Hey friend,

There’s something I’ve never really known how to put into words.
I miss two people I’ve never met.
Both of my grandpas died of cancer before I was born.
I’ve never heard their voices.
I’ve never sat across from them and asked them questions.
I don’t have a single memory with either of them.
And yet somehow, I’ve felt their absence my entire life.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve noticed something about myself.
I’m drawn to older men.
Not because I’m trying to replace my grandpas. I’m not.
But there’s something about the relationship I never had that I still crave.
I want to hear their stories.
I want their perspective.
I want to know what they learned about marriage after decades of doing it.
What they wish they knew when their kids were little.
What mattered.
What didn’t.
What they’d tell a younger husband, father, and business owner who’s trying to do everything right and occasionally realizes he’s being pulled in so many directions that he can barely recognize himself.
There’s a wisdom there that I deeply value.
But if I’m being truthful, I think there’s also a relationship there that some part of me has always wanted.
Maybe there’s a part of me still reaching for something I was supposed to have.
And maybe you know what that feels like.
Not my story exactly.
But that feeling that something isn’t quite the way it’s supposed to be, even when you can’t put words around it.
I see that feeling walk through our doors all the time.
And I know what it feels like too.
I think losing my grandpas before I ever had the chance to know them created something else in me.
I want to be here.
I have four kids.
And if it’s in the cards for me, I want to see them grow up.
I want to know who they become.
I want to know their spouses.
I want to know their kids.
And if God gives me the opportunity, I’d love to meet their kids’ kids.
I’m going to do what I can to work toward that.
But one of my favorite people in the whole wide world taught me that the number of years isn’t the whole story.
My grandma was one of the most joyful, happy-go-lucky people I’ve ever known.
She loved people.
She loved her kids.
She loved her grandkids.
She loved life.
And I absolutely loved her.
My grandma also struggled with COPD.
Eventually, she needed oxygen.
And I watched her health begin making decisions for her.
There were things she desperately wanted to do with her kids and grandkids that she couldn’t fully enjoy.
Sometimes she couldn’t do them at all.
Someone with so much joy and love to give sometimes had to sit on the sidelines of the life she loved because her body simply didn’t have the capacity to participate the way she wanted it to.
I watched that as her grandson.
I felt it.
And I still miss her like crazy.
She taught me something I don’t think I fully understood until much later:
I don’t just want more years in my life.
I want more LIFE in my years.
I want to be there.
But I also want enough of me left to participate.
And I’ve learned that you don’t have to be old or seriously sick to understand what it feels like to lose some of that capacity.
I’ve experienced that in my own life too.
I’ve had concussions through football and, later, rugby while I was at Palmer.
There were seasons when something inside me simply didn’t feel right.
My body wasn’t regulating the way it should.
I was tired.
Exhausted.
Emotional.
I couldn’t focus.
I struggled with depression.
At times, I didn’t feel like myself.
It’s difficult to explain that experience to someone who hasn’t felt it.
Because sometimes everything looks relatively normal from the outside while something very different is happening inside.
And I’ve experienced another version of that as I’ve gotten older.
Being a husband.
Being a dad to four kids.
Being a doctor.
Running a business.
Providing for a family.
Trying to be present.
Trying to lead.
Trying to serve people well.
Trying to do all the things you’re supposed to do.
You can be doing a lot of things right and still get pulled in so many different directions that you start becoming a shell of the person you know you’re supposed to be.
You’re functioning.
You’re providing.
You’re showing up.
You’re getting through the day.
But somewhere inside, you know:
This isn’t me at my best.
There isn’t enough of you left for the things and people that matter most.
Maybe you’ve felt that too.
Maybe that’s part of your story right now.
Today, I understand my own story very differently.
And then I became a husband.
And a dad.
My wife and I have experienced four different pregnancies.
Four uniquely different deliveries.
And four VERY different kids.
I’ve learned a tremendous amount about children through my education and through being a doctor.
But I’ve learned just as much – and probably been humbled even more – by simply being a parent.
We’ve had the sleepless nights.
We’ve had a child struggling with colic.
We’ve experienced what happens when nobody is sleeping.
We’ve experienced the exhaustion, the frustration, and the strain that can put on a marriage and a family.
And we’ve had to learn how to do hard things together.
Those experiences changed the way I see the families who walk through our doors.
Because when someone tells me their child has colic, ADHD, sensory challenges, anxiety, or another diagnosis, I know the diagnosis is only the beginning of the conversation.
There’s the problem everybody can see.
And then there’s the problem the family is actually living.
The missed sleep.
The worry.
The arguments.
The things you stop doing.
The constant planning.
The stress between husband and wife.
The siblings adapting.
The feeling that your entire family is slowly learning how to organize itself around one problem.
And underneath even that, there’s often a much deeper question:
“Is this really how we’re supposed to live?”
I think that’s one of the most important questions a person can ask.
Because eventually…
There has to be more than surviving.
There has to be more than getting better and better at managing the next problem.
There has to be more to LIFE than managing problems after they appear.
And eventually, something inside of us says:
Enough is enough.
Not necessarily rock bottom.
Sometimes it’s simply an awakening.
A moment when you realize:
I don’t want to keep living this way.
I don’t know exactly what comes next.
But I’m ready to start asking better questions.
And that’s where I want you to understand something about me.
I don’t have all of this figured out.
I’m still learning.
I’m still growing.
I’m still trying to become a better husband.
A better dad.
A better doctor.
A better leader.
A better friend.
A better man.
I’m still learning how to do hard things without losing myself in the process.
I’m still learning how to be fully present for the people I love.
And maybe writing this to you is part of my own healing too.
Because some of these things have lived inside of me for a long time.
Putting them into words isn’t easy.
But I’ve realized that if I’m asking you to trust us with your story, I should probably be willing to share some of mine.
And there’s something else I know with absolute certainty:
I love this place.
But when I say “this place,” I’m not talking about the building.
I’m not talking about the business.
And I’m not talking about chiropractic adjustments.
I’m talking about the people.
I love the people here.
I love the relationships that have been built here.
I love watching families grow.
I love watching kids grow up.
I love watching people do hard things.
I love seeing someone begin to understand themselves or their child differently.
I love watching people regain pieces of their life they thought they might have to give up.
I love watching people take ownership.
I love seeing families flourish.
People are Live Better.
People like YOU.
That’s why this is so personal to me.
I’ve learned that I don’t simply want to live a long life.
I want to be fully alive for the life I’m given.
I want that for my wife.
I want that for my four kids.
Someday, God willing, I want that for my grandkids.
Maybe even their kids.
And, I want that for you too.
I want you to have enough capacity for the people you love.
For the things you’re called to do.
For the hard things worth doing.
For the ordinary Tuesday nights that don’t seem important until years later when you’d give anything to have one of them back.
For the moments you don’t yet realize are becoming the memories you’ll treasure most.
I want you to have enough LIFE inside of you to actually be there for it.
That’s why Live Better is personal to me.
And that’s why I’m so grateful you’re here.
There’s more I want to share with you.
A lot more, actually.
Over the months ahead, I’m going to keep writing.
Not because I have everything figured out.
I don’t.
I’m writing because I care deeply about this.
Because I believe in what we’re building.
Because I believe there are things I’ve learned as a grandson, an athlete, a husband, a father, a doctor, a business owner, and a man still trying to figure some things out that are worth sharing.
And because writing some of this down may be part of my own healing too.
Most importantly, I’m writing it to people who matter deeply to me.
That’s you.
Whether today was your first day at Live Better or you’ve been walking alongside us for years, you’re part of this.
Over the coming months, I want to talk about capacity.
About why our bodies respond the way they do.
About being the hero of your own story.
About doing hard things.
About faith.
About family.
About community.
About raising kids.
About what it means to live rather than simply exist.
And ultimately, about what can happen when a group of people who genuinely care about one another decide to build something different together.
I don’t know exactly where all of these conversations will take us.
But I know why I want to have them.
We’re not simply helping individuals feel better. We’re partnering with families who want a different vision for health – and together, we’re building something that can affect the next generation.
That’s The Live Better Movement.
And this is only the beginning of what I want to share with you.
Thank you for letting me share a little more of myself.
Thank you for trusting us with a little bit of your story too.
And most of all…
I’m really glad YOU are here.

Dr. Joe

LIVE BETTER.