The Desert of Arizona
Cloudy 38 Degrees
I haven’t been to a traditional doctor since… well, I can’t even remember the last time.
But I do remember back in my childhood that waiting was a normal part of going to the doctor. It went way beyond “waiting” (with a small w) when we took my brother to a specialist a few towns over.
I remember we’d head out to the MALL because the guy was running hours behind. HOURS. It made the idea of having an “appointment” kind of funny.
Why do doctors do this?
Because they can. It’s not malicious or probably even intentional. But they can do it because their patients wait. Because doctors are the beneficiaries of decades of training in what it means to be a doctor and what it means to be a patient.
Part of what it means to be a patient in that world is that you wait for the doctor.
Now I am sure there are plenty of examples of doctors who are extremely punctual. I wish I had had one as a child 🙂 The point really isn’t about any of the people it’s about our perception of them and how that was created.
(This whole paradigm is changing rapidly, especially with companies like MED 2 YOU down in Austin. I heard about this from Tucker Max on James Altucher’s new podcast. There’s no pitching your tent in the waiting room with these folks, they come to you.)
Most service providers do not benefit from decades of training like doctors. If we make our clients wait too long, people start to get all hot and bothered.
Even when our client asks for rush service, many of them expect to get it.
And that brings us to an important choice you have each and every day of your business life:
You can deal with the urgent, or you can deal with the important.
Dealing with the urgent as a general way of doing business will turn you into a hamster. You will run on that wheel and never get anywhere. You will die on that wheel. Either physically, or on the inside.
Dealing with the important will transform your business and your life.
If you were trained to forget you have a spine, this is hard. So instead of trying to be something you are currently not, just start the HABIT that will work backwards to build your spine.
Think of it as self-improvement in reverse. You don’t work on “improving yourself,” you simply adopt habits that will do it over time.
What do you do about the urgent?
The best solution is to eradicate urgent. (Clear exception for anyone working in the Emergency Room!) The only reason you have so much urgent is because you accepted it instead of making it clear to the world that you won’t.
This is a process, not a one time thing. You make exceptions, it’s not perfect.
I talk about this in the latest issue of the Rainmaker Letter. If you aren’t a subscriber, and you like the Client Letter, then subscribe today. There are 3 areas of client work that cause more pain than others. I walk through how to deal with those.
Urgent or important? That’s the question for today.
The world will pressure you to make the urgent your life. This disconnects you from your power and makes you a pawn of someone or something else.
Don’t engage that pressure, just step to the side and walk on a different road.
You’ve got better things to do.