Interview with Dr Rick Kirschner

On Holistic health, Communication, Difficult People, Medical Freedom and more.

If all you know is what you don’t want, you will get more of it. – Dr Rick Kirschner

There are so many people that have been fighting the good fight, for so long.

I’m glad I’ve crossed paths with Dr Rick Kirschner, and I’m glad he agreed to this interview and to share some of his rich story.

There is so much to learn from it.

With thanks to Dr Rick Kirschner.

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Introduction and Background:

1. Dr. Kirschner, you've had a fascinating 40-year career spanning various fields, from healthcare to business consulting. Can you tell us about your journey and what led you to where you are today?

Hmm. Where to start? I had some health challenges as a child, and through a friend developed an interest in natural health at about 16 years of age. I remember reading Herbals (books about botanical medicines) at 18 and 19. I lived in Israel in 1973, following the Yom Kippur war, and the only work I could find was as an apprentice to an 83 year old Naturopath in a vegetarian village in the mountains above the Galilee. She was mentally sharp, physically active, she could run circles around me, and people came from all over the world to be treated by her. At the time I thought what she was doing was a lost art, and remember wishing I could go to school to learn all that she knew.

Just about a year later, I ran into the little sister of a guy I played rock n roll with in High School, she had some papers under her arm. “What’s that?” I asked. “I’m applying to a Naturopathic medical college in Oregon!” You know that light bulb moment you hear so much about? That was my light bulb moment.

I immediately enrolled in a 3 year pre-med program at a local college so I could meet the pre-requisites to gain acceptance into the Naturopathic college. At the time I enrolled in the 4 year ND program, 1977, there was only one such doctorate level school in the US. Today there are 7 or 8 in North America and various programs around the world. All my classmates were passionate about natural medicine, and had rebelled against the drug and surgery based medical system that dominated healthcare in the US and worldwide, then and now.

While I was a student, I became friends with another student who was a year ahead of me, Rick Brinkman. He was single, I was married, and my wife was an excellent natural foods cook, and he became a regular at my dinner table. That’s where we formed the foundation of a friendship and partnership that would lead to my speaking and training career and the creation of multiple multimedia products and books on communication.

When I was a 3rd year student (and Rick a 4th year student) in the ND program, I was asked by my Academic Dean to represent the school on a popular television program in the Portland area. “Why me?” I asked. And it was the first of many times when I would receive such an answer. “Nobody else is available!”

The show was a moderated forum, and the topic of that episode was ‘Alternatives in Health Care.’ There were 70 representatives of various healthcare stakeholders, MDs, DOs, DCs, nurses, and students, and one ND student, me. Something I said on that show, no idea what it was, got the attention of an area MD in the audience who was so moved by whatever I said that he wanted to hire me as his physician assistant. He was persistent in calling the school, as was I in declining to take the call. The school work was a heavy load, we had a baby in the house, and I wasn’t looking for more work! But he was relentless in calling, and finally my lab director had enough (the phone was on his wall.). “Take the call!” So I did. I said no to the doctor on the other end of the line repeatedly, and finally he insisted that I at least meet him for a meal and conversation.

I brought my friend Rick, and two other students, to the meeting. When you’re in school, you have to look out for your school friends, right? And a free lunch was greatly valued by some of my classmates. The other students ate and left, Rick and I remained at the table, as he again offered me the job of Physician’s Assistant. “You’ll have more respect and power working for me then if you are an ND!” He told me. “I’m not a quitter, I’m 3 years through a 4 year program and I intend to finish it,” I replied. That’s when he changed the offer and extended a new offer to Rick and I. “Then let me mentor you!” I asked why we would do such a thing, and he responded, “You want to be a great doctor, right? Then you need to learn how to communicate!” “Why?” I asked. His reply rang true. “Because most patients would get better if their doctors knew how to listen to them, and most doctors make their patients sicker in the way they talk to them!” I had what I call a blinding flash of the obvious, and both Rick and I agreed to let him supply us with books, audio programs and direct us to relevant training.

We learned so much of value as a result of that agreement! We applied what we learned and experienced dramatic results in restoring the sick to health. We developed a reputation among our peers as being able to crack the hardest cases, and our fellow students referred those difficult patients to us. At some point, we thought and felt that we had an obligation to share what we learned with our classmates. So one weekend, we sat on a beach in the Columbia Gorge and sketched out an outline of a ten weekend workshop. When we offered it through a flyer at school, there was much interest from students.

This was the first workshop, and public speaking, that either of us had ever done, and the classroom was filled with eager medical students wanting to learn from us. The first 5 minutes were a little rough, but we found our rhythm. Our teaching style was to create fun experiences, so we put on costumes to tell stories, added in a lot of humor, and set up exercises so our students could try everything out for themselves. And we loved doing it. Word got around about what we had done, and the students who missed the first one asked us to do it again, only now we had some teachers and administrators join. Someone from an area Chiropractic school signed up, and asked us to repeat it at her school. We tightened up our curriculum so we could get it done over 4 days. And someone in that group brought a cousin who worked in the aerospace industry, and he asked us to do the workshop for his company. “But it’s for doctors!” we told him. “No, it’s not. It’s for everybody,” he replied. One thing led to another, we were invited to teach in different companies and industries. I think it was about 3 years after I earned my ND degree when Rick and I realized we had a second career if we wanted it, teaching communication. Teaching was fun, we seemed to have a knack for it. So we committed to building a business.

A few years later, one of our students met with the VP of a major training organization and bragged about us. We were invited to join that company’s training team with the promise that the company would take care of the logistics, we would have a guaranteed amount of work and income, and we could keep all the frequent flyer miles and hotel points. We said yes! Our career in public speaking and training took flight. Literally. They split us up and sent us all over the world teaching what we had learned to interested individuals and groups, racking up frequent flier miles and travel status. At the peak of that chapter in my life, I was doing 140 programs a year, which meant living out of a suitcase a great deal of the time. And all the while, I was developing my skills.

Rick and Rick was how everyone at the company referred to us after we did a memorable comedy routine at the training company’s first convention of trainers. We were just having fun, but that routine got us an invitation from the company to make an audio program on their most marketable topic, conflict resolution, which they called ‘Dealing With Difficult People.’ The audio program we made for them included sketch comedy (a first) and it became one of their top selling products. We then made a 3 volume video on the topic, and that led to an invitation from the world’s biggest publisher to write a book on the subject. We called it, Dealing With People You Can’t Stand: How To Bring Out The Best In People At Their Worst. The first edition was an international bestseller. Second edition and third edition also did really well. And just this year, at the publisher’s request, we completely revised and updated the book into a fourth edition that we believe speaks not only to the perennial challenges of dealing with people, but also addresses some of the vexing challenges of our time.

2. As a Naturopathic physician, how did your medical background influence your approach to helping people deal with change and unlock their creativity?

The Naturopathic paradigm, as I learned it, is holistic, in that it addresses the patient as a whole system rather than a collection of disparate parts. In modern terminology, it involves a ‘systems’ approach rather than the reductionist and mechanistic approach of conventional medicine. Holistic or systems thinking, when applied to human beings, provides an excellent way of gaining insight into behavior and relationship dynamics. I guess I could boil it all down to this idea: Life happens through you, not to you. The one thing all your experiences with people have in common is you. YOU WERE THERE! So if you change your mind, or change your behavior, you change your circumstance and even change the responses of others to you.

Because of my training as a Naturopathic Physician, I came to see that sick people aren’t broken, their problems make sense in the context of the whole person, in that their symptoms are expressions of stress, imbalance and toxicity in a system trying to restore itself. Vitalist NDs don’t struggle to suppress symptoms. Instead, we are informed by them, and use them to get to the root causes behind them. The vitalist Naturopathic approach to healthcare is not so much about prescribing (a pill for every ill) as it is about accessing resources within the patient and the patient’s environment that are conducive to restoring good health. And it’s not much of a leap to understand that this kind of approach applies to other areas of our lives besides health, including career, finance, and so on. Just as I learned to talk with people rather than at them, I learned to work with people rather than on them. The approach of seeing people as having resources they may not be aware of, and of understanding that people do the best they can with the resources they are aware of in any moment of time, makes it possible to facilitate positive change in willing individuals, groups and businesses.

Book: "Dealing With People You Can't Stand":

3. Your book, "Dealing With People You Can't Stand," has been a phenomenal success, with over 2 million copies sold and translations in 26 languages. What inspired you to write this book, and why do you think its message resonates with so many people worldwide?

I used to tell my audiences, “I have a confession to make. Those people you can’t stand? They’ve been very good to me and my family!”

Human nature is a curious and consistent thing, in that no two of us are exactly alike, yet there are predictable and observable patterns of human behavior that almost all of us have in common that produce conflict internally and in relationships with others. The book is built on several models to describe those patterns and best responses.

If you can predict it, you can plan for it. We don’t claim that our models are the truth, just that they work! For example, we say that there are 4 good intentions behind most bad behavior. Is that true? Maybe, but I doubt it. Nevertheless, that model makes it possible to do something besides having a bad reaction.

The underlying message of our book, and the reason I think it resonates with so many people, is that all of us have within us our very best and our very worst, and other people bring out these different aspects of our nature. Well, just as surely as some people bring out your best and others your worst, we believe that, with the right mindset and skillset, you can be among the few who know how to bring out the best in other people, even when those people are at their worst.

Our basic assumption is that human behavior is purposeful, that if people could do better, they would do better, that bad choices are made for good reasons, that bad choices fail to fulfill those good reasons and are thus self defeating. Understanding this makes it possible for interactions with others to create an opportunity environment to help produce better choices and outcomes. Changing outcomes with others begins with you. It’s a matter of knowing how to stabilize yourself, understanding what drives behavior in yourself and others, and then meeting people where they are in order to help them satisfy their own good intentions.

I’ve continued to develop my basket of models over the years. Rick and I did a few more books together, and I did a few on my own, offering these models to people willing to use them. But the book struck a nerve for a lot of people, because dealing with the behavior of others is part of life, whether you want to do it or not. The book contains many easy to understand models and relatively easy to apply strategies. And though the book is about dealing with others, perhaps the biggest side effect of reading it is you discover the part you play in the results you get with people. The positive feedback we’ve received over the years has been tremendous.

4. In the recently released 4th edition of "Dealing With People You Can't Stand," you mention that you've updated and added content to address the changing landscape of human interaction. Can you share some of the key updates and how they reflect the challenges we face in today's world?

A lot has changed since the first edition of the book, published in 1994. Maybe the only thing that hasn’t changed is human nature. But the way we interact with people certainly has, in large part because of our perception of time and space. Once upon a time, you could take your time, compose your thoughts, pull out your feather quill and ink and write a letter, give it to the pony express knowing it might arrive weeks to months later. Now communication by email and text is almost instantaneous. Once upon a time, businesses could make 5 and 10 year plans. Now you plan for the week, or the quarter, because you can’t predict how the world will be in 5 years. Once upon a time, you could pick up a phone, dial a number, and have a conversation while barely paying attention. Now we see each other across great distances on video calls, work together from remote locations.

Social media is now a thing, where the thoughts and feelings people once kept to themselves are put on public display for consumption by others. And along with all this change has come a deep polarization in relationships about things we all used to be able to talk about with each other, or knew not to talk about at all: politics, religion, sex.

People now have to work with a more diverse population too, which means cultural differences can play a significant role in success or failure. Meetings aren’t what they used to be. And meetings often feed negative behavior patterns. We have an entire chapter on how to deal with difficult meetings in the 4th edition of the book.

The last few years in particular have been deeply disruptive to long held personal ties. Family relationships and long time friendships have been lost over differences of opinion, whether real or not. Likewise, vaxxed vs anti-vaxxed has driven many apart. When I was a child, I learned that ‘United we stand, divided we fall.’ Our society is now deeply divided and it feels like it’s in free-fall. I do believe that for a better future, we have to find our way back into each other’s good graces. We have to be able to talk about our differences of opinion, to understand the difficulties and challenges in our lives, otherwise civilization could fall apart. But how? We used this new edition to offer help to people wanting to mend and heal once valued relationships and to restore some coherence to society. We have an entire section devoted to friends and family.

5. One of the new additions to the 4th edition is a chapter on dealing with narcissism. Why did you feel it was important to include this topic, and what insights can readers gain from this chapter?

Let me begin this answer by telling you that the Narcissism chapter is the BEST new chapter in the book. The other chapters pale in comparison! Ok, kidding.

We were all once children, and children are born narcissistic. Their first words include “mine” and “no.” Most of us grow out of it as we get socialized through interactions with others, though certain parenting styles exacerbate it and deepen it instead. Narcissism in adults is not a new phenomenon. There have always been narcissists in the world, people so consumed with self interest that it’s to the detriment of the people around them. Across time, narcissism could be found in political and military leaders and in more recent times some of the driven CEOs that invented companies and pushed them to great achievement and success have been overtly narcissistic.

But what once was rare is increasingly common at all levels of society. Social media certainly has played a role in that. In too many cases, social media is actually anti-social media, where everyone is talking and no one is listening, where hateful trolls find pleasure in making others suffer, where censorship and cancel culture marginalize and try to destroy people for how they think and what they want to say. Other technologies and advances have also played a role in the growing narcissism, as people stare at their devices instead of engaging with each other, text instead of talk even with someone sitting next to them.

The Covid lockdowns exacerbated the problem, as they drove people even further apart. They called it social distancing, but it was anything but social. It was just ‘distancing.’ And there are many still who are trying to keep their distance, and wear masks alone while driving in their cars. That’s sad to me for a couple of reason. The idea that life is easier without people in it has become normalized, so much so that AI, artificial intelligence, is now answering phones and questions instead of other people. And as an ND, I know that isolation, the separation from others, is a killer. Our immune systems are strengthened by human contact. Our ability to think clearly about things is sharpened too. I still believe that we are all smarter than any of us, and that creative conflict from disparate paradigms produces the best results personally, organizationally, politically and socially.

Our focus in the book is not on the personality disorder of narcissism, but rather on the behaviors of narcissism and what to do when dealing with it. We made some novel and useful distinctions about different narcissistic behavior patterns that we believe many will find helpful. For example, some narcissism is extremely toxic and dangerous, while other narcissistic behaviors are simply annoying and disruptive. And we offer some strategic direction for dealing with those patterns that just might save a good idea, save a business, or even save lives.

Documentary: "How Healthcare Became Sickcare":

6. In 2015, you premiered your documentary film, "How Healthcare Became Sickcare: The True History of Medicine." What motivated you to create this documentary, and what central message did you want to convey through it?

Time for another story! In 2013, I was asked to run for the Presidency of my profession’s membership organization. I was already dialing down my speaking and training career in preparation for retirement, so I had more time and energy to take it on and do something meaningful in service to my profession. The winds were favorable. I was well known throughout the profession at the time, I had endorsements from almost all the past Presidents. So I took this very seriously, and began thinking of what I would do if I had the privilege to serve in that role.

Because I’d done so much work with the public and had learned a bit about public relations, branding and marketing, and because the Naturopathic profession was one of the best kept secrets in healthcare, I thought that one of my main efforts would be to help make the Naturopathic healthcare option known to and understood by more of the public. It seemed to me that I should know my profession’s whole story so I could represent it well and help our doctors to a new level of recognition. So I began a research project that led to a speech on the history of medicine and of our profession that I would deliver at our national conference upon winning the vote.

Ah, but the best laid plans…to my surprise, my nomination was derailed by some political shenanigans and bullying from a certain individual that I only learned about after the fact. Why this happened and how it happened is a story itself, but one I’m not inclined to tell. I’ll just say this. I suspect it had to do with the consequences of how I had handled a problem publicly with that person 2 years earlier. What I did had worked in that moment, but now that individual was looking for, and in a position to get, some payback. It’s dirty laundry, so I’ll leave it at that. Fact is that while I was upset about what happened to my nomination at the time, in hindsight it turned out to be a huge favor for which I’m now grateful.

I gave the speech anyway, and got the longest standing ovation of my career. So I thought it would be great if other NDs were able to give the same speech and help get our story out. I packaged it up as a slide show and script, and offered directions and instructions on how to give it. But only a handful of doctors were willing to take it on. Others told that it was too scary to speak honestly about the medical system and drug industry behind it, that they were afraid of the reactions of the conventional system should they speak so openly in public about how healthcare was captured by interests other than human health and care. That led to my decision to make a film out of it, so my colleagues could show it instead of telling the story themselves.

The central message of the film is that natural medicine, which was favored and used by most of humanity before the 20th century, was pushed aside deliberately and determinedly by wealthy industrialists because it was a competitor to their business model for medicine. The takeover of medicine succeeded, not because of its virtues, but because of unlimited funds, influence and increasing control over various sectors of the society, including politicians and the press. Sound familiar? It’s a recurring pattern in modern history.

7. How has the reception been to your documentary, and do you think it has contributed to a broader conversation about the state of healthcare?

The movie has had many thousands of views. It is freely available on my website, for anyone who wants to watch it.

Documentary (talknatural.com)

It has 10 chapters, and lasts an hour and 45 minutes in total to tell the story I wished to tell. I’ve done several public showings of it myself and audience feedback has been terrific. But I never did anything commercially with it, never really promoted it, never intended to make money from it. I just made it available to interested parties, so viewership is completely organic.

Did it make a difference? Maybe a little. I think so. It’s like the story of the starfish. Two people walking down a beach at low tide. One of them keeps picking up stranded starfish and tossing them back into the water. The other person says, “Why are you doing that? What difference does it make?” The reply, as he throws another one in, “ It made a difference to that one.”

Many of my vitalist colleagues now do showings to their patient populations. During the Trump Administration, I know someone connected to the White House watched it because she told me when I was still on Twitter. But whether it matters or not, it was a story I wanted to tell and that needed to be told. Anyone who watched it before COVID could have predicted much of what happened in the last few years. I do hope it has made a contribution to the broader conversation. The research that went into it certainly made a difference for me.

Career and Impact:

8. You've worked with an impressive list of clients, including Fortune 1000 companies, government organizations, and renowned institutions. Can you share a memorable experience or success story from your work with these clients?

Well, it’s the little things that count most for me. And only rarely did I get to see the results of my training work, mostly it was like a hit and run. I did the training or gave the speech, and then moved on to the next engagement. But I still hear from people who were in my audience years ago about the difference one of my programs made for them. And I got to meet a lot of great people doing terrific things, while getting paid to develop my skills in presenting ideas.

I like to think that when I retired from speaking I was at the top of my game. Some of my clients asked me not to stop, and I really loved that! But the side effects of my public ‘practice’ really were wonderful.

I worked with a city council that became a national news story: “City Council Seeks Therapy” was the headline. The council was deeply divided, meetings ran late into the night with nothing getting done, the city was losing hard to replace staff because of all the conflict, and citizens were shouting at the council at every council meeting. The Mayor asked me if I thought I could help, and I said yes. By the time I was done with them, they were voting unanimously on many issues, their meetings finished on time, and their behavior with each other was positive.

I got to help the government of another country reinvent itself.

I got to be part of a mission to the international space station, through a friendship I developed with an astronaut I met in one of my programs. I was on his planet-side support team. He called me twice from the space station, and both times there were people around so I was able to tell them, “Hang on, I have to take this, it’s from SPACE!”

A participant in a seminar I did in Jakarta ran a luxurious resort in Bali, and so enjoyed the program that he invited my wife and I for an all expenses paid week long vacation!

My wife and I got to spend a glamorous week at the Plaza Hotel in NYC through one of my gigs where we met the leaders of companies who make things that allow other things to be made. That was a revelation! We can all see the big things (cars, buildings, machines), but it really is the little things that count!

My wife and I got to go to a black and white ball at the MET, everyone arriving in limos wearing formal clothes and masks, colorful guards lining the hallways, as we dined next to an underground pyramid.

I was able to provide my entire family with a week long stay at the Homestead Resort in Virginia in exchange for a speech there.

I taught teenagers how to communicate at a summer camp in Switzerland, and what a joy it was to work with young people before they started their working lives!

I worked with a famous espresso company, and stayed after for the sampling of various coffee beans.

I got to go behind the scenes at Skywalker Ranch to see how the magic was made.

The great comic genius Carl Reiner improvised a comedy routine just for Rick B and I as we were standing behind the curtain at an American Booksellers Expo while we were waiting to sign autographs.

Even the bad things that happened gave me good memories and stories to tell. And for the most part, people in my travels were caring and kind. I only had my life threatened twice during my 40 year speaking career, only got pickpocketed once and my room robbed one time (that turned into a good story too!) Good times.

And adventures! I remember driving through whiteouts to get to my next gigs. Being on the last flight out of San Francisco’s airport after the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989...the United terminal had collapsed and our pilot was told to make a run for it before the aftershocks. I looked down below as we took to the sky and the cars in the Candlestick baseball park, there for the World Series between Oakland and San Fran, were all scattered at weird angles. I remember the turbulence of flying away from the East Coast just as the Storm of the Century was bearing down on it in 1993.

I remember sometimes being so tired I couldn’t remember where I was, who I was, or what I was supposed to do. I remember having to do a presentation to an audience when I had total laryngitis. I put a slide on the screen that offered them a choice. I can whisper all day or we can reschedule, and thankfully they picked the latter.)

I could go on. But suffice it to say that my speaking career produced many great experiences and I bagged a lot of cool souvenirs and stories along the way!

9. Your work has been featured in numerous media outlets, from CNBC to the Wall Street Journal. How has this exposure impacted your ability to spread your message and help more people?

All that exposure was great for book sales! The first edition came out before technology had disrupted the publishing industry and the media landscape, so it was much easier back then to get your book noticed. We had the kind of publicity most authors can only dream of! Our book made the front page of the Marketplace section in the Wall Street Journal! Rick and I did hundreds, maybe thousands of radio, TV and newspaper interviews, and loved almost all of it, except some of the drive time radio with shock jocks who just wanted to make jokes rather than talk about the book!

I take great pleasure from looking back on all the lives I was able to contribute to, the businesses and other groups I was able to help. I have deep gratitude for the work I’ve been able to do, the people I’ve been able to meet and work with, and the adventures that came along with all of it.

10.  In 2016, you turned over leadership of your company, Art of Change LLC, to your daughter Aden Nepom. What led to this decision, and how has this transition allowed you to focus on other aspects of your work?

For most of my adult life, I held this idea of retiring at 67 and at the top of my game. When I turned 60, I began to do the things that would allow me to realize that idea. So by the time I hit 67, my daughter, who had grown up with me modeling effective communication skills and had internalized them, and had already made a name for herself in the improv community, was ready and eager to take over the business. Some people have trouble letting go and giving the next generation a chance, but not me. I introduced her to my clients and stepped aside, knowing they were in her capable hands.

Aden is extraordinarily talented and a gifted communicator and presenter, and she’s done great things with the business. I watched her give a TED talk, and she knocked it out of the park. She’s already done work for some well known companies. And when I need to talk something out, whether it’s an idea or a relationship challenge, she’s the person to whom I turn for counsel. When I turned 70, my wife and I moved to where we live now in North Idaho, with full confidence that she would continue to develop what I had begun.

I did learn a valuable lesson when I retired, and I will share it now for your audience. NEVER tell people you are retired. Because what they hear is ‘Oh, you’re available!” I’ve been busier than ever since I retired. I no longer give speeches or conduct training programs, except locally, where I can make a difference. I served as President of the Naturopathic Medicine Institute in 2020, when its founder passed away. I encourage every true Naturopathic doc and the people who love our medicine to support NMI, as I believe it is the last best hope for the Naturopathic paradigm to have the beautiful future it deserves. I’m currently the acting president of a textbook project, the Foundation of Naturopathic Medicine, with 3 titles nearing completion. I also coach political candidates in my area to help them communicate better with the public, and do other work in the political system in my county.

My personal life is full as well, with our elderly cat and 4 chickens, a lot of grass to cut and snow to shovel. And I maintain a private group on Telegram which I run like my own ‘The Daily Planet’ newspaper. It seems that as the world has become noisier, it’s hard for many to get to the real stories, to get to the facts, to uncover the truth about what’s happening. So I try to elevate the signal and reduce the noise for a couple hundred people who trust my voice and instincts.

I’ve not made this offer to strangers before. Though as Will Rogers said, “A stranger is someone you haven’t met yet.” If anyone in your audience who loves medical freedom and is opposed to the globalists of WEF and WHO is interested in joining my private group to follow stories I think are important and wants an invite, send me a message through the contact page on TalkNatural.com and tell me why you’re interested.

Personal Life and Advocacy:

11. You've been an outspoken advocate for medical freedom and have faced censorship on social media platforms. Can you discuss your experiences and why you believe it's important to have open discussions about scientific studies and diverse opinions?

My interest in medical freedom starts with natural medicine. I believe that people should have a choice when it comes to their healthcare, and natural medicine is, in my view, the better choice for almost everyone.

In my freshman year at National College of Naturopathic Medicine (now National University) I was asked by my professor to debate childhood immunization with a classmate. I was assigned the ‘against’ side. I headed to the library and spent many a day searching through microfiche to learn what I could. I had a 6 month old baby Aden in my life. She was born at home, not at a hospital, and my interest in the topic was strong because of all the pressure put on young parents to submit their child to the schedule. I still have the paper I wrote in prepping for the debate. The idea that all vaccines are great for all children is nonsense, and I won the debate based on facts because the case against it is so strong.

If someone makes that choice to follow the schedule for their children, that is their prerogative. We all have to deal with the consequences of our decisions. But in 2015, California’s Democrats set out to eliminate any exemptions to their immunization program for children, and threatened to throw the noncompliant out of their schools. I knew I had to speak up on behalf of the families who didn’t want to participate. I had a strong social media presence, so I posted regularly against Richard Pan’s SB 277, and the medical industry pushing it. Pan is an MD, and he seemed to relish his ability to bully families with this legislation, as did his colleagues in the Senate and in the medical industry.

Many of us could see that if they got their bill passed, other states run by Democrats, like Oregon, would attempt to do the same. The crowds outside the California Capitol were huge, the lines to testify against the bill really long, and you could see right in front of you just how much damage had occurred to the kids and families already. Yet SB277 passed, in spite of the tremendous opposition from families with broken or deceased children, and was signed into law by Gavin Newsom. I’ll never forget it. And sure enough, that same year, Oregon’s Democrats under Governor Kate Brown set out to follow suit, and again the effort for SB 442 was led by an MD with an agenda, Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward. Another was introduced in New York. And on it went. The Democratic Party nationwide seemed to now be in lockstep to force vaccines on all children regardless of their individual situations, and with no exceptions. But after California fell to the scheme, Oregon was the next battleground. Fear porn about measles filled the airwaves. Safe and Effective became the narrative, and it was everywhere. The legislature wanted to throw 36,000 healthy kids out of school if they were missing a single dose. Eventually, Senator Dr. Hayward withdrew the bill. But the gauntlet had been thrown and the battle just begun.

I should point out that when I was a child, nobody really feared childhood illness. I had measles, as did all my classmates. Nobody died. No lasting damage. Mumps, chicken pox. All normal rites of passage. When I had those childhood illnesses, I thought it was awesome! I got to stay home from school, my Mother doted on me, brought me comic books, fed me my favorite soup (tomato) with oyster crackers. Parents sought out exposure! Years later, it was learned these immune challenges had lifetime health benefits. So the insane rhetoric about measles did not persuade any of us old enough to remember.

In 2019, they tried yet again, with HB 3063. My friend Jennifer Margulis wrote an article about it, which you can read here:

Oregon Doctor Speaks Out Against Medical Mandates, Opposes HB-3063 — Jennifer Margulis

Though Aden was all grown up, my wife and I traveled to Oregon’s Capitol in protest of the bill on behalf of families with kids on the line. During the protests, we met and talked with so many people who had vaccine damaged children, or worse, had lost their child following a vaccination. I began to give speeches and moderate forums to educate the public on the dangers of a one size fits all pro-pHARMa business model that didn’t measure up to their hype. And the flak kept increasing. Even in my own profession, I was criticized by some as an anti-vaxxer. That’s a pejorative term made up by the medical industry and press to cast aspersions on the non-compliant, mostly mothers of damaged children who had good cause to be concerned.

When CoVID lockdowns started, I could see the writing on the wall. They were using the same language and fear porn, that it was all about vaccine coercion, and was only going to escalate. Measles was the trial run, the fear porn had worked and people hadn’t pushed back hard enough, so now they were coming after everyone. I increased my outspokenness online, trying to use solid science and reason to persuade people to walk up to the dangers of the demented drive for submission and compliance. As I did, the peer pressure increased also. More of my colleagues were calling me an anti-vaxxer, when what I was doing was standing up for medical freedom. Reliable sources informed me that I was being talked about behind my back, using screen shots of my posts to speak against me. And like what happened to so many, the powers that be in the tech world tried to silence my voice by shutting down my online presence and platform socially.

My coauthor and I share this bit of philosophy: When one door closes, another door opens. So when LinkedIn and Twitter de-platformed me for sharing science and opinion that ran counter to their preferred narratives, I created a website to host my movie and started the Telegram group to keep using my voice and influence. I’m not saying that I’m happy about what they did, because I’m not. I think that the censorship we’ve witnessed is beyond egregious, and the effort to jab the world with a poorly tested gene therapy the greatest crime against humanity in my lifetime.

If misery loves company, I was in good company. Many voices were silenced, or at least an attempt was made to silence them, for daring to challenge the narratives of the drug and medical industry. Nobel prize winning scientists, highly respected doctors and nurses, and freedom loving folks who saw the danger we were in were being fired, de-platformed, and having their credibility destroyed by the press and the captured medical press. I considered it a badge of honor to be in such company.

But when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Instead of retreating, a good many of us censored digital freedom fighters found a deeper connection and commitment to using our voices for good. So in a way, the social media companies who tried to silence our voices actually helped us to find our voices and deepened our determination to continue to speak truth to their power.

And there was a lesson in it. When you trust a company over which you have no control to treat your content and connections with respect, you’re gambling against yourself. Because with rare exception (X these days, and Telegram, Rumble, Daily Clout) big tech companies really don’t seem to place much value in the people who helped them build their platforms by sharing their content, ideas, dreams and goals. They have the power, and have shown their willingness to use it, to shut down anyone who challenges their version of reality. So it’s important not to put all your eggs in one or two social media baskets, unless you know for a fact that the people running the platforms are legitimately interested in honest dialog and factual information. And you can’t know that for a fact.

12. The censorship and de-platforming you've experienced on social media and professional networks have undoubtedly affected your ability to share your message and engage with your audience. How have these challenges impacted you on a personal level, and how have they influenced your relationships with family, friends, and colleagues who may or may not share your views on these issues?

I had thousands of connections and many testimonials from my long career on LinkedIn, and they took it all down and locked me out in a heartbeat, like it was nothing. I had developed a strong presence on Twister too, and that account was shut down. Fakebook throttled me too.

My coauthor and I share this bit of philosophy: When one door closes, another door opens. I created a website to host my movie and started the Telegram group to keep using my voice and influence. I worked behind the scenes with others who were speaking out.

I’m not happy about what the government did or what the social media platforms did, or about the absolute failure of the legacy press to hold power accountable. And I’m not happy about what some of my colleagues did in response to the pressure campaigns. I think that the censorship and social separation is egregious. But life doesn’t happen to us, it happens through us. I still had choices and I wasn’t going to play the victim.

Instead of retreating into silence, a good many of us de-platformed and censored digital freedom fighters found a deeper connection and commitment to using our voice for good. So in a way, the social media companies who tried to silence our voices actually helped us to find our voices and deepened our determination to continue to speak truth to their power.

Current Focus and Staying Connected:

13. What projects or initiatives are you currently working on, and what goals do you hope to achieve in the near future?

Getting the 4th edition of Dealing With People You Can’t Stand into as many hands as possible is one goal. Our society needs healing and I want to be part of that. Getting some textbooks published is another goal. Finding good people who value medical freedom and freedom of speech to run for office, getting out the vote to get them into office and then working to keep them in office is now something I’m focused on at the local level.

I have learned through my battles for medical freedom that we cannot afford to look away from politics no matter how ugly. I believe it was Plato who said that the price of apathy is to be ruled by evil men. Anyone who cares about the future, either their own or that of their loved ones, has to pay attention to politics, find a way to get involved, find ways to meet likeminded others, find a way to hold the powerful to account. Otherwise, we’ve seen the damage they can do and the insanity they can perpetuate while feathering their own nests and destroying yours.

On a personal level, I want to become a better guitar player too. My first career was playing music and it seems worthwhile to get really good at it before I’m dead and gone.

14. How can people interested in your work stay connected with you and access your resources, especially in light of the de-platforming you've experienced on social media?

I’m still locked out of LinkedIn. Isn’t that ironic? I can be reached through my website at:

Dr. K's TalkNatural.com

I will happily provide an invitation to my private Telegram group for medical freedom loving and anti-globalist individuals. And I’m on a variety of social media platforms as @drk/@drknd/@therealDrKND.

Rick B and I have a website for the book and we’ll be updating it soon for the 4th edition.

Dealing With People You Can't Stand, Free Resources

You can find all my books on Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, etc. The textbook project has a website:

Foundations of Naturopathic Medicine Institute – Codifying Our Knowledge. It's Time. (fnminstitute.org)

And the Naturopathic Medicine institute has a website at:

Naturopathic Medicine Institute – Celebrating the healing power of nature

And I’m back on Facebook, and on X as @IamDrKND.

15. Lastly, what message or piece of advice would you like to share with our readers who may be facing their own challenges in dealing with difficult people or navigating change in their lives?

Always drink from the side of the cup nearest you! :-)

Ok, seriously, this is a very challenging time for humanity. The competition for dominance by various forces is now played out on an unprecedented global and domestic scale. The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is under assault. And the cost of living continues to climb.

Nevertheless, here we are, and I believe that the basic truth of our lives is this. Each of us is, if we choose the right person at the right place at the right time with the right amount of skills and wisdom to be useful in bringing about a better less bitter future. In that light, here are a few ideas that I’ve found helpful in my life.

Never give up, never surrender (except to God!) Be proactive, not just reactive, expect the best but plan for the worst. Remember: If all you know is what you don’t want, you will get more of it. And nobody cooperates with anyone who seems to be against them. To succeed with others, meet them where they are. In dealing with adversity including bad behavior in others, if you can predict it, you can plan for it. If you can’t predict it, you can still be resourceful and adapt to it and influence it.

In making plans, everything you say yes to is something you may have to say no to, so choose your yeses carefully. And finally, be grateful for your life as it is. It can always be worse, and you can make it better by doing good for others.

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