EPISODE 424: The Margin Expander

Hey, chiropractors. We're ready for another Modern Chiropractic Marketing Show with Dr. Kevin Christie, where we discuss the latest in marketing strategies, contact marketing, direct response marketing, and business development with some of the leading experts in the industry. 

Dr. Kevin Christie: [00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of Modern Chiropractic Mastery this year host Dr. Kevin Christie. And today I'm gonna do a solo episode and we're gonna talk about creating margin in your life. And, uh, we've, we've talked about this before in the podcast, but. Had a little bit more different take on a little more expanded version of it, building out a, um, a margin expander tool for our coaching clients.

And it's something that we're really trying to focus on here at MCM is, I think sometimes with professional development, call it, coaching, whatever you want to, , it can be just more and more, more or, uh, just all motivation, you know, and, and gets things done and, and you gotta work hard. There's just no doubt about that.

But I think what we. Or trying to do for our clients. And in a lot of ways, um, succeeding in that in some ways getting better at it, but it's more about improving margin in our chiropractor's lives. And we're gonna kind of dive into what that looks like in its multifaceted and be, but before I do that, uh, you have to know what stage of [00:01:00] life you're in, right?

Um, my life now at 45, uh, married with two kids. In 20 years into practice looks a lot different than it did at 30 or even 33 or 35. Um, you know, and so you, you, you know, you, you have to understand that there is a, a really hardworking period of time of your life, and you have to be okay with that. And I, I do believe too many.

Um, and I, I, I'm not generalizing any type of, um. Uh, age grow. I think this happens, uh, in multiple generations, not just the current one, but it could have been 25 years ago, 30 years ago. But I think you see it more now just because social media is so brutal and people see the, the 45-year-old being able to do X, Y, and Z.

And so then the 28-year-old, um, the 30-year-old, the 30 5-year-old, uh, wants that as well, that kind of work life balance. But they didn't see that the person that's 55 years old just, you know. [00:02:00] Knuckles, bleeding work for 20 years, 15 years, 30 years to, to get there and then started to chip away at these margins.

And so you do have to work hard and you have to get there and, and know that if you continue to do the right things, you will. I. Be able to increase the margins in, in life and work towards it. And it's always a fluid situation, right? Like, we're gonna go over eight different aspects of improving margin in your life in this episode.

And, and it is a fluid situation, so you need to kind of audit yourself every so often to see where you're at and where you can improve that. And that's, uh, part of the, the tool we're putting together for our. Our clients to, to work through that. But I'm just gonna cover, uh, the eight, uh, kind of briefly in certain things that you can start considering yourself, how you're doing in these, um, do a little bit of a mini self-audit, um, but, you know, ultimately creating ideal margins in life.

And you've heard that word margin, maybe with profit margin, but it just meet, you know, it's, it's building a buffer, um, [00:03:00] or extra capacity to handle, you know, unexpected challenges. Reduce stress and enhance wellbeing, you know, and I think that's ultimately what we're looking for, where you have some kind of peace of mind a around, um, these aspects.

And when you don't have margin in these, and some folks as I read this off, you might have no margin in any of 'em or o only margin in one. And that's where, you know, burnout happens and frustration and, and you just become. Disenchanted, uh, with the profession or sometimes even, uh, with life. So, let's, let's dive in.

Uh, margin, you know, the first one is finances. You know, that's a big one. We, we know that. I'm just gonna dive into that one. Uh, you know, financial margin provides security and freedom to handle emergencies or invest in growth and feeling good about. How are you doing that? You know, an example would be having a, a really solid emergency fund, um, and, and have that liquidity behind you that you feel good about.

It also means you have good profit [00:04:00] margin. We've heard, again mentioned that, uh, your, your business has good profit margin. It means it has good cash flow. You know, again, example of difference between profit margin and cash flow could be, you could have confidence. In your profit margin at the end of the year, but you didn't have confidence throughout the year in your cashflow.

You could have had a couple snags throughout that year, but ultimately had, you know, more really good months and it had made up for it and things like that. But that's something that we try to work a lot with our clients is, is understanding what financial. Um, health is, and, and ultimately margin in your finances.

So that's a big one. I think we all know about that. Um, but you want to create margin. And you know when that air conditioning breaks at your house and it's $7,000, you have $7,000. That's nice. That's a good feeling. It's not fun to spend the $7,000. On the air conditioning, but it's also a lot better than, uh, putting on a credit card that you can't pay off, right?

So financial margin would be number one. Number two that a lot of people think about is [00:05:00] time, right? Extra time reduces stress and allows flexibility for unexpected needs or opportunities. Now, I think we are a little bit handcuffed here as doctors where we do have to have a schedule of treating patients.

Now, if, uh, but I'm gonna talk about time for a little bit. A lot of you. Have half days throughout the week. A couple of those that gives you some time margin to schedule things with your kids or your doctor's appointments or your errands or your health, you know, like working out. Um, so I think on the, on the overall, most chiropractors have good.

Schedules, right. Um, a lot, some half days throughout the week where a lot of people, a lot of professionals are, are busting it from like eight to six Monday through Friday, and they got no wiggle room, uh, until the weekend. And so we've got some good margin error typically as a chiropractor. Um, we get a little bit, we get a little bit, um, bogged down with the fact that we have to, you know, have a patient schedule.

So if you have patients from, you know. Nine to [00:06:00] 12 and, and two to six on a Monday, and then something happens with the kids at 10:00 AM It's a little tricky there for sure. But obviously if, if something's an emergency, you can't always reschedule patients. So you do have some margin there. But you know, as you progress in your career and you build a business that's thriving, you, you hire team and have other doctors and, and so if something were to happen or, uh, you know, most recently for me, we had our, um, our kids.

Parent teacher meetings and I want to be to there. So it, it was right in a smack dab of my Wednesday treatment schedule, but I blocked it off in advance and all was good. So there's a little margin there as far as time, and so it's important, you know, leave gaps in your schedule. Um, say no to low priority commitments.

Um, try to, try to get ahead of your schedule a few weeks in advance. Um, this is a big thing we talk about. I'm not gonna dive too much into, uh, time blocking and calendar, but that's something that we, uh, work with our clients a lot on getting ahead of their calendar and putting things on there. So time margin is important.

Uh, the [00:07:00] next one I talk about is. Is energy, um, physical, mental, right? So energy reserves help you stay productive and resilient under pressure. A lot of times when someone is not resilient under pressure, it's because of fatigue. And it's even like the difference between on a, in a football game, the, the, the players in the first quarter versus the fourth quarter, right?

Like a lot, a lot of games you'll see just completely switch in the fourth quarter. 'cause one team. Uh, it's just exhaust, like, just physically, mentally not there. And some teams thrive at the end of games. And why is that? But, um, you know, physical, some of that is mental, right? As we can imagine. So, uh, it's really important to keep that physical and mental energy margin.

You have, uh, make sure you're sleeping well, eating well, exercise, you know, take breaks, recharge, things like that. And you, you gotta make sure that you're doing enough to have energy margin. Again, that's physical and mental, and you want to have those energy reserves. To help you stay productive and resilient under pressure.

'cause you, if you're not there, if you don't have any margin of energy. Um, [00:08:00] you're, you're going to not be as resilient, um, throughout your days, weeks, and months and years. Okay. Um, the next one, uh, number four is gonna be relationships. So relationships, uh, margin and your relationships allows for deeper connections and time to nurture key relationships.

I think that's very important with your team, with your family. Uh, and even with your, your connections in the community, right? So, um, forming deep relationships in your community is going to be very beneficial. Um, you know, and so just, uh, you know, consider limiting shallow commitments and, um, dedicate regular quality time to, to loved ones.

I think the relationship side of things is very, very important, and frankly, that's one of the reasons. Our Mastermind has done so well in, in the sense of, uh, the results people have gotten within the Mastermind. And the fact that's such a high, I mean, kind of a crazy high percentage of our members, uh, recommit each year and the [00:09:00] relationship building that goes on, and they're not in a kind of woowoo way, but just in the fact that.

We know we've got good connections with a handful of members within a mastermind that are going through similar things, uh, helps you go get through certain struggles. And so I think that's been very beneficial. I know it has been for me. And then be able to facilitate two groups and, uh, do that seven, uh, weekends.

Uh, um, a year has just been amazing for my relationship margin as it pertains to the, uh, to the, uh, professional side. Okay, uh, next is gonna be work. So margin of work, uh, work margin prevents overwork and boost efficiency, right? You don't want to be overworked. You want to feel like you are not in that constant overwhelm.

And I know that's hard when you get a busy practice, but that's why you need to design it. And that's one thing we, we try to do for our clients again, is design a practice that's got healthy profit margins and is growing and then you're able, you understand when you need to reinvest. So that. [00:10:00] You and your other, your other team members are not getting overworked.

Um, you want to feel like, yeah, I have time to get my notes done. I have time to treat patients. I, I don't feel like at the end of the day, I just got, you know, run through the wringer. That's gonna happen. There's no doubt about it. But you want to path out of that, right? And so definitely want some margin.

Uh, of work. Um, next is emotional capacity, and again, I just, uh, I put together eight. You might find some other ones. Um, but as I kind of went through this, I real and kind of did some research around it, I really felt like these are, um, very good and very, um, comprehensive. So emotional capacity, emotional margin, supports re resilience.

And balanced reactions to stress, right? So I think we all can relate to that. So emotional margin supports resilience and balance. The reactions to stress as a leader, whether you're leading the whole team, family or your [00:11:00] patients, um, you need to have that, um, balance reaction. You know, you want to, you know, it's kind of keeping.

That, um, stability within all of it, right? And so you gotta have, uh, you know, maybe it's meditation, maybe it's self care, maybe it's, um, you know, uh, setting certain boundaries. But I think we all can, can relate to that emotional margin. And in times of life where maybe you didn't have any emotional margin.

And sometimes that's gonna be hard, right? There's tragedies. Um, or super challenging times. We all kinda relate to that to where you probably didn't have much margin of, of emotional capacity. And that's, you know, normal when you're going through something crazy hard like that. Um, but we at some point want to get out of that.

Yeah. Maybe going through divorce, some things like that. There's, there's gonna be a, a struggle on that emotional capacity, but you will get through that at a certain point. But then sometimes people don't have [00:12:00] anything super. Challenging in a sense, going on, and they're still struggling with the emotional capacity, so we need to work on that.

Okay. Uh, next is gonna be health. Health margin, prevents illness and supports recovery. As a chiropractor, you probably don't need me, uh, to talk about health margin and know what that is. You know what that is. You see it with your patients all the time when they don't have margin of health physically or mentally.

Um, let's not even put it in the mental side. That's kinda in the emotional capacity pot potentially there, but, um, let's just put it in physical health, you know, and then it's, uh, chronic pain. I mean, when you don't have margin of health, it's, it's a real struggle. So I'm not gonna dive too much into that, but if you feel like you need to improve that, I highly recommend it.

And then the last one, you know, I, I kind of. Was kind of, um, back and forth on adding this one, but actually more I thought about it. I thought it was great. And that is, this is gonna be my eighth one here. This is kind of the cherry on top, and that is the margin of leisure. Uh, margin in leisure [00:13:00] ensures you have.

You know, time for hobbies, relaxation, activities that bring joy, uh, you know, which kind of recharge you and prevent burnout. It's gonna help, uh, you know, with your creativity and mental health and, and just ul ultimately your sense of fulfillment outside of work and obligations. And I don't think we're doing enough of that in our life.

And I, I harken back to something like when I, I read a lot of history and you know how you read back on some of the. People from a hundred, 200 years ago on maybe the more affluent side of things or in positions of power and stuff like that. They spent a lot of time with leisure, even during crazy times.

And, uh, they would be outside and they, you know, would play croquet or they would go on these long hikes or they would, I mean, they just had a lot of leisure time built into their days. And, um, I don't think enough of us are doing that, even when we're in the grind of it. I see it a lot in my being in Bo Raton, Florida, which is a highly re retire.

There's a lot of different types of folks here, and it's [00:14:00] very well-rounded, but we have a high retirement or snowbirds. And so, especially during the wintertime, I got a lot of people down here. I mean, they, they're living the life of leisure now. They might be 70 years old. Um, but why aren't we doing some leisure activities when we're.

40 years old or 35 years old, and things that you enjoy doing, whether it's running rock climbing, golfing, exercising, uh, just going for walks or maybe it's playing with the kids, you know, I mean, it's just a, a, a million things you can do, but you should schedule that in and have some leisure into your life and that will help, um, prevent.

Burnout. So, um, just to kind of recap eight leisure time, finances, energy, relationships, work, emotional capacity and health. And this is gonna be something that we are consistently working with our clients and making sure that they are doing as best as they can as it pertains to this. But at the same time.

[00:15:00] Um, you know, very productive. You can do, you can work on all these and get better at this and still. Kill it in business and do well. And that's the thing that you have to do it, you can be highly, like Gino Wickman says, you can, um, you know, you can be very ambitious but have inner peace. And I think that's where this is, is finding that, um, the margin in life and, um, being very productive, but strategically so I hope that was helpful to get you some insights and, uh, do a little bit of an audit on where you can improve on those eight.