With the end of the year fast approaching I am sure that you are hearing others (and maybe yourself) saying – “OMG, where did the year go?” Quite a valid question, I would say. Are you and your practice where you thought you would be by this December when 2013 began? How does your reality line up with the reality that you imagined at the beginning of the year? Have your plans resulted in the outcomes that you set 12…
Chiropractic is the most sustainable, cleanest, energy efficient, non-polluting health care system that I know of. As chiropractors, we work with the most powerful ally in our area of endeavour – LIFE. Based on the fundamental premise that we are living in an organised and intelligent world we study what normal looks like. (Even the study of pathology is the study of the ‘normal’ death of a living system) and assist wherever we can to facilitate a person to adjust…
Some of the most humbling times of my professional life have been when I have left a practice and moved on. When people know that you are leaving they make a point of sharing their gratitude for what chiropractic under your watch has done for them. This is when the tears of appreciation flow and the stories of personal change come to the fore. For many of us we may find that the day-to-day humdrum of practice with all of…
A sustainable practice is a practice that has a long-term growth plan for its team. Practices, which adopt a huge vision, which includes a hairy audacious ‘why’, create an environment for growth on all levels. With an expansive attitude the practice supports the individual growth of practice members and the practice team alike. There are upsides and downsides to this phenomenon. The upside is that people are constantly challenged to be their best and produce their best work. In an…
Continuing on our theme of sustainability in practice today I wanted to address the issue of education. A well-educated group of chiropractic consumers are a delight to work with and they set the scene for a stress free, enjoyable and sustainable practice that produces great results and significant shifts in humanity. In order to educate anyone on anything there are some fundamental pre-requisites. Firstly, your primary thought needs to be that the person already knows the answers and your job…
In our continuing current discussion on practice sustainability we find that there is a constant flow of new people into the practice. The ultimate driver of this is the good name of the practice but it is driven by specific design. Inbuilt into every interaction is the awareness that the products and services that you offer are sought after by the circle of influence of every person who you attend to. Every person has a network of people who they…
Continuing with the theme of the past few weeks let’s look at another of the key distinctions of sustainable practices and identify a few suggestions for you to implement in your practice if this is an issue for you. The sustainable practice is a practice that functions as if it’s on ‘rails’. Things happen smoothly, everyone knows their role, they perform them impeccably, there are no ‘fires’ to put and all team members are able to cover for each other….
Following on from the previous blog where I outlines the elements of an unsustainable practice, this week and in the coming weeks I will take a few moments to identify some of the many characteristics of a sustainable practice. I will outline some of the key distinctions of these practices and identify a few suggestions for you to implement in your practice if this is an issue for you. The mark of a sustainable practice is in the ability to…
Last week we suggested that you review your Statement of Purpose and consider the profile of your “Ideal Person”. After doing that I am sure that you will have a way of identifying the general style, look and feel of the values, beliefs and character traits of your favourite people. These are the people who you love to work with. Today I am suggesting that within these “ideal people” there are further categories that give you a profile of a…
Every moment that you spend in your office in the experience of connecting with those people who you serve is an exchange of a part of your life. You invest an irretrievable unit of time with every person you see. Whilst it could be argued that every person comes to you loaded with gifts and there is opportunity to extract massive pearls of wisdom and associated growth from them all it is also useful to consider why you are doing…
By the words we use we define our reality. When we create a reality that is not what we think it should be, we have identified a contradiction. “To arrive at a contradiction,” writes Ayn Rand, “is to confess an error in one’s thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one’s mind and to evict oneself from the realm of reality.” Our current chiropractic vocabulary is full of baggage that obscures the truth of chiropractic. This has resulted in…
As a reminder as to how important every word we say to the people we serve the late Dr. DeJarnette made the statement that “Words kill more people than bullets”. Think of the millions of lives that have and are being lost because of the utterances of dictators, despots and duly elected governments throughout recent history alone. Think about the language of western medicine and look at the epidemic of death and suffering it is creating. Maybe even think about…
