Mind Your Business

Not too long ago I had an evening away from the family, so I checked myself into a swanky hotel right in the middle of the hustle and bustle of the closest “big” city. It wasn’t long before it turned 7pm, and I was staring out the window, unsure what to do with myself. I could go for a walk, grab a bite to eat, or stop into my favorite bourbon bar and order a glass of Old Forrester, 1920 edition. 

Easy decision.

I suited up, put on my bourbon-drinking attire, a “Whiskey Helps” shirt, pair of jeans, and flats. I grabbed my purse, my mask, and off I went. As much as I like to make friends sometimes, I was there for one thing. Bourbon. Oh, and maybe a little beer cheese.

The bartender took my order, and within minutes I was enjoying myself. The bourbon, had just enough rye to burn my nose a little when I took a whiff, was precisely how I remember it—the bananas foster of bourbon. 

Moments like these are when I get my inspiration– quiet moments, the ones where your brain starts to wind down, and you forget about the eight-hundred-seventy-two things you have on your to-do list. I tried extremely hard not to think about anything work-related, but it always comes; it’s always there.

My mind drifted to the thirteen staff members I had coming up the next night. My plan was to take them to a nice dinner, stuff them full of tacos and margaritas, and tell them how much I appreciate all their hard work. Then get them a little drunk. 

I thought about the moments of sheer genius our office has at times and the ones of pure chaos. I thought about whether other business owners felt the same way and what they did about it. About that time, a gentleman sitting beside me asked,

“What do you do?” I told him I own a counseling business and various other ones, and he looked utterly confused. 

“But, you’re a counselor, right?” he asked. 

“I’m actually a retired counselor, but I still own the business. I have other counselors who are employed and see clients. I don’t,” I explained. 

Still, he looked so confused. It was evident by the crinkled brow and the long pauses. 

“I started my business by seeing clients myself; as I grew, I saw fewer and fewer clients until I was able to work in purely an owner’s capacity,” I said as I attempted to put the poor guy at ease. 

“Oh, I get it, so you’re like an entrepreneur now,” he came back at me. 

He got it.

Yes, I was an entrepreneur, and it wasn’t by accident. I did this on purpose. Many of the healthcare entrepreneurs I coach in my membership program are on a mission to seek out this same direction for their lives, but there’s a but.

But, they can’t find their way out of the day-to-day operations. They’ve become their own company’s bottleneck, linchpin, and congestion point. They positioned themselves in there so nicely that should they be removed, the whole business could and probably would implode.

It means they have multiple business diagnoses in the ORDER level located on the Healthcare Hierarchy of Needs.

This means that at least one or more of the five core needs that make up the ORDER component in their business are damaged and need fixing. And it all starts with awareness. As a healthcare provider you know as well as I do that you can’t treat what you can’t name.

With that being said, we have to name some things in our business so that we can apply treatment interventions and make it better. 

The bartender made his way back around and picked up the last part of the conversation the guy next to me was finishing up. 

“I’ll mind my business and wait my turn,” he said while he polished the clean glassware.

“Oh, that’s good. I’m going to write that down,” I mumbled as I picked up my phone and made a quick comment in the Notes section. 

Why did that catch my attention?

Because so many of us really need to mind our business, and not in a bad way.

We need to look at it closely without fear of what’s to be found. We need to pay it some mind to diagnose its needs and treat its problems. When we become so enmeshed in day-to-day operations, we begin to lose sight of the perspective we need when we call ourselves an owner. Minding our business a little better will help us become the entrepreneurs the guy at the bar was talking about.  

Cheers to entrepreneurship.