May 2006

Your uniqueness is your key to success

by Dr. Robert Schiffman

As a leader in your community and the world, you are accountable for all the things that you do and how much you believe in chiropractic. It's essential to set the stage for chiropractic in your city or town ‑‑ and to the uttermost parts of the earth. It's your responsibility and duty to do as much as you can to see the masses. These people are in desperate need of chiropractic care. It's a matter of death...and life!

What makes you unique? The answer should be your secret to success. It can be anything from life experiences to your gifts.

Try this little exercise of taking about five minutes to write down everything special about yourself. Also, go around and ask the people you respect for their input. How does your uniqueness translate into superior service? In a lot of cases when you're a professional, doing something uncomfortable can teach you ways to overcome fear. There are methods to help other people take the action and stay focused on achieving their goals. So many people want to be successful and reach their potential goals, sometimes you might have a hard time taking action and staying focused. You must always try to find the right tools, the structure and the accountability to accomplish your most important goals.

One of your most important goals should be to market yourself and chiropractic. When you present a good product many people will want what you have. As leaders you must always present chiropractic to the world to the best of your ability. There are hundreds of ways to promote chiropractic and yourself. You could create a promotional kit to send to the media and to prospects. There are places where you could speak, for example business groups and functions. Another way for promoting yourself would be to send monthly postcards, e‑mails and or faxes. A friendly call or note will also help to promote your office and help people to remember you.

You can do any of these things, so it isn't necessary to struggle. They only thing to remember is that you can do them all, but not all at the same time. The best way to avoid feeling overwhelmed or frustrated is to create a marketing plan and follow it. Make sure that your plan is specific, measurable and attainable with some risk. This plan should also include goal dates and deadlines. Remember that a personal coach can always help you with support and encouragement that you need to continue and maintain your goals and plans.

Make sure that you reach high. After you've made your plan, it's then time to climb up! It takes courage and commitment to climb to the top of your mountain. Focus on what it is that you really want. Take notice of all the fears and concerns that come up for you when you think about promoting yourself and chiropractic. Implementing tools that create leadership readiness will enable you to validate your capabilities and competencies. This will only help your future leadership positions.

As a leader, you should be able to position yourself with the critical skills and behaviors necessary for the competing demands of the day. The traditional command and control leadership requires a new approach for leading and supporting diverse skills and capabilities and will be necessary to meet the challenges of global competition. You must be able to discover the skills, competencies and behaviors you currently demonstrate. How do you handle the problems, challenges and people interactions? Do you handle them the same way that you handle your pace of events, and activities? Find out why are you motivated to certain actions.

I'm here to help you focus on what you want and this will help you to develop clarity as well as discover possible resistance and potholes on your road to success. You need to continually ask yourself what you want and what you see for your future. Success begins with simple questions such as these that can elicit an array of responses and begin the process of focusing, exploring and assessing and responding.

Having worked with a number of clients,  I realized that some of them had never taken the time to look at what they really wanted for their companies or themselves. As a leader, most of what I do to get people to change is to ask, listen and seek to understand. One of the greatest gifts that you can give is the gift of caring and understanding. So often we have people who charge ahead with their own agenda, before they take the time to pause and get input and ideas from the group they are supporting.

When change is necessary, there'll be resistance and fear associated with the changes needed to achieve goals. The good news is that you can turn your fear into a positive energizing force for success. Every fear is an opportunity to grow. Follow your plan, take action, make it fun, be unique and remember to reach high.

(Studying under CS Gonstead ignited Dr. Robert Schiffman's passion for chiropractic. The Life University graduate's career accomplishments have won him much recognition, and he is one of the most sought‑after speakers in chiropractic today. Dr. Schiffman ‑‑ founder of the Get the Big Idea Seminars and Coaching Programs ‑‑ continues to maintain one of the world's largest volume practices. Contact him by calling 877‑251‑0181, or visit online at www.getthebigidea.com.)