“Your arrows do not carry,” observed the Master, “because they do not reach far enough spiritually”
Eugene Herrigel – Zen and the Art of Archery

We all get frustrated when we fail to hit our personal targets. As an example, let’s suppose that last January you set a goal of earning $100,000 more this year. And now after spending the last 9 months climbing and striving to reach that goal you find yourself only achieving half that goal. What follows is a loss of momentum. A few self-limiting beliefs got reinforced. The result is a drop in energy and vigor. Thus, when you reinstate the goal for the next year you are already operating at a personal energy deficit.

You can imagine what will happen the next year, and the year after that if you continually fail to hit your targets. Perhaps right here, right now, you are feeling the effects of the frustration of falling short of those goal year after year. As we strive to obtain known personal objectives we get caught up in the ‘target event’ (obtaining) and may miss the ‘attainment process’ altogether.

Two Categories of Goals

Let me explain. There are two categories of goals, the known goals and the unknown goals. Known goals are the ones you have targeted as worth achieving. They are known to you and to people in your life who are committed to helping you achieve them. Unknown goals are deeper qualities and values that surface as a result of your efforts toward your known goals. They are the deeply satisfying needs that you have temporarily forgotten. Once you become aware of them, life has even greater purpose and meaning.

Here’s how it works. As you strive to achieve your known goals your deep down unknown goals get satisfied. If you fail to recognize these and assimilate them into your consciousness two things occur:

1. Your wins feel hollow.
2. Your failures begin to drain more and more of your energy.

The reality is that some goal is always being achieved in the attainment process. However, it isn’t always the one you had consciously set (Known). As an example, on your quest to earn more this year you might have attained recognition, better health, and parental approval, spousal “buy in”, inner strength, stronger relationships, and more time to enjoy your world. These are all examples of unknown goals.

We are not describing a ‘rationalization event, making excuses or denying failed attempts. We are describing a new way to look at this journey of success. Learning this process will change your perspective and behavior. It will liberate your beliefs and extinguish your self imposed limitations. Acknowledging your unknown wins will give you a self liberating perspective and energize your reinstated goals.

Reach for your star!

Practice Building Tip

“If you knew that one of your coaches or a classmate where coming to visit your office next week what would you do?”

Once you get past the performance anxiety make a list of the items that would need attention. We suggest you look in three categories.

1. The physical appearance of your business. Do the carpets need cleaned? Do the walls or ceilings need painted? Do your tables need recovered?
2. The practice systems. Are your systems flawlessly executed throughout the day? Does your team reflect the image you want?
3. Your attitude. What leadership essentials will you need to master? What behavior and attitudes do you need to highlight and what ones need to be changed?

Your SIDECAR Team

 

 

 

 

You bring who you are into your business. Typically you behave in business as you behave everywhere else in your life.  Wherever you go, there you are. Your practice is a mirror that reflects your behavioral patterns. These habits determine what you have, right here, right now.

The three relationships that shape your personal and professional life are:

• The relationship you have with yourself
• The relationships you have with others
• And the relationship you have with your business.

You can assuage the pain of self-limiting beliefs through self-deception and you can even ignore many of your relationship problems. Yet, your business is a measurable, palpable accounting of your inner journey, your leadership competence and your work ethic.

Too many doctors fail to achieve the goal of Chiropractic Affluence because they never form the Character of Courage. They boldly push forward in some areas and push back in others. Because this kind of courage is situational, the consequence is mediocrity. Being a Chiropractic Entrepreneur is risky business and is not for the faint of heart. Risk taking is part of the terrain.

As you boldly face practice challenges, align your INTENTION with the things you are attentive to and the actions you take will work. You have two intentional choices, you can problem solve or create.

Problem solving is taking action to have something go away.

Creating is taking action to have something come into being.

Strive for healthy behavior in all your relationships: the one you have with your self, with others and with your business. Take the time you need to tackle the deeper, inner work. Embrace this process and learn to embody the following principles.

The Principle of Transformation

The process of transforming your practice into a business will also transform you personally.  Professional development leads to personal development as a by product of internalizing the essential principles. You will be transformed though your successes and your failures, your victories and your defeats.

The Principle of Excellence

When you begin to really work on the Business of Chiropractic, your awareness levels are sensitized to both your strengths and weaknesses as a leader. You will be confronted by your willingness to reach beyond your comfort and complacency.  And with the appropriate actions you will develop the ability to lead yourself, lead others and lead your business. This skill set will serve you the rest of your life.

“Excellence is the result of caring more than others think wise, risking more than others think is safe, dreaming more than others think is practical, and expecting more than others think is possible.” 

Your SIDECAR Team

One day I walked out into the reception room and saw my patient Nicole with one of her foster children, an old man in a 12 year old body. His body was hung loosely like a robe over the back of a chair. I went over to him and as I did he lifted his head but could not look me in the eye or stand completely upright. He reached out, grabbed my tie and said, “Hi my name is Aaron.”

I was blown away. At that moment I felt as if my only purpose in life was to help this boy. I asked Nicole for permission to examine him and because she trusted me; she agreed. His story was disturbing. You can’t imagine what I found during my case history and chiropractic exam. You see, Aaron had spent the past two years locked in a dark, damp closet. It was the way his birth parents chose to teach him a lesson. He could not carry on a conversation and had severe learning challenges.

His back was rigid and riddled with misalignments. He had adapted to this physical and emotional drama by assuming a standing fetal position. As chiropractors we are probably the only health care providers who truly understand that this was innate’s way of protecting him from the physical and emotional pain of abandonment. Nicole told me that her previous chiropractor had said it would be a waste of money to treat Aaron because he had no real symptoms.

Holding my rage inside I said, “I understand,” but I lied. I asked her if she would like to hear my opinion.  I told her what you would have told her, “Aaron may not have the typical symptoms, but he has signs and plenty of indicators of what we call a subluxation. And there is a chance I might be able to ease his suffering, would you like me to try?”

To Aaron and his foster family the spinal adjustments were more than treatments. I don’t fully understand how, yet his foster parents and I witnessed firsthand his release from an emotional prison. As a matter of fact the adjustments kicked the door wide open. Six months later he was mainstreamed into school. No, he wasn’t the top of his class and yes he still has challenges, but he no longer suffers.

No one profession has all the answers yet what we do as chiropractors matters to our patients. There are hundreds of thousands of people that suffer needlessly and will continue a life of drudgery and hopelessness unless you stand up and shout.

You are Chiropractic. You have it in you to be great!

Your SIDECAR Team

Success means winning and in order to win you have to outperform other business teams. Like it or not, your team is already on the field competing for patients. Like it or not, your team is already on the field competing against businesses who offer products and services that promise the same thing you do.

“Chiropractic is Different”

Now I know what you’re thinking, “Chiropractic is bigger, better, gets to the cause, lets people reach their full potential, and is the only wellness plan that makes sense. And there is no competition.” We are without doubt the answer humankind has been searching for, but we have fierce competition for limited resources. What do I mean by limited resources? Insurance equality and access is on the decline unless you are willing to work for managed care. While there are 6 billion people on the planet the brutal reality is that right now your market is limited. People must be made aware and we have a long way to go. They must be willing and able to pay and take responsibility. I don’t know about you, but I see a tsunami of ‘cradle to grave’ entitlement mentality on our shores.

Has the competition become fiercer in your area in the last three years? Is there more insurance reimbursement or more claims denied? Do you think its going to get any easier three years from now? So what can you do right here, right now? Compete! The Chiropractor who fields the best team wins.

In this brutally competitive game called business you can choose to hide your head and be the passive optimist waiting for your big “breakthrough” or you can be the competitive realist “fighting for inches.” Business is just like a full contact sport. Every limiting belief and every physical and emotional weakness that you and your team may have will be exposed.

Your Challenges

It will be tough on some days and when the going gets tough your teams training takes over. The challenges are manifest and include:

• Staying focused during slow hours, days, and weeks
• Staying focused when confronting a challenging patient
• Staying focused when patients cancel or quit
• Staying focused when patients are not responding
• Staying focused and flexible when the schedule falls apart

Many of you have talented, passionate people on the field with you and you have learned that being the best means training with the best. Consistent winners have a strategy that includes “in –office” and “seminar training.” Continue to “fight for inches” and make a good team great.

Your SIDECAR Team

Have you noticed that there always seems to be one spot along the highway that collects trash? Have you ever wondered how it got started or why that particular spot is the trash magnet?

When the former Mayor of New York City, Rudolph Giuliani, confronted the trash and crime magnet called Times Square he set out to solve the problem and restore his beleaguered city. It took two criminologists to figure out exactly what human behavioral quirk contributes to this phenomenon and how to stop it.

The “Broken Window Theory,” conceived by James Wilson and George Kelling, argues that minor nuisances, if left unchecked, turn into major nuisances. That is, if someone breaks a window and sees that it isn’t fixed immediately, he gets the signal that it’s alright to break the rest of the windows and maybe set the building on fire!

By now you’re probably wondering what this has to do with growing a thriving Chiropractic business. Well your office has ‘structural integrity’ similar to any building. What are your broken windows? What are you attracting? Let’s look at a few examples and see what we can glean.

Identifying Your “Broken Windows”

Have you gotten into the habit of arriving at the office a few minutes late each morning? Have you become so complacent that you no longer need to prepare for the new patient or report of findings? Does the Team see these minor infractions as acceptable behavior and begin to follow the leader? How about patients? Do they begin to arrive late or not at all? Come on, it’s only one window.

What minor nuisance is created when you change the financial policy on yet another patient? Does this breach, add, or detract from the structural integrity of your practice? Come on, it’s only one window.

What kind of minor nuisance is created when your attire has become so casual that your patients say, “You look so comfortable doc, I wish I could get away with that in my office.” Come on, it’s only a window.

Has the scuff mark on the wall been there for a while? Is it inviting others to add to the graffiti? How about behind the front desk? Has it been collecting a few piles of meaningless paperwork and personal items? Have you been invaded by “dust bunnies” breeding under the tables and in the corners?

Selective Perception

Remember, patients have ‘selective perception radar’ that continually scans their environment and dramatically affects all of their decisions. Their senses are highly tuned and demanding. Selective perception refers to the fact that people, once they form a good or bad impression about something or someone, become sensitized and more alert to information that supports the initial impression.

For instance, if the patient has had a bad impression in the beginning of care they will be attracted to studies, or other authorities who questioned their decision to become a chiropractic patient. You might hear things like, “My friend says that coming here will make all of my joints loose,” or “I heard that once you start coming to a chiropractor you can’t stop,” or “I read that getting your neck cracked causes strokes.”

Conversely, if their experience leaves them with a positive emotional impression you will have 1- 3 referrals within the first couple of weeks. At the very least you will hear statements like, “I didn’t realize so many different kinds of people go to a Chiropractor,” or “Doc, I wish I had heard about you before.”

Naturally human beings look for conscious reasons to justify their gut feelings. If their gut says you, your staff or your office is lackadaisical about one thing it must mean it applies to the care plan as well. They might ask, “Am I really that special here or am I just another body?”

Take a look at yourself, your staff and the office aesthetics. Fix all the ‘broken windows’ and service nuisances immediately and set a higher standard of service. Company is coming!

Your SIDECAR Team