In this episode we take a look at marketing and practice building from the perspective of new practitioner who is excited and looking forward to building a business. 

No, you don’t need to go back and reread that last paragraph; you got it right the first read through. In this conversation we hear from a newly minted acupuncturist who is happily looking forward to building a business. Yes, this is a minority point of view, as many of us believe ourselves to be healers, but not “business people.” 

For many this aversion to engaging the “practice of practice” can be the source of emotional, financial, relational and spiritual struggle. We grudgingly do something we hate in order to get something we want. How’s that supposed to work?

Listen in and update your perspective on marketing and business!

Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview. 

The medicine of east Asia is based on a science that does not hold itself

separate from the phenomenon that it seeks to understand our medicine

did not grow out of Petri dish experimentation or double-blind studies.

It arose from observing nature and our part in it.

Chinese medicine evolves not from the examination of debt structures, but

rather from living systems with their complex mutually entangled interactions.

Welcome to qiological.

I'm Michael Macs, the host of this podcast that goes in depth on

issues, pertinent to practitioners and students of Chinese medicine.

Dialogue and discussion have always been elemental to Chinese medicine.

Listen into these conversations with experienced practitioners that go deep

into how this ancient medicine is alive and unfolding in the modern clinic.

Hey everyone.

Welcome back to chia logical today.

My guest is Stacey Combs, Stacy, unlike many of the guests that I have

on the show that have got years and years and years of experience with

acupuncture, Stacy is about to graduate.

From the, um, Oregon college of Oriental medicine.

So she's brand new and there's, and there's a twist to why she's here today.

And that twist is we're going to be talking about business.

Stacy has a lot of years as a massage therapist, she's built a small

portable home that she lives in.

She absolutely hates breakfast and.

She describes herself as a serial introvert.

So this ought to be an interesting show, serial introvert here to discuss why she's

totally psyched about building a business.

I can't wait to get into this.

Stacey, welcome to geologic.

Uh, thanks for having me, Michael, I'm excited to be here.

I'm pretty psyched about having you here too, because you know, a lot

of people in our field, especially a lot of people that are starting

out in our field have got some real anxieties about building a business.

In fact, if they could go get themselves a job.

They do it in a heartbeat, but you know, if anyone has looked closely before

they went to acupuncture school, they'd realize that there's not many jobs.

You know, if you want to make a living as an acupuncturist, you're probably

going to have to build your own business.

Lots of us see that as a challenge, but in some conversations I've had with

you, you're like chomping at the bit.

You can't wait to do it.

Yeah.

I'm excited to do it.

I did it once before with the massage practice and.

It was actually fun.

I mean, there were parts of it, definitely that, that I didn't enjoy

and there's a pretty steep learning curve, but I really enjoyed it.

So I'm looking forward to it again.

I mean, we all know about the steep learning curve and we'll probably get

into some of that a little later in the show, building a business as fun.

What kind of freak are you?

I think you're in the business of.

And I think a lot of times where there's so much trepidation for

people coming out of school is that they think that they have to do all

of these things that they don't want to, or they've been trying to avoid

because they didn't go into business.

And I think what they're missing is that you, you know who you are, or

hopefully you're figuring out who you are and you, you take that, you take your

strengths and you, you run with that.

There's.

Right way to do business.

I mean, there's definitely some wrong ways to do business, but there's no right way.

You have to learn what works for you and then run with that.

So having to learn what works for you and running with that, I mean, that

sounds really nice, but it sounds like there's a ton of failure that

goes along the way, figuring that out.

Absolutely.

How do you deal with that?

You laugh about it, you laugh about it.

You can't take it seriously.

I've said stupid things to people in places where I thought they were

somewhat had higher power than me, or were, you know, more refined business

people or more experienced or whatever.

I, at one point I just decided.

That I was going to knock on the doors and if they open them,

I'm going to go through them.

And if they didn't open, I was just going to turn around and find another one.

You just keep moving.

All right.

So I'm a little curious about this because you are a self-described

serial introvert, right?

Knocking on doors.

Sounds like miss extrovert to me.

How does an introvert.

Go knocking on doors.

I'm an extroverted introvert.

Is that a Chinese medicine diagnosis?

Yeah.

Young with him, right.

Or would that be right?

So I actually find it exhilarating to do, and I love interacting with people.

I really enjoy it.

But being around people drains me.

That's, you know, you're kind of your standard definition of.

That way that introverts recharge is by being alone or sometimes,

you know, just being with one or two people is fine, but, you know,

introverts recharged by being alone.

And so I would say businesses often and extroverts world, even though introverts

have so much to contribute, it's hard.

And I like it.

I do get nervous.

I do get.

Where I have to just move before I overthink something and just go for it.

But ultimately I sorta like the stage, honestly, you know, but when

it's time to step off and, and, uh, recoup, I definitely need to be alone.

Right.

So it sounds like for you, there's, there's a time for some action and

you really jumped into it and then there's time for rest and recharge

and you settle into that as well.

Absolutely.

So you've built a business before, and I suspect that there are some

people in our acupuncture world.

Maybe they've got a business background or maybe they like me, my family.

A lot of my extended family didn't have jobs.

They had small businesses, like having a job was almost a curious idea.

Right?

You don't have a job, you have a business.

Right.

So some of us get a little leg up that way and that some of us have

experienced like, like you've gotten, then there's the folks that are like,

oh my God, I'm going to do a business.

How on earth do I even begin?

So for those folks that are in the, how on earth do I even begin?

Can you kind of pull back the curtain?

I mean, you're at the beginning of starting your acupuncture business,

what are some of the pathways that you see yourself going down and

what are some of the early on things that you feel like you need to get

online to make this business around?

So I've been thinking about this a lot.

I haven't constructed everything, an outline, et cetera, which I

will eventually, but right now I'm just playing with a lot of ideas.

But I really feel like if a person has never had their own practice, I really

feel like probably one of the best places they could start would be to lease a

space within an already existing practice.

Some pretty kind and open and sharing individuals, which

this is the medicine for that.

So I think that's a really good place to start.

I, I feel like a mentor is not a bad idea, and I know OCOM has a mentoring program

where you can find an alumni that has done what you're going to about ready to do.

That's important because you need someone to talk to.

You need to make sure that your bases are covered because you

don't know what you're doing.

It's really good to have that type of feedback.

You know, that's definitely something that I'm considering as my startup is

just leasing a couple of rooms in an already existing practice for one you

don't have, well, we can talk about the money later, but you don't want to

spend a bunch of money in the beginning and to share expenses is, is a pretty

sweet deal to have that responsibility all on your own is, I mean, you

don't even have people coming in yet.

That seems silly.

So.

So Sarah expenses would be a great idea.

Yeah.

I mean, definitely at the beginning, it's kind of a bootstrap operation.

Well, I hope it is.

I mean, this is what I see that makes me nervous about other students is

that they're trying to figure out how to borrow, how to borrow another,

whatever 20 grand, 50 grand, a hundred grand to start a business.

Really.

I didn't know that people thought that way.

That's very interesting.

I can certainly tell you from my side, being out of debt is a superpower.

I totally agree.

Being in debt is it just drains your life force?

It's it's not, and people don't really realize that.

I totally agree with you.

So yes, that is something that people that people think about.

And I think they think about.

Because that's what Western medical doctors do.

If they're going to open in their own private practice and they can

kind of get away with that because they're going to jump out of the gate.

And often many of them are going to make money more quickly than we ever would.

And more, of course, your idea about this is not beat cheap.

In other words, you know, recognize value, recognize that money and value

are not the same thing, but do what you can to start off as inexpensive as.

As possible, try not to borrow.

How do you sort of suss out the difference between being cheap in a way that actually

hamstrings you and being money-wise in a way that helps your future success?

So to back up for a sec real quick, I actually have a little motto that I

constantly think about and that's use what you have and do what you know, or do what

you know, and use what you have in that.

Don't do more.

Don't try and figure out more.

You can only use what you have and do what you know.

So I think when you're asking me, Michael, let me, let me kind of

throw it back at you is how do you do this and not look cheap?

Is that what you're saying?

Well, no, it's not about not look cheap.

It's about, and this is just something that I have discovered over years of

successfully arguing for my limitations.

Sometimes I do things on the cheap.

And it actually backfires.

It actually causes me to take the long way around.

It actually gets in the way of development.

Right?

There's so many things online these days that are free.

So you go like for the free website instead of actually throwing

down on a nice WordPress website.

And then that company goes by.

You know, or you build your business on Facebook.

That's not your domain.

That's someone else's domain.

They changed the rules.

You disappear.

I mean, it seemed like a good idea because it was air quotes free.

So, so that's what I mean sometimes free is not such a good idea.

I think that's a learning curve.

And that those things are going to happen.

But if you talk them up as learning experiences, well, you already

built your first website and now you get to build another one.

You're going to be much better at it.

The second time you have to evaluate the word free because free means

you're not going to pay money for it, but it often means that you're

going to pay your time for it.

Time has a lot of value.

Time is just as important as money.

And if you're going to suck up my time, You know, I have a, I have a dollar

amount in my head that I am trying to sort of program myself to believe

that I'm worse so that I can make.

If you're going to take up my time or I'm going to choose a project

like that, I need to calculate what my time is worth and then decide if

I want to spend money on it or not.

In other words, I'm not tech savvy.

We had to develop a website in school, on a Wix at the end of it.

He asked us what we learned.

And I said that I learned that I never ever want to.

And I probably of course will go do it.

When you start a business, you don't have anything to do, except

for put time in into your business.

But, you know, I hope not too.

I hope maybe I can find somebody who will trade or do, you know,

we can work something out.

But I learned that I don't ever want to do that.

I don't want to spend my life force doing that.

I'd rather pay money.

I'd rather pay money.

So I think you need to evaluate what your time is worth or what your

value is and where your skills lie.

Exactly.

Like I said, in the beginning, Time's all I've got, you know, I don't exactly have

money, so I mean, need to spend my time.

Because I won't be having a lot of money.

So, so instead of getting alone and spending it on managing people

to do things for you, you're gonna bootstrap it, invest your time.

I'll pay for the things that I absolutely can't do obviously.

Or that would be a huge mistake to do.

I'll have like probably, yeah.

Uh, I'll have a, an account.

You know, I'll have somebody set my books up because those are the

things from the beginning that you really don't want to screw up because

that money, you know, getting in a situation where you owe lots of money

when you don't have it is it'll bite.

You talk to us a little bit about that.

I mean, a lot of us don't have any background in accounting other than,

uh, oh, how much money is in my wallet.

What are some things that people that are about to start their business?

Probably don't know about accounting, but you've discovered over the years

of having run businesses, what are like the top three things about

getting your money thing together that new practitioners should know about?

Obviously you'd need to have an accountant.

This isn't something that unless you have, unless you were an accountant

in a previous lifetime, probably not something that you should mess

around with because there are so many.

Changes and I mean, year to year, everything's different and

they're, that's what their job is to keep up on all of that.

I feel like my experience in the past has shown me that you need to talk

to your friends who are in business, who your friends, who you've really

gel with and vibe with, who are similar to you, or maybe have similar

practices as you, or what you want.

And, uh, talk to get an interview with an accountant.

You really, really need to get along with your accountant and feel good when

you're in the room with your accountants, the way they manage your taxes and do

things can either cause you lots of stress or you could be really relieved.

They just really feel like you need to know your accountant.

And it's not that expensive.

I mean, well, for my business, it really was not that expensive to have an account.

You know, and then you can have that accountant, if you like that, accountant

have them suggest a bookkeeper that they work with and then have them do a

one-time thing and set your books up.

And then you keep track of your books for awhile.

You also need to have your own business account, but they're going

to tell you all of those things, you know, I don't need to tell them all

right, you don't want to co-mingle the business and the personal funds.

That's like a gigantic IRS.

No-no yeah.

And this is where having a mentor really comes in.

In the very beginning, there's so much licensing paperwork and you

know, so many things, so many more hoops that we have to jump through

and we're exhausted and we rarely is it all outlined, step one, step two.

How to be, how to become licensed, how to get your business license, how

to contact an, you know, an attorney or what malpractice insurance to

buy and what, um, I mean, there's so many decisions to make and so many

more little hoops to jump through.

It's exhausting.

I think it's really important to have a mentor who you can be

like, Hey, I'm opening my doors.

And they're like, okay, do you have everything in order?

You know, do you have your malpractice insurance?

Do you have this?

Do you have that?

Like, there's just a lot.

So I think it's important to have somebody kind of, to just make

sure that you're on track mentors.

Sounds like a great idea.

That just sounds like a serious cheetah certification for the business.

Yeah, well, you're going to make mistakes, you know, it's, it's just easier.

Somebody's got their, their eye on what you're doing a little bit for

awhile to make sure that you don't make their mistakes, you know,

and they'll be happy to help you.

So I found that true people often, especially if you're listening and paying

attention, there are people out there that are really, really happy to help you.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

You know, after, after so many years, as a massage therapist with my practice,

if anybody ever contacted me, I was always ready to go have coffee or

whatever, to help somebody out for sure.

Okay.

Let's uh, let's shift this just a little bit.

I mean, you really seem like a cheerleader for business.

What is it about business that you like so much and in particular, what excites

you about having an acupuncture before.

So it's going to sound funny, but actually what I liked the most is

just the connection with people.

It's also sort of one of the things that I like most about where I'm

looking forward to you in practicing acupuncture is the connection with people.

I love people's stories.

I love to, to, to know where they're coming from and where

they're going and what excites them.

And you know, all of that for me, business is really about building

relationships and networks.

And as an acupuncturist or having an acupuncture practice, you know, everyone

will tell you a million times over word of mouth is the best marketing.

It's the best way to get patients.

It is of course, uncle Google, gossiping about you doesn't hurt either.

Oh, well, that's good to know.

I started a long time ago, the massage practice, and I never had an online

presence because by the time it was really important to have an online presence.

I didn't actually need.

And so I didn't even bother.

Okay.

So there it is.

There's that power of word of mouth.

That's the refinement right there.

You can get referrals from all over the place.

You can get referrals everywhere.

Do you go do your BNI, go do all these random different things, but

the people that re refer to you are either people that you've developed

networks with and have a personal connection to, or your patients.

And the people that they refer to you are like them.

So you develop this circle of people or people who support you and you

support each other that you really like.

And then you really like your patients and it just keeps going.

It's great.

So I really like that.

So when you say networking, because even though I have a podcast show,

I'm actually kind of an introvert as well, so I totally get it.

So when I think about going to do some sort of networking event, honestly,

I'd rather go have root canal.

How do you feel when you get there?

I don't like it.

I mean, by and large, I mean, this is just me by and large.

If I'm going to a network, like it, there's some luncheon put

on by some meetup or, um, I've been invited to a few BNIs.

Oh my God.

I couldn't wait to get out.

I was just like, Chew my leg off.

And I know that this kind of thing works for some people

and they really thrive on it.

And I know there are people that do health fairs and they thrive on it, but

honestly, I want to chew my leg off.

Why, how did it make you feel when you were there?

I'm just, I just don't like it I'm anxious.

I just I'd rather be anywhere, but there, I just don't like it for whatever reason.

It's oil, I'm watching.

It's not happening.

I've found other ways of getting my myself out there in the world, but it's not

through those kinds of networking events.

You know, I belong to social clubs or different groups.

We have shared interests and I get plenty of referrals from them.

So I think it, for me, it's just been a matter of choosing the

groups where I like hanging out.

And I hang out there, but the ones that I don't like hanging out in,

I've given myself permission to, just to like nix it, which is great.

That's exactly what I was talking about.

The very beginning about, you have to know yourself, use what you have and do it,

you know, like that's the exact thing.

Like if you're not going to jive at those places, then they're

not going to work for you.

If you're miserable, you can't possibly be admitting any great

connection energy to anybody else.

You just want to get the heck out of there, you know,

like you, you can't do that.

It's not even, I have plenty of experience.

Yeah.

And I've done it too.

And I agree with you.

I'm not, I, of course, you know, it's so funny because being new again, of course,

I'm going to run out and try BNI again, just, just to make sure, you know, it's

been what, 20 years since I did BNI.

I know I'm not going to like it, but I'm going to go try it.

And the reason I don't like it, and I don't know if you've

identified, of course, that kind of thing makes me anxious.

Uh, and this is so not going to get me favored by a lot of people.

It feels heartless.

It feels selfish.

It feels damn Pyre ish people.

Go there because they want business.

They want people to come to their business.

To me, networking is, Hey, I like you, you know, I like what you're doing.

I think what you're doing is great.

Let's let's help each other.

And I realized that that that's, that's what BNI is supposed to.

Are those groups, excuse me, a group like that and networking group, like

that is supposed to be about, but what I feel from other people is how can

I get that acupuncture is to refer.

Too, so that I can build their fence in their backyard.

How I'm going to go meet her?

I have no, I don't care who she is, but I want her to know who I am.

That's how I feel at those places.

It's just, it just feels selfish.

It doesn't feel right.

Well, I mean, we may have to check in with you on another program, down the

road and see what your BNI or, you know, similar type group experiences like, and

if you found something worthwhile in it, or if your past experience holds true.

Yeah.

Well, and I, maybe I just, I just keep hoping that there's some,

like, I don't know, sweet kind, loving unicorn group of being nice.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I, I don't.

I agree with you.

Um, I think when I finally gave that up and let go of like all of these

things that I had to do in the name of business that I actually was hating,

you know, what I finally did was I.

So I'm a cyclist and I joined a group and that group is, uh, also sponsors a

team and I went on group rides all the time when I'm starting my business, I'm

in my head, nine to five or whatever, you know, 10 to six focusing on business.

How can I get this going?

It's an all day adventure.

Even if I don't have patients, I started going on afternoon ride.

That was one of my main sources of getting patients.

I had one person show up and get a massage and he told everybody, and so I

had to start carrying business cards in my back pocket when I went out on rides.

And I love that.

And I loved meeting them and they met me and they felt safe with me.

So they came to see me.

This to me makes a lot of sense in terms of I'm using the word loosely networking,

finding the place where you click finding the place where you thrive, you know,

and it might be a BNI thing, or it might be a health fair kind of thing.

Some people do really, really well with that.

And some of us were like, Anna, Filactic highly allergic.

So.

Yeah.

Find the place where you fit the vibe is going to be a whole lot better, right?

Yeah.

I think that, I mean, I'm going to throw this out there to you

because I feel like you have to be really careful, especially with.

In Idaho, massage is not considered a medical practice.

We weren't considered medical practitioners.

Uh, so we were not regulated by HIPAA and we were not under any obligation

to, I mean, we could be friends with our clients and you know, it

didn't really matter that much.

And I, I really feel like in my head, I'm like, wow, I need to hit

reset on that a little bit because.

From experience, things work much better when you're not

friends with your patients.

You know, it's easier to stay focused in the treatment room.

It's easier to not flub something up in public it's you know, so there's

that whole bit that I feel like in my future is going to be a little bit of

a balancing act, especially if this is going to be part of my marketing

is doing something that I love and it is also a social activities.

You know, it's learning balance.

Absolutely.

You get to learn something about boundaries.

Yeah.

And it is something that I feel like watching other students because I

have experience with it in the past.

And I was cognizant of it always when I was a massage therapist, but watching

other practitioners learn while they were interns and kind of start discovering

those boundaries, I feel like, Ooh boy, you know, you have to be really careful.

For sure.

That is the mindful side of the whole networking thing, you know, I suspect

cause you're here at the end of your acupuncture education, you probably hear

lots of people talking about how they're going to get out and what they're going to

do, um, and how they're going to work it.

I suspect you probably have heard some people say things and you go, wow, that

just doesn't sound like a good idea.

What would you say are some of the common, you know, besides borrow

money to start your practice?

What are some of the common mistakes or illusions that people

have about starting a business?

Actually, that's a tough question.

Um, I know seemingly it would be easy, but at the end of acupuncture school,

we're also incredibly wiped out.

Nobody wants to do anything for at least three months.

People aren't really talking about it that much.

We just.

Getting through boards.

And I don't think anybody's particularly excited about running

out and starting a practice.

I mean, we're just so incredibly wiped out and burnt out, but of course people

have to, you know, I mean, I'm in an, also a rather unique place in that Portland.

There are a lot of acupuncturists in Portland because NUNM is here as well

as OCOM, you know, we're looking at.

Probably, I don't know, over a hundred grads per year coming out and, uh,

50%, I don't even know what the percentages of people staying here,

but they really start looking for jobs.

That's really what I see the most of people looking for a job.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's more, I, I don't hear a lot about how I'm going to start

my business or my practice.

I've seen one or two over the last couple of years, you know, I saw somebody.

Lisa space and throw a bunch of money into it and have this huge multi-room

practice that is kind of empty.

But, and when I asked her about it, she said that the

space was a really good deal.

So I, I'm not gonna, I don't know what happened there.

Maybe, you know, if you have the right situation, will that could be.

'cause you could always bring somebody else in or, you know, maybe

it was a very unique opportunity.

It looked, it looked precarious to me.

You're kind of the bootstrap girl.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But, um, who's to say what her financial situation really is.

I don't know.

It's none of my business, but that looks a little precarious really mostly.

And it sounds crazy, but my friends have found jobs.

I have a couple of friends that graduated last year that have started practicing.

And I think it's, you know, you're hungry for awhile, that's for sure.

But that's what makes you work on your website at 10 30 at night?

Well, it's true, exactly.

10 30 in the afternoon.

If you don't have patients well, just all day, if you're as tech savvy as

I am, it's just going to take you probably like three weeks to do that.

Yeah.

Can be conveniently.

I used to be in high tech, so on my own, it depends.

Yeah, it's not gonna, it's not going to go so smoothly for me.

I'm sure.

But I have time.

We had a class where they, they pro and I just couldn't hardly sit there.

They brought in a, um, a banker to discuss credit, to discuss how to

make your credit look good, which I, you know, actually quite frankly,

is something that you should write.

But I also, I don't have credit cards.

I don't do debt.

I don't do that kind of thing.

Like you don't have it in the bank.

You don't spend it.

Could you just say that again?

I don't know.

I love that phrase.

If you don't have it in the bank, you don't have it to spend that's yeah, yeah.

What a concept.

Right?

So not the American way.

It's not the American way of just point in time.

But again, having grown up in a family of people that had small

businesses, that's the way it was.

So I graduated with a lot of millennials.

I mean, our age group was 25 to 35 and you know, they're having babies in the

middle of school and racking up debt.

And, you know, I hear, oh, we're going to buy a house or, you know, we're going to,

and I, and I just, it makes me cringe.

It makes me scared for them because.

You just can't do that.

You're so precarious when you do all of that, when you rack up that much debt

and your business is going to fail.

If you do that, because you have to have stuff in the bank for

when things don't go, well, you know, you need to have a reserve.

And so how much of a reserve do you think people should have?

Oh, that's complicated, right?

Because not only if you're, if you're your own business person,

you need your own reserves.

You really need to think about that.

Depends on how old you are, how healthy you are.

And of course there's always accidents.

Uh, I think you should have, oh man, which seems so unrealistic, but it's true.

You really should have for your own person, six months of

overhead expenses socked away.

If not, if not at least three, that's your mortgage, your car payment, whatever.

I mean, you, you need to know what it takes to cover.

Your life, whatever your paycheck is, or whatever, you know, cover your life.

But then you also have to have the business part too, because if you

don't show up to work, you're not gonna make any money, you know?

Uh, I've noticed that, yeah, it's brutal as vacations cost you double what they

really feel like, like yes they do.

Yeah.

I don't think people who own, who have jobs, don't really realize that when you

go on vacation, it costs you the vacation.

The time that you've lost at work.

It's crazy.

Anyway.

So you should have same thing with your business expenses, at least

to cover the basic, the basics.

Uh, you should have three to six months of that too, you know, which

is insane coming from the beginning.

That's why we want to keep everything low cost, low cost overhead in the beginning.

You know, it definitely can free you up not having bills.

'cause, you can put that money into your business, or you can

put it into the reserve fund.

One of the things that I found is helpful is I do this every two weeks.

Actually.

I take a certain amount of the money that, that my business has earned.

I've got a certain percentage and I just moved that over to savings because

that way I keep building that reserve.

And if the money's in savings where I can't see it, then I don't know.

Yeah, about half.

Did you go look at it?

Cause it feels really good.

Doesn't it?

The difference between having something put away in case

something happens and not having something there makes for completely

different kinds of sleep at night.

Yeah.

Well, and you never know, like you may come upon an opportunity.

What if you want to buy the building?

All of a sudden it comes up for sale.

Well, if you're living by patient, by patient, by patient, you're not

going to be able to, you're never going to have those opportunities.

So I believe in education.

So I, this is something too that I kind of wanted to talk about.

We're such students right in school forever.

And while of course, it's time to be done.

It's also time to start picking up things that new things to learn.

And if you want to learn how to have a good business or be a good

business person, or just be a, I don't know, a good version of what

you think is a business versus.

It's time to listen to the podcasts and it's time to read the books and

it's time to get better at that.

The reason that we don't like things is because we're not good at them.

Right.

Yeah.

And sometimes we avoid them cause we're not good at them.

Yeah.

And nothing's easy until you know how to do it.

It's time to start.

Finding those podcasts where people, you know, like Simon Sinek,

the guy is totally entertaining.

Simon Sinek.

Oh, give us, give us your top three.

What podcasts concerning business do you like?

There's Simon Sinek.

Yeah.

I, you know, it's funny.

I just pulled up and was starting to research the topic because of

course I haven't done this in awhile.

Uh, the top ones and I really do like Simon Sinek.

I think he's got some great ideas.

But he's more of like, oh, his ideas are great, but he doesn't

give you practical steps.

You know, he gives you concepts, which is great.

I'm going to say Dave Ramsey for the content.

There are some things about Dave that, that you may or may not jive

with, but ultimately the content.

On your finances is really good.

There he's like this super-duper financial dude.

As I recall, Dave Ramsey is like, he, he himself went bankrupt and then his whole

purpose became about like how to get out of it and then how to teach other people.

He's pretty political and he's pretty religious, you know, if that's not, you.

I, I really encourage, like a lot of people are turned off by him

automatically because of that.

But his content is so good.

If you can just get through the rest of it and just let it be all that

other stuff, his content, his contents.

I don't have a certain podcast off the top of my head.

Maybe one will come to me.

Yeah.

Do you have one?

If you think of one later, you can email me.

Cause I'm going to put all this stuff on the show notes on the website.

Actually, I've been listening to audio books more lately than podcasts.

Honestly, I don't really have anyone that I'm listening to for

business right now, other than the occasional person on Tim Ferris.

Sometimes I'll listen to Tim Ferriss, such a nut cake.

I love him.

Um, but sometimes he's got some really interesting people and some

really interesting business people.

On his show and I'll listen to them.

I was waiting for you to answer.

And I was sitting here going, oh my gosh.

When he stops talking, I have to tell him that.

I think Tim Ferriss is a hack.

It's a hack.

I think he's just out selling books.

Well, he's partly selling books, but come on, he gets it.

He gets interesting people on like, you know, Arnold Schwartzenegger it's.

Yeah.

But do you really think there's a four hour workweek?

Oh, come on.

That's just a draw.

We all, we all, we all got a tagline and he'll tell you

there's no four-hour work week.

Look at that guy.

He works his entire life.

Exactly.

But his book, the four hour work week is like, it's just ridiculous.

It's his, he's just selling books.

Oh, you know, I totally have a different point of view on that.

Oh no, I know.

So I need to go back and review that maybe my opinion will change,

but I think the four hour work week is about optimizing your life.

It stopped doing stupid stuff to distract yourself.

The funny thing is when you're trying to figure out how to maximize your work.

You actually think that that's possible to have a six hour or four hour work week?

I can't remember if it's a six hour work week four, but anyway, I think it

depends on the business that you got.

I just, I just think you're right.

It's about efficiency, but I mean, that's not an acupuncture

business, but it might be a product that you sell on the internet.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, tanned hand to acupuncturists out there, a little internet sideline of some

sort that makes money not a bad idea.

Sure, sure, sure.

Yeah.

Alright.

I'll I'll go back.

I'll go back to Tim Ferris.

Just when I would encourage you to do is go to the podcast and listen

to some of the guests, especially those that have some really big,

interesting business backgrounds.

There are.

Brilliant people out there that have ways of thinking about business that are

so different from the way that us, you know, regular civilians think about it.

And it's just helpful to get a bigger perspective.

Like you listen to Simon Sinek.

There's another guy that I love to pieces.

Uh, his name is Jerry Colonna.

Jerry used to be a venture capital.

He's got a really interesting backstory.

I'm not going to go into it, but those of you that might want to

check him out, just go Google him.

I'll put some links to some of his stuff up as well.

He's got a podcast he does called reboot reboot.io.

And it's mostly about dealing with big time entrepreneurial.

And he's a coach to these people while you may not think that a acupuncturist

starting out as a completely different animal than a big time entrepreneur,

the truth is we're we're in some ways cut from the same cloth because big

time entrepreneurs, generally speaking are not in it for the money they're

in it to do something important.

Right.

They just might have a big vision that requires lots of money and there's all

kinds of ways that we hamstring ourselves and getting from where we are to the

vision that we have of what we want.

And Jerry is flipping brilliant when I need a dose of something

to kind of break my frame of reference in all the best ways.

Um, I turned to him.

Yeah, let's check it out.

That's what I got.

Yeah.

Any other thoughts that you have?

Any little gems that you'd like to share with?

Uh, our colleagues here that are just about to set out on this jaunt of,

uh, entrepreneurial self-employment.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

So funny.

I was thinking about this, you know, for the last couple of days, if you asked me

what I think the most important thing is in setting up your acupuncture practice,

it's the same thing with everything else.

It's location, location, location, right?

Maybe that is.

That changes.

It used to be brick and mortar, where you going to be in your location.

And that doesn't necessarily mean that you need to be on the main drag,

but you need to really think about where your location is in alignment

with who your target market is.

And what does that look like?

And what's it going to look like when they get out of the car

and what's it gonna look like?

Or is it easy for them to get on the car?

You know, like I see so many mistakes there.

I guess maybe that's a massage experience, but, or a massage practice experience, but

it's also, I mean, do you want referrals from a bunch of medical doctors will

then be in a medical arena practice, you know, be, be close to them because

your patients will associate that.

But I live in Portland and there are so many acupuncturists here.

And the ones I remember are the ones on the signs that I see

that I pass every single day.

And that's a big deal.

You know, people there that, the importance of that can't be underestimate.

And it's okay.

Later, later, if you need to move or you want to move and you can, you

know, if your practice is full and flourishing and growing, and you know,

if you want to move somewhere, that's a little more obscure or not as visible.

I think that's probably okay.

You know, I did that with my massage practice and I was

fine, but in the beginning you want people to see your name.

You know, and driving plies where people stare at signs.

So I just think that's really important and it's overlooked often.

Great, Stacy, thank you so much for being on the show and

sharing all of this with us.

I wish you tremendous success and a lot of joy with your, uh,

soon to be new acupuncture price.

Thank you so much.

Thanks for having me.