Success in optometry as a profession demands many characteristics, but a few key traits keep coming up in conversations: vision, leadership, and adaptability. Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it really means to be entrepreneurial in this field, especially after listening to the most recent Best Practices conversation featuring Host Steve Alexander and guest Dr. Brianna Rhue.

Entrepreneurship in optometry, at its core, is about creating a life and a practice that reflects your values, one where purpose and profit coexist.That means being intentional about where your energy goes, who you surround yourself with, and how you define success.

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Optometry as a Platform for Freedom

I was struck by Dr. Rhue’s evolution from her early career to where it is today. Her journey started like many: seeing patients, meeting quotas, and measuring success by volume. Over time, she began to adopt an entrepreneurial mindset that brought with it a shift away from stagnant compliance toward creativity and control. This raises an important point in that income alone should not drive your decision making, rather your decisions should drive your journey toward building systems that grant you freedom.

That freedom could mean time with family, flexibility in how you practice, the ability to innovate without corporate constraints, or start a new business based on opportunities you’ve discovered in the market. The goal isn’t simply to work less, it's to work with intention.

Finding Joy in the two P’s: Process and Progress

One point that resonated deeply with me was the idea that joy can be an indicator of success. It’s easy to get lost in metrics, but true satisfaction often comes from smaller wins. You can be concerned with revenue growth, capture rates, patient counts or you can focus on building a team that’s aligned, seeing patients who trust you, and cultivating a business that reflects who you are. How would you rather spend your time?

Joy and profitability aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, businesses that cultivate happiness and connection often outperform those that focus purely on numbers.

One universally applicable idea Brianna shared is her “three frogs” concept. Instead of compiling all of your tasks to a messy to-do list, identify three tasks that meaningfully progress your business forward and focus on getting those done today. Not exclusively those, but minimally those tasks. Dr. Rhue went a layer deeper, suggesting that at least one of your three frogs should generate joy in addition to productivity.

This level of intention changes not just how you show up, but why. You start measuring your productivity not by how busy you were, but by how effectively you acted on what really matters.

Balancing Clinical Care and Business Vision

Optometric education is focused on diagnoses, treatments, and the provision of care, and many ODs are fantastic at delivering on those promises. Where eye care professionals struggle is in leadership, delegation, and business orientation. Real business growth happens when you’re able to empower others. One of the insights Dr. Rhue shared that stuck with me is when she argued that practice owners become their own biggest bottlenecks, caught in the day-to-day instead of steering the long-term direction.

Shifting from “doing” to “leading” requires understanding which things require your attention and which things are better handled by delegating to your trusted and trained staff. This mindset simultaneously unlocks both continuous growth and peace of mind.

Leading with Intention

True entrepreneurship in optometry requires that you understand how to define success, know where and why to invest your time, and have the capacity to guide and empower your team. When your decisions are anchored in core values and purpose, fulfillment becomes a natural result rather than an elusive goal.

In the end, building a thriving practice is only part of the story. The deeper reward comes from creating a life and career that reflect who you are, where freedom, focus, and joy coexist.