Entrepreneurial Spirit

By Nancy J. Beckley, MS, MBA

How seeing yourself as an entrepreneur can move you closer to achieving your dreams.

Over the past several months, many of you have been talking about the challenges and opportunities (yes, opportunities!) involved in being a therapist today. We all know that we are not going back to the days of exceptional salaries, great third-party reimbursement, and outstanding career opportunities. However, the future holds the opportunity to capture the spirit of whom you want to be as a therapist, employee, supervisor, or owner. How can we capture the spirit? How do we move our creative ideas forward? We need to don the persona of an entrepreneur.

We all have an opportunity to be entrepreneurs. Who comes to your mind when you say the word entrepreneur? Perhaps it is Ron Popeil-the enigmatic inventor of the Popeil Pocket Fisherman™, the Ronco Vegematic™, and that fabulous spray paint for baldness. Popeil has inventions by the thousands and is considered to be the inventor of the infomercial, which paved the way for other inventive entrepreneurs to get noticed.

Perhaps entrepreneurs of the electronic age come to mind like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. In the field of rehab, we might think of Richard Scrushy of HealthSouth or Donna Rodriquez, PT, founder of RehabWorks, or, more recently, Peter Kovacek of Kovacek Management Services and his creation of PTManager.com, an online community that has unleased an incredible outpouring of spirit and sharing among the rehab field.

We may think of these people as polished and savvy business people, rather than entrepreneurs, but each one of them started out as an entrepreneur with the passion and the spirit to push their ideas and dreams forward to create a great business.

Are you an entrepreneur?

Take a minute to close your eyes and picture yourself as an entrepreneur. How do you picture yourself? What are you doing? Does the first thought that comes to mind have to do with work or pleasure-or a combination of both? How does it feel? Is there a smile on your face? I have been asking colleagues this question lately. All describe entrepreneurial dreams both inside and outside the world of rehab and possibilities that include both work and pleasure.

One colleague shared with me that she owns thoroughbred racehorses, breeds one annually, and dreams of her foals running in a big race like the Kentucky Derby; she also toys with the idea of opening an equine therapy center. She happily informs me that equine therapy is a cash business.

Another colleague bakes cookies using her family’s secret recipe. She has created an evening and weekend cookie business out of her home with the appropriate business licenses. Now she wants to make this hobby a full-time business. Is it only a dream?

Heidi Hermann-Wright, MBA, OTR, CHT, who owns a hand therapy clinic in Indianapolis, wonders how she can continue to practice quality and profitable therapy with managed care and Medicare cuts, and the increasing tendency of accounts receivable to keep extending themselves further and further-requiring more time and resources to collect. She has always dreamed about owning a spa. While she is not certain if that is truly a goal, she has decided to capture the spirit in the interim, which has helped her clinic. She hired a licensed massage therapist on a contingency basis. Cash business is coming into the clinic and she is getting publicity. She is excited, the staff is excited, and maybe her dream of opening a spa will be eventually realized.

Terri Levine, MS, CCC-SLP, and Kay Cannon, MBA, PT, left behind executive positions with large therapy companies to transition to the world of professional and personal coaching. Through spreading the word among friends and colleagues, hoping to stir up some coaching clients, they found that many of their therapy colleagues wanted to be trained as coaches. Last fall, Comprehensive Coaching University was founded. They have captured the spirit with this enthusiastic response and have a full and exciting training curriculum particularly suited to experienced therapists. While Terri and Kay no longer work as therapists or executives in rehab, they have brought the spirit they originally brought to their rehab careers to their new venture.

Personal Experience

I would not describe myself as an entrepreneur in my career if the definition had been limited to inventing something, having a great idea when the timing was right, or having a lot of money to show my ingenuity. However, I do have the entrepreneurial spirit. For more than 17 years, I worked for two very large medical centers. When working for large facilities, it is easy to see yourself as just an employee. I never did. I always felt that I had to capture the spirit. While still an employee, I managed to move forward entrepreneurial ideas into activities and programs for the spinal cord patients I worked with. It was the most enjoyable part of my job.

When I strolled into the hospital’s risk management department in the mid-1980s and announced that I needed a risk assessment of some new programs, I purposely did not ask for approval for the programs because I knew I would not get it. The new programs that evolved over the years included day camping trips for rehab patients, wheelchair triathlons, paraplegic waterskiing, wheelchair skydiving, a wheelchair par course, and pet therapy. One of the true values of a recreational therapy program is allowing patients to go where they thought they would never go again. Large institutions are rarely entrepreneurial, but the people in them are and they must be free to do so.

The late wheelchair athlete, Karen Jacobs, MEd, was our wheelchair sports coordinator at Tampa General Rehabilitation Center in Florida. Karen was willing to try anything to help her patients, including providing the opportunity to get in on the ground level of quad rugby. However, she was a little timid about approaching the administration. I simply told the risk manager that another rehab center in California had started this program and had no problems with it. It worked, the program got going, therapists became coaches, referees, and traveling supporters. I became the administrative liaison and traveled with the team. The whole rehab center, hospital staff, patients, physicians, and families had a team to rally around. The local sports news covered our Tampa Generals. Within 4 years, we were national champions. We had t-shirts and a catalog of other items with our logo. This entrepreneurial activity captured the spirit.

As you are settling into the new millennium, take some time out of your busy day to sit back, relax, turn the phones off, close your eyes, and dream. What are your goals? Where do you see yourself, where do you want to be, what do you want to achieve? Being an entrepreneur may not be that difficult. Feel the spirit-what goal can you set today that will move you forward?

Nancy J. Beckley, MS, MBA, is the president of Bloomingdale Consulting Group Inc in the Tampa area, Fla. Comments, questions, and entrepreneurial ideas that you would like to discuss are encouraged at (888) 999-0275.