July 2006

The difference that makes the difference

This is a guest article by internationally known speaker Anthony Robbins...

Two years ago, while attending a medical conference, Dr. Richard Baker of Waterford, Michigan received an urgent message: "Call home." He contacted his wife immediately and for the next 10 minutes he listened in disbelief as she described how his practice had burned to the ground earlier that day during a horrific ice storm.

At his first opportunity, Dr. Baker returned home and sprung into action. He and his staff posted a sign on the front lawn that read, "Our team is on fire." Then they went to work: reconstructing patient records; finding a temporary office to work in; and drafting plans for a new office. The entire community, especially their patient base, rallied behind them. Exactly one year later, Dr. Baker and his team opened a beautiful new facility, and today, the practice is doing better than ever.

In every person's life, there come times of ultimate challenge, a time when every resource we have is tested. A time when our faiths, our values, our patience, our compassion, and our ability to persist are all pushed to the limit and beyond. Some people use such tests as opportunities to utilize the resources they find within themselves to achieve at an even higher level, while others allow these experiences to destroy them. Have you ever wondered why people react differently to the challenges life throws at them? Why do some people, like Dr. Baker, use challenges as opportunities to reach new levels while others, in spite of having every advantage, end up with lives that feel unfulfilled?

The answer to that question has been an important focus in my life and has allowed me to help literally millions of people from all over the world to achieve at levels they never dreamed possible. The difference, I discovered, comes down to how we communicate with ourselves and the precise actions we take in these difficult times. It is not what happens to us that separates the failures from the successes; people who succeed do not have fewer problems than people who fail. It is how we perceive what happens and what we do about it that makes the difference.

When Dr. Baker's office burned down, he had a choice in how to interpret that experience. He chose to consistently tell himself that this had happened for some reason‑‑that there was a purpose and, potentially, something to learn and gain from the experience. Because he was able to tap into his own set of beliefs and values that served him, he was able to direct his life down a path of success rather than getting stuck in the moment when the tragedy occurred

We see examples of this all the time. Have you ever heard of Pete Studwick? He was born with no hands and no feet, yet he successfully ran Pike's Peak, the most difficult marathon in the world. Or think of Candy Lightner, the founder of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. She took a terrible tragedy ‑‑ the death of her daughter, who was run over by a drunk driver ‑‑ and formed an organization that has saved thousands of lives. All of these individuals mastered the ability to communicate with themselves in ways that served them ‑‑ and so can you.

Long ago, I realized that success leaves clues and that people who produce outstanding results do specific things to create those results. I know that if I precisely duplicate the actions of others, I can reproduce the same quality of results they have. The process of studying what successful people do and then applying it to your own circumstances is known as "modeling." It is a highly effective technique that allows us to learn from and build on the challenges and successes of other people to produce similar results.

The point is that if it's possible for others, it's possible for you. It's not a matter of whether you can produce the results that another person can; it's a matter of strategy, that is, how does that person produce the results? If you have enough desire, virtually anything any other human being does can be modeled. In most cases, a person may have spent years doing trial and error to find the specific way to use his/her body or mind to produce a specific result. But you can step in, model the actions that took years to perfect, and produce similar results in a much shorter amount of time.

This holds true in chiropractic, as well. Those with the greatest success in their practices have learned to model effectively. By using this technique, not only are they able to utilize strategies that have a proven history, they also preserve the commodity none of us ever seems to get enough of ‑‑ time. Fortune Management, the chiropractic management consulting company that I helped start, is built on these principles. To model the most successful practices, we became detectives, asking a lot of questions and tracking down all the clues about what produces excellence. Today, Fortune Management works with more multi‑million dollar practices than any other management company.

Building on the successes of others is one of the fundamental aspects of learning. In the world of chiropractic, every advance follows naturally from earlier discoveries and breakthroughs. In the business of chiropractic, practices that don't evolve from the past and those that don't operate with state‑of‑the‑art information are doomed.

Modeling is certainly nothing new. The reason many people fail, however, is that most model on an utterly haphazard and unfocused level. Phenomenal resources and strategies are everywhere. My challenge to you is to start thinking like a modeler, continuously seeking out the patterns and actions that produce outstanding results. If someone is able to create an extraordinary, financially successful practice, the question that should pop into your mind immediately is, "How precisely does he/she create that result?" Your next step is to take massive action steps and fully immerse yourself in modeling. Join Dr. Mike Reid at one of our Fortune Management practice mastery seminars across North America. My sincere wish for you is that you continue to search for excellence and that you are able to use what you learn to create your ultimate vision for your business, and for yourself.

(Anthony Robbins is the foremost authority on the psychology of leadership, negotiation, organizational turnaround, and peak performance. Since fathering the life coaching industry more than 25 years ago, he has directly impacted the lives of more than 50 million people from 80 countries with his bestselling books, audio programs, public speaking engagements, and live appearances. Robbins has addressed such distinguished audiences as the World Economic Forum, British Parliament, and the Harvard Business School. Robbins has been honored by Accenture as one of the "Top 50 Business Intellectuals in the World" and by American Express as one of the top six business leaders in the world to coach their entrepreneurial clients. Mr. Robbins is also co‑founder of Fortune Management, a practice mastery and personal empowerment program for Chiropractic business owners and their teams. For more information on this elite and exclusive coaching opportunity, seminars or speaking engagement, please contact Dr. Mike Reid at 800‑781‑8127.)