Do you remember what finals week was like in chiropractic school?  Long hours, pushing through exhaustion, getting your studying done. Not that it was healthy, or how you would want to function long term, but sometimes we have to hear Dr. Sid’s voice saying, “Do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, whether you like it or not”.

I find many chiropractors forget what it’s like to have the pedal to the metal. They are used to being on cruise control.  As chiropractic coaches and consultants, we work with our chiropractors to shift their communications and procedures to a TRUE Wellness Model of practice. And sometimes they get halfway through establishing a new (and stronger) foundation of Visit 1 and 2 and get stopped.  They feel overwhelmed and frustrated. And we have remember that, “Rome wasn’t built in a day”.

The truth is, having a successful chiropractic practice is simple, but not easy. If it was, everyone including you, would already be thriving.  Keep in mind your results in practice are directly proportionate to your communication skills and our level of certainty.  And if we want to change the results we are getting, we have to not only change our procedures and skills, we have to also change ourselves. Sometimes we have to push through with motivation like it’s finals week, to get to the next level. Without this push through The Dip, we’ll never get the results and changes we are looking for in a timely manner.  And we all want results yesterday!

Are you ready to take your practice to the next level? Do you want to thrive in a TRUE Wellness Model? If you’re ready to work, we’re ready to help!

Tags: Chiropractic Coach, Chiropractic Consultant, finals week, frustration, hard work, overwhelm, Results, The Dip

In the book, Change or Die by Alan Deutschman he studies the 3 keys of change, and what works and doesn’t work.

In a recent blog post, Ask vs. Tell, I explored the power of asking questions to shift consciousness, beliefs and therefore behaviours.   This follow-up post is meant to look at the two types of questions we can ask: Scare Questions or Care Questions. What do I mean?

A good portion of our profession and practice management companies uses scare tactics and fear to manipulate people to do what we want.  Our perspective, at Rosen Chiropractic Coaching is that fear and manipulation have no place in a chiropractic wellness model.  We stand for clean communication with compassion.

In Change or Die, Alan Deutschman explores the three “F” words: Force, Facts and Fear and why they don’t work. When the three “F” words become too much, people go into denial as a protective mechanism. They make irrational decisions that could cost them their life (only 10% of heart attack patients changed their lifestyle despite the fear and threats).  In contrast, Dr. Dean Ornish had 75% of heart attack patients change their lifestyle with the three “R” words: Relate, Reframe, Repeat.

So we need to relate to the people we care for. We need to build rapport, bond, connect, offer hope and relieve their fears.  We need to reframe their consciousness and beliefs about health, and ask questions to shift their current paradigm, to plant seeds and teach under the radar. And we need to repeat these questions in our daily interactions, our Touch-Tell-Ask-Teach and find ways for people to become successful every visit, working towards a new goal. We as their doctor, need to lead them, inspire them and empower them.  And we need to create a culture in our office creates a supportive community.

Because making changes in life can be challenging and these new behaviours need to be reinforced with love and support, not fear and commitment. This is exactly what we do at Rosen Coaching to help you have a thriving wellness practice! We address the 3 R’s in the LAASR Mastery process. If you want a communication system based on the 3 R’s then give us a call!

Tags: Alan Deutschman, Ask vs. Tell, care tactics, Change or Die, Chiropractic Coach, Chiropractic Coaching, Chiropractic Practice Management, Chiropractic Wellness Model, communication, Denial, Facts, Fear, Fear Tactics, Force, Leadership, Reframe, Relate, Repeat, scare tactics, Scare vs. Care, True Wellness Model, wellness chiropractic practice management

Thank You To Bill Esteb, www.patientmedia.com, for allowing me to share this simple yet powerful post of his with you!

Tags: Bill Esteb, Chiropractic Practice Management, Chiropractic Practice Success, Duality, Law of Opposites, Patient Media, Universal Laws

What Do Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley and a long list of other celebrities have in common? Harmless prescription drug and painkiller abuse in volumes and mixtures. These famous celebrities are the ones you hear about in the media.  However, the fact is, many medical errors are not reported, including death by such medicines deemed ‘normal’ to use by society.  Tylenol, Advil, Demerol, Oxycontin, Dialudid, Panadol are just a start. Throw some antidepressants, antianxieties and sedatives into the mix and voila! You have a highly addictive cocktail of deadly drugs. Do we have a global problem? I think so. We just hear about the famous ones…

From the Death by Medicine Report by Drs. Null and Dean in 2003), as few as 6% of adverse drug effects are ever reported.  Sadly, deaths estimated in 2003 due to adverse reactions to prescription drugs is 2.2 million per year. And the leading causes of adverse drug reactions were antibiotics (17%), Cardiovascular (17%), chemotherapy drugs (15%), and anti-inflammatory agents (15%).  Can you imagine what this number is now, six years later, with more and more ‘advancements’ in medicine and big pharma?

As wellness chiropractors, doctors of ’cause’, we want to be addressing the bigger picture in our offices – that health and life come from the inside-out.  If you are not teaching this principle to the people you serve, you are just another modality to them.  Health does not come from taking medicine or cutting things out of the body. It comes from the life force, carried unimpeded over the nerve system reaching to every cell, tissue and organ in the entire body. Do they know this? Do they understand the physiological implications if this nerve impulse is impeded? Do they know that it is your job to remove this interference and allow the fullest expression of life?  If they don’t, they need to.  Or they could end up like Michael Jackson, just not as famous.

How are you using this most recent, tragic death of an icon as an educational opportunity in your office?  We coach our clients to ask thoughtful questions to the people in their offices to illicit a response, rather than just lecture them about the overuse of medicine in our societies.  We need to shift their consciousness and beliefs about health and wellness.  How about the following as a start to get your mind going:

• What do you think killed Michael Jackson?
• Do you know that prescription drugs are just as dangerous as recreational drugs?
• What happens when you give a healthy person medicine they don’t need?
• If drugs can make a healthy person sick, how do they make a sick person well?
• What do you think, can medicine make someone healthier or just take their symptoms away?
• Where does health come from? What causes us to be healthy? What keeps us alive?
• What does the Nerve System control? What part of your body could live without Nerve Impulse?

May I suggest that you look at our LAASR process of communication (Listen, Acknowledge, Ask, Solution, Resolution) when educating, answering difficult questions and in all of your interactions within and outside of your practice.  It will literally transform your level of communication and results!  It is what we teach and how we coach chiropractors to great levels of success! Let’s start to manage your chiropractic practice in a true wellness model.

Tags: Adverse Drug Reactions, Chiropractic Coach, Chiropractic Consulting, Chiropractic Practice Management, Death by Medicine, Elvis Presley, Health, LAASR, Life Force, Medicine, Michael Jackson, Nerve System, Prescription Drug Abuse, Subluxation, Wellness Care, Wellness Chiropractors, wellness practice management

Are you a pessimist, an optimist or a leader?  We need to look at how you deal with challenge and adversity to find out. Most people say they are optimists when asked, but if we look at the proof of their external results we might find out otherwise.  John Maxwell, one of my favourite authors on leadership, says this:

“The pessimist complains about the wind.  The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails.”

Sailing without a charted course is like driving without a map or GPS, and like setting goals without an action plan.  It leads to circular action, unintentional sabotage, and rarely reaching your desired destination.

Not only do leaders have a vision and mission, they set long-term and short-term goals with a definitive action plan.  AND they consistently take intentional action, stay on the charted course, adjust the sails and the course as needed.

To manage your chiropractic practice like a leader we need to ensure you are the captain, keeping the big picture about what practice growth you want and what you are trying to achieve.  You need to look at the conditions, the charted course, and take consistent action AND you need to lead your team!  A world cup skipper cannot sail the ship themselves.  They need a solid team with the same vision, desires and willing to work hard and be rewarded for it. As chiropractic coaches and consultants, we help office create and manage a Dream Team and help Get The Team To Grow The Practice!

If you have been being a pessimist or an optimist during the stormy conditions of the past 6 months, it’s time to step up your leadership of yourselves, your practice management and your team!  People in your community need your help. It’s time to lead the chiropractic wellness revolution!

Tags: Action Plan, Charted Course, Chiropractic Coach, Chiropractic Consultant, Chiropractic Practice Management, Dream Team, Get The Team To Grow The Practice, Goals, Leadership, mission, Optimist, Pessimist, Sailing, Taking Action, vision, wellness revolution

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

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

I’ve been learning to surf since 2005. It’s tough since I don’t live on or near a coast – so I have to travel far and  wide for surf. Both the east and west  coasts of Canada have surf (brrr) and  we’ve fallen in love with warm water  surf of Central America.

Despite not being able to surf on a regular basis, I’ve seen some great improvements in my skill with the investments of time and money that I’ve made so far, yet I’m not where I want to be. There is still lots of surf I can’t handle, and sometimes my surfing gets worse instead of better (Re: My Christmas Vacation in Costa Rica). 

Yet here are the things I’ve learned from surfing that apply directly to succeeding in chiropractic practice.  And as a chiropractic coach and consultant, I work with chiropractors day in and day out on these challenges as they show up in practice. Whether you surf or not, you’ll get this:

• Success and mastery won’t just come to you. You have to create it.  It is not a matter of ‘luck’.
• Your head space and mindset matters! Your subconscious mind is always looking to validate what you believe to be true. Check your head or get a coach to check it for you.
• Get clear on your big vision and keep it in the forefront of your mind, even when you are not getting results. Keep perspective.
• Set realistic goals to reach your vision.
• Don’t be so hard on yourself. It doesn’t help you get what you want any faster or easier. It probably makes matters worse.
• Plan your work and work your plan. Consistent action is the only way to achieve your goals. Actions are the small things that create the BIG thing: Success!
• Repetition is key. Just because you’ve done something once doesn’t mean you don’t need to practice.  
• Recognize the first step is unconscious incompetence: you don’t know what you don’t know. A scary place!
• Next is conscious incompetence: you know what you don’t know.  At least you can seek out answers and get help.
• Then comes conscious competence and you start to get the mechanics of the skill. Ahhhhh finally! If you want to be mediocre, stop here.
• After hard work and refinement, it becomes unconscious competence where you don’t have to think about what you are doing because it is so ingrained in your nerve system – and you are on your way to mastery!
• As soon as you think you’ve got a skill, something will happen and you’ll be back at square one again. Shake it off and go again.
• Patience is key – you can’t rush nature and you can’t push the universe.
• Be prepared, develop strong foundational skills and work hard – the opportunity will come to you when you are ready.
• Results don’t happen immediately!  Real successes are not quick fix solutions. Get to the cause.
• Don’t always do what everybody else is doing. Be exceptional.
• Be grateful for what you have and what you are given! Gratitude every step of the way is key.
• Take responsibility for everything.
• Get back up. Paddle back out.
• Everything has a Dip: excitement phase, frustration phase, uphill battle phase, and then success.
• Don’t start something unless you want to push through The Dip to get to the other side – otherwise it is a complete waste of time and money.

Chiropractic practices always have a Dip, whether it be starting a practice from scratch, buying an existing practice, or changing your practice from a pain-based model to a wellness model.  We get excited by the idea and we start the process.  We soon get frustrated by the lack of immediate success, wonder what we got into and either quit or press on.  Those who continue to keep their vision big and take action on their plans eventually push through The Dip.

Your DIP could be building a dream team staff, it could be breaking through the glass ceiling of the volume you’ve always maxed out at, it could be starting your practice, or changing your chiropractic practice to a wellness model. Or something else entirely.  But your good idea starts to seem like a bad idea when you are in The Dip. That’s when you know you need help!

If you want support getting through The Dip, email me.  I’d be honoured to help coach and consult you through the process and help you get the success in chiropractic practice you are looking for!

Tags: communication, Success, Surfing, The Dip, wellness practice management

It’s easy to be mediocre.  A mediocre person, a mediocre mother, a mediocre friend, and certainly it is easy to be a mediocre chiropractor.  Look around, most everyone is doing it.  Mastery however is difficult.  Mastery takes hard work, dedication and keeping a big vision in the forefront of your mind and the stamina to follow through.  To be an overnight success takes 10,000 hours of work.  It means you have to push through The Dip. 

What does it take to be a master in the art, science, and philosophy of chiropractic? Even more importantly is what does it take to be a master of communication about our truth of health, healing and chiropractic?  As a start you need to understand personality types and communicaiton/behavioural styles of people. You need to LAASR your Visit 1, Visit 2, Daily Interactions, ReAssessments & ReReports communication to lead people forward.

Do you know what the common denominator of all successful chiropractic practices have? Chiropractors with certainty.  They are clear on their vision and how they are going to achieve it.  They know what they bring to the table.  And they speak their truth boldly and in a way that people can hear them.

Are you the best chiropractor you can be?  Are you communicating chiropractic to the people in your office and community so that they ‘get it’?  Can you turn people on to a healthy lifestyle that includes chiropractic care for them and their families for a lifetime?  Write down what having mastery in your chiropractic career would look like. Then write down the things that would need to change or improve to get there. What support do you need?  A coach?  A consultant?  Practice management tips?   An action plan? Accountability?

Most people get successful ‘enough’ and help ‘enough’ people.  They hit a plateau and get comfortable.  Are you pushing yourself towards mastery?  It’s your life. It’s your practice.  You get to choose. Let us know if we can help. There are too many people sick and dying in your community because they don’t know what you know.

Tags: 10000 hours, Chiropractic Coach, Chiropractic Coaching, chiropractic profession, coach, communication, consultant, LAASR, Leadership, mastery, mediocre, mediocrity, Motivation, Practice Management, Success, The Dip, wellness chiropractic practice management

 

 

A More Effective Swine Flu Vaccine

When it comes to the newly-hyped media craze of swine flu, how are you communicating it in your chiropractic office?  Are you part of the chiropractic profession getting caught up in the fear tactics propagated by the government and media or are you grounded in your chiropractic principles?  How is your certainty as a chiropractor?  It’s easy to talk about chiropractic and immune function when people are well, but what about when faced with the proposed ‘Swine Flu Pandemic’?  Can you keep yourself together, use your emotional intelligence skills and not allow the panic to hijack your amygdala?  Can you keep your critical thinking about cause and effect, and your common sense approach to health, wellness and disease to lead your community through this challenge?

My friend, Alain Desaulniers, D.C. has used this photograph and made a poster for his office that says at the bottom, “Chiropractic Care Strengthens Your Immune System. Stay Well Adjusted!”  (He has given permission for other chiropractors to use it, so email me if you would like it).

The last time Swine Flu made an appearance was 1976 and the government quickly pushed through a flu vaccine (doesn’t this normally take time to manufacture “safely”, if there is such a thing?), used fear to mass vaccinate and 25 times more people died from the flu vaccine than of the flu itself. Congressman Dr. Ron Paul’s video on Swine Flu recalls this event and states, “The government shouldn’t be in the medical business”.  This time it is an interestingly more complex virus, a recombinant H1N1-H5N1 avian/human/swine flu virus never to be seen before.  My microbiology might just be rusty but I can’t help but wonder if this is natural genetic evolution or a laboratory virus gotten free?

Let’s look to chiropractic’s history and originating philosophy to on understand the cause and effect of disease, especially infectious illness:

“One question was always uppermost in my mind in my search for the cause of disease.  I desired to know why one person was ailing and his associate, eating at the same table, working in the same shop, at the same bench was not.  Why? … This question has worried thousands for centuries and was answered September, 1895.”    ~D.D. Palmer, The Chiropractor’s Adjuster (1910)

Dr. Fred Barge continued on this theme when he used to say, “Do rats cause garbage or does garbage cause rats?”  Dr. Kevin Donka of Chirothots has continued Dr. Barge’s message with a twist, “Flies don’t cause garbage!”  

Common sense tells us that rats and flies are attracted to dirty places where there is decaying matter to feed upon.  Just because rats and flies are present at a garbage dump or a dirty restaurant doesn’t mean they caused the garbage, they are an effect of the garbage!  So why do some people get sick and some people stay healthy? It depends on the cleanliness of the body’s environment!  If your body is weak, your resistance is down, and your cells are decaying, doesn’t it make sense that the germ scavengers would find home, food and shelter there?  Of course it does!  The germs don’t cause the disease, they are present when disease is!  It is your internal resistance of your immune system that determines whether you get sick or not. Keep in mind it is called the ‘Germ Theory’ not the ‘Germ Fact’!

Whether or not the U.S. Homeland Security is appropriately given the power to make decisions about the health of Americans, (a political discussion of its own), what are chiropractors doing to coach the people they care for about strengthening their body’s own ‘Homeland Security’?  As a Wellness Chiropractic Coach and Consultant at Rosen Coaching, we coach chiropractors to not only communicate and educate people about the 3 Dimensions of Stress and what causes subluxations, but to provide ongoing communication about the ingredients for a healthy body, first and foremost clear nerve system communication.  What else can people  do to strengthen their immune systems and promote health? Proper nutrition, vitamins and minerals including high doses of vitamin C, movement and exercise, hydration, rest and relaxation, fresh air, sunshine/vitamin D, mental clarity, stress management, emotional peace and fun!

As a chiropractor looking to lead your community to health and wellness, to have practice success and growth as well as to have the life of your dreams you need to stand up, tell the truth and show people there is another way! Let us know if we can help!

Tags: Amygdala, care tactics, Cause and Effect, Certainty, Challenges, Chiropractic Coach, chiropractic profession, communication, Congressman Dr. Ron Paul, Disease, Emotional Intelligence, Fear Tactics, Germs, Immune System, Internal Resistance, Leadership, rosen coaching, Success, Swine Flu, wellness chiropractic practice management