Life Aligned
We are thrilled that you are reading our story and following our journey. As new business owners ourselves we know firsthand the unique struggles that are faced by couples in their relationship and in their business. As we started our journey to start our own business we sought out mentors and advice, but the message we heard over and over was “working with your spouse is crazy.” While we knew it would be tough, we accepted and welcomed the challenge and it has fueled our passion to share the message of what is possible.
It has become our mission to spread the message to other couples out there. We seek to provide others with the information that we struggled to find when starting and building our business.
Chris
“I vow to you that I will work on our marriage with a purpose, this is not something that I take lightly.“
These are some of the words that I spoke to my bride on the morning of our wedding. These words express an idea that has become an inspiration for my life. It is so easy to become caught up in daily stuff and just go through the motions of life. We find a job that we go to every day, we get married and live with that person, then we find a couple things to do every weekend and just repeat over and over and over… We eat whatever food is the easiest and cheapest, find a couple restaurants where we become regulars and that becomes routine of it’s own. Sometimes we even throw in a gym membership that makes us feel like everything else is ok because we got a few workouts in. These routines can become mind numbing as we go through them from day to day.
Many people find themselves struggling at life and looking for answers. As we see divorce rates remain high, obesity and diabetes rates are climbing and many businesses fail. In early 2011 I found myself in a similar situation, I was divorced, unemployed and recently bankrupt. I began looking for answers about why I found myself in that situation and what I had to do to get out of it and never return to it. Initially there was a temptation to blame other people, my ex-wife and an old supervisor jumped right to the top of that list. I slowly began to realize that the change had to come from me.
I began seeking a new career that would allow me the freedom to build my own way. I was interested in the medical field and the thought of being a chiropractor had crossed my mind a few times. In fact, it kept crossing my path and I finally decided to investigate it further. I ended up enrolling at Cleveland Chiropractic College in Overland Park, KS.
It was in one of my early undergraduate classes that I met the woman, who three and a half years later would become my wife. I began the whirlwind of classes and tests and weekend seminars that all go into becoming a Doctor of Chiropractic. Even while going through these classes I never lost that concern in the back of mind: I never wanted to end up at rock bottom again. I knew people didn’t always get divorced or end up unemployed and bankrupt.
As Erica and I began to build our relationship and plan for the future I began to look at what made the difference in people who were successful in those areas. I started to notice the idea of purpose. It’s easy to go through those motions of living and when it derails, you have no idea how you got there. On the other hand I noticed the people who were successful did not arrive there by accident, they worked with a plan and a purpose. That was what I wanted to bring into my life, my marriage and my business.
This project is a result of that purpose, we will continue to seek out others that we can learn from and share those lessons here. We will seek to help others in anyway that we can. Most importantly though, I will work on my marriage with the purpose to make it the best that it can be.
Erica
Quiet mornings with the dogs and coffee; positively effecting my patient's lives during the day; Pandora radio while I cook at night, and my best friend's arms around me while we sleep: This is my serenity, my WHY.
These are just a few examples of what makes my life fulfilling but they only scratch the surface as to who I am or how I got here. I grew up in a mountain prairie town in Colorado, went to undergrad in a tiny Nebraska town, and then moved to the big city life of Kansas City. Finally, I am now a desert rat in Queen Creek, AZ! I have been fortunate enough to experience many different lifestyles, heartaches, achievements and life lessons.
My greatest adventure yet has been meeting my husband and growing in life and love together. We have been married now since August of 2016, but we have been in complete and crazy love with each other since 2013. The years have flown by, my life has changed ever since and I cannot imagine going through everything thus far with anyone else. What an amazing thing! Love so deep you feel lost without each other if only for a moment. C and I met in graduate school while working on our D.C.s and we opened our practice in July of 2017! We have been with each other everyday since the beginning and we haven't grown tired of each other yet! ha! Through this journey with him I have become more patient, more caring, more enriched by the family he brought into my life, and a more complete person overall.
I am not only a doggy mom, but I am a "bonus mom" now too. Kadence and Cole are approaching their teenage years and it has been an absolute pleasure watching them grow over the past years and feeling my love for them grow. C and I have had plenty of ups and downs and changed plans, but the final goal has remained the same: committed to each other in love, in our careers, and with our family.
On this journey of life with my husband, our career, our doggies and my bonus kids I will work hard at remaining in tune with what matters the most: Commitment to marriage and a successful and a healthy lifestyle.
I will be honest, raw, and passionate throughout this journey and I hope you enjoy getting to know my crazy little family and myself.
