Why Provider-Owners Should Think Like an Entrepreneur
Life comes at you fast.
With shifting paradigms, emerging technologies and evolving patient needs, it is vital for providers to embrace an entrepreneurial mindset to navigate challenges and harness opportunities.
Life comes at you fast.
In today's fast-evolving healthcare landscape, the role of providers extends beyond the confines of a traditional healthcare practice. With shifting paradigms, emerging technologies and evolving patient needs, it is vital for providers to embrace an entrepreneurial mindset to navigate challenges and harness opportunities.
If you embody an entrepreneurial mindset, you’ll enjoy the fruits of your labor and make your life easier as a provider-owner. Most of our clients don’t think of themselves as entrepreneurs when they start their journey with us. Adopting some of the key mindset differentiators will benefit you, your team, your patients and your bottom line.
A bonus of thinking like an entrepreneur is an openness to seeing opportunities and creating multiple streams of income without a ton more work.
“The important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. Remember, the greatest failure is to not try. Once you find something you love to do, be the best at doing it.” – “The important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. Remember, the greatest failure is to not try. Once you find something you love to do, be the best at doing it.”
Below are some entrepreneurial attributes.
Disruption of Norms. Entrepreneurs are willing to disrupt established norms. Most entrepreneurs don’t see work as a means to an end; they view it as an opportunity to challenge the status quo and create innovative solutions to problems. One example is the internet: it’s changed how we communicate, do business and gather information.
Our clients disrupt the status quo in healthcare by committing to a patient-focused approach, bucking against the constraints of insurance companies, employing a revenue share model, or by moving away from allopathic medicine into the complementary realm to address root causes of pain and disease.
Resilience. Resilience is defined as the ability to bounce back from setbacks and persevere in the face of adversity and obstacles. What makes entrepreneurs more resilient is a connection to a strong sense of purpose for their work. Sound familiar?
Support Network. Wise entrepreneurs cultivate a support network that includes mentors, coaches, therapists, peers and family members to provide emotional support and encouragement whenever needed so they’re better equipped to handle the ups and downs of business ownership.
Growth Mindset. If you’re not familiar with the work of Carol Dweck, here’s the quick and dirty: Someone with a growth mindset views intelligence, abilities, and talents as learnable and capable of improvement through effort. On the other hand, someone with a fixed mindset views those same traits as inherently stable and unchangeable over time.
What this means for you as a provider-owner is you’ll see opportunities for learning and growth even when things go sideways, as they occasionally do. Think: global pandemic and the need to switch gears quickly. The willingness to be agile and change with the times during the pandemic helped a lot of businesses through uncertainty and economic downturn.
Failure as Learning. Along the lines of a growth mindset, entrepreneurs see “failure” as learning opportunities. Mistakes are healthy and signal that old ways are being challenged, and new, more efficient ways are emerging.
Seeking perfection is the death of creativity, and guess what? Perfectionism is a fixed mindset. There are always opportunities to learn, so seeking perfection ought not be the goal.
A few more attributes. Understanding that your big results come from your smaller combined efforts; discipline is a prerequisite for sustainable success; adaptability is key to longevity (adaptability is different from resilience in that one is able to adapt and adjust to circumstances and create new solutions to challenges); and finally, having competition means you’ve got great research subjects nearby.
One of our clients, Dr. Andrew Orr, is a women’s health specialist in Brisbane, Australia, and his growth mindset and ability to see problems as opportunities helped him solve a serious challenge and create a lucrative additional stream of income.
Several years back, there was a six month backlog for nutritional supplements. Rather than wring his hands, he seized the opportunity and started his own line of herbal medicine and nutritional supplements. Now he doesn't worry about his patients having access to what they need, he has control over quality and formulation, and he has a steady additional revenue stream.
Entrepreneurship is like gardening. Just as a gardener carefully tends to the soil and their plants, an entrepreneur nurtures ideas, opportunities, and resources to help them grow and flourish. Both require patience, attention to detail and the ability to adapt to changing circumstances. Like a gardener, an entrepreneur must have a long-term vision and be willing to take risks, knowing that with the right care and perseverance, their efforts could yield bountiful rewards.
How can you develop the mindset of an entrepreneur? There’s not one singular way, but we recommend you start by accepting that you are an entrepreneur. A logical next step is to check-in with your network. Are there other practice owners in your circle that you can confide in? It’s easier to thrive as a practice owner when you have the right kind of support.
We also recommend that you consume supportive media like reading articles in Inc.com, Entrepreneur and Harvard Business Review, or books such as just about anything written by Seth Godin, or the book we have all of our clients read, “The Big Leap” by Gay Hendricks. If you like podcasts, check out The Masters of Scale, HBR Idea Cast, or my personal favorite, Anchored Intelligence, hosted by my coach, the amazing Eleanor Beaton. These are a few ideas to get you rolling and to support you in your journey.
I can confidently tell you that owning a practice is an undeniably entrepreneurial endeavor, and Oxford Dictionary backs me up with the definition: “Entrepreneurship is the activity of setting up a business or businesses, taking on financial risks in the hope of profit.”
Embracing an entrepreneurial mindset will complement your medical expertise and help you create a thriving practice that positively impacts the health and well-being of the community you serve. It will also bolster you during difficult times, shore-up your ability to adapt to change, and help you see opportunities for growth where others see obstacles.
Our mission is to support you to take back your time, grow your practice and elevate your leadership so you can make a lasting impact on your patients’ lives and in your community. To learn if working together is a fit, click here to schedule your complimentary 45 minute strategy session.
Listen to Tracy’s solo episode about entrepreneurial mindset on our podcast, Thriving Practice.