Of the thousands of chiropractors we talk to and work with every month, 98% of them want to grow their practice. Most never do.
Of the tens of millions of Americans who smoke, well over 90% of them want to stop. Most never stop.
Of the 70% of Americans who are overweight or obese, most want to lose weight but very few do.
The list of ‘want to' examples in life is endless. We all (or at least most of us) want more money, better health, more of this and less of that but when the dust settles, for the most part very few seem to accomplish what so many seem to want.
The difference between those who ‘want to' and those who actually ‘do it' is the word ‘need'.
We all ‘want' things but those of us who ‘absolutely need' it to happen simply make it happen.
And no two reasons are the same. I use the term when the ‘light switch goes on” it will get done.
What creates a need in one person is not necessarily the same in the next person.
One person's light switch to lose weight may go on because of a health scare while someone else may be having a 20th high school reunion in six months.
Your ‘light switch' is not mine and mine is not yours.
Each one of your patients and potential patients has an ‘internal light switch' that will change them from a ‘tire kicker' to an advocate and from someone who can be easily influenced to stop seeing you to someone who never misses an appointment and has referred so many new patients you have lost count.
It's your job to try to help your patient discover, realize and act upon his or her own internal light switch.
As for your own practice, the question is a simple one: “Do you want to grow it or do you need to grow it?
If it's a need, a truly passionate absolute need, then you have a very good chance of making it happen.
If, on the other hand, it's something you simply want (just like 98% of the other 62,000 chiropractors in the country) then the results will most likely mirror the half-hearted effort.
One step forward. Two steps back. Maybe a second effort that also fails at which time you resign yourself to a life of mediocrity.
Think about it for a moment. What sets the truly successful apart from the masses?
It's not their IQ's, level of education, physical appearance, personality, or hundreds of other common attributes which may contribute to their success but only to such a small degree that it borders on insignificant.
No, it's their ‘need passion'. Each one with a different personalized internal light switch that switched on one day for reasons unknown to you and me and maybe even unknown to the successful chiropractor himself.
Think of something, anything in your life that you needed to accomplish, not simply wanted to accomplish.
Try to recapture that feeling – that inner flame that would not die. Try to remember back as many as 20, 30 or 50 years to when you first learned to ride a two-wheeled bike.
Did you pack it in after the first spill, or the second, or even the tenth? I'll bet not.
You were going to ride that two-wheeled bike (needed to, not simply wanted to) even if it meant falling more times than you ever wanted to.
That was ‘inner passion for a need' at its very best.
There are other times in your life when that magical inner light switch simply refused to switch to the ‘off' position.
Learning to drive a car may be another or maybe something with your family or in school.
Close your eyes and try to recreate for a brief fleeting moment that innocent powerful feeling.
Can you get that magic back into the bottle so we can take your practice from where it is to where you want – no, make that to where you need it to be?
Only you can answer that question.
Going back to July 2004 we have presented you with good idea after good idea, month after month and now year after year.
Whether it was a ‘Grow Your Practice' idea, a marketing idea, or a Letter of the Month.
Three ideas per issue, 20 issues so far. That's 60 new and some not so new ideas to help you grow your practice.
How much further along are you today than you were back several months or years ago?
Again, the difference is not in your marketing budget, quality of support staff, community your practice is in, or a long laundry list of determining factors.
No, where you are today, who you are today, but more importantly who you are tomorrow, where you are tomorrow or five years from today will be primarily based on the answer to the quite simple question.
Do you want to grow or do you absolutely need to grow and will stop at nothing, no matter how many setbacks, no matter how many failures you encounter along the way?
That old line ‘and the truth shall set you free' is so true.
Be true to yourself. Be honest with yourself.
If it's simply a want then be happy with who you are and where you are because you are most likely not going anywhere of significance.
On the other hand if it's truly a passionate, barn burning, get-out-of-my-way, the light switch is on need , then world watch out because there is no stopping us now.
The choice is yours. |
