Please stop sending me E-mails. I do not need any motivation. After 20 years in the chiropractic profession it is quite evident to me that it is dying. The people in my state organization are likened to the band on the TITANIC; they go to parties and meetings, drinking their fine brandy, wearing their best attire while the chiropractic ship slips slowly into the ocean of obscurity. The only way to squeak by a living in my state is to be a personal injury or workers compensation attorney’s bag man.

I would appreciate you stop e-mailing Monday Morning Motivation to me. Nothing you can tell me will change the fact that the insurance companies are paying less than the price of a cup of Starbucks coffee and pastry, not to mention not letting me do my job. Thank you,

Dr. Had Enough

Dear Dr. Had Enough

I have unsubscribed you from Monday Morning Motivation.

There’s no question the chiropractic practice environment has significantly changed in the last decade or so. More telling is your response to these changes! Apparently, you have chosen to become a victim rather than a victor. It sounds like you’re preparing to withdraw your valuable skills from the marketplace. Too bad you seem so resigned at a time when we’re so close to the revolution that will make chiropractors indispensable.

The choices patients make are not your choices.

All too many chiropractors, especially those who have the habit of caring too much, are afraid that the poor choices that patients make reflect poorly on them. It's not true.

If you’ve withheld the truth then you may be culpable. But that's rarely the case. In fact, it's quite the reverse, often over explaining the implications of dropping out of care too soon and other self-sabotaging patient tendencies.

No, you're working with a fellow human fully equipped with free will and the freedom to accept or reject what you've told them. And while you may assume you're responsible because they've consulted your office and not the office down the street, their health is theirs, not yours. They made the decision to seek care in your office and they're equally free to change their mind or to follow all, or only some of your recommendations.

Lighten up. It's not about you.

How important to you is it to be liked by others?

For years, I led my life in the hopes of seeking approval. From everyone. If I could just arrange my life in such a way to avoid stepping on anyone’s toes or offending anyone, I assumed I would enhance my likeability. Believing this lie kept my influence to a minimum and made life an exhausting game of predicting others’ reactions.

Imagine my surprise when I learned that after all that effort there were still some who didn’t like me! This, after playing it small for so many years.

Live large. This is supposed to be an adventure. If you’re not making a few people angry or showing up in ways that confront or prick the conscience of others, you’re probably living too small. And the only payoff is “I should have” or “I could have” and the resentment of having squandered this incredible opportunity called life.

Soon after beginning their professional training, student chiropractors lose touch with the patient’s point of view. The result, years later, is a highly-trained professional who has effectively lost touch with the people they desire to serve. And while this has created a career path for me, this all-too-common phenomenon has produced a cadre of chiropractors who are finding practice more difficult than it was even just a few years ago.

Remove the “grease” provided by generous reimbursement and the true nature of your practice becomes glaringly obvious, especially if your practice was largely dependent upon insurance carriers.

This is partly because many chiropractors, weaned on a steady stream of patients with charitable policies, came to believe this was well, normal. And worse, that it would continue endlessly for the remainder of their career. Clearly, a miscalculation. If you find yourself in this position, here’s an observation that could help turn things around.

Drugs hijack the intelligence of the body, speeding bodily processes up or slowing bodily processes down.

Every chiropractor knows this. Yet, many who eschew the use of drugs because they treat symptoms and ignore the underlying cause, swing into symptom-treating mode when their practice numbers are down.

“Get more new patients!”

Like patients who think relieving pain is the solution, many chiropractors are misled into thinking getting more new patients is the solution. It isn’t. New patients are an effect; a symptom. What causes new patients? Here are just a few:

Being relevant to what patients want.
Adjusting while holding pure intentions.
Showing up as a humble servant.
Being completely present with patients.
Expressing certainty by being doubt-free.
Being thankful for those who show up.
Loving patients rather than merely caring.

If these are missing, intellectual, emotional and spiritual subluxations may be interfering with your patient volume. When corrected, symptoms resolve and practices blossom.

After a flurry of speaking gigs for several state associations it appears that many chiropractors are paying the price for years of patient coercion, manipulation and exploitation learned during the practice management era. At a time when insurance money was generous, at least compared with today, many chiropractors were urged to employ management tactics that were so abusive as to constrain the natural flow of referrals and reactivations; the foundation of a healthy practice.

And why not, there were more $100 deductibles waiting in the wing!

Referrals and reactivations are under the volitional control of patients. Which is to say, if you mistreat patients for short-term gain, even if justified as being in the patient’s “best interest,” you cut yourself off from the fuel of delighted patients telling others and those who return when they suffer the inevitable relapse from having discontinued care once they felt better. Pinch off these two sources of patients and you sentence yourself to the increasingly burdensome task of new patient procurement. You have to become the marketer, promoter and advertiser because you have obstructed the only process by which all profitable, self-sustaining small businesses prosper: repeat business.

What do you stand for?

Many complain about the cultural domination of the drug industry. Many are actively against vaccination. Others loudly fight cancer. Still others get worked up over this and that and are ready to fight to slay some injustice or right a wrong.

But you can’t win by being against.

By attempting to overcome no shows, declaring war on sedentary lifestyles, confronting patients about their smoking or trying to talk patients out of quitting care, you actually create what you don’t want! Your attempts produce an equal and opposite reaction.

Instead, provide a more attractive solution. Stand for personal responsibility. Advance the truth. Encourage understanding. Trumpet the advantages of natural. Support a willingness to try. Incentivize follow through. Praise incremental improvements. Reward behaviors you want, rather than punishing those you’d like to eliminate.

Leadership is about creating a more promising future, not condemning what is.