By Dr. Frank Sovinsky

When is it over Its over when you say it is. The only failure in life is quitting on your dream and/or deciding that the work required to reach it is too overwhelming. We all hear the same inner voice when we face adversity. When your perceptions are clouded with negative emotions the self-deceptive, survival voice tells you that you need, even deserve, a break. The fact is that if you want to excel you have to work smarter, play harder, sharpen your skills and be more disciplined than your competition. Its not over til its over.

Have you heard the tired bromide that in order to be successful you have to think outside the box Well, thats half right. Actually, its just as important to think inside the box. If we equate outside the box as right brain thinking and inside the box as left brain thinking, we get the whole view. Inside the box is working on the strategic organizational aspects of your practice and outside the box is working on your leadership skills.

Most Chiropractors think outside the box when it comes to revolutionary health care strategies but when it comes to their businesses they tend to resort to Present-practice thinking and entrenched beliefs. One of the most costly is the belief that the strategic work of a practice can be fixed once and for all. This strictly linear thinking leads to practice distress and personal frustration. The result is a process of decline, beginning with stagnation, followed by mediocrity, roller coaster numbers, free fall and eventual extinction. Business remains a work in process and its not over until its over. It simply is not possible nor is it desirable to attempt to fix the practice once and for all. All attempts to eliminate innovation and creativity will lead to boredom and failure.

A prime example of this fixing the practice mentality is how many doctors deal with the challenges associated with recruiting, hiring and training staff. Too many doctors fly by the seat of their pants or on the wind of their emotions and avoid the rigors of leadership. Once they finally wake up and terminate the employee, or wait for him/her to quit, they go on a search to find the perfect assistant and assume this will solve the problem for good. This assumption is a costly repetition of a systemic (whole brain) flaw in thinking. Leadership requires consistent vigilance and investment of your time, energy and money for training.

Another common example of this fixer mentality occurs when the doctor puts all of his/her attention on the task of organizing the systems of the business and neglects the human aspect of patient care. As in life, being a Chiropractic Entrepreneur is a cyclical process, not a linear event. Just when you have attended to one aspect, another one is calling for your attention. You must develop the mental agility to hold the entire Business of Chiropractic in your head at once. This includes the Clinical Department, the Financial Department and all the systems involved in each. Excellence means performing at your peak every day, all day.

An example of a manmade cyclical process is the care and maintenance of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California. Anyone who has seen this inspired mega structure close up will notice that it is always in a state of repair and maintenance. As a matter of fact, before the painting crew finishes one end of the bridge, they set up the scaffolding on the opposite end and the painting cycle is started again. In business we call this consistency and innovation.

The reality is that you must work on your business and on yourself simultaneously. Thats why DC Mentors is designed with coaching accountability, not feel good, pat-on-the-back chats. We believe in Pragmatic Leadership Skill Development seminars (Brain Spa, Chiropractic Performance Summits) not platform platitudes.

Its not over till you say it is.