EP046: Excelling Your Practice

Welcome to the Perfect Practice podcast where we share the most innovative strategies to help you build a successful functional medicine business, attract your ideal patients, serve your community, and get paid what you're worth. Each episode is packed with practical steps that you can take to immediately grow your influence and serve more people. Our mission is to share golden nuggets from successful practitioners, technology experts and innovators from around the world. Your host, Sachin Patel is a functional medicine and success coach, international speaker and best selling author. He's calling in all his favors to bring this information to you so you can create your perfect practice.

Hello and welcome to Perfect Practice. I hope you're having an amazing day. I hope that you know this week has brought you a ton of joy and prosperity and you're excited for an amazing weekend ahead. Today I wanted to talk about a few different topics that come up in my clinical coaching and practice coaching that I thought would be relevant to you so that you can, you know, chew on these ideas a little bit, see if they're coming up for you. And hopefully some of these things are gonna land so that you can make the necessary changes. So first and foremost, what I wanna remind you not to do is speak your past into your future. And what I mean by that is, you know, I was having a conversation with a practitioner and, and she was saying, you know, I'm so all or none. And so what she's referring to and what she's saying is very important because she's speaking her past into her future. She's making a statement that she's all or none. And she's projecting her past behaviors into the present moment, which then projects them into the future. And so guess what, you keep creating that same reality for yourself. You know, your thoughts become things, your words become, become your world. So it's important for us to choose our words wisely. And I can only imagine if somebody's thinking, somebody's saying something, I can imagine what they're thinking. So usually there's a filter between what we think and what we say. So our thoughts are usually amplified compared to what we actually say. So make sure you're very conscious of the words that you're choosing and the future that you're speaking into, or even the present moment that you're speaking into. So the way we changed that for her was we said instead of saying I'm this or I'm this, this, you could say in the past, I've been like this and here's what I'm doing moving forward, here's how I'M going to change that. Right. Our past is essentially raw materials, and we can use those raw materials to make better choices for ourselves and speak a better future into our reality. Number two thing I want to talk today about is vulnerability. And vulnerability is so huge, you know, especially as healthcare providers. It's very challenging for us because we want to be a good role model for our patients. And we feel like we've gotta put on this show that we're impenetrable and we're perfect, and that we have amazing health. And we never feel tired, we never feel exhausted, we never feel under the weather like some of our patients might. And sometimes even to our friends, it might appear like we've got it all together, when in reality, we might be struggling a little bit because of a lack of community or a lack of time or maybe a lack of feeling. Understood. I can imagine that most of you as functional medicine practitioners. Practitioners, probably don't have a lot of people that you can articulate your ideas to, you know, at a cocktail party, let's say. So you feel like you're on an island. And so be vulnerable. Let people know some of the challenges that you have. Let your patients know or your friends know some of the challenges that you have and how you're working through those challenges. Because they probably have those same challenges as well. And they're gonna feel more likely, they're gonna feel more vulnerable and more likely to share, you know, how they're feeling with you, because you feel the same way. And it's gonna strike up a conversation, and it's gonna humanize you, which is an important element in your practice. And it also allows you to stop feeling like an imposter. Cause if you feel like you have to feel perfect and healthy and vibrant and all these things all the time, and you don't, because that's the reality of the world we live in, then guess what? It's gonna prevent you from putting your message out there. So let people know you understand what they're going through, because you're going through it yourself or you've gone through it yourself, and now you're on the other side of it. The next thing that I want to talk about today is this phrase, which is, who gets results working with us? And so when you're inviting people into your practice, when you're inviting people to work with you, here's the thing with functional medicine, the end result is actually not dependent on the doctor as much as we'd like to think it is. It's actually dependent on the patient and the compliance of the patient, as well as the likelihood of that patient taking action. How we multiply the value that we deliver to our patients is the through the patient's behavior change. If the patient comes to our office, they pay us for advice, but they never take the advice. Then the value of that advice, although we got paid $500 or whatever it is, the value of that advice is actually zero. And remember, your business should be a value generator, not just, you know, a machine that takes in money and doesn't deliver any value in return. So instead of disqualifying patients, you can say, here's who gets the best results working with us, and this qualifies them. So when you're giving your presentations, when you're giving a podcast or giving a webinar, you know, have a statement like this. Who gets the best results working with us? And you could say somebody who's dedicated, somebody who is willing to do what's necessary. Somebody who's going to change their diet and wants to change their diet. Somebody who's hungry for change, Somebody who's teachable and coachable, Somebody who doesn't make excuses week in and week out. Somebody who has the resources financially to invest in themselves. You know, it's okay if you don't, right? Maybe you need to save up money, just like some people have to save up money to buy a car, or some people need to save up money to buy, you know, that television or whatever it is they want. You know, if they want it, people will save up money for it. And of course, you can also give, you know, financing options for people. Other people that do great are people who have supportive spouses as opposed to sabotaging personalities. You know, people who have a deep sense of purpose or are working towards finding a deeper sense of purpose. Because let's face it, there aren't pills for all these ills that people are coming into us with. There's no pill for a healthy relationship. There's no pill for a healthy work environment or a physically healthy work environment, as well as an emotionally healthy work environment. Some things we need to address head on and we can't supplement our way out of them. So really qualifying people by letting them know what changes are necessary for them in order for them to get the best results. And if they're willing to make those changes, then they should talk with you, because the last thing this profession needs, the last thing any of us need, are people who are not getting results. Using functional and lifestyle medicine that just slows down the entire mission, because that person is going to tell X number of people that this doesn't work. Right? And that's going to sabotage your practice, which means you're going to have to spend more money on marketing, more money on convincing when instead, if you bring the right people who are guaranteed to get results, because, let's face it, we should see, we can't guarantee results because the patient determines the outcome, but we can get pretty close if we choose the right patients in our practice. Next, I want to talk about energy vampires. Now, sometimes your patients can be energy vampires, sometimes your vendors can be energy vampires, sometimes your friends can be energy vampires, and sometimes your teammates can be energy vampires. So it's good to do an energy audit periodically just to make sure that, you know, the people in your life aren't draining your energy. And instead of having you spiral downward, every interaction that you have in life should spiral you upwards. Okay? And that's ideal, right? That's not necessarily the world that all of us live in. Sometimes I have draining relationship or conversations, I should say, not relationships, but conversations as well. I very, very carefully manage my relationships. The people I speak to on a regular basis is carefully curated because, you know, I need to safeguard my energy and what I focus on. And I also want to feel better every day. So I want to have interactions with people so I feel better after those interactions, not worse after those interactions. Because if I have an interaction with somebody and I feel drained after it, well, guess what? That affects the rest of my patients as well. So be careful with that. A story that I had come up with a client is this client was actually doing discovery calls, and they're doing complimentary discovery calls for their patients, but they were doing these at 9:30 in the morning, morning four days a week. And so they would go on discovery calls before they saw their paying patients. And it would be a mixed bag, right? You get some people because these people were not properly qualified. You get some people that, you know, can't afford it. Some people that are not willing to make the changes, some people that are not ready, you know, to take that leap of faith, if you will, into your practice. And now you're starting your day on a negative note, okay? And you're at least not controlling the morning of your day. And that's really the most important time of your day. It sets the tone, you know, for all your patient appointments and so on and so forth. So what I suggested to her is, you know, spend those two hours a week in a dedicated time slot where you're Offering these consultations, and it's not going to negatively affect your interactions for the rest of the day. And have these later on in the day so that you know it's not impacting your patient care when people are coming to see you. And so, you know, safeguard your time, guys. Safeguard your energy and your sphere of influence because we don't want people negatively affecting you because that negatively affects the next patient that you see. Or it could negatively affect your relationship with your wife or your husband or your children. Who knows? We don't want to bring this baggage home with us. And so we want to get rid of people that are draining our energy so that we have energy left over to do the things we love and to spend time with people that we love and operate as an A player, which is my next thing I want to talk about. So you want to make sure that your team is full of A players and your practice is full of A players. And, you know, Steve Jobs talks about this quite a bit. He talks about A players only wanting to work with A players and A players, they basically protect the tribe. They protect the company from B players and C players. A players are leaders who love to be led. A players value their health deeply. A players stick to their commitments. A players love when the team wins. A players look out for each other. A players love to grow. They love to be measured. They love to stretch themselves. They are content, but they're never satisfied. So they stay in this growth mindset and continue to evolve and get better and better and better. You know, they also know that the extra mile is an inch and how much that means for clients and also their coworkers and teammates. A players love their customers to win first. Okay? They're looking for how we can, how they can help their customers win, not how they can win all the time. A players leave their egos and titles at the door. A players pay it forward. A players take ownership. A players ask for help from other A players. Okay, that's another thing. Like, A players will never ask for help from B players. A players don't play around, but they do have fun. Okay? That's the other thing. And A players build legacy organizations. And A players change the world. If that's the type of business that you want to have, if that's the type of organization that you want to grow, then you've got to have A players. And that sounds like the perfect team member, doesn't it? And so your team should be loaded and filled with A players, and you should be an A player. So I hope that you fulfill those requirements as well. Next thing I want to talk about is how an empire crumbles. So my friend Alex Charfen actually posted this, and he said that an empire crumbles from the inside, not from the outside. And this is why having the right team in place is super vital to your organization, super vital to your message and your mission. If you haven't watched this movie, which I suggest that you do, it's called the First Men. So it's a movie that Ryan Gosling is in, and it's all about Neil Armstrong and how Neil Armstrong goes to the moon. And he's got a pretty amazing story, actually, so it's worth watching. But I'm watching the movie as a metaphor for my life, for my business, and maybe you might as well. And what I realized is that every single person that's responsible for putting that rocket ship on the moon has a vital role. And if they don't play their role properly, the entire ship could crash and burn and crumble into dust and it could be a public spectacle. So it's important for us to realize that empires crumble from within. Right? It's the inside forces that take down empires. And so it's important that we preserve our legacy as an organization by bringing the right people on board. And then the next last thing I want to talk about today is preserving your time and qualifying your time. So if you're doing complimentary discovery calls or, you know, complimentary appointments in any regard, then you want to qualify your time. And I talked about that a little bit, which is who gets the best results working with you and, you know, the people that work with you. You should have these people qualified in terms of, are they financially qualified, are they emotionally qualified, are they time qualified, are they geographically qualified? Let's eliminate all the excuses that they could possibly have. Do they have a supportive spouse or not? Because if they don't, then they're not going to get the results that you want for them, that they want for themselves. And guess what? Ultimately, the person that gets paid gets blamed. So hope these helped. You know, hopefully none of these are things that are holding your practice back or down and that you can have amazing results in your practice by implementing these things that we talk about. So, with love, with gratitude, at Satchin Patel, have an amazing rest of your day.