Our topic today is growth hiring and culture setting your clinic apart. So everyone wants to work for you today. I’m very happy to announce that I got two other experts joining me in our expert panel today that we each will be sharing ideas on growth, hiring and culture fit.

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Hello. And I want to welcome you to the AAC To The Point my name’s Lorne Brown. I’m a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine. I’m a CPA, a chartered accountant, and I’m also the author of Missing the Point- Why Acupuncturists Fail and What They Need To Know To Succeed. Our topic today is growth hiring and culture setting your clinic apart. So everyone wants to work for you today. I’m very happy to announce that I got two other experts joining me in our expert panel today that we each will be sharing ideas on growth, hiring and culture fit. And we got Mark Sklar and Aimee Raupp. let me give a little bit of a brief introduction here. Each of ’em each of our presenters, our experts today. So mark, um, he’s known as a fertility expert, um, and he has over 18 years in clinical practice, helping couples get pregnant.

Um, he’s president of the American board orient to reproductive medicine and a founder clinical director of a very successful functional medicine, Chinese medicine practice in San Diego, where he sees several hundred patients a week. He’s developed a whole online platform where he does coaching and seeing patients also, um, around the world and his YouTube channel has well over a thousand subscribers already. So welcome our Sklar to our panel. We also have Aimee Raupp with us today. She’s known as a women’s health and wellness expert and just selling author. So published a couple of books, body belief, yes, you can get pregnant and chill out and get healthy. Um, she has been in private practice for over 16 years. She’s a licensed acupuncturist, herbalists in the New York area and she has two practices with several associates. I should mention. Mark also has several, several associates, which is why there are my expert panel today.

And Aimee has appeared on the view and has also been featured in goop glamour shape alert and the red book and has received endorsements from some people you may know, Deepak Chopra, Dr. Christine Northrup, um, Ariana Huffington and Gabby Bernstein, as well as she received endorsements from me and mark as well. I don’t know for there on this graph, so we can draw in a little bit of just an overview of growth hiring culture. So I’m going to bring up, uh, a presentation and then I’m going to have mark join us for a little bit on what he’s going to share on growth hiring culture. And then Aimee is going to take us home the anchor of our panel, and she’s going to talk a lot more about, um, cultural fit. Um, so let’s get this started and talk about growth, hiring and culture fit.

So really to have, um, a busy practice, it requires continuous referrals. And in this case, referrals come from having informed admin staff, um, from having, um, informed patients, which we create. And then, um, you being an, a formed TCM practitioner. If you stay to the end, um, we’ll share some key points and where we can go into more detail, cause I’m going to do a very superficial, but big overview for you guys today. Let’s focus on the really valuable front staff. So they’re your first, uh, contact for your patient. So they make your first impression. These are the people that are answering the phones and greeting your patients and exiting when, um, uh, saying goodbye when the exit and making sure if they need to be back in your clinic for that followup appointment. And so without this valuable front staff, um, this alone compare paralyze your practice, if they’re not the right person, because they are your first impression, your staff need to be able to instill the confidence in your patients, meaning they have to know, they have to be able to communicate to the patients that you, the practitioner are the right choice.

And so in my practice of Vancouver, acupoints wellness central, we have several associates been in practice role since two year, 2000. You can do the math there for awhile. We train our admin staff to be as knowledgeable as practitioners. So basically they become like practitioners. They can’t legally treat, and this allows them to become better advocates for the medicine and also, um, to be able to communicate well with the patients and ask for answer a lot of those questions. Um, it may be beneficial to treat your staff, your admin staff, and even their family members, because if they have a positive experience, um, then they’re going to become better advocates of your medicine as well. In the hiring process, often people say, do you have benefits? Do you offer medical benefits? And your answer actually can be, yes, I know the default always is no.

And I hear some of the reasoning, um, you know, we’re small practices. We don’t have that budget for, um, external or medical benefits, but you do actually offer medical benefits. It’s the medicine you practice. So if you’re doing, um, practicing as an acupuncturist or functional medicine practitioner, um, your staff actually be probably quite happy to receive a free acupuncture from you and a discount on, on supplements, um, and free or discounted testing services that you offer. And you may want to extend that to their family as well. So you do actually offer benefits and a lot of the people that take this admin position, the salary that it’s based on often, they can’t afford your services. So even more of a value added for them wanting to join your practice. My biggest mistake was, um, in this cultural fit ideas, I’ve heard some great admin staff, but I hired admin staff that had fear of needles.

It wasn’t a question I had asked. And so, um, it was only when a patient, um, would ask if you had, have you had acupuncture before, or they’re trying to communicate the acupuncture. You could see it in their face. That there’s fear. They didn’t want it. And so that is one of the, if you’re gonna take anything away today, when you’re hiring your front end staff, you should ask the following question. Have you ever had acupuncture before and watch their face? And they’d say yes. And it’s a very uncomfortable phase. They’re probably not going to be a good fit for you. And if they smile and tell you, they love it. That’s excellent. If they say they’ve never had acupuncture, the up question is, would you like to receive acupuncture? Do you have an interest and follow that instinctual facial response. I’m telling you that if they have a fear of needles, if they don’t want acupuncture, you don’t want them being your first impression, your front end staff take it from me. I learned this the hard way with integrity. They can’t tell patients that acupuncture is for them. So let’s talk about hiring for cultural fit. And first of all, let’s talk about the common pitfalls, um, for when you hire for cultural fit.

So some of the common pitfalls are hiring nice people. I’ve done this so often, right? Looking people. I think I get along with this person, this person seems nice, but they don’t have the skillset. So don’t do that. I’ve done that. Not very good for your front end. They do actually have to do the job besides you liking them, being a fit for your practice. They must have the skill. Um, you gotta be able to clearly set out the role and the requirements of the job. So this is your job as the leader, as the owner, the owner of the clinic, um, and another pitfall is, um, keeping them on board. Um, and they’re not the right fit. And so one of my colleagues used to say, you gotta be able to pull it off like a bandaid. If you have to let somebody go. So when you notice those red flags and those first few weeks of hiring somebody, don’t ignore them. And they think it’s better to pay attention to those red flags and let go of the people quickly. If they’re not the right fit, it’s much harder to do it later than it is at the beginning. Um, you know, not delegating properly, um, and, um, not giving them proper feedback. So that’s part of that training.

So we want to hire for the right cultural fit. Um, you know, we used to hire based on resume alone, um, and who we could afford, that was an epic fail. So you really want, um, the, uh, hire for the cultural fit and make sure you know, what your culture is. So I have on this slide, what my Acumatica’s culture culture is, and it’s clear to know what yours is, and then you’re looking for that fit that they share the vision, the values that you do, and having several touch points is key for this. And I have a link there to the community library@healthyseminars.com. Um, I have a much, uh, comprehensive talk on how to hire for culture fit and how to go through the process of hiring. So you can check more out there.

And then this just outlined some of the processes that I mentioned, that’s in that community library that I’m not going to go over here. And also myself, Marc and Aimee in our coaching and mentorship program that we offer for you guys, we go into crazy amount of detail and give you documents on how to do this as well in our rise, transform impact program. And again, these are some of the steps to pay attention to. Uh, and as I mentioned, this is the rise transform impact. So I’m just going to skip this because I want to just do a breath today. So that’s at healthy seminars.com for slash RTI, where myself, Marc and Aimee are going to be putting out some more of these free little clips for you to enjoy. And then there’s also much more that we do in our mentorship program. The real question you want to ask yourself then, because so many of my, um, the people that I’ve coached and talked to, um, they’re running their man, they’re doing their front staff job and really think of it this way.

This is really how you can clarify it. Did your school train you to treat patients or be a receptionist? What is your training and where does your passion lie? Is it in treating patients or doing admin tasks, even if you’re excellent at the men task, where’s your passion. And I think for the majority of you that invested time and money into Chinese medicine and functional medicine programs, I think your passion is in treating patients, not doing the men’s side. And I’ll share with you that if you have a good admin person, you can actually see more people help more people heal because less time answering phones, scheduling, collecting money means more time that you can be, um, taking care of your patients.

Let’s talk about our associates, be clear that this is not passive income. Um, you need to bring value to your associates, but it does add or increase your income generating potential. And it gives you some flexibility with time as well. Also know that you’re changing your job role, your, your leadership role, you’re going from being the practitioner to now managing people. And so if you don’t like managing people, um, then you want to hire and you want to have associates. You may need to hire an office manager to help manage your staff because there’s the entrepreneur, there’s the manager. And then there’s take technician. And we all love being the technician being that practitioner. But once you hire on staff and associates, you now have that managerial role and all that can take away from the entrepreneurial role, the vision of the growth of your clinic.

And so once you hire associates, you now have to manage people. So please know that your role is changing. Common question that Marc and Aimee and I get is, you know, I get staff. So how do I keep them from like leaving me and compete? Um, I will let you know that the non-compete agreement is hard to enforce. And there are other ways that we do in our mentorship program where you can set up systems. So they want to stay with you. And if they leave you, you won’t be resentful. Won’t be costly as well. So there are ways to do this that has integrity, that your associates feel great about. And you feel great about, um, there is, uh, a quote by Richard Branson that says the following train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough. So they don’t. And so a lot of this is about, um, how to train your staff.

So, um, they are great and they couldn’t leave you, but treat them really well. And this is what we go through more in our program. Um, so they don’t want to leave you. This is key, and we’ll also give you our non-compete, um, contracts. So all the things that we have put into our agreements and contracts. So the key here though, is to invest in your people. And there’s a meme going around saying, I’m the CEO and the CFO are having this conversation. What happens if we invest in our staff and our people, our associates, and they leave us. And the response from the CFO is, well, what happens if we don’t invest in our staff, we don’t train them and they stay in our company. And so you don’t want uneducated and untrained people in your company. Um, they will, they will bury you, um, in David Pink’s book dry, um, he talks about what motivates professionals and you are professionals, if you are practicing medicine, and this is that whole motto treat them well, may, will stay, but basically the factors that lead to a better performance and personal satisfaction out of the following, having autonomy.

So you want to have the sense that you, you are in control. You don’t want to feel controlled. So autonomy is important. So when you have associates, you don’t want to have your thumb on them, but it’s also not a free for all, but they got to have autonomy to be happy, to want to stay with you. Um, second one is mastery, um, to be able to reach for their potential to constantly have growth. Well, if you’re a practicing medicine, you never arrived that, you know, enough, as we know, there’s always opportunity to learn and grow in, uh, in your medicine. Um, so if you don’t have that mastery, like your drip looking envelopes, then that can become very boring. And it’s hard to stay in that job. But again, remembering that in Chinese medicine, that is not the case, having purpose, feeling like feeling what you do matters that has value.

Um, this is important. And then the last one is recognition. Um, your staff have to feel appreciated, have to feel valued. This is where I have failed early in my career. When I hired admin staff and I, our associates, I’m a self motivator. I’m doing all this great work for myself, investing myself, but I didn’t make time to talk or connect to my associates. And they felt not appreciated, not valued. So I did lose some associates in the early days and I adored them and I loved them and I did value them, but I didn’t communicate it to them. And so regular, um, connecting with your staff is key because if they don’t feel appreciated, this is another thing in the research that shows that people won’t leave. If they don’t feel valued or appreciated by you in his book, he shares that you can pay people fair market value, or even 10% below fair market value.

And if they have autonomy mastery, purpose, and recognition, they will stay the same thing as you pay them way over from market value. So the monies is better than they could ever imagine, but they don’t have autonomy mastery, purpose recognition. They’ll still leave you. So money’s the, uh, it’s not the driving force for people to stay. So, um, I do want to let you know that there’s a lot of talk about the renumeration. So what do I do? Is it a salary? Is that hourly? Um, do I pay, do they pay rent? How do we do this? Right. Um, how many rooms do we give them? So really these things come down to how you’re going to set up your clinic, because how you pay them, how many rooms they get is going to be based on a what’s your clinics, Val, um, um, goal and mission, meaning that acupoints minor all employees, because we’re a full on team.

Like we are a unit, that’s one of the things we have. So they’re all employees and how you do this really is what’s the value you’re creating. So there is no right way to do this, but there is a right way for your clinic and your vision, which myself and marketing, when you go into more detail in our programs. And so I will share with you that these are some of the ways that people do it. The key point here is what’s the value you’re bringing to your associates and what value they’re bringing to the clinic. And that’s how you determine the hourly, the salary, whether it’s commission rent, et cetera. So I’m going to bring on our experts. I just want to let you know that we do run a mentorship program, a coaching program, the three of us, um, is called rise, transform, and impact. And, um, if you want information on that or sign up for some more of our three little chats, um, then go to healthy seminars.com for slash RTI. I would like to bring on, um, mark now. And mark, I would like you to share a little bit about how we can do this, um, the growth and the hiring, the culture fit so we can grow our practices and people set ourselves apart. So people want to, um, want to work with us.

Absolutely. Well, first and foremost, thank you, Lorne, for, uh, inviting me to be part of this. And, um, you know, I think this is such an important topic for all of us as business owners, for the very fact that you mentioned in your slides, that, you know, we are not taught these things when we are in school, right. We’re taught to be clinicians and doctors. We’re not taught to be entrepreneurs or business owners. So if that’s the direction we want to go, then we need to take a step back and evaluate things a little bit differently. And in the first place that we need to start to evaluate and really consciously think about is growth. You know, where do we want our business to go? Where do you want to take your business? And, and when do you want it to get there? And so I think it’s easier to break this down into five-year chunks.

I mean, certainly if you want to look beyond that to have this really big, big goal, that’s fine. But I always like for all of you business owners to then say to yourself, where do I want my business to be in five years time? And this sets the stage for how those five years are going to go for you. So once you decide how you want the next five years to go, like what you’re trying to accomplish in those five years, maybe you want to have multiple clinics. Maybe you just want to grow your one clinic to have, uh, you know, 10 providers. Maybe you want to have an, uh, brick and mortar and you’ll have an online presence as well, whatever it is, that’s in your dreams, wherever you want to take your, your business, your little baby. I want you to set that intention consciously of where you want that to be in five years and growth doesn’t happen just by setting that intention.

Although that’s the first step it has to happen in baby steps, but we need to break down those baby steps based on that big goal. So we’re going to work backwards, right? So if, if in five years we want to, uh, have our brick and mortar and an online presence, then what do we need to accomplish in those five years to get there? And how does that need to be broken down? So then what you’re going to do is you’re going to set out for yourself to maximum of three goals annually that you’re trying to achieve. And the easiest way to do that is to say to yourself, okay, well, if I want to achieve that in five years, what do I need to do this year to take me closer to that five-year goal. Again, it, it, we all have our to-do lists and those to-do lists can be overwhelming and daunting.

But if we break down that to-do list into two or three annual goals, then that’s much more achievable. And then we’re going to take those two to three annual goals, and we’re going to break those down into quarterly. What do you need to do quarterly? And then what do you need to do monthly? And that’s how you’re going to make your weekly and daily to do list to accomplish all that. Now, if you can just accomplish one or two things on that checklist every day, if you can just check off one or two things every day on that checklist, you will be moving very quickly, although it might not feel that way, but you will be moving very quickly towards that bigger goal that you’re, that you had set for yourself. And that’s really how we’re going to achieve our overall growth for the business is setting that five-year goal, breaking that down into annual goals, and then breaking that down into bite sized chunks that you can accomplish on a daily and weekly basis.

And if you haven’t done this, I really want to encourage you all to go ahead and do this set aside with time, uh, this weekend to consciously make a choice for where you want to be in five years, and then start to break that down for yourselves. It feels really good to cross off those things on the list you feel accomplished, you feel like you’re moving closer to your goal and you get there much faster than you would think. But again, it happens with baby steps and those baby steps start to jump and start to look like big jumps and leaps, which is how I’ve been able to accomplish all the goals that I’ve had. And I know that Aimee and Lorne also do something similar, which is why I’m talking about that part of baby steps. And part of growth is also hiring. So, you know, when you’re, you’re in your clinics, you’re, you’re in your business, whether it’s virtual or brick and mortar, at some point, you’re going to come to a point where you need to hire staff.

And I know for many of us, our first goal is when do we get to hire that associate? That’s going to work under us. That’s going to, um, you know, start to work with, uh, patients who are coming to see you. Well, I would ask you all to, uh, to question that and maybe even put hiring associates on the back burner. I believe that we all do need to hire for growth and to achieve the goals that we have, but we need to start by hiring managers. And I think managers are going to allow you as an entrepreneur, as a business owner owner, and as a doctor to accomplish much more because as Lorne had mentioned, you know, we, we, weren’t trained to be receptionists and to run a practice. So shedding those things and giving yourself the ability to focus in on one treating and two, being an entrepreneur to have to think clearly to brainstorm and to create for your business are going to be the two most productive ways that you can take your business further and that you can grow.

So instead of hiring associates, first, I want you to hire two specific managers. One is an office manager who’s going to help you run the day to day running of the business, who can also serve as a front desk reception initially, who can also help you, uh, facilitate all the admin stuff while you are dealing with the clinical side of things. And then the other person that I want you to hire in terms of a manager is, uh, a social media manager or a marketing manager. Those are the two most important pieces and hires that you’re going to make because they’re going to free up your time. And it doesn’t mean that you lose control of these things, cause you’re still have your overall vision driving those. You’re still meeting with those managers to make sure that they’re on point and that they are facilitating your overall goal and vision, and that you’re still on the same page and that they’re running the business the way you want them to, but you are giving up the day-to-day management of the minutia and the detail of those tasks, which again, will free up a lot of your time and energy and resources, um, and get your mind thinking more about growth and clinic, which is where it should be versus running the day to day business.

If your mind stays on the day to day business, you’re going to have a really difficult time getting out of that and growing to where you want to be. And then part of any growth and hiring is culture. And I know that Aimee’s going to go into this a little bit more, but I have two points that I want to mention when it comes to culture. The first one is that anyone you hire to bring on has to believe in you. They have to believe in you as an individual. They have to believe in the medicine that you are providing. And they have to believe in the mission, the goal, the vision of where you want the business and the practice to go. So part of the questioning, um, that Lorne had discussed is going to be really valuable in hiring someone who believes in what you’re doing, where you want to go and how you’re trying to support, uh, patients.

And then the second part of hiring and growth is going to be trust that obviously you have to trust in them to facilitate what, what you’re trying to achieve, but they have to trust in you, right? They have to trust that you have their best intention at heart that, and they’ll have to, and they have to trust in you that you have your patient’s best intention at heart. And if those two things are, uh, are accomplished, then you can grow. You can achieve whatever it is that your heart desires, as long as you have the right path, the right support and the right culture in place to achieve that.

Thank you, mark. And, uh, two things I want to mention it, cause it comes up to me is that I can’t afford to hire an office manager. I will share with you that 13 years into practice. I burnt out and out of desperation. I decided to hire an office manager. And in my mind I was like, I’m going to make this much less this year because I’m paying an office manager. Now I didn’t choose to do it proactively, like is suggesting I was forced to do it because of my health. I burnt out guess what happened? So I hired this office manager, pay her salary, the clinic grew and paid her salary and was even more profitable because it freed up my energy to do what I do well, and she runs the clinic better than I could. So I did bring that in. If you’re saying, how am I going to do this?

I was prepared to make less. And sometimes it’s three steps backwards, 10 steps forward. I invite you not to have to burn out to find that out, to have to our office manager. I suggest you do it in advance, mark. Great points. Thank you very much. I’m looking for looking forward to continuing our work together and RTI you just a great communicator and you’ve shown it and I’m glad you’re teaching it. All right. Next up is I consider Aimee like a celebrity cause she’s been on all these cool TV shows and magazines. Um, um, and she’s our anchor today, Emmy. Um, Aimee, can you please talk a little bit about, um, cultural fit and, and fitting in? I know you have a lot to say on this.

Well, and I think what the point you just made about, um, you hired the office manager when you burnt out is, was my experience with hiring an associate? Um, I was, my practice was so busy and I was doing everything myself as we all do. And it was probably seen about 60 patients a week. I did have an assistant who was an acupuncture student. Um, but my, the same time my father had gotten diagnosed with a pretty aggressive cancer and was not doing well. And they were in California. I was in New York and I wanted to start getting there and spending more time, but I didn’t really have any backup. I didn’t have any help. And then, you know, a crisis happened, I actually had to get there and I was cornered into hiring an associate and it worked out she’s still with me, uh, 12 years later.

Uh, but it was, it’s an experience that I don’t think you want to put yourself in. You want to be set up to, um, hire and have your people aligned up. Who’s going to be there to support you. Who knows the team of the team, they, the brand’s mission and who can represent you. Right. I was really fortunate that who came in and literally saved me and saw my patients and basically helped me generate continuing to generate money so I could pay my rent and be with my family, um, worked out and she’s not just an acupuncture associated of mine for the last 12 years, but she’s also one of my lead fertility coaches at this point in my online business. And I think for all of us, it’s it is that I was never in that position where I felt like I could give things up.

I needed everything I was taking in. I thought bringing on an associate like similar to Lorne’s perspective with hiring, um, admin was gonna cut my income. And the interesting thing was, I think I missed 30% of my work days that year that I brought on my first associate and my income went up by 30%. And, and she also, I also provided enough income for her that she could quit her second job. And it was, it was a tremendous learning experience for me. And I was really, you know, tends to be how I do things is I can get thrown in. And then I kind of learn after the fact, but, um, from that experience and really every big growth point I’ve had moving forward from that point on was an understanding in what I like to call synergy, right? So my, my team synergy, my personal synergy, my business synergy.

And I think that is, you know, mark made some really good points about growth and the brand and the mission and trust, and that all has to be there in order for us to experience the kind of growth that we want and deserve. But it must also start with our own synergy with ourselves. So, and by that, I mean like, what is our alignment with ourselves? What is our alignment with our goals and our mission? And if you hate doing all the admin stuff or writing the blog posts or doing the social media, and then you’re also in the clinic, and then you also have to do the superbills and you, you know, you start to get very spread thin and you’re not aligned with the true purpose. And that alignment is what is key for the growth to happen the way you want it to.

And I think we can often get bogged down in kind of what mark was talking about as well of the day to day to do is, and we’re missing the bigger picture. So for me, as I’ve grown and you know, now I have the luxury of looking back and I didn’t always do everything in the correct order following the right steps. But what I tend to say, what was always true for me was, was the synergy in my alignment with my passion to help and to serve. And so for you to understand that if like coming home to that first, that, okay, is my alignment in check, is my synergy in check and similar to what Lorne learned and what I learned, how am I showing up for me? How am I showing up for my business? How am I protecting my business? How am I protecting my health?

And that is what constitutes, I mean, now I feel like I can step back and say that and see that from my own experience. Um, what constitutes a good leader too, is, is the leading by example piece. But you, you can’t do that if you’re not clear on what the vision is, what the values are, what the goals are, and you need your own checks and balances to come home to on, I think a weekly, even a daily basis, what is, what is my mission for today? What is my purpose for today? And what are the things that I need to do to grow my business? I know in the beginning for me, uh, you know, I had an assistant who was an acupuncture student, who is now my other associate. She’s been with me as well for over a decade. And, um, and then I was cornered into hiring an associate.

And then I had assistants over the years. And then as my other parts of my business grows, I started to write books. I started to have there wasn’t so much of an online presence, um, with my first book coming out. But as the years went on, then there was Facebook and there was social media and everybody was writing blogs. And I did not like all of that organization. And so I had to, again, I actually hired someone more of like a coach type situation, a business coach who helped me align and get clear what, you know, similar to what mark is saying, what, what is, what is the vision, um, where do I want to see my business in five years? What are the things I love to do? What are the things I hate to do? What are the things I need to take off my plate so that I can achieve these goals and these desires.

And it wasn’t until I was able to do that and prioritize that. And it was an expense, but it really helped streamline my business, move things forward. And I could start to put things into their containers. And that’s what really started to allow more growth for me. But it was, it was rooted in the synergy that I had with myself first, the alignment with my goals, my visions, and then now, as my team has grown, you know, I now have a chief of operations and she basically, as a Jack of all trades, she does social media. She helps with my newsletters. She does all the things that I don’t really love to do. I like to go on video and talk and be live. So I’ve gotten very clear about what I like and I like to be in the clinic. And I like to coach, I like to work with clients.

I like that one-on-one time. Right. Everybody is going to figure out what, what they like and what’s their special split space to be in, in their business. And then I think you, you think about hiring on support and another thing that is, uh, you know, mark and Lorne both touched upon is everyone who’s ever worked for me actually started as a patient HIPAA compliant or not. I don’t really know don’t really care cause it’s worked out for me. Um, and they believe in the medicine. They believe in me. They trust me, they get me, they understand my message. Whenever I’ve written a book and had a big book launch. If I had a PR campaign, a public relations campaign, I always made the head of a campaign, become a patient because no one could understand me unless they were a patient of mine. That’s really what I started to see.

And again, that comes back to the synergy cause they saw me in my element. And so, um, for you to think about that too, of like what lights me up, what is my alignment? And then how can I convey that? And that’s so much a part of what you’re conveying as you’re growing your business as you’re growing your brand. Um, and also as you’re hiring, because then once you start to have this team, um, and, and Lorne touched upon it too, is a, without your synergy and alignment, the business doesn’t have that strong center, right? And it’s, it’s impossible to grow if you are wishy-washy anywhere in that sense of alignment and synergy, it can always change and adjust. But what are the, what are the core principles of, of your business? And then also you need from there, these clearly defined goals and expectations of your team, whether they’re associates, whether it’s your front, front desk person, your acupuncture, assistant your head of social media, what, what are the pillars of the business?

What are the core mission statements? What is the synergy and the alignment, and are we all on the same page? Are we speaking the same voice? And I find that the, you know, critical number one way to get there is you have to own it yourself. You have to lead by example, you have to believe in the practice that you are doing. You need a team that also believes in that practice and believes in you and you need regular meetings with your team. This was something I greatly resisted. I never was in the corporate setting. I always, um, laughed at the idea of having a meeting about a meeting. It would just drive me insane. Like I was like, this is just the most inefficient use of time ever. And I don’t want to have meetings about meetings. Like I will never be that person.

And I’ve realized I need meetings about meetings because it’s actually what keeps my team together. And I had a recent situation where my virtual assistant she’s my admin. She basically runs everything from a virtual perspective with clinic and online. She couldn’t make our regular team calls because of a, pre-pub another commitment and her internship. And I started to see the team fall apart. There started to be miscommunications. There started to be just, there was the synergy was disappearing. And so I had to get her on the phone and we talked it through and I was like, well, we have to find a time because this there’s going to be a breakdown in the system. We’re a small team. We have to find time every single week that everybody is on a video call and we’re hearing each other’s voices. We’re making sure that we’re, we’re on the same page, that synergy, we have to come back home and remember, what is our mission?

What is, what is our purpose here? What are our goals? Right. We have our monthly goals. We have our quarterly goals from a financial perspective, from a business growth perspective and also from a service perspective. And so without that convening on a regular basis weekly, you’ll start to see things get broken up and your team will lose its it’s synergy. And without that synergy, it’s, it’s very challenging for the growth to reach the next level. So to me, it’s about, you have to come back home to you and your own personal synergy, getting very clear, similar to what mark said about your goals, your plan coming back home to that as often as you can. And then when you have your team, it’s the same thing. I have weekly meetings with each of my associates where we go over cases, we’re talking Chinese medicine constantly, even though we’re both, you know, we’re all seasoned practitioners at this point.

We’re just, what’s our goal. What’s our mission talking the same talk, feeling, you know, understanding the case in the same ways. Super important. I do that with my team as well with my chief of operations and my assistant. And so, and then we also have a broader group call once a month with everybody and again for synergy. And so we can all see and hear and understand each other, have compassion for each other, know that our goals are aligned and that’s what really helps support that growth in that culture. And, um, you know, I don’t, I, at this point haven’t had, um, people leave the team because they feel very heard. They feel very purposeful. They feel a part of something and they’re, they’re seeing the results. So to really think about that when, um, in your growth vision of how aligned are you and, um, what is, what is your synergy that you’re bringing to your mission to your business? And then as your team grows to that, you have constant check-ins around that synergy.

Thank you, Aimee. And I’ll share with you guys that on the RTI page, healthy seminars.com/rti, um, sign up because we’re going to be offering some three little short webinars like this, where we’re going to go into more detail about hiring associates and staff and other things about growing your practice, because we’re in this, uh, when we talk about our practices and growth, we’re in this because we want to help you, our communities, we do this because we love it. And, um, and that’s, that’s the focus and that’s why we want to grow because, uh, in life we can’t just stay still that stagnant. You’re either shrinking or expanding. And so let’s expand and help heal our communities again, Marc and Aimee, thank you very much, uh, for participating in having you as my experts and enjoy doing the coaching and mentorship with you guys. And again, I want to thank the AAC to the point, um, for inviting me to offer these, uh, practice management, uh, seminars and webinars, and, uh, check in for next week. Um, cause we have another special guest on the AAC To The Point. So tune in and listen to that webinar as well.

[inaudible].

So where the mind goes, the Qi or chi follows what you focus on, becomes a reality. So this is really about where you choose to put your intention.

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Disclaimer: The following is an actual transcript. We do our best to make sure the transcript is as accurate as possible, however, it may contain spelling or grammatical errors.  Due to the unique language of acupuncture, there will be errors, so we suggest you watch the video while reading the transcript.

I want to thank the AAC for inviting me back, um, to their live stream, to the point my name’s Lorne Brown, um, a little background, I’m a CPA, a certified professional accountant. I’m a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine. I’m also a clinical hypnotherapists. I’m trained in psych K um, rapid tribes, transformational therapy, the Mercer of pure technique. And I’m the founder of healthy seminars.com offers continuing education, um, for acupuncturists as well as the founder of acrobatics wellness center. The first and I guess longest serving integrated fertility clinic in British Columbia, Canada. And I’m the author of this book missing the point. Why acupuncturists fail? Um, I want to, um, have a discussion with you about, um, ignoring or getting stain out of the negative gap trap. This trap is where, um, you lose your confidence. You feel frustrated, you feel depressed. And so, um, I promise you that for this lecture, um, I always like to set the intention. I hope to one day be remembered as the guy that keeps everything really simple, powerful, and effective. And I started his quote here is make everything as simple as possible, just not simpler. Um, and that idea, the risk of being too simple is that you may ignore it or dismiss it all together, but I will do my best to keep this simple, because I don’t like to do complicated, but yet powerful and effective.

So where the mind goes, the Qi or chi follows what you focus on, becomes a reality. So this is really about where you choose to put your intention. That is the key. And I like to use the idea of, um, the missing the tile syndrome, um, concept here. And so in missing the tile syndrome, the idea here is you have this beautiful, um, tapestry, this beautiful let’s think of our, our ceiling has been hand painted. There’s a million tiles and every tile has been beautifully hand painted. However, unfortunately in the corner of the ceiling, one tile has cracked and half of it has fallen. And because of that, the museum has closed the exhibit and notice it as worthless. And this is this idea that you have 999,000 beautiful tiles. But if you focus on that one damaged tile, then it becomes worthless to close the exhibit.

Um, I like to say when again, where the mind goes, achieve follows, what you focus on becomes your reality. So if you have nine good things happening and one bad and you focus on bad, then you suffer. Life is not great. Vice versa that if you have nine, not nine bad things happening and good, and you focus on that one, good, then life becomes great. And so it’s really about which Wolf you’re going to feed a, where are you going to put your attention? Where the mind goes? The chief follows what you focus on becomes reality. And I’m sure many of you who, who drive or purchased a vehicle in your life have probably had this experience that once you’ve decided on a vehicle that you like, all of a sudden, you see more of that make and model, and maybe even color of that vehicle, that car on the road.

It’s not that there’s any more of that car on the road. It’s just that that’s become your focus. And that’s what gets percolated up from your subconscious to your conscious mind. And you start to notice that you start to notice it more. These opportunities were always there. These vehicles were always there, but now that you’ve put a bit of focus there, you start to notice it more. And so this is how life happens. You start to experience, notice that, notice things more, this becomes the life you live, and this is why you could live in suffering and stress, or you can live in joy and gratitude keyword. There is, it’s a choice. Um, I really enjoyed a book called minding the gap and it was by, um, Dan Sullivan. He’s a coach and I really liked his metaphor. So I want to share my version of it, um, in this idea and how to stay out of this gap.

The gap is where you do not want to be. Um, he, he gives us idea that you set sail basically, and you untie your, your boat from land. And as you said, sail, you look out to the horizon. Now you gotta remember the horizon is a mental construct. There is no place where the sky and the ocean meet or in sky and land meat. It’s just a mental construct, but that’s where you set your target out. Um, those are those big audacious goals. That’s what you say, your target. When you leave the land on your sailboat and after 24 hours of sailing, you, you go down and retire at night. You have a nice sleeper below. When you wake up to your dismay, you notice that the horizon is just as far today as it was yesterday. And if you keep just focusing on horizon, then over a period of time, this can lead you to a lack of confidence, frustration, and depression.

So the antidote for this, the solution is to look backwards, to look behind you and notice how far you have come each day. And that’s the issue for a lot of driven people is they’re constantly focused on their long-term goals are focusing on that horizon, but they’re not stopping each day to do gratitude, to be grateful for what they have, where they have come. And so the gap is from the gap is the area from where you are today to where you want to be. That’s the gap. But what we have to remember is there’s also a position from where you are today and where you’ve come from, and this idea of, of practicing daily gratitude, where you look for things that you can be grateful for. It basically forces your mind, your brain to search for the last 24 hours of what has been going well for you.

And this is the antidote to staying out of the gap and enjoying life more. Uh, there’s this quote that if you cannot feel gratitude, then you cannot be happy. And so, so many of us still suffer, even though you have material possessions, I’m talking about the people that have, you know, if I, if I just have this, then I’ll be happy. Well, they have this, but yet they still don’t find the joy in their life. And the key quote here is if you cannot feel gratitude, then you cannot be happy. And I will say I was one of those people, very driven, um, that kept on achieving, but never finding that fulfillment. It was always short-lived. And I’ll talk more about that. And again, the key here is to state of gratitude and the solution is daily practice of gratitude. And let’s talk a little bit about how gratitude works as well from a scientific perspective.

Um, remember that this is your free will, gratitude is a choice. And it’s one of those things that I like as a mind hack. I like to do mine tax. And again, I’m always looking for these simple things. So what I’ll do is I’m just going to read a little bit, um, from some research here. Um, so again, on gratitude, um, many of us are always looking toward external factors. We’re always looking outside of ourselves to experience joy and happiness. When really it’s all related to internal work. This is a lot of the stuff around conscious work that many of you may have been exposed to. This is something science is just starting to grasp as well as shown by research out of UCLA mindfulness awareness research center. According to them, having an attitude of gratitude changes, the molecular structure of the brain keeps gray matter functioning.

It makes us healthier and happier when you feel happiness, the central nervous system is affected. So your whole autonomic nervous system changes, which many people say is the subconscious mind, the autonomic nervous system, you are more peaceful, less reactive and less resistant. Now that’s really a cool way I’ve taken care of your well-being. Now I suspect when you’re practicing gratitude, I suspect that you’re going into, um, alpha brainwaves. So when you’re in high tech high beta brainwaves, that’s that state of stress overwhelm anxiety you’re suffering at that time is that nice, um, state of detach relaxation. And when you’re an alpha brainwaves, basically you become resourced. And again, through research, what they’re noticing is that when we’re in this state of gratitude and in the state of alpha brainwaves, we now are able to access more of our mind that is normally not normally available to us in particular.

They say the research that we’re able to access more of that creative mind. And so when you’re in that stress response in high beta, you’re likely focusing on the problem. And when you go into gratitude, it has a shift in perception, and it takes you from focusing on the problem to now focusing on the solution. And that’s when, when you get into gratitude and alpha brainwaves, you now are in inspired thought, and that’s when one of these solutions inspired thoughts pops into your mind for what you can do. And you get really excited about I’m just going to read another little line here from some of the research. Um, scientists have discovered that feelings of gratitude can actually change your brain. So they’re measuring things and seeing the brain structure changes, synopsis that fire together wire together, and feeling gratitude can also be a great tool for overcoming depression and anxiety, more important now than ever.

Right? Furthermore scientists have discovered that the heart sends signals to the brain, your thoughts and feelings of gratitude create a physiological response in your body. So if you want to feel happy, practice joy and gratitude. If you want to feel happy, practice joining gratitude, it’s not going to be this relationship. Or when you make this so much money or you have this health, that’s going to make you happy. It is an internal experience. And remember, it’s not happiness. That brings us gratitude is gratitude. That brings us happiness. And so if you practice a daily, um, basically if you cannot feel gratitude, you cannot be happy. You can not feel happy. And so the idea of practicing gratitude daily is, um, you revisiting the past 24 hours and some people will find this a challenge by the way, but that’s okay. That’s just showing you that you’re not practiced at gratitude. And it’s taken a little bit of effort to get those wires to fire, right? Those synapses to fire. Last little piece from this research in short practicing gratitude seems to kick off a helpful self perpetuating cycle in your brain, perfect momentum, right? Counting your blessings now makes it easier to notice and count them later. And the more good you senior life, the happier, more successful your life becomes.

So in Shawn anchor’s book, he’s an author on the happiness advantage. He talks about a study where they take people that are basically, um, uh, you know, think of negative and positive. Um, people I’m losing the thought of the word. That’s not the word that he used in the book. Um, but it just, I just lost my head and normally it does it, but it, it, it will be okay still with the exercise that we’re going to do. So he has two groups of people, um, and one group, um, they’re, uh, both groups actually are asked to count how many images they see in the magazine and it’s timed. And this was a magazine made for the study. And what they notice is the, um, people that, um, I’m going to call it negative again, negative thinking, right? Things don’t go well for the victim thinking versus the people that are lucky enough, good things happen to them.

Um, the ones that were in the negative thinking group, they took longer to complete the exercise, then the positive mindset group. And that’s not the terms of use by the way, but it will work for what we’re doing. Now. What was interesting is they all had identical. So what’s the time difference. And in each magazine, there was an image and right under the first image, it said, um, if you’re reading this to finish this exercise, now go to the second to last page. And so on the second to last page, it said, show this line to the supervisor and collect $250. So these people would look at the picture, read this, flip it and hand it in. But there was a whole group of people that went picture, missed it, picture, picture, picture, and it took longer. This is that idea that I mentioned about seeing your make and model of the car on the road, where the mind goes, the chief follows what you focus on, becomes a reality.

There’s only so much information. The conscious mind can take five to seven bits of information. Your subconscious is a supercomputer. And so if you’re in that negative mindset, it’s only going to percolate up to you. That’s matching what you want. Like when you’re looking for that car, all of a sudden, you’re now noticing that car. So if you are of a positive mindset, that gratitude, you start to see more opportunities. They saw that line right away and were able to collect $250 by completing the exercise quickly where the other group were not able to read that line. They opportunities are always there. It’s there for everybody. So what’s the difference. The difference is what have you put your focus on? And gratitude is a way to start focusing on opportunity and what’s going well in your life. And when you do that, you start to notice more. And because you were experiencing that, it’s an inner experience. You’re enjoying life. And they’ve shown that it’s happy people that become successful. It’s not successful. People become happy, happy people become successful.

And there’s that quote, successful. People are happy, happy people are successful. We often think if I get this, then I’ll be happy. And that is not how it works. Pleasure is temporary success. That kind of success, material successes, pleasure is, is only temporary. And it puts you in a vulnerable state as well, because you’re always needing an external environment to be a certain way for you to feel a certain way. And in conscious work, this is about inner work and that you’re feeling good despite the external environment. So that’s a skill. Can you deny the five senses and what’s happening now, um, and bring up that feelings of joy and like attracts like, and this is how happy people do become successful. So happiness is more about the joy and striving for your potential than the actual end result. So enjoy the journey versus focusing on the destination idea.

So it really is less about the external world. I’m John anchor, again, the happiness advantage and before happiness, it was two books. Uh, one of the studies that he looked at is they looked at wanting to raise success rates and happy, uh, when you try to raise success rates. So in corporations that try to raise success rates. So profit margins, um, revenue, you know, on the material side, they saw happiness would flat line, but yet when they raised happiness inside these organizations, success would rise dramatically, educational and financial. And so again, happy people become successful in same thing for your organizations, happy organizations become successful.

So it’s a cause and effect. And we can take this from a Newtonian level to a quantum level. So on the Newtonian level cause and effect, we are using the external environment to make ourselves feel gratitude. So we’re looking at what has happened. So in that gap, minding the gap exercise, we’re looking behind us and in the last 24 hours, what can I be grateful for? Um, that’s cause and effect, and that’s on a Newtonian level and it’s very beneficial. And that’s where the research is has been done on the causing effect is kind of a quantum idea where you’re starting to feel gratitude in advance of what you desire and want before it’s actually manifested. And this is more beyond the scope of our discussion today. Um, but in that quantum level, you are now, um, using your imagination to create what you want in your life and you’re causing the effect.

And so, you know, um, to, you know, to, if you want to be healthy, then start to feel whole and complete, right? If you want to be happy, then start to feel joy and gratitude in advance of what you see physically, right? And so that’s causing the effect and that’s a quantum level idea that people talk of and that I love. And that’s more on a manifestation level. And today we’re really focusing on cause and effect where you’re looking at, what you can be grateful for, what I invite you to do now, while you’re listening to this, this is really simple. Um, but I would invite you to take a moment and write down three things that you’re grateful for. Oh, this was the part I, you know, it’s, I’m going to share this now. Cause I didn’t add this to the slide with the Shawn Achor lecture, um, research that he talks about, where they looked at those two groups of people where they looked at the magazine, this is very key.

So I’m glad I remembering this. Now it kinda ties it in together. So a quick, quick summary in that study, one group took much longer than the other because they missed it where it said, go to the supervisor and collect two 50. They miss that opportunity and just focused on the pictures. What they did is they took the pessimist. That was what it was pessimists and optimists. That’s how they kind of define the groups. So they took the pessimist group and they got them to write down for 21 days, three things that they can be grateful for three original things. And so every day they would write, not think, but write down three things that they be grateful for. And what they notice is not only did they see changes in the brain structure, so the brain wired differently, but these people started to feel more optimistic and start to notice more good things happening in their life that like attracts like, and so this is something that can be learned.

So wherever you’re at now, I would suggest, and I do this for my patients all the time. I suggest a gratitude practice. I’m going to actually tell you what I do is I recommend and a really nice book. So I buy more of the expensive books, too, a nice leather bound book. This one has like a strap to it. So if you can see that, so some people do a little hill Roy, but I do it on a nice binder because these are your gratitude, your, your joy, uh, books. So it’s, it’s precious. I’m giving it the respect, right? It’s precious. So it’s in a nice expensive book. And each day I write three original. Now the key to this is to take your time, write something you’re grateful for. What’s gone well in the last 24 hours or more. And write that down and allow yourself to feel the gratitude.

It’s the feeling that’s key. If you just write three things down, but you don’t bring up the feelings of gratitude. It won’t be very beneficial. That feeling is chemistry and the body feelings are chemistry, right? And so, and this has an effect on your electrical and hormonal nervous system, right? And so you want to bring up the feelings of gratitude. This is key. And if you have something that every time you think about it, it brings gratitude. You’re a welcome to write that down each day, but now you need four things because it has to be three original each day. So if you want to carry something forward or more than one thing forward, that is fine, but you need three original things. Now what happens if it’s difficult, then be grateful that it’s difficult because if it, if you were super great at it and you’re still suffering, um, that’s unfortunate, right?

Because what else can we do? And there’s lots of we can do if you’re finding it difficult, that is feedback that you don’t have that wiring for gratitude, because if it’s wired, it’s instant, it’s easy. Like you can just bang, bang, bang, and really feel it. Then, you know, it’s worried. Cause that subconscious is like a super fast super computer. So it would be easy and fast. If it’s not easy, then you are now building those synapses. Right? So time you think about it, you’re wiring your brain differently. Like we saw in that study that Shawn anchor quotes in his book, they noticed after 21 days that the brain changed and they felt more optimistic. They noticed more gratitude. They were experiencing more joy in their life. And so write three things down. I recommend an a, an, a book, the research didn’t do it based.

You do it in your head. They didn’t do it on your iPhone notepad, um, or on a sticky note. Um, I recommend a nice book and sometimes I sit back and I reread these things. I go back and I reread, um, what I put for gratitude. And I kind of have two practices, the Newtonian one where I look at what I’m grateful for in my life. And then the quantum level of cause and effect. I share to be grateful for things that have not manifested yet, but I believe we’re going to her. I’m convincing myself. They’re going to start to really imagine and dream that. And gratitude is powerful because gratitude is a form of receivership. When you are thankful when you were receiving something, um, or have received something you’re grateful, you’re thankful. So gratitude puts you in that, to that receiver, um, state.

Um, and that’s kind of basically what I want to share about how to stay out of the gap in today’s world, um, with the media and social media usually bombarding you with unfortunately negative thought patterns. Um, it’s really important for your mental health to develop practices like meditation and daily gratitude to really calm that nervous system, to take you from that high beta stress and anxiety and overwhelm into that alpha detach relaxation, right? To take you from that sympathetic fight or flight survival mode into parasympathetic, the rest and digest, um, system and your body will thank you for it. And these are just really simple mind hacks. So gratitude helps you stand in the gap by thinking about what has gone well in the last 24 hours is still healthy and okay to have to be looking into the horizon. It’s great to dream big.

Um, two things I would add to that, remember to keep looking where you’ve come from. That’s key. Otherwise it’s easy to fall into this gap of frustration and lack of confidence and depression and, um, causing effect, not only having the horizon, these big goals, but taking time to imagine, to meditate, to dream what it would be like if it was fulfilled now not thinking how you’re going to do that. I didn’t say that. Just thinking if it was happening now, what your dream is, if it actually has occurred, what would be different? How would you feel? How would you behave? How would you act? And you’re training your body, your autonomic nervous system, which I understand to believe is your subconscious system. Um, you’re training it and it now has that expectation. And then these opportunities start to show up in your life to help you materialize that in the physical plane here.

So thank you again for tuning in. Um, if you like these kind of topics and talks, I suggest you check out my book missing the point and, um, you can check out my website, um, Lorne brown.com. It has links to, um, where to get my book. It has links to my website that I found in healthy seminars where you can great, great con continued education for PDA and use. It also has, um, uh, a library there of our past 10 years of lectures and links to my clinic. So you can check all that out. And I want you to know the next week you want to tune into, to the point with AAC. Cause we got Jeffrey Grossman from acupuncture, media works, and he always has great business pearls to help you grow your practice. Thank you for listening. And I’d love to hear your feedback in the chat.