We are at the halfway point of 2009, are you on track to reaching and exceeding your goals?

Maybe you didn’t set goals for yourself and your practice at the beginning of the year.  If you didn’t, don’t beat yourself up.  Take some time to pull together some goals for the back half of 2009.  What do you really want to achieve? What do you want to look back upon? How much growth are you looking for?

If you did set goals, are you halfway to achieving them?  If so, congratulations! Maybe you should celebrate with your chiropractic coach and recalibrate in case you set the bar too low! Or maybe you’ve been working so hard to reach your goals that we’ll exceed them by the end of the year!  Spend some time with your coach to figure out what IS working?  What is the “Winning Formula” that you’ve found to help you create such success?  What else can you leverage to get more results, success and momentum?  For the first six months of this year, we have been consulting offices that are expanding and having record-breaking months!  It’s time to put the pedal to the medal.

If you set goals and you’re not on track to achieving them by the end of the year, why not?  What do you we need to change to make it happen? Is it your action steps and follow through?  Have you been resistant to changing the way you do your communications and procedures because it’s outside of your “comfort zone”?  Are you stuck on perfecting the foundation because you are afraid to make change?  Has your vision gotten cloudy?

At this halfway mark you’ll want to re-assess your initial goals.  Do they still fit for this year? Do they need to be altered because of life changes?  Are you still passionate about them?  Do they need to be recalibrated from this halfway point? 

If you’ve been stuck in a rut of old pattern or thinking, talk to us and get out of it!  There is no point doing the same thing and expecting different results! They called that insanity!  Now is the time you have to stretch yourself, for growth and change only happens outside the “comfort zone”.  If the ‘old way’ worked, you’d be as successful as you want to be, already!

Tags: change, Chiropractic Coach, Chiropractic Practice Management, Comfort Zone, consultant, Goals, half time, halfway mark, Insanity, Internal Resistance, practice success, resistance, Success

Many chiropractors have a difficult time with life balance. Whether you are just starting your practice OR seeing 500 visits/week, it’s hard to find a balance between the office and your personal life, your community and your family.

The truth is, wellness chiropractors who are running successful chiropractic practices have to lead by example.  If wellness chiropractors are going to lead the wellness revolution, we have to walk the walk, not just talk the talk!  You can’t be overweight and teaching nutrition. You can’t be a stress case telling people to reduce their mental/emotional stress.  Just like you can’t smoke and tell your kids not to smoke.  It is who you are BEING and DOING, not what you are SAYING that matters.

While coaching chiropractors, it is essential to look at their life priorities and build their life and practice around that.  You get to choose the life you want to create! First you need to know what that is, then you need to create and action plan to get there.

Secondly, it is not about time-management, but it is about self-management. How focused are you?  How effective are you at following through on your plan? How much do you allow yourself to get distracted?  How tenacious are you at pushing through the dip?  Are you showing up in life with the discipline it takes to be a true leader? And who is holding you accountable for your choices?

Lastly, to be of true service, we have to be full vessels ourselves.  Unless we serve ourselves and our personal needs, we can’t truly be of service.  It is about being self-full not selfish.  It’s time for you to exercise “Extreme Self Care” as outlined by Thomas Leonard in his book, “The 28 Laws of Attraction”. Here are the categories to revamp your life:

1. Stress elimination: By focusing on stress elimination in all areas of your life. What is stressful? What are you tolerating? What isn’t adding positively to your life?

2. Environment & Family: Design your environment to serve you and your family relationships to add energy to your life.

3. Pleasure: Know what makes you feel great and then get more of it in your life.

4. Well-being: Ensure all aspects of physical, mental, emotional, chemical are 100% .

5. Support and Experts: Receive wellness care from experts and seek support from a coach.

6. Ingestion: You are what you put in your mouth. Keep it clean. Treat your body like the temple that it is.

7. Appearance: Take care of the outer you as well as the inner you.

8. Sustainability: Make extreme self-care a behaviour not a quick fix.  Take control of your time, learn to say no, delegate finances for self-care.

9. Daily Rituals: Small improvements lead to great results.  What you do daily is who you become.

10. Special-care Items: Add anything else you need that isn’t listed above.

Tags: Action Plan, Balance, Extreme Lead by Example, Goals, Leadership, Life, Personal Needs, Self Care, Self Management, Thomas Leonard, Time Management, vision, Wellness Chiropractic, Wellness Chiropractors

As a chiropractic coach it is my mission to help chiropractors reach the level of success they are looking for and to create their dream wellness practice.  For some, that is a small retirement practice, and others it is to manage a high-volume practice that serves hundreds of people each week. Either way, part of my role is to help chiropractors clearly define what they want and then to help them get it.

When looking for big changes in life, whether different results in practice, or in helping the people you serve to make changes in their personal lifestyle there is a key element to remember: small things lead to big things.  It is the consistency of action on small things that will get you the big results you are looking for.  You can’t climb a mountain in one stride ~ it’s one inch at a time. Without keeping this in mind, it is easy to get frustrated at any moment with your progress. Without a coach, it is difficult to see the forest for the trees.

One of my mentors, Robin Sharma, uses this quote with high-powered executives to get them to live great lives and run world-class businesses, “Small daily acts of greatness lead to stunning results.” 

Your frustrations with your progress in practice are the same as your practice member’s frustrations with their progress and results.  It is not only powerful to remind them of this concept, but to remind yourselves as well.  

1. Know what you are working towards – have a clear vision.

2. Have a plan to get there. 

3. Take small actions steps daily and over time you will create the life and practice of your dreams.  If you improve 1% each day for 30 days, you will have made a 30% leap forward (not including compound improvements). Be better today than yesterday.

Here is BJ’s quote on The Big Idea to really hit this home.  Found in Chapter 1 in Volume XVIII, otherwise known as The Subluxation Specific-The Adjustment Specific:

“A slip on the snowy sidewalk in winter is a small thing. It happens to millions. A fall from a ladder in the summer is a small thing. It also happens to millions. The slip or fall produces a subluxation. The subluxation is a small thing. The subluxation produces pressure on a nerve. That pressure is a small thing. That decreased flowing produces a dis-eased body and brain. That is a big thing to that man.

Multiply that sick man by a thousand, and you control the physical mental welfare of a city. Multiply that man by one hundred thirty million, and you forecast and can prophesy the physical and mental status of a nation. So the slip or fall, the subluxation, pressure, flow of mental images and dis-ease are big enough to control the thoughts and actions of a nation.

Now comes a man. And one man is a small thing. This man gives an adjustment. The adjustment is a small thing. The adjustment replaces the subluxation. That is a small thing. The adjusted subluxation releases pressure upon nerves. That is a small thing. The released pressure restores health to a man. This is a big thing to that man.

Multiply that well man by a thousand, and you step up the physical and mental welfare of a city. Multiply that well man by a million, and you increase the efficiency of a state. Multiply that well man by a hundred thirty million, and you have produced a healthy, wealthy, and better race for posterity. So, the adjustment of the subluxation to release pressure upon nerves, to restore mental impulse flow, to restore health, is big enough to rebuild the thoughts and actions of the world.

The idea that knows the cause, that can correct the cause of dis-ease, is one of the biggest ideas known. Without it, nations fall; with it, nations rise.

This idea is the biggest I know of”.

Stick to the small things that will create big things!

Photo Credit: Jamen Rhodes Photography/ Climber: Chris Meyer (my brother)!

Tags: Action Plan, Big Things, BJ Palmer, consistency, Dreams, Frustrations, Goals, Progress, Results, Robin Sharma, Small Things, Success, The Big Idea, wellness chiropractic practice management

“Look at ever path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, one question: ‘Does this path have a heart’?”  ~Carlos Cataneda~

What is the essence of your practice?  What matters most?  If you have passion.  If you are ‘on purpose’.  If you love what you do.  The truth is, everything comes down to your focus, your enthusiasm and the energy you bring to your practice and the people you serve.  

In my chiropractic coaching, I work with chiropractors more about their head space and mindset than on their procedures.  I can easily consult you with typical practice management style and tell you a script to say for your Report of Findings/ Recommended Action Plan.  But if you don’t have passion, or certainty, or value yourself as a chiropractor and the care you provide, it won’t help. We have to coach through these intangibles before we can move forward.

At the time of death, the ancient Egyptians removed all the meaningless organs and discarded them. One that they kept – the heart.  I myself have been in ancient Egyptian temples and tombs and am intrigued by their understanding of the human experience.  When an Egyptian dies and goes to receive judgement by Anubis, their heart is weighed on a set of scales against a feather.  If their heart is lighter than the feather, they have lived a good life and move to the afterlife.  How light is your heart?  When do we let ourselves over-think our practice and ignore our true knowing, our intuition and what is in our heart?

Most chiropractors I know or have coached, who have done the ‘scare tactic’ model of communication tell me deep down it didn’t’ feel right. They went to bed with a pit in their stomach and their heart knowing the incongruency.  But it sounded like a good idea to use fear for patient compliance and to get the promised results.  It might work for short term compliance, but to get long term follow through our job is to have passion, tell people our truth, show them the consequences of their choices and build human relationships through hope and loving communication. 

Here are the steps to help you regain heart in your practice:

1.Truly discover your heart, passion and certainty for chiropractic

2. Bring it to your practice in every aspect: communication, marketing, team building etc.

3. Love people where they are and show them there is another way ~ lead them!

4. Make your systems and communications congruent with what is true to your heart

5. Have the practice and life of your dreams

Tags: care tactics, Chiropractic Coaching, communication, Egyptian, Heart, Passion, scare tactics, wellness chiropractic practice management

As chiropractors, hopefully most of us are communicating with the people we care for about the concept of health as a process vs. health as an event.  The accumulation of stress over time and the removal of such stress is the creator of health or disease.  Nothing from the outside. Nothing that just ‘happens’.

After a close family member had a heart attack this weekend I am deeply thankful for event/crisis care that our social medical system provides. It saved her life with incredible speed and skill.  And what I know so conceptually, I was reminded viscerally this weekend where they fall short. Medical care is not designed nor intended to keep you healthy. They view health as an event instead of a process. “This happened, we fixed it. Now take these drugs for life as our best approach to manage it”.  

True health care is the chiropractic understanding: Health is a process. In every moment you are either moving towards health or away from it with your choices. If you accumulate too much lifestyle stress in your nerve system, you will create dis-ease and disease.  We acknowledge this as the CAUSE and make new choices to create a different state of health.  Wellness care is acknowledging what the body needs (and doesn’t need) to be well and continue to take care of yourself with the same level of care, whether you are sick or whether you are well.

But a process takes TIME you say! Ah yes, heart disease didn’t happen overnight. Nor will it disappear with a medical miracle.  They can reactively stop the acute pain of an MI and reestablish blood flow – but the proactive process is just beginning!  But we are a quick-fix society wanting results NOW!  

Even wellness chiropractors, who understand the ‘process vs. event’ concept and communicate this way to the people they serve about symptoms, healing, and chiropractic care can be impatient with their practice and their chiropractic coaching. But I want results NOW they say!  Ah yes, but changes in your practice don’t happen overnight!  Don’t fall into the quick-fix trap, it’s incongruent with our philosophy.

Know what you are trying to accomplish, have an action plan to work towards it, follow through with the actions and produce the results.  In every moment, your chiropractic practice is either moving towards success or away from it with your choices and actions.

Make sure that you are applying the same Process vs. Event principle to all aspects of your life: Your chiropractic practice, your chiropractic coaching, your nutrition, your exercise, your finances… it’s aligned with the laws of nature.  Life is a process, not an event.

Tags: Chiropractic Care, Chiropractic Coaching, Event, Health Care, Medicine, Proactive, Process, Reactive, Wellness Care, wellness practice management

As a chiropractor, do you know what your vision is? Do you know why you get up every day and do what you do?  Without a clear vision of where you are headed it can be hard to stay the course.  Just like a raft guide who doesn’t know where he’s headed, a chiropractor without a vision can get easily lost. If you can’t clearly articulate your vision, that is the first thing to master to have success in practice.  Because you are not just leading yourself, you are leading your team and the people you take care of.

Your mission is how you are going to accomplish your vision. What will it take to get there?  It answers the 5 W’s of who, what, where, when and why. Your vision and mission is what guides your everyday action and reduces the overwhelm of your To-Do list.  It is essential to start with the big picture in mind to have a successful wellness practice and life for that matter!

Like the raft guide, you are steering the raft of your office for the people you serve, your team, and the community.  Do you know which direction you are headed?  Are you padding upstream or with the current flow of the river of life? Your vision and mission are essential to being able to course correct with wellness practice management principles.  As a chiropractor, are you stepping up to the level of leadership required to save lives in your community?

Next, what does it take to have a successful wellness chiropractic practice? Have you got what you need and are you implementing the strategies to do so? Just like the raft guide has to pack meticulously to have the correct rations of food, tools, supplies and emergency necessities, do you know exactly what you need to run a wellness practice and in the correct amounts?  Or does it feel like you are flying by the seat of your pants (or hanging on to your life jacket)?  May I suggest that you start to look at your practice as if you were a raft guide, who is responsible for the lives, the well-being, the nourishment, and the enjoyment of yourself and others on your journey.  Nothing can be left to chance in the wilderness ~ have a vision, make a plan, have what you need and course correct to be in the flow of life and success! But don’t wing it… your happiness and the health of your community depends on it.

Tags: chiropractic, Leadership, mission, Practice Management, Success, vision, wellness, wellness chiropractic practice management

It is time for our chiropractic profession to shift.  It is time to tell the truth to the world and to ourselves.  It is time to stop fitting in to a medical infrastructure and practice model and to stop selling ourselves short by selling ‘pain relief’.  Aspirin or Tylenol is way cheaper than your services.

Here’s to the crazy ones ~ the chiropractors who want to push back against the status quo.  The ones who are standing their ground, practicing wellness chiropractic and not the treatment of symptoms, sickness and disease.  The ones who are becoming leaders in the wellness revolution, the shift that is unstoppable.

The medical system in many countries around the world is on the verge of collapse with regards to the percentage of GDP spent on health care and the increasing statistics of disease and death.  Ready to burst at the seams as soon as the baby boomers are ripe.  It’s a faulty premise to use sick care as health care and it’s not working.  

And people want something different.  They just need to know that chiropractic is a better way.  And that you are the one who will care for them with honest, loving, authentic service.  You’ve got to have enough value for your service, enough confidence in your skills and the communication level to share the truth… and the guts to do so.  

From my favorite ad campaign of all time… Apple in the late 1990′s called ‘Think Different’.  It is time to inspire yourself and the people in your community to Think Different about health.  Are you willing to be the ‘Crazy One’ in your community?

“Here’s to the crazy ones.

   The misfits.
    The rebels.
     The troublemakers. 
      The round pegs in the square holes. 
The ones who see things differently.

They’re not fond of rules.
   And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, 
  disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. 
    Because they change things.

They invent.    They imagine.     They heal.

 They explore.     They create.    They inspire.
      They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.

How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?

We make tools for these kinds of people.

While some see them as the crazy ones,
    we see genius.

Because the people who are crazy enough to think
    they can change the world, are the ones who do”.

Tags: Apple, Better, chiropractic, Choice, Crazy Ones, Different, Different Way, Disease, Health Care, Medical System, Medicine, Pain Relief, Service, Shift, Sickness, Status Quo, Symptoms, Think Different, wellness revolution

As St. Patrick’s Day has come and gone and the green beer hangovers are just a memory, it has left me pondering the concept of “luck”.  Is success in life a matter of luck?

In a wellness model of practice, a great concept to get across to people is that Health Is Not a Matter of Luck. It depends on their commitment and consistent action towards it that creates change and sustained health.  If you didn’t run an internal promotion in your office for St. Patrick’s Day this year, put it in your marketing calendar for next!

In the same sense, success doesn’t just happen to people who want it, but sit around and wait for it.  Success is not luck, karma or circumstance.  Could they be factors in your success?  Sure.  But success is created by you knowing where you are, knowing what you want and where you want to be and then making a plan of action to get there.  Oh, and the big secret:  it depends on your commitment and consistent action towards success.

Forget what success means to anyone else, it’s about how you define success that matters.  We need to know what it is before we can create it.  So work with your friend, colleague, or coach to figure out what it is to you and then do what it takes to go and get it.  If you are not as successful as you want to be, time to create it!

Tags: action, commitment, consistency, create, Dreams, luck, responsibility, st. patrick's day, Success

I don’t know about you, but I am getting really negative with all the negativity in the world. The media, the markets, the general consensus, even with chiropractors… I am tired of it. 

I recognize it’s a hard battle not to get sucked into the negativity. All the nay-sayers, the fear-mongers and the ones who say it’s not possible. I catch myself and course correct when I feel myself getting beat down by the attitudes and beliefs of society. I feel the pull to the ‘dark side’ and to say I keep it at bay 100% of the time would be a lie.

But I am ready to take a stand against the status quo. Against what ‘everybody’ thinks or what ‘everybody’ knows. Against what society says is possible and to live BIG, not when the external environment is supportive of leadership, but now, when things are tough. Why? Because you and I deserve a magnificent life. And because we were not put here on this earth to be mediocre.

Maybe it’s just my personality that when somebody says ‘that can’t be done’ I’ll do my best to do that very thing. Not out of spite (well I do have an anti-authoritarian nature), but to show them what’s possible. So the next time someone tells you that your goals and dreams are unrealistic, that it’s impossible to succeed at what you are setting out to accomplish, say, “Watch me”. There are always people doing what others said was ‘impossible’. Are you ready to be that person? I know I am.

The time is now to take a stand. It’s time to remember your dreams, find the fire inside, get creative, get curious, think outside the box and take risks. Because the people of the world need hope not negativity. And chiropractors are the ones to bring it to them. If you don’t, who will?

Tags: Dreams, Leadership, Negativity, Positivity, Status Quo

I’m not into New Year’s Celebrations as the biggest night of the year.  And I’m not into New Year’s Resolutions.  I am into reflecting on the past year, looking at my wins, challenges, good times and bad.  I am also into setting my intentions and goals for the upcoming year.  And the trick is to write your intentions in a way that they trigger action.  Because life is short.  And you never know when it is going to end (sorry, but it’s true).  ”On our deathbeds, our biggest regrets are all about the dreams we didn’t do, the love we didn’t give and the places we didn’t see” (Robin Sharma). 

So for the first few weeks of 2009 I’ve been reflecting on what I want to look back on at the end of this year.  (I normally do this before New Year’s but I was surfing in Costa Rica and lost track of the days leading up to New Year’s)!  My big question is, “How can I make 2009 my best year yet”?  If we we take the time to decide how we want to reflect on our year once it’s over, we will develop stronger action-oriented goals.  Just like high performing individuals take the time to decide what do they want to reflect on at the end of their lives and then live that way, with those priorities and goals going forward.

One of my mentors and coaches, Robin Sharma talks about The Big Five.  The Big Five are the 5 most difficult animals to hunt in Africa (lion, leopard, rhino, cape buffalo and elephant).  He refers to The Big Five as the 5 most important (albeit difficult) things you need to do to make 2009 your best year yet!

What do you need to do in your personal life to ensure that 2009 is your best year?  Perhaps it is get in better shape to be the role model of health and well being? Perhaps it is repair some relationships and re-prioritize your family life?  What do you need to do socially, economically and spiritually to make this the single best year of your life to date?

What about your practice?  Are you able to clear your head from the downturn economy and fear-based media and thrive, rather than just survive this year in practice?  What will it take to get your head in the game and start serving more people, who need you now more than ever?  Maybe you are ready to take your practice from a symptom-oriented approach to a true wellness approach.  Do you need to improve your communications with your clients?  Take your Visit 1 and Visit 2 to the next level?  How about your Re-Assessments and Daily Interactions?  Would you like to learn how to “teach under the radar” instead of lecturing people who just don’t ever seem to ‘get it’?  Do you need better retention? More new people?  More internal referrals? Do you need to plug the holes in your bucket? Do you need some support or coaching to do it?

Write down your Big Five and look at them everyday. Take the actions necessary to accomplish your Big Five on a daily basis by creating your Daily Five action steps.  For example, if your Big Five includes (like mine does) “to be in the best shape of my life” by the end of 2009, then included in my Daily Five must be “exercise” to move me toward the end-of-year big goal.  We all have giant To-Do lists for the many projects in our lives.  Without prioritizing the Top 5 things that need to be accomplished before bed and that will have the most impact to move you towards your Big Five, it is easy to get overwhelmed and and procrastinate.  Action is the key to getting what you want.

Together, let’s make make 2009 your best year yet!

Tags: Aspirations, Dreams, Goals, New Year, Resolutions