Meet Dr. Eric Richards

We were lucky to catch up with Dr. Eric Richards recently and have shared our conversation below.

Dr. Eric, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?

We grow up without any consideration of what our daily life is doing to shape us. Children have gratification from certain inputs, and we feel discomfort or pain from others, and we take them for what they are worth. My parents spent hours upong hours reading devotionals to my brother and I, and through those worked tirelessly to instill character traits that would produce favorable outcomes. But the outcomes they were in search of were simply the characteristics of a hard working, loving, generous adult with a love for Christ in his heart. Our devotional time was not designed to produce an outcome of worldly success, but I think it goes without saying that there is an assumption that you will be more apt to do so if you embrace hard work. In addition, I also believe that adding love and generosity can position you well to be appreciated, and opportunity often follows appreciation. But again, the inputs were designed to lead to well balanced adults who had positive impact on society.

So then, as a child, I simply was following along, and listening with intention at times, but mostly listening just to get through the lesson of listening. I would say it is really hard to even pinpoint any one time that I was sitting around the dinner table, listening to a passage from the Bible, and suddenly hit with an “Ah ha” moment. It just never worked like that. But, I can very clearly poinpoint several events in my life that had an impact on my desire to succeed, and honed how I would accomplish that. I mean, if I really think about it… I hated hard work as much as anyone as a child, but I loved hard work that had a purpose that served me (sports for example). As I hit my teenage years, I appreciated physical labor because I had an assumption that it would make me stronger and more fit. Granted, my mother would say that I was always “active”… meaning, always working on something, always designing something, and it often had a motivation of profit on the back side of it.

To elaborate on that side of my story, I would make flyers with our home phone number on the bottom on a bunch of small tear sheets, where the flyer was hand written in the best 10 year old handwriting offering services for lawn mowing, raking of leaves, cleaning of gutters (ranch homes only mind you), or any other odd job to be done around a house. I was always looking for work. I started my first real business detailing cars at 16, and by the time I was 17 I had a weekly routine of picking up sports cars from a dozen doctors, and taking them back to my house to be detailed. I played in a band in my college years in Buffalo and we were voted the best cover band in Buffalo two years in a row, during that time I started a screenprinting business that specialized in producing goods for Fraternities and Sororities, and I was playing college hockey at the same time. I always wanted to earn money, and I always looked for opportunities to do that in ways that did not require as much time, though I never said the words “exchange time for money”, it is clear as I look back that I was always looking for ways to reduce that.

So with that behind us, let me focus in on the two times in my life that I developed a “big goal”, and perhaps through the effort of digging in, I can help someone else find a catalyst to unlock their best success. My first moment goes back in time a long ways. My family was visiting on of my father’s brothers at their home a few hours away from where we lived. This was a successful uncle who had an incredible work ethic. As a kid I was always scared of visiting them (both the uncle and his wife), or them visiting us, because it usually ended up with me putting in manual labor. But on this occasion, the moment that got buried deep inside of me, and ultimately drove me, was all about manners, and a lack of grace. I was sitting in the breakfast room (their house was a massive mansion from the early 1900’s sitting at the North edge of Lake Skaneateles, a finger lake in central New York), and I guess I was slurping my cereal. I was probably 10 years old at this time, and not at all considering the importance of good posture and etiquette at the breakfast table. However, on this morning my aunt was going to be sure that both I and my mother were reprimanded for the insolence. She came up from behind me, pushed my chair in hard to the table, told me to sit up straight and stop slurping my milk… followed by a look towards my mother with a sharp critique… “Cordelia, can’t you teach your boys to do anything right?”

Later that day, I was playing in the yard with my older brother, and noticed my mother sitting on a stump towards the back of the yard. I ran back to her and found her crying. When I asked her why, she said it was nothing, but I walked off thinking it was because of me, because of the embarassment of the morning episode at the breakfast table. This moment was not thought of again by me until I was 29 years old. I had recently graduated from Life University, and in my first 10 months of practice was just opening my third practice. I clearly remember a neuro chropractor working on me, and asking me to focus on the effort I was putting forth, and to identify anything that was causing me to have increased stress, or imbalance in my mind/spirit. It was an amazing moment of clarity that resulted as I suddenly saw this moment for what it really was. In my mind, the most successful people I knew were my aunt and uncle, and specifically one of their children (my cousin)… and that moment drove me to succeed beyond the potential that my aunt saw in me.

To circle this moment and bring it back into my life story, I would summarize it like this. I had a work ethic as a child, but it wasn’t directed. I had success goals as a teenager, but they also lacked focus. Somewhere in my development through my college years, I was focused, and I do not know why. But it was at this time that I was able to pinpoint what I would call an unhealthy pursuit in trying to “win”, but I was able to see it for the good work that it had produced, and I was able to harness that desire to become a force for my effort. I was able to take that motivation and identify that working hard for the legacy of my parents was the true desire from this interaction. So, we all have motivation in some way, but over the last two+ decades I have been able to identify that legacy is my greatest motivation. I want to honor the name of my family, and I want to set my children up with an opportunity to more good than I ever could have in my life.

OK… perhaps that is a bit long winded, but it brings me to a place where I can now speak freely about what this time of my life has looked like from 29 to 52 (and beyond I hope), and how motivation, and inspiration have become the words that I love to speak most often about. I would call the years from 29 to 39, the years of discovery. I was learning so much about myself, going through endless trials. I had opened seven chiropractic offices and four CrossFit gyms in that time. Launched four ancillary businesses, three in chiropractic and one in CrossFit, during that time. Made a lot of money, lost a lot of money, was nearly bankrupt once, went through an audit from hell, and learned that I had nothing to fear through all of it.

Which is the key moment for the next phase of my life, the day I learned to have no fear. Which isn’t really a day, but it was during the time that I was under so much stress from over stretching my finances… and then the IRS came calling, and I was dealing with daily stresses that I had never had to cope with prior to this time. But it was a simple message that came to me, and in that day of prayer, I felt like God was giving me a perfect vision for His desire for me. The message was that none of it mattered, there was more to do looking forward than what had been accomplished looking back, and that there would be no time for fear. The takeaway from that message is this – don’t worry about what could happen, don’t worry about the stresses, just do. And do with the goal of creating opportunity for yourself and others. As you do, you will have more opportunity lying in front of you, than you ever did behind.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

My professional life has been built on the premise of changing the way the world perceives health, would facilitate incredible positive changes in the community, and build INFLUENCE with my community. I highlight the word influence because it has been the center of my focus for 25 years… Increase my influence and hold me accountable for growing the Kingdom has been my prayer for those last 25 years.

As I turned the corner on trading an endless amount of time to create success, and moved into less time for money, but more of an “investment capital” mentality, I have still be entirely focused on legacy, and community impact. People often ask me, “how does a Chiropractor become a developer”? The reality is, I look at it like this… “how does someone who owns a lot of brick and mortar based business, NOT become a developer”.

My real estate developer path started as a commercial real estate owner, which became a commercial landlord, and then an owner adding on to the capacity of commercial real estate, which then slowly slipped into the acquisition of properties connected to my commercial property, and that has grown and grown now, so that between Woodstock, Milton, Alpharetta, Loganville, Sugar Hill, Lawrenceville, East Point, Clarkesville and Atlanta… In ten years, my wife and I have found us working through 14 real estate projects. Mostly mixed-use, but some purely residential, and some purely commercial.

There has been great success through the process, but it hasn’t all been success. There have been projects that went slow, went expensive, and in some cases lost a ton of money. But there have been others that have done better BECAUSE they took so long, and the market arrived to help create something great along the way. But I think the most important part of the real estate journey, has been the desire to create incredible spaces that attract people to do life. Not to fill a utility that is purely functional, but to add an artistic flair that brings enjoyment into all fucntion. We (my wife and I), are dedicated to this idea that you shouldn’t have to go on vacation to see incredible spaces, but we should all strive to live in them, and work in them, on a daily basis. We want our legacy to be that we cared about the human impact, not just the money. We never started down this path to make a bunch of money, we were simply trying to be better stewards of the money we were spending. We continue to remind ourselves of this daily… we do it to be good stewards, and in that, we pray for success… not the other way around.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Commitment. I think of all of the areas I have already touched on, it isn’t so much about being hard working, or having a good mantra, but rather about being hard working day in and day out, and repeating that mantra everyday. Let your habits bring out the best in you, and expect all things to take time. Patience is vitally important when it comes to developing your gifts. Which is a great segway into the last quality that I think has had a massive impact.

I became coachable.

And when I say I became coachable, I really mean that. I was NOT the least bit coachable in some areas of my life, but I found a mentor who I did trust and respect, and he not only coached me, but he coached me to become coachable. I was willing to go into retreat settings and kill my cynical side that wanted to believe that nothing could be offered to me. I was able to go into environments looking for coaching. And trust me, I have an ego that would otherwise be problamatic. I understand how hard it is for some people to be coached, because I am one of those people. So, if you are too be coachable, you are to also understand that you have some gifts/skills that you excel at, and other areas you will be horrible at. It is ok, and the sooner you can identify where you excel and focus your time on developing that side, the better off you will be at impacting the world. Don’t train your weaknesses… fill those with others. Train your strengths.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?

I love this prompt… of course I am! There is no easy way to break into my world, which is a product of my current world. I am super busy by design, and therefore don’t commit a lot of time to engaging with new people unless they naturally can fit into my world.

I started a rule years ago, that I would not pursue ventures or opportunities that fell out of the lens of my world view and my mission. But now, as a real estate developer, that lens has grown dramatically. So this is what I say to those looking to connect with me. I am interested in your success, and I would love to see if there is a way that I can help you succeed… but reaching out to me for a chance to sit and have coffee… I have three dozen partners that I am always working to sit and have coffee with. Instead, connect with Collaborate Coworking in Woodstock or Milton (I am an owner/partner), and see what events we are doing, or see if you can jump into a Founders Club that I am teaching, and we can connect there. Perhaps it will turn into something more.

Just as an example, I am a partner in mutiple restaurants, Collaborate Coworking, multiple new Real Estate companies, all because I am trying to help stand up others in business, in areas that I believe in.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.adairparkwoodstock.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/collaboratecoworking/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marketdistrictcrabapple
• Other: A sampling of the businesses/developments that I am involved with have been included for the web links and socials.