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Guide to Build Self-Awareness in Medical Tourism and Wellness Tourism Startup Business by Dr. Prem

Guide to Build Self-Awareness in Medical Tourism and Wellness Tourism Startup Business by Dr Prem

Self-awareness is a great ability to identify own strengths, motivations, and weaknesses and create the path of your startup journey. It also means having a good understanding of how you are perceived by others and how your actions have an impact on them and your medical tourism and wellness tourism startup.

Self-awareness is a meta-skill in startup growth.90% of startups fail due to a lack of product-fit market, poor team management, improper marketing, and financial problems; allthese stem from self-unawareness. If you are aware of your skills and strengths, you create better products to solve the problems of your customers.

Most startup founders remainoccupiedwith figuring out the technical and operational dynamics of the business seldom putting themselves under the microscope. If you arerunning a startup or planning to launch one, this guide will help you to understand the importance of self-awareness in medical tourism and wellness tourism startup business and how you can build it.

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Guide to Build Self-Awareness in Medical Tourism and Wellness Tourism Startup Business by Dr Prem

Knowing yourself is the most important step in the medical tourism and wellness tourism startup business

A 5-year research project says, while 95% of people believe that they are self-aware only 10-15% are.

Start Up Business of Creative People Concept

Innovations, crunching numbers, information gathering, and brainstorming for your startup are important to get success. But the most important thing is self-awareness or knowing yourself. In medical tourism and wellness tourism businesses, you need deep soul-searching about how you can help solve the problems of patients or clients or give them something incredible.

You should be able to step into their shoes and view things from their perspectives which comes from self-awareness. If their problem is quite big and your offering is inadequate, things will not work.

Reasons why self-awareness is important for your startup business

High self-awareness enhances success probability by 68%, team coordination by 73%, and conflict management by 65% 

woman brainstorming with creative ideas

Self-awareness drives you towards self-introspection and self-analysis. You might be not 100 percent accurate in understanding yourself, but the more you pay attention to it more you improve. Let us find just ten reasons why as an entrepreneur it is important for you to build self-awareness.

You do a reality check

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Optimism is good for entrepreneurship but illusion is bad. A very thin line exists between the two. In a study with entrepreneurs, 81% rated their chances of success as 7 out of 10, and 33% rated it 10 out of 10. You can easily equate why 9 out of 10 businesses fail within 5 years of launching and a significant number fail to take off.

All these facts boil down to a basic reality check, are you the right person to run a medical tourism and wellness tourism startup? How well do you know the market demands? Have you studied your customers and their behavioral trends? Are you ready to give unlimited hours anddeal with continuous financial challenges?  Are you willing to make big sacrifices? Most importantly, how resilient you are to accept failures?

As an aspiring entrepreneur in the medical tourism and wellness tourism business, you need an honest self-assessment of all these factors.

Affirms your motivation

A study by Vistaprint suggests, that 33% of startup owners in the US feel they do not have the same motivation as it was in the early phases of the startup journey.

Businesswoman sharing new ideas in meeting

What is your motivation to set up medical tourism and wellness tourism startup? If you find a suitable answer to this, the next critical question will be – What is your vision?

What problem are you going to solve? Or how your idea will solve the patients’ pain and create delightful experiences? What does business success mean to you? Successful startups are those whose ideas are really game-changers, Apple, Facebook, Flipkart, and Zomato to name a few.

If you struggle to answer the above questions, you are likely to face a drop in motivation levels going ahead. How can you fix a goal when you are not sure of what you will do? How will you inspire others towards a vision and purpose?If you are self-aware, these answers will come easily to you. You will not hesitate to document this and create your pitch deck.

You Learn to think independently

Most of us are not independent thinkers though we feel so.

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Independent thinking means setting boundaries and not getting swayed by others’ opinions. Entrepreneurs with independent thinking are better risk takers and come up with creative ideas and solutions.

Create a checklist of your likes and dislikes. What kind of work environment or culture do you want to build? Would you like to work as a team or be a solopreneur? Which business model will suit you best? What kind of customers are you willing to serve? You will find a range of customers in the medical tourism and wellness tourism business.

young dentist doctor in white uniform and special forehead lamp examine patient's teeth, getting rid of spoiled teeth

You may prefer to offer service to a specific category of patients like those looking for cosmetic surgery, dental tourism, or anti-aging programsor serve Halal Tourists or it could be a mix of all.You may prefer to be a wellness tourism business consultant proving solutions for travelers, resorts, hotels, and spas. Identify your dislikes and list those specifically.It could be repetitive work, poor team coordination, inefficient leadership, specific behavior or attitude of customers, pricing issues, etc.

Helps in the proper assessment of your strength

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The motivation to launch medical tourism and wellness tourism startup business is your prime strength. List down your other areas of strength. It could be your knowledge, vision, communication skills, leadership traits, man management, mind-reading, etc.

As a start-up founder, you will have to don several hats, knowing your strengths will help you in the proper selection of action and delivery.Medical tourism and wellness tourism is a very broad niche, a good assessment of strong points eases the way to success. You are confident of the value of your offerings and their impact on the business.

You accept your weaknesses and address them

List of Strengths and Weaknesses in the note.

This is absolutely critical and more important than assessing your strengths. Many of us do not have any inkling of a deeply embedded weak point or choose to stay in denial. Such an approach can backfire and land you in unexpected problems. Documenting your weaknesses means you will always look for self-improvement and make wise choices.

Supports Better decision-making

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A better understanding of self means you do not hurry in decision-making. You allow time to build right thoughts and makeright decisions most of the time. In cases of uncertainty or doubt, you will pause or reach out to a better person instead of taking the wrong step.

Helps in building the right team practices and culture

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As you work on self-awareness exercises, you influence others in your team to follow suit. Inspired by you, the team gains the confidence to open up and express their opinions freely without the ‘boss pleasing’ attitude. They will admit their weakness and seek solutions instead of hiding them and creating impediments to the process.

You learn nuances of selling

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The entire purpose of your business is to sell. It can be selling ideas to your teammates and investors or products and services to customers. How do you present yourself as a seller? Persuasive, overbearing, nudging, arrogant,or presumptuous? In medical tourism and wellness tourism, you will have to deal with leading hospitals, wellness resorts, spa facilities, patients, tourists, and vendors.

In the Hospital at the Reception Desk Doctor Holding Tablet Computer Talks with the Young Couple.

And your way of dealing with different categories of people should not be a copy-paste activity. Self-awareness provides you the insight into the way you come across different people during the sales process where you need to build a rapport or good relationship. 

Helps in Building the authentic personal brand

Listeners to ask questions during the meeting at office

Self-awareness makes you more confident despite your vulnerabilities. You have a clear direction and know what to do and where to go. You don’t hesitate to reach out to your subordinates and other staff for suggestions shunning your ego and false self-pride.

You spot your lapses fast and work on amendingthem. All of these contribute to building an authentic personal brand in the medical tourism and wellness tourism business. Patients and clients will find you more reliable to make their objectives fulfilled.

Essential tips to build self-awareness in medical tourism and wellness tourism startup business

Work on your personal blindness – Knowledge, Emotional, and Behavior

70-80% of startup businesses fail due to inaccurate projections on return on investment.

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Human beings are likely to have knowledge blindness, emotional blindness, and behavior blindness. You are not different. Knowledge blindness happens when you assess your competency not based on your real performance but on beliefs about how you will perform. You may think you know everything about medical tourism and wellness tourism business trends but it may not be the case. Your offerings will not be adequate leading to some pathetic missed opportunities.

How often do you pay attention to your feelings? If you are oblivious, you have emotional blindness. If you are happy, you will not hesitate to admit you are happy. But if you are disappointed, you should pay attention instead of overlooking it. Paying attention means getting to the root of dissatisfaction. Your response becomes erratic and creates miscommunication in the team.

Behavioral blindness is when you fail to get a sense of your behavior with others’ eyes. How do others perceive your behavior? When you are talking to your teammates or patients or clients, are they feeling comfortable? Are they getting your messages? Be mindful of your words and actions and observe their impact on others which you can see from their reactions, body movement, and facial expressions. 

Get out of the Self-created image

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As a founder of a medical tourism and wellness tourism startup business, you may consider yourself special, a cut above others. But that does not always mean you are superior to others. If you carry this image, you will soon invite resentment and non-cooperation from the team which will escalate your challenges. Your customers may not find you the right person to build comfort and reliability. Your team members will not open up to you but take faulty steps. Practice humility and be down to earth. People will feel comfortable and rely on you.

Grow the risk-taking mindset

Risk takers are visionary entrepreneurs. About 30% of emerging entrepreneurs are willing to take more risks.

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As you practice the above steps, you can easily cut through the confusion and bring certainty to bold decision-making.  Instead of being risk averse, throw yourself deep into risk-benefit analysis and take calculated risks. Risk-takers by virtue of their knowledge and emotional control are likely to be more successful. Many medical tourism businesses have shut down due to the unprecedented health crisis. At the same time, new models emerged from the crisis. You have to think ahead with creative solutions to make your business resilient from shocks.

Build patience

A 2013 study in the US found that players scoring high in strategy and teamwork also had high scores in tests of patience

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Decision-making in startup businesses needs a lot of deliberation. To close a deal, you need to show patience. You may have to combine strategies and realign them or you may lose out in some cases. In medical tourism and wellness tourism, getting the traffic and closing sales don’t happen fast.

You need to study a lot many factors like ease of travel, destination propositions, your products, and above all a great team game to make things click. Taking impulsive steps without thinking ahead can be disastrous. The more you hold on to your patience the more you get clarity about your strategies and tactics.

Take things personally

In a survey, 92% responded negative feedback if presented properly is effective at improving performance.

Unhappy and disappointed customer giving low rating and negative feedback in survey, poll or questionnaire. Sad and dissatisfied man giving review about service quality

Taking things personally doesn’t mean that you will be hyperreactive or oversensitive to feedback. You should be open-minded to feedback be it positive or negative. Do not resist getting feedback from team members or customers. Team feedback will help you build different perspectives in specific areas where you may have turned a blind eye.

Your willingness to accept negative feedback or criticism displays your accountability. You build trust and earn respect. If a patient or wellness tourist expresses their dissatisfaction over the quality of service provided, be it related to travel, treatment, accommodation, or other convenience-related issues, accept their feedback sportingly even if you have stretched yourself to offer the best service. This attitude will drive you to make quick amendments.

Do the right introspection

Research shows improper self-reflection was associated with poor well-being.

stressed-young-bearded-man

Analyzing emotions, thoughts, and habits helps in building better self-awareness provided done rightly. We, as human beings, tend to wrong introspection and create more anxieties, stress, and low self-esteem. We tend to grasp the insights of self-introspection quickly without questioning its validity.

For example, you may ask yourself why you are a specific type of person and not like others. This is simply meaningless. The human brain will respond quickly with the most convenient answer which may not be valid. Better to introspect about the person you are, and how will you react to a particular situation.

Will you react if a medical tourist asks for an undue privilege? How will you respond to a teammate who is quite critical of you? To make our introspection successful, build a flexible mindset. You may not find a definite answer, so allow your mind to be curious to explore different perspectives.Name your feelings properly especially the less positive ones. This would help to recognize emotions better.

When you face positive emotions, stop over-analyzing them. Why should you miss the joy? Be aware not to allow rumination in the name of self-introspection. Fixating your mind in anxieties and insecurities will hold you back from making bold decisions, which could be costly.

Cultivate Wisdom

The firm belief in ‘being right’ is a crucial factor behind the lack of wisdom in business culture.

Learn Something New

Wisdom creates value. It has no limits as you learn something every day. Shun the “Know it all” attitude. Have control of your inner world of reactions like fear and complacency. Your expressions in likes and dislikes and learning from mistakes everything counts in wisdom.

Never let fear, pride, and complacency get the better of you. Be humble and accountable. Wisdom powers persistence where proficient entrepreneurs keep going and never say quit. This ultimately generates success that will continually help you climb the ladder. 

Practice mindfulness for internal self-awareness

Researches show mindfulness can increase the grey matter in the regions of your brain associated with focus, learning, and memory.

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You can follow three important mindfulness techniques that will help in building self-awareness in the medical tourism and wellness tourism business. The first is reframing, which is looking at the bigger picture. For example, if your medical tourism or wellness tourism fails to get the desired number of sales, your mind is likely to remain fixated on the loss.

By reframing, you could focus on what could be the gains from it. Is it the wrong strategy? Did you knock on the wrong doors? Maybe your offerings did not help as it was promised. You could also focus on what made some customers buy your offerings while others rejected those outwardly. This reframing will drive you towards improved strategies instead of getting drowned in hopelessness. You can even spot new opportunities that will draw more customers to your medical tourism and wellness tourism business.

Another great mindfulness practice is comparing and contrasting. Have your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors changed with time, or are they as it is? If you feel your thoughts and approaches have changed, the signal is either you have learned from mistakes or got yourself aligned to changes.

Do a daily check-in. A small but fruitful mindfulness task. Allot 5 minutes every day to reflect on how the day went. Was it good, excellent, or disappointing? If it is good, how can it be made better? If disappointing, analyze the cause. What can be learned so as not to repeat it?

Keep a record

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Startup business means round-the-clock involvement. Amid this, you are bound to forget many vital things. For example, what is the step or its sequence that led you to a disaster? What special measures helped you to recover from it? What strategies brought success? Which behavior of yours annoyed others or vice versa? Creating a journal or record book of these life events can be immensely helpful to build self-awareness. You can pinpoint troubles beforehand and take suitable steps.

Build self-awareness in the team

In a study, 58% said self-awareness helped to work as a team and 54% said it helps in coping with stress.(The Myers-Briggs Company)

One-on-one meeting

As an entrepreneur, you should try to build self-awareness in the team as well. If every member puts minimum effort to focus on key areas of insight, the entireteam’s performance will be remarkable. These are goals, processes, progress, assumptions, and contributions.

This is a pretty simple task for the team to follow. You can put up a weekly monitoring whiteboard with dates and five columns. Let each team member enter their observations. Initially, it may seem to be very casual, but once these get documented, each and every member are bound to build self-awareness. They will self-analyze and talk with each other for support and solutions. This will also bring up hidden hurdles or blockades that are hampering growth.

Seek professional coaching

A coach can show you the bigger picture

Dr Prem Jagyasi, the renowned global speaker delivered the keynote speech

Building self-awareness is a life-long journey. You can never say I am well aware of things. Medical tourism and wellness tourism business are dynamic and it becomes tough to catch up with everything. You may fail to give attention to one crucial aspect while taking care of others. Professional coaching or mentoring helps you to improve your self-awareness by suggesting behavioral changes and tactics. You make bold decisions and fewer mistakes. Connect with Dr Prem & Associates, the globally recognized medical tourism and wellness tourism consultant with proven expertise in executive coaching. You will gain new insights and align your business goals accordingly.

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