Instead of expressing mere job dissatisfaction, or a desire to earn a bit more money, these singular people feel an urgent need to have a much larger impact on their community or the world.

These are some of the words I detect in their conversations:

• Legacy
• Making a real difference
• Reaching many more people
• Creating a world-renowned program
• Helping whole communities
• Bringing meaningful improvements to impoverished countries 
  

In The Entrepreneurial MD's July newsletter article, I address what happens to us when we are inspired to play a Bigger Game. Human Development coach Rick Tamlyn, of The Bigger Game, has created a simple elegant model that I have elaborated on.

I hope that many of you are feeling these strong impulses -- our country and our world are sorely in need of a new Gandhi or a Mother Theresa or a Mandela or even a Dr. Paul Farmer of Partners in Health!

Is it YOUR turn to "step up to the plate"?

This trip comes with a large price tag – my 5-year old daughter is devastated at missing the opening of Wall-E and her beloved July 4th fireworks. “Pooh Paris” is how she describes it.

However, this mommy did some homework and discovered that the largest July 4th celebration outside of the US is held annually in nearby Geneva – so that will be her surprise, if we can handle a crowd of 35,000 in a foreign city.

I shall not be thinking much about my work, or the US healthcare system, or politics, or anything that reminds me of home. I plan a full-blown escape!

But I know I shall enjoy getting back into the swing of things when it is all over. I have discovered what it’s like to really love a job and to look forward to the excitement and challenges of making The Entrepreneurial MD a resource worthy of your attention.

Have a great couple of weeks, and for my US readers may you enjoy a festive Independence Day.

Or to commit yourself to spending two disciplined hours a night doing research for your new business instead of goofing off surfing and shopping on the Web?

Until now, we've had the easy excuse that you can't teach an old dog new tricks. But neuroscience is proving us wrong.

In a nifty article from ImprovedLives blog, titled What Neuroplasticity can Teach Us About Personal Growth, we learn the following:

"Neuroplasticity is quite simply the thing that makes personal growth possible. We talk about making changes in our lives and evolving into better versions of ourselves but neuroplasticity is the thing that actually makes it happen. And the most interesting part is that it only works if you put consistent effort into it. Your brain will only rewire itself, or in other words you will only achieve personal growth, if you put consistent effort into it."

While I have known about and been intrigued by neuroplasticity for some time (it the gas the fuels the results of coaching over the long haul), this article reminds me why of the few traits successful folks seem to have in common is persistence.

Intuitively, these go-getters must have realized that their tenacious efforts were actually rewiring their plastic brains!

If we win, I shall be provided with some intensive business building advice, strategies and tools. And I promise to share what I am learning right here on this blog.

Go here to vote, if you think we deserve it and you didn't already get a request in my newsletter (sadly, you can only vote once <smile>).

Look for the Vote Now button, and you can also check out the video I made by scrolling down a little to find the 14 contestants and then clicking on my headshot or clicking on the link just above.

I appreciate it very much!

The news is good, as I have keep discovering, in my quest to find interesting physicians to interview for my Conversations with Trailblazers Podcast series.

Physicians are morphing into a wide variety of careers in an even wider range of industries.

Here then is my almost certainly incomplete list of possible areas inviting a professional move (and I now know of or have spoken to enough physicians that they span almost all of the categories):

•   Administrative/leadership role
•   Academic role
•   Educational/training role
•   Organizational executive
•   Consultant (area of expertise)
•   Advisor – to foundations, “think tanks”
•   Coach – life, business, executive, health
•   Pharma role
•   Biotech role
•   Information Technology role
•   Medical device role – inventor, patent holder with licenses
•   Business owner/entrepreneur - expert witness, information and other products, services, training, seminars, corporate and other wellness, weight management, cosmetic/med spa, manufacture and sell device/other products, ANY business
•   Media – TV, medical journalism, filmmaker
•   Speaking – motivational, keynote, workshops
•   Medical/healthcare communications (publishing, marketing, market research, advertising etc)
•   Book author, screen writer
•   Entertainment consultant
•   Clinical trials
•   Political role – political office, lobbying
•   Financial/investment – financial advisor, Venture Capitalist, investment banker/advisor
•   Program medical director
•   Real estate – medical and non-medical
•   Public health program/agency
•   Non-profit, public service
•   Executive search, recruiting

Remember, you can dig a whole lot deeper by attending the SEAK Non-Clinical Careers conference in Cape Cod, MA, in October 2008 (disclosure - I will be an unpaid keynote speaker there. And you might just have to come by and say hello, if you go!)

See anything on the list that appeals?

What's missing?

So there you are, all ready to pick up the phone, write that re-introductory email or saunter into the cocktail party ... and you freeze. You don't know what to say!

And you dread that ever-so-intrusive question "So tell me, what is it you do?"

It's simple if you have no goals of career change in mind. You're a doctor, after all, and everyone knows what that means.

But what if you no longer want to be pigeon-holed as a physician?

Here are tips to break the conversational ice and position yourself in your new forthcoming as-yet-to-be defined role:

1. Declare your intention. I help my clients develop a straightforward almost scripted response that indicates what they are intending to do, and are in the process of making happen -- hence their need to network and get the assistance of others.
   
   This takes the pressure off having to fumph and stutter and feel like a bumbling novice idiot at this networking stuff.
   
   Say "I'm passionate about  _______________ (gardening) and I want to transition to _______________ (healing landscaping) to take advantage of my skills of ________________ (my talents as a gardener as well as my knowledge of medicine and healing plants)."
   
   
2. Let people know who you best like to help or work with. If your listener understands who your ideal "target person" is (the person or people you want to meet), they can more easily introduce you.
   
   If he or she knows what job, career or field you are considering transitioning into, they can mentally scan their Rolodexes to figure out how to help. Which most people naturally are inclined to do.
   
   Say "I work with ___________ (hospital administrators) who are struggling with _______________ (how to communicate effectively with their medical staff and get them to help control utilization) and a good person for me to meet is _____________ (the CEO of Main Street Hospital)"
   
   
3. Illustrate your points with stories or anecdotes. From infancy, we are hard-wired to listen raptly to stories. They fire up our imaginations, and open up our creative thinking.
   
   Share brief case studies from your prior experience, or tell success (or funny failure) stories. Use visual and emotional language to engage them. Reminisce about times when you were engaged in your passion, and how much fun you were having.
    
   
4. Steer the conversation to the other person. People love to be heard. When you have given your short "scripted response" as outline above, make a point of turning the tables on them ("So Joe, I'd love to hear a bit about you and your line of work. What is it you do?") and getting to know them much better.
   
   Ask them how they got into their field (hopefully your field of interest). Find out what they love most about their work. Or what their biggest challenges are, and how they have chosen to solve them. Be interested, focus less on trying to be interesting!
   
   
5. Be genuinely curious about the other person. This is an extension of number 4. You'll have so much more fun and be under way less pressure if you focus on building a real relationship, even if it is around your golf scores or your family vacation plans. It makes a conversation a whole lot less stressful.
   

Next time, we'll focus on what to do after that initial conversation.

I feel a little strange walking into a hospital-sponsored event, planning to give physicians a strategy for quitting their medical practices – but hey, that is the power of free speech. And they invited me!

Did you know that:

   • Almost 60% of physicians would leave medicine if they could
   • 77% of physicians experience fatigue as a result of their work
   • 67% of physicians have experienced emotional burnout
   • 70% of physicians know other doctors who have left medical practice because of low morale?

(from The ACPE Physician Morale Study of 2006)

My presentation message for the largely physician audience arises from personal familiarity, and my observation that transforming one's existence from a life in clinical medicine to one in a different career is a progressive journey. A somewhat challenging one, despite our easy escapist fantasies, and riddled with normal, commonly held feelings and experiences that characterize each step of the journey.

In fact, I have defined seven stages to this process:

   1. Being a physician
   2. Feeling restless and dissatisfied
   3. Indecision
   4. Identity crisis
   5. Choice
   6. Transition
   7. New non-MD or non-practice or changed practice role

Having personally journeyed through them all, I’m inviting the tough questions from the audience. Unless 77% of them are catching up on their sleep!

The Entrepreneurial MD's Podcast this week

Are you an owner or even part-owner of a commercial medical office building?
Or thinking of becoming one? 
Or other commercial real estate?
If so, it's time to sit up and pay attention as this information could make you smile, while Uncle Sam frowns.

In a podcast interview with Cherie Brown of Cost Segregation Services Inc (CSSI), I learned that there are relatively new accounting regulations that permit a commercial business owner paying income taxes to accelerate the depreciation on the building, thereby freeing up lots more available cash flow each month.

From their website:

"Cost segregation is the IRS approved method of re-classifying components and improvements of your commercial building from real property to personal property. This process allows the assets to be depreciated on a 5, 7, or 15-year schedule instead of the traditional 27.5 or 39-year depreciation schedule of real property. Thus your current taxable income will be greatly reduced and your cash flow will increase."

Although this may sound like dry "accounting-ese", I hope that the idea of saving beacoup bucks is catching your attention!

In order to qualify for cost segregation, you need an engineer's report that details all the specifics of your building - carpeting, cabinetry, wall attachments, walls, floors, ceilings etc! That is where CSSI comes in - they are the engineering company that generates the report for your CPA.

The good news is that Cherie is a capable translator, who manages to make an arcane topic understandable.

Questions, anyone?? :-)

I just love how inventive humans are!

Having previously praised the benefits of a gratitude journal, and being quite the hypocrite as someone who never remembers to journal (although I DO walk around feeling grateful a lot!), I was tickled pink today to come across this cute site, ButterBeeHappy.

The idea is simple - you type into some little boxes the five things that are making you happy today (you can do this anonymously) and the site records them for you.

That's nice, but the real value for me lies in the feature that allows you to select the frequency of receiving an automated email reminder to write down your five "thank yous". I'm going for broke and getting a daily reminder!

The site is the labor of love of John Brooks Pounders, and is inspired by the work of Tal Ben-Shahar, an author and lecturer at Harvard University, who currently teaches a course at Harvard, titled "Positive Psychology.

What are you grateful for?

Internet Marketing expert Shama has mastered the skill of making tough technical ideas seem easy to understand!

In the podcast, I explore with Shama just what SEO (search engine optimization) is, and why it matters to any medical or physician website owner who wants to be found on the Web through the search engines by potential patients or clients.

Shama generously shares the simpler optimization tips that even non-techies can implement (such as using your best key words and phrases in your content and in your article or blog post titles).

Listen here to the The Entrepreneurial MD's Insights from the Professionals Podcast (it runs about 28 minutes) and then please come on back to this blog and add your comment or ask a question. Shama or I will get back to you!