By Dr. Raj Gupta
With passion for getting people well without the use of medications and preventing surgery, I built a successful practice but something was missing. I enjoyed getting people well but I felt that there was more to the fight that I wasn’t fighting. Getting people out of pain was great, but it was not “Wellness”. I wanted to not only encourage a healthy lifestyle, I wanted to help people achieve it. The vision came to me in 2009 when I thought about helping people continue their journey to health and wellness AFTER getting them out of pain. I have always promoted the acronym D.R.E.A.M. Diet, Rest, Exercise, Adjustment and Mental attitude as a philosophy of life but my patients weren’t realizing this goal left on their own to realize it. I knew that I needed to hold their hands and help them achieve this goal. This is when the proverbially light bulb went off. What if I were to build a center that encompassed everything necessary for people to get out of pain and then stay healthy? A one stop shop for wellness!
This is when Soul Focus was born. I began looking for space and found a 16,000 sq./ft. structure that was built on the outside but was a concrete slab inside. I would be able to build it from the ground up according to my vision. There was only one problem. I had no money. And unfortunately, this was during the mortgage crisis and banks were not lending money. To my surprise, due solely to my passion and drive for wanting to build a wellness center, a bank agreed to lend me $2M dollars to build my DREAM. I was scared and worried that if I took the money, I would not be able to repay it. What would happen? My parents and anyone else who cared about me wondered why I would be willing to risk all the success I had attained to roll the dice and risk failure. But my passion persisted. I decided that if it was going to fail, it would fail, but I was convinced that this was the model that was needed in my community, my country and the world. I took the money.
The timing was bad. Our economy entered into a recession, and then Hurricane Sandy, decimated the surroundings. My model depended on people having disposable income and free time. Both were gone, as were my hopes of succeeding. I battened down for hard times. It was much worse than I could have ever imagined. Cash flow ceased up like a running faucet that was cut off from its source. The bills piled up. Two years passed with me not knowing if each day would be my last. My morning started with checking the bank accounts to see if anything bounced. However, I pressed on with conviction. I knew that the residents of my community needed a wellness center now more than ever.
Word started to get around that Soul Focus was providing an experience worth speaking about. Located in a hidden oasis of a wellness center, tucked within an industrial corporate park, one could take a group exercise class, get acupuncture, use the steam, sauna, showers and have a meal. Yes, my community let out a big sigh, and so did I as I began catching up on overdue bills and slowly paying off the credit cards.
Soul Focus was beginning to deliver on wellness to the community, but it was by no means successful. In order to be successful, it was necessary to reach many more people and provide more life-changing transformation and I had taken the business as far as I could without help. I needed to start depending on others to help reach my goal. Learning how to trust others with the business of Soul Focus was like leaving your infant child with a new babysitter. Learning how to inspire, motivate and coach others on how to achieve great feats has been my greatest feat to date and the reason behind the continued growth of Soul Focus Wellness Center.
By learning how to become an effective manager and leader, I created significant opportunity for employees to grow within a growing organization. Ultimately, the success of the wellness center means that we are in line with our mission of getting more people well. The end result has been the life of my dreams. A successful wellness center franchise, happy employees who love to come to work, happy and healthy gym members and patients that have a zest for health and wellness and appreciate Soul Focus.
