Bill Walsh, Head Coach of the 49ers, conferring with Joe Montana.
Practice Management as a Sport in Your Chiropractic and Healthcare Business
I enjoy sports.
Well, enjoy isn’t quite right… Enjoy is too passive. I don’t think you can just “enjoy” sports.
It is an activity you play to win.
That summarizes it. You embark on a pursuit where you want to achieve something — but you may not. You may lose! So, you have a goal – to win. And not to lose.
But I think the keyword is…”PLAY.”
I will come back to this.
All Kinds of Sports
Many of you have kids or grandkids involved in some kind of sport — baseball, track, chess, even online games. Maybe you play yourself.
I recently bought a book for my grandson who pitches. It’s called Ninety Percent Mental by Bob Tewksbury, a former Major League pitcher. Reading it, I realized his tips apply just as well to running a practice — because where you work has all the elements of a sport:
- A scoreboard
- Plays and routines
- Teammates and coaches
- A playbook
- A time limit
- Goals and obstacles to overcome
Tips on Winning in Your Chiropractic Healthcare Practice
Tewksbury talks about two things that stuck with me:
The “Little Man” — the inner voice that tries to derail your performance with negative thoughts. Learn to recognize it and silence it.
Pre-game Routines — controlled breathing, visualizing success, positive affirmations. These help players stay calm and focused when it counts.
Here are two of my own:
1. Stay focused on your Goals. This means both the big ones — your purpose, your why — and the practical ones, like what you want to achieve by the end of the week. Visualize them. Commit to them.
But then…play!
2. The importance of Play.
A sport is an activity you play to win. The keyword is PLAY. Not fight, not stress —but play.
When work becomes too serious, mistakes multiply and stress fills the room. In a chiropractic practice, patients feel that. Trust me — I’ve seen it work both ways. A too-serious office, and numbers go down. A focused but playful office, and numbers go up.
Bill Walsh
When I lived in San Francisco, I was a huge 49ers fan. Before Super Bowl XVI in 1982, coach Bill Walsh arrived at the team hotel in Detroit a day early — and paid a bellhop $20 to borrow his uniform.
When the team bus arrived, Walsh — in full bellhop attire — tried to grab Joe Montana’s luggage (Montana was the starting quarterback). Montana, not recognizing him, brushed off the “silver-haired bellhop” and told him to get lost. When the team finally recognized their coach, the place erupted in laughter.
The relaxed 49ers went on to win their first Super Bowl, beating the Bengals 26-21.
Regardless of your role — doctor, owner, front desk, or bellhop — be goal driven.
But playfully.
Ed
This weeks cool tune is from the Playing for Change series: The Weight, with Ringo Starr and Robbie Robertson.
By the way, Joe Montana said this about chiropractic: “Chiropractic care works for me. I’ve been seeing a chiropractor and he’s really been helping me out a lot. Chiropractic’s been a big part of my game.”
“Chiropractic just makes you feel so much better… as long as I see the chiropractor, I feel like I’m one step ahead of the game.”