Dr. Lane’s Thoughts VII

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Dr. Lane’s Thoughts VII


1) If you have some kind of emotional or psychological disorder (whether real or imagined) don’t go announcing it like it is a point of pride or a trait, like being Catholic, or having brown hair.  No one wants to know that you can’t or won’t cope with life in a normal way.  No one wants to know that you have predisposed all your lapses in judgement to a condition that no one can see.  


All you have done by announcing your condition of paranoia, being a germaphobe, depressive, or anxiety is publicly announce that your company will be intolerable either sometimes or all the time.  You are really telling others that being with you will be more painful and involve more work than spending time with other people.


Also, you have given yourself a crutch or excuse to fall back on for being a jerk.  Find a way to deal with your problems outside of finding ways to include other people into your self-image.


2) I think it is great to be in business for yourself.  While it is good to have a business plan and a 5-year plan, and a budget, and staffing with your vision of success (plus all the other things business writers put as the title of their newest book and business schools say to MBA students) you must have a product that people want and need.  All the planning and writing and talking will not replace the usefulness of espousing a useful product at a good price.


With that, let me tell you that if I ever had a business plan for my offices, it is long-lost in a drawer and not likely to be updated.


Business is what happens after you open the door on your first day and how you handle opportunities that come along or making opportunities and taking advantage of them as they are created.  Sticking to a specific preset idea of what your business is is a formula for failure , or at least a way to lose income streams as they come along.


3) Don’t just love your business and what you do, also love the people who are your clients and patients.  Love who they are and enjoy them as people as unique and special as you.


Who are my patients?  They are mostly blue-collar, largely Spanish-speaking, mostly truck drivers, usually Hispanic and Black, and many have tattoos and piercings.  


Would that be scary to you?  I would be bankrupt if I didn’t see them as what they are: family-oriented, hardworking, honest, kind, resourceful, and highly intelligent people (could you drive an 80,000 pound vehicle in traffic every day for 10+ hours without being very smart?).


Did I choose these people to be my “ideal patient”?  Is this what I planned when I grew up in my family home in Buffalo, NY?  No on both counts but I have embraced what I have and a smart business person does the same.


4) As a note to #3, the idea of the “perfect patient” that trade magazines for chiropractors are always writing about or telling you how you can attract more of this unique species – the fabled “ideal patient”.  Complete bullshit.


The perfect patient is someone with great insurance that pays well for each visit instead of the tiny amounts (Their version of 80% of what they decide should be the standard fee, which is a made-up amount of money the decide the care is worth).  A chiropractor must make each patient into the “perfect patient” by doing great work and giving them incentive to return for additional care.


There is a really awful magazine they is sent to my office (I don’t pay for it and I can’t stop the company from sending them to me since there is no subscription list) call “Chiropractic Economics”.  It is the brainchild of a chiropractor and his extended family to sell ad space. Simply, if you buy an ad, you can write and article about your product or service as if it is something other people would like to know or purchase from you.


The articles look like real journalism until you realize that each is written by the staff of the company selling the products in the magazine.


On a sidenote: “Chiropractic Economics” tried to sell me on “continuing my subscription” at one point until I BEGGED THEM TO STOP SENDING ME THE MAGAZINE.  They didn’t stop sending it and they no longer ask me for what is nothing more than a donation to the family (since they get paid by the advertisers who write the articles).


5) On the subject of chiropractor trade magazine and newsletters – they are mostly garbage.  While other medical professions have magazines devoted to improvements in diagnosis and treatment, chiropractic trade papers is about attracting more of the fabled “ideal patients”, marketing to these non-existent patients (and how much you suck for not doing a better job of using on-line ads, improving your website, or improving your SEO), and how to push more supplements and extras to improve your income (because chiropractors get a very poor reimbursement from insurers).


All I do is treat in a manner that I believe in.  No desperation in my office.  Just real care to real people who need my care for a little while and then they can get on with their lives.


6) Donald J. Trump is the sad result of ordinary people who have gotten so desperate that they will accept the worst imaginable clown in office for the sole reason that he offered them a chance at employment.  Hillary Clinton did not promise jobs (probably because she really couldn’t promise anything that did not exist) but Trump promised what he really can’t deliver and that promise was better for millions of Americans than no offer at all.


Some of the people who voted for Trump were willing to tolerate the unimaginable insults and poor opinion he had of all people who are not male, white, and rich. These citizens made the internal compact to themselves that if a job was connected to the person who degraded them the result would be worth the price.


This election was testimony to the many people who want to support their families and the resilience of the human spirit to withstand the unimaginable to survive.


So far the jobs that Trump is offering is tax incentives to companies to keep their jobs in the USA.  This is not the creation of new jobs but the means to keep jobs from leaving the US. It has simply kept more money in the pockets of the stockholders and owners of the companies who receive the incentives.

7) We all spend our days with people who range from normal to emotionally ill to possibly mentally ill.  They may be our colleagues, our friends, and even our families.


I am not an expert on this topic and I question even the people who claim to be experts on the topic of psychology and illnesses of the mind but this is my shorthand for telling the difference between emotionally ill people and mentally ill people:


Mentally ill people are very concerned about themselves and all conversations revolve around them and their needs and thoughts.  They only have a mirror to concentrate all the world around them to reflect only on them and what they see, feel, and think. Many can be helped with medications but that only makes them tolerable to others but doesn’t stop their thoughts.


Emotionally ill people do not want to discuss their issues but your problems and issues are their principal concerns.  They will grind you down with their (usually unsolicited) aggressive talk about what you need to do to improve yourself and the things around you.  They have no mirror to see how others perceive them.


Both emotionally ill people and mentally ill people can be discriminated from the general population who may also be interested in themselves or others by their INTENSITY.  They can’t enjoy life or let anyone around them enjoy life because of how much they need to suck the joy out of any room they are in.


Both the mentally ill and the emotionally ill can be triggered to descend into their worst behavior by people, places, things, and events which are of no concern to the majority of the population.


Do you meet people like this in your life?  Maybe you can’t see it in its disguises: helicopter parents, vain bosses, Donald Trump (an emotionally immature narcissist), young adults in delayed adolescence, abusive spouses and boyfriends/girlfriends, hypochondriacs, many celebrities, and artists (with or without the quotation marks around that word).


8) Be happy that you can move easily and without pain.  In my office I see people who have slowly lost this capacity.  Many of them have lost this ability through the slow process of obesity, poor diet, and substance abuse.  It doesn’t take long for them to look for easy answers (like seeking disability payments and letters from my office stating diminished physical ability) and then they make claims that they are unable to find employment because they are disabled.


I am glad that this is the smallest percentage of my patients and not ones I see every day.

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