FOCUS: WORKING WITHIN THE BLUE FLAME
August 21, 2008 by dr. lam
I have been asked by many, “Have you ever thought about doing breast augs?” I don’t have to think more than a fraction of a second and say, “No thank you.” My entire career has been centered around focus, focus, focus. I have narrowed my specialty and not widened it. Yes, I have built a 27,000 square foot wellness center in which I have partnered with other specialists to provide you the best care but I have no intention working outside the blue part of my flame, i.e., the focus of my passion.
I go to 14 to 16 meetings a year to sharpen my focus and to be better at what I do than anyone else. I constantly try to focus my energies to offer something that no one else does. The Internet has allowed me to capture what Chris Anderson calls “The Long Tail”. If you haven’t read his book, it is truly amazing and seminal in his ideas about the impact of the Internet. With a practice that varies between 60 to 80% fly in, I don’t have to be all things to all people. Even when my practice was only mainly Dallas, it still was not all things to all people. That is not how I run my business or my life.
In my recent blogs, I had a lady from Australia ask me, “Wouldn’t it be enough if your patient was happy and you weren’t with your result?” I answered with about a 10 paragraph response to that question and the short answer is “No”. I have a very well defined sense of my mission here at LFP and it is to make people look better in alignment with what I perceive as excellent aesthetic ideals. I do not simply do something for money. I do not just “sell” you a procedure. I haven’t done a browlift in over 3 years and I have no intention of starting again. Even if you brought in a stack of money and said, “Please Dr. Lam, would you please do this for me.” The answer still would be no. Simply put, my aesthetic ideal has been greatly refined and I am not here to appeal to the lowest common denominator. I take pride in my work and I want to offer only something that I would be proud of. I can’t physically do repulsive work. It makes me sick.
So what am I babbling about here. I want to simplify everything for you guys out there and just make sure that in your life you have moved toward a highly focused career or whatever you do. Some people struggle to please everyone. I turn many patients away who do not fit my aesthetic ideals. I am sure many patients pick me only if they are fully in alignment with me.
Whatever you choose in your life and whatever you do in your life, I hope you do it with passion. I hope you continually specialize yourself so that the operative word is “focus”. Focus in what you love. Everything else will follow. Focus, focus, focus.
Btw, for those fans of my blog, I have written a blog entry every day on my spa site until my team there can take it over hopefully next week.
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