Ep #129: Are You Committed to Your Success?

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.

Well, hello, hello, docs. Welcome to another episode of The EntreMD Podcast. I am super excited to be here today. At the time of this recording, it’s been about a week after EntreMD Live, our annual event, which was such a blast. We had 533 doctors registered and over 45% of them showed up live. And it was so good.

It was such a beautiful, empowering, inspiring event and it left the doctors with practical stuff they could apply. And if you were there, I hope you started applying them and you know, it’s so funny, I got people reach out right afterwards like, “Oh you taught us how to do…” one of the sessions was the seven kinds of posts you should be using on social media. And this doc was like, “I just did the introduction post and I already had somebody who reached out to me to work with me.”

And another doctor was like, “Oh my goodness, I got such a response. People were like, I didn’t know you did this stuff.” And another person was like, “Oh, I got an opportunity for a speaking gig.” This is on the day of the event. How wild is that? It was so good. So, so, so good.

And I had the opportunity to feature seven of the students from the EntreMD Business School. And they almost had me in tears. I was like, “People, I worked hard for this makeup.” But just hearing their stories, even though I’m with them, you know. And some of them had experienced such growth. In between sessions I was like, “I have not seen this version of you.”

So, I want to give them a big shoutout. We had Dr. Shenelle Wilson who is a urologist. And she is the founder of Urology Unbound, that’s her nonprofit. And she fixes the problem of a lack of diversity in Urology. Really powerful presentation, powerful business. She shared her story. Dr. Melissa Choi, who talked about the retreat that’s he had attended that we did as part of the business school. And she had set a goal for the kind of job, well, the kind of revenue she wanted to make and the kind of lifestyle, like work-life balance she wanted to have. And she got both.

She was working on her business but this job just dropped in her lap. The hours are better. The money was better. In fact, the money was so good that the goal that she wanted to hit for her business like overall for the year, that happened with the job alone.

And she talked about how the skills she learned in the business school, speaking, storytelling, creating win-win situations, all of that, that’s what she used got the whole interview process. She actually had interviewers go like, “Wow, that’s a really good response,” you know, when she went for her interviews. And so, she’s living her dreams. She’s living her dreams. I mean, so amazing.

Dr. Arinola Dada, who is a rheumatologist in Seattle who is building the center of excellence for rheumatology. She shared her story, a really powerful story. Lots of growth in her practice and she’s working less and she bought a new building and is just on the up and up and up. Beautiful story.

Dr. Violina Bhattacharyya, now, she’s the one I was like, “Oh my goodness, woman, who is this person?” And she’s launching her practice this fall. She’s bought her own building. They’re doing the build-out currently. And it’s such a transformation. I was amazed. The students in the business school were all amazed. It was just one of those days. It was really good.

Dr. Rashmi, who was so kind, and she shared – she let me share a coaching session where she had come in, she was in the middle of a launch. She only had half of the number of people she wanted in her program.

And she came on there, she was like, “Oh, I don’t know, I think I completely failed on this one.” And I coached her. I had a guest on there that was Dr. Ali Novitsky. And we coached her. And within two days, she had five at the time. She got 10. And on day one of her program, somebody else bought a membership for another person because they were like, “It was that good.”

Not only did she hit her target. She surpassed it. And she was so kind to share that coaching session, which was great.

Dr. Karen Kaufman is the founder of Kaufman Allergy and Immunology. She started her private practice, at the time of EntreMD Live, a little more than five months ago, has 900 patients registered, started with 350 on a waitlist, saw 16 patients on day one and has been busy since. I mean, her story is so, so fantastic.

And Dr. Toomer, she runs a business and she’s all about wellness. And weight loss happens to be a consequence of what she does, but that’s not what she primarily does. She has a fabulous story. Lost 50 pounds over two decades ago, has kept it off, and has helped her patients lose a significant amount of weight and just by learning to eat right and learning to listen to their bodies and simple, simple, simple habits.

And she’s just phenomenal. She really is. And her business has grown and then the pandemic hit and she just switched it to 100% virtual and did her best year the year of the pandemic. Can you beat that?

So, these are the doctors that I got to feature and I tell you snippets of their stories because we’re doctors and yes, yes, yes, we didn’t get a business education in medical school, yeah, yeah. But we can get it though and we can thrive and we can rock it as entrepreneurs. And we are not stuck and we are not victims and yes, there’s a lot going on, but we’re still in the driver’s seat. We still are, you know?

So, I saw the response people had to their stories, like, “Oh my gosh, that’s amazing. Rooting for you. Unbelievable. Yes, we can do this.” And it was just so inspiring. I could tell that people wanted it. They wanted to have results like that too.

And my thought was, “Yeah, but do they really?” So, you guys know that I love you, so this is coming from a place of love. But this is the kind of Come to Jesus conversation I have with myself. And I want to share it with you.

So, today, we’re going to be looking at the answer to this question. Are you committed to your success? Are you committed to your success?

So, you may see somebody else winning and you’re like, “We can do it, and I want that.” Well, now let’s look at, do you really want that?

So, the doctors that I just talked about, there are a few things that they had to do. So, my husband has a way of saying it. He says, “Don’t just look at the glory. Listen for the story.”

So, when you see someone who has a win or somebody who has something that you’re like, “Wow, I’d like to have that kind of result,” when you’re done admiring the result, you want to look back and say, “What did they have to do to create that result?”

Because if you want the glory, you’re going to have to do the story too. That doesn’t mean you have to follow exactly what they did, but success does leave clues.

So, let me tell you some things that I know these doctors had to do. So, the first thing is they had to dare their fears and say yes to their businesses. They had to dare their fears and say yes to their fears and say yes to their businesses. Whether that’s starting or whether that’s scaling.

So, Dr. Arinola Dada, when she started in the EntreMD Business School, she was already an established, very successful entrepreneur. But she’s like, “I know there’s more. I’ve been in cruise control. I want to do more.” She had to say yes to that.

You know, she probably tells herself what I tell myself sometimes, right? Like there is no need for me to do this. This is just me fighting to become the best version of myself, fighting to maximize my potential. But I don’t have to do anything that I do in EntreMD.

Dr. Arinola, she was at a point where she could have been in cruise control. The money was working. The business was working. The systems were in place. She was good. But she was like, “There’s more though. I could be the center of excellence. I could build this bigger. I could build the systems better so I’m achieving more by doing less.” She’d have to say yes to that. She would have to leave the comfort to say yes to that.

Somebody else, I remember when Dr. Melissa came in, she was like, “I don’t know if I really have a business.” But she had to say yes. She had to say, “Okay, I’m going to do this. This is an idea. I’m going to place a bet on it. I’m going to start learning all these skills to make this idea work. I’m going to say yes to my business. I’m going to have to say yes.”

So, you want to have a story. You want to have a win. You want to have a result. Are you committed? Have you dared your fears to say yes? So, maybe it’s a business. You’ve been putting it off forever. Maybe it’s time to scale and you’ve been putting it off.

If you are committed to your success, you will say yes. You will dare your fears and say yes. So, that’s the first thing. The second thing is they have to dare their fears and say yes to investing in themselves. They had to say yes to that. And you’re going to have to say yes to that too.

The rate-limiting step in your business is and always will be you. When you get better, your business gets better. It’s all you. So, you might go like, “No, no, no, if I could hire the right staff, my business could be better.” Well, that’s the point. You hire them.

So, whether you hire great people or you hire horrible employees, you hired them. So, when you get better at hiring, your business gets better. When you get better at speaking, your business gets better. When you get better at building systems, your business gets better. It’s all you.

So, they had to say yes. Every single one of them that I featured had said yes to the EntreMD Business School; every last one of them. They had said, “I agree that I know what I know and I don’t know what I don’t know. I agree that I have to improve myself. I agree that I have to acquire business skills. I agree that I have to do the work.” And they said yes.

So, are you saying yes to investing in yourself? Are you saying yes to that? Are you saying yes to reading the books? Are you saying yes to listening to the podcast? Are you saying yes to get into the right programs for you?

If you’re not, then my question to you is, are you really committed to your success? Are you really committed? I’m yet to see a champion that did that without investing in themselves. I’m yet to see one.

Alright, number three, they had to engage the process. I could make 74 podcast episodes out of this, but I’m just going to give you the five-minute version. They had to engage the process. What do I mean by that?

When you decide to start or to scale your business, you’re going to learn to do new things. Because the things you know to do and you’re doing have brought you to where you are. If you’re going to get new results, you’re going to have to do new things. And so, in the EntreMD Business School, they had a lot of challenges. They had to learn to speak. A lot of them looked at me like I was crazy, like, “I’m not going to do video. I’m not going to say yes to a speaking gig. I’m not going to do that.”

They were scared of it. But guess what? They dared their fears and they said yes. So, “Oh my gosh, I said yes to that speaking gig.” I think this week we had a doctor who was like, “Oh, TV reached out to me to see if I’d come and talk about COVID and kids and I was going to say no, which is my default, and then I heard Dr. Una in my head and she said if not you, who? And so I was like, yes.” And just like that, boom, she was on TV.

So, they had to embrace speaking. They had to embrace putting themselves out there, which when you’re staring, if that’s not your thing, it feels very weird. It feels really, really weird. But they embraced it and they did it. They had challenges to collaborate, to network, to embrace all the things. They did it. They embraced it. They said yes.

I said, “Hey, one of the ways you can grow your email list is you can do a webinar, you can do a masterclass or whatever.” And they’re like, “Oh, okay, cool, how do you do that?” This is how you do it, “Okay.” And they went out and they did it. And guess what? They got the results. Isn’t that an amazing thing?

Dr. Karen, I’ll give her a big shoutout because she’s private practice. She could have said, “Oh well, this is not the way people typically do it in private practice.” But no. She was in the Facebook groups. She was speaking online in Facebook groups, mom Facebook groups. She was in her community. She was networking. She was collaborating. She was doing the whole nine yards.

And because she’s doing things that people in private practice don’t typically do, she is getting results people in private practice typically don’t get. She started her practice January 21^st 2021, right smack in the middle of a pandemic. And she is thriving.

So, they engaged the process. They engaged the process. They said yes to all of it. There are things that you’re probably scared of doing in your business, but you have to do them. The new results you’re looking for, they’re tied into doing those things that you don’t normally do. You have to do them. You have to. You have to engage the process.

If you’re not willing to engage the process, then the question I have for you is are you truly, really committed to your success?

Number four, what is the fourth thing they had to do? They had to refuse to quit. Now, we live in the era of social media and social media makes it seem like business is supposed to be simple and easy and you’re supposed to sip margaritas on the beach and only work two days a week and bring in seven figures. Ca you do that? Yes, ultimately. But that is no attitude to start a business with.

Businesses have challenges. That’s just the nature of the beast. And the rewards go to the people who don’t quit. And I want to give props to these doctors right here and the doctors that I have the privilege of working with in the EntreMD Business School, they are not quitters. They have challenging times. They reach out to their tribe. They’re like, “Oh my goodness, this is challenging.” And they don’t quit. They don’t quit. They don’t quit.

You don’t make the decision not to quit because things are easy. You make the decision not to quit because you’re like, “I’m not going to quit.” And there may be times things are hard. There may be times that things don’t look like they’re working. But if you won’t quit, you’ll eventually win.

So, when those hard times come, I mean, they came in medical school, they came in residency. They came when you were working a job. This is the way of life. And you can do hard things and you can survive hard times and you can come out on the other end stronger. Everybody goes through challenges.

Dr. Toomer, I just gave her a shoutout. And 2020 was the best for her business, but she also had challenging times. She also had the pandemic. But she wouldn’t quit. Sometimes, winning is just standing. There are some days where things might be so hard that winning for you is just owning your decision not to quit. But if you won’t quit, you can make it to the top.

You know, John Lee Dumas has this saying that I saw in his book. I read it in his book. I thought it was fascinating. He said, “Every master was one a disaster. Every master was once a disaster.” The question is, when you’re a disaster and you’re working on becoming a master, will you quit? Or will you stay long enough so you can become a master?

You may listen to this podcast, you may look at the EntreMD Business School, you may look at all the things and you may say, “Wow, she’s just a genius entrepreneur.” Let me tell you, when I did my first launch ever, I did an online course. I made one sale. One, for $99. One.

What if I quit? What if I said, “I’m no good at this?” Is it really true that I’m no good at that? No. I needed to learn some things. I needed to practice some things. I needed to put myself out there in a different kind of way. I needed to give things time. What if I’d quit?

You may say, “I’m doing this thing. It’s not working.” Don’t quit. Don’t do it. Don’t do it. By all means, get the training you need, by all means, get the support you need. But you don’t quit.

So, these are the questions to ask yourself. Number one, am I daring my fears and saying yes to starting or scaling my business? Number two, am I daring my fears and am I saying yes to investing in myself? And if you’re not in the EntreMD Business School and you’re listening, I want to invite you. I want to invite you.

Now, the EntreMD Business School, at the time of this recording, is not open. It will open back up January 2022. So, get on the waitlist, okay, entremd.com/business, and get on the waitlist. But in the meantime, you have this podcast. Listen and apply. You have books. Read and apply.

Okay, number three, are you engaging in the process? Are you learning to learn? Or are you learning to do? Learning to learn is such a disservice. I want to invite you to stop it. Learn to do. So, are you engaged in the process? Are you just learning and researching and getting more certifications and all of this stuff? Or are you learning and doing? Are you engaged in the process? Are you putting yourself out there? Are you using speaking to grow your business? Are you collaborating? Are you networking? Are you embracing scary things? Are you engaged in the process?

Number four, have you made a quality decision not to quit? Like no matter what, I’m not quitting? Those are the four questions you need to answer. And if your answer to them is not yes, yes, yes, yes, you’re not fully committed to your success. And that’s okay, because now you know and you can look at it and you can make that answer yes, yes, yes, yes, okay.

So, that’s what you do. Review the four questions. Make sure your answer is yes. And go to work. Go to work, okay.

Now many of the doctors that I featured said, “To think that last year I attended EntreMD Live and this year I’m speaking at EntreMD Live, like, it’s such a surreal moment. It’s crazy the difference a year can make.”

If you’re committed to your success, a year from now, you may be speaking at EntreMD Live, or you may be in a position where you’re like, “Oh my goodness, I did not know I could be this person. I didn’t know.”

Now that I think about it, one of the doctors said, “Oh, I’m going to be a speaker next year.” I was like, “Well, alright, I’m all for it. Let’s do it,” right? So, you can dramatically change your life in the next 12 months if you’re committed to your success.

So, I hope the stories of these doctors inspired you, but beyond that, I hope you also made a commitment to your own success. Because you know me. I’m all about celebrating and I want to celebrate your story.

Alright, so thank you so much for listening. Go do your homework. Share this episode with another doctor. 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.