The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: Lessons for Osteopaths

Lesson 1: Embrace the negative

One of the key lessons in the book is to embrace the negative experiences in life because they help us grow and become stronger.

As osteopaths, we often face challenges in marketing what we do and reaching new patients. It’s common to feel discouraged when our marketing efforts don’t deliver what we expected. However, instead of seeing this as a roadblock, we should embrace it as an opportunity to learn and grow.

Just as we learn and improve our skills as osteopaths by embracing challenging cases and difficult patients, we can think about what went wrong and what could be improved to then refine our marketing strategies and become more effective in reaching our ideal patients.

Lesson 2: Choose your values wisely

Manson highlights the importance of choosing our values carefully and living according to them.

As osteopaths, we should choose the values that we want to work by and what we want to be known for. Once we’ve discovered our values, we should focus on our core values and centre the patient experience around them. By living according to our values, we can find more meaning and purpose in our work.

This is a topic we’ve covered extensively in two other book reviews, both from Simon Sinek: “Start With Why” and “Find Your Why”.

Lesson 3: Take responsibility for your life

Manson underlines the importance of taking responsibility for our lives and our actions.

It’s quite a hard lesson to take, but as osteopaths, we need to take ownership of our careers and work to build our patient list by marketing ourselves and providing an excellent patient experience.

By taking responsibility for our actions, we can gain more control over our lives and move our career in our preferred direction. This means being proactive in marketing for new patients and reaching out to businesses who share our values so we can build strong, mutually beneficial relationships with them.

Lesson 4: Embrace uncertainty

Probably my favourite lesson in the book, Mark suggests that we should embrace uncertainty because it is a fundamental part of life. It’s the idea that we cannot control everything that happens to us, but we can control how we respond to it.

Many osteopaths struggle with the feeling of uncertainty. Whether that’s not knowing who’s going to walk in presenting with who know’s what, or what to do when patients aren’t getting better, we should accept that we cannot control everything and find meaning in the unknown.

By embracing uncertainty, we can become better problem solvers, provide better care to our patients and become better practitioners as we continue our learning.

Summary

The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck offers a unique perspective on how to find success and happiness in life. By embracing the negative, choosing our values wisely, taking responsibility for our lives, and embracing uncertainty, we can become better osteopaths, marketers and provide better care to our patients.