Over the past few weeks, I’ve had several conversations with doctors who were frustrated by their practices and how they currently see themselves and their businesses.
And what I noticed is that it came down to either they were burned out OR checked out of their businesses.
And the reason why I bring this up is in both cases either, doctor burnout or doctor checkout, are dangerous places for the business to operate in.
Let me first explain what I define as doctor burnout.
Almost all business owners at one point or time, have experienced burnout. It comes from taking on too many activities of the business, overworking themselves and not delegating properly.
Most of us have felt this, but the key is identifying it and then developing a plan to step out of those activities or delegate them to other team members. Some doctors LIVE in this state of burnout every day, and stay in this state for weeks, months and in some cases, years.
You can hear it in their voices when they communicate.
I usually have more sympathy for doctors in burn-out state, because I know it’s from their own belief system, but once their mindset is fixed, they move past it, and in most cases, it rarely comes back.
On the other hand, doctor checkout, is an even more dangerous place for the business to operate in.
I am a huge fan of MMA. And one of the things about the sport that is well known is that once the fighter looses his or her passion for what they do, their days are numbered. They cannot afford to walk into a cage to fight someone when their mind is no longer in the game. That’s how they get hurt.
Your business is no different.
Name anything in life worth having and think about IF you’ll be able to keep it once you check out mentally.
- Marriage
- Relationships
- Friendships
- Most Jobs
I recently suggested to a client to start working with a business coach, and after 30 minutes of conversion, he finally admitted to me that he was pretty much done. He knew that it could help, he know that it would help his business but that he didn’t care anymore.
“I just don’t care anymore.”
And there you have it. I actually thanked him for finally being honest with me.
Now the humorous aspect of this was that this same business owner expected his team to care.
He expected his staff to care, when he didn’t.
He expected his marketing team to care, when he didn’t.
He expected his patients to care, when he didn’t.
And what was even more surprising was that he thought no one else knew that he had checked out.
But the signs of doctor checkout were all there.
1. Decreased growth and profits
2. Inability to keep solid team members
3. Keeping staff members on board that should have been fired months/years ago.
4. Lack of vision and leadership
5. Reactive business decisions VS pro-active ones
I want to end on this. It is okay for any business owner to decide they don’t want to do what they are currently doing anymore. Change is apart of life. Our interests and desires change as we go through life. Business models that once worked, also go through changes.
But once you checkout and stop growing, it places your business in a weak position, and its days are usually numbered.
