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There are so many highlights in this book that resonate with not doing everything alone and on your own and learning the value and power of leverage.
I want to share with you the GOLD that inspires me.
And hopefully you.
As a doctor through premed, med school, residency and starting my own practice -
I had to learn HOW
how to be a doctor,
how to treat ENT problems,
how to perform surgery,
how to write a policy and procedure manual,
how to do payroll and inventory
how to hire and train my staff.
How to create my website.
How to reconcile the income and expenses in quickbooks,
How to form a medical group
How to negotiate contracts with insurance companies and doctors
and on and on and on
Learning and doing all the HOW’s is Linear
Limits US to OUR own knowledge and capabilities
Requires OUR time and attention
Constrained by US
Decreases OUR freedom
When I ask myself “How?”
then
I have to be the one to find out where to learn it
I have to be the one to actually learn how to do it
I have to be the one to use my time and my life to do it
In the beginning the HOWs are necessary
I started my own medical practice from nothing.
I introduced myself door to door and gave talks.
I began with 1 staff and a few patients.
I was the doctor, office manager, marketer, every role needed
This is how doctors excel in our institutionalized training – alone and on our own – needing no one – being self-sufficient.
Before I learned and really understood the concept of leverage, I had a never-ending list of things to do.
Because …
no one could do it as good as me
I could not trust anyone as much as myself
Do you think that YOU must be the one to put in the blood, sweat, and tears,
YOU must bear the whole load to accomplish your goals?
When you are focused on doing everything yourself,
you are dramatically limiting the resources
you can direct toward the goals that matter most to you.
If your resources are limited,
your potential, your options, and your future are limited too.
You become stuck.
Wanting change. Yearning for something different.
And living the same day, month, and year.
Over and over again.
In school, getting help from others is cheating.
In business and life, getting help is collaborating.
HOW - requires YOUR time and attention.
WHO - requires someone else’s time and attention.
Do you have Who’s in your life
that could give you experience, resources, and ability
beyond what you could do alone?
Or
Are you keeping your goals so small
to make them easier to accomplish
on your own?
I have learned that
I must stop myself from
figuring out HOW,
knowing HOW or
caring HOW.
My only concern is that it gets done!
Learning the concept of leverage and implementing it,
I now have a:
- Bookkeeper who reconciles my quickbooks, income and expenses, rent roll and mortgage payments, etc.
- Office Manager who hires, trains, fires, and deals with office issues and difficult patients
- Wife and Partner who shops for me and enjoys making our travel plans
- Turnkey operators that locate my rental properties, renovate them, and lease them and manage the tenants for me
Initially, I saw these WHOs as expenses
my scarcity mindset told me I could save money
by doing all these jobs myself.
And I did save money
but I also exhausted my time and
wasted my optimal productivity.
Because we all have a limited amount of time and attention.
HOW is transactional
The more decisions you make,
the lower the quality of those decisions.
We are rewarded in life by the results we produce,
not the effort, time, torture or exhaustion we put in.
There is no reward for how much we suffer or torture ourselves.
Do you torture yourself by trying to do everything?
Doctors have a lot to learn from this.
Now I see these WHOs
not as a cost,
not an expense
I see WHOs as
- Leverage
- Delegation
- Teamwork
- Investment
- and Freedom
When aligned within your vision
WHOs are never a cost.
They are NOT transactional
They are transformational
They are an investment where you receive a return on your time, money and freedom!
I now understand that these WHOs free up my time and allow me to elevate my vision and
Allow me to invest in myself and my future.
I recommend this book, Who not How,
To help you shift your mindset from “how” to “who”
We have to Stop asking ourselves:
How can I do this?
Instead,
I want you to ask a different question:
WHO can help me do this?
WHO can achieve this goal for me?
WHO can make this happen?
LEVERAGE
Focuses on WHO - not HOW
WHO is
- About utilizing relationships and being transformed by them
- Immediately connects you to different knowledge, capabilities, experience, connections and resources
- Is not limited by you
- About getting results as effectively as possible
- Frees up hundreds of your hours to spend in better ways
- Avoids decision fatigue
- Expands your vision for what is possible because you have the leverage of a team
- Someone who loves doing the things you can’t or don’t want to do!
- Instantaneous
- Non-linear
- Exponential
Every time I encounter a roadblock,
I need a WHO, to a HOW.
I now recognize that:
- Other people are capable enough to handle many of my HOWS
- Our efforts should be focused on our greatest passion and impact so we can maximize our flow and creativity
When I focus on Who over How
I am no longer be distracted with nonproductive activities.
Instead,
I can be more motivated,
more focused,
more committed.
to doing things better and smarter,
instead of working so hard for the rest of my life.
THIS IS A TRANSFORMATIONAL EPIPHANY.
Time is finite.
We all have 24 hours.
No matter our net worth
No matter our income
No matter our jobs
I tell people they have cancer.
I see patients of all decades with serious life-threatening problems.
Every day they remind me that
We should live every single day like it were our last.
No, I don’t want to work this hard for the rest of my life.
In fact, I don’t work as hard as I did 6 years ago.
I do more of what I choose.
If you want increased freedom in your life,
you simply can’t do all the HOWs.
You can free up more of your time
by delegating or outsourcing many of the HOWS
to partners or technology.
More TIME CREATES More MONEY
Free yourself up
Allow yourself more time for your most high-value activities –
dollar productive,
creative,
goal achieving
The right WHO is always ready and waiting.
All you need to do is express your vision clearly.
I suggest you write down WHO you need.
WHO can help you achieve your goals.
And make it a point to connect with those people.
Breaking Out of the Medical Mindset serves to help you expand who you are.
What got us here won’t get us where we want to be.
WHO is waiting to change your life?
