The Hundred-Dollar Walk
Imagine two people standing at the entrance to a shopping mall. Each receives the same challenge:
“Make your way from this entrance to the exit at the other end, and you’ll earn one hundred dollars. You can collect the money now or when you finish.”
The first person says, “I’ll take mine at the end.”
He walks directly through the mall, passes the stores and kiosks, and reaches the exit. There, he collects his hundred dollars and leaves.
The second person says, “I’ll take mine now.”
With the money in his pocket, he begins the same walk.
A vendor catches his attention.
“Let me show you something. It’ll only take a minute.”
A store window advertises a sale. Another merchant offers a special discount.
He stops to look. Then he stops to listen. He buys something he hadn’t planned to buy, followed by something else that suddenly seems like a good idea.
Eventually, he reaches the exit carrying several shopping bags. The hundred dollars is gone.
Both people completed the walk. Both received the reward. But only one left with the money he had set out to gain.
Every merchant along the way had a goal, too: attract a customer, make a sale, grow a business.
Somewhere between the entrance and the exit, the second person had allowed their goals to replace his own.
The Walk Through Medicine
We begin with a vision of the practice we want to build: time to listen, meaningful relationships with patients, professional independence, and enough room for a life outside the office.
Then we begin walking.
Along the way come new platforms, additional services, marketing packages, expansion opportunities, and advice about what a successful practice should look like.
Some of those opportunities may help us reach our goals. Each deserves to be considered in light of why we started.
A larger practice might be exactly what one physician wants. Another might want a small panel and the freedom to be home for dinner. Both can build something worthwhile. The trouble begins when we adopt someone else’s definition of success without noticing that we have abandoned our own.
