?is that the vast majority of people, including educated and otherwise sophisticated people, find the idea of change so threatening that they attempt to deny its existence. Even many people who understand intellectually that change is accelerating, have not internalized that knowledge, do not take this critical social fact into account in planning their own personal lives?



Alvin Toffler, in ?Future Shock? 1970

Change. Even the word alone makes some, even doctors uncomfortable. Yet others embrace and enjoy the entire creative process needed to adapt to it.

As a consultant, I have observed numerous times over my career, right next to one another, practices, which are booming, and then at precisely the same time and local there are those doctors unhappy, stressed out, struggling to pay the bills. They suffer from future shock, an emotional and physical shutdown that occurs when confronted by cumulative or overwhelming change.

After careful analysis, time after time, those doctors and their team members who continue to prosper, even in today's world, have learned and fully developed the skills necessary to deal with change, to be commanders of change.

Changes now occur so rapidly, that even our students encounter a new world upon graduation. The sheer volume of practice information, clinical, procedural and social changes can be dizzying. And it gets more complicated and faster every day! In fact, more change now occurs in a single week, than many of us older than fifty used to encounter in an entire year.

It's in processing, sorting, scanning and ultimately applying pertinent information, not only in our personal but professional lives that is perhaps the biggest life challenge we face today.

In healthcare practices, the systems that we used to employ for this are no longer adequate. First of all, the volume of information is too much to be handled by antiquated systems. Secondly, sorting applicable ideas and data into readily usable bits (and now bytes) is critical in today's world.

Despite this fact, much of practice growth, development and management information as well as their delivery systems remain unchanged. Traditional consulting programs are also extraordinarily time intensive, and expensive to acquire, both of which are now totally unnecessary.

The good news is, there are now specific tools and systems that makes implementing and adapting to change much easier, far less costly and much more time effective. And it's upon this premise that a perfect, highly profitable practice can now be built, maintained and then expanded with far less cost and time investment than ever before.

Ultimately of course, it's up to each of us to decide what's best for us, and congruent with our major objectives. But more and more are taking a hard look at our way. Why?

I can tell you that just as Toffler noted almost 40 years ago, it's my observation that those doctors who do the best in today's world are ?richer, better educated, and are more mobile?. Indeed they actually ?live faster? than most of the population with regard to processing and then applying change to their personal and professional lives.

They are unfazed by the sheer volume of things that need to be done, and continually upgrade their systems for doing so. They rarely complain, and get an extraordinarily amount of things done. They run highly profitable practices save more money and have far more freedom. They practice on their own terms.

These doctors are indeed the commanders of change in their communities. The bottom line is these doctors know that these are learned skills. Systems that are teachable, procedures that are simple to use, powerfully effective, once you know how.

Failure to thrive is correctable, no matter where you practice, or how long you have been at it. Learning to make better choices and decisions goes a long way. Of course, some find it easier than others. But to really live the life you have imagined as a student and now a doctor, decide to finally acquire the information that can help you learn, prosper and grow.

As Jim Rohn once said, ?Discipline weighs ounces, regret weighs tons?.

It's all up to you.