Steering My Own Ship - One of my most exciting memories is standing by the captain of a 12 meter…
One of my most exciting memories is standing by the captain of a 12 meter yacht, the Stars and Stripes, a magnificent boat that had actually won an America’s Cup race, as we made the decisions whether to tack or not at any given moment. The wind in my face, I was thrilled to play a yeoman’s part as our small crew cleaned the clock of our competitors and won the race. This one wasn’t the America’s Cup, but it might as well have been as far as I was concerned. Seldom if ever had I felt the same sense of transcendent exaltation and freedom as on that day.
Not that my life has been without its other joys and achievements. I am 61 years old, and most of my adult life I have been an obstetrician/gynecologist. I chose this métier primarily because intellectually I was fascinated at an early age with embryology, with life’s beginnings, and emotionally I was drawn to the satisfactions attendant upon one of the happiest circumstances of life, the birth of a child. I got to know and build relationships with my patients over a ten-month period. A believer in the holistic practice of medicine, I and my nurse midwives delivered over 4,000 babies before I retired, including a thousand outside of a hospital, in a free-standing birth center.
My wife Kathy and I met at a summer village dance when she was fourteen; we dated a few times in high school, met up again in college where Kathy was an English major, and have now been married for thirty-nine years. We have three grown sons: Bob, our resident geek who evolved into a Vice President of a technology company; Paul, our artist/musician who became a professional chef; and Joe, the high school jock and athletic leader I always wished I could have been, who manages the conventional family businesses. We have five grandchildren. There have been hurdles along the way, as with everyone else, but we all share a strong and enduring relationship with each other.
At the age of five, I was struck with polio. I spent three months in the hospital unable to walk. During this time I became very close to my dad, and he came to visit so often I could recognize his walk in the hallway before ever I saw him. My parents encouraged me to strive for excellence academically, and at one point I was tested to skip 2nd grade.
Kids on the other hand could be cruel. I remember one kid in particular, a bully, who threw apples at me, calling me “peg leg”. Shortly thereafter my dad had a serious conversation with his dad. This experience impacted the rest of my life.
Today I suffer from what is known as post-polio syndrome. When you have polio, some muscles atrophy and die, and other, smaller accessory muscles develop to compensate for the loss of larger muscles. Over a period of decades these compensatory muscles tire and weaken from the unusual burden they have been subjected to, and this is known as post-polio syndrome. I wear a brace; I fatigue easily, and there is some pain.
My profession, as with all professions, has had its drawbacks. Today med school grads may owe anywhere from $500,000 to $1,000,000 for their education and the costs of establishing their practice. The profession is increasingly motivated by money, as the best and brightest move to the highest paying specialties.
Everyone practices defensive medicine, and concerns of imperfect outcomes greatly influenced how I needed to practice. I wanted only the best for the mother and newborn but insurance and legal concerns could hardly be ignored. There was significant resistance to my use of nurse midwifery during most of my career due to the threat of lawsuits. It was rarely a question of what the parents wanted, or what was in the best interests of the unborn infant, but more a fear of what could be best defended in court if anything ever went wrong.
In the 1980s malpractice concerns for ob-gyns escalated; the malpractice insurance (for my practice of four) rose to $800,000 a year and we could only purchase it from Lloyds of London. There were a few years in the State of Florida where malpractice insurance for ob-gyns was unavailable at any price. In time the state itself had to provide it if they wanted babies delivered in Florida.
Then there was always the business side of the practice of medicine. Almost all practitioners set up in medical groups, or legal partnerships with other doctors, since few or none could afford to set up in practice by themselves. Partnerships composed of doctors are like any other kind of partnerships, and complications and difficulties were not uncommon. When partners are seduced to leave a practice to go elsewhere, there is always the possibility that they will attempt to take as much of the practice’s patient load with them, even if that is in violation of their contract with the practice. I experienced this with one of my partners. One of my associates had to opt out because he couldn’t get malpractice insurance. Another of my associates was found dead in his bathroom two years after he left our practice. One of my associates, a female ob-gyn was married to a handyman-electrician who electrocuted himself in the course of his work. Another of our fellow associates contracted multiple sclerosis and had to quit the practice. So over the years it seemed as if there was always something, even the bizarre, going on with present or former associates. Needless to say, they don’t prepare you for such things in medical school.
In 1993 I was introduced to network marketing through the Amway Corporation. My dream was to eventually replace my income as a physician. I was endeavoring to delegate more and more of my practice to my midwives, under my supervision but without my doing most of the work. I was aware of course of my own physical prognosis and was looking for a way to leverage myself and my income-producing years left to me. I was earning a very good living, grossing close to $1,000,000 my best year, but I knew it would not be sustainable.
Network marketing was a lot different from delivering babies, and I had a lot to learn. Doug Wead, who often speaks at network marketing functions, claims to have a list of 211 mistakes made in network marketing, and I suspect I have made most of them. Just to mention a couple in passing: After I had sponsored a number of people into the system, I stopped sponsoring and got caught up in managing my “downline”. I also had a lot to learn about follow-through, learning that the buck stops with me, and that I am responsible for everything on my team. You get careless, and start assuming people will do what they say. If you don’t know anything about network marketing, ask me sometime what these terms mean. I’ll be happy to explain. It is a great, although unconventional, business model, and as a business, there is more to it than meets the eye of the casual observer.
I learned a lot in Amway. I was teachable, coachable, and a hard worker. I developed an international downline, including a number of distributors in Colombia, South America. One of these distributors got kidnapped by FARC, a Marxist peasant army of Bolivian inspiration, and we paid his ransom to free him. Nothing in traditional network marketing training prepares you for such possibilities! I mastered the fundamentals in Amway, but I didn’t make a lot of money doing it. Most of my acquaintances were living the American dream, and selling dreams to people already living one is a tough sell. There were also problems with Amway’s compensation system; in my opinion the partnership between Amway and its distributors was not an equal one.
I lost my own dream along the way; I got distracted. Life got in the way.
In 1998 I sold my ob-gyn practice. My health was deteriorating, and a time or two my leg gave out and I slipped in the Operating Room, and I had to re-scrub before proceeding. Retirement was looming and I knew it was time to do something else. Kathy and I moved back to our home state of Wisconsin. My world was changing, and the pace of change was accelerating.
I was an early baby boomer, and I was squarely in the mid-life crosshairs of maturing children and aging parents. Kathy’s parents passed away, and mine are now in a nursing home. My father, still of good mind, is angry at the unanticipated way his life is winding down. A successful orthodontist, he sold out his practice to a Buyer who welshed on paying. Forced to find a second career, he tried real estate at the worst possible time, and failed. Near the end of his life, he does not have the freedom or finances that he expected to have. He never succeeded at developing a second source of income. Mom and Dad have realized every aging couple’s worst nightmare; they have now outlived their money. I think about that, that there but for the grace of God go Kathy and I. The rules have all changed, and there is no such thing as financial security. No one with their wits about them is counting on Social Security. And I think that all of my grown kids, with jobs, are only a pink slip away from financial need in an uncertain economy.
Here in Wisconsin we have seen a lot of businesses close. Manufacturers have shut down; Harley Davidson is telling the unions they’re leaving, and the foundries and beer makers are no longer local. Construction has died. We have personally witnessed the collapse of the middle class; everywhere people are being squeezed into the bottom half of the hourglass and becoming unwilling members of the underground cash economy. Too many are looking to the government to extort from the haves in order to give to the have-nots.
I’ve watched as former colleagues bought more and more things they didn’t need in order to impress people who didn’t care, with money they didn’t have. In the triumph of appearance over substance, we’ve all lived in communities where our neighbors mowed their lawns three times to our once. Now that our country is well along in a painful correction of excesses of consumption, my accountant friend David observes he is doing taxes for so many people filing bankruptcy that he’s discouraged and is tempted to quit his profession.
I have never had the victim mentality, and I do not relate to those who do. There is always something you can do. I do not enjoy the association of negative-minded people; just as the Bible says ‘iron sharpens iron’, so I seek out individuals with a winning mind-set and an action orientation. I don’t like where my country is going and I do not want to end up like my parents. My father, too, had earned a very good living. I am 61 years old, and I have a sense of urgency about what I want to do next. Not only do I want to assure the financial security of my own family; I want to help other like-minded, hardworking people do the same. I have set my mind to building something beautiful, a legacy, and that legacy is going to be the team of individuals who share my determination and passion to find meaning in helping each other. We intend to be the rising tide that lifts all boats. If you are one of these people, then by all means contact me. Ask me about XanGo.
Put yourself at the wheel of your own ship of destiny. Feel the wind in your face, and the passion and excitement in your arteries again. There is no need to capsize or stagnate with this economy. When a sailing vessel seeks to go against the current through a narrow opening, it tacks against the wind and the current from port to starboard and back again until it is through the gap. Network marketing is like that: it is an innovative, non-traditional business model that presents huge advantages for those willing to go against the current of popular opinion. At the age of 61, this is the best, if not only way I know of to match the income of my best earlier years while creating legacy wealth denominated in both dollars and human capital.
The Marine Corps always says it is looking for a few good men.
I am looking for a lot of ordinary people, both men and women, with extraordinary potential.
Want to sign on for a voyage of self-discovery, self-determination, and self-fulfillment? Would you like to sail beyond the self-limiting horizons you always thought defined what is possible for you? I may not know who you are—yet. But now you know who I am, and how to reach me. The rest is up to you. You know what to do.
© Don Ketterhagen
