The opinions we have about “doing business” can dramatically affect the kind of practice we have, the opportunities we recognize or are blind to, and how we feel about ourselves as we begin to generate some momentum and success in our work.
Success brings its own issues. And it does not guarantee your insecurities will go away. The more successful you are, the more responsibility comes your way— and there is more to lose if it all comes apart. Sometimes it might seem “safer” to stay small, but our practices ask us to show up with spirit and resiliency.
In this conversation with Lamya Kamel we look at how our practices ask us to grow in challenging, yet essential ways. And that while we may not have confidence in the beginning, over time it can arise when we approach our work with integrity and passion.
In This Conversation We Discuss:
- Abundance is no joke
- Letting go of insecurities
- The higher you go, the further you can fall
- The importance of accountability
- We are not in competition with each other
- Confidence comes from a combination of time, integrity and passion
- How good is your treatment planning?
Stay authentic to yourself. If you don't know what you're passionate about or what you want in practice, spend some time figuring it out and seek it out in everything you do. You will weather any storm with that passion as your guiding light.
Lamya Kamel, DAOM, L.Ac
I'm your average Chinese Medicine nerd that wants to spend all of my free time reading and learning more about this phenomenal medicine I'm lucky to practice. Like many folks in this field my route here was circuitous. I majored in physical chemistry and quantum mechanics in undergrad, spent two years in medical school before having my first acupuncture treatment and finding my path.
From the day I graduated from my MTSOM program at Pacific College of Health and Sciences (formerly PCOM) I told myself I would never do any work that didn't move this medicine forward. My future wife Kate and I opened our practice within 3 weeks of graduating, and we never looked back. Soon after I started working at PCHS in Chicago I chose to get my post graduate DAOM to have the chance to reignite my passion in research. I am now faculty in the DACM program and chair of the Department of Professionalism for the Chicago campus.
A year after graduating I joined Aligned Modern Health to become the Director of Acupuncture. At the time we had two Chiropractic focused clinics but we've grown to 17 multidisciplinary pluralistic clinics. It's been a humbling experience to grow with the company and be able to offer full-time roles to acupuncturists all over the country. I'm proud to be a part of such an incredible team of innovative clinicians who practice this medicine with integrity and passion.
Links and Resources
Lamya has these book recommendations and why she likes them:
Meta Human by Deepak Chopra (audible version) – love his voice, and the concerts are at once mind blowing and tangible
Returning to the Source by Z'ev Rosenberg – a lovely bridge between the classics and our current practice
Energy Medicine by Jill Blakeway (audible version) – a beautiful and tangible way of communicating and understanding the intangibles of our medicine and energy
Sports Medicine Acupuncture by Matt Callison – a ridiculously complete text for understanding, diagnosing, and treating physical medicine