Private Practice Success Newsletter

February 2006, by Lynn Grodzki, LCSW, MCC (Master Certified Coach)
www.privatepracticesuccess.com

One minute summary: Small business ownership can weigh heavily on your shoulders. You may feel tired and overwhelmed by constantly carrying your private practice. It is all up to you. Making the practice successful financially, becoming more of a public person, building a reputation, setting and holding your policies and standards, learning to plan and organize your time—all of this can wear a normal person down. This month, we explore the best strategies of resilience for the small business owner.

Rethinking Resilience

My husband is an architect and he is designing a new house, this time for us. He has been treading back and forth over the long, narrow lot where we will build. “What are you doing?” I ask.

“I am trying to gage what is under the ground, what we will find when we begin to excavate.” The weight of the house he is designing is substantial, and the ground must be able to hold it. Weight is a factor not just when building a house, but also when building your practice.

The foundation that keeps a practice standing includes your level of resilience. Even if you are unsure of your resilience as a business owner, you may have identified resilience in other areas of your life. In her prose poem “The Invitation,” Oriah Mountain Dreamer writes:

“It doesn’t interest me where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children...I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.”

If you can find resilience in any shape or form in your life, you can transfer it to your work as a business owner. This month, I want you to rethink resilience and have strategies for going the distance in your private practice.

"Adversity can either break you or make you. The same hammer that breaks the glass, also sharpens the steel." Bob Johnson

The strategy for small business resilience is three-fold:
1) Structure
2) Repetition
3) Resources

First, consider how to use your business structure to help you to stay resilient. When you have to make cold calls to potential referrals sources, are they done on a random basis, or are they simply a part of your monthly agenda?

When you have to review treatment reports, bills, invoices, or any other paperwork, do you do this sporadically, between clients, or do you have a time set aside each week for administrative tasks?

Give structure to the important tasks involved in running your business. Have a routine and a method to your non-client hours. Structure is a formidable ally that many entrepreneurs cite, when explaining how they have become successful. Use your calendar, computer software, organize your desk and your time, so that you build in more and more structure, to firm up the foundation of your practice.

“The distance between resilience and nonresilience is usually very short. It's the distance between our ears." Roger Crawford

One way to work smarter, instead of harder, is to repeat what works. Repetition is a great strategy for resilience. Here are the steps for a repetition strategy.

First, identify what is working for you in your practice. What is going well with your networking, administration, organization, clinical work, level of enthusiasm, advertising, outreach, community involvement, training, profitability, or collaboration?

Next, decode what is going well. Describe each aspect as though it were a how- to manual. Then decide to repeat successful aspects of your business, using structure. This is how a larger company keeps its integrity and brand, by knowing not just what to change, but what to continue doing.

"When I look at the world I'm pessimistic, but when I look at people I am optimistic." Carl Rogers

Finally, be ready to bring in resources to help stay strong and resilient. When you are feeling overwhelmed, disappointed, or out of ideas, you need external means. My favorite resources are other people, especially those who have already achieved what I want to do. I believe that every small business owner needs a board of advisors, an informal circle of diverse professionals you can call on to bolster you with ideas, advice, enthusiasm, support, or the occasional kick in the butt. Cultivate mentors, colleagues, and role models for this. Let others help you to succeed.

Here is one way to create an advisory circle:

A. Select four to six people for your advisory circle, including yourself. Who should be a member of the group? It will help if everyone is in business. You might include some therapists, but also consider having a lawyer, an accountant, or a management consultant. Each person should be someone you respect, whose advice and experience will be relevant and someone you would like to give your support to, in turn. When advising, everyone agrees to speak from a place of the highest good, without personal agenda.

B: If the group has six members, everyone agrees to meet once a week for a minimum of six weeks. Each meeting will take an hour.

C: The format of each meeting is simple--a different person takes center stage, each time. This person takes thirty minutes to present his or her professional situation and answers any questions other members may have; then the group gives their best advice for the remaining thirty minutes. During the advice-giving thirty minutes, the center-stage person must sit quietly. The key word here is quietly. Breathe. Take in. The members of your circle will now give you advice, direction, and suggestions, based on wanting the best for you personally and professionally. They will talk about your situation amongst themselves, while you just listen.

D: The value of advice is hearing it cleanly, with detachment. You will hear many ideas that you may want to downplay or resist. Listen with an open mind and reject nothing at this time. Take notes. You are free to accept or reject whatever you like later, but first consider all the possibilities without excuses or explanations. When the time is over, thank your circle for their efforts. The next time you meet, it's somebody else's turn and you become part of their advisory circle.

Lynn's Upcoming Presentations

March 17 & 19, 2006: Washington, DC
Psychotherapy Networker Symposium
Friday March 17th: "Expanding the Possibilities: What Therapists Can Learn from Coaches"
Sunday March 19th: "Evolving Your Practice"
To register contact: www.psychotherapynetworker.org

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Books by Lynn Grodzki, published by WW Norton. To order, click on each book.

	The Business and Practice of Coaching By Lynn Grodzki and Wendy Allen (2005) An estimated 30,000 coaches have entered the coaching profession in the past five years, but unfortunately, the majority report they are unable to earn a living wage from their coaching services. This book shows you how, using a coaching approach to the business of coaching.
	Building Your Ideal Private Practice By Lynn Grodzki (2000) The best-selling guide to what you need to do and who you need to be in order to have a highly profitable, personally satisfying private practice. Often called the "private practice bible" this book has become a resource for tens of thousands of your colleagues.
	The New Private Practice:Therapist-Coaches Share Stories, Strategies and Advice Edited by Lynn Grodzki (2002) A groundbreaking look at the profession of coaching through the eyes of 16 successful therapist-coaches who tell you how to become a coach, what to charge, and show you how they coach their clients.
	12 Months to Your Ideal Private Practice: A Workbook By Lynn Grodzki (2003) This planned, motivational workbook will help you build the practice you desire. The workbook incorporates fresh ideas, new exercises, further skill sets and much more to give you a direct experience of being carefully coached by Lynn, month-by-month, for a full year.

More next time,

lynn@privatepracticesuccess.com
See the website for additional articles, information about individual coaching, and upcoming classes.