April 2008

Get TEF and build your practice

by Dr. CJ Mertz

No matter what your current practice level, time, energy, and focus (TEF) are the differentiating assets that separate champions from everyone else. When you learn how to harness and properly reinvest your TEF, anything and everything becomes possible.

In real time, time, energy and focus are so closely associated as to be indistinguishable. However, knowing the fundamentals to maximizing your TEF, provides a sizeable advantage toward building your practice. Over the past 20 years of coaching the most successful chiropractors in the world, the advancement in our understanding of TEF has perhaps been the greatest influence of all.

*** TIME. There are several forms of time that combine to create a brand new dynamic.

Preparation time happens before you arrive to practice. Stretching and strengthening your body, expanding and clearing your mind, reconnecting with your higher purpose and reviewing your plans and goals are the fruits of preparation time.

Prime time happens when you're actively serving patients. The ability to provide world-class service and produce world-class results is the function of prime time.

Transition time happens when you're not with patients in practice. Your habits of remaining on-purpose, organizing and promoting, determine the success of transition time.

Training time happens two or three times per week with your team, and challenges you to stretch yourself and your skills. Role playing specific actions to cause higher performance is the goal of training time.

Life time happens away from the practice through faith, family and friends.

How you see and value time will be revealed by how you spend your time. Are you mastering or mismanaging your time?

*** ENERGY. I have observed through building several thousand high volume practices, that it takes at least 20% more energy than the goal you have set to achieve.

For example, if you adjust 200 per week and your goal is 250 per week, 20% more than your goal equals 300 per week. This means while you currently adjust 200 per week, you would need to exert 300 per week of energy to reach your goal of 250 adjustments per week. It's no wonder most chiropractors are not reaching their goals. In order to grow you must play to the level of your goals and dreams, not to the level of your schedule book.

High energy and commitment are virtually synonymous. Waking up on time, consistent strength conditioning, rigorous ongoing study, faith-filled prayer and meditation time and superior food and drink choices are just a few of the commitments that lead to increasing energy.

As our clients grow they always comment on how much "easier" it feels, and how much "more" time it seems they have to focus on the things that matter most. These are clear signs of constructive growth, where success is capable of multiplying upon itself.

Are you harnessing you energy or feeling it drain from you?

*** FOCUS. I have come to learn we are always focused, the question is simply what are we focusing upon?

The two keys are the "targets" and the "duration" of your focus. Most of my beginning clients truly do not know what or where to direct their focus. Therefore, their focus appears to be "scattered." Your stamina or duration to remain powerfully focused is greatly influenced by the correctness of your target of focus.

Never settle for focusing upon things that matter the least, and leave in jeopardy things that matter the most. Really solid focus is a product of trust…trust in chiropractic principles, trust in your process and trust in yourself.

Great focus is also a function of your ability to "anticipate." Like a great chess player who is looking several moves ahead while remaining in the present, so it is with a champion chiropractor. Without anticipation, proper focus will always be delayed, which leads to under performance and less optimal results.

Does your focus look like a powerful laser beam or an old flashlight?

My clients often tell me that my help in improving their TEF is what produces a 10 times return on their coaching fees. Procedures are critical, but great procedures with mediocre TEF leave unfulfilled practice goals. This year, seek the advice you need to radically change the effectiveness of your own time, energy and focus. You can build your practice, serve more people, and double your income simultaneously.

Start seeing your practice growing week after week, your phone ringing off the hook and your collections increasing by thousands of dollars per month. It's the natural conclusion to improving your TEF. Don't hesitate to ask for help. If the champions are getting it, then let that be the encouragement you don't have to do it on your own.

(Dr. CJ Mertz is the founder and head coach of the prestigious Waiting List Practice chiropractic training organization. See the WLP 300 patient per week opportunity on the back page of this issue. For seminar tickets and information on WLP coaching services, please call The Waiting List Practice at 877-TEAM-WLP).