“We talk about this business on date nights, Sunday mornings… and we wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Allyn and Christine reflect on what it’s like building Northwest Ketamine Clinics side-by-side—and why it’s the most meaningful work of their lives.
Transcript
Question: What is it like running a business with your spouse?
I think for some people, it would drive them crazy. Me and Christine kind of match each other. I’m kind of the free spirit and the visionary, and I’ve been described as a ready-fire-aim kind of person.
“I’m kind of the free spirit and the visionary… Christine is definitely more of the stable voice and the bringing sanity into the relationship.”
I really like to plan. I like to be realistic. I like to make sure that we can afford it. I really like to focus on balancing out the care—making sure that we can really provide excellent care and keeping our costs as low as possible.
Because I am an accountant, he’s the medical side. And so we work together as a team to try to match that and marry that.
“We work together as a team… I’m the accountant, he’s the medical side.”
And I think it really makes a real big difference here at our clinics, because we can provide the best care possible for the lowest cost. That’s how we work together—to try to make it be as affordable for patients as possible. Because we know it’s going to change—it does change lives every single day.
All we do is talk about this business. Like, yeah—when we go out to eat… there’s no work-life balance. It isn’t important to us. It doesn’t really exist that much.
“There’s no work-life balance… Our date night is talking about the business.”
So our kids—we talk about ketamine. We talk about the business and our employees, and how can we make this better. And our patients too—we love telling stories about people coming in. That’s what it’s all about for us.
Our date night is talking about the businesses. We wake up on Sunday morning, we talk about the businesses. And we love it. It works for us.
Yeah, it does. It’s an honor. It’s an honor to be able to provide something that’s so meaningful and that has not only touched our lives and our family’s lives, but just many, many, many others.
That’s, for me, the most rewarding thing about being such a part of this—our friends and family who are really struggling, and who don’t know where to turn, or maybe are at risk for losing their child, or their spouse, or their parent—they know about us, and they come to us, and we help them get treatment.
“Almost universally, it’s life changing. It’s a huge honor.”
And almost universally, it is life changing. And I feel like a huge, I guess, debt of gratitude to be able to provide that—for the people that we love, and so many people that we don’t even know that go through the same thing and have the same life-changing experience.
It’s a huge honor. Something that—we’ll do this forever, just if that was the only reward.