In this inspiring episode, Erin and Gene share their powerful journey from the world of conventional medicine to founding their thriving functional medicine practice, Rising Tide Wellness, in Charleston, SC. Through personal health challenges and professional growth, they discovered the potential of functional medicine to provide the answers they were searching for—not just for themselves, but for their community.
This conversation delves into how their partnership fueled their transition, the importance of accountability, and how the support of their local community has been integral to their success. From navigating the challenges of building a practice to embracing personal transformation, Erin and Gene offer a roadmap for practitioners looking to balance heart, structure, and innovation in the evolving world of healthcare.
Tune in to learn about:
- Solutions that functional medicine offers where conventional approaches may fall short
- How to build a supportive partnership to drive personal and professional growth
- How a successful practice demands both community integration and personal development
- How workshops, group coaching, and virtual care can provide flexibility and deeper patient engagement
- How personal and professional transformations are continuous and impactful
Tune in to hear how Erin and Gene are forging new paths in medicine and empowering their community to take charge of their wellness.
James Maskell:
Hello and welcome to the podcast. This week we feature Gene Blake and Erin Mullally, two nurse practitioners in Charleston, South Carolina that have built a dynamite functional medicine practice called Rising Tide Functional Medicine.
In this podcast, we’re going to get into the journey of how they met, the medical conditions that brought them together, their journey from being employees, starting their own practice, why they started their own practice, how they started it, and really the meteoric success that they’ve had. I’ve had a chance to spend some time with them and see them just like so at ease with the successful building of a practice that now has a real impact in Charleston and the surrounding areas.
At Evolution of Medicine, one of our goals is to just showcase how easy it can be for practitioners to build a successful practice with the right agreement, the right connection, the right energy. And I think you’ll find that in spades in this podcast. It was an amazing half an hour. Enjoy.
So, a warm welcome to the podcast for the first time, Erin and Gene, welcome. Thank you. Super excited to dive into your journey here today. You know, as we spent time together, you one of the things that I’ve taken away from our meetings is just how you know, easy and in flow you guys are with your functional medicine practice and all the way through the evolution of medicine. Our goal has just been to try and make it fun and cool and aspirational to be a functional medicine practitioner, making an impact in your community. And that’s what I want to dive into today. So how long have you two been friends?
Erin Mullally:
Since 2015, April 2015 is when we met. Great. Where I was first her patient.
James Maskell:
So yeah, tell us about how you met and where you were at that point and how you decided to go on a functional medicine journey. Why don’t you start and start really like with where your health journey started and how we…
Erin Mullally:
So yeah, my health journey actually was long. I had half my thyroid out at 22 and everybody said, go on with your life, everything will be fine. And I was living in New York, I was a young PA and by the age of 26 was having chronic pain every single day. And then started with high blood pressure and other hormone issues and severe headaches. And everybody just kept saying everything was fine. So, I went on with my life and in my 30s, I moved to Charleston and had two babies within 18 months of each other and kept talking to everyone about how exhausted I was.
And everybody kept telling me I was fine. They were trying to give me an antidepressant and was not getting any answers. So, I made my way to my 35th year. So, a lot of years of not feeling fine. Then I saw a billboard driving one day that said, “Live your best life.” And Gene’s face was on that billboard with a couple of other practitioners that she was working with.
And I made a phone call and ended up with her a couple of days later. And she said, “I think you have no thyroid hormone,” which of course I had been saying to a lot of people for years. And when she treated me, it was literally like somebody turned the lights back on in my life. And I was, I felt renewed. I felt like I had won the lottery, was running around town hugging people like I had won the lottery. Amazing. And then I got late—
James Maskell:
Let’s get into that because like, you you’re a PA, you know, you’re being told that you’re fine. So, under what circumstances are you being told that you’re fine? Like the labs are normal? Is that what you’re hearing?
Erin Mullally:
You know, labs are normal. had echocardiograms. They said that’s normal. And everything that I, every person that I saw, which was all sorts of different specialists, GYN, cardiology, regular doctors. I saw a hormone specialist. And everyone kept saying labs are fine. nobody looked at a thyroid ultrasound. So yeah, it was very frustrating. was really dismissing. And that’s when, you know, when I finally knew what it was like to feel well, that’s when I got really angry. And that’s how I discovered functional medicine, because I thought if it’s this easy and I’ve now lost 13 years of my life, including my, the time where my babies were young.
Yeah. Then how many other people are going through the same road? And so, yeah, then I dove into functional medicine and I hadn’t really seen Gene in a little bit because I was feeling so good. And I came back to an appointment with my mom and I said, I’ve discovered something. Like I’m really into this functional medicine. That’s cool. tell us how you ended up with a billboard with your face on it.
Gene Blake:
My part of the story is I was working in conventional OBGYN. I’m a midwife by training. And my kids were at an age where taking call was not super great. And I had an opportunity, an older physician here in our town was like, hey, I’m learning about hormones, and I want to hire a nurse practitioner. And I was like, okay, that sounds good. It was literally like, it was. I feel like my transition to this was complete dumb luck because the main reason I took the job is because it was well, three reasons. was his office was less than a mile from my house. He offered me more money than I was making with no call. And I told him exactly what I wanted my hours to be, which was I wanted my kids to be home. I want to be home when my kids were home. And so.
You know, we did that. It was cool. It didn’t, I knew zero things about hormone replacement. ‘Cause that, and I was trained in it at a conventional academic institution. And I mean, if it wasn’t PAPS, PAP smears or birth control pills in the GYN world, it just, you know, it wasn’t part of the conversation. And so, I went to this training course. It was very interesting, very cool. But when Aaron came and was sitting in front of me in 2015, I literally knew how to do one thing. And so it was, I had done some very basic work in hormone optimization. And so, I did the one thing for her that I knew how to do at the time. And thankfully that was the one thing that she needed.
It was the thing that made the shift for her. So, my experience of her coming back into my office and like, I’m always like, turns out my personality is like, Ooh, I’m always looking for the next best thing and want to ping around and do it. So that fell right into that. And it was super interesting. Also, my undergraduate degree was in health and health science, health and exercise science. So, it was putting these two worlds of medicine and health science together for me. And I was like, this is really cool.
And we kind of dove into that together. I went to my boss at the time and I was like, hey, you know, this is what he was very excited about the small amount, just the hormone optimization piece that we were doing at the time. so, and he was also like, hey, open to other things. So he brought Erin in to our practice, to practice functional medicine. He sent us to IFM, we did all the training together. And it was literally like light bulb after light bulb after light bulb after light bulb, because what functional medicine did for me, having been conventionally trained, worked in that space, it filled in all the holes, like all these things that you’re like, well, I have a vivid memory of going to one of my supervising physicians.
And when I was working in OB and, I, she, I was like, how do I test for thyroid dysfunction? And she was like, TSHT four. And then there was a line. There we go. Sorry. and then there was a line on the lab order that was a TPO and TGA, which I know now are thyroid antibodies. And she’s like, check that. And I was like, why do you do that? She’s like, I don’t know, it’s just part of thyroid. That’s like, okay. And now I know the impact that testing for thyroid antibodies has. It’s tremendous. And there’s so much power in that. So functional medicine for me was very much filling in the holes. And that’s why it’s so interesting having worked in this space now for 10 years.
People are like, whoa. And I think the pendulum is swinging and we can talk about that, but you know, people are like, “Whoa, integrative natural medicine. Like, I don’t know if I’m ready for holistic.”
This is freaking common sense. I mean, really is it just, it fills in the holes of the way that, that we practiced conventionally, and it also elevates the power of the patient to step in and take control of their own health and their own life.
James Maskell:
Yeah, that’s right. I love hearing that. And I think you’re totally right. It is common sense. And I’d love to get your input on this. I recently, I went back to the town that I had lived in and so from 2005 to 2007, I’d run a clinic with a naturopathic doctor in a small town, you know, an hour outside of Atlanta in Georgia. And at that point, you know, there was really no one else in the town that was doing any holistic medicine.
And now coming back 15 years later, the whole town has transformed, and it feels a lot more cosmopolitan and interesting, and they have a lot more things going on. I would just love to get both of your thoughts on what it’s like to sort of introduce this new clinical model into a town or a city in the South, particularly, and how that’s changed over the last 10 years and what strategies have you used to sort of normalize this for maybe patients who hadn’t considered or hadn’t heard of it, or it wasn’t part of the way that they considered taking care of their health.
Erin Mullally:
Yeah, that’s interesting. Well, so, you know, once, as Gene said, all these light bulbs going off for us, we got excited and had all these ideas about how we wanted to practice it, but we were still trying to practice in a conventional office. We still were using paper charts.
We’re still within insurance trying to do some functional medicine services outside of insurance. It just was really clunky and confusing and still working on the timeframe of the old model of like how many patients can you see in a day?
Gene Blake:
And then I would also add to that the training piece of it. I think that, and I think maybe we could talk about this, too.
but it has shifted in the complexity of how do you practice functional medicine? Do you need all these extensive tests and all these extensive therapies, or can you again, can we go back, and we can just use our common sense the majority of the time? And so, when we went through IFM, we were playing with things on our own and still just trying to navigate like how much, what is actually needed.
to move the needle? Do we need a stool test on everybody? Do we need like, what kind of lifestyle plan needs to be incorporated? And so that was part of the, not only was the time an issue, fitting it into 20-minute visits and seeing as many, I mean, working on production, seeing as many patients as we could, but also, it’s like, okay, like you’re coming to me and you have this list of complaints. What testing is appropriate right off the bat? How much is that going to cost, what are you willing to do? And so that’s what it made it. Because really, at that point, anybody could call and see us in our old insurance bills.
Erin Mullally:
Yeah, but they weren’t necessarily ready for all that. So then from a standpoint of integrating it into the community, mean, similar with hormone optimization, we used to be an anomaly. That’s what we were practicing. We have people coming from all over the state to see us.
You know, so that was nice that we could have that reach just from IFM’s website. But I would say definitely people were going to their doctor and hearing from their doctor, they’re crazy or, they don’t know what they’re talking about or, that’s fringe or woo-woo or whatever, all the things. I think, I mean, I know me, I work with such a gut instinct. Like I knew what we were doing was right. Or was helpful to patients. I knew it was changing people’s lives. So, we kind of just didn’t listen to that, but there were other practitioners making complaints to the state about us. I mean, not just us particularly, but the people in the space doing what we were doing. So, it took some bravery initially. And then I would say, as Gene said, I think hormone optimization has shifted and functional medicine is becoming more of a word that people have heard of. So really in the last four-ish years, I would say, I think we’ve let down some of that guard a little bit because we don’t feel like we’re being burned at the stake anymore.
James Maskell:
It seems like your own personal story is super valuable for getting people over the hump because I’m sure a lot of women, especially with what you’ve experienced.
Erin Mullally:
Well, and I’ve actually gone toe to toe with an endocrinologist or two in town after listening to them talk about how exactly what made the humongous difference in my life didn’t matter and was a myth in a hospital sponsored CME continuing medical event. And I went afterwards and I said, “Have you like the difference that this can make in people’s lives is huge. And you know, I think this is wrong. And he said, well, you must be an anomaly. And I said, well, we’re pretty busy for all the anomalies in town.
James Maskell:
Yeah, absolutely. Interesting. And I love to get into like the journey for you to start your own practice here shortly, but I guess I’d just love to like, you know, find out, I mean, obviously you have just your own experience of doing this together, but how much impact has it had sort of having this inbuilt accountability buddy, sparring partner, support person?
As basically, yeah, the two of you, you’ve sort of like gone through, going through like a dramatic change in your mindset, you know, I one of the things that holds back.
You know, why hasn’t the functional medicine revolution happened? It’s just because like, each doctor by themselves might come to a conclusion that this is what they want to do. But you need those like support structures to reinforce, no, you’re not crazy. Yes, you can reverse these chronic illnesses. Yes, you can have a dramatic change in your life from a simple, you know, hormonal intervention. And I just feel like, you know, I feel like going through the training together, you know, seeing what you’re seeing and referring back, you know, could be part of the magic source why this has been maybe easier for you than it has been for other practitioners.
Gene Blake:
100%. Well, a couple of things come up for me when you’re saying that. I think our previous boss, the physician we worked for previously, he was an anomaly. And so he was incredibly supportive in the beginning, thinking outside the box. And he’d had a career in medicine for 40 years where he was always, I mean, in this, you know, in a deep South town, always kind of pushing the envelope. I mean, our first, was actually the first before Aaron and I really dove into functional medicine. He knew he wanted nutrition, for example, within his practice. And he brought in, which this was so interesting to me. He brought in a registered dietician—which the difference between then 10 years ago in dietetics and functional nutrition, it’s like crazy. So that was really interesting learning experience.
And then another experience that I’ve had in this. So, one of my really close friends is at OBGYN at the medical institution, the academic institution in our town. And she frequently for in a very passive aggressive way. I mean, when I left my conventional, my regular OB practice just to practice hormone optimization, I mean, I was getting cuts from her left and right. I mean, that it was that this was a money hungry. This was a money seeking venture for me, which is crazy.
And like even just going, leaving conventional and going into the other insurance bill practice before we started our own practice that you selling supplements was that there was something taboo about that because you were making money doing that, that the testing, you’re just testing things that you can’t do anything about. So, there was a lot of like push from her. I got to a point with her where, and I love her, like we do life together. And I was thinking, like let’s do life, I’m not going to talk about work with you. Like we need that barrier. So fast forward, this was in the very beginning. Fast forward a couple of years later, we were out in the front yard, our kids were playing and she was like, “Have you ever heard of the microbiome?” I was like, as a matter of fact, I have. But I would say to your question through this,
We have always, I mean, I believe that we had some contract to meet in our lives. I think that that is part of the walk that I walked was so that I could meet Gene and that we could partner and do this work together. because my children actually both have had low thyroid and I believe that, you my journey was so that they didn’t have to suffer, but this partnership has been amazing. I mean, it’s an amazing friendship.
Erin Mullally:
To your point, when this kind of thing is going on where the world is questioning us, we have always held each other up and we are a perfect teeter-totter typically when one is freaking out and saying, we can’t do this. It’s going to be madness. It’s going to fail. The other one is it’s totally fine. We are great. It is going to be fine. We’re going, we’re walking the right path. And then the other one, can totally flip. So, we really balance each other well.
And I think also to your point, when we decided to go out on our own and do this, we had so much confidence in each other and already our partnership that we knew that any moment that one of us felt weak or was questioning or doubting, the other would carry. That really has been the case over the last couple of years.
James Maskell:
Yeah. I just want to double click on that. Because I feel like, again, like going into private practice by yourself, again, like you, if you’re just the only one and you’re just freaking out, you know, half the time, then it’s very hard to make consistent progress because you don’t have that support. You know, and I want to just draw a parallel, like in our group visit business where we were, you know, working and, you know, helping practitioners implement and health systems implement group visits, you know, at the very beginning, I was like, okay, we’re going to put people into a group.
but then also we’re going to pair people up and we’re going to call it like an accountability buddy. And turns out no one wants an accountability buddy, but then we just changed the name to a progress partner. Great.
You guys are like professional progress partners in that, like you both want progress towards your dreams, and you have the best mix of like support, accountability, know, connection, agreement, you know, the number one thing about where you’re going and how you’re doing it and…
I think if people are listening to this and thinking about their journey and maybe they’ve had some fits and starts and ups and downs, that the sort of co -regulation that you’re able to do both in terms of each other’s nervous system, supporting each other is a really powerful foundation. So, as I’m listening to you and seeing you guys do your thing, think it’s part of the causative success.
So, let’s get into it. Now you guys have you’ve had your training, you’ve worked in insurance, you know, this other doctor, I guess, has put you through the training, right? And so now I guess you’re thinking about, you know, starting to plot towards what it could be like to just be your own practice. So, what are some of the initial considerations as you’re before you leave your job, you know, and you’re thinking about like what you want to build and how and what it’s going to look like and where does that come from?
Erin Mullally:
Yeah, I’ll tell kind of the very early piece of that. And then I’ll let Jane tell, because really it’s your fault that we’re on this path. But in 2017, which was only two years into me being in the other practice, I started doing the math and I was like, Gene, we really could see a lot fewer patients and spend a lot more time with people and still make the same amount of money if we weren’t in this huge practice. And, you know, she was like,
I kind of like just coasting, you know, having a salary at this point. So, she kind of blew me off at that point. And then we went on with life.
Gene Blake:
Well, and there, you know, like, I think going back to like, what has made this easy, if you want to say that is like the heart of the work, like the passion and the belief that I have, and that Erin has for this type of care, whatever it looks like. Just like there’s a thousand different ways to deliver conventional or allopathic medical care, there’s a thousand different ways to do this work. So, whatever it is, it’s the heart of the work that I just have so much belief in because it’s changed my life, I mean, obviously professionally, but also personally. Everything that we do, and this was the case in our old practice, And it’s the case here. Every single thing we do is because we so deeply believe in it, and it’s changed both of our lives. And we say this a lot. Like I think practicing what you preach, not because you preach it, but because you need it is such, like you have to embody that in order for this work to be fruitful. I mean, that’s one of, I think that’s one of the major failures. Within the allopathic system is there’s not, I you can, I think of again, a close family friend who is an anesthesiologist who has high cholesterol. He’s Asian, older and refuses to be put on a statin. He’s not going to do what his peers are asking or what the standard of care is. And that’s the case across–I mean, so frequently. I think the heart knowing, having that like deep core belief about what you’re doing and practicing it. but we also didn’t know how to run the
So there was that from the very beginning and all the learning and delivery and just the whole, even though I was like, yeah, this is coasting. I’m going to go to my work three days a week and come home. Great, no problem. I knew it was inadequate. Like I knew there was a better way, there had to be a better way to do it. And I, but I didn’t have, I had no business knowledge, like zero. And I had no context. mean, I was working part -time at home with my family. Like I didn’t, I didn’t have any context or desire to really like jump all into something or not be an entrepreneur at all.
But I knew that there was a better way to do this. And fast forward to the fall of 21, I was listening to your podcast and Seth Conger was on it. And he started talking about, think it was on Avexia first and then also a structure that could work. A structure for how to deliver functional medical care. And I was like, huh, OK, maybe I could do this. I guess y ‘all’s conversation, because my MO is to look for the easy way. So y ‘all’s conversation made it sound doable enough that I wanted to pursue that. And that was through freedom practice coaching.
So, I called Erin, and I was like, hey, and we would had consistently shared podcasts, yours being one of them back and forth for years. And I was like, hey, I think we can do this now. And she had kind of put that to bed after I’d said no five years or three years ago, four years ago. And so, she had also within the last year gone through a divorce and moved. And so was like, okay, and now let’s start a new job too.
That felt like a hard no in the beginning. And I was like, all right, well, I’m just going to pursue this. Not go out on road, not go out on my own. I’m going to pursue getting more information about how to do this. So, getting the help from Freedom Practice Coaching. So, we went through that process and having that help and support. Like we had the heart, but we didn’t have the structure. And we didn’t understand.
I mean, when I say I have zero business sense, like I’m not kidding. I can pay my bills and that’s it. And so, there was no context for that. And so, they gave legs and the structure to like what we, to what the care that we wanted to deliver, which was simple to the point, common sense and collaborative. Yeah.
Erin Mullally:
Yeah. And so that was funny because from the first time that we met with them, I was very close to it. I was just like, “I can’t see how this is possible that I could be a single-income household and just walk out of a job and go for it.” And through the interview process, it started to be like, well, maybe it could happen. And then once it’s like a year or two, yeah, we were like in a year or two, we’ll start making plans.
And then once I found out like there’s a syllabus, you can just follow the directions, do the homework. And that’s how you’re going to put one foot in front of the other. Next thing we know within three months of that initial interview, we had resigned and we’re on our way. and, and once we knew that we also had a team behind us that believed in us, that felt like a safety net of support that also made it seem more possible. And then we really did just follow the directions and, you know, really leaned into our coaches and leaned into each other and just started doing it. yeah.
James Maskell:
So, give us the journey since then. like, tell us, like, how’s it gone? What’s it called? How did you decide on the name? You know, who are you serving and what is the like current state of the business?
Gene Blake:
The name of our practice is Rising Tide Wellness. My husband actually came up with that name. And it’s based off the John F. Kennedy quote, a rising tide lifts all boats. And so that kind of has really been the driver for everything that we do is that, you know, we come into this space, we’ve got to be willing to do the work on our own. And we want all of that to filter down to the people that we serve.
And that’s the invitation to people that come into our practice is that you have that power and opportunity to be that in your own life. And so, we knew, we had things that we knew we wanted to do. We knew we wanted to keep it simple. We knew that we wanted to use that kind of common sense that we were talking about in the beginning.
And so we own 95 % of the time plus we stick with serum labs. Like we just do basic.
Erin Mullally:
Well, we do. We have a handful of functional medicine tests that we will pick and choose to use, but for the most part we’re relying on, on blood tests.
Gene Blake:
When we used to say, when we practice even in the insurance bill, I was like, I can get 60 to 80 % of people, 60 to 80 % better. With the basic. With just what we had in the context of insurance. And so now what we can offer within the context of Rising Tide and the platform of Rising Tide is even more than that.
Erin Mullally:
So, we’re outside of the insurance system. We are a systematic approach, meaning everybody who comes into our practice is working through a nutritional curriculum, uses health coaching. We do group health coaching. We facilitate some of the groups.
And that’s been such a joy to kind of, after we’re almost 20 years into our medical practice, so to change gears and actually put on the entrepreneurial hat, to put on the health coaching hat, to put on the, whether marketer or finance person, it’s really been kind of fun to change up the roles that we’re doing. But yeah, so then walking people through the system that we’ve created, takes out a lot of the variables where before we were spending half our time just trying to figure out what they had done over the last four weeks. But now we know what they’ve done over the last four weeks. And we’ve seen them, you know, regularly in health coaching. And then one of the dreams that we had that was really the most easy to put into place that people love is our workshops.
So we do an in -person, because we’re an all virtual practice. and before she tells you about them, we had this idea for workshops in our old practice. And we tried to implement them and it was a disaster. we did one, the cooking one was really fun, but it was a lot of work. It was a lot of work or like nobody would show up or like, I mean, it was just, or a ton of work and it wasn’t worth it.
We have an in -person workshop every month and then a virtual workshop every month. And you know, it’s just a part of people’s program and people love it. And we invite them to bring family members and friends. And it just, it’s, it’s one of our favorite things.
James Maskell:
That’s so cool. Which part of the clinical operating system that now you offer, you know, is there a part of it that you didn’t expect to really enjoy and you just love doing?
Gene Blake:
Well, we love the help coaching I think the coaching piece of it, because I well, I don’t know, this is getting probably into like deeper layers of this stuff, because what we also learned is like, what we were missing in the conventional 20 minute visits is all the baggage and the emotional challenges and really getting to know people, issues and concerns and the struggles that people are bringing into the space that are heavily impacting the physiology of what’s showing up and what their lab work looks like.
Well, in 20 minutes, you barely have time to figure out what they ate for dinner last night and go over the labs. So, we’ve started, there’s a lot of patterns in people.
So, one of the big ones is that we had no idea that we would even need to go into is things like relationship to food. mean, so many, and we take care of, mean, this work, you know, is universal. I mean, we have practice members from 17 up to age 80, men, women. Our primary, we mostly serve women. Mostly in, I would say, to 65. But the outliers are becoming more and more frequent, which is so cool. But relationship to food. So, a lot of the women that we serve are on the reward punishment cycle as it relates to food and exercise.
And so, we have an opportunity to really pour into that and to see, OK, how is that impacting? How is that impacting your physiology, how is that impacting what’s showing up on a day -to -day basis?
Erin Mullally:
Well, and so then are you also asking what are we like from the business side of it? Well, I whatever. I know that like you were very adamant, Gene, that you were not a business person and now you guys run a really successful That’s why she doesn’t do a large portion of the business. I actually love the finances and the stats and things that we do for FPC. I have loved that. And that’s, I don’t know if that’s been surprising to me. I probably had a little bit more desire to do entrepreneurial things, but I have enjoyed that piece of it actually.
Gene Blake:
But I think that that keeps us, ‘cause we stay, I mean, we know what our stats are. know how many people are coming into the practice. We know what our costs are. Like we know we are very clear on these, things and it allows us freedom and space to like really lean into more of the heart work and more of the like connecting with people because that works that moves people. Well, and just it’s literally given us the freedom and space to take more time off and you know, because we know where the practices we know what we need to do. So yeah, I mean, well we thought initially that we were just going to do virtual until we got ourselves going and then we were going to get an actual space, but we’ve loved being virtual so much, both from the standpoint of being moms and being available for our kids or like for me, I love to travel. So I can go be somewhere else on the week that I don’t have my kids and I’m still working and I’m still connecting with our team and our people. That has just been so life-giving and I love it. Anyway, so probably about six months in, we said, no, we’re going to stay virtual.
Gene Blake:
One of the other positive piece of virtual care is access. I mean, if the expectation is that we see the white CRIs once a week and health coaching, like that’s doable for people. And then the monthly month to every four-to-six-week check-in for that initial, I mean, it really—
Erin Mullaly:
People are super enthusiastic about participating, because we live in an area where there’s so much traffic, it could take you 20 minutes to get somewhere, or it could take you 50 minutes to get somewhere, and it’s really unpredictable. So, participation from a standpoint of being virtual from our clients has been huge. It’s awesome.
James Maskell:
Well, I guess the last thing I want to just you know, checking on, because now I know, you have a very like successful business. It’s all virtual. You’re happy. You know, I see that’s what I’ve sort of felt as we’ve connected and got to know each other. Just, you know, radiated that from you. I guess I just want to like ask you if you compare yourselves to who you were in 2015, like, how do you see that transformation personally for yourself? my gosh.
Erin Mullaly:
Well, so first of all, the one thing that we haven’t gotten into is that alongside this career evolution, we each have launched into a tremendous amount of personal growth. Me initially kind of dragging Gene along, but the both of us just lifting each other up and giving each other space for that in these last couple of years has been huge. So, It’s, don’t, wouldn’t even think I could recognize myself five years ago. But then when I look back to, you know, we’re coming up on our three-year anniversary with FPC this fall, I don’t even recognize the person that sat in those initial interviews. I mean, my growth has been, unbelievable. it really, I was thinking as I was walking this morning, I love my life so much. I love my life. And I don’t think I could say that even three years ago.
Gene Blake:
And I think the idea that, and I really, really believe this and the deeper I go into this, deeper, the more that this line of work connection is required, trust is required to move people. I do believe that we can only love and serve or heal and serve to the level in other people to the level that we have done it ourselves. And that’s what we’ve seen. Like it did feel in the beginning very, like, you know, we’re, manipulating, we’re like forcing and efforting. And the more that we take care of ourselves, develop a deeper understanding under really get clarity on the truth of who we are and how we’re showing up and what other people’s experiences of us, the, it, there’s just and trust ourselves.
And I know it sounds all woo-woo. Like if you’d if I would have said this had this conversation with me three years ago, have been like, well, even a year ago for you. but it just like it there’s so much truth in it. There is so much truth in it. So, you know, the whole, you know, there’s so many cliches around it, the oxygen mask, the filling up your cup and all of that, but it’s even more on a deeper level of really practicing what we preach.
Erin Mullaly:
And I think that what’s coming up for me is the medical community is so just kind of buttoned up and you’re like, you are there for clinical reasons and not there to connect with people that that’s where we’ve seen ourselves just blossom and thrive is in this ability to come in from a place of connection and love and care and connect with people as a means of healing. And yes, we’re doing the labs and we’re doing the medical stuff, but people feeling held and supported in the structure of this practice, I believe is one of the most transformational things for them. And then for us, for our team, mean, it’s as FPC says, hashtag, 10 million lives. Like it is changing everyone’s lives on every single level of this.
James Maskell:
Yeah. Well, look, how does it feel to be now you listen to the podcast a long time, right? And now you’re here on the podcast and you’re talking about, you know, your, your own success and now being a beacon to other people who, you know, are listening to the podcast and being like, maybe I could do that one day. How does that feel?
Gene Blake:
This is all of this has been full circle moment. I mean, the first time when I met you at the conference, she almost whatever a year ago, I like came home and I was like, you’re not going to believe, of course, nobody in my family cares. I was like, it’s really cool. It’s not a space I ever dreamed that. We would have the opportunity to be on. And I think it’s just being open to what’s open to where life is available. Right. That’s about it.
James Maskell:
Awesome. Well, look, I guess I just the reason why I wanted to do this podcast is that I just, you know, I’ve seen over the years so much struggle for practitioners struggling to make it work, fighting the man, the medical institution, the like, you know, cultural norms inside the city, the licensing boards, like there’s so much like, you know, pain, suffering and anguish in the functional medicine journey.
And, what I’ve experienced from you guys and why I wanted to share this is just like the joy and personal development and connection and coherence that is just possible when you sort of surrender into the fact that like, this is my destiny. I’ve got my person that I’m doing it with and we’re getting after it. And, you know, I have no doubt that, you know, that the Rising Tide is happening in Charleston, you know, and there’s a lot of other people I’m sure playing that role, but that ultimately, you know, having a significant ripple effect into the population there.
And, you know, I know that this is happening in every city and country and, you know, or different areas around the world too, but particularly here. And I just want to, you know, share my gratitude and appreciation for you taking action, doing it, you know, trusting each other, you know, trusting the journey and ultimately, you know, creating this great practice is having such an impact. Well, thank you.
Gene Blake:
Thank you. Thank you for your work and your podcast. Without you we would not be here. Yeah.
James Maskell:
Awesome. Well, look, this has been the, this has been the Evolution of Medicine podcast. This is really a kind of a business of functional medicine, you know, topic, but it’s really getting into, you know, what it takes and, and, you know, excited. This is what the Functional Forum always started out. The podcast started out was like, let’s, you know, share stories that can uplift and make it, you know, feel more easy and aspirational for other people to, you know, to tread the same journey. And, so you guys are a great example of that. Thank you so much.
We have all the details of your practice in the show notes. And thanks so much for being part of the Evolution of Medicine podcast.
Thanks so much for tuning in, everyone. I hope this was inspiring and activating as it was for you as it has been for me. And thanks so much for tuning in. And we’ll see you next time.
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