What if cutting your staff dramatically could increase your profit margins by up to 30% with capture rates being at 78%?
This week on Power Hour, Eugene sits down with Dr. Lauretta Justin, Founder of Optometry Divas and creator of The CEO of You, to explore a practice transformation story unlike anything we’ve featured before.
After years of running a large, full-scope operation with a full-time staff of ten, Lauretta reached a breaking point. She wasn’t struggling financially, she was struggling emotionally, mentally, and personally. Her practice looked successful from the outside… but inside, she felt like a passenger in her own business.
So she did something bold:
Dr. Justin cut her staff from 10 to just 3 part-time/virtual roles, simplified her systems, redesigned her workflow, and ended up increasing her net profit by 30% and her net cash flow by 20%.
Even more surprising? She now works shorter hours, sees 10–12 patients per day, and operates with far less stress than ever before.
The Moment Everything Broke (and Then Made Sense)
Lauretta describes the moment she realized she wasn’t just tired; she was burned out from the inside out. Staff conflicts, constant hiring and rehiring, and operational chaos had drained the joy out of the profession she loved.
Ironically, the more she tried to fix things the “traditional” way (hiring more support, adding more services, expanding hours), the more overwhelmed her team became.
That’s when she made an unconventional choice: instead of building up, she rebuilt down.
- Reduced her staff from 10 to 3
- Began doing her own optical handoffs and sales
- Simplified pricing to just three packages and a $349 frame model
- Shortened her workday to 10:00am – 14:30pm
- Adopted hybrid staffing with virtual support
And the results were immediate: higher capture rates, faster decisions, more profitable visits, and a calmer, more connected patient experience.
The Hard Truth Behind Burnout
Alongside her practice transformation, Lauretta surveyed nearly 400 women ODs in her Optometry Divas community, and more than half reported burnout as their biggest personal and professional struggle.
For many ODs, burnout isn’t caused by seeing too many patients, it’s caused by losing yourself inside the overwhelm. When your identity becomes entangled with being “the fixer,” “the giver,” or “the one who keeps everything afloat,” your practice drains you instead of supporting you.
That realization became the seed for her framework: The CEO of You.
Becoming the CEO of You
Lauretta explains why most practice owners build their business backward, starting with operations and hoping clarity follows. Her model flips that completely:
- Start with identity — the values, purpose, and internal alignment that shape every decision.
- Build strategy from the inside out — leadership, administration, operations, promotion, and sales.
- Then build a team that serves the system — not the other way around.
She shares how this mindset shift unlocked more time, more control, and more emotional bandwidth than she’s had in years, and why every OD, no matter their practice size, can use these principles to reclaim their freedom.
Key Takeaways- Rebuilding a Practice by Simplifying It: How Dr. Justin increased profit and reduced stress by redesigning her workflow and cutting her team from ten employees to just three.
- Understanding Burnout at Its Source: Why she believes burnout is rooted in identity, not workload, and how that insight can transform the way you lead.
- Designing a SIP-Aligned Business: What it means to build a practice around Significance, Impact, and Profit instead of volume, chaos, or external expectations.
- The CEO of You Framework: How reframing your mindset, systems, and leadership approach can shift your entire relationship with your business.
- Creating a Life-Supporting Practice: How clarity in pricing, staffing, and boundaries can help your practice finally align with the life you want, not the other way around.
- Turning Less Into More: How simplifying her operations helped Dr. Justin increase her net profit by 30% and her net cash flow by 20%, proving that efficiency, not expansion, can create the biggest gains.
- 00:00 | Intro
- 03:50 | The Practice Transformation: Why She Made Radical Changes
- 06:47 | Three Years Ago: 10 Staff Members and 45% Payroll
- 08:04 | Today’s Model: Lean Team, Increased Profit
- 09:25 | The Numbers: 30% Profit Increase, 20% Cash Flow Increase
- 11:34 | One Price for Every Frame on the Board
- 19:46 | Why More Staff = Less Efficiency
- 25:30 | Handling Managed Care Patients & Frame Packages
- 30:27 | Margins Behind Frames & Cost of Goods
- 32:49 | Introducing Optometry Divas and the CEO of You
- 36:52 | Burnout is an Identity Problem, not a Workload Problem
- 46:28 | The SIP Framework: Significance, Impact, Profit
- 48:56 | Signs You’re Not in the Right Mindset
- 49:39 | SOPs and Systems
- 51:56 | The Burnout Audit
Connect with Dr. Lauretta Justin
Dr. Lauretta Justin, O.D. is the Founder of Optometry Divas, a national community for women optometrists dedicated to empowerment, connection, and professional growth.
She is also the Founder of the CEO of You framework, a philosophy and business model built to help optometrists reshape their practices around clarity, purpose, and profitability.
As the owner of Millennium Eye Center in Orlando, Florida, she has earned recognition for leadership and mentorship — including the 2022 Vision Monday Influential Women in Optical Mentors Award and the 2021 Theia Award of Excellence for mentoring.
Over two decades of experience in private practice taught her that success isn’t just revenue, it’s about building sustainable systems, clear boundaries, and a supportive community. Through her work, she continues to mentor and advocate for optometrists seeking purpose, balance, and meaningful growth in their careers.
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drlaurettajustin/
- Website: https://www.theceoofyou.com/
Connect with Eugene Shatsman (Managing Partner, NSG)
Website – https://www.eugeneshatsman.com/
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/eugeneshatsman