Discipline and Chiropractic and Healthcare Practice Success
- Ed Petty
- Jun 10
- 3 min read
Success is a matter of choice and staying on course
I have often noticed that there appears to be a correlation between doctors who lift weights and those who have successful practices.
Of course, it is not always the case. Many practices thrive whose owners don’t lift weights. And there are many doctors who, I am sure, do lift weights but have only mediocre success.
And I also know that “correlation is not causation.”
So, having got all that out of the way, there remains a distinct subset of doctors who do well and lift weights. I have to wonder – WHY?
Let’s see: weight training takes effort. It can be exhausting. It can cause discomfort. You must do it with consistency and sacrifice other activities to spend time with your weights. But it leads to better health and is good for you.
My father told me that when he went to college, he worked nights at a sawmill in Eugene, Oregon. His shift started at midnight, the work was hard, and sawdust flew all over. But the way he got over it, he said, was the first thing he did before he started work, was grab a handful of sawdust and throw it down the back of his shirt. Everything after that was easier. And, he paid for his college.
I think chiropractors, other practice and business owners, and most successful people are willing to put themselves through discomfort for a worthy goal. Unsuccessful people shy away from what makes them uncomfortable, find excuses, look for shortcuts, search for a fast route to a pot of goal.
I believe it all goes back to discipline: the willingness and action to do what must be done--and avoiding what must not be done.
DISCIPLINE IN YOUR CHIROPRACTIC BUSINESS
We cover the works of Jim Collins in our Practice MBA program.
He has written several books based upon research and applies to management and leadership of successful businesses. One of they key factors, he says, that makes a good company great…is discipline.
In his book, Good to Great, he breaks discipline into 3 categories.
Disciplined People
Leadership. Collins starts with leadership. “...leaders display a workmanlike diligence—more plow horse than show horse. They are incredibly ambitious, but their ambition is first and foremost for the institution, not themselves.”
The team. He then talks about people. “The good-to-great companies…. hired self-disciplined people who didn’t need to be managed ….”
Disciplined Thought
Courage to face the facts. “You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts.”
Refining what works. He talks about the “Hedgehog Concept,” which involves staying focused on three key areas: a) what the business is passionate about, b) best at, and c) what it can profit from, thereby avoiding distractions.
Disciplined Action
Persistence. “No matter how dramatic the end result, the good-to-great transformations never happened in one fell swoop. There was no single defining action, no grand program… Rather, the process resembled relentlessly pushing a giant, heavy flywheel, turn upon turn, building momentum until a point of breakthrough, and beyond.”
And lastly, sustained focus: “Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of choice, and discipline to stay the course.” I have seen this to be true in successful chiropractic practices.
Lift weights if that helps. Put sawdust down your back. Take cold showers. Get comfortable with the uncomfortable. But remember,
Knowing what to do is not the same as having the self discipline to do it.
Seize the Future,
Ed
PS Click the link to download a small desk poster of this quote:
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