Transcript
[INTERVIEW]
Well, hello, my friend. Welcome back to The Clinical Entrepreneur podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Ronda Nelson. Thanks for joining me. I am so happy to say that we’ve finally made it to the end of 2020. I think most of us thought it would never end. We probably thought that 2020 would end a little differently, at least that’s what we were told in March of this year, but here we are still locking down, masks in lots of places, and our world is definitely not what we thought it was going to be.
At the end of every year, I like to take some time to really look at what happened during the year. What I loved, what I didn’t love, and how I want my 2021 to look. You can refer back to my podcast about how to plan and calendar out your year. This is where I get a little introspective and start to dig deep about desired changes. I evaluate how I’m interacting with my business, with my family, and with myself.
I’m going to take you on my own journey and let you travel with me through my year. I’m going to hit the high points and will also point out some of my lower points and the things I don’t want to repeat. When COVID hit at the beginning of the year, we were told that it was just going to be a short amount of time before the world would open back up and that the virus would be under control.
I am very passionate about helping clinicians achieve profitable, thriving practices. Once practitioners started shutting their businesses down and didn’t know what to do. I knew that I needed to provide some help. So, I created Virtual Practice Builder, a course literally from nothing into something in seven days. If you haven’t had the chance to check it out, you may want to do that. That was a big win for me, and I want to tell you why.
Creating courses is not an easy task. I said to my team, “There is no way we’re going to get this turned around to help these practices and give them the tools they need to be able to create a virtual practice in a week, I can’t do that.” And they said, “Yes, you can. Yes, you can.” I said, “All right, “ and was able to push through and develop a whole course in just seven days. Before I did that, I would have said that that was impossible.
That is lesson number one. When we tell ourselves, “Oh, that can’t be done, there’s no way.” Well, there was a way and I did it. From that point forward, I started to change the way I was speaking and telling myself that “I can’t.” Do any of you struggle with that? Sometimes that limiting belief makes it so quick to jump into those thoughts of, “Oh, you can’t do that. That’ll never happen. You can’t create a course in a week. You can’t coach people. You can’t help somebody with psoriasis. You can’t do that, you can’t do that.” The “can’t” come in so fast. So, this year was my year to work really hard on taking the, “I can’t” phrase out of my mind and replace it with, “You can.”
Things I kept hearing is, “I can’t do that because I don’t have time,” or “I don’t have the experience,” or “I don’t have a big enough team to be able to pull it off, and “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.” One of the things I have always wanted to do was start a podcast and here we are, woohoo! I did it and that was because I said, “No, I’m not going to do the I can’t. It’s a yes, I can.” And so, we did it. The first few episodes weren’t perfect, the sound wasn’t great and the show notes weren’t great, but I did it. Getting started is better than not doing anything at all.
So I started a podcast, that put one more arrow in my quiver of “I can’s”. It was a big success for me. My team said, “Now that we have the process down, this is easy to manage and we can do this, no problem.” All that time I spent thinking, I can’t, I did, and you can do the same thing. Think about the things that you are naturally saying, “Oh, I can’t do that, and I would challenge you that as you move into this next year, to change the way that you’re speaking about it and start to say, “I can.”
Here are some of the other “I can’s.” I chose to stay positive. That has not been easy to do for the whole year. Like all of you, we’ve all had our moments where we’ve just thought, “Are you kidding me? They’re lying about this, they’re lying about that, this vaccine thing isn’t true.” We could go on and on about that. But I chose to stay positive and not go down that path. It wasn’t good for my headspace as well as a place of limitation.
To keep me out of that negative headspace, I stopped reading posts on Facebook and I stopped posting, whereas, at the beginning of the whole COVID thing, I was posting before the censorship got really bad. But I realized that that was not good for my mental health. Now, I’m very careful about what I choose to put in my brain, what I choose to watch, what I choose to listen to, I’m very, very specific and intentional about that because I want to stay in that positive place.
I’m a glass-half-full girl, I always have been. The world could be on fire, and I’ll always find a silver lining in there somewhere. It’s just how I’m wired. But I knew that the Facebook environment with all of the negativity and even YouTube, Twitter, all of those social channels were not good for me. So, I decided not to go there. Another thing I did was, becoming very clear about what I wanted to do and what I didn’t want to do. I really want you to hear what I’m saying.
As clinicians, we sometimes go into our businesses say, “Well, I just want to help people.” And we do, we want to help people. I love that you want to help people, I want to help people. That’s why we do what we do. But I had to become very clear about how I wanted to help them. And more importantly, who I wanted to help because you can’t fix everyone.
If every person came knocking on your door had a health condition, you would be overwhelmed. You can’t fix everyone. You may now have the skill to fix everything and everyone, but beyond that, there are certain types of people that you’re just naturally going to be very drawn to. You’re going to say, “I really love working with this type of person or this type of condition.” I was able to say, “This 2020 thing is not working well for me and if I have to be in this type of lockdown with all this negative stuff going on, I’m going to choose the things that make me the happiest.” That was just my own personal choice, and I would challenge you to do the same.
Find the things that light you up, that just light your mind on fire like, “Woah, I can’t wait to serve that type of patient,” whether it’s a woman, child, a hormone case, a thyroid case, or a digestive case. Those are the most common kind of niches, but what is it that lights your mind on fire? And then say, “I can,” to those cases, and don’t be afraid to say, “No thank you,” to the ones who don’t fit that bill. When you see that patient’s name on your schedule and your heart goes, “Oh, that person again,” we all do it because not everyone is the right fit.
I had to become really clear about who I wanted to serve and how I wanted to serve. The only way I could do that was to start listening more than I was speaking. Now, as an educator and as a teacher, I’ve got a lot of opportunities to teach and speak, but I had to be quiet and start listening.
Where are the pain points that practitioners are having? What are they? Where are you struggling? You’re my people. What are you hitting your head against the wall about? What is not working in your clinic? And how can I help? I had to learn how to start listening. I listened more intently. I also did more self-care this year, because we were locked down.
I started being much more consistent with my supplements. I don’t know about you, but I take them every day. My self-care also included moving, stretching, walking, and being on the treadmill. I don’t ever do anything super hardcore, but I always love to stay active and moving. So, I got very intentional about that.
I also began to take a look at the relationships I had, that weren’t serving me. Saying no to a relationship can be hard. I’m not talking about a marriage or children, but more so a business client. I fired more people this year than I have in a year before. I fired them, but I do it very nicely. I recorded a podcast about that, I’ll link that in the show notes. But I let them go because I knew that they just weren’t a good fit for me. There was either a conflict and they were questioning me or there was always something that wasn’t quite right and they were complaining and reacting instead of listening.
I also “fired” more patients. “Dr. Google” would get involved and now, there are two cooks in the kitchen. No, no, no, no, not doing it.
I also terminated some business relationships, people that were doing work for me that I wasn’t loving. By nature, I’m a very nice person, and I always see the best in people. I just want to make sure everybody’s happy and I just want to help. But I realized that in business when I’m paying a contractor to do something and I’m getting back mediocre work, why am I tolerating that? Why? Why don’t I find someone who can give me the kind of work that I expect instead and pay them?
So, I terminated some business relationships and said, “This isn’t working for me.” And that’s hard for me because I want to be friends with everyone. I want everybody to play in the sandbox together nicely, but that didn’t work. Then, I hired a business coach. I’m the business coach on top of being a clinician, and I love helping practitioners build thriving businesses. But I know that I can always use more help, so I hired someone to help me because the better I get, the more efficient and proficient I get and I can serve you better.
I hired a business coach, which was not on my radar. There have been some great things that have happened in 2020, I wouldn’t trade this year for anything. It’s been a hard year for sure. None of us would say, “Oh, best year of my life.” We would not say that. But I have to say, it’s been a great year, and part of what has made it so great is every single one of you, the people that are in my community and that have collected together. We’re all clinicians and we all have the same goal in mind, which is to have profitable practices that serve us well and allow us to live the lives that we want to live, financially, time, freedom, all of that. But also, we want to serve and help people. I got to do all of that this year, in a way that was much more intentional and purposeful and with an attitude that said, “I can,” rather than, “I can’t.”
So, as we end this beautiful year, full of lots of opportunities, and move into 2021, I would really encourage you to think about adopting an “I can” attitude. Where are the places in your life that you find yourself saying, “That’ll never work,” or “I’ll never be successful,” “I’ll never have a great business,” “I’ll never be able to afford that,” “I’ll never know enough?”
My friend, all of that is just boxing you in and limiting you and preventing you from being able to make progress. If that’s where you want to be, you do you, my friend, but I don’t want to be there. Uh-uh, I want to always be growing, thriving, profitable and most of all, I want to be happy. And that’s what I want for you as well.
Now to end 2020, I could not have more gratitude in my heart for all of you. Each and every one of you who has been part of my life this year, I am so incredibly grateful for you, and how you’ve been so invested, caring, and wonderful. I love every single one of you. I cannot wait to see what your business and your clinic is capable of in 2021. And you watch it because if I could create a course in seven days, I can do more. So, keep your eyes open because I’ve got some amazing stuff coming up for you in 2021.
That’s it, my friend. Happy closing week of 2020. Have an awesome new year. Celebrate your success and celebrate your new way of thinking as you move into 2021. I can’t wait to take that journey with you. Take care, my friend. Much love, be blessed, and I’ll see you next year.
[FREEBIE]
Hang on a sec! Now if you are not feeling 100% confident about starting 2021, we need to have a little chat about that. Because I really want you to have a solid game plan for the new year. And if you’re ready to go all in and you’re tired of having the same old thing every year, not growing your practice or struggling with staff issues, or whatever it might be, then I am your girl.
All you have to do is go to rondanelson.com/strategy and you can schedule a free 15 minute business strategy call with me. Usually, between you and me, they run a little over 15 minutes because I really want to help you get a strategy put in place so that you’ve got the action steps you need to move forward. So I’ll give you those action steps after I hear what you want to do, where you’re stuck, and together we’re going to make a plan my friend. We are going to get you out of the ditch and moving forward for a rockin’-awesome 2021. Happy New Year, my friend. I’ll talk to you soon.
[END]
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