Monopoly Money

Monopoly Money

I was looking over a couple of businesses this morning and the overhead they are running with and it made me think about what is the proper overhead for any business. There are formulas and equations that we study to understand the right percentages or the proper allocations but I think it is really much larger than just a formula. I work with hundreds of business owners every week to examine the development of their investments. The underlying theme always remains the same for each one of them; "Your business is a reflection of you" 

There are so many bills in this game called life that we get lost from time to time in the shuffle. We have light bills, water bills, food bills, family bills, house bills, car bills and if I kept going it might begin to depress many of you reading this so I will choose to stop right there. The challenge of keeping up with all that is "normal" in todays world can become overwhelming if we allow it to. I work in HealthCare which is definitely a world of rising costs on all fronts. The more that the federal government attempts to study and "help" the system the more regulations seem to evolve. New requirements of every health care provider to track and monitor everything from the entrance signature of the patient, paperwork, disclosures, regulations that keep changing all the way to the electronic records now being mandated for reporting/monitoring purposes. These mandated helps and regulations are creating higher costs to the health providers which will always be paid by the patients in the end.

Since this is the world I work in most of the time it is important for me to remember how and where to focus attention in order to have the most impact on every day. One thing I started to think about this morning was that I know many Doctors working all over the country with completely different overheads. There are some similarities because of the work they do but less than you might think. There should be approximate number of team members for each business depending on the volume of patients they see but not as common as you might think. There should be commonality on floor space depending on the size of the practice but again not as often as you would think. There should be similarities of personal salaries and expenses but actually this is far from true. When we look at each business there should be a way to see commonality between all offices that are seeing 600 visits per month but we do not. There should be the same for all offices who see 800 visits per month but we still do not. There should be the same picture of expense with offices that each see 1000 patients per month but it always seems to be moving back and forth. 

This is in my opinion one of our greatest challenges in any business; understanding how to create a budget that is not completely negotiable depending on circumstances. As a business owner it is imperative that you MUST be familiar with what it cost you to run your business each month and you must also become so intimate that you are always searching for ways to improve. When you hear of someone accomplishing the same thing for less, your immediate question is How? What more is there for me to learn?

I find that one of the most common issues is when business owners turn a blind eye to what they are spending forgetting that it is simply a way to measure how to be better at your chosen opportunity in LIFE. 

Now please do not get me wrong as this is not all about cost cutting to achieve results in fact it is not even close to that. I know business owners who have a twenty thousand dollar overhead each month and are barely getting by (in fact most). I also know many business owners who have forty, sixty, eighty and a hundred thousand dollars per month in overhead and many are doing incredible with a hundred thousand a month in expenses where others may struggle at the same level. This teaches me that the answer is not in a number but rather in each one of us. I was emailing a Doctor this morning and asking him not to make a business move which would increase his rent by more than double each month from what he currently pays but that same move would likely increase his monthly new patients by double as well. I informed him that I was not against this investment of money as a whole but I was against it at this time for him specifically. I told him my reasoning as to what I thought his next step was in building his business and where he should focus attention right now and look at opportunities like this one when the timing is right.  

As I thought about his decision another email popped into me of a Doctor who was struggling with some expenses and he was really frustrated and then my mind drifted thinking of what is this all really about. One Business owner who has a larger overhead questioning to raise it for the better of his business, another business owner with a smaller overhead questioning to lower it for the betterment of his business. The difference in each case was simply the individual. 

I drifted for a moment and began to think about playing Monopoly as a kid. I loved the game by Parker Brothers. It was all about choosing your piece to go around the board as you accumulated real estate and monopoly money in hopes to win the game by gathering the most of both. I would always try to be the top hat because I assumed it was the best as it was the hat the banker would wear. I would do my best to buy up real estate, houses and hotels in hopes of charging others on the board rent and killing them all off to win the game! I would angle and barter and do all that was possible to always get ahead in this game and today I realized that the similarities of owning a business are very much like monopoly. In fact as I thought on the topic today, Life in general is actually very similar to Monopoly.

To begin the game of LIFE we have to choose what token we want t represent us. Do we want to the banker? The real estate agent? The doctor? The plumber? The therapist? What am I going to choose to call myself and do with my LIFE which will allow me to win at this game called LIFE? 

Where will I go to School? Will I go to school?

Where will I go to church? Will I go to church?

Where will I buy a house? Will I buy a house?

Who will I marry?

Will I have kids?

Where will I work?

What friends will I choose?

Each one of us in the game of Life is choosing our habits and our outlooks every day. Have you ever played a game like monopoly and you were bothered by the way others you were playing with were acting. You know what I mean when some people get real aggressive to win or others act as if they do not care as much. You end up making your choices to play games in the future based on how it was playing with these people in the past. In Life we often see the same things from different people and yet we often continue subjecting our chances of winning to the same positives or negatives. 

In fact as I mention the possible chances of seeing negatives in others it remind me that in order to see those negatives they had to first be seen by ME. I was listening to a teacher this morning who said that the more you can find reasons and blame for others when examining your life the further you are traveling from the truth. He taught as I have heard many others teach that my perceptions of the world are just that, they are MY perceptions. I was told one time that if I died tomorrow all of the issues and conflicts I have would die with me because they only live in me. To really understand this concept is the greatest gift I have ever been given. I have seen "issues" all my life and I have always been a solution finder. In fact I was often amazed at the power many people would give to others over their lives. When a person would tell me of how frustrated they were that so and so did this or acted a certain way. I would see people become overly outraged that someone else made a statement they disagreed with and my thought was simply why are you so caught up in it when you can choose to just not accept it if you do not like it. The focus on negative energy always creates negative energy. The focus on Positive energy always creates the same.

It was easy for me to see when others were allowing the conflicts "they chose" to rule their lives but it was not always as easy for me to see when I allowed them to do the same thing to me. As I was thinking about monopoly this morning it reminded me that the focus of this life is not how much we accumulate or purchase. Life is a game to be played and understood because it is simply about understanding ourselves and those who are playing the game with us. It is about being aware of what you want to be and what you want to change in you and in the world. The more we focus on blaming and pointing the less time is spent understanding ourselves and the responsibilities we have. 

I recently told an audience I was speaking to that as I look back on my childhood I can remember distinct chapters in my life. Ask me about when I was 6 years old and very real pictures come to mind about where I lived, how I looked and certain events in that year. The same would hold true for when I was seven years old, eight, nine and so on. I think most people can relate to this idea that if their life was broken down by years in chapters we could literally read the story of our lives. The challenge we often face is that when we reach adulthood there is a routine we often slip into. A pattern that hold less excitement than that we held as children seeking Life. It seems as if the story becomes repetitive and that is our biggest challenge of all. Can you imagine reading a book and chapter after chapter that was full of something new and challenging just like it was when we grew up. Imagine that after reading many of the chapters you came to one in the book that was exactly the same as the chapter you had just read. Immediately you would think it was a typo and as you turn to the next chapter to continue it would be really odd if it was the exact same as the previous two chapters. In fact you would most likely stop reading the book at that moment and who could blame you. Our job is to make sure that this book which is our Life remains fresh and new for all of the days we live. Not falling into routine and existence to repeat the same story year after year after year. 

Our Life is not about overhead or bills, obstacles or complaining, it is about being dedicated to learning, growing and giving to others with everything we have. To lose sight of this fact even for a moment is to start repeating the chapters of our life in an endless circle. The difference in every business owners life is not overhead but rather outlook. The way we follow through each day on the opportunities we have will always create or dismantle future opportunities. The way we appreciate each day will always give us more or give us less. The way we care for others will allow us more great relationships in life or less. Our business is simply a reflection of who we are. In fact our LIFE is simply a reflection of who we are and who we choose to be. If we want our overhead to be in check it is about us doing the things we know we left undone today.

Choose well and be thankful!