Chiropractors are obsessed with how we do that. How do I get what? . . . New patients. How do I do that? Do I do a spinal screening? How do I do that? What’s the ad I should use? How do I get people to stay? Because they come, but I want them to stay. And then how do I get them to refer. We’re always in the how mode.
DC Mentors wants to know what’s your why mode? That’s your intention, that’s the why. Why do you want them to be there? And as chiropractic leaders where the heck are you taking the people?
I’m taking them to better health. Zzzzzzzzz Do you hear? We have these bromides that we use to wall ourselves away from the realities. How scary it is to lead and to say, “I think I know a way. I’m not really sure, I think there’s a big cliff there. I think this way is better than where you are going. Let’s go over here together.” That’s what a tribal leader does. A tribal leader has a vision. A tribal leader tells people that doing nothing is worse than doing what I’m suggesting we do. You see as a leader your job is to convince people that staying the same is treacherous. How long do people get a warning sign for instance that a tsunami is really coming and they go to the beach to watch. “Oh, that’ll be gnarly. Nice, dude.”
We get warning signs. Warning signs are whispers that, if ignored, become a roar that cannot be.
This is one of our favorite new saying at DC Mentors: Playing not to lose.
How many people feel that they might have of come to this chiropractic seminar this week-end playing not to lose?
And what does that look like in the background to you? A safety net, absolutely. I’ll change my hours if . . . I’ll hire my next chiropractic tech if . . . or when . . . or if this is going to happen? . I’ll do this if . . . Can you guarantee me that this is going to happen so then I’ll do it? That’s playing not lose. I’ll do 40% of what you tell me but I’m not going to do the rest because I’m afraid. Read some of the postings on the forum. I’ll tell you something, you guys help convince one another that that’s the right decision to make. Other clients hear some of your fears and it helps them to act on a coach‘s advice.
Ask yourself this question and I want everybody to write down a number from 1 to 10, what would you rate yourself on your training skills? And chiropractic tech, write it down as well. What would you rate yourself in training? Look at it today and be really honest, where am I at in my life, what’s my number?
Has anybody in this room ever said, “I’m doing everything”? So what is your rating? This is the importance of EQ and that self-awareness. It’s giving yourself a check every day. What can I rate myself today? Did I bring everything I could to the table today? Did I bring everything I had to play this game today?
You heard this morning, “Out behave your competition.” Now I’m saying to out behave yourself. When you know that you might of scored 7 out of 10 yesterday, and you really are truly aware of that, just give yourself a check – what was it, where did I get stuck? Why did I give myself a 7 out 10. Don’t carry it along with you, that’s not what the importance of this is. It’s about being aware. If I want to be better every day that I walk into the office, if I want to be more present, more with that person in front of me, more loving, more serving, I better be able to assess my own performance. You know what, those people deserve that you out behave yourself every day because that’s being patient centered.
It’s spring time here in the Sierra’s and on a recent snowshoe hike with my dog, Midas, we came across a pond that was already teaming with life. We heard the croaks of frogs and as soon as we got there, of course, they stopped and hid. It reminded me of the question, “If 3 frogs are sitting on lily pads in a pod and one of them decides to jump, how many frogs are left? The answer: All 3. One actually decided to jump, but did what? Nothing, he took no action.
So there they sit, day after day, bobbing up and down, waiting for flies to come to them, waiting for the sun to hit them, waiting for nourishment to come their way and it reminded me that patients are a lot like those frogs. There they sit, bobbing in health conditions that have solutions, if only they took action. There they sit waiting day after day, waiting for the miracle drug, you know the commercials, “When diet and exercise aren’t enough, take this pill,” all the promises that are made through chemistry. There they sit and even though one decides to take action, the decision is different than the actual action.
And you know what? Chiropractors are a lot like that. Oh yes, you are. There you sit, three of you bobbing up and down, waiting for new patients, waiting for the new patient gimmick, waiting for the thing that will attract people to you and make them “follow your program”. Three chiropractors, one decides to jump, but doesn’t take the action. So what I want you to do is JUMP. Take some action, because if you don’t take massive action, if all you do is think about it, nothing will change in your world. And until or unless you actually take action and explore the possibilities outside of just your head, you’ll sit in the pond, the swamp of mediocrity. Go ahead and jump.
Hi, welcome back to another DC Mentors’ V-Blog episode. A couple of weeks ago we had the opportunity to present the Chiropractic Tipping Point Seminar in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and during that chiropractic seminar I had a distinct and rare opportunity to work with chiropractic technicians from all across the world. This was an amazing moment as I met with these driven women and men who are passionate about their careers in chiropractic. One of the things that we did in our session together was to really look at how the chiropractic techs communicate the message of their work and what they do. How they communicate that not only to the patients that are in the office but to their friends and family and to the people that they meet out in the world.
So we worked with these four questions:
What Do You Do?
What Problem Do You Solve?
What is Different and Unique About What You Do?
Why Should I Care?
And we came about it by discussing, first of all, what they do in their particular office, what their role is. We then had them imagine a patient who they had a jaw dropping experience or epiphany with, a chiropractic patient they may have watched go from a dizzy state and state of real concern health-wise, and maybe even a concern emotionally, to a point where the patient began not only getting a momentum in their healthcare but they were actually in a healing process. We asked them to imagine the names of two or three people and make that fresh in their minds. Then we asked them, “What particular role did you play in that patient’s experience?” And then, “What made what you and your office did different and why should people care?”
I’m going to tell you what it took us about 30 minutes to get past all of the brainwashing that their chiropractors had given. They had words and bromides from “We educate patients,” “We talk about the potential ,” and all the words that we have learned to love as clinicians that really don’t make a darn bit of difference to the patient. It took us only 30 minutes because these chiropractic technicians are very savvy. And we started with the real simple, “I work with Dr. Melrose in a Chiropractic office. My role is to help the patient with examinations and to help the patient with their exercises and to keep them on track with their health.” Finally, the answers that they were giving were coming from here not from their hearts, not from their heads. They were using their own words, not the words that the chiropractors have been telling them to say.
One tech really got my attention when she said, “Is it really that simple? You mean I don’t have to use all these words? I don’t have to have a slogan thrown in there? Because it doesn’t feel like it’s me when I do that. Well, it’s not me. And sometimes I feel a little cheesy as if I’m trying to sell something or hand a card to somebody.” All they did was simply say, “This is who I am and here’s where I work, here’s what I do.”
And when it got into the points of why should people care, it wasn’t that they had to say the whole story every time. They had an interaction, they realized that if the patient became interested in what they did they would ask the next question. It’s a natural sequence, just like a conversation, a dialogue will naturally unfold. It’s in great contrasts to what we’ve been taught about doing “our speech”, telling our story in a manner that is like a sales-tactic.
So I want you to know that the chiropractic technicians that are in your office are ready for the opportunity to have authentic communications and dialogues with patients, but your words and your story and what you think needs to be said is probably tainting them. Actually not probably, it is tainting them. And it’s making their ability to interact with people in and out of your office difficult. So remove the words, have a dialogue and set your staff free to be themselves as they go out in the community and describe what it is they do and why they are so passionate.
I am so proud of the DC Mentors’ community. The chiropractic techs that were at the seminar rocked my world and challenged me both emotionally and intellectually. Go, let your staff do the same.
Dr. Sovinsky: Welcome back to DC Mentors V-Blog where it is our passion to revive a generation of Chiropractors. I am sitting in the home of Dr. Douglas Sea and we’re continuing that conversation about the baby pigs that can derail trains. Let’s just look at a chiropractic office and some of the little things that masters pay attention to because it is the masters who pay attention to the little nuisances, not obsess, not micromanage, but pay and invest attention to the little things because the little things do matter.
Dr. Sea: Well the parable of the little pigs and the train is very simply put, “It is the little things that make the big differences.” And it’s the little things that we do day in, day out, week in, week out that make for a stellar chiropractic career, one that provides a great deal of job satisfaction. Success doesn’t happen one day at a time with one innovation, it’s those things done consistently with repetition day in and day out until we have mastered that approach and that direction that we’re trying to achieve.
Dr. Sovinsky: Can you think a couple of days back when one little thing made a difference in the flow of the day, made a difference in the flow of the week? One innovation? And our idea here, with the E-Myth mindset, is that we innovate, then we measure it and quantify it, and then we document it. I’m thinking that one is the appointment book or however we log in patients. What was the innovation in your head that opened that up?
Dr. Sea: Sure, when you look at an appointment book there is a psychological aspect of having a perception that you’re full. If I can be so blunt, it’s like trying to fit 5 pounds of crap in a 3 pound sack. If you’re appointment book only has room for 20 people in a day, 20 spots, the most that you’re ever going to be able to schedule in a day is 15-18 people because you’re literally limited to the number of openings that you have on that day. That is why DC Mentors innovated the appointment book. Our appointment book has room for 300 – 400 patients in a day. Is it ever full? No, and it never looks full, it always looks like there is room for one more chiropractic patient.
Dr. Sovinsky: That is an innovation of a little thing because when we graduate we might have had a vitamin company, or somebody trying to sell us something, give us an appointment book that had room for 10 people, 20 people, 30 people a day. It’s not about the numbers, it’s about – are you open to have more people come in?
Dr. Sea: I like to look at one of the things that DC Mentors does as a company. We try and look at situations outside chiropractic to make a point and an example. The spark for increasing the size of the appointment book actually came from having a goldfish. When you’re a kid you have a goldfish and you have it in a little bowl and you feed and you feed it and you keep it and you change the water once in awhile and pretty soon Charlie dies and you flush him down the toilet, right? But if you take that goldfish out of that bowl and you move him into a 5 gallon aquarium what happens? That goldfish gets a little bit bigger. And you keep feeding it the same amount of food, moving it into a different environment, and ultimately the fish can outgrow that 10 gallon tank to a 20 gallon tank and you put it out into your pond and now you have a koi this big.
Dr. Sovinsky: Beautiful. Growing to its natural potential
Dr. Sea: Growing to its natural potential. If I keep that appointment book limited to only 10 or 20 or 50 people in a day that is the most that I am ever going to be able to fit in my day.
Dr. S: So little fish, little pond, little message, little impact. Little fish in big area – watch out!
Dr. Sovinsky: Welcome back to DC Mentors V-Blog and with me today is Dr. Douglas Sea. We are in Sioux Falls, the mecca of DC Mentors’ training center.
Dr. Sea: I should say welcome to you! You’re in my home this morning preparing for our chiropractic seminar today. So welcome to Sioux Falls.
Dr. Sovinsky: Thanks. When I’m in the Midwest I kind of get this logic from you, something about the heartland and homeland of our country. They inspire stories that are metaphorical that can apply to many things. Last night I heard a train and it reminded me of that story.
Dr. Sea: Well, the story you’re alluding to is one that I heard from a patient who was discussing his job as an engineer. I asked him, “When you’re in this big, huge, several ton locomotive, what do you fear?”
And I found that they don’t fear running into a car, they don’t fear running into a cow, he looked at me and said, “What we’re afraid of is seeing a mother pig with little pigs on the tracks.”
I’m looking at him thinking, “What are you talking about?” He said, “You see the cow catcher will take care of the big pigs, it knocks the big pig out of the way but the little pig will get through the cow catcher and can get underneath the wheels and have the propensity to derail the train.” One little baby pig can flip a powerful locomotive. Whether that is a wives tail, I don’t know, but the metaphor is quite powerful.
Dr. Sovinsky: So if you’re coming along and building a wave, building some momentum in your chiropractic business and you had a good week, a good day, can you give me an example of what you see as a little pig that could derail that momentum?
Dr. Sea: One of the things, when you say it that way, we have a good day, a good week, brings to mind an old adage I heard from one of my business people. A good day doesn’t make a good week and a good week doesn’t make a good month and a good month doesn’t make a good year and good year doesn’t make a good career. Just like a bad day doesn’t make a bad week and a bad week doesn’t make a need to make a bad month and a bad month doesn’t need to make a bad year and a bad year doesn’t result in a bad career.
Dr. Sovinsky: So, give me one little piggy that could come in and derail us, just completing knock the momentum off or push us back onto another track.
Dr. Sea: Well, what I was eluding too with the one day doesn’t make a good week is at times we have a good day and we have a premature celebration. And once we begin to celebrate, before we have actually engrained those practice development skills and owned them, we can think we have arrived and we quit doing what we need to continue that success.
Dr. S: So that little piggy is our belief system, our behavior, our pattern of saying, “I’ve made it now. Whoo whoo, all I have to do is ride the train.”
I want to share with you a powerful metaphor. It’s powerful because it was an epiphany that I had when I traveled in Turkey some years back. When I was visiting Ephesus I stood on the ancient stage there and looked out over the big auditorium. I looked at all the rows and tiers and imagined them full of people. I imagined that in those rows of people were the people that I have adjusted up to this point in my life and those that I still could effect. I also imagined in that auditorium not only the people that I had directly touched but the people who they interacted with who their adjustment had a positive effect on. It’s estimated that there could be as many as 100 different people or as many as 150 people that are members of their “tribes.”
Step back for a moment and imagine that you’re standing on a platform and that between 10 o’clock (on your left) and 2 o’clock (to your right) are the people who you can see out in front of you, these are the people that you could impact. So here’s the thing, most chiropractors spend a lot of time during their careers in the first one or two rows of patients. They spend an inordinate amount of time there. I won’t say you waste the patient’s time and waste the people waiting to be adjusted time because you’re trying to convince people to do what they need to do. What I’m saying is you need to look at an auditorium as if you’ve got to get to that back row. You’ve got to get back up to that point because there is somebody who is just waiting to be touched, somebody is waiting for an adjustment, somebody’s just waiting to hear the message that you want to give them.
So why would you waste our time and their time in these first rows when somebody in that row is rejecting your message? When someone is giving you a, “I really don’t care to get into this with you doctor,” you need to have the ability to be compassionate and to say next. It’s the ability to let go of your ego and respond to the next person needing your help. There are a lot of folks out there and we have this impression that we are out of chiropractic patients. It’s not true.
Imagine an auditorium filled with people waving their hands. Sometimes when you get there they’re no longer available. Sometimes when you get there they’ve decided to do other things, but that seat’s going to be taken by somebody else. Your career spans all of those tiers, don’t waste it in the first 4 or 5 rows because, you know what? Regret is worse than the pain of letting go of your habits, and your need to be validated, and to be liked, and to not be criticized, and to be right. Let it go and stretch out.
Hi, I’m Dr. Frank Sovinsky and welcome to another DC Mentors’ V-Blog.
Well, the results are in and they are not pretty. We have uncovered a huge gap between where we are as a chiropractic profession in our soft skill development and where we need to be. If we’re going to bridge this gap and if we are going to change and fix a broken healthcare paradigm then we need to get on the fast track. We need to actually train in areas that are going to make a difference.
For over a decade now DC Mentors has voiced our concern that Doctors of Chiropractic have become technicians working on a person, when we need to work with the patient as servant leaders. We need to work with authentic messages. We need work without a personal agenda.
Last month we offered a EQ Assessment, an Emotional Quotient Assessment, that was designed by Dr. Izzy Justice, Bill Bonnstetter and the team at Target Training International. The test measured, in a real sense, our emotional intelligence, both our intra-personal intelligence and our inter-personal intelligence. Emotional intelligence is defined as the ability to sense, understand and become aware of how our emotions are affecting other people and the ability to regulate and adjust so that every encounter we have is a positive experience.
So, in our research we have discovered that successful chiropractors, those who are not only successful in their businesses but in their home life and in their communities, have high levels of EQ. And we have uncovered this phenomenon called the score of social skills. I want to bring it to your attention so that we can do something about it. Many of you did respond to the offer for a free assessment and took it online. This one particular area that I’m talking about measured your level of social skills. Now social skills are defined as an ability to manage relationships and to build rapport by finding common ground with people. I think you can agree that is a huge skill for a chiropractor to develop in their community and within their staff and within their patient community.
So here’s the deal, the test is measured on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being a great score, it’s the highest grade you can get.
What we found:
Chiropractors rated 6.9 on that scale
The mean of the general population is 7.6.
Yikes! That gets our attention and it could get your attention. What this means is we’re not managing relationships. What this means is, in our community we are not having that positive experience and positive effect on people. Yes, we are telling them the Chiropractic message. Yes, we are talking to patients, but it’s not sticking. We need to be able to get that message across in a manner that really shows our compassion and compels patients and influences them to comply with our recommendations and hey, maybe even tell a friend or two.
We have, for a long while, as a profession suffered from what Jim Collins calls arrogant neglect. We have neglected to become those servant leaders who work with patients. We at DC Mentors are so disturbed by this, we are so agitated because our dream is to revive a generation of chiropractors. So here is what we’re going to do. Many of you know that we have an online module training system to help with your soft skill development. We have packaged four modules into a Patient Communication Package that include how to interview a new patient, how to relate (not report) your findings to the new patient, how to have a meaningful dialogue on a day to day basis with your patients and how to use an interim exam system to reconnect and refine that relationship. Those modules combined have been $780.00. We’re going to drop it down to $195.00 so that you get it in your hands right now. That’s right $780.00 to $195.00. Why are we doing this? Because we can’t stand that as a profession we do not have these skills and if we don’t get these skills we’re not going to make an impact on the percentage of people using your talent. You are talented, you’re compassionate, but we need to get your skill set on. Get it on with us.
