My Chiropractic Business Burnout Nightmare: From Bankruptcy to Breakthrough
This is Part 1 of The Bankruptcy Diaries — a 10-part series on how losing everything in the midst of severe chiropractic business burnout and resulting bankruptcy gave me back more than I could imagine on the other side.
The Moment Everything Changed
I looked at the sea of faces in our homey waiting room, gathered for what they didn’t know yet was going to be our last staff meeting.
The faces that had become close friends and family. Who had been with me through the ups and downs of not just business, but life. They were laughing and joking with their usual pre meeting camaraderie.
I turned towards the wall, hands shaking, breathing fast and wanting more than anything to turn and run away.
We were facing an insurance audit that had cost us more than half of our income overnight. We’d maxed our borrowing capacity in buying our forever home six months before. There was no bailout or work around coming. And I didn’t know how to tell them that we could no longer support payroll. Or that I was in the dark depths of chiropractic business burnout and for the first time, couldn’t see a path forward. I had failed.
When You Can’t Keep It Together Anymore
Getting enough of the words out for them to understand what it meant for their jobs was the first hardest and bravest thing I’ve ever done in my life.
The second was breaking down and ugly cry sobbing in front of all of them long before I’d said everything I meant to.
The third was acknowledging how emotional exhausted and spent I was by the time
And the most beautiful and heart wrenching moment was experiencing their love and support while they held me and just let me cry. No one prepares us for the moments in owning a chiropractic business when burnout becomes real. When all your worst fears as an entrepreneur are realized, and you’re left struggling to make sense of not only what happened, but how you move forward.
Chiropractic business burnout doesn’t come with an instruction manual. How do you move forward?
Shame Keeps Us Silent
A woman I interviewed on my podcast a few years ago challenged me to create a TED talk with the acronym BANKRUPTCY and share the good that has come out of the experience. I initially met this idea with a whole lot of resistance.
I felt embarrassed and ashamed of the dark parts of my practice journey. The one where the dream I thought I wanted went up figurative flames when I finally was honest with myself about how miserable I actually was in the practice I’d built. How much it has started to feel like a prison. It took me a while to find the courage to talk about the things that felt so much easier to bury under the rug. I wanted to keep doing what I’d spent most of my time in practice doing–smiling and pretending everything is fine.
But that didn’t get me anywhere in the long run of building my chiropractic business, except to burnout. So I dug and found the courage to start sharing my story.
It’s not a TED talk yet, but maybe one day it will be.
The B of the BANKRUPTCY acronym stands for Bravery.
When I first wrote this post, I’d also still been carrying some shame around reaching the point where bankruptcy was my only and best option. It caused me to question myself, my worth and kept me from playing the game of life and entrepreneurship full out due to the fear of losing it all again.
I realized recently that in order to really be who I’m meant to be in the world and make the impact I’m meant to make-with my patients and with other chiropractors going through their own struggles-I have to be willing to risk it all again.
I have to let go of the shame and instead look at the blessings this experience gave me. Without it, I wouldn’t be where I am today. And I definitely wouldn’t be sharing the story openly on the vast depths of the internet! In other words, I have to be brave.
What’s the Bravest Thing You’ve Ever Done In Your Chiropractic Business?
Sometimes we need to fail in order to move forward and create something even better.
We can’t control our circumstances, but we can choose who we show up as inside of them. When we’re facing the struggles of not only running our practices while staying connected to our vision, but also doing it without experiencing chiropractic business burnout, the struggles can often overtake the joys of practice.
The next 10 posts are a series I’ve dubbed “The Bankruptcy Diaries”. I’ll be sharing how bankruptcy has changed and blessed me for the better and allowed me to overcome chiropractic business burnout. From shame to surrender. From burnout to alignment. From losing everything to finding the real foundation.
What’s the hardest/bravest thing you’ve ever done?
Ready to Rebuild with More Alignment, Less Chiropractic Business Burnout?
If you’re a chiropractic entrepreneur who’s been carrying the weight of it all — and you know there’s a better way — I invite you to join the Aligned Authority Workshop. It’s where this next chapter begins. Click the button below or click here to learn more about working with us.
