Book Of The Month For Your Private Practice

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Book Of The Month For Your Private Practice

Asking for recommended books on private practice by friends and colleagues is all too common. Sharing my top 100 isn’t too feasible, for both our sake, one particular book comes to mind for private practice. It’s ‘The One Thing’ by Gary Keller.

About Gary Keller

Gary Keller is best known for being a real estate mogul aka Keller Williams Realty. I had never heard of this person until I came across his 2012 release of such a noteworthy book. If you’ve read countless of books, blog posts or anything related to private practice, perhaps reading this book will give you a fresh new perspective on how to get things done more efficiently.

The book for private practice

Often, I’ve spoken to business owners about the importance of vision, and ways of setting up your business to last forever, but this book adds a whole different layer to the stack. It’s a nice reminder that humans are creatures of habit, but the most successful ones get a little more productive with their day to day routine.

The book opens with a simple, yet powerful, Chinese proverb:

If you chase two rabbits, you will not catch either one.

This goes with the idea that multitasking is an insurmountable task. I’m not one to take a simple statement and believe it as absolute truth, because I am a firm believer that one can attempt multiple goals at a time, but I’d like to challenge you for a moment as I’ve had to challenge myself and my business practices.

Think of your graduate training. You spent countless hours with research articles, the DSM, notes, clients, supervision, classes, papers and so much more. But you didn’t do all that at once within an exact moment, or in a day. You made small, and many, executive decisions in deciding what was the most pertinent task to complete in the moment, with the time you had. And you did it again with the second most important task, and so on. 

Essentially, this book is a reminder of how experts are made in almost any field. Starting and running a private practice requires keen decision making because you only have so much time and only so much energy to invest during that time, so it’s good to ask yourself how you can use that time wisely.

There are dozens of nuggets in this book, such as techniques to use in becoming an expert, how to teach others to respect your time, where and when you should use the most mental energy, equations for success and so much more.

Key takeaways

Lastly, the most important question from the book that gave me powerful meaning was this, and I paraphrase:

What is that ONE thing you can start and complete today to get closer to your goal? Essentially, what is it that you can do today in order to make your tomorrow easier?

That’s not for anyone to decide but you. But start today.

Jacob Kountz is the founder of Kern Wellness Counseling, a mental health blog, in Bakersfield, CA. His works have been featured on USA Today, Thrive Works, Fatherly, Martha Stewart Weddings, Thrive Global, and is a Practice of the Practice monthly contributor. His blog has also been ranked as one of the top 60 Mental Health Blogs and Websites to Follow in 2018. Currently, he is a therapist for a local non-profit clinic where he provides therapy for individual adults, couples, and families. He is also in the process of becoming an Associate Marriage and Family Therapist. He aspires to one day open a private practice in Bakersfield, CA so he may continue to serve his local population. The opinions expressed are his own and do not represent the views of the clinic.