For more than two and a half years Penny Foskaris lived with dizzy spells, chronic fatigue and a continuous abdominal pain. Doctor to doctor. Test to test. Nothing conclusive. Expensive. Exhausting. The education no school offers.
A holistic center finally read the history as one story. Within a week she began to feel like herself again. She treats that week as evidence, not a miracle. She went back to school, then opened Foskaris Wellness in Anaheim Hills: the room she had needed as a patient and never found. No one is rushed out of it. More than five thousand people have come through the door.
When her clients asked to carry the recovery home, she tested roughly a dozen consumer red light devices and rejected every one. The maker of the clinic system she trusted, about twenty-eight thousand dollars, declined to build a smaller version. She found engineers who would. Her name on the housing only because she would use it herself.
She came from the family restaurant trade. There is no romance in her about what a business costs. People used to tell her they wanted a restaurant because they thought it was easy money. She told them they would be married to it. A great idea is not a plan.
We printed her answers in the order she gave them. We kept her first question to every founder who asks for advice. Why do you want to do this. The answer has to carry you through the parts that are not exciting. Hers did.
Reveal. Restore. Reverse. Three words, and a waiting room that does not hurry. That is the issue. The rest is how she got there, and what her clients take home when the hour is over.
We kept the library, the two and a half years, the week that changed the reading, and the dozen devices that failed. We kept the rent-to-buy month and the client who used to fly in twice a month. The file is short because she does not waste a sentence.
Why do you want to do this. The answer has to carry you through the parts that are not exciting.