One of the questions that I seem to be getting asked the most, is, “Why am I doing this, why am I re-doing Sigafoose.com and is this the right time?” My simple answer is, “Because.” The long answer is, I have been wanting to do this for years. It all started way back in 1989-1990. I was living in Japan and traveling around the world. I took a year off from University of Florida and just traveled. I wanted to see the world and see what life was like without a path set out for me. After a few months of travel, my coffers were running dangerously low, so I made the choice to stay put for a while. At that moment I found myself in Japan and I had no plans and no money!
Can you imagine being in a foreign country and only having a couple hundred dollars on you and no means of getting home, let alone having enough money to live on? So what did I do? I checked myself into a wickedly expensive Sheraton hotel and went out exploring Tokyo for the day. What happened next is, well, nothing short of AMAZING!
You see when you travel, you meet all kinds of people and during my travels in New Zealand, Australia and Asia I had met a lot of really nice people and some of them even give you their contact information, so when I was out exploring the city for the day I decided to get in touch with a man I had met, who worked for a large Japanese company called Alcoa. They make large aluminum blocks for use in other industries. Well I had no idea that Mr. Showadenka was an executive for this company and after an incredible lunch and both of us sharing stories, he simply asked me what it is I was going to do next. I told him I wanted, no, needed to stay put for a while and see if I could work and save up some money so I could travel again.
What happened next was just short of unbelievable! Without saying hardly a word, we went back to the Sheraton hotel, where I honestly could not even afford to stay, think one night and kicked out and within minutes my new found friend had paid for my hotel stay for the next WEEK and said he was going to take care of everything and make sure I had a place to stay in Japan. He said “enjoy the city” and put any and all expenses on the hotel room and that he would be back at the end of the week with a plan.
The week flew by and sure enough, Mr. Showadenka, showed back up, paid the hotel bill and put me and my luggage in a fancy black corporate car and whisked me off to an area of Tokyo called Denenchofu. Denenchofu (田園調布) can be translated “garden suburb”. It’s one of Tokyo’s most exclusive residential neighborhoods. I was a little confused and scared, but if you know me, going with the flow is pretty much second hand nature to me.
In no time at all we pulled up to 2-17-15 Nakane, Meguro-Ku. Mr. Showadenka had not only given me one of their corporate houses to use for the next six months, he furnished it as well. Talk about the Universe taking care of you!
I told you this story was long, but I will get to the point. I was now living in Japan and living in the best neighborhood in Tokyo and I was working as an English teacher and tutor for kids after school. (I also had a job at an electronics store, but that is another story for another time. ) Fast forward, I needed to see a Chiropractor, so I contacted my father and asked him if he knew of anyone in Tokyo that I could go to see and that is how I met Dr. Mitsu Shiokawa.
Dr. Shiokawa had a company in Japan called Renaissance Japan, it was a seminar, doctor and patient education company, similar to what my father was doing in the United States with, “The Sigafoose System and The Gathering Seminars.” It did not take long for Dr. Shiokawa and myself to come up with the idea of translating all of my father’s Intellectual Properties into Japanese. So, for the next Six months I taught English, tutored kids in English, worked at an electronics shop and worked on translating everything that my father had into Japanese. Needless to say, I worked A LOT.
After about five months, we had all of Dad’s material translated and decided to have our first seminar in Japan, based off of all my fathers work. So we packed up everything and went to Kyoto and along with about 100 Japanese chiropractors, we held the first ever Sigafoose based chiropractic seminar in Japan. It was all a SUCCESS! To finish up this part of the story, I worked, saved, travelled, taught and had the time of my life. At the end of my stay in Japan, it was incredibly hard to leave. I wrapped everything up and turned all my work over to Dr. Shiokawa and with all the money I had saved, I was off to travel through the rest of Asia, India, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and the Caribbean.
Now back to the initial questions, “Why am I doing this?,” and “Is this the right time?,” because; I have been working toward this for over 25 years. I started this journey in Tokyo, Japan and always wanted to continue working with my father and with his doctor and patient educational material ever since then, but life got in the way. School, practice, relationships, alcohol; you name it, my journey, be it the correct path or not kept me from doing what I had always wanted to do. That being, working with my father on getting not only his message out there, but to bring chiropractic to the forefront. I got lost along the way, but losing someone, my brother first and then my father this past July 3rd, 2014 brought me back from where ever it was, I was. Was it fate? Is it my brother and my father pulling the strings from where ever it is they are watching over us all? I do not know, but what I do know is after 48 years, I have found my path and it is one that I do not plan on veering from any time soon.
Chiropractically Yours,
Dr. Carey N. Pabouet-Sigafoose
