The Symptoms Of Resistance (Part 2 of 2)

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Hey everybody, Matt Gillogly with the Practice Profit System, and we are on podcast number 2, where I break down Steven Pressfield's amazing book that I highly recommend that you get. It's called The War of Art. This is what I like to call— it's in the required reading pantheon of what we do.

Okay?

If you are an entrepreneur, you are a budding entrepreneur, and you want to— I got to turn my little timer on. If you want to be able to have the success that you so richly deserve, you're going to encounter a thing called resistance. Okay? And resistance is a really, really cunning thing. If you didn't listen to last week's podcast where I talk about and go over the 12 principles of resistance that Steven Pressfield talks about in his book, I recommend that you go back and listen to that before you go into this podcast. Now, I also recommend that you get the book. I don't make anything by telling you to get the book, but I recommend that you go get it. Now, let's go into— and we talked a little bit about the targets of resistance, but I want to talk to you about the signs of resistance.

Okay.

So as a reminder, resistance comes in a lot of different forms. As you get ready to go on this journey of breaking from insurance-based care, starting your business, doing something different than what is in the traditional medical industry, you are going to experience resistance, and it's going to come a lot of different forms. Okay? And that's what we're going to talk about today. It's not always going to be about you're trying to reach this goal and it becomes very, very hard. Really, resistance is incredibly cunning. And what it does is it comes at you in a lot of different ways and it's going to hit different weaknesses. So let's go into it. So when you recognize one or more of these symptoms, what I want you to do is I want you to take action.

Okay?

I actually keep these really close because I, like you, I am not perfect. I have my weaknesses. I have things that I can get distracted by very, very easily. You know, this will creep up on me. And some days when I have a really bad day of like with production, I'll look, go back at this list and I'm like, oh my God, resistance wasn't full. Full force. So there's behaviors that it's going to target resistance, but how do you know when resistance is affecting your life? These following symptoms. Think of these symptoms of a sick patient trying to figure, put together, understand if they have cancer, blocked artery, or whatever. Okay. One, when you recognize, by the way, one or more of these symptoms, take action. Okay? I recommend you write these down and print them out. You must treat resistance the same way you would treat any illness.

Got it?

So like, I weigh myself every single morning. I get out of bed, to the bathroom, I weigh myself. I weigh myself at the exact same time every single day. Okay? Last night I went to dinner with my son. I had a chicken sandwich, I had a few French fries, and I had a drink. I added a pound and a half. Guess what? Today is going to be— today is fasting day. I got to clean that out of the system. I monitor this every single day just like this. Okay, ready? Symptoms in action. The most common form of resistance takes is procrastination. You want to achieve your dreams, you put off But you put off starting. Okay? Now, before I started recording these this morning, I was meeting all kinds of resistance. I'm getting ready to go on a trip. There was all kinds of things that were kind of getting in the way. And I finally had to say, stop, I'm procrastinating. I've got to get to getting this recorded. When you want to write a book and you intend to write it, but instead of starting to write your own book, you put it off until tomorrow. You rationalize the decision as a lack of energy or time. Resistance is really— it's resistance manipulating your motivation. Okay. Inaction is a way of life. By the way, when you go to read this book, experience lots of resistance. If you have my book at home, The Anatomy of a 7-Figure Medical Practice, and you haven't read it yet, that's resistance.

Okay.

It's coming up. It's making you think there's something better to do or easier to do. Symptom 2, inaction as a way of life. Procrastinating one day is normal. Procrastinating day after day is a habit. The habit can become a personal character flaw if you let it. You have the power every day to stop resistance in its tracks. All you have to do is take the first step towards achieving your goal. If you put that first step off Again and again, you have made procrastinating a lifestyle and resistance your best friend. Hopefully they'll edit that out. Symptom 3, an unnatural fixation with instant gratification. This was a big one for me, especially when I was first starting my first couple of my first businesses. Okay? I was looking for instant gratification. I was looking for the shortcut, the hack to make a lot of money. And all that did would put me further and further behind the 8-ball. There's also instant gratification that can come in the form of sex, drugs, alcohol, television, eating, and shopping all provide immediate gratification. Resistance uses these things to distract you. Yesterday I was getting ready to do some really important work for a client, to write some things, and all of a sudden I got an idea. You know what, why don't I go see what's going on with the Chicago Bears head coach hire? And then before I knew it, I was in a shopping cart and I was getting ready to buy a Bears sweatshirt. I don't need another Bears sweatshirt. I have plenty of— I have plenty of sweatshirts, okay? And I certainly don't need a Bears sweatshirt, and I'm a Bears fan. Of course, these behaviors are not always the work resistance. The trick is to pay attention to the value of the pleasure. If your pleasure-seeking behavior was truly to experience pleasure, your gratification will be pure. If your behavior was the work of resistance, you will likely feel empty or guilty afterwards. Okay, got it? Okay. The more flimsy the gratification, the more likely is that resistance manipulated your behavior. Okay, I'm not telling you not to have sex. I'm not, not telling you to go out and have a drink or go play golf. But understand in the context of what that is. Symptom 4, a gravitation towards trouble. When you make trouble for yourself or engage in activities that are high risk, you willingly create an environment that detracts from positive work. Trouble draws your attention away from the scary art of pursuing your true nature. And this is scary art. It's scary to go out on your own. It's scary to start your own practice. It's scary to, to turn your back on insurance-based care. It's scary to do all of these things. I know because I've started a lot of businesses. I know because I've coached 4,000 people around the world. And it's scary and it's hard and it's nerve-wracking. And it's, you know, sometimes you don't sleep and all of those things. Where do you think the gray hair comes from? Okay? But when you make trouble for yourself or you start to engage in activities that are going to create trouble or high risk, you're really just procrastinating and moving away from the pursuit of your true nature. Resistance takes the shape of jealousy, emotional or physical infidelity, Hardiness or illicit substance abuse, hypochondria or compliance with poor health are also forms of resistance. I went through a period where after the divorce, I knew I wanted to start this, but I got really distracted with not eating well, drinking too much. Da da da da da da. It started sapping my energy. It started sapping my focus, and my business suffered. Once I cleaned that stuff up, my business went through the roof. If you're a longtime listener to this podcast, you'll know that. At the beginning of 2021, I decided to clean a bunch of things up. I was in okay shape, but I needed to get things really clean. Lost 25 pounds, took my triglycerides from pushing 500 to my last reading of 182. Did it without use of statins, medications, things like that. Just good clean eating, exercising, taking omegas, all that fun stuff. And my business, by the way, has skyrocketed. It's gone like that. Okay? And my ability to help more doctors has gone like that. Okay? So when you seek trouble, you seek an escape from the work required to reach your full potential. And it's cunning, by the way. Resistance is incredibly cunning. I didn't wake up one day and just start having too much bourbon. It kind of just gradually, and then some more people came into my life and all that fun stuff. Symptom 5, dramatic behavior. Have you ever known someone who acts like a drama queen? By the way, I have a no drama policy. I do not put up with drama. If you want drama, you go over there and you go do it. I don't put up with drama.

Period. Okay.

How productive is that person? Likely not very productive. When you create a drama in your life, you open the doors to distractions. Resistance loves drama because it gives significance to everything besides the important work you need to be doing. I've had clients over the years that just are— they have drama going on and on and on and on. And if they would just kick drama to the curb, their businesses wouldn't go through these peaks and valleys like that.

Okay.

A happy life is a productive life. A life of drama is a life of overinflated emotional investment. There is no room left for your spirit to shine when all you experience is drama. I had a very, very close friend of mine going through a really, really, really bad divorce. And my advice to him was cut her a check because his ex-wife was a huge drama queen. And every time he thought that he was getting close to something, she would change the stipulations and she would put in a different offer. And I said, Cut her a check, get rid of the drama. It went on for years. And he said the minute he— and he didn't want to because he made a lot of money— cut her a check for 70%, said, write her a big fat check, get rid of her. Child support's almost done because the kids are grown. And once he did that, his life got a lot simpler and everything in his life went like this. Okay? Symptom 6, self-soothing behaviors. The world is full of guidance on how to reduce anxiety and depression. To be clear, this is not an attack on mental illness. Okay? Mental illness, health disorder, are real and medications can help, but many people experience smaller and infrequent versions of these afflictions and choose to self-soothe instead of self-improve. For instance, drug use, whether with prescription or over-the-counter or illegal drugs, help assuage feelings of despair and anxiety. Instead of working to reach a stable place of satisfaction and positivity, you will allow resistance to lead you to the quick fix. Symptom 7: Playing the role of victim. My God, is that so existent in this world today. There's the 2 things that are so existent in this world today that just gets fed in a vicious cycle: drama and victimhood. Drama and victimhood, drama and victimhood, drama and victimhood. I want nothing to do with it. If you want to be a drama king or queen, you're out of my life. If you want to play victim and you're not willing to make the changes, you're out of my life. It's that simple. Okay, that goes for clients, that goes for everything. Okay, I don't put up with it. I grew up around a lot of trauma and I grew up around a lot of victimhood and I want nothing to do with it in my life. It's gone. Okay, the willingness to be a victim is a form of resistance. When you jump from illness to illness, blame your inaction on others, or always feel injured by the action of others, you are playing the victim and your behavior is passive. I don't want passive behavior. I want active behavior. No work is achieved through passive behavior. And finally, symptom 8, supporting another Another's dream. You will always experience a lack of resistance when you put energy into the dreams of a loved one. You have no higher connection with another's fulfillment of their calling, so there is no risk. For instance, if your spouse fails at his dream, your lifestyle or relationship may change, but your personal spirit is uninvolved. You may even choose a spouse who is winning the war over resistance because it makes your calling seem insignificant in comparison. Supporting another's dream is resistance giving you the perfect excuse to not put energy towards your own dreams. And this happens with a lot of employees that want to start a business. They feel like now is never the time. They feel like, oh, well, this is the busy season. We have to do this. And I'll start it as soon as the busy season ends. And then the busy season ends and a bunch of people at work quit. And so they have to take on all of their work because they feel compelled to, to the company. Well, I can't lose this job because it makes really good money. Et cetera, et cetera. So supporting another's dream isn't, by the way, just about people. A lot of times it's about a company.

Okay?

And a lot of you, what you're doing, if you are an insurance-based practice, you're actually supporting the dream of that hospital group or the insurance company. It's not your dream. Your dream isn't to get paid last. Your dream isn't to get paid peanuts for your work. Right? Your dream is to help patients and to be able to make a really good living, pay back those hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt that you have from med school. Right? You're supporting other people's dreams when you're doing insurance work and, and all of that. And look, I understand that there's a problem in society if we don't have enough doctors, what that's going to do. But the reality is, is this is your life, okay? This is your calling, okay? Unless your calling is to take care of all society, your calling, follow it, okay? Don't always do every— support everybody else's dream. So that's it for this great and amazing book by Steven Pressfield. I highly recommend that you go out and get it. It's one of the all-time classics. Again, it's The War of Art, The War of Art, A-R-T, by Steven Pressfield. He has a lot of great books out there, but this is quite frankly one of his best, and I highly recommend that you get it, read it, make it regular reading. Thanks again for everything, folks. I appreciate your amazing support as we grow this podcast. I believe we're on episode 57 or 58. I don't know what number this is, but it's pretty big. Never thought it would get this far. Never thought we'd get this many downloads and people listening actively. Thank you so much for all of your support.

As always, take a moment and review it.

You can Give us a review, write a review, post a review, give us some stars. Just go on your iPhone, Android, iPad, and go into your podcasts, the app. When you go to the Practice Profit System, scroll down and you'll see where you can leave a review. I greatly appreciate it. Have a wonderful day, everybody. Remember, be on the warpath for resistance. Don't let it get in the way. Get this book, follow through on it, and we will talk to you on an upcoming episode of the Practice Profit System. I'm Matthew Gillogly. Matthew Gillogly. Have a great day, everyone. See ya.

Thank you so much for listening. If you liked this episode, take a moment and share it with your fellow medical professionals, or post a positive comment and rate it on wherever you just listened. Now don't forget, you can get a copy of my book, The Anatomy of a 7-Figure Medical Practice, for free. Just pay $7.95 in shipping and handling, plus you'll get over $1,197 in free bonus material. Simply go to srpmedicalmarketing.com/book. That's srpmedicalmarketing.com/book. Thank you so much, and we'll see you next week.