The Secret of Doing the Impossible During the Recession

I hear from different doctors on how they need to cut back on their expenses because of the slower economy and how they could not attract quality new patients because people are losing their jobs.

In fact, there are many things – it seems – one always needs to sacrifice or not do them due to many reasonable excuses.

Let me share with you my own story in this and perhaps it may help you to discover some of those roadblocks and thus you can literally accomplish all that you want during this recession.

I remember a few years back when I was looking into launching a new addition to my Un-Advertising marketing program.

I did pretty well with my existing business and of course was busy as well.

At the same time, I was also thinking of expanding my consulting activities in India and believe it or not, I was also very intrigued by the phenomenal expansion in Dubai over the last decade and wanted to start some business projects there too.

For a few hours every day, my mind was going at 100 miles an hour and I was excited. I mean — really excited! You see, new projects, new countries always have gotten me going. After all, I have worked in 12 countries and four continents in my lifetime. I like change.

But for every hour that I was excited about all my new plans, I had at least three hours where I was overwhelmed.

After all, there was so much to do right here with what I had going.

Well, it took my wife to put an end to all this wanting to do but having no time and really don’t know where to start as with the Dubai project — I had not even visited Dubai yet.

Here was what my wife said – actually did:

“Fushing,” — she calls me ‘Fushing’ which means ‘lucky star’ in Chinese—“Remember every winter when you don’t want to go skiing because you have so much work?” Yes I said.

“Remember that I always tell you to go because there will never be a time where you will have no work?” Yes, I said.

“It is the same in this case. I know that you have traveled the world without ever having any pre-planning, so why start now with having to have it all nicely figured out? It will never happen.”

“Just do it. I am booking you a trip to India and afterwards directly to Dubai. You are leaving in 3 weeks so enjoy it, do what you can do, come back with some business, or not. It is not important, just get into it and the rest will come.”

I arrived in India after not having been there for 10 years, announced to only one person that I would come, and ended up speaking to almost 100 business owners in four seminars, and had many more bookings for future.

On my trip from Bombay to Dubai I did not know what to expect except some sightseeing. I knew nobody whatsoever.

Believe it or not, I ended up speaking in a hotel lobby to a travel agent who also enrolled in my service. Wow! I found out what was needed and wanted in that increasable city, even bought a piece of real estate, and purchased a mailing list of all potential clientele.

I have been back twice since.

For at least one year, I was running around with just about every excuse under the sun why it was not a good time to start all that and all that blew — swept away with a whisk from my wife booking the flight.

Oh by the way, my addition to our Un-Advertising program also rolled out within that same year.
Many new clients are enjoying it.

So here are some excuses that have prevented people from doing all that they want and achieving the ‘impossible’:

Excuse #1 “I am not quite ready yet”

I remembered when I was working at a five star hotel in the French speaking part of Switzerland. There were at least ten other German or Italian speaking colleagues working who all, just like I, were trying to learn the French language.

When going out after work, a friend of mine was constantly turning over most conversations with French speaking people to me. I told him that he spoke French as well or as bad as I did and why he had chosen not to speak to those people himself. “I am not ready,” he said. “I want to be perfect before I speak to these people.”

I guarantee you, because I know, he still does not speak fluent French and has never gone very far in the hotel business in Europe which requires several languages to be spoken.

I can think of many of my own projects, such as the latest DVD series on growing a business, which had been delayed for years and for no reason other than “I am not quite ready – not perfect yet”.

You also do not know how many doctors I have had telling me that they need to get their shop (practice) in order with good personnel, better equipment or sorting out even such things as departments before starting to really, really market and get lots of new patients in.

Some of them – many actually – we never got on our marketing program and guess what, years later – a few years later , they still are singing the same song just a bit more sad – their business has gone down and yet they still are trying to ‘organize’ and be perfect before they market.

Excuse #2 “I am not qualified”

Sure, you do want to be qualified in your profession. But there is a difference between having to prove many times a great result before being able to trust yourself and others and just going for it with some reasonable knowledge about it

Ok, maybe a brain surgeon should have more than reasonable knowledge but even he ALWAYS does his first operation (and probably always without telling his patient) without ANY proof that he has done it successfully before.

There is nothing wrong with being a professional and having experience in any area. But NO expertise or experience will ever make even for pure purpose, enthusiasm, willingness to take risk and belief that it all could work out.

Knowledge is power, but enthusiasm pulls the switch.

Look at Mr. Obama, and every president before him. No presidents ever have had the experience before taking office for the first time.

And yet, let’s face it – we live in a great country –and having worked in 12 countries, I am an expert on this.

Most doctors I know are technicians and believe that perfection (whatever that means in their head) is needed for everything. They want to have everything ‘certified’ and ‘proven’ before indulging in it.

Most requests for being ‘proven’ block any and all progress – disorderly progress it may sometimes be, but progress nevertheless.

By the way my very, very first client, a dentist from Brooklyn, tripled his income with much less hours of work, no more take-home paperwork, after working with me for only a year.

I had no – absolutely no — experience in consulting anyone and definitely am not a dentist. I even did not know what a crown is. This dentist, my client, did notice my ‘inexperience’ (he told me a couple of years later) but was too scared to say anything and according to his words, it all did not matter to him as he was at the end of the rope anyhow.

Don’t let some quest for perfection or even outright not knowing how to go about accomplishing something stop you from going wherever it is you want to go.

Learn on the way, hire coaches and trainers, make mistakes and don’t worry too much. It will all work out if you have your eye on your goal, and if you keep going.

Excuse #3 “I don’t have time”

If I would have a dime for every time I heard that, – heck, if I would have a dime for every time I said that, the money I would have would be very phenomenal!

How do very successful people get so much done? They have the same 24 hours.

Do you realize that most people spend more time “evaluating or checking out” new ideas or projects than just doing them?

Sure, there are major organizational basics which will help any business owner to delegate work to the degree that you will have all the time in the world to get involved in any project you like.

But putting that team together starts with you.

Decide that you have time.

Do you know that it has been proven that people who spent at least an hour a day on any subject will be a total expert in about 2- 3 years?

So, imagine what you can accomplish, since you hardly need to be a total expert in anything — except maybe being a doctor. But in that area you probably are already doing what I am talking about.

If you still can’t find time after reading this you might want to force yourself to spend 30 min a day on finding out (reading) how to have time. Oh ,yes – one can learn how to have time.

Read books on this subject on having time, hire coaches, observe others, including your kids, or simply force yourself to do nothing for 30 min.

You will soon realize that YOU DO HAVE TIME. You will be surprised how fast you will have all day for whatever you want.

You think I am kidding with the all day stuff – right? Wrong! Try it, it works!

Excuse # 4 “I am overwhelmed”

This is just a different wording for the above “I have no time”.

Winners in all areas, such as sports, businesses, wars and even parenthood do not get overwhelmed.

Most doctors tell me that they are too overwhelmed with the running of the practice so that they have no time to read my or other people’s literature on marketing or on how to become a business owner who runs the practice instead of being run by the practice.

How can they expect to sell their service well and being able to retired at the age they want with the money that they want?

If you do not make enough money and yet have no time – how do you expect to expand and make more money? Realize that something fundamental in your thinking and acting needs to change or nothing in your life will change.

Doctors do not realize that their excuse of being overwhelmed is literally stopping their lifeline.

Many doctors do not want to learn outside their medical profession – heck, they don’t even want to talk to sales people ( who can teach them quite a bit about marketing and all other kinds of important stuff).

How is it possible, in a time where competition is stiff and where all services look alike to the buyer, to successfully sell one’s service, medical or otherwise, without spending some time to find out all there is to know about marketing and how to differentiate yourself?

It is simply not possible.

Excuse #5 “I can’t afford it”

Bestselling author Robert Kiyosaki in his book “Rich Dad Poor Dad” said that poor people stay poor by saying “I cannot afford it” and other people get rich by saying “how can I afford it?”

He also said that he had met no rich man who had not lost a lot of money, but he had seen many poor people who had never lost anything.

It is like with the student who is too afraid of asking a question in fear of looking stupid for a moment, and thus stays stupid his whole life.

The fear of losing money will keep you poor all your life.

The money or knowledge for any innovation, revolution, marriage, probably your studies or practice was not there either when the thought was first born.

Learn while you go, and surely do not try to save yourself to prosperity. It does not work. The money somehow will also come, just as the knowledge.

Literally all major achievements and advances on this planet came about without “having” the knowledge and money first!

So, which one of the excuses is holding you back?

Drop them like a hot potato and life will become very full – very enjoyable as well as prosperous.

Mission impossible accomplished – and it is not even all that difficult, even if it scares the hell out of you right now — as beautifully expressed here:

“Anything I’ve ever done that ultimately was worthwhile…initially scared me to death.”
(quote by Betty Bender, speaker and communication consultant.)

May you reach for the stars and achieve the ‘seemingly impossible’ in 2010!

Could you think of some other excuses which I have not covered here ? Leave me a comment!

Helmut G Flasch