A Business Lesson from an Epidural

John Ray: [00:00:00] Hello again. I’m John Ray on The Price and Value Journey. Is there a business lesson from an epidural? Okay. Here’s fair warning. If my medical history is more than you want to hear, now’s the time to skip to another podcast episode.

John Ray: [00:00:19] I’d been having some numbness and pain in my arm from my shoulder all the way down to my fingertips. And it got to the point where it was fairly constant and I was losing sleep over it. I’ll spare you the whole story, but the medical experts decided that the problem wasn’t in my arm. It was in the cervical spine, specifically a nerve problem in the neck bones. They decided I needed an epidural, which would involve an injection of medication between the vertebrae into a very small area.

John Ray: [00:00:55] In other words, the source of a big problem was centered in a very small spot, and that spot was nowhere near where the symptoms were evident. What occurs to me is that this metaphor applies to our businesses as well. Often when we suffer from some sort of pain or dysfunction in our business, the source of that pain is not located anywhere near the dysfunction itself. So, we don’t really connect the two. We don’t connect the pinch point, if you will, with the dysfunction.

John Ray: [00:01:32] We’re focused on the pain and irritation in the arm or leg of our business, and we think that we need to focus there, fix the pain there. But all we’re really doing is playing around with symptoms instead of administering a cure.

John Ray: [00:01:49] So, let me give you an example. One of the changes I made some time ago was removing notifications from a lot of apps I have on my phone, particularly social media apps. You know, those little red dots that scream at you and say, “Open me. Open me.” So, you can satisfy that psychological curiosity you have of what do I need to see now?

John Ray: [00:02:16] So, now, instead of being lured into scrolling on social media, which is exactly what the social media companies want you to do, when I have a few extra minutes standing in line or what have you, I spend it in my Kindle app on a book I’m reading. It’s a much more edifying way to spend my time than on the scroll patrol.

John Ray: [00:02:44] Now, there are other examples of this as well that may apply for you in your practice. Maybe you’ve always been doing the bookkeeping for your practice because you know what you’re doing and you’re pretty good at it.

John Ray: [00:02:57] Maybe you handle the social media or some other marketing task. But that takes up time, even if you know those tasks quite well and you know how to do that work and it’s effective. The time that you’re taking up in those tasks takes away from something which is much more valuable to your clients and your practice. And that’s the use of what’s between your ears to create value for clients and solve their problems.

John Ray: [00:03:32] So, if you’re spending time on this back office business task because you’re saving money, what you’re really doing is creating a pinch point that may cause pain elsewhere in your business. So, where does your practice need an epidural? Where is that pain in your practice? And can you trace the source of that pain or at least some of the source of that pain back to something else?

John Ray: [00:04:03] I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey. Past episodes of this podcast series can be found at pricevaluejourney.com or on your favorite podcast app. And I’d be honored if you’d subscribe and share the show with those that you think would benefit from it. If you’d like to connect with me directly, just email me john@johnray.co. Thank you for joining me.