Ep. 235: Can Your Clinic Survive Without You? A Vacation Readiness Test

PCMP (00:00)
I don't know. Hey, what's going on, everybody? Welcome to another episode of Walkins Welcome, where we are both ⁓ newly and freshly vacationed. ⁓ me two weeks ago, Michael last week. Came back today. Yep, came back today. Yeah. so we thought we would do a podcast on vacationing. Now, not our vacation, but how to take a vacation because I know you're not doing it and actually getting the most out of your vacations, or at least for the most part. Well, and I think

you'll find on any type of ⁓ social media trend of any sort that it they talk about how like being a business owner or whatever they never really go on vacation and they just have are always engaged with their business, even when they're sitting at the beach drinking a margarita, they're in their phone trying to solve a problem. And our argument to you, to the audience that sees that saying, that is a choice. That's right. Now, if you are a brand new company that's like less than a year old, I get it. Right.

But if you're like two, three, four, five plus years, that should not be your standard in your vacation life. Because I think we all know this, but we all forget about it. You should always put your family over your business or your work or whatever, your career. Because if you just focus on the career and ignore your family, the family goes away. Yeah, the family's gonna go away in the form of divorce or missed opportunities or yeah, and all of a sudden you know, you're watching your kid grow up, but you're not. You're watching it through your spouse watching them.

Whatever. And I think there's that and vacation's part of that mix. Like I there's a big part of vacation. It's yes, it's about taking time off, but it's also spending focused, dedicated time with your family, which is probably why you're like, I'm ready to come back. You know come back to work. Well, I know I've I've I've put out five pages of notes here that of of things that we are going to talk about. But I wanna back up just a little bit. I read a book a long time ago now.

But it is a staple. It's called Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. that's a classic, yeah. Yeah. And he has what's called the the the the cash flow quadrant. Okay. And so if you can ⁓ imagine a box with four sections in it, all right. You have employed, you have self employed under that. Okay. So employed, self employed, business owner, and then investor. Yeah. Okay, let me do that real quick. Everybody knows employee trades hours for dollars.

Yep. Self-employed trades hours for dollars for themselves. Yep. Most urgent care clinic owners and doctors live there. Most. Not all, but most. Okay. Then you have ⁓ one of our good friends, Dr. Junkins. He is a business owner. Yes, he's a doctor, but he has multiple locations and he has clinic directors and and clinicians that are in each one of those, right? And he has more than one business. And he's got my favorite jet.

Two two of them I might add. But that being said though, you he is a business owner. That yeah that set of urgent cares runs without him. So he is no longer trading hours for dollars. He owns the system that's creating that. And he's part of what he has to be part of. Correct. And then there's the investment side, which is trading dollars for dollars. Yes. Right. Okay. So that's putting your money to work for you without you having to do anything. Most people call that passive income. I want to talk about two types of people. ⁓

The self-employed, which is what most doctors are, they're self-employed, right? Yes, that first step into business ownership. Correct. And we're gonna address a lot of that because you have to be there docking if you doctor got a dock. Yeah, you know what I mean? If your clinic has to close because you're on vacation, that's self-employed. Correct. Because the because the clinic can't stand on one leg without you beating their whole

And what I want to do is bridge the gap today between the self employed and the business owner because I think you can be self employed and set things up in a way where you can leave the company for a week or two or whatever and and it operate without you. You just have to be intentional. So ⁓ our opening question is simply when was the last time you took a vacation and didn't check your cell phone? Yes. Think about that for a second. Yeah. I mean that is for me I I'm

well removed from this com this question, right? Like I used to be, gosh, probably probably about five years ago where I've like, I can't look at this thing if I'm on. Same, you know, right? Like there's a moment I don't want to look at it. Like I'm when I came off my vacation this past time, I don't my I was not bothered. Yeah. By design. By design. I was not bothered. I my notifications related to work were all disabled. They're still disabled. Actually I don't even try.

Since the vacation before this one, I have yet to re enable my notifications on my phone. What's the point? Honestly. Honestly. When I'm here, I'm available. When I'm not here, I'm not available. Yeah. I was gonna say I'm not 100% sure you need those notifications turned on. I haven't had them on in a year. That's right. ⁓ and so some of our listeners are probably squirming in their cars right now, going, I can't even imagine not being able to be reached. I've been there. Yeah. You've been there. I've been there.

For sure. And it is it's I wasn't when I went to Arizona. You weren't when you went to DC. Yeah, like it was a hundred percent. I get that mindset because there's a you're convinced, you've convinced yourself that this company needs me, and maybe it does at a certain time. But at some point you gotta say, this company doesn't have to have me to operate. But if you don't commit to that mindset, which is hard if you're a doctor that's doing all like I get that, but there should be a

push to something different. So yeah, I mean, I get the idea of like, did it make you nervous just hearing the I the the thought of your phone is inaccessible for a week. Right. Like you can't pick it up. Well, during this podcast specifically, we want to talk about how well, first of all, what are the bottlenecks that are keeping you locked in? Right. And then what are some things that you can do to set yourself up to be able to go and leave it and then come back refresh. Because let me tell you, as a business owner, business owner to business owner,

Leader to leader, you need this more than you think you need this. Yes. I get it. I'm a business owner. I like being plugged in. I don't want to miss a thing. But you know what? They're my team when I do that. By the way, your team, when you do that, they're not getting the best version of your leadership. All right. So the core idea here is ⁓ and Michael, really, I learned this from you. I hadn't really thought about this, but you kind of taught it to me. And that is ⁓ when you leave, we'll reveal the weaknesses in your company.

Hundred percent. You're not gonna find them while you're there because you're brushing under the rug, you're solving problems or whatever. But when you leave, you know what you got. Yeah. And I ultimately learned that that mindset from my dad, ⁓ where he's would force certain I'll say force is a strong word, highly encourage certain employees to take two week vacations so they can see where the problems are. Also, ⁓ it helps reveal fraud and whatever. Especially in banking, yeah. Especially in banking because in

The world any fraud scheme can't hold itself for two weeks. Like something's gonna fall apart because the person's not there to keep the ball off the plates moving. Hopefully you're not dealing with fraud in your hopeful you're not. But if you're suspecting f side note, if you're suspecting fraud or anything, two week free vacation. Honestly, you go to that employee that you're like really questioning, you say, I'm gonna give you two free weeks, I'll see you. And if they freak out and then something pops up within like ten days, you know you know what.

Yeah, let me be very clear with you, person. You're not coming back into this office for two weeks and I'm cutting out your access because I need you to rest up. Yeah, exactly. And so but no, but going back to the idea of Which brings us to the very first point, by the way. ⁓ that's funny. Exactly. Don't trust your team. Yeah. But ⁓ but no, but it goes back to this idea where you're if you're curious, is is my is my business sustainable without me or without is there a key person? I always say I don't

like being called super superman or the secret sauce we were talking about this morning. I don't like being called that. If you have anybody on your on your team that's called that, that should be your first person. Hey, you should need to go take a vacation. Right. Because you want to see what happens because they may take a permanent vacation get run over by a school bus type thing. So this sounded offensive because Hannah asked me the question, hey, are you going to miss Michael when he's gone? I'm like, I need No, that wasn't the point. He I I told her, I was like, no, actually I need Michael to leave. Yeah.

I need Michael to leave. I need to know. Well, here's it. There's a there's a point in the business where the business owner has somebody else that really steps in and becomes the face of the company, or at least the the the internal face of the company, right? Which is what you've become here. Yeah. ⁓ but I wanted to know with you out of the office, what kind of crap was I gonna get? Because you stepped in to for me to be able to become the business owner. Right, right. Right. You're the chief operating officer of the company.

You stepped in for me to be able to have the freedom. One, I'm still big things, new things, and broken things. We're not going to spend time on that today, but that's my vision and goal for my place. But as you step in, well, I needed you to go away. So when Hannah asked me that, I was like, no, I'm actually really excited for Michael to be on vacation because I want to know where are we exposed? Yeah. Where are we exposed? Yeah. Where where where am I being because they're like my own internal issues is that I will just

Figures if there's a I figure out and get it done and move forward and don't really talk about it. Right. Just that's just part of what we're doing. That's right. And that's a problem. Right. Exactly. So yeah. And you know, the the good news is when I step away, nothing falls apart. Yeah. And what's even better news is when you step away, nothing fell apart. No, we have a great team. Yeah. We have an amazing team that we've been intentional about to grow, to train, but y you may not be able to relax, listener, clinic owner. Yeah, I'm talking to you.

You're probably not relaxing because you don't trust your team. And it's not because they're not trustworthy, right? It's because maybe they're

Unclear on the defined expectations of what they should be doing with you out. You've never okay, the best way to say is that you've never handed them the keys to the car. Yeah. You've always been the driver of the car and they've always been a passenger. You never say, can you drive for a while? ⁓ because if the because you just don't know, well, I don't trust well, cool. You need to let them take them to a parking lot, let them drive around and test it out. What does that look like for you?

Don't show up for two or three days. Almost basically like get I put air quotes, get sick for a couple of days and then see what happens and come right back and all this fun stuff. And then like we said, then we slowly build up to that longer vacation. ⁓ but no, the trust factor's real because like you're saying, if you've just never set the expectations or they've never been exposed to how things work beyond what they're doing, it's hard to trust. Or you've never given them the authority to make a decision. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Think about that for a second.

Now I get not everybody needs to have that authority. But you should have one or two or three people that you trust to be, you know what, I understand how Nick th I understand how Michael thinks. I understand how the doctor thinks. And he is he like I've been empowered. She has empowered me. Whoever has empowered me to make these kind of decisions. Now they're not going around flaunting and flexing. That's not the point. But to be able to make a decision without you there because they understand how you think, you've done a good job of setting that up.

The other thing here, Michael, and this is really what I wanted to look for, was that last bullet point. Everyone has been trained to ask the owner. Well, they've stopped asking me, but they've started asking you. And I really wanted to know how dependent are they on you? Yeah. Right. You and I have had a lot of conversations around this. I was like, we we gotta stop letting people live in your space, right? You know what I'm saying? so here's the questions like who handles staffing issues, who handles patient complaints, who handles operational emergencies?

Right. If that answer is always you, you have a problem. Yeah, then it becomes You're never gonna go on vacation. Who who's your backup? Yeah, you know, following that those questions, like who would you right in your head right now, who would I hand that to? And it's probably most likely, depending on the size of your clinic, it's probably one key person you're thinking about that could probably do most of this. You just never giving them the authority to do it. And they're probably starving for it. Yeah, and they're probably like

looking for because they're gonna go somewhere else because you're not giving them that extra because sometimes giving them authority is far greater than giving them a raise. Right. Because there's a I'm saying a pride that goes with it. But also just the idea like, hey, I trust you and I want to take care of you. And then it comes back to that because then there's like, well, God, they trust me. I'm gonna do my best I can. ⁓ so just kind of think through like how many things that you are the only person that does it. Great. Who comes to mind that could do it all for you?

And if you don't have anybody in your mind, that's a great starting point saying, Hmm, I need to figure this out. And you may not have anybody on staff that's like, that's I can't know. I can't trust those people. Great. You need to find that person. And probably fire them if you don't trust them. Now it's one thing. It's one thing to be earning your way up and you gotta, you know, you gotta you gotta earn that position of of leadership and decision making. But if you know there's no way I would ever let that person do anything, you probably need to like why is that person there? Exactly.

And you probably know why. thing number two, and another reason you're having a hard time leaving and and taking a vacation, like a real RESTful vacation, is because everything lives in your head. Yeah. Right? I mean, you haven't documented anything. You don't have any playbooks on how to run a phone call, much less get the payers involved, or may maybe you do, but I'm talking to the ones who don't. there's no way for you to escalate a s situation that we just asked, like what do you do if there's a customer complaint or you know, something like that.

Yeah, and there's elements too, like obviously in the medical world, like there are things that have to be going through a certain person. I get that. But the idea of you're you can't be the everything. Or we're like we were saying earlier, how do we do this? Well, you should know how to do that. So where's the do you have a process written? No, I don't have a process written up. You just you should know how to do it. I know how to do And like, no, no, not the same. I've fallen into that trap, by the way. Well, and I think what the the challenge a lot of people come up with well, it's always changing. Like

Okay, maybe ten to fifteen percent of it's changing, but probably the core of it hasn't changed. Now I remember 'cause I remember ⁓ talking to you about Facebook ads and you know, that was something that you're like, I can't give this up. Like I I won't give it up. And like, well, you're gonna have to kind of give it up. And then it's like, Well, they don't know the intuition that I have of well, like, where'd you get the intuition from? Facebook wasn't real when you were born. That's true. It was built in over years of doing stuff.

And that's the same thing for anybody. If you have somebody that's been with you from like day one and you're like five years into your business, they probably can think just like you. You just haven't given them the chance to do that. Well, I will tell you, ⁓ the the the minute I was able to give up Facebook ads is when Philip came on board with us. He was the only one that I've well, up up until that point. Yeah. We've got it now all over the team, which is fantastic. But up until that point, Philip was the only one who had the intuit intuition to look at an ad and go, That ain't working. Yeah.

Yeah. And then why though? Why is he the only one who can look at it and go, that's not working? When everybody else before then would just let it go indefinitely and burn off our clients' money. Now, for those listening, that was a long time ago in a galaxy far away. We are not that anymore. But it used to frustrate the fire out of me. I was like, I don't understand how you can't look at that and see that there's no conversions on it and don't do anything about it. Like I just it doesn't it escapes me. Yeah, exactly. But what so what you're talking about like that intuition is more of

the common sense gets applied and then the this could make an a b on the surface it's technically okay at this very moment, but it can make a huge negative impact a week from now or two weeks from now or whatever. That's right. And so like that's who you're identifying in your clinic of saying they see like the impact of this decision and what it can do beyond what's just in front of them. And that's the type of person you want to be part of those decisions because they're thinking beyond beyond their little role, right? I like to think of it this way. Who is an upstream thinker?

Okay. Right. They don't get involved when the problem happens. They can foresee a problem. Yeah. That's upstream. Yeah. Nobody gets praise and worship over that. Everybody gets praise for I I heard it described this way. Hey, there's dead babies floating down the river. Let's and you're rescuing these babies out of the river and you're being praised and you're awesome. You save these babies, but nobody goes

Why are there babies up in there in the river jumping in the river? Let's go fix that. Let's go fix what's causing us problems. Like nobody nobody gets the praise for preventing the babies from ever getting in the river in the first place. So who's your upstream problem solver? Yeah. Like they can see it before. Anyway, you get that's and in my idea, Michael, you're an upstream thinker. Yeah. Devin is an upstream thinker. Unfortunately, because of the nature of his role, he's fixing problems more than he's upstreaming. Yeah. but anyway.

I digress. But no, but the idea of an upstream thinker is simply they are looking beyond the immediate problem and looking more toward the source and saying, well, how can we do this differently? ⁓ or why do we keep doing it the same way? How can we make this more effective? Better for the company, better for the individual, better for the the patient, you know, kind of thinking beyond a path because there are a lot of people that just think in their little world, right? They're in their little path they walk down and

They clock they like you said, they trade their hours for money and they go home. Right. Well, the ones that go into management roles, leadership roles, they're thinking about how does this affect everybody? Right. And like can I f make it better for everyone? Like we were joking out this morning updating our intake form and I was like, Sh this thing is I looked at it's like September twenty twenty two when I built this. I'm glad it lasted it four years. Yeah, but but you had solved a an upstream problem in twenty twenty two.

Yeah, and it just hung out until today. When's last time you were celebrated for that? Yeah, nobody cares, right? Yeah, nobody cares because it was upstream. You solved the problem before it was a problem. Usually sometimes the best a problem being solved is where it becomes second nature to the company, where they're like, it this feels weird if we don't have this already solved a certain way. but no, yeah, that's that was for real this morning. Michael, this is a good one for you to take number three here. Number two. Identity is tied to being needed. Yeah. So ⁓ You've seen that. I've I've seen it. I've felt it.

I think for a minute maybe I had been that, but I don't think it was there for very long. Yeah. Well, and I think

There's this mindset, if I'm not needed, why am I here? I struggle with that. Just like honestly speaking, I mean this sincerely. The company could probably run without me for an extended amount of time. A couple of years. You see what I'm saying? Yeah, right. Like but like there's like this ⁓ what you don't see, it's hard to tell. There's an energy that you have. Sure. And then also a

Well, you know, we can't just say this is the way we do things all the time. Which I more lean into that. Like let's do what we do well. Right. And I don't want to reinvent the wheel very often. Hey, straight yin and yang, man. That's that's how we operate. I genuinely believe and pray and hope that you have that in your clinic. Yeah. A yin yang relationship. you need it. And it's we we see them all the time. Michael is Michael, I want to tell you this in the most sincere and loving way. Michael fact checks me all the time.

But I need that. And sometimes I'm completely wrong. But I need that. That that's the point I'm trying to make is like if something's coming out of my mouth, well, first of all, I would never intentionally mislead or lie or say something, you know, bloviated just for the sake of saying. It's a good word, yeah. Maybe bloated would be a better still. Like is that real?

Yeah. Fact check. You're seeing it happen in real time, people. I hope I hope you're enjoying this. None of this is scripted. This is so normal. Anyway, I don't want to intentionally mislead or say stupid crap. ⁓ but as part of my personality, I've learned this. I have what's called a rainmaker personality, which means I can close deals, I can get people what they need to do. You can see opportunity where people don't I can, but this is

I know this is PG, so cover your little ears. ⁓ but it even says like you can come across, it's not that you are this, but you can come across as a bullshitter. Yeah. I can come across I don't want to be that. I'm not intentionally ever being that, but I use fun words. I like to talk with my energy. Right. Energy is exactly what you just called it. Yeah. So to some personality are like, that dude is so full of crap. I'm really not. I'm really not. ⁓

But I can see how I come across that way. So I really spend a lot of energy trying to do that. And this has nothing to do with vacation right now. But no, my identities can be tied to the business in an unhealthy way. Right. And so and 'cause I've I've heard it many a times before where people say, Well, i if we're right now, like we've hired somebody that they're now being managed by somebody who's never managed before, and there was that question of, Well, if I bring on this person, I don't have to do as much am I

being paid overpaid, like, no, it's quite the opposite. Because we we care about the outcome, not necessarily how all the work got done to get there per se. And ⁓ and that goes back to where like, well, if I'm not grinding from nine to five, eight or six a.m. to four PM, whatever those numbers are, then I'm I'm not worth anything. Right. And then not even I like I still struggle with this mindset of

It's okay that a lot of people accomplish something that you were tied to, but you may have technically not done the work, but the work got done. Right. ⁓ and there's a there's a I feel like is that a good or bad thing, but ultimately it's a good thing because also recognize even in today's intake thing where I y'all had already had a pre meeting all about this like you were already like 90% there. And then I hop in and say, Hey, I think you're having a misunderstanding of what this is.

you're right. I'm so glad you clarified that too. I was like, I don't know how that wasn't obvious, but this is why you have people. But but no, but that was like classic. I technically haven't done a thing. I just saw one thing and said something and moved on and it actually helped finish up the meeting. That's right. But thanks for that. Yeah, exactly. But but that goes back to why is this a hard thing to comprehend? Because I think our well, our culture, like the American culture especially, work hard, work hard, work hard, and you'll get rewarded for it. If you don't work hard, you're not gonna get rewarded for it. Yeah, and it's not true. Like, yes, there are

There's the mindset. Yeah, putting the extra hours, all the things. I was even when I was on vacation, our neighbor one of our camping, we went camping and one of our neighbors, he was an 87 year old guy. He was retired from construction and remodeling. And we were talking about the camper he had bought in 1995, still uses it today, 30 years later. I love that. it's a pretty cool little camper. And but he was talking about, yeah, I would just, you know, I was working part time at 40 hours a week. I'm like, okay. He said full time is like 60 to 70. I'm like,

And he admitted, this is the 87-year-old. He admitted, he's like, I'd never spent that much time with my family and go on the trips that I'm going on now. And I'm and I recognize that I've physically I'm running out of time. You can hear the regret in that conversation. Yeah, like you could and this guy was he and his wife are awesome. Like just super cool people. Like they became like our friends. they loved Addy. I mean, it was just awesome. Addie's hard not to.

And like they it was funny when they invited us into the cause this camper is one of those that sits on the back of a truck bed. So it's super trippy and you walk in because like, why does this feel twice the size of a truck? And but they're like they're sitting there having they won't check out our camera, like, yeah, let's check it out. And we're staying all standing in there and like Addie runs and jumps onto their bed. I was like, this is funny. But like we see that you see the dust. Just about and 'cause this thing is so old, but it it works ⁓ like works fine, though it just looks old.

And but just hearing that because these like these were just like wonderful people, but you could hear like, I've been in construction all this time. And it was so bad. this sounds terrible. It was so bad when we were leaving, like, hey, let's get a phone number because they're just nice people. He hands Courtney a business card, but he doesn't even work anymore. But that's all he's got is a business here, here's my business card. And it's just one of those like moments of this is why we vacation and do the things now. Yeah.

'Cause I may not make it to retirement age and be physical ab ⁓ physically able to do any of this. Right. Or like one of us could die in between now and forty years from now. And it's just like what why losing the opportunity? And it's not worth it. And it goes back to the idea of way we are not here on earth just to simply wake up, work, pay bills, go to bed. That's not the whole point of life. If it was, there would be something different at this point. Well, up until the nineteen twenties.

Yeah. Nineteen teens. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, we can go back to that. This is a whole thing. But just going back to that need part, like you that identity. That like you're it's important that yes, you've built the business and whatever, but it shouldn't be the business needs me. Like if you've ever said that to your spouse, the business needs you. Well, I think there's a season where there's a season. There's a the where the business needs you. Your clinic needs you. But what I am challenging you is to create a

A a a clinic where it doesn't need you. Dan Martell in his book Buy Back Your Time makes my favorite quote. Used to be a Mike Tyson quote. Now it's this one. ⁓ and that is 80% done by somebody else is 100% freaking awesome. Yeah, it is. ⁓ because you measure outcomes, not inputs all the time. I want to keep going because we could go super long on vacations here. So let's keep going. vacation readiness score. Let's do this real quick. All right. So can your clinic run without you for a day, a weekend, a week?

Two weeks, a month, indefinitely. Where if you're gonna pick one day, weekend, week, like what is it for you? Think about that for real. And I and I do see if you're a single location urgent care, this is the most difficult thing to look at because chances are it's you plus three other people. And a multi location urgent care, honestly, it's bigger. Yeah, technically has more power to allow you to do these things. Correct. Yeah, once you start opening up.

When you and so I there's a r like we recognize that and there's also we recognize that majority of our single location urgent cares become multi location within like two years. Right. Pretty quick. ⁓ but no, but yeah, can ⁓ so tell yourself one day, one week in, a week, two weeks, indefinitely. How many yeses did you put to say in your head? Did you say any? 'Cause if you didn't, or you stop after the first one you have a problem. Exactly. All right, here's some more evaluation here. Let's just go by kind of department staffing.

Does everyone call out? Does it all come to you? Every call out, every issue, every problem? Operations. Have you empowered your managers to make decisions? Yeah, you make your managers actual like leader stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Or are you requiring your own stamp of approval on every decision made? All right. Finances, can someone else review the KPIs and performance? Do you have somebody you trust, Michael? I don't you look at our numbers in the company way more than I look in the numbers in the company. Right. Of course, operating officer, right?

But at the same time, when I need to get involved, I will. But ha better way to say this is do you trust someone to review the KPIs and performance? Like d do you trust someone to throw a red flag saying, Hey, the we're we're seeing this, we need to make a correction. Right. Or hey, don't buy that yet. ⁓ So patient complaints, is there a process or does anything escalate to a certain owner of the company? Like does

⁓ patient complaints and problems, does that go to a point person? Are you that point person? And then finally here marketing, does patient volume come into the clinic whether you're there or not? Does it require you this is the litmus test on whether or not you're gonna go and and have a vacation or whether you're not gonna you do work in a different location. You know what I'm saying? Well and I I think too so ⁓ there are ⁓ really fun moments where when the owner is not

involved with the daily with the daily and they see their clinic or their business increase when they're not there. Right. You had a s you had a somewhat of a similar situation where you went on vacation or went away earlier this year and we had fired and rehired and hired a new person while you were gone. That's right. You're like, hello new person. And goodbye old person. But I didn't even get to say bye to you, although I probably wouldn't have anyway, not for any other reason other than they didn't report to me in any

Well, and then the Kumo Spaces thing was funny, ran out of time. But ⁓ learned that lesson. But anyway, but so like but it was that moment where like we just got the ball moving. We all like the leadership side of this business, we all had that mindset we know what we we're trying to accomplish here. Right. We're just gonna keep moving forward. Right. And not just wait. 'Cause the second that someone I ⁓ this is a real like a pet peeve. If you're just sitting there on your hands waiting for someone to tell you what to do next, it's not the right person. Right. It's just not.

Like they should be like finding things to do. Right. per se. But yeah. So Michael, I think what we need to do for the sake of time is put all of the rest of these bullet points for like the action items, put this into ⁓ the show notes. Sure. ⁓ so that you can have kind of a swipe and deploy to hey, check these boxes so that I can go on vacation. I I feel like we should turn this into like a like a part two. A manus form that's that grades them.

Probably could. Are you vacation ready? Yeah. Are you vacation? You know what? Don't give me, don't make me go in and use AI. I've I bet. But here here here's the challenge I want to give you. And and Michael, for your notes, we'll skip to the end there. ⁓ just for time's sake, is go ahead and put a two-week vacation on your calendar. yeah. Don't make it gray. Don't pencil it in, make it pen. Now, if the thought of me telling you just now to put a two-week vacation on your calendar made you cringe.

You're not ready. No. So let's go back to the beginning of this episode to the three or four things that I talked about and go, Hey, how do I make myself ready in these areas? Cause the point is, is you only live once and you better get busy living, or you're just gonna be treading mud the rest of your life. And I don't want that for you, especially as a doctor. You're providing incredible value to your communities. It's important. So I know this has schedule out in six months, but we're in the summertime. Like find some time during the summer slump.

To get out there and take your family somewhere. Right. This is the best time when you're not here on fire ⁓ during flu season. This is the best time to stress test your your clinic on if it can survive without you there. Yeah. Right. So don't do it six months out. Make sure it's before the end of August. Yeah. And so the but like the mindset would be looking at next summer, let's just say like whatever. So ⁓ in December, Christmas, when you have that one day off already designated, because your clinic

Probably close on Christmas, maybe. Say, all right, spouse, let's plan a vacation in this coming summer. Where do you want to go? And it's gonna be a full two weeks. Maybe it's seven, eight days on vacation and the rest staying home relaxing from vacation. Right. That's where we get that. That's right. But that would be a goal, right? Where you you set aside time, make sure your spouse or family's involved with this because it'll hold you accountable to it. Because the last thing you don't want to do is say,

Hey kids, we're going on a vacation of this. And then it gets up to like, I don't think I could take this. And you go to your kids like, nah, I'm not going. And you're like, well, like you do you really want to see your kids' face when they s when they see that? So No, you do not. No, you don't. ⁓ and I yeah, I mean, it's just one of those you have to because when you put it on the calendar, you put it in pa on paper, right? When you write something, when you write goal down, it becomes real. And also if you put a down payment toward that vacation, whatever it is, it becomes real. Like a

Book that Airbnb. Book there the non refundable deposit date. Let's make it happen. You're locked in. Don't buy the insurance. Yeah, don't commit. All right. Last three things. Build leaders, document your systems, create an accountability. Yeah. Okay. And then the last thought is really your goal isn't to escape your clinic, right? You should have built a clinic that you you that you enjoy. ⁓ so we don't want you to escape it. But the goal is to build a clinic that no longer really depends on you. Yeah, yeah. Like

I I I get it. You you may be a doctor, like it may depend on you from that standpoint. But what I'm saying is create a system in place where you can leave effectively without closing your clinic. All right. Well and and I even think back ⁓ every time I go on because when we do vacations, we do mostly camping trips and ninety percent of the people there are old. They're just old. They're they're retirement age, because they and they all say, We wanted to do this when we were younger, but we couldn't. Yeah. Like, well

Probably a different time. And you also have to look in the context of this, Michael. Like not everybody owns their own business. No, no, no. I and I get that. But for those who but that's the other part. An employer Let me tell you who has zero issue leaving here without any concern or care in the world about what the crap happens here when they're gone. Yeah, sure. Employees. Well, I've got some of the best employees in the world. Yeah. But they do not give a crap. When they leave this office, they're gone. But see that that's where my argument comes into play where a business owner people don't see it.

But a business owner typically takes on more stress, more anxiety, more all the things to get this thing going. Because the reality is, you know, we have almost 20 employees. Correct. And so that's 20 lives, 20 families. That becomes like probably a hundred people that you have a direct impact on, not including our c our clients. So like there's a a part of that that goes with it. Well, if you're gonna commit to something like that, you might as well reward yourself in the process. Cause what's the point? Well, what's the point?

Like build a business so you can have some money in the bank and then you can't even spend it. Why should your employees get to get carefree vacations and you not? Yeah. Now granted, we have some employees that don't believe in carefree vacations. And we have to force them to specific. Too specific. But I will say for Kimberly. I don't mind calling her out. She's my sister anyway. ⁓ the last vacation she took, I don't think she gave her up, man. She was gone. And that's what she went on the nose. That's what we want. But but it's okay to want this for yourself as well. Yeah, exactly. But like but also

Reward your people accordingly. Like if you go on vacation and there you come back and everything is really good and gives you confidence going the next vacation. Well, find out why it was good. ⁓ it's because we did this, this well, great. Make sure you can reward those people in some way. So I don't know. I I just think it's one of those things that you people overlook and they're just convinced that we just have to work until we die. And it's just not entirely true. We do need to work, but it doesn't have to be our lives. So go on vacation. Yeah.

All right. Go on vacation with this podcast and we'll see you on the next one. Yeah, there you go. All right. See you guys.