Why would I want to write a whole page dedicated to me?

Am I some sort of egocentric guy that has to have everyone pay attention to me?

Do I just want every person on Earth to know who I am?  Well, YES.

But I want to help YOU. YOU, the person who seeks a better life. YOU, the person who is tired of just surviving like everyone else. YOU, the person who is willing to sacrifice, work, and become healthy so you can thrive. I want to be able to push you into feeling better than you ever though possible. I want you to walk into the pharmacy, knowing you are spending as little money as possible. I want you, if you are willing, to adjust your routine, educate yourself about your health condition, and learn how to move away from prescription drugs and live a healthy lifestyle.

What follows is the story of my life. It is true to the best of my knowledge and recollection. If you know me, you know my long term memory rivals that of an elephant. You also know that my short term memory has a lot to be desired. The experiences in my life led me to starting Rx Cost Cutters and eventually, MedicineCoach.com.

Before we get into it, I want you to know that this is not my style to be open with my life to total strangers. Knowing someone is the first step in trust. By you learning about me and my experiences, it starts to build the trust between you and I. You can then make a better decision on whether or not you want to purchase one of my products, or allow me to personally coach you through your health issue. Who knows, I may need you as an adviser or coach to help me with an issue. This bio helps establish our relationship…enjoy

Perhaps my earliest memory is my mother coming home in her “new” car. She had to get another car because her “old” car was totaled in an accident. The accident happened just south of State Road 84 on Route 441 in Davie, FL. Mom turned left in front of another car and we were broadsided. It was probably around 1976. Our “new” car was a 1973 Toyota Carolla. Mom has owned three cars since I was born in 1971. That 1973 Carolla lasted her until the late 1990s. Would you believe it was stolen from our driveway? The insurance company gave her a whopping $300 for the loss. She currently drives on older model Toyota MR2.

My paternal grandparents, Al and Millie Conner, had three children. Popo (grandpa) served in World War II and made his living as a truck driver. Granny, as far as I know, worked odd jobs and kept the family afloat. Popo died in 1989 and Granny lives in South Florida near my parents. My maternal grandparents, Steven and Edna Sharrow have both passed away. He was what you would call a “jack of all trades.” He held several different jobs during his life. Grandma recently passed and is my model for living a full life right up until the end. Grandma was also the original “cost cutter” raising eight children on a limited income. She went back to college in the early 1970s to earn her CPA. I still use the quote she said to me one day; “They said I was crazy until I got a degree, now they call me eccentric.” She continued an active lifestyle, riding her bicycle every day to church until she was over 80 years old. She died in 2006 after a short illness.

I grew up in the Lauderdale Manors subdivision of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The neighborhood, for lack of a better term, had a lot to be desired. We lived in what is known as a “cracker house.” These are small, flat roofed, concrete block houses that were built shortly after World War II. I thought everyone lived like this; our car windows broken out with bricks, the family dog shot through the eye with a BB gun, and rocks being thrown at the house when we were not home. You mean your house doesn’t get broken into all the time? Why don’t you have bars on your windows? I would wonder such things when I visited other people outside my neighborhood.

I went to Lauderdale Manors Elementary School through the second grade. Being in the vast ethnic minority, I was picked on mercilessly. With my pin-straight dark hair and cowlick, “Alfalfa” was the term of endearment I was given. My parents pulled me out of that school when the teacher sent a note home to the parents written in such poor English, it was barely understandable. From the third grade on, I went to private catholic school.

My first venture into entrepreneurship was in the fourth grade, at Saint Clements Elementary. I learned that if you pull a piece of cactus off the main plant and stick it in the ground, it would sprout roots. I sold small cactus plants for 10¢ each. After that business dried up, I dove into the underworld. My friend Kevin Perry had an older brother who kept Playboy magazines under his mattress. I would tear the pictures out of the magazine and sell them for 25¢ each. I don’t think that venture lasted a week. Selling naked pictures in catholic school was not the brightest idea.

One of my shining moments came during my adolescent years when video games were all the rage. I realized that the tokens used at the arcade were just slightly larger than a nickel. I placed a nickel on an anvil and pounded it with a hammer until it was the same size as the token. I went to the arcade and, just like I planned, the nickel worked! I could now play five games for the price of one. I then tried drilling a hole in the token, tying a fishing line to it, dropping it in the game, and then pulling it out again. After some practice, my technique worked. I would trip the game ten times and sell the ten credits for $1.00. I wasn’t long before I was raking in the money. All the kids knew me and what I could do for them.

From about age twelve on, I was very athletic. I played several sports including baseball, football, and basketball. I was pretty good, but not great, at all of them. I was taller than most kids my age because I grew tall early. The parents knew me as “the tall skinny kid out there.”

I remember being in the seventh grade; 5 foot 10 inches and weighing 135 pounds. It was then I saw the movie Pumping Iron and it changed my life. It’s a documentary staring Arnold Schwarzenegger about bodybuilding. That was when I began lifting weights and learning about health. I would watch Pumping Iron while I lifted the old weight set my father had. Eventually this turned into a child’s membership at The American Spa and Fitness Center. This was my first experience working out with guys who were serious about bodybuilding.

When I was twelve years old, I began my first real job as a commercial fisherman. My dad owned a boat and was a long-line commercial fisherman. We would go out for up to seven days at a time. If you’ve ever seen the George Clooney movie, The Perfect Storm, that is how a commercial long-line fishing boat operates. I could only go out in the summer, over Christmas break, and over Easter break. My first trip lasted five days and I made $125. I thought I was rich. After that trip, commercial fishing was in my blood and what I wanted to do.

I fished for four years until I was sixteen. I then started working at Captain Mike’s Seafood in Davie, Florida. I started at $3.35 an hour and my first paycheck ever in my life was for $20.10. I began mopping floors and eventually managed the store at age nineteen. I worked for Mike for ten years, it was the only real job I had outside pharmacy. While working for Mike, I still fished commercially on weekends and sometimes all night. I knew plenty of fishermen who fished at night and were happy to have another person aboard to pull fish in. When you’re young, you can work all day, work all night, get a couple hours’ sleep, and go to school.

I went to Saint Thomas Aquinas High School. This is where I excelled in mediocrity as a student. I was a wrestler in high school at 147 pounds. I continued to lift weights in an attempt to gain muscle and in 1989, this skinny teenager graduated at 150 pounds soaking wet. I think high school is where I realized that school is not my strong point. Everyone said I was smart but the grades were never there. It certainly wasn’t from not applying myself. I tried, really, school is just not my strong point.

It was just after high school when I really started getting serious in the gym. I couldn’t read enough about bodybuilding and nutrition. I began at a different gym, Gold Coast Gym, in Wilton Manors, FL. This was a hard core crowd with little frills in the gym. There were two treadmills and two exercise bikes. A few machines and lots of free weights. During these years, I learned a tremendous amount about health and nutrition. I experimented with food and supplements and gained almost 60 pounds in six months. After that weight gain, the diet and exercises changed and fifty pounds melted away in six months. In a year, my physique completely changed.  I learned a lot from my friend and training partner, Heath Allison. (happy now Heath? )

Still working in the fish market, I knew sloughing fish all day was not going to support a family. I had to go to college if I was going to make anything of myself. Off to Broward Community College I went. Now, community college is generally two years; I went five. After my second year, I was still undecided about what I wanted to do, what career I wanted to pursue, or where I wanted to go with my life. There was a computer program there that you could take as a career tool. It asked you questions about your interests, your talents, things like that. It would then tell you the types of careers most suit you. After my test, two results came back; pharmacist and meteorologist.

I went home and looked at myself in the mirror. Wind and clouds don’t excite me and honestly, I don’t have a face for TV news so…pharmacy it was.

Remember I mentioned that school is not a strong point of mine? Through a little research, I discovered that the average student getting into pharmacy school had a grade point average of 3.7 out of a possible 4.0. At that time my grade point average was 2.4. What was I going to do? The same thing everyone does that wants something bad enough, work harder and smarter. It took me three years to get that GPA up to 3.3, but it was still not high enough to even be considered.

Then came the PCAT, the Pharmacy College Aptitude Test. This was a test given to prospective pharmacy school students and your score was based on a competitive ranking system. If you scored an 80%, you scored better than 80% of those taking the exam. The exam covered everything you were supposed to know before entering pharmacy school. My short term memory is terrible but my long term memory is superb. This exam tested your long term retention of various subjects in the health care field. I’ll never forget getting that envelope in the mail; a 96%! I applied to sixteen different pharmacy schools and one decided to interview me. Nova Southeastern University in Davie, FL accepted me into their graduate pharmacy school.

Once again, I struggled just to pass the classes. Everything I tried from different studying techniques, different study groups, teacher conferences, and actually recording and hand transcribing lectures; didn’t work. I knew the material, could practically recite the lectures and textbooks, but could not seem to do well on tests. Everything I knew just seemed to vanish during test times. These were very frustrating times for me. Yes, I’ll admit it, I did cry a couple times out of frustration. I persevered though and graduated in the 20% of the class that made the top 80% possible.

Looking back, I still remember those lectures and those textbooks. I can still hear them and visualize them. I can recall practically everything I was supposed to know for all those tests. It’s just several years too late.

Mom and dad couldn’t afford the $15,000 a year tuition but they could provide me with a place to live. While other students lived in apartments, condos, or rental houses; I lived at home with my parents. When you are in your twenties, it is awkward to ask someone to come back to your parent’s house.

Stafford loans were my meal ticket. I learned to survive on next to nothing. The government would only allow me $25,000 a year in subsidized loans. By the time every little department along the way took out their little percentage, and the school took their $15K, I was left with about $7,500 to live on for the year. Luckily, I still knew some fishermen who needed the occasional hand.

I made a lot of good friends during those four years. One of my professors, David Gazze, was in my wedding. He is, without a doubt, the smartest person I know. (are you happy now Dave )

Two weeks before graduation, I met my wife. I was out with a group of friends that included Dave Gazze. The discussion that night was to find me a girlfriend because I was the only one who was single. Years ago, I was rather shy and introverted so I just kind of sat at the table and listened to everyone encourage me. Susan walked by and Dave grabbed her by the arm and introduced her to me and the rest, they say, is history.

We moved into a small condo in Fort Lauderdale and stayed there for just under a year. We sold that property and made a profit of three dollars, yup three bucks. Our first house was a fixer-upper in Deerfield Beach, FL. We put a lot of sweat equity in turning that house into something we could be proud of. By this time we had two small children, Dylan and Steven.

Still paying off my six-figure student loan, private school for the kids was just something we couldn’t afford. I pride myself on being able to make ends meet with Susan being a stay-at-home mom. I feel that is very important for my family and did not want to sacrifice that in order to have nicer things. Public school is where we were going to have to send the kids.

As any parent, I want the best for my children. This includes sending them to a good, quality school. Researching the south Florida area, there were no schools I was comfortable sending my kids to. I then started my two year quest to find the perfect area to raise a family.

For nearly two years, we drove the state of Florida one weekend a month. I was doing research on the internet about schools and neighborhoods but nothing screamed, “Live here.” So I started searching Georgia, then Alabama, then South Carolina, nothing seemed to fit. I was about to give up and accept my fate when I looked into Williamson County, Tennessee. It appeared to fit what I was looking for so Susan and I flew up one weekend to drive around. When we got back to Florida we put the house up for sale.

Relocating a family a long distance is not easy but the change in environment was well worth it. We moved into our current home and began our new life.

The beginning of my pharmacy career began like many new pharmacists, big chain retail. I don’t think like most other people and like to do things my own way. When someone sitting at a corporate desk, 1,000 miles away, is making a decision that affects my daily life, I don’t like it. I went through six different companies in eight years as a pharmacist.  You can say, I’m not a company man.

During this time, I began to notice my customers were waiting longer and longer to get their prescriptions refilled. They didn’t have the money to pay for them so they had to wait. The complaints about prices were getting more and more frequent. Then there was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

A woman came in with her sick daughter and had a prescription for an expensive antibiotic that she could not afford. She was quite upset so I called the doctor’s office after hours to request a change. The doctor called back with a medication that cost twelve dollars. She came back two weeks later to thank me. That was the day something clicked. This is ridiculous.

Why do these medications cost so much?

Why can’t we do something about it?

Don’t the doctors know what these things cost?

Why are people going to five different pharmacies to get five different medications?

Hasn’t anyone thought about ways we can lower these costs?

After helping a few people save money, the news of what I could do for people spread. Soon, the pharmacy phone was ringing all day from people asking for my assistance. I was spending more time helping people save money than being a pharmacist.

In 2003, Susan and I started Rx Cost Cutters to make my consulting business legitimate. With what I learned, I wrote and self published a workbook and audio CD. I spoke to groups and gave lectures to various organizations. We even got into cyberspace and had a very amateurish web site.  We wrote a book, How to Save Money on Your Prescription Drugs and have been featured on television dozens of times.

During my coaching and consulting, I noticed that people were not only interested in saving money on prescription drugs; they were also interested in getting off the prescription drugs. The questions about herbal products, vitamins, supplements, hormones, diet, and weight loss were increasing at an alarming rate. To satisfy my clients, I began my quest to teach people how to rid themselves from prescription drugs and get on a health lifestyle.

This is a new focus of the Rx Cost Cutters/Medicine Coach business model.

Why are you on that pill?

What if you used some readily available herbal products combined with simple lifestyle adjustments?

How does your diet affect your condition?

Could it be a vitamin deficiency and not a disease that is the problem?

Shortly thereafter, questions about hormones began to surface.  As I began to study this area, I became very interested and fascinated with hormones.  A patient asked me for recommendations on hormone balancing, I told her what I knew.  Then a doctor’s office called with hormone questions, then another doctor’s office, then another, and another, soon I was the go-to person for hormone balancing.  Fortunately, I enjoy this aspect of health.  In a short time period, we realized the potential to expand “Medicine Coach” into hormone balancing.

Now, hormone balancing makes up the vast majority of our patient load.

With this new focus, we expect great things in the future.

My goal is for YOU, yes YOU sitting there in front of your computer; to get motivated.

Motivated to free yourself from monthly trips to the pharmacy

Motivated to live a longer, active life for your loved ones

Motivated to feel better every day

Motivated not just to survive, but to thrive…