Stay Limber

I remember as a kid laughing a little bit as coaches would take us through warm-up drills. They worked their hardest to get us limbered up before we would start a practice or a game to make sure that we could perform at our peak and avoid injury. When I was young; I could never see a difference in performance after taking the time to warm up, and like most of us in our youth, I never worried about getting hurt.

Chairman’s CORNER
– Reid Robertson, OD

Time passed, and I began to realize that I was not immortal, and I saw the difference that it made to take the time to limber up. I was able to reduce injuries and perform better from the beginning of exercising and help limit all the muscle soreness the next day. Each year that goes by, it takes more and more effort to try to stay limber.

I believe that mentally, we have to do the same exercises. We must keep our minds limber to handle the changing world that our profession is in. If we fail to stretch our minds and think about our clinics’ future, we will not swiftly react when it can benefit us.

Around 12 months ago, I went through the exercise of updating my 5-year plan for the clinic. I knew that in 2020, my lease would be expiring, and I would have some options. After weighing them all out, I decided to exercise the 5-year extension on my lease and remain in the same location.

I worked through many different scenarios and decided that was the best course of action at the time.

Then COVID 19 swept across the globe and wreaked havoc on lives, occupations, and businesses worldwide. In May, after some of the panics had settled down, I re-evaluated my clinic’s future.

I realized that I could still run a successful clinic despite the pandemic, and the world of commercial real estate was rapidly changing. Suddenly, landlords would be much more willing to negotiate to secure a good lease. Because I had limbered up my business brain a few months before, I could reassess and change plans quickly.

I was able to sign a lease with a good deal from my landlord and almost double my square footage, giving me the space to bring in a full-time doctor I had met over a year before and wanted to have work in my clinic. Working to remain flexible and ready to adjust allowed me to take advantage of a situation that has been devastating for many businesses but opened an opportunity for mine. We’ve been open at the new clinic since December 1st, and I am happy that I took the time previously to “warm-up” my mind and work through different action plans for the future.