Dr. Richard Talsky

History

Early Life / Education

Dr. Talsky is a life-long Chicagoan, born September 19, 1943. He graduated with the degree Doctor of Chiropractic from The National College of Chiropractic in Lombard, IL (a Chicago suburb) in 1967 and began a solo practice in September of that year on his 24th birthday. He attended several years of part-time college with an emphasis in sociology, psychology, English and diverse liberal arts, while working his way full-time, in the advertising and art field, through college and art school (American Academy of Art), before deciding to start chiropractic college. Dr. Talsky has been a chiropractor for nearly 34 years. He practiced full-time from 1967 to January 1993, with a short break for a sabbatical in the '80s.

Breakthrough

During his 5th and 6th year, to create a breakthough in the access to a health-promotion chiropractic practice emphasis focused on the whole family, he introduced non-fixed fees. To empower the family-unit to establish their own fees in support of a health-promotions objective, he challenged them to pay the fee weekly or on each visit on an honor system into a long vertical box, looking very much like a suggestion box. For approximately two years he continued that cooperative arrangement and as a result of whole family care and an "epidemic" of referrals, more than a thousand individuals in families and couples started under care. "It was one of the most fun and rewarding periods of my life," he reflected. A couple of years later in 1976 he pioneered probably the only solo practice yearly pre-paid, family plan in the whole field of health care. He made his practice solely an integrated package of unlimited care for the family for a year for a low fixed fee, again to encourage and support promotion of wellness, (optimal well being). It was a hit, and his practice, during that time averaged 200-400 visits per week.

Accomplishments:

For over 40 years, since age 16, he's made a focused scholarly study of human potential. In this time he has been researching and exploring health, wellness, human potential, human achievement, optimal relationships and organizations, exponential growth, and the state of thriving. In this quest he has read thousands of books, tens of thousands of articles, listened to thousands of hours of recorded tapes, attended hundreds of workshops, seminars and observed hundreds of public speeches on these subjects. He has also studied organizations and individual human models, relationships and families searching for the influences that made a difference in actualization of human ability. He studied humans who developed unconventional, extraordinary, spontaneous and what Michael Murphy, founder o Esalen called metanormal abilities, abilities available to us all.

He has sought out and received coaching and mentoring from some of the most accomplished and creative people in the world...simply because he sought them out, and refused to accept that anyone is inaccessible to any one of us.

He also started several profitable businesses, some in his spare time, while in school or during his years in practice. These included a newspaper twice, once while in chiropractic college and one just now getting under way (The Free Agent); two radio shows, one four years ago that he produced and hosted and ran for 5 months weekly, and one that ran for just three shows a couple months ago; a weekly one-hour a week aerobic class in the early '80s that ran for 6 months, a novelty telegram business he ran out of his home for several years; and he reopened a defunct health club and ran it profitably for less than a year. His main purposes for doing these projects was to develop different parts of himself, his talents, his interests, his abilities; to learn and express self-employment with simplicity, creativity and with the minimum of expense, capital needs and the maximum of resourcefulness and ingenuity.

Dr. Talsky has spoken over a thousand times over the past twenty five years, mostly informally and without a fee and in the community; on the subjects of chiropractic, human potential, optimal living, human thriving, creativity, health and wellness.

In February, 1990, he produced and hosted a three-day seminar weekend event, called "Being Your Best and Loving it." This was his first adventure in the development of educational programs, soon to be developed as a regular offering, both to the public and a feature of the soon-to-be-started The Life Center network of centers. Twenty-five people attended "Being Your Best..." paying $100 each, t the then newly opened Forum Hotel (now the Inter-continental), on Michigan Avenue. There was a variety of ten presenters talking about wellness, human potential and spirituality.

In the past few years he has sold 5500 copies of a preview version of his first book, 50 Ways To Thrive: Putting The Sizzle Back Into Your Life , which he is now taking orders for in its first paperback printing. He's planning to offer it also in digital form for downloading.

The Life Center and The Wow Center

The Life Center is his conception of a network of lifestyle centers he'd like to open soon in the Chicago area. He envisions an oasis, haven, sanctuary, "greenhouse for humans." it will be by membership and offer a unique combination of services. He also envisions a theme center, The Wow Center (the name of this site) to be built in Chicago and including The Life Center and several other complimentary services. More about it soon on this site. He operated a prototype of The Life Center for several years on the north side of Chicago until September of 1997.

The Web Site

Dr. Talsky in collaboration with his son Daniel have created this site to share his lifetime of exploration and the ideas it's produced, and to serve as a port of sharing such ideas on human potential from around the world, and a cyber-place to build a global community for engagement and sharing such ideas from diverse fields. Our purpose is to fulfill the promise of what humans and humanity can be in its highest levels of expression...Dr. Talsky's campaign for human potential.