The Four Freedoms

Every Chiropractor should strive to achieve life’s 4 Freedoms first introduced by Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach. Learn how to optimize your freedom of Time, Money, Purpose and Relationship.

You can find out more about Strategic Coach at www.strategiccoach.com The massive transformative purpose that The Modern Chiropractic Marketing Group is focusing on is guiding the Chiropractor on modern marketing principles to grow their practice that will allow them to achieve life’s 4 Freedoms of Time, Money, Purpose and Relationship.  It is imperative that today’s Chiropractor has these four freedoms to have a well-balanced practice and personal life.I give full credit to Dan Sullivan and Strategic Coach for the concept of the 4 Freedoms, and as soon as we were taught the concept, we realized that the vast majority of Chiropractors are struggling to achieve these.

Due to the current state of the healthcare industry, harder work and less reimbursement make it difficult to have freedom of time and money, and it can drain your purpose.With  “in the trenches” business building over the last ten years and marketing training over last three years, we knew that the key for Chiropractors to achieve life’s freedoms was through effective and ethical marketing to grow their practices.In my opinion, the best way to start improving all of your four freedoms is first to gauge where you currently are on each freedom. Maybe you feel great about one or two of them, but know you struggle mightily with one, and below average in the other.

Take a quick assessment of where you are at with your freedoms and get clear with which one you know is your biggest struggle currently. Is it lack of time? Not enough revenue? Struggling relationship?For me, I have no doubts what my biggest area I need to work on, and that is Relationship.

More on that in a minute, but I’ll first tell you where I am excelling. I am currently afforded a very nice schedule and have plenty of free time on my hands to be creative outside of patient care. I also feel comfortable with our revenue and profit, but a big aspect of financial freedom is how you look at it. It doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be rich and have all of the trappings of success.Financial freedom and happiness are relative once you have achieved Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, which simply states:“The most fundamental and basic four layers of the pyramid contain what Maslow called “deficiency needs” or “d-needs”: esteem, friendship and love, security, and physical needs. If these “deficiency needs” are not met – with the exception of the most fundamental (physiological) need – there may not be a physical indication, but the individual will feel anxious and tense. Maslow’s theory suggests that the most basic level of needs must be met before the individual will strongly desire (or focus motivation upon) the secondary or higher level needs. “ (Good Ol’ Wikipedia)

There is some compelling research that reveals that we don’t find happiness from money once we make an amount that allows us to sustain our basic needs of food, shelter, clothing, and other necessities. The figure thrown around a lot is 70k/year, but that will vary depending on the cost of living in your area. But you get the point. Happiness is found within, not from external “things” as long as you have all the basics.

As far as Purpose, I would say I have the most of this category and feel blessed that in my ten years of practice, I have always had strong passion and purpose for Chiropractic, corporate wellness and other aspects tied into developing my business. In my life currently, my business structure and our comprehensive marketing strategy have allowed for me to have freedom of time, as well as the finances to allow for travel and have multiple doctors to pick up some of the patient treatment hours that free me up. Also, the revenue and time have been the fuel to pursue this Purpose in growing our digital ergonomics platform for large corporations and the desk worker, amongst other initiatives.

Without the marketing strategy to drive our business growth and revenue, I wouldn’t have the time or resources to pursue this new Purpose our company is undertaking. It goes hand in hand.Now on to where I am personally struggling, which is the freedom of relationship. I will be the first to admit that my drive for success has been unyielding and has caused me to lose perspective in the past when it has come to my relationships. Not so much with friends and immediate family, but with significant others.

Let me expound.

When I entered Chiropractic school in 2002, I of course also decided to take the plunge and get married to my college sweetheart who moved out to St. Louis after she graduated from school. Absence makes the heart grow fonder right? Long story short, with my long hours at Chiropractic school and studying, and her travel career, our marriage didn’t last too long. It was a learning lesson and no hard feelings on either side.

Fast forward a few years later and a new relationship, and trying to open up my office and get it off the ground. My new spouse was also a surgeon, so we were both extremely busy focusing on our careers and struggled to find the time to be with each other and grow our marriage. This extreme lack of “Relationship Freedom” led to yet another divorce last year. I will admit this was a much bigger struggle to overcome than my first marriage failure, but luckily I have amazing friends and support system to come out stronger on the other side.  It was also very amicable, and no children were involved, so not having to deal with attorneys was a huge load off of our shoulders.

I don’t divulge these personal hurdles I have had to deal with over the last ten years for any reason other than to dive into why I am focusing on relationships in my life. You get the picture of why relationship is my core focus.  I am extremely blessed to have a ton of good friends from both Florida State U., Logan Chiropractic and South Florida, as well as a close-knit family. I have leaned on all of them during my relationship struggles, and it has been instrumental in having the peace of mind and clarity that I now possess.  I am also very proud of the fact that I didn’t let my personal struggles last year to negatively affect my patient care, the team at work or business in general.

What truly excites me about my personal future is that I now have clarity of what I desire in a relationship and I have the time to give to a person, whenever that may be. I have worked harder than most to achieve life’s four freedoms and know that I am doing well in three of them, and have the desire and capabilities to achieve freedom of a relationship. In the meantime, I am focusing on my family and friends in a way that will enhance those relationships.

I think we can all relate to the struggle in achieving all four of these Freedoms, and how a deficiency in one of them can affect some or all of them. It’s like my golf swing that has six different issues, but if I fix the one that is causing 4 of them, it is much more efficient and effective than trying to fix all of them at the same time. That is why we recommend assessing all of them, but picking the one you inherently know the biggest current issue for yourself.  I know you will find this four freedoms assessment valuable, and for some could lead you down an amazing path of complete satisfaction in business and personal life. It is always a journey, with many detours, but it’s the essence of living the life you deserve.