We had the good fortune of connecting with Steven Wong and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Steven, what role has risk played in your life or career?
Risk in studying Chinese medicine for me primarily comes down to distance and time: how far are you willing to travel, and how much time are you willing to dedicate to the study. The word Gong Fu, often romanized as Kung Fu, doesn’t just mean martial arts, it means mastery through time and effort. I was lucky enough to spend 11 years of my life in China studying Chinese medicine, and it has been the foundation I have built my whole practice on.

What should our readers know about your business?
Getting to where I am wasn’t easy, but it was natural. I started slow, and built up my clientele and practice gradually, while at the same time teaching at two acupuncture colleges in Colorado. I rented a room for a day or two a week rather than jumping in to a high overhead situation, and it has proven to be a great strategy for building a practice. And besides being more natural to grow gradually, it also let me focus on building relationships with my patients rather than needing to see a maximum quantity of patients just to pay the bills. In essence, quality over quantity. That has let me keep initial goal with my practice central: to help and empower my patients.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Colorado’s mountains have to be number 1, so any of our great hikes and hotsprings from Glenwood to Ouray and everything in between. Some of our favorite restaurants would include Ras Kassa’s ethiopian restaurant, Falafayette food truck, and Chez Thuy asian bistro. Some great events like Yoga at red rocks, shows at Boulder theater or comedy at Comedy Works would also be on the list.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
In traditional Chinese fields, like medicine, martial arts, philosophy, etc, the focus is always on the lineage and the teachers. If you have succeeded or achieved something great, it’s because of your lineage and teachers who’s great knowledge you stand on. If you fall short, it’s because you haven’t studied the knowledge passed down to you well enough. I fully subscribe to this and have great gratitude to the 4 teachers you influenced my most in my stay in China: Dr. Guo Ting Ying, Dr. Yu Tian Yuan, Dr, Li Xing Guang and Dr. Ma Wen Zhu.

Website: https://www.yellowmountainclinic.com/

Other: I run a podcast with a fellow practitioner, it’s available on all the podcast platforms, here is the spotify link:
https://open.spotify.com/show/7g2AQoVwWNtuMrYQjszFgQ?si=SvlLDdSISjmzdCRvVYfmYg

Image Credits
All photos were taken by me or my colleages

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