I’ve had an entrepreneurial bone in my body for as long as I can remember.
My earliest memory of planning my own business was when I was about 10 and I wrote out all the things I would need to do to start my own gymnastics club. At that time I didn’t now about business licenses and taxes and employee health insurance, but I knew how many balance beams I would need and which competitions my girls would go to.
In my early 20′s I did a multi-level marketing business. They get a lot of flack, but the model I was in stressed a lot of reading about self-confidence and communication skills… which I believe directly lead to my ability to pass a lot of people in my corporate career at a relatively young age.
When I started to hit my early mid-life existential crisis at the law firm, my first instinct was to start my own business. Gretchen’s Fetchin’s was my grown-up endeavor at starting my own thing – home delivery of pet supplies. I think I could have been successful with it if I had stuck with it… if I had enjoyed it enough to be willing to slog through the paperwork and minutia that new business owners have to do on their own.
One of the surprises coming to me out of my internship experience at the clinic is that I’m feeling that instinct again. As I sit through shifts not only do I love working with the kids, and seeing their progress, and learning from the therapists about the techniques they employ, etc. – but I also find myself looking at the clinic through the eyes of a business owner. I’ve been there long enough to have heard what the staff loves about their environment and what frustrates them, I’ve worked a bit in their computer systems, I’ve seen interactions with parents, I’ve heard a bit about their compensation model and insurance company requirements, I’ve seen what seems to get in the way of “productivity”, and I’ve heard them talk about what they wish their clinic had to make their jobs easier.
And I’ve got some idealistic ideas of my own. Ideas about creating a community of parents through social events, asking the therapists to submit short ideas or articles for sharing to our community via social media, ideas about organization & tracking & documentation, ongoing education opportunities using the more senior members of the staff, being able to sell the specialized tools used in sessions to parents to use at home (they aren’t easily found at Target), creating great partnerships with parents to obtain commitments about continuity of messages to kids at home, etc. And I’ve got completely unrealistic ideas (I’m sure) about how much money I’d have to offer pro bono sessions or allowances for the therapists to volunteer at other venues, to send them to educational opportunities and conferences, to provide assistants to minimize their administration time and to maximize their client time, etc.
Yes, I realize I am being a bit ridiculous. I have 3 months experience as an intern at a clinic and my brain is already running wild with what I think I could do. And I have no idea what’s really good, what’s really bad, what’s realistic, and what’s fantasy in the world of OT. I haven’t even started grad school for crying out loud! But it’s a little fun all the same… especially if I can manage to keep my ideas in my head for now and just be quiet & listen & absorb while I’m fortunate enough to be allowed to shadow & observe the real professionals.
