Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

In this podcast episode Dr. Frank Sovinsky defines the Chiropractic dream and tells us how we can reclaim it. Learn how to reclaim your Chiropractic dream and reach out to DC Mentors today.

Click here to ask Dr. Frank a question or comment on this episode of our show

Hi I’m Dr. Frank Sovinsky and welcome to DC Mentors V-Blog.

Today we’re going to add that seventh mental nutrient.  To recap we began with strategic thinking, we then went to innovation, quantification, qualification, will power, still power and now we’re going to add emotional intelligence (EQ).  While it’s listed as the seventh it is so crucial and actually culminates and actually assimilates all the others. Emotional intelligence is basically the ability to apply the power of emotion in order to move your chiropractic business and to be able to make decisions on a high level.  Decision making all starts with your emotional response and/or your emotional reaction and/or your emotional resentment to events in your life.  We talked about business plans and in the book The E-Myth Chiropractor we really talk about planning, but all of your chiropractic business plans go away when you start seeing new people, when your business starts interacting with your community.  That’s why you have to have a dynamic sense and ability to shift your attention within the frame work of your big vision.

Emotional intelligence is self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills.  It all begins with the intra-personal which is the messages that are coming on inside you – that’s the self-awareness, that’s your moods, your excitement, your drives and maybe your downer moods that can affect the people around you.  It’s the absolute awareness you have to record yourself, listen to yourself and watch yourself in certain situations.

And then self-regulation is the ability to take a disruptive emotion, whether that’s being too happy or too depressed, and be able to shift it in order to make sure that your ability to think and to respond to people is consistent every day.

Motivation is that ability to move in spite of all adversity.  It’s the ability to do that without worrying about a reward or status.  It’s why you do things, it’s that purposeful high level activity.

Empathy is inter-personal, the ability to read people, the ability to tune into a patient’s podcast, to kind of figure out if they’re picking up what you’re saying.  It’s the ability to see that maybe you need to go back a few steps or maybe many steps and be able to fill in the pieces for them.  It’s the ability to read their body language, non-verbal intelligence, it’s all those things that are crucial.

And then social skills is your ability to build a network of people that you’ve told the story of wellness and well-being, you’ve told the story of chiropractic vitalism in a way that excites them and that they get.

We’re going to have webinars coming up in the future that are going to help you and your staff train on these essential pieces.  EQ is not vague, it’s not philosophical and it’s not optional.  It must be ingested, it must be assimilated and it must be used if you’re going to take your chiropractic practice and build it into a chiropractic business that wants to grow into a vitalistic enterprise that is destined to make an impact in this world.  When you add these seven nutrients and when you continue to ingest them on a daily basis you will start to feel, start to sense new growth within you.

Look, I want chiropractic to be front and center in the conversation on sick care reform, I want chiropractors to be the first choice not the last choice for a few. I want you to take that chiropractic practice that you struggle in or that practice that you’re bored in, that practice that you’re frustrated in, the frustration that you have with the world seem to be passing your message by, and turn it into fascination and together we can take that practice turn it into a chiropractic business, turn that into an enterprise, interconnect and together we can move more than mountains.  Are you in?  The world is waiting.  Get ready.

Hi, I’m Dr. Frank Sovinsky and welcome to DC Mentors V-Blog.  We’re going to add the sixth mental nutrient so that you can build a thriving chiropractic practice, one that becomes an enterprise that connects with your colleagues and actually changes this world with a vitalistic concept.  Are you still in?

So that sixth mental nutrient is call still power.  It’s the ability to perform multiple high level activities simultaneously without being distracted.  Neuroscience teaches us that we really can’t multitask, what we can do however is have the ability to switch our attention from one task to the next, back to this one, back to this one, over to this one, to that one.  It is juggling many things at once and that’s really what a successful chiropractic entrepreneur needs to develop, the ability to, in your peak performance hours, those 2.5 hours in your day when you are going to see 60% of your patient volume, 60% of your new patients in that time frame, you have to get your skillset up. You and your chiropractic assistants have to be trained and ready for those peak times.  It’s not going to be done in the slower times.  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi talked at great extent in his business books and in his personal development books about the experience called flow.  There’s a lot of great information in those books, I suggest you read his work and I want you to develop this still power because it separates you from the chiropractic practice you want.  It’s the ability to do that without distraction.  It takes some effort, it takes some concentration but soon it will become autonomic.  I was reading a study that was talking about tennis players and when a serve is given it’s not the service that makes the difference, it’s the return on a service.  That means if we look at the metaphor in practice the return on service would be when a patient says something and we respond to it.  The easy way is to not respond, the easy way is to give some kind of bromide and some kind of statement that you think covers it all up.  But when the masters return a serve they are able to breathe, they are able to acknowledge, ask and answer those questions.  They are able to take those objections, be fascinated by them, and to actually return that service not as a battle against the patient but as a complete creation with the patient so that you achieve what they want.  Still power will get you there.

You know the world is waiting, are you ready?

Hi I’m Dr. Frank Sovinsky and welcome to DC Mentors V-Blog.

Today we’re going to add the next mental nutrient called willpower.  Willpower is that ability to continue to push and to act and to move in spite of adversity.  It’s the ability to control your desires, it’s the ability to control your moods, it’s the ability to influence your passion on a day in day out basis.  Willpower is that push, that personal energy, that personal movement from within you that inspires and tells the story of this vitalistic enterprise you are now beginning to create.  So willpower is one of those things that most people think in terms of two operating systems within our being one is the fight, flight or response to stress or perceive stress and threat, and the other is most attached to the reward.  We, of course, always want to begin with why we do all of this – which is for the benefit of our people, the benefit of humanity.  Now we’re going to talk about your personal ability to control this on a daily basis.  If all you’re doing is waiting for the stick to move you then the carrot will never entice you.  We want to get off of adrenaline, we want to get off of that drug because it keeps us from cognitive ability when we’re stressed, when we’re just doing things because we need money, we’re doing things because we’re out of money, we’re doing things because we’re out of new patients.  We’re frustrated when we’re staying there, we’re not fascinated.  Remember the fascination part is the dopamine.  I want you to dopamize all of your willpower.  I want you to think about the reward.  What will your chiropractic business look like?  What will it feel like when you no longer worry about it on the week-end?  Imagine what it can be when your patients are coming in with an autonomic referral system and that you’re not needing to sell every day, what would that look like?  Imagine the rewards, imagine where you’re going to go play, imagine what else you’re going to explore about you and your humanity.

So will power is absolutely missing.  It is self-discipline, it is being able to separate real threat from perceived threat, is the ability to operate on dopamine and the reward possibilities and not simply on the stick beating you along the way.

I also invite you and remind you that The E-Myth Chiropractor is available now on audio CD where Michael Gerber and I both read our chapters. I think you’ll find it an interesting way and a different way to actually augment and supplement the book that you may already have.  And I don’t know if you know this but Michael Gerber’s original book, the seed work that began The E-Myth Chiropractor, his book, The E-Myth, was named by the Wall Street Journal as the most influential small business book of all time.

Let’s get a piece of that and let’s move our vitalistic empire, our vitalistic enterprise and dominate.  The worlds ready, the world’s waiting, will you be ready?

Hi I’m Dr. Frank Sovinsky and welcome to DC Mentors V-Blog.

We’ve been discussing the mental nutrients necessary for a thriving chiropractic practice and we’re going to add the fourth one today.

Remember we have strategic thinking, we have innovation, quantification and today we’re adding orchestration.  Think of the word orchestration.  It is the removal of all choice and discretion when it comes to the procedures of your chiropractic business.  You see, what’s missing in the world is predictability.  What’s desperately needed by each and every one of your patients, your chiropractic assistants and you, the chiropractor, is a system that keeps us on track, something that’s stable.  As a simple example, we want to have an orchestration and policy that says a new patient gets this, this and this procedure, a relating of findings is scheduled at this time, a patient who hasn’t been in the office for 6 months goes through these documentations and assessments.  You see on the surface it looks like orchestration means that we are demeaning and dehumanizing ourselves when actually we’re liberating ourselves.  When you don’t have to think about the basic procedures and things that your chiropractic business should be doing automatically, when that automatic system is running you and your people can dance and flow with your patients.

Orchestration is such a missing piece.  It needs to not only be orchestrated, it means it has to be documented, it has to be written down, it has to be in a module or in a training device that your new hires can refer to or that the people already in your business, your chiropractic team members can refer to often and this is the document that says this is how we do it here, we’re building interlocking systems that completely differentiate ourselves from every other business in the community.  It builds a system that says this is reproducible, this is how we do it here and we are, we are determined to take this amazing concept called chiropractic vitalism, scale it and to build an enterprise that takes over.

You know the world is ready, they’re ready for you and they’re waiting but you have to get ready.  Build these nutrients, ingest them.

Hi I’m Dr. Frank Sovinsky and welcome to DC Mentors V-Blog.

Today we’re going to add the third mental nutrient – quantification.

Quantification, what’s that all about?  Remember, we have the three systems: the hard systems, the soft systems and the information systems.  With strategic thinking we’ve decided to implement things in each of these areas.  So quantification is measuring whether that implementation has any impact.  Quantification means we’re going to measure over a period of time, not just a day.  Typically we find that measuring in a quarter really gives us really good information and data points and data points have to be diverse, it’s not just a matter of how many new patients but it’s about how much compliance and retention and a whole host of different measurements and metrics and that, of course, is the statistical management system.  You see when you think about that as a system it actually frees you and liberates you from worrying about your chiropractic business.  It actually sends you alerts, it actually prompts you to celebrate that you’ve reached important benchmarks and that your business is actually moving.  As a matter of fact it’s always moving, but a statistical management system will tell you if it’s going in the direction that you want.  So statistical management is really being able to quantify did this innovation work.

Again quantification is a simple phase – quantification of a change in the way your staff dresses, the way that your patients address you, quantification of a new chiropractic office design, maybe you knocked a wall down, maybe you put one up, maybe you changed tables, maybe you changed chiropractic techniques.  Quantification is that important nutrient you need in order to continue to thrive and continue to build your vitalistic chiropractic enterprise.

Remember, the world’s waiting for you.  Are you ready?

Hi I’m Dr. Frank Sovinsky and welcome to DC Mentors V-Blog.

Today we’re going to talk about the second mental nutrient to start assimilating into your being in order to build a thriving chiropractic business that turns into a vitalistic enterprise.  This nutrient is called innovation.

Creating is thinking new things. I encourage you to continue being creative, but innovating is doing new things.  Big difference.  It’s not just thinking about, thinking about, thinking about. It’s actually doing and implementing new strategies that you’ve been thinking about and testing them to see if they work.  Innovation can be a small and as simple as a statement you make to your patients at the front desk when they check out, “The doctor needs to see you Tuesday,” “You need to see the doctor Tuesday.”

Innovation is not an option. Innovation means that if your business is not moving it is being crushed by the outside.  You see the universe hates stasis, it wants to move every project and every process. Innovating is changing things, not just to change them but to improve them and that is really the essence of innovation.  Innovation means what is the absolute best way to do this.  We take into mind and into heart that it has to be meaningful and that its impact on your patient’s needs to be profound.  See the innovation has to have purposeful intent, which is to impact them, and it has to be a positive impact on them.  It’s not just what you want.  It’s innovating and doing the best procedures, the best policies, the best actions possible.  Innovation, in order to be meaningful, has to be deliberate and has to have that higher intention.

Innovation really isn’t a choice, you can’t do things the same way you’ve been doing them.  The universe has a way of moving and collapsing structures that are static and has an incredible way of supporting structures that are in the growth mindset.  Remember, we are building a vitalistic chiropractic enterprise and we’re going to remove the biggest interference to that which is your thinking.  Strategic thinking, innovation – the world is waiting, are you ready?

Hi, I’m Dr. Frank Sovinsky.   Welcome to DC Mentors V-Blog.

Today we’re going to discuss the first mental nutrient for you to ingest in order to build a thriving chiropractic practice and that mental nutrient is strategic thinking.  You need to start looking at your chiropractic business from a whole different viewing point, as a matter of fact, the first thing I want you to do is to move your chiropractic office six blocks from where it is and when you do that get back to me. . .

OK, just kidding.  But I’m really not kidding about doing this – I want you to get a different viewing point.  I want you to move metaphorically out of your office, as a matter of fact, I want you out of your office as you’re doing this kind of thinking.  This is so critically important because if you continue to do the things you’re doing right now you will never scale your chiropractic business into a chiropractic enterprise. So again, we’re taking the frustration we have and turning it into fascination.

We’re going to look at the three main systems that every business needs to have and we’re going to look at it from your new viewing point.  The first systems are the hard systems, that’s the design of your office, the layout, the rooms, the flow from the reception area, the different areas that you have for exams and for relating your findings. All of those components are so vital and they need to promote growth and they need to be sustainable in that growth and you need to be able to take a snapshot of that and actually brand-chise that into your next business.  The hard systems are also the colors.  Do you still have lava lamps and shag carpet?  The colors you use should be the ones that are going to be relevant not only now but 5 to 7 years from now.  You need to look at all of those systems from the design of the tables, the consistency throughout, consistency, consistency, consistency.

Then you need to look at the soft systems.  I’m a soft system, you are a soft system and your chiropractic assistants are soft systems.  That means that all of the animate projects in your office, projects meaning you in the project of becoming somebody that can tell a story and communicate to people.  You need to look the part, you need to look your part, you need to dress not only for success but for impact for your patients and your staff needs to be trained in the ability to communicate with patients in a way they want to be talked to.

The next type of system is the information systems. You’re going to need to gather data points or else your business is just sort of flying by the seat.  Strategic thinking says what information do I need to have? What benchmarks do I need to have in place so that I know that my chiropractic business is growing and that I’m not interfering with it’s growth.

The world is waiting, I want you to get ready for it.  Stragetic thinking.

Hi, I’m Dr. Frank Sovinsky CEO of DC Mentors.

How is it that enterprises like Walgreens, Kaiser Permanente and medical home models seem to be completely dominating the healthcare market and they are now even taking over the wellness market?   Look at the slogan for Walgreens, it says, “On the corner of happy and healthy really.”  Seriously?  How is it that a flawed paradigm like medicine has been able to completely infiltrate and take over?

What I want to do is to take our frustration and turn that into fascination.  Let’s get fascinated by the word enterprise.  Let’s get fascinated by the product that is produced by these enterprises so that you and I and the chiropractic profession can not only compete but completely take over our area and that area is healthcare and well-being.

The chiropractic model isn’t flawed, it’s our chiropractic business model and it’s our approach the business of chiropractic that is flawed.  If you look at corporations like Walgreens and  Kaiser you’ll see that they were once small businesses that started out working on their businesses to turn them into a scalable enterprise to take their process to the masses.   Do you see the sequence of events?

And the challenge with chiropractors is we’re still thinking in terms of just the chiropractic practice, we’re still thinking small.  We have a big vision but thinking small.  What would it be like if we took that frustration and added the mental nutrients for thriving practices that we’re going to discuss in the upcoming DC Mentors’ blog?

Those seven mental nutrients are: strategic thinking, innovation, quantification, or orchestration, willpower, still power and emotional quotient.  When we apply those we’re going to take your mindset and we’re going to expand it.   Because when we look at this with the fascination of The E-Myth Chiropractor’s mindset we’re going to move and we’re going to make a difference together.  Are you in? Because I want chiropractic to be the conversation in healthcare, I want chiropractic to be the first choice not the last choice for a few.

Are you still with me?  Good.  Then get ready because people are waiting.