awesome I I have to say I went to The Valor conference here in Washington DC and that was something for me where a

0:13

lot of these old war heroes right it’s it’s the story that we always talk about yes and I can’t tell you how many of

0:19

these guys have served their country in a really amazing way but at the root of it all we we got to document a piece of history

0:25

with each and every single one of those those individuals and it was so miraculous that now that that footage is

0:31

out there you know that person’s story and that history is available for anyone and everyone to go in and say hey I get

0:38

to witness a little piece of History it’s not it’s not lost and the same thing with Earnest medicine right yeah

0:43

it’s storytelling yeah that’s all the base of it is storytelling because if we

0:49

don’t capture this then there won’t be an opportunity for people to have a voice get heard or give consideration

0:56

for things I mean when you hear these stories from these veterans yeah for somebody who’s never been in combat it’s

1:02

like yeah whoa you know yeah yeah so it’s it’s kind of like in a sense

1:09

getting into somebody else’s shoes their experience and it is there’s a connection I mean the storytelling is a

1:16

sense of you know that oral visual experience but it is uh for me it is how

1:24

do I connect right like what are the roots of but you know that person and their story and then my story and how

1:31

they understand intersect absolutely yeah and that’s the really cool thing I think about Earnest medicine especially with you being in the medical space and

1:37

getting to to hear practitioner stories patient stories that’s where that connection is for us so very excited to

1:44

have Dr Jonathan fields in with us today I’m going to read this because he provided us with a really wonderful

1:50

outline and it will give at least a brief overview of everything this gentleman has accomplished up to this

1:56

point and and what’s next so Dr Jonathan Fields is a renowned Integrative Medicine practitioner martial and visual

2:02

artist author and speaker he owns two clinics in South Florida where he specializes in acupuncture functional

2:09

medicine herbs PRP stem cells and IV Therapy he holds a doctorate in a masters of acupuncture in eastern

2:15

medicine a bachelor’s in Health Sciences and four national board certifications he’s lectured at universities Fortune

2:21

500 companies works with elite pro athletes and formulated for public

2:26

trading companies this is Dr Jonathan Fields so we’re going to roll our intro we’ll be right back with his

2:32

introduction [Music]

2:44

[Music] [Applause] [Music]

2:54

we’re going to go ahead and come back from our break welcome back to Earnest medicine I want to turn it over for Dr

3:00

Jonathan Fields introduction here is our guy go ahead and introduce yourself to

3:05

the audience thank you doctor hi I’m Dr Jonathan Fields I think you did a wonderful job introducing me

3:12

already now I have to live up to the hype but I’m honored to be on the show and thank you for having me absolutely

3:18

an honor absolutely so I’ll turn it over here to Dr Brown and and Dr Jonathan

3:23

Fields very interested to have you guys kind of get into this and hear a little bit of origin from um from our guest

3:29

yeah so I mean uh Jonathan so you and I first interact I mean we’ve never met

3:34

each other right and but we interacted in a way uh in in taking care of a

3:40

patient mutually and from that experience you know it’s you know we’re

3:45

now we’re we’re running side by side as opposed to uh never having met you

3:51

before but understanding what your mission is and what you try to do for your clients uh aligns very much with

3:57

what I do and so that was like it was a no-brainer that you know it’s like hey

4:03

what’s your story because if we don’t you know if we don’t capture those stories uh unique then you know look

4:10

everything can be cookie cutter we just had a medical somebody who’s interested in becoming a physician a young person

4:15

who wants to begin that journey and do they see any other option other than

4:21

just joining the factory work right right so what’s your story where are you from

4:28

uh I’ve been in South Florida most of my life I was born in Israel originally on a little farm in the Galileo in the

4:35

middle of nowhere a small tiny town with about a hundred houses moved here uh to the U.S when I was about seven years old

4:41

been here ever since and grew up in uh suburbs South Florida it’s beautiful

4:47

area the weather is great uh except for a couple months a hurricane season other than that we love it out here you know

4:55

the people are nice we don’t have any of the snow to deal with like you guys over there well Global Norm global warming we

5:02

don’t have snow anymore so that’s yeah what was it today well that’s true and from the looks of it it looks like I

5:08

might need to move in the next 20 30 Years anyway so it might be coming up your way you’re always welcome fantastic

5:14

I have appreciate it well I wanted to ask a really quick question because this was one of the points that we sort of

5:20

resonated on whenever we spoke initially and that’s that you have approached the medical space from a very sort of

5:27

kinetic kinetic active um position I mean you you have a background in martial arts and I think

5:33

that that’s something that has translated now from your early years into what you’re doing now even working

5:38

with pro athletes some former UFC world champions people of that nature can you tell us a little bit about the

5:44

motivations that that you experienced as a young person and why you sort of navigated in that direction

5:51

yeah absolutely so I come from a medical family my mom’s an occupational therapist that’s been her entire career

5:56

since I was born uh my father was a medic in the Israeli Army for the time

6:02

that he was there and my brother is a hospital internal medicine doctor and fortunate obesity medicine but having

6:09

some experiences within the medical system I went a little outside the box on the traditional conventional medicine

6:15

I’ve been in martial arts most of my life since I was a little kid as long as I could remember pretty much when I was

6:21

in my 20s I’m about 25 I met one of my mentors who’s my Qigong Master he’s an

6:26

acupuncturist and I started practicing the Qigong which is like high tea the strictly medical a lot of breathing slow

6:32

moving meditation almost like yoga but mostly performs standing up and very different visualizations very different

6:38

philosophy behind it but you get some of the similar benefits a little bit of overlap and the health benefits there so

6:44

it was so profound for me personally that I became fascinated with it and I kind of started leaning a big part of my

6:50

martial arts is towards the Healing Arts and I started studying with my mentor I

6:55

would intern with him at his medical clinic I would help him with his terminal sorry

7:03

there’s a taller over 15 years at the same problem with town for about 20 years and eventually throughout that

7:10

time about seven to eight years into that journey I guess it must have been about 30 years old I got extremely ill

7:17

very very ill to the point where I was disabled I couldn’t work I lost my business I lost my relationships my

7:23

family life was pretty much ruined and what was going on was basically I was having hot flashes tills fatigue

7:30

depression carpal tunnel tendonitis systemic joint pain every joint my entire body was hurting all the time and

7:37

my back and my neck was so bad I couldn’t I physically could not fit in a chair and work in a computer anymore

7:42

before that I was in the size of martial arts I was into DJing and art and my soul time was basically my first degree

7:49

was in digital media oh my God I was a graphic designer I used to do social media marketing web design all that kind

7:54

of stuff and it got to the point where I physically could not work anymore I spent a whole year going from Doctor to

8:00

doctor to specialist a specialist and I saw endocrinologists they did biopsies on my thyroid they did all my labs I saw

8:06

orthopedic doctors three different neurologists hand surgeons they wanted to operate on me from carpal tunnel two

8:13

different times and I never did it and all they kept telling me is for the most part that it’s all in your head here’s

8:18

the muscle relaxers here’s some pain pills your blood work’s fine go home and I just could not accept that I had been

8:25

healthy my whole life I had a very good diet or at least I thought I tried to go vegan a couple times but I didn’t eat

8:31

any Crossing food any junk food so I should have been healthy I was exercising probably two hours a day or

8:37

more every single day maybe five six days a week uh sometimes longer right so

8:43

there’s no reason I should have been going through this and I just felt so disparaged as a young you know 30 year

8:49

old uh business owner who has Insurance in America I should be able to get

8:54

professional medical assistant right nope and uh and you know what then they start telling you it’s all in your head

9:00

it’s anxiety and then you you begin to question yourself oh you’re like am I crazy is this really all in my head and

9:08

after uh suffering for about a year and progressively getting worse and worse and worse my family was like we’re sick

9:13

of hearing that the doctor said you’re fine there’s nothing wrong with you you know go back to work and eventually I walked into a friend of mine’s vitamin

9:20

store and he’s another one of my mentors he’s done a nutrition for me later he he’s on the scientific Advisory Board

9:25

and he invents vitamins he works with mvds and big companies to invent vitamins and I walked in and the first

9:31

thing he said to me is you look like crap so I tell him the whole story I had already known him for about 10 years we

9:36

used to go there from if I was in high school just to get protein or creatine or whatever Maltese and he says oh

9:42

you’re fine you’re healthy I’m Gonna Get You better I know what’s wrong and I don’t believe them because I’ve already

9:47

seen you know a dozen different doctors and I’m thinking listen if you sell vitamins in a retail store you’re

9:53

sitting here in sneakers and shorts how are you going to help me right to doctors Count On Me no way but I said

9:59

you know at this point I got nothing left to lose and he takes good care of me doesn’t even charge me for anything we had a relationship I used to do some

10:05

of his advertising with him so it was kind of like barter and he just said here take this he gives me some stuff uh

10:11

two different nutrients within a week maybe two weeks no more hot flashes No More Chills no more fatigue no more

10:16

depression gone like that after over a year we getting progressively worse clicked me with a chiropractor I start

10:22

seeing my acupuncturist they had me changed my diet a little bit they had me start eating meat again I started

10:27

drinking green tea so I wouldn’t be like as dehydrated or whatever um what’s going on and I just started

10:33

getting better and better and better and within like six to eight months I had a hundred percent recovery and having

10:39

lived through that experience uh which was devastating I mean I was almost ready to check out it was really really

10:45

bad yeah you know and for somebody that who’s always healthy to suddenly be chronically ill

10:50

it’s devastating right you’re not used to you know for people who I think are chronically ill it’s just like oh one

10:56

more symptom after the lit but when you go one more pill yeah super healthy he does super sick it’s it’s you know it’s

11:03

like the end of your world so I after living through that experience I wanted to help other people and I was already

11:10

interested in the the Eastern medicine and the acupuncture it was a very holistic system where we looked for root causes of problems and and it was almost

11:17

like uh you know God spoke to me and I knew I really did not have a choice I

11:22

felt like this is the only thing I can do I have no other path so I went back to school uh I went back and did a

11:28

bachelor the health scientist then a master’s and then a doctorate in the Eastern medicine and acupuncture I’ve

11:35

studied in China I’ve lived in the Shaolin Temple trained in kung fu with the monks eight hours a day and studied

11:40

in the hospitals over there doing herbal medicine and all sorts of other stuff and uh and I’m still studying right I

11:46

was at a conference this weekend we’re always doing continuing education that’s my story I’m sticking to it well

11:53

the story doesn’t stop there I mean that’s I mean it is a matter of perspective you know what are the things

11:59

that have affected your life and the the thing that I think is most important is

12:04

um you went through the normal channels you know what was expected right but the

12:09

the issue is that you actually uh chose uh to take care of your own health

12:17

as opposed to being passive about it right you decided to make a change for

12:23

yourself and but you got to that point you know uh for you know some patients

12:29

who are maybe older or they have other conditions I think it’s wrong for patients to be

12:36

left powerless without any other option or choice I think it is a personal

12:42

Journey somebody has to go through and you know unfortunately in our health care System it’s just factory work I

12:49

mean there’s no there’s no I mean there’s no sense of the individual you know one of the things that you know I

12:56

always when I start off with a patient is how many medications are you taking okay

13:01

well let’s see how many we can come off of you know and this is like wait a minute I’ve been taking this for a long

13:07

time I’m like yeah yeah but but you’re still sick yeah I mean and so

13:13

it’s it’s important for viewers to understand that sense of being active and not being

13:21

passive and always I think as a physician I’m always curious and I think

13:27

the problem with Healthcare is that it doesn’t give enough time for clinicians to really sit and talk

13:36

and listen and and actually touch and experience because how can you expect in

13:43

a cubicle you know a little room that’s sterile that has no nothing to get in 10

13:49

minutes and know oh yeah I know exactly what that is that’s I mean it doesn’t

13:54

take a rocket sign to realize that that that’s a system doomed for failure and and you change that you know you

14:01

educated yourself so I mean I I think that’s inspiring it should be that

14:07

um and that’s kind of what I expect of my patients I don’t expect them to just

14:13

take what I tell them it’s a relationship and if they’re all in I’m

14:19

all in and we can you know we can get there and it’s not going to get done in a day but there there’s an opportunity

14:28

um so yeah I think that’s fantastic well I wanted to bring up a point because you

14:33

had a really pivotal thing happen in your life that was a transition for you I mean you were a young guy a business

14:39

owner healthy very active and and all of a sudden that’s sort of crashing down around you and you took a rather drastic

14:46

change a rather drastic change in your direction you had to and you said that yeah yours was really quite fascinating

14:53

because it took you abroad it took you to these places all around the globe and I think change for all of us looks a

15:00

little bit different but yours is quite fascinating I’d love to get more details on how you were connected with these

15:06

individuals specifically or master and how you know what were the steps that you took in order to move in that

15:11

direction with some level of fluidity I know there had to be some anxiety attached to that stuff but I’d love to

15:17

hear it from you how did that all go down absolutely yeah and I appreciate that

15:22

well you know I’ve I kind of lucky because I grew up in a family of Travelers my folks like to travel they

15:29

were taking some trips as kids so I think we were never scared or anxiety I think at that point didn’t really play a

15:36

role for me also because I knew what I wanted and I knew where I was going to go and I was going to make it happen regardless and so the uh the first time

15:44

or when we went to actually to stay with the monks in China so I had spent quite a bit of time trying

15:50

to contact different schools out there trying to find out who can give us this program where we can do the martial arts

15:56

stuff and practice the spiritual component and learn about the meditation and some of the lifestyle that

16:01

philosophy and have the the medical component as well where we can actually work with doctors and herbalists and

16:08

acupuncturists and twina whereas basically their body work with like Chiropractic and Bone setting and all

16:14

that and it took a little bit of time because the majority of the schools that I contacted was said no we don’t want anything to do with that

16:20

you come in this is a program leave us alone they barely speak any English over

16:25

there to begin with so it’s very difficult after some time I got very lucky I found a school where the woman

16:32

who was I guess in charge or running the management of the school happened to be from Romania and lived in in England and

16:39

was in Greece as well so she spoke English wow pretty well and we were able to have a translator and my teacher my

16:47

shaolin’s secret got a few different martial arts seizures depending on Styles but my challenge if you is

16:53

basically very much into the medicinal component and actually lives the bunk bed I grew up living in the Shaolin

17:00

Temple since he was beautiful and at the time he had his own Academy

17:08

walking distance from the temple in the temple National Park grounds so they

17:13

said you know what we don’t normally do this it’s never really been done here as a program every now and then they’ll get some people that come in for like a day

17:21

and they’ll like you know observe a little bit in the clinic or whatever but I said if you give us enough leeway if you bring some people with you we’ll set

17:27

up a special program so I think I was still in school at the time my Master’s and my doctor was done here in Fort

17:33

Lauderdale at Atlantic Institute of Oriental medicine it’s been there for about 30 years they do just Eastern medicine and we I took a group of nine

17:42

students so it was my well myself with eight others that we were I guess about two-thirds of the way with my masters at

17:49

the time and we used the first time we went we went for about a month and we were able to set this up where we’d have

17:55

a four hour lunch break every day and we would spend that time we would have lunch and we’d spend that time with the

18:00

doctor and the routine was amazing you’d wake up at five o’clock in the morning and from five uh 5 30 to stick you would

18:07

meditate and from 6 to 6 30 you would practice too young like from 6 30 to 7

18:12

you would do tai chi and then you would have breakfast after about an hour and a half you would do four hours super

18:19

intense Kung Fu training I’m talking about like professional athletic training these guys do shows all over

18:24

the world The Shaolin Monks are actually known for having some of the toughest conditioning in the world and then you

18:30

have a four hour lunch break where most people would rest and have lunch and we would just have lunch and study with the doctors and then after the lunch break

18:38

you would do another three to four hours of training then you’d have dinner then sometimes after dinner we might train

18:43

for another hour or so afterwards just kind of um practice in some of the things we had learned throughout the day

18:49

so it was a fascinating experience yeah we got to they have a in the temple

18:55

which is 1500 years old they have a clinic associated with it so they took us to study with the doctors in the

19:01

temple and sometimes the doctors would come and uh teach us at the Academy and we basically got to learn a little bit

19:07

of everything a little bit of the the herbs acupuncture the the mugwort that they burn

19:13

um between all the Bodywork yeah in the addition of the Kung Fu and at the same time we went to the nearest town we

19:19

studied in some of the clinics and the hospitals over there as well uh the next year I went back which is three of us my

19:25

wife and another black Man of Mine at that point we were already actually we were we had just finished a masters and

19:32

we were going right from the Masters into the doctor program we had about two and a half month break and we spent the

19:38

time we spent um six weeks in China at that point I think I spent two weeks traveling Romania before that so we went

19:44

back again and it kind of went through the whole same experience and then spent a few weeks in the hospital as well

19:49

working in an integrated Hospital most of the hospitals in China are actually complete Western medicine completely conventional message there’s very few

19:56

that actually practice the traditional medicine we happen to find one we got very lucky it was actually somebody we

20:02

met on the plane from the year before on the way home they had the hook out and this hospital was the first

20:08

traditional hospital that they opened in Beijing after they brought back the Eastern medicine because originally Mao

20:14

had banned yeah all the Eastern Michigan because they thought it was um to religious or spiritual practices and

20:21

you know the party kind of didn’t want to have any of that but what had happened was they found that for a billion people they didn’t have enough

20:27

Western trained doctors yeah they didn’t have enough medicine yeah they didn’t have enough right so they brought it back to 52 they opened this beijingulo

20:34

hospital and the people who opened it were actually descendants of the doctors who the Imperial doctors that took care

20:41

of the royal family wow so it was an amazing opportunity we got

20:46

to train and learn from some of the cream of the crop and study with the uh the president of the Beijing University

20:52

of China uh you know I think when you put yourself out there and you have a goal

20:57

and people know that you’re genuine like you know connections just open up and just fall into place kind of like how we

21:03

met taking care of a CIP patient and it just you know we hit it off I I think I

21:09

I loved Dr Rounds approach to medicine is you’re not your typical right doctor you will spend time with the patient and

21:14

like you had mentioned medications before right you come in and they’re on 20 different meds prescribed by seven different doctors and the doctors

21:21

haven’t even read the charts they don’t know what meds are on they don’t know if there’s any interactions going on and they don’t really care so right almost

21:27

five minutes yeah and I would say the system’s broken and so if you’re somebody who’s you’re just trying to get

21:33

through the day you know when you’ve got 30 patients you need to see you got 10 minutes and you don’t even own the

21:39

practice you’re just in a factory worker and you’ve got some somebody who’s a

21:44

practice manager who’s telling you you need to see more patients in this period of time you’re it’s a system of failure you know

21:51

when the system itself is sick how can you expect any good from that right so

21:57

yeah right that’s why my dad had an expression that sometimes you just gotta let it burn you know maybe that’s a

22:03

little bit graphic but sometimes the truth is that you don’t try to fix something that’s continuously just

22:09

failing and you just go in a different direction right yeah and I will say that

22:14

our party is guests Dr Uli chidapelli he’s out in California he made a really interesting analogy which was

22:21

essentially you know we’re like on a our well not not myself but individuals in the medical space are on a treadmill of

22:27

sorts and they’re just continuously running up this thing and someone else is controlling the dials they’re

22:32

cranking that speed higher they’re increasing the incline and you get to a point where this individual is so burned out and so tired that you have no choice

22:38

but to fall off yeah and it’s it sucks because these are individuals that you

22:43

know are intelligent and driven but the system beats them

22:49

um and you know who I mean just you just have to look at the satisfaction rates

22:55

you know you know the suicide rates the divorce rates all of those things just tell you that

23:00

this is this is bad and that’s the important point the why what we’re trying to do is share these stories and

23:07

experiences because we want to go to other countries you know I’ll be going to Istanbul on Friday and part of that

23:13

will be to look at you know their Health Care System yeah that’s very exciting and set up so that and we have already

23:20

set up a connection just like you’ve kind of described with a group that does uh medical tourism so people will call

23:27

them from all over uh for things that are done in Turkey because they have the skills but also when you look at the

23:33

comparison for what’s here in the U.S uh you know I have a patient who had fifty

23:38

thousand dollars worth of dental work done well so I I sent the invoice to a buddy of

23:46

mine in in turkey and I said hey how much would this cost there he was like oh well they could stay at the beach for

23:52

about two weeks and get their flight and and and get the dental work done over several days in a relaxed environment it

23:58

would be about three thousand dollars it’s like good grief uh yeah so there’s

24:05

there’s so many of these different things I really want to explore the stories I really want to be able to share different experiences that there

24:12

isn’t just one way of doing it when we look at the US and how much we spend on Health Care 20 it’s sickening to see

24:19

that because other countries spend you know a quarter of that and yet we’re we’re sicker it’s almost like we’re

24:25

cattle and we’re we’re fed all of this just to be sick because it’s profitable

24:31

um and I always you know I hate to say it but insurance companies are the mafia that in the Pharmaceuticals it’s like

24:38

you know they come in and they toss a few things around say hey yeah you need this uh insurance no you don’t you go

24:46

you go to these other places and you realize if something Sparks in your head and you have that International uh you

24:53

know travel experience you know and so that’s fortunate I think one of the key things is that it almost should be

25:00

mandatory that people leave this country to see other things you know in Australia in Australia they take a walk

25:07

about you know they’ll be gone I’ve met Australians in the weirdest places and it but it changes them you know and

25:14

I think one of our biggest problems is that we’re too isolated and you know that’s easy for people to take advantage

25:21

of and that’s that’s the important part is that it’s not just open your mind I’m not saying open your mind just don’t let

25:27

things take advantage of you you know Empower yourself and don’t be passive about it otherwise people will profit

25:34

off of you yeah yeah and the system is obviously designed that way right over five

25:40

percent of the world’s population I think we’re taking 60 of the world’s drugs something like that that doesn’t even make a remote a little bit sense it

25:47

makes no sense at all that’s why my brother’s trying to go to the hospital now we just opened the clinic together he’s been you know I think probably

25:54

about 10 years as a hospitalist and he’s