Mini-Retirement Plan How practice systems can help you work less and achieve more “An American businessman was standing at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish. “How long did it take you to catch them?” the American asked. “Only a little while,” the Mexican replied. “Why don’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?” the American then asked. “I have enough to support my family’s immediate needs,” the Mexican said. “But,” the American then asked, “what do you do with the rest of your time?” The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life, senor.” The American scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds you could buy a bigger boat, and with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. “Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the consumers, eventually opening your own canning factory. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise.” The Mexican fisherman asked, “But senor, how long will this all take?” To which the American replied, “15-20 years.” “But what then, senor?” The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO (Initial Public Offering) and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich – you would make millions.” “Millions, senor? Then what?” The American said slowly, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fish-ing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos…” (adaptation from The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferris) Dr. Anthony Lombardi is a private consultant to athletes in the NFL, CFL and NHL, and founder of Ham-ilton Back Clinic, a multidisciplinary clinic. He teaches his fundamental EXSTORE Assessment System and practice building workshops to vari-ous health professionals. For more information, visit www.exstore.ca. M Anthony J. Lombardi, DC oney is not your primary reason for being successful. That will come in time. The patient is always the first reason for you to become a success. And, if you get patients better, they will come back, they will refer more, and your reputa-tion will precede you. However, many feel that in order to live the life they really want, they must sacrifice 30 years of their time, working 50 hours per week, to accumulate the means to do so. Therefore, the first step to “working less and achieving more” is changing your mindset. First, we must change the conventional thinking, which is: “the more time I put in, the more successful I will be.” As chiropractors, we must realize that we are also, for the most part, business owners. As such, we must come to the realization that retirement, or at least “mini-retirement,” is a concept that is closer than we think. Second, we must cre-ate efficient systems in our practice that our fellow co-workers will embrace so that the operational business side of our practice is able to run without our constant presence. For example, in 2010, I worked 288 days in my practice. In 2011, after creating and im-plementing my systems I worked 183 days and was just as productive as the year before. www.canadianchiropractor.ca 8 • CANADiAN CHiROPRACTOR | FEBRUARY 2013
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