Toni Reece: Hi there. This is Toni Reece, and welcome to the Get Inspired! Project for Berks County Living magazine. Today I have Dr. Bill Moss with me. Welcome.
Bill Moss: Thank you for having me, Toni. I’m excited to be here.
Toni: Absolutely. You have advised me to refer to you as Dr. Bill, so that’s what I’m going to do, Dr. Bill.
Bill: That’s what people like to call me, so we might as well stay consistent.
Toni: So, tell me a little bit about yourself.
Bill: I’m originally from Berks County. I grew up in Shillington and I still currently reside there. Moved away for a little bit. I was a teacher in Chester County, went to chiropractic school in Atlanta, and we made our journey back to this location. I am owner of Keystone Specific Chiropractic Center, which we’re going on five years in business here. I’ve been in practice over seven years; helped start some practices around the world actually, and also teach a niche in the chiropractic profession called Upper Cervical Specific Chiropractic.
Toni: Wow. You have a lot going on.
Bill: Always, yes.
Toni: All right. So, let’s get into the Project.
Bill: All right.
Toni: What does inspiration mean to you?
Bill: I think inspiration is a little bit like motivation, but it comes from a place of ease. I think inspiration has a lot to do with, for me, knowing yourself. What I mean by that is, when you really start to know what your purpose is, what’s for your greater good to help serve more people, I think inspiration flows pretty effortlessly.
I think we live in a world and a society that’s constantly looking to be motivated, and I think that a lot of inspiration has more to do with letting go of the things that are holding you back from your true gifts as opposed to always getting pumped up — to break through walls on a consistent basis. Inspiration for me feels lighter than motivation, and it doesn’t feel like work. It feels like effortless movement for my greater good and the greater good of my community.
Toni: What a great answer. I have done thousands of these interviews and that’s the first time it’s been described that way. It feels lighter to you. I was going to ask, do you know when you are inspired?
Bill: I think I do, for the most part, but I think I miss it sometimes. Knowing yourself, that you’re not always 100 percent, I think the more throughout my career I’ve become smarter at taking steps back and not running into the same wall looking for a door that’s not there, so I think I continue to get better and better to make more efficient moves that keep me in the flow of inspiration; so yeah, I would say.
Toni: Yeah; so even though you might miss it sometimes, do you think it’s a cerebral feeling or can you feel it in your gut, or is it a heart thing?
Bill: I think it’s a gut and heart thing. I think most of the time we can paralyze ourselves with analysis of details and really…I know that when I’m making decisions from my gut and my heart when I’m discerning and stepping back, that they’re the right ones as opposed to if I beat it to death. I’m actually finding myself not inspired, right? The more time I spend in my head the less time I’m spending in inspiration I think overall.
Toni: It really sounds like you need to pay attention.
Bill: Paying attention and awareness are absolutely the fundamental start to it, I think.
Toni: All right. So, how do you take that — when you’re aware of it and it’s happening — how do you take that inspired movement and motivation and put that into practice here in Berks County?
Bill: I think it’s pretty universal, putting it into practice. I’m a self-starter or a starter, let’s say. If I come up with a good inspired project or a way to do my business or something that I want to do in my personal life, I think just setting it in motion of this is what’s going to happen; this is where we’re going to go, and I think in practice in Berks County this has been super important from the fact that we’ve had to first overcome a mindset shift in this area to make any progress.
When I got back, lots of people make the statement that, “Berks County people are like this,” or, “They’re always getting the same result.” You’re going to keep perpetuating that, so the first thing is to really get moving in the right direction, and it starts with our thoughts. If we don’t think we can change, we will never change, and if you don’t have people in this community that are going to be inspired to change, it’s really not going to work. So, how I put that in practice is I try to show people a mindset and action steps that produce and drive us in a new direction, because I think that’s really important. I think we’re seeing the shift because the world is so global, even when you’re local.
Toni: That’s absolutely true. Okay, so you literally have to provide an education to those that you work with in order to inspire them to think a little bit differently.
Bill: Mm-hmm. I also think it comes back to what you said, from the gut and the heart as being the number one precursor to making that shift or change, because my words could be meaningless if the intention and the direction or the place we’re coming from — me being in healthcare is helping to change the outlook of what health is for people. So, if I’m coming from all the details, that works in some cases, but people aren’t driven to change by details. They’re driven to change when they can feel it, and they can feel themselves, and they’re moving in a better direction.
Toni: That must be amazing to see when that happens.
Bill: It is. I think it’s what keeps me going. It also helps me determine who’s a good fit in my office and who’s not. People that don’t want to change and aren’t motivated to really be vulnerable and take the next step forward, they don’t work out always, and that’s okay because there’s tons of other people that can serve them in the way that they deserve to be served or want to be served.
Toni: Who in Berks County inspires you?
Bill: Man, there’s a lot of different people — my wife definitely inspires me. All of my ideas get kind of worked through with her. She is definitely an inspirational person. She is an incredible hard worker — she’s a professor at Kutztown, has a Ph.D. She’s about to be a mom. She is one of the most inspiring people. We kick butt together, I like to say.
I think I’ve found a lot of people in organizations that help; a few that come to mind right now are John Whitehall, who is a sales trainer in the area. He’s just a motivating kind of guy that I think is really helping change the outlook of the business community and what sales are, and how to reach more people in a very ethnical way. I think he’s doing a great job.
The networking organization that I’m a part of called BCNA, I was the President for the prior four years in that organization. It’s had tremendous growth. We’re up to almost 40 members. It’s a great group that understands business, understands serving your community, and also giving back. I think it’s an organization that’s helped really inspire me to see the global change across the culture of business, charity, and really service in the area. That’s been an inspirational group for me.
Toni: What would you like your legacy to be?
Bill: What would I like my legacy to be? That’s such a deep question. I guess that question a lot of times comes from what do you want people to say about you at your funeral, right? I think my legacy is to really — one of my purposes from a professional standpoint is to help change the perspective of helping people see that they’re more than they thought they were. I think from a spiritual perspective, from a health perspective, from just a person perspective, I want to realty help people know that they are more than they thought they were, and that’s the legacy I would like to leave behind when people think of me and what I was able to do here. They’re thinking about how I showed from my thoughts, my actions, and my words that I was here to help people figure out that they were a lot more than they were led to believe they were.
Toni: But Dr. Bill, don’t you do that on a day-to-day basis now?
Bill: So I guess I’m on my way to living my legacy.
Toni: I guess you are living your legacy.
Bill: I’m pretty joyful, and that’s pretty much my compass as if I’m on the right track or if I’m not is like, “Am I in joy?” That’s not — happiness and joy get kind of confused. Happiness is a ghetto joy. It’s fleeting, right? It’s there for a moment, and then it’s gone. We use these little external things to kind of get ourselves going in the right direction, but true joy is really understanding your purpose and moving in it and finding it with each thing you do.
Toni: How amazing and what a great way to end this interview. Thank you so much, Dr. Bill, for showing up for the Get Inspired! Project.
Bill: Thank you for having me, Toni.
