was, “hey, why are you hating on swedish?”

I’m not. Swedish and deep tissue as massage styles aren’t going away. They exist on nearly every street corner of America. Why would I want to offer what everyone else is offering? It doesn’t make sense in business to offer what in essence is the same service everyone else offers.

In addition as someone with chronic pain if you apply lubricant on my skin I’m going to start getting angry. I know what’s coming. I know what you were taught in school. I completely and vehemently disagree.

I don’t want a massage. I want you to help my pain.

If I ask a therapist to work on me as I work on others I’ll get nowhere. Sliding over my skin is akin to having an itch asking you to scratch my back and then you scratch near where I want you to. I’m writhing and squirming hoping you’ll get to where I need attention. I feel that but worse when you give me swedish. It feels as if you’re gliding over my painful areas refusing to slow down hang out and traction skin where the real relief seems to come from.

I’ve had it from extremely deep compressions like the ones I deliver using suspension.

I’ve also felt it from extremely gentle skin traction like cranialsacral therapy. I can only go with what I have personally felt.

Repeatedly clients ask me, “why isn’t what you do available everywhere? This is amazing work for pain. I’ve never seen or felt anything like it.” I then have to hang my head low and announce that the community of people I’ve been trying to give it to don’t believe it to be “massage.”

Regulation is a huge thorn in my side. Stretch facilities are opening up and with each new clinic and every yoga teacher I see doing it I wonder why the yoga community hasn’t listened either. I’ve seen spa owners and directors clench their teeth as I teach students work that’s easier on their bodies helps them rebook clients effortlessly and reduces chronic pain to rubble. Do they see innovation and see $$$? Nah, they see problems since it’s not “massage.”

Does the yoga community see what I’m doing and say, “hey Robert can you train our staff and get us doing this?” Usually no because if the word massage is used they realize a law and legal issues are looming. It doesn’t matter that I can give their studio another revenue stream and innovate their industry since they don’t want the burden of facility licenses and hiring massage therapists.

At this stage in my career when I teach massage therapists I’m fully aware that I have to deprogram them. Leaders in our industry have been far too concerned with maintaining status quo and not rocking the boat. I will say that the more you block me the more you resist the more barriers you put in my way, I become more crafty.

I can deliver education worldwide bottom to top and bring you on my journey and teach you what I do for $7/month. People keep saying, “you work out of your garage?” I smile and say many small businesses started out of garages. My winning strategy is you don’t see me coming and don’t think it’s possible.

We’re still looking for those early adopters. We’re still putting out information seeing who will actually respond to wanting to help people quickly effectively without surgeries or medications. We don’t diagnose or treat any condition but as I tell my clients all the time, “what if your symptoms go away?”

The massage industries future is unknown to me. I see differentiation but with massage regulation that means virtually nothing I’m unsure who I can teach who will legally use the work or how I will continue to help people without your assistance.

Many therapists are content to have full practices. I started teaching because I saw so much suffering in my own industry and the untold horrors of the public’s pain forced me to continue going forward as rapidly as possible.

I will not stop. When I finally collapse and perish it will likely be in the middle of working on my next project trying to help people.

With each new stretch facility that opens I see massage regulation and more and more meaningless. If you can change the name it’s now legal? Time to rebrand and move on with life. We lost the Reboot™ trademark and I’m in the midst of what may be a legal debacle. I’ll have to go to a lawyer and go, “hey you know all that massage regulation we were concerned about? Stretch facilities have apparently figured out the loophole for us.”