Becoming the Warren Buffet of Chiropractic

This might sound odd, but I think Warren Buffett is a role model for chiropractors. And I realize when I talk about one of the wealthiest men on the planet, most people have that kind of gut reaction, like, ugh, billionaire. You know, they used to be better, but certainly now the kind of class of billionaires we have are pretty unpopular. Let me explain what I mean, though. Warren Buffett, he's a bit odd compared to most the others. He's quite famous for his frugal lifestyle. He's famous for driving just regular cars, like a Lincoln Town Car he drove for 20 years. He, despite having about. I think his net worth is currently around 50 billion. He still lives in the. He bought in 1958 for about $30,000. He doesn't do what he does for money. He doesn't really care about money. He's also. He. I think he would be the wealthiest, except that he gave away most of his money to charity and he plans to give away 99.9% of it before he dies. He's going to leave his kids just enough to set them up so they're not going to struggle. But he actually wants to give the rest away, but that's all irrelevant. The thing that I really like about Warren Buffett, the thing I think we could all learn about him, has nothing to do with money. It's actually down to what he does and why he does what he does. So Warren Buffett, in case you don't know, he's made his money through investments. He is an expert. He's one of the best people in the world at being able to spot a company that is struggling. He'll buy it, work out what it's doing wrong, improve it, fix it so it's more successful, and then sells that company for a profit. He is incredibly good at it, and that's what he loves doing, and that's why he actually does it. He loves doing this because of the joy of it. He actually enjoys the. The work. It's not about the money because he doesn't go and have the massive mansion and the sports cars and all this stuff that, you know, regular really wealthy people do. He doesn't care about any of that. The fact that it makes him really wealthy is besides the point. That just means that he's able to do that and give more money to charity is how he sees it. So here's why I think we should all learn from Warren Buffett. Most of us make this classic mistake. We think that, oh, my life would be better once I get rid of this problem. And once I have fewer problems, and we think, oh, you know, as soon as I can get rid of that, I don't have to deal with that anymore. Life's going to be better. I won't have so many problems. It'll be easier. In reality, though, the research on this is really, really clear, is that a life without problems is actually a life of depression. Human beings need problems. We need purpose. We need something to wake up for and to challenge us. The reason that most of us are stressed out is because our problems kind of suck. Like, we actually, we're stuck with problems that we don't enjoy dealing with. But in reality, what you don't want is a life without those problems. You. You just want a life with better problems. That's what Warren Buffett spends his whole day doing. I mean, he stepped down as CEO at the age of 95 last year. He's not doing it because he needs to. He does it cause he enjoys it. And he really enjoys the challenge. And that's actually something that I do in practice every day. I'm not Warren Buffett, super loaded, but I really enjoy the challenge of working with patients every day. One of the things I love about practice is I get to fill my life of solving problems that I enjoy solving. They're difficult enough that there's a challenge, but it's also something that I feel I can do. And one of the ways I do that, I've talked before in the recent series about test, treat, retest, about bringing that kinesthetic awareness to people. Now, like I was saying in those videos, that's really, really good for getting patients engaged, getting to understand what you're doing. But actually, one of the things I love most about it is it makes practice so much more fun. Because I basically come into every appointment going, I don't know how this is going to go, but I know I can test, treat, retest, and I know enough about the body, enough about what I do to work my way through it. So I wake up, I don't even have to look at my list. I wake up and go, I get to see patients today. I don't even know who I'm going to see. I can't even remember who it is until I walk in the clinic there. Because every appointment is a challenge. And if you can do that, if you can fill your life with problems that you enjoy solving, then you actually get to love what you do. And that's a secret to a happy and fulfilling life. That's why people like Warren Buffett. If anyone on the planet doesn't need to keep working in their 90s, it's Warren Buffett. But he still does because he really enjoys it. I suspect that's the secret why he's still around at night as well. I suspect if he had a job he hated, he probably wouldn't be here and he would have died many, many years ago. So I wanted to share this because I was at the AECC Future Pathways event for final year and graduating students this year. This is one of the things in the keynote speech they asked me to give that I wanted to get across was this idea of, you want problems? The solution is not to get rid of them, it's to have better problems. And part of it, through doing that, is just a dedication to being useful over being liked. I see this with lots of new practitioners, but a lot of experienced ones as well. We're worried about what patients think, so we don't maybe recommend the thing that we could. So if that's something that's holding you back, if you can just make a commitment to yourself to today, I want to focus more on being useful to my patients than being liked. That will help you start to engage with the challenge. You'll come into it with more curiosity if you don't use that test, treat, retest regularly, start doing it, start challenging yourself and testing and go, did that adjustment actually work or do I need to do it again? Okay, that's worked. What do I need to do next? And as you do it, you start to get into almost more of a flow state. I've had days like this where the time has just disappeared and I don't know why. So I thought I'd mention that today because I do think this kind of Warren Buffett approach of filling your life with problems you enjoy solving, that's something that's really worth doing. If you're a clinic owner, then by all means, you might need to offload or outsource some of that as well. You might need to find somebody who can deal with the problems you maybe hate dealing with. The other thing, just to mention as well, for those of you who aren't aware, I am running a one day masterclass for clinic owners, particularly around the patient experience. So this is something that I'm doing with a colleague of mine from the us Kevin Christie's coming over. He brings the business side and I'm going to bring the patient experience side in. Together, we're going to help you build a practice that you actually enjoy working in more. You have more patients that you enjoy with. And again, you get to fill your life with the problems you enjoy solving. I'm dealing with problems every day in my practice, but they're fun problems. So I love working with patients, I love working with my team, I love my coaching work. That's really a solution to it. So have a think about that. If your life is full of problems, don't think about how can I get rid of them. Think about how can I make these better problems.