Be "Like Mike" with Your Health!

For the past month, ESPN’s been airing a great 10-part documentary about Michael Jordan. With the finale coming out this weekend, I’ve noticed some traits of Mike that I think carry over into success in all parts of life – including back and overall health.

Sure, he was gifted physically and had great raw talent. But what’s come through in his character from old footage, present-day interviews, and commentary from his former teammates is the standards that he set for himself and everyone around him. The great motivational speaker Les Brown has said that people don’t change until they finally announce “ok, that’s it, I’ve had it!”. That’s the mindset that Jordan had throughout his whole playing career. He was disgusted at the thought of losing and got to a point where he refused to live like that anymore.

I’ve seen similar transformations happen when people in the community become patients in the office. Most commonly, there’s some kind of a nagging ache that’s been lingering in the background for a while. Then, situations change – the pain gets just a bit worse to the point where it’s too much, or there’s a shift the demands in that person’s personal life where the pain isn’t just background noise anymore. From there, we can start to get the game plan in place on how to get the pain to go and stay away.

Another key part of the Bulls success, is that he made sure he was surrounding himself with success-driven teammates and coaches. When he first got drafted, they were a poorly-ran organization, and the teammates were content with mediocrity. Then the roster started molding to the point where they could feed off each other’s positivity.

You become most like the people you spend the most time with. If you’re trying to make improve your health, but every day you’re with a group that sits all day and doesn’t honor their bodies, it might be time for the whole group to make changes. That way you can all feed off of each other’s positivity!

– Dr. Scott Minton