Ep #191: 3 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make Every Day

Hi docs, welcome to The EntreMD Podcast, where it’s all about helping amazing physicians just like you embrace entrepreneurship so you can have the freedom to live life and practice medicine on your terms. I’m your host, Dr. Una.

Hello, hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The EntreMD Podcast. Before we get into it, I want to say thank you for being a listener. Thank you for being a part of the movement, the EntreMD movement, because what we are doing is completely changing the paradigm for physicians.

I cannot tell you how many times people are like, “Someone shared this podcast with me, I started binge listening to it. It has changed my life, it has changed my perspective.” Many have gone on to start businesses, many have gone on to up-level their businesses. And it’s just so exciting to hear all of that. So thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing.

And remember, this is our movement. The cavalry is not coming, the cavalry is here, the cavalry is us, right? And so when you’re done with this episode, which is going to be so good, I want you to go ahead and share it with the other doctors in your life. Okay?

All right, so today we’re going to look at something really cool. I think it’s going to be different from what you thought when you clicked on this. But we’re going to be looking at the three mistakes entrepreneurs make every single day, okay, every single day. Almost everybody makes this mistake, we just do it in different proportions.

I have renewed my commitment to stop making these mistakes. And the mistake really has to do with a gift we get every day. And that gift is the gift of a day. Right? The gift is a gift of a day. And sometimes we wake up and we take it for granted like, “Ugh, another day.” But there are people who don’t have any more time, who would love to have another day.

Another day means we have another chance. We have another chance at rewriting stuff. We have another chance of recreating our future. We have another day. It is a gift. And the fact that we’ve gotten a new one every single day of our lives doesn’t mean we should despise it. But we easily can.

So we have a gift every day, and it’s the gift of a new day, it’s a gift of 24 hours. And so the mistakes have to do with what we do with the day, how we misuse the gift. How we don’t take full advantage of the gift. And I do want you to stop for a second and really think about it. Every day I wake up, it’s a gift, not everybody gets this.

I was looking at the statistics, I want to say it’s 168,000 people who die every day. Those are168,000 people who did not get the gift, right? This is serious. This is a gift. And imagine thinking about your day that way.

Imagine going into your day, even if you have challenges, even if you have problems, whether it’s personal or in your business. Imagine realizing, but I have this gift though. And no matter what’s going on, this is a gift and I’m going to take full advantage of it. All right. So what are the three mistakes entrepreneurs make with this gift?

So the first one is taking the gift, taking today, spending today worrying about yesterday. Right? Spending the gift, the brand new 24 hour period you’re given, spending that worrying about yesterday. Yesterday is completely done. It cannot be redone. It cannot be changed. It cannot be improved upon. What happened happened. Spending today worrying about what happened yesterday, think of it as the abuse of a gift you’ve been given. That really is what it is.

So for instance, you had a launch that didn’t go well, right? You wanted to get 30 new doctors or 30 new clients into your program. Or you launched your practice and you wanted to have 16 patients on day one. Didn’t happen. Spending today worrying about that, spending today being upset about that, spending today regretting that is an abuse of today. Right? Complete abuse of today.

Maybe in the past, years ago, you had a business that failed. And you still have days, like hours and hours where you sit and you’re upset about it, or worried about it, or all of that. You can’t change it. If this is not your first episode you’re listening to, you know I’m not trying to be mean about this. I’m not saying what’s wrong with you? Get it together. I’m just showing you that this is a gift and we don’t want to waste the gift on something that we can’t change no matter how much time we spend thinking about it, right?

Maybe you did a speaking gig, right? You’re like, “Yeah, speaking is the fastest way to grow a business. I’m going to go speak.” And you went to go speak and it didn’t turn out as well as you thought it would. Well, first of all, you don’t know that, right? Most times we’re our worst critics. And so maybe it did turn out better than you thought. You know what I mean?

But let’s say this is your thinking, “I bombed that. I had so many ums and uhs and I don’t think I got my message across. And I didn’t finish on time. And I didn’t give all my content. And I mean, I looked at the faces of the people, it did not go the way I thought it was going to go. I worked hard on it, I thought I was going to get a standing ovation, but I didn’t.”

But spending today, worrying about that gig that happened two weeks ago is the abuse, it’s a waste of the brand new gift you’ve been given, called today. Right? Okay. Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t evaluate. Evaluation is very different from worrying and being upset and not wanting to get out of bed and all of those kinds of things.

Maybe you have a private practice and you had hired an office manager or practice administrator. They had embezzled funds from your practice and you feel like you were taken advantage of and all of that. And you spend today sitting in that, right? There’s nothing we can do about it. There’s nothing we can do about yesterday.

Can we evaluate yesterday because we want to change things today and get a better result tomorrow? Absolutely. Can we just sit and have endless pity parties and all of that stuff? No. Why should you not do that? Because today is a gift. It’s a gift, right? So that’s one of the mistakes. One of the mistakes we make with today is we spend it worrying about yesterday.

Now, the second thing is spending today dreaming about the future. You might say, Dr. Una, hang on, hang on. I just listened to your episode about vision boards. I listened to your episodes about taking walks and dreaming and all of that. Yeah, you’re right. But spending today dreaming, or maybe I should say fantasizing about the future.

So you’re dreaming, but you have no intention of taking action and you definitely have no intention of taking action today. So you’re just kind of dreaming, wishing, drawing pictures, talking about it. But you know you have no plan of taking action. No plan whatsoever. That is a waste of today.

No amount of dreaming changes tomorrow. What changes tomorrow is dreaming, determining the course which is planning, and taking action. So if you’re going to spend the daydreaming, but you’re not also going to spend the day acting, that’s a mistake.

I know people who were dream, and dream, and create vision boards, and talk about new verticals in their businesses, and talk about the kind of team they can have, and talk about new things that they can do and all of that, but they have zero commitment to action. Zero. Zero. Dreaming minus action is equal to frustration.

Now is dreaming the starting point? Yeah, dreaming is the starting point. But it’s like Siamese twins, the dreaming and the action. They both need to go together, right? So if you find yourself dreaming and dreaming and dreaming, you have to ask yourself starting today, not next week, not two years from now, am I willing to do something about this thing I’m dreaming about? Because if you’re not, you’re wasting the gift called today.

So dreaming precedes action, but dreaming doesn’t bring results. Action brings results. Okay? You might say no, I know I can think it and have it. But the thing is that you’re going to have to think it, take action, and then have it. That’s kind of the sequence.

So am I saying don’t dream? No, I am saying dream and act. Dream and act. Dream and act, they’re twins. They’re power twins. They’re Siamese twins that cannot be separated. Dream and act. Okay? So dream, but also take action, do something, right?

You might say, well, what if I can’t do something yet? So for instance, let’s say that you’re going to start a business but you’re going to start it three months from now. And you’re like, yeah, so I’m not going to do anything. No, there are things you can do now.

You know who those clients are going to be, you can start building referral sources who will send clients or patients to you. You can create an email list and start growing your email list so when you do start you have people to talk to. You can get it registered.

I mean, there’s so many things you can do even if you’re not ready to start right away. Okay? So if you’re going to dream today, also make a commitment to take action today. Okay, so dream and act. Don’t dream, dream and act. All right? So that’s the second thing that I see.

Let me track back a little bit to the action piece. You may look at yesterday and you’re like, “Ooh, I don’t like that.” But what you have in today, today is kind of like a gift that produces tomorrow. You can determine your future with what you do today.

So you put those actions because you’re like, “This is what I want to see tomorrow. This is what I want to see a week from now. This is what I want to see three weeks from now. So I’m going to put in some action today.” Okay? All right.

The third mistake is spending today worrying about the future. Okay, so let me talk to my fellow Enneagram sixers. And I’ve told this on the podcast a number of times, that I did a course on the Enneagrams. And when I got to six, I was like, “Oh my goodness, I’m not alone. There are people like me in the universe.”

Because it described them as people who have pre-traumatic stress disorder. Not post, pre-traumatic. So everything is fine. There are no problems, okay? An Enneagram sixer goes to the future, imagines the 25 variations of issues that could arise and starts worrying about them in anticipation. Okay?

So I used to wonder about myself, I’m like, why? How are you so skilled at coming up with all the things that can go wrong and worrying about them? And, of course, over the years I’ve worked on my mind a lot, so I don’t live in that space. But I did for many, many years. And I used to wonder what was wrong with me because I’m like, this is a problem, like, what are you doing?

And even if you’re not an Enneagram six, this is something people do. So you want to start a business? And you’re like, “Well, what if it doesn’t work?” Or you started a business and you’re like, “Well, what if it fails?” Then you already, in your mind, attend the meeting where you tell your staff that you can’t make payroll, right? And you imagine, like let’s say it’s a private practice, lots of equipment, you took a loan, and you can’t make your loan. You imagine the damage it’ll do to your credit. Like you just keep traveling, right?

But remember, today is a gift, and it’s given to you to create a preferred future. Right? So that’s what is given to you for. So imagine using that to play all the scenarios of what’s not going to work, and then living there. What a waste, right?

For some of you, it may not even be the business. Maybe the fear is with work life balance, or integration, or harmony, whichever phrase you use. And you’re like, “Wow, what if I build this business and then it succeeds? And then I no longer have time for the things that matter. I want to keep this small because if I let it grow, maybe it will change me. Maybe my friends won’t want to be around me anymore, and stuff like that.” And you travel and you’re doing all these things, right?

It’s a waste of today, it’s an abuse of today. It is not taking full advantage of the gift that you’ve been given. And you may say, well, Dr. Una, I don’t have control over the future. Right? So there are things that can go wrong, there are things that I should worry about.

And this is my perspective, when it comes to tomorrow, in my business for instance, there are things that I cannot control, for sure. There are things I can’t control. Okay? But there are things that I can control. Right? So for instance, Covid has been bad for many businesses, right? Do you have control on if there’s a pandemic or not? You don’t have control over that, right? Okay.

But there are things that I can control. If I want my business to grow, then I know I need to build my audience. Building my audience could look like I would do speaking gigs, I would go for networking events. It could look like I would be a guest on other people’s podcasts, their blogs, their YouTube channels. It could look like I have referral sources so people can tell other people that hey, Dr. Una exists, EntreMD exists, check them out.

I know that I have to give people the opportunity to work with me, right? And that could look like events that I host and tell people to come in, or masterclasses, or consult calls, or any of those kinds of things, right? And so on and so forth. I have control over those things.

So my thought process is this, the things I have control over, I will control them. And so with the gift that I’m given called today, I’m going to do what I can do to move my business forward. I’m going to do what I can do to get my message out there. I can do what I’ll do to help 100,000 doctors build profitable businesses so they can live life and practice medicine on their terms.

The things I have no control over, for me, I’m a person of faith, I will pray. I say, “Lord, this is in your pay grade, okay? Above my pay grade, this is your pay grade. If I could figure it all out, I’d be God. But I can’t figure it out, so I commit this into your hands.” So that’s kind of my thing. But the bottom line is, the things you can’t control, you can’t control them. But we’re not helpless victims, there are some things that are within our control.

And so I’m going to spend my days working on the things that are in my control. I’m not going to spend them worrying about the things that are out of my control. So you know, what if it fails? Will I really be able to make that first 100,000? Will I really be able to hit that multiple six-figures, hit that million? Will I ever become good at this hiring thing? Will I ever have a team? Blah, blah, blah. It’s abuse of the day. I’m going to do what I can do, I’m going to do what is within my power to control.

So what are the three ways you can waste a day? You can spend it worrying about yesterday, you can spend it dreaming about the future with no intention of taking action, or you can spend today worrying about the future. Those are all wastes of today. Today is a gift, and it’s a gift that I can do some things in it to create the future that I want. Today is a seed given to me to create the future that I want. Okay?

So if I decide I want my business to grow, I’ve been given a gift of 24 hours. What am I going to do with the 24 hours to grow my business? What am I going to do with the 24 hours to grow the number of people who know me? What am I going to do with this gift?

Then the thought comes, but you can’t control everything. What if, what if? I can’t control everything, but I can control some things. I’m going to do it. Well, hey, you did a business like this before and it didn’t work. Well, I’m giving myself grace and today is a brand new day. And guess what? My future doesn’t depend on my past, I can start a whole new thing today.

There’s so many people who are ultra successful, who did things they failed at. There’s no problem here. Okay? So I can let that go, I can refuse to meditate on that. I can refuse to be in la-la land where I want to dream but I don’t want to take action. No, I’m going to do the things today that will produce the tomorrow that I want to see.

And so a very valuable, high level question to ask yourself when you’re ready to start your day or when you look at your to-do list, if you’re a to-do lister like I am, for your day, you ask yourself, of all these things I’ve planned to do today, which of them will create the tomorrow that I want?

And if there are things on there that are low level tasks and don’t matter and all of that, immediately that question exposes them. And if there are things that you should do that you didn’t put on there, well, immediately that question puts that to light where hey, you have to add this here if this is what you really want.

Today is a brand new day. It is a gift that I can use to create the future I want. So the things I’m doing today, are they taking me where I want to go? If they’re not we can course correct. Okay?

So what I want you to do? I want you to make a commitment to avoid these three things, worrying about the past, dreaming without intentions of taking action, and worrying about the future. I want you to decide I’m done. I’m done, I’m done with these, right? Instead, what I’m going to do is I’m going to spend today, and I’m going to spend every new gift I get every morning, I’m going to spend it creating my preferred future. Okay?

So remember, you don’t have to consult your past to determine your future. Today’s a brand new day. And I want you to do this for the next 90 days. You can even set an alarm and do it for the next 90 days and see where your life ends up.

People usually say I had a great year. There’s no such thing as a great year. I’ll explain what I mean. Of course there’s a great year, but what I mean is you don’t create a great year. What you do is you take 24 hour blocks and you do great things in them. And then you end up with a great year.

You know what I mean? Because it’s like, how can I have a great year? It’s like this big thing. No, can you tame every day and use it to create the future that you want? And the answer to that is yes. Okay? It’s yes.

So practice this for the next 90 days. I am telling you, this will radically, dramatically change your life, change your business. It will help you focus on high level tasks. It will help you approach the day differently with so much gratitude and you treat the gift like the gift that it is, and the ROI on that, the return on investment on that is like mind blowing. Okay?

As always, I am rooting for you. Remember, you’re part of a movement. Together we are going to change the experience that physicians are having. We are going to learn to build profitable businesses, we are going to live life and practice medicine on our terms. So share the episode and I will see you my friend on the next episode of The EntreMD Podcast.

Hey, if you love listening to The EntreMD Podcast I want to invite you to join EntreMD On Demand. It is my signature subscription program that gives you access to a library of business courses designed to help you do one thing as a physician entrepreneur, and that is to thrive. Just head out to entremd.com/ondemand and I’d love to have you join us. See you on the inside.