The Iceberg Effect: How Winter Blues Ripple Through Your Healthcare Practice, EP 228
The Iceberg Effect: How Winter Blues Ripple Through Your Healthcare Practice, EP 228
The end of the year brings more than holiday obligations for healthcare practice owners—it often brings exhaustion that ripples through your entire practice. When you're running on empty, your team feels it. When you push through instead of pausing, your staff mirrors it. And suddenly everyone's pretending their way through December while practice culture slowly fractures.
This episode offers a different approach to closing out 2025 and setting up 2026. Instead of bigger resolutions that fail by mid-February, we're exploring sustainable systems that actually work for busy practice owners. Tracy reflects on meaningful wins from 2025, addresses the reality of seasonal stress in healthcare practices, and shares why most January goals fail—along with practical frameworks for building practices that don't require constant heroic effort.
If you're a practice owner struggling with burnout prevention, looking for sustainable practice growth strategies, or wondering how to reclaim your time while building a profitable medical practice, this episode provides actionable insights grounded in what actually works for independent practitioners.
Key Takeaways
Acknowledging difficulty is strategic leadership: When you validate what your team is experiencing, you reduce shame and people ask for help sooner—preventing small problems from becoming crises
Rest is foundation, not reward: Sustainable practice growth requires treating rest as the infrastructure you build on, not something you earn after pushing hard enough
Systems beat resolutions: Practice owners who successfully shift their businesses redesign one decision at a time, not by overhauling everything at once
The iceberg effect: Surface behaviors (missed deadlines, short tempers, mistakes) often signal deeper struggles beneath—seasonal depression, financial anxiety, caregiving exhaustion
Energy audits reveal patterns: Most practice owners don't realize where their energy actually goes until they start tracking what depletes versus restores them
Is your practice growth-ready? See Where Your Practice Stands: Take our Practice Growth Readiness Assessment
Q&A Section
Why do most New Year's goals fail for practice owners? Most resolutions focus on behavior change without addressing the systems that drive your decisions. When you run a practice, your daily choices aren'tjust about willpower—they're about infrastructure like what you track, how you schedule, who you trust with critical tasks, and where you spend your attention.
How do winter blues affect practice culture? Your stress doesn't just affect you—it ripples through your entire practice. Every forced smile when you're exhausted, every time you say "I'm fine" when you'redrowning, your team sees it and mirrors it. Eventually everyone's pretending their way through winter while the practice culture slowly fractures.
What's the difference between rest as reward versus rest as foundation? Rest as reward means you only allow yourself to rest after you've pushed hard enough or "earned it." Rest as foundation means acknowledging you're human, letting your nervous system actually settle, and creating space before you fill it back up again. The work will be here when you return, and you'll meet it better when you're rested.
What actually works instead of big January goals? You need smaller, repeatable systems that fit into how you already operate, then build on them—what we call "stacking habits." Successful practice owners shift their businesses by redesigning one decision at a time with practical frameworks that work in real practices with real constraints.
Episode Highlights
Tracy's 2025 wins: CME accreditation for wellness workshops, partnerships with Santa Clara County and Fresno Madera Medical Associations, Community of Practice gatherings launch, podcast reaching 51+ countries, Joy of Medicine Retreat in Yosemite, and the 10x Practice Owner Mindset Workshop
The story of Dr. Cheri's OBGYN practice: how one honest team huddle about seasonal stress revealed that everyone was drowning separately, each convinced they were the only one struggling
Four critical questions for ending the year: What drains my energy most right now? Where have I been expecting myself to be superhuman instead of simply human? How has stress affected the people around me? What am I carrying that could actually wait until January?
The Energy Audit Workbook: a five-day assessment to understand where you're hemorrhaging energy so you can make different choices before you hit empty
Tracy Cherpeski International's philosophy: closing for two full weeks every year (December 22-January 5) because rest is the foundation you build on
Two January 2026 opportunities: Community Open House (January 13) and Future Proofing Healthcare Leadership Leadership Roundtable (January 27)
Why strategic leadership means acknowledging difficulty: when you reduce shame, people ask for help sooner and small problems don't become crises
Memorable Quotes
"Your winter blues don't just affect you. They ripple through your entire practice. Every forced smile when you're exhausted, every 'I'm fine' when you're drowning, every time you push through instead of pausing, your team sees it, your staff mirrors it, and eventually everyone's pretending their way through winter while the practice culture slowly fractures."
"Rest is not a reward you earn after you've pushed hard enough. Rest is the foundation that you build on."
"When you acknowledge difficulty, you reduce shame. When you reduce shame, people ask for help sooner. When people ask for help sooner, small problems don't become crises. This isn't soft leadership. This is strategic leadership."
"Most resolutions focus on behavior change without addressing the systems that drive your decisions. When you run a practice, your daily choices are not just about willpower. They're about infrastructure."
"Practice owners who successfully shift their businesses do it by redesigning one decision at a time, not by overhauling everything at once."
As you close out 2025, remember that you don't have to have it all figured out. You don't have to show up perfect—just honest and willing to build differently. Whether you're feeling the winter blues right now or gearing up for January with fresh energy, the key is building sustainable systems that support your practice without requiring constant heroic effort. Join the Thriving Practice Community to connect with other practice owners who understand exactly what you're going through, and get the expert guidance you need to grow without burnout.
Resources Mentioned:
Energy Audit – Download here
January 13 Community of Practice Gathering (Open House for TPC) - Reserve your spot here
Tracy’s Bio:
Tracy Cherpeski, MBA, MA, CPSC (she/her/hers) is the Founder of Tracy Cherpeski International and Thriving Practice Community. As a Business Consultant and Executive Coach, Tracy helps healthcare practice owners scale their businesses without sacrificing wellbeing. Through strategic planning, leadership development, and mindset mastery, she empowers clients to reclaim their time and reach their potential. Tracy designs and delivers CME-accredited wellness retreats and workshops in partnership with medical associations, bringing burnout prevention and sustainable practice management to physicians nationwide. Based in Chapel Hill, NC, Tracy serves clients worldwide and is the Executive Producer and Host of the Thriving Practice podcast. Her guiding philosophy: Survival is not enough; life is meant to be celebrated.
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