Work Overview
LATEST PROJECTS
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque
LEARN MORE ABOUT MY STORY
My Story
Steven W. Parkes
Ever since I was a curious little kid, I remember always looking for ways to be helpful. Whether helping my dad change the spark plugs on the car, or helping my mom put up wallpaper, I was always doing something. Being exposed to all these ‘tasks’ at a young age apparently made me extremely curious too. My parents were exhausted with all the questions I’d ask , “How does this work? Why does that happen? Where does this come from?” To this day, I’m always looking for the deeper answers to… everything. So being the first in my family to go to medical school felt like a natural calling for me. I still remember that day in mid-high school when I decided I would become a doctor. In that moment, while I can’t fully explain how I knew it, I just knew it was done.
Fast forward through the years of relentless studying in high school, college, medical school, and 3 more years of emergency medicine residency. I certainly wasn’t the smartest kid, but I was always the hardest working. And it served me well. Yes, the self-doubt crept up along the way, but when you know in your heart something is the right thing, you keep moving towards it anyway. A true calling is always stronger than any criticism.
Before I knew it, I found myself leading challenging shifts in the emergency department. Gun-shot wounds, heart arrhythmias, and kids with a fever, you name it, I was able to help. It felt great to contribute in ways that really mattered. Then new challenges arose as we physicians started running our own group practice. The system and institution of medicine had been making it more and more challenging to lead meaningful interactions with our patients. Protocols and processes were put in place that, while well intentioned, didn’t always make sense and impeded the delivery of human to human compassionate healing. I thought working harder was the way forward. After all, sheer will had served me so well for so long.
Yet, sometimes in life we realize, what got us here, will not get us where we want to go. At one point, I was working 26 overnight shifts a month, doing the marketing and onboarding of new physicians, helping run the billing company and back end contracts, all with three neglected kids at home under the age of 6 who knew grandma and grandpa more than their own father. Friends and family tried to warm me, “Steve, you’re gonna burn yourself out. You can’t keep doing this.”
But I was stubborn and (now I see) way ignorant. One day my physical body finally gave out. With the worst headache of my life and trying to call off a shift (something I had never done before), no docs were available to help me out. So I went in to work anyway, even though I could barely see straight. After a few hours seeing patients, I tried to speak into the voice microphone to chart on my patients, when suddenly I literally could not speak. My mind raced in panic, analyzing, ‘Was I having a stroke? Could this be meningitis? What’s my disability and life insurance coverage for my family if I can never talk again?’ The brain is an interesting organ. After about an hour, the panic died down and things started improving. Eventually I was able to speak again and left to go home, keeping my experience largely to myself. Life had given me the undeniable wake-up call I had been so stubbornly resisting.
This journey led me to dōTERRA. I’ll be honest – I was extremely skeptical when first recommended to try various essential oil remedies for various uses. Rubbing peppermint on my temples for a headache, diffusing wild orange to combat feeling sluggish, or using lavender to help my nervous system relax after a long stretch of ER shifts – come on, really? That stuff’s all based on placebo effect, right? Well, eventually, results speak for themselves. I was frankly blown away by the difference these products seemed to be making. But could it be all in my head? I had to investigate. After all, this was an arena that nearly all of my ER physician colleagues would flippantly make fun in conversation.
I decided to learn more about essential oils, specifically about this company that called itself dōTERRA. I read everything I could find, performing literature searches on different oils like frankincense and tea tree, how quality is determined and guaranteed, and how many healers have already been using the chemistry behind these compounds unannounced for decades. I even flew to Utah to tour their factory, speak with their lab technicians, and spoke with their key members of their leadership team. To say I was massively impressed would be putting it lightly. Wow. Everyone from the person answering the phones, to the fork-lift driver, all the way to the chief officers seemed so friendly, happy and… healthy? There wasn’t one ounce of 9-5 punch the clock – these are happy humans who believe in the work they’re doing and the mission behind the product they help source and distribute to the world.
After that day, I started reassessing everything: my self-worth, my decisions, my impact, my career, even my marriage. Something had to change. So what does a burned out doctor in his early thirties with way too much on his plate do? Go to business school while continuing to work full time, of course! (Sigh, I’m still struck by the ignorant thinking I had back then!)
I proceeded to earn an MBA from Notre Dame and another master’s degree in public health from Johns Hopkins in less than 30 months – all while continuing to work near full time in the ER. My eyes were opened to SO many dimensions previously hidden in plain sight. I was learning priceless insights about myself, how to create high-performing teams, about how the world really works, and about the institutions of medicine and health itself – far beyond what I was taught as a front-line healthcare professional. With all this newfound wisdom, I started to recognize a foundational problem.
The medicine I was taught was outstandingly effective at stopping heart-attacks, intervening in trauma situations, or finding an infected appendix. It was NOT so great at helping people with chronic problems: depression, anxiety, fatigue & digestive issues in particular. Yes I may have known this before, but I didn’t fully get it. I’ve evaluated and treated over 100,000 patients in my career and while I’m able to order a multitude of tests to help prove what people don’t have, rarely do we invest concordant energy into what will heal most effectively, long term. More frustratingly, when a problem can’t be definitively diagnosed or addressed with the technology at hand, the onus by default falls back into the patient, many times with an unverbalized insinuation how ‘everything’s coming back normal,’ time to go see another specialist. When all the specialists are exhausted, well, there’s something wrong with you.
Yet I knew there was NOTHING wrong with anyone. Everyone’s doing the best they can with the resources they’ve been shown access to. All the nurses and doctors, specialists, even administrators, everyone is doing their job extraordinarily well – within the confinements of the established status quo of the system. My frustration led me to ask deeper questions about how medical science and innovation are funded. I explored the hidden bias that occurs in how studies are performed, marketed and published. I dove into centuries-old eastern healing philosophies, complimentary medicine practices, the science of nutrition and the business of our food system. What I discovered was an expansive treasure trove of science and experience that challenges the mainstream narrative.
At this point, I had already moved to part-time work in the ER while focusing primarily on coaching other physicians. By the time coronavirus arrived, I found myself with a unique perspective about what was occurring. I personally treated many positive Covid-19 patients, including some extremely sick. I hold a unique lens of how fear affects our nervous system with powerful downstream effects upon the immune system. Thus, I diligently updated myself with primary source evidence on what was actually known about this virus and the public health messages being conveyed. Conversations with my naturopathic friends led me to different protocols that didn’t even show up on the radar of the various governmental oversight and public health organizations. It became clear to me there were several pandemics going on, only one of which was the virus itself.
Meanwhile, I had already introduced doTERRA to countless family and friends over the past year, each with jaw-dropping results. The supplements in particular were changing lives in as little as 2-3 weeks. People were telling me they no longer needed their ADHD medications, no longer needed the higher dose of blood pressure medication, that they were sleeping better, and no longer craving junk food. They would go into their doctor for a regular checkup and find their cholesterol levels were better than they’ve been in over a decade. I’d get feedback on how people were feeling motivated again and reigniting energy in their relationships.
This was the perfect storm. How could I in good conscious continue to practice a type of medicine I was increasingly seeing as fear (about what could go wrong) and authority (doctor knows best) centered, while I also knew other, more effective, more sustainable ways to empower others into a new level of health and vitality?
I remember the day I made this decision so clearly - I decided to dedicate all of my energy, all my resources, all my skills, experience and focus to building and empowering a team that will help spread these ‘gifts of the earth’ to as many people as possible. Instead of endlessly trying to rescue patients drowning in the river, it was time to walk to the top of the hill and rip out the signs telling people to jump in. Just like the day I decided to become doctor, I know in my soul this is what we’re meant to do.
Now, I couldn’t be more excited, confident, inspired, and humbled to have embarked on this next chapter of our journey into heal and sustainable energy. You can ask any of the doctors and nurses I’ve worked with in the ER for 15 years – I’ve always been incredibly invested in the health of my patients. Now, working to share and educate these products, I am able to invest in others’ own self-empowerment. Give a woman a fish, and you feed her for a day; Teach a woman to fish, and she can feed herself (and others) for many meals. doTERRA happens to be the brand I’m working with, but the culture, people, and products make up the soul of this business. And it’s unlike any organization I’ve ever partnered with. If you’re willing, I’d be honored to help you experience for yourself why this partnership is so life changing. Reach out to me today and I’ll show you how.