So I was starting to get my positive delusion sorted out. At that point in my practice evolution, my delusion state extended to yours truly. I was now beginning to realise ‘yours truly’ was going to burn out fast if I didn’t create more “yours truly” clones.
At this time, I was covering everything: Practice principal; Practitioner; Finance Manager; Accounting Manager; Bookkeeping; Administration; Reception manager; Business Operations etc. It was getting tough managing all of us and see patients. I had leave plenty at the back door if you get my meaning. So one day I was watching the movie, AVATAR and something clicked. I realised I needed to create more of me, not so much clones, but Avatars. I needed to segregate all the different tasks and assign to different roles. I imagined sitting around my board room table with a team of avatars who all looked like me. Each one was head of something. I then created their job descriptions and started wearing just one hat at a time. Once this was in place I set about recruiting. I needed a team to replace all my clone-avatars so that I could focus on what I do best, lead and inspire! So essentially I needed to know my avatars before I could actually meet them. About the author: Dr. Andrew Arnold is a Chiropractic Doctor, and Owner, Cranbourne Family Chiropractic and Wellness Centre. He is also a Wellness Leader Mentor working with the Wellness Leadership Revolution and running his own program, the Million Dollar Wellness Practice. Andrew shares this ownership with his wife, Dr. Linda Wilson. www.cranbournefamilychiro.com.au www.drandrewarnold.com re to edit.
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You’re an entrepreneur trying to get your genius out there. Problem is you’re an awesome wellness leader, not so strong with the techy stuff. Sound familiar? The reality is your genius zone and tech zone live in different parts of your brain. In fact in different hemispheres. You would aware of the right left brain concept. Your right brain is more intuitive, creative, you’re left, more logical, and analytical. Most wellness leaders live in right brain space most of the time. The problem is to run an efficient, effective health practice, and also leverage our genius in the online, global world we need tech. Here’s what I do. Firstly don’t confuse the two. When you’re planning your work time be clear which is GENIUS ZONE and which is TECH ZONE work. Secondly, don’t let the tech stop you. Yes you need to understand the over-arching concepts and yes, it’s a good idea to get the basic structure underway. Beyond that, get some help. There are lots of V.A. (virtual assistant) options available both locally and globally, e.g. Fiverr. Thirdly focus your energy on the over-arching project, the steps required, and the general content. Finally, understand the difference between a TASK and a PROJECT. A task is generally up to 15 minutes. Anything longer becomes a project which is broken down into 1 hour chunks. So be clear whether you are right or left brain dominant; big picture or detail (there are lots of online questionnaires to find this out about yourself); allocate GENIUS or TECH time and don’t’ mix them up (This does not improve efficiency) and then be clear about what is a TASK and what is a PROJECT. The world needs you’re GENIUS, don’t get STOPPED! About the author: Dr. Andrew Arnold is a Chiropractic Doctor, and Owner, Cranbourne Family Chiropractic and Wellness Centre. He is also a partner with Wellness Leadership academy and founder of the Million Dollar Wellness Practice. Andrew shares this ownership with his wife, Dr. Linda Wilson. www.cranbournefamilychiro.com.au www.drandrewarnold.weebly.com Are you feeling the bumps at the moment? Are your plans not going to plan? Does it seem the universe is conspiring against you?
Awesome! You’re on track! Yep, you heard correctly. One of the clearest signals you’re absolutely in alignment with your trajectory is when it appears you’re not! Weird (which by the way means something that happens exactly at the right time for the right reasons). An aeroplane gains altitude by passing thru turbulence. Otherwise it’s destined to travel lower than its potential. You are the same. To gain altitude in your business you must go thru turbulence. A common mistake. A common mistake practice owners make is miss-interpreting turbulence for being OFF-TRACK. Oftentimes not true. In fact quite the opposite. The universe will usually test your resolve by appearing to give you a signal you’re off track. It’s a test that’s it. It’s the universe’s way of checking your alignment and resilience. So know that if there’s turbulence, things are little rocky, you and your practice are GROWING. You cannot stay the same and still evolve. Team members must come and go. Procedures must be updated, and old one’s discarded. Patients must be filtered, and above all you must stand your ground and stay the course. This is the law of evolution and it usually happens in quantum jumps. By this I mean in the short to medium term it may appear you’re not making much ground, maybe even regressing, and then you jump. The practice is up 100k, someone leaves, a new team member joins you etc. One final comment. This is where a mentor can be of great support. You’re in the fishbowl but a mentor can help you see your practice from an entirely different perspective, an evolutionary perspective. About the author: Dr. Andrew Arnold is a Chiropractic Doctor, and Owner, Cranbourne Family Chiropractic and Wellness Centre. He is also founder of the Million Dollar Wellness Practice and affiliate with the Wellness Leadership Academy. www.cranbournefamilychiro.com.au www.drandrewarnold.com Along my coaching and mentoring journey I once heard something that has stayed with me for many years, ‘You’re can be just in time to be too late!’
What does this mean? Well, in this article I would like to explore the meaning behind probably one of the most influential statements I have ever heard. But first let me talk about integrity. Integrity is about being your truth (even when no-one’s watching!) It’s about doing the right thing, playing above the line… The fact is you’re either in or out, there is no in between, or ‘trying’ to be in integrity. Sincerity on the other hand is ‘trying’ to be in integrity. If you think about it, when you sign a letter with yours sincerely, generally this is when you don’t know the recipient well. What you are saying is I don’t necessarily know you personally nor do you know me, so it’s impossible for you get my integrity until we develop a relationship. I therefore, ‘intend’ to be in integrity until such times as this is a given, ‘yours sincerely’. Being on time in your work and life in my view, is about integrity, NOT sincerity. You’re either on time or you’re not! Of course from time to time extreme circumstances beyond your control will impact your ‘being on time’ however, in my experience managing and working with many, many staff, practitioners and patients those ‘extreme circumstances’ are rare. I’m talking about your car suddenly not starting, a child suddenly not well, an accident or even near death experience. In the main, you are either on time or your not, and that’s it! Let’s talk about your clients or patients and the impact they’re being late has on your schedule. You’ve heard all the excuses, and I know you would agree only a small % are legitimate. You would notice most patients don’t tell the truth, particularly if they are trying to avoid your late fees. This is most obvious when your grade A’s are always on time even in circumstances that would ordinarily deter someone else. Being on time is a choice. Being in integrity is a choice. Don’t confuse them with sincerity which is a promise to be on time or in integrity. No one cares about your intention or promise, they just want you to do it. Being on time speaks mountains about who you are as a person, you’re commitment and respect to yourself and those around you and your engagement both with the present moment and the future you want. You’re either in or out, and if you’re out, one day I guarantee ‘you will be just in time to be too late!’ About the author: Dr. Andrew Arnold is a Chiropractic Doctor, and Owner, Cranbourne Family Chiropractic and Wellness Centre. He is also a Wellness Leader Mentor working with the Wellness Leadership Revolution and running his own program, the Million Dollar Wellness Practice. Andrew shares this ownership with his wife, Dr. Linda Wilson. www.cranbournefamilychiro.com.au www.drandrewarnold.com You’re patient is now out of pain and essentially has reached the outcome they wanted when they first starting seeing you. So you naturally discharge them, telling them when you next need me, when you’re next in pain, or this or that returns give me a call and I’ll take care of you. Sound familiar? I would like to offer my views here, emphasis on ‘my view’, and would ask that you at least give this some thought if not already. Let’s talk about pain perception first. Pain is just that, perception. The body is an amazing coping machine. It will protect you at all costs which also means helping you get on with your day despite something going wrong in the background. Pain therefore, is generally the last cab off the rank and the first thing to go. Most allied health professionals understand this. Pain is NOT an accurate indication of your patient’s health status. Now I’m not talking about our intuition, our instinctive sense of our own bodies, this is very different. Let me explain. A patient may fumble around where they think they’re pain is however, they’re gut tells them something is not right and they need to get to you. Never argue with a patient’s gut sense, they are always right. Let me now talk about the medical model. For the most part medicine is funded by 3rd parties, namely you and I via Medicare, Workover and TAC and/or private insurance. The common intention is to reduce claims. These are all businesses with a bottom line. This means supporting the ‘You are cured, fixed…’ model and can now be discharged, NOT the wellness, prevention model. What’s interesting here is pathology, signs and symptom patients make up a very small part of the overall population and in fact, sub-clinical signs and symptoms before pathological change has been reached is the majority. The latter is far less funded and yet could significantly reduce the medical and insurance burden, but that’s a conversation for another day. So getting back to case in point. Discharging patients. In my view health management is a continuum, there is really no end point. The goal of the Allied health professional is look beyond the signs and symptoms and address the deeper cause. This will involve many, many layers which makes sense. We are the accumulation of many years of abuse, from occupational, dietary, drug, accident stress’s to name a few. So it doesn’t make sense to ever discharge a patient. In my practice, I am always thinking of the bigger picture, and we subscribe the ‘best practice’ model which is about creating a patient centre, empowered wellness program. I always have a recommendation…product, referral to another colleague, referral to an outside provider, down scheduled maintenance program etc. Sometimes it may be apparent I’m not the best practitioner moving forwards, so I refer. In all cases my intention is to support my patients towards a patient centre model where they get to drive their own bus. This is my duty of care. My patients ultimately need to discharge themselves which is their right however, in my practice every patient who leaves is armed with my recommendations…for the record. About the author: Dr. Andrew Arnold is a Chiropractic Doctor, and Owner, Cranbourne Family Chiropractic and Wellness Centre. He is also a Wellness Leader Mentor working with the Wellness Leadership Revolution and running his own program, the Million Dollar Wellness Practice. Andrew shares this ownership with his wife, Dr. Linda Wilson. www.cranbournefamilychiro.com.au www.drandrewarnold.com 3rd payers can be tricky to navigate particularly when it comes to getting paid. I’m talking about TAC, WorkCover, DVA, Medicare and other smaller organisations such as the Multiple Sclerosis society. In my experience TAC and WorkCover can take quite some time to pay. DVA or Dept. Vet. Affairs on the other hand are usually pretty efficient. Medicare works fine as long as you are online and smaller organisations are usually no brainer, meaning they just work. So let’s talk about your practice’s procedures first and foremost. You need to decide if you plan to provide accounts to your patients and for all or some of your 3rd party payers. I base this on payment history and the type of patient I want to attract to my practice. Typically, the WorkCover patient tends to present in two ways, either passively or what I call hyper-actively. Passively refers to that patient who wants the practitioner and employer to take on all the responsibility and rely on someone else paying, so have little regard for number of sessions and how long the process might take, and this includes time off work. Hyper-actively refers to that patient who is more concerned with the potential stigma attached to being a WorkCover patient and therefore, wants to accelerate their progress beyond what is reasonable. TAC patients often present in a similar way, i.e. the responsibility falls on an outside locus of control and therefore, becomes passive. In either case both types of patient will only stay on as patients whilst WorkCover and/or their employer are paying, so not your ideal patient right! Furthermore, neither WorkCover nor TAC support wellness care as a model. For this reason I prefer not to take accounts for WorkCover and TAC but rather have the patient pay upfront and seek reimbursement directly from their employer. This way there is a forced accountability. This encourages a 3 way communication between you, the 3rd party and the employer which sets up a team approach to getting the patient fully recovered and back fully on the job ASAP. DVA and Medicare offer efficient online payment processing which means you can safely bill patients and expect payments in a reasonable timeframe. This does take some setting up however, so be prepared to take some time, but well worth it. In summary, make sure you are clear with your practice’s procedures around 3rd party, decide right from the outset and then stick to it, no exceptions. About the author: Dr. Andrew Arnold is a Chiropractic Doctor, and Owner, Cranbourne Family Chiropractic and Wellness Centre. He is also a Wellness Leader Mentor working with the Wellness Leadership Revolution and running his own program, the Million Dollar Wellness Practice. Andrew shares this ownership with his wife, Dr. Linda Wilson. www.cranbournefamilychiro.com.au www.drandrewarnold.com My brother in law once said to me, ‘A little bit of arrogance goes a long way!’ As Allied Health Practitioners in general, we’re a shy, humble bunch which is great however, when it comes to telling the world what we do and who we are, it just doesn’t cut the mustard. As Allied Health Practice owners we can even more shy which is a problem. Let me state this very clearly. You’re sole mission and purpose is to lead and inspire you’re team and the wider community, both local and global. That’s it! That means being the Boss! For most of us this is a huge fear, right up there with public speaking and heights and the inclination is to run, and fast. The problem is your team are left floundering, a bit like a ship without a captain. It’s time to step up, and into your power and be the awesome leader you were meant to be. I call this ‘Celebratizing’ (a made up word if you’re wondering). This means stepping into comfortable – uncomfortable and being ok with that. Here’s how you do it. First, learn to ‘let go’. The best way to do this is meditation and affirmations and then repeat, repeat, repeat! Second, find an awesome photo of yourself in business attire, get a friend to take one if you don’t have one, and then get it blown up to at least A2 size. This then goes on the mirror in your bathroom or somewhere else, where you will see it often. Start to fall in love again with YOU. Marcus and Andy from the Wellness Leadership Academy call this +ve delusion. Third, take that same photo and superimpose it over the front man/woman of a band standing on centre stage looking out at 100,000 adoring fans. ACDC is a good one. Enlarge this and place it next to your solo portrait. Fourth. Watch what you’re wearing, you’re perfume, cologne, jewelry. Start to dress up even for a regular day at the office. You’re posture will change I guarantee it. Fifth. Start hanging out with your team one on one. Tell them let’s do our regular mthly catch up at the local coffee shop. With your new found persona or avatar you will naturally be able to connect as boss-practitioner-staff without the lines getting merky. Sixth. Add a sprinkling of arrogance. Be a bit cocky, those around you will respond positively because they already know you’re a great person. There are many more steps to celebratizing however, these will get you started. It’s time to become a celebrity of your own show. Good luck and have fun. Cheers, Dr. Andrew About the author: Dr. Andrew Arnold is a Chiropractic Doctor, and Owner, Cranbourne Family Chiropractic and Wellness Centre. He is also a Wellness Leader Mentor working with the Wellness Leadership Revolution and running his own program, the Million Dollar Wellness Practice. Andrew shares this ownership with his wife, Dr. Linda Wilson. www.cranbournefamilychiro.com.au www.drandrewarnold.com You’re ultimate goal with all your clients should be relationship, connection. Without this, a healing partnership is difficult to form and sustain, I’m sure you’d agree. In today’s world relying on communicating one on one or relying on our team or our clients to share with others one on one is just too slow. We need to leverage and the good news is, there are many affordable tools available. If you’re using a patient management software there will most likely be an option to send your clients as SMS. I use Frontdesk by Smartsoft. This software has an additional feature called ‘Delayed send’ and it’s really cool. Picture this. You’re client has been struggling with an injury for several months and is finally seeing some light. They tell you they’re set to return to work on a particular date at a particular time. Now you’re busy seeing lots of patients right however, you want your patients to feel like they are number one, you’re absolute priority, which of course they are. Delay send SMS allows you to send a message today, but schedule it for an exact time and date. Imagine you client getting ready for their big day back to work, they start at 9am and you’re message comes in at 8.30am wishing them well, maybe also an inspirational message. How are they going to feel? You have not only changed their life with the treatment at the clinic but now you are impacting them on a whole new level. A word of caution. Be careful not to send these out too far ahead as circumstances do change and once your SMS is in the system it cannot deleted from the cue. For example someone maybe getting married in 18months time however, 6 months out everything changes. You’re SMS still comes in on what was their wedding day. You could call this a huge backfire, not good. That’s it from me, another practice tip to help you build the practice of your dreams. Dr. Andrew Arnold About the author: Dr. Andrew Arnold is a Chiropractic Doctor, and Owner, Cranbourne Family Chiropractic and Wellness Centre. He is also a Wellness Leader Mentor working with the Wellness Leadership Revolution and running his own program, the Million Dollar Wellness Practice. Andrew shares this ownership with his wife, Dr. Linda Wilson. www.cranbournefamilychiro.com.au Two words: Be paranoid! In fact you can’t be paranoid enough! Making sure you’re back up procedures and systems are water tight should be your number one priority. With most allied health practices now becoming paperless, everything is on the PC and therefore, needs to backed up. To be really sure, even if you are tech minded I recommend contracting an I.T. person to organise and manage this for you. I also recommend using the Cloud. Let me take thru our process, I’m sure you will be able to relate. We run a patient management software. Essentially our entire patient database and all related files are found here so pretty important. We back this up to 5 USB’s Mon to Fri. We also automate this backup to the harddrive every minute and this is saved to the cloud. We then test one of these backups weekly by restoring to a non-networked PC. It is very important you know you’re backups are working. We then take one of these USB’s offsite. Regarding all data files, we have several peripheral PC’s. These all save once a week to a central PC which then uploads to the cloud. We choose a software called IPERIUS however, you can configure your PC’s to network and back up this way. We choose DROPBOX for our Cloud requirements however, other options include GOOGLE DRIVE, MICROSOFT ONEDRIVE or APPLE ICLOUD. In conclusion, make sure you partner with a trusted I.T. professional. Make sure they sign a confidentiality agreement as they will have access to your entire system 24/7. Create a solid back up procedure and you won’t be left high and dry. About the author: Dr. Andrew Arnold is a Chiropractic Doctor, and Owner, Cranbourne Family Chiropractic and Wellness Centre. He is also a Wellness Leader Mentor working with the Wellness Leadership Revolution and running his own program, the Million Dollar Wellness Practice. Andrew shares this ownership with his wife, Dr. Linda Wilson. www.cranbournefamilychiro.com.au www.drandrewarnold.com My friend and Mentor, Marcus Bird from the Wellness Leadership Academy once taught me in order to not only attract the future I wanted, I needed to also bring it forward. He called this ‘Positive Delusion’. In this article I would like share some of what this about but also, talk about the darker side, what I call ‘Negative Delusion’. First let’s define Positive Delusion. A perfect example is found in a document called ‘My Definite Chief Aim’, written by Bruce Lee in 1969. “When he wrote the following mission statement in January of 1969, Bruce Lee was 28 years of age and a minor TV star in the United States, having featured in a number of shows which included, most notably, the ill-fated Green Hornet series. With his second child recently born and no financial security to speak of, the clearly determined founder of Jeet Kune Do decided to put his "definite chief aim" down on paper.” [Source] Bruce visualised what his future would look like 10 years from that point and then lived as if this was his reality NOW! Another example is Jack Nicklaus, the famous golfer. Jack’s positive delusion was, “I never 3 putt on the last hole in a major”. A journalist questioned him. “Jack you always say you never 3 putt in a major however, in this one you did?” To which Jack replied, “That’s right, I never 3 putt on the last hole of a major”. This went back and forth but Jack didn’t change his stance…his positive delusion. To put it simply both Bruce Lee and Jack Nicklaus positively deluded themselves a particular reality, a version of success, the version they wanted, and they did this in every minute of every day. Sure there were days they had doubts but I’m sure they didn’t last long. Let me explain what happens here, from a neurological standpoint. Your EGO is your conscious brain which ‘thinks’ it runs the show. It’s the part that tells you what you ‘should’ and ‘shouldn’t’ do, put’s you down, or causes you to make a decision you wouldn’t ordinarily make. Your Sub-conscious or ID brain is where it is really at. This is your actual reality not perceived or filtered by your EGO and deals with matters of the heart and gut. Your ID brain however, needs input and in general we tend to feed our EGO. The exercise of Positive delusion feeds your ID! If you tell your ID enough times eventually your EGO will back down and you will start to live as if this is your truth. Can you imagine the amazing energy this would create? Suddenly the right people are attracted to you; coincidences happen; opportunities present themselves… You start to move towards your goals faster. Essentially you enable the law of attraction, which if you didn’t know is a natural law of quantum physics. You just have to allow it! Cool Eh! So I recommend you visit Bruce Lee’s letter of note and create your own Positive delusion and then start affirming it every day. See what happens. Now before I finish, let me talk about the FLIP SIDE, NEGATIVE DELUSION! Some people choose to create a darker, negative reality and believe this to the best version of reality for them. In fact negative delusion is mixed up with EGO, it is much more head than heart. I reckon Scrooge was a good example of this in times gone by. This person believes in order for them to survive, they need to live a certain reality and their future vision is mixed up in this. These people also strengthen this every day with their own type of affirmation or more commonly known as righteousness. So choose Positive delusion, much better choice. About the author: Dr. Andrew Arnold is a Chiropractic Doctor, and Owner, Cranbourne Family Chiropractic and Wellness Centre. He is also a Wellness Leader Mentor working with the Wellness Leadership Revolution and running his own program, the Million Dollar Wellness Practice. Andrew shares this ownership with his wife, Dr. Linda Wilson. www.cranbournefamilychiro.com.au www.drandrewarnold.com www.milliondollarwellnesspractice.weebly.com |
AuthorDr. Andrew Arnold is a Chiropractor in private practice in Cranbourne, Victoria, Australia and an Accredited Business Coach working with Allied Health Professionals. Archives
September 2016
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