Ep #133: What Are You Willing to Give Up for 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.

Hello, hello, my people. Welcome to another episode of The EntreMD Podcast. As always, I’m super excited, super pumped to be in your ears. And this episode is going to be so much fun. The content from this episode comes from my son, my 11-year-old Chidi. And I’m going to tell you all about what he did and how this applies to you and your business.

But before we get into the episode, I do want to give a really big shoutout to a client of mine. And she posted this in the EntreMD Facebook group. And if you’re not a part of it, you should come join us, entremd.com/join.

And this is what she said, “Thank you Dr. Una. Launch week for my obesity medicine course just concluded and I met my stretch goal…” now, she didn’t say what the goal was, but it was a pretty good goal, a pretty big goal. And she said, “I made my stretch goal for how many courses I would sell in a week. So fun to launch a totally different type of business in addition to my medical practice, Optavia team, and outdoor adventure rental company. I thought I was pushing myself before, but working with you made me level-up. Even better, I know I’ll be able to reach more patients this way than I ever could in my office.”

So, big shoutout to Dr. Carolynn Brown, who is a family medicine physician, owns her own practice, and just launched an obesity medicine course, and hit her stretch goal. So, not get goal goal, but her stretch goal. So, shoutout. I want you guys to check her out. It is helpyourpatientsloseweight.com if you are thinking about incorporating some kind of obesity medicine weight loss type thing into your already existing private practice. Super amazing, check her out, Dr. Carolynn, I am beyond proud and beyond honored that I got to be a part of your journey. And this is just the beginning. So, so, so, so happy.

Okay, alright, so I talk about my kids kind of sort of a lot. And if you don’t know I have four. I have three daughters and a son. My son is the second child. He’s 11. His name is Chidi.

So, we have been looking for something for him to do, and my husband, he went to boarding schools and all of that and he was like, it would be a really great experience for him. I never went to any boarding schools. I was always at my parents’ hip, like attached. And I was like, “Oh my gosh, I can’t stand it, my son, I’m not going to see him for X number of weeks,” and stuff like that.

But anyway, this year for the summer, we found a military camp. It runs for about a month. And they are big on academics, character development, discipline, and leadership development, sports. They have a whole full immersive experience for the summer.

And the first time my husband showed it to me I was totally not having it. And then, you know, I looked at it. I was like, you know, I can’t mommy the boy until – he needs to do some man stuff. So, anyway, so we looked at it. we did a few open houses and stuff like that and we decided, okay, we’re going to send him to camp.

And so, today was the day Dr. Una had to go drop her son off at camp. I didn’t cry. But you know, I was kind of like all mommy in my feelings. But anyway, we got there, such a warm welcome. The Major in charge came out to greet us and we had a number of people walk us through the registration process, the athletic director came and met my son and introduced himself, told him if ne needed anything, you can always find me, this is where my office is, the whole nine yards.

We got to meet a few other families who had their sons coming as well and it was overall a good experience. And so, we dropped him off. And of course, he’s not at the age where he can get the COVID vaccine, so they had to do a COVID test there and they have to stay in isolation while they wait for the results and stuff like that. So, he was a little bored, but he had his phone, the phone he only got because he was going to camp, because we don’t do phones at 11. But anyway, he was bored.

And so, he read a bit, he wrote a bit, he texted us a bit and did all of that. And after that, he went to his room. He didn’t have a roommate at the time. So, it was just him, he was talking to his sisters and all of that.

And then, like an hour later, I get a text message from him. And the text message, he says, “I’m in a new room and I have a new roommate.” And I was like, “Yay, exciting.” And then he says, “And he has…” and the next text that came in, “BOOKS,” all upper-case And he’s a really big reader. I’m grateful all my kids are big readers. Like, when they’re bored, they read. When they’re not bored, they read. When they’re in the car on a ride to somewhere, they read. They’re big readers.

But he didn’t pack books because they have this whole morning until night agenda thing going on, like I can’t even imagine when he’d find time to read. So, he’s like, “BOOKS,” all upper-case. And then he goes on to list the books that the boy has, his roommate has. And then he said, “I have to trade a bag of chips for his books,” or his book. I don’t know how many bags of chips he’s going to need for this stuff.

So, I’m like, “What? No kidding. You had to give him a bag of chips for a book?” And then he types back, all upper-case of course. I was like, well, he’s having a real life experience, because that’s the way the world works. And then I was like, “Well isn’t that interesting?”

I was like, that an 11-year-old would trade chips for a book. He has that much value on the development of his mind that he would rather read than overeat. Because of course, they feed them. He doesn’t need the chips. But he would rather do that than eat chips. I was like, it’s what you do, it’s what you’re willing to give up that really shows what your values are.

And that made me have a come to Jesus meeting with myself, and I want to invite you to have the same meeting. So, the question is, we all have dreams. We have goals. We have these things we want to see happen in our business. Maybe you’re here and you want to start, you want to scale, you want to launch a podcast, a YouTube channel, finally get your business registered, finally hit your seven-figure mark, whatever it is, we have something we’re aspiring to.

The question is, what are you willing to give up to get that? He was willing to give up chips to get a book. That is the value he places on mental development. What are you willing to give up for the things that you say you want to accomplish?

And so, I started thinking about this. I was like, let’s unpack this. Because we have to make this practical. We have to make this in such a way that you can apply this today. You can use this concept to make differences today.

So, this is with business. You can apply it to your family, you can apply it to your health, you can apply it to anything you want, but this is The EntreMD Podcast, so we’re going to talk from a business perspective.

So, number one, are you willing to give up your TV time for thinking time? Pre-COVID, the average American watched five hours of TV. A lot of people will say, “Well I don’t have time for a business. I don’t have time to make my business better. I don’t have time to read another book to make my business better. I don’t have time.

But the question is, do you really not have time? Like, if you have time to watch TV every day, are you willing to give that up to create tie for your business? Are you willing to give that up, for instance, to create thinking time?

It takes time to create a vision that will inspire you to action. It takes time for you to sit and think about what you can do to improve your business. It takes time for you to think about, “Well this product I have, this service I have, how can I make it better? How can I get my clients and my patients results faster, cheaper, better? How can I? How can I build a better team?

That thinking time is a requirement for a successful business. But there’s also TV. Are you willing to make the exchange? It’s not going to feel really, really good. Like, a 1-year-old gave up chips, right? So, the question is, that thing that you do like, maybe it’s a show you do like on Netflix, are you willing to give that up in exchange for thinking time that you can spend and make your business better so you can have the goals that you set?

If you’re not willing to do that, maybe you don’t want your goals. And I hope this doesn’t sound too harsh because I’m talking to myself as well. It’s time to take a look.

And I looked at another area. Well, they say leaders are readers, and every really successful entrepreneur or individual that I’ve met is a reader. Many of them read for hours a day. Many of them read a book a week. Many of them say, “I want to read two books a month.” But they are readers.

So, the question becomes, are you willing to give up reading on social media for reading what will move your business forward? So, this is a good time to pull out your phone, especially if it’s an iPhone. Pull it out, take a look, how much time do I spend on social media?

Because when we say we don’t have time, that’s not true. Everybody has 24 hours. Everybody has 24 hours. How much time are you spending? Well, if you look at that, for some people it’s an hour, it’s two hours, it’s four hours, it’s five hours. Some people, when I ask, they’re like, “It’s all day, stop asking. It’s all day. That’s what I do.”

Are you willing to give up that time? Are you willing to give the quote unquote chips, are you willing to give the chips up so that you can spend that time reading? Because reading good books, good business books will transform your business.

You think you have a problem hiring the right people. Your answer is a book away. You think you have a problem with your mindset. Your answer, your next step is a book away. You feel like, “Man, I suck at networking?” Well, it’s a book away. You feel, “I’m not inspired, I’m not motivated.” Your answer is a book away.

Will you give up social media so you can use that time to read? And you might say this is so simple, blah, blah, blah. This is not about simplicity. Actually, this is supposed to be simple. The question is doing the actual evaluation. How much time am I spending with social media? Am I willing to do an exchange that will give me my target? That will make my goals a reality?

So, that’s number two. Number three, are you willing to give up maybe savings, but the bottom line is are you willing to give up money in exchange for a program? Whether that’s working with a coach, whether that’s coming to join us in the EntreMD Business School, are you willing to give that up to go up? Are you willing to give that up?

And again, you might go like, “I really want to use the savings to do X, Y, Z. I’d rather just use the money and go for an extra vacation…” and please don’t misunderstand me, all these things are important. But at the same time, the chips were important to the 11-year-old. Are you willing to give that up, and give that up in exchange for something that would deliver your goals to you?

And the reason – I’m going to pause and talk about this one a bit because there are opportunities that come your way to invest in programs, for instance, that it just changes the trajectory. You guys have heard me tell my story time and time and time again about the first time I invested in a program and I paid $43,000 for a 10-month group program.

And I don’t regret spending that. It hurt. I mean, come on, it’s $43,000, it hurt. But what I got in exchange, like this version of me, I wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world. Are you willing to make the exchange?

Now, today is day-20 for the new cohort of the business school. And I am telling you this because I want to tell you what’s happened to some people in 20 days. We have two doctors who have launched podcasts. We have many doctors who, since they joined, have been guests on many podcasts. We have doctors, multiple, who have launched YouTube channels. We have doctors who have gotten speaking gigs. We have doctors who are like, “Oh, I learned the signature talk framework. And I delivered this talk in a way I have never delivered it before.”

We had a doctor who made a statement that will warm my heart forever. She said, “I have gone from researching and researching to doing.” How many of you have had that? Where you’re researching, you’re checking, you’re doing all that. And there are so many docs who came in like, “Oh, how do I do an LLC? How do I do this?” They’ve done it, and they’re like, oh my goodness, this was done, done, done, done, done. 20 days.

So, if they rinse and repeat, momentum. If they rinse and repeat that for 12 months, guess what happens? They are completely different people. So yes, did they have to make a nice-sized investment for the business school? Yes. Are they going to get a ginormous return on investment? Yes. Yes.

So, are you willing to make the exchange? Now, if you’re thinking about it, the EntreMD Business School will open back up January 2022 and you can get on the waitlist now, entremd.com/business. Get on the waitlist and you will be the first to know because it may not come to light. I may just tell my email list, “Hey, these are the spots I have. If you want it, take it.” But invest. Are you willing to do that?

Number four, are you willing to exchange bad relationships for relationships that will take you to the next level? And maybe I shouldn’t say bad relationships. Maybe I should say bad and neutral relationships.

I was talking to a mentee of mine. So, I do a lot of mentorship for mostly young females in college and stuff like that for my church and people who have just entered the workspace. And I was talking to this lady and she’s like, “I’m disappointed in myself. I’m almost ashamed of myself. I thought I’d be further along in life.” She’s 23 though. I’m like, yeah, you’re so old…

But she was like, “I thought I’d be further along. These are the dreams I had for my life. Even for 2021, these are the dreams I had for this year. And I haven’t done any of them.” So, I sat with her for an hour and we worked through all the things and we worked through all the limiting beliefs and we worked through the strategies, the opportunities.

And you could see her face brighten up and it was just amazing. And then, I was like, “Okay, now tell me the five people closest to you.” And she draws up a list of the five people. I was like, “Okay, is there anyone here whose work ethic or whose results almost intimidate you, like almost, because it’s that far out?” She’s like, “No.”

I was like, “Okay, if you accomplish all the things you set out to accomplish in 2021 and your life looks so amazing, so amazing, I want you to think about that version of you. That version of you, is that version of you inspired by any of these people?” And she’s like, “No.”

Do any of them have the results you’re trying to get? “No.” Are any of them doing the things that we just talked about that you’re going to start doing? She says, “No.” I said, “Okay, what that means is you need a new five.”

And I wasn’t saying like get rid of all these people. Not at all. But I was like, you have to decrease the proximity and you have to find people who are going where you’re trying to go. You need to find people whose goals and dreams make yours look small. Not in a comparing kind of way, but those are the people who will keep you inspired. Those are the people who will force you to look beyond the limiting beliefs because you’re like, “Well wait a minute. I knew that person five months ago. How did they become that person? How have they changed so much?”

And I was like, you need to get a new five. You need to find them.” I gave her some pointers, like you’re trying to do this, this person over here is killing it there. You need to build a relationship there. And I pointed her to different areas.

I was like, you have to expand your social circle. You have to decrease the proximity to these other people. They’re not bad people, you know, but she’s trying to go somewhere.

And so, for you, that’s also a question to ask yourself. The people closest to me, do they inspire me? When they tell me about their day, do I feel like ready to take on a fresh 24, even though it’s 11PM? When they tell me about their goals, does it push e to go, wait a minute I’ve been slacking man, I need to – in a healthy way?

If the answer is no, are you that committed to your goals that you’re willing to exchange that for relationships that will inspire you, keep you motivated, make you dream better, make your work ethic stronger. Just by being, their life calls you out. They didn’t say anything to you. Just by being.

Are you willing to do that exchange? Or are you going to say, “No, we’ve been neighbors forever. We went to high school forever.” Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying cut people off. I’m saying you’ve got to have the five that will inspire you.

I mean, for me, this is a reason why I reach out and build relationships with people who are way more successful than I am. This is the reason why I listen to autobiographies, because it’s so inspiring. It’s so inspiring.

Imagine if you’re having a hard time conceptualizing a six-figure business or a seven-figure business and you have a friend – so let’s say seven figures. But you have a friend who is doing seven figures a month. They’re doing seven figures a month. You’re trying to crack seven figures for the year.

It makes you go like, “Dude, if they can figure out seven figures a month, I can figure out seven figures a year.” And you’re just like, let’s get to it already. So, are you willing to exchange that?

So, that’s the fourth one. Number five, are you willing to exchange your comfort zone for your discomfort zone? Are you willing to give up that quest for comfort? Like, “Oh, I’m not comfortable doing videos. I’m not comfortable speaking. I don’t know what a lead magnet is. I’m definitely not comfortable putting myself out there. Networking is not my thing. I don’t understand profit and loss statements.”

Dudette, or dude, are you going to give that up? And are you going to embrace courageous living outside your comfort zone, in your discomfort zone? Are you going to just go like, “You know what? This is my permanent address. This is where I live. This is my new zip code,” as Dr. Carolyn Moyers said?

My discomfort zone, are you willing to make that exchange? And it may be frightening coming out of your comfort zone. But let me tell you something. In my life, maybe the life of many other people, there’s always going to be fear. There is the fear of stepping outside your comfort zone and there’s the fear of regret.

You get to choose what you really want to be afraid of. There is a fear of, “Oh my gosh, if I put myself out there, people will laugh at me. Naysayers will come out. And people will tell me no, I’m just terrified of rejection.”

There’s also that fear of regret, being 90 years old, lying on your bed, realizing that you actually could do everything you dreamed of, but you didn’t because you were so scared.

If the fear of stepping outside your comfort zone is 10 kilos, your fear of regret is 10 tons. That’s how big it is. So, I would rather be so afraid of regret that I will eat the fear of stepping outside my comfort zone for breakfast every single day.

And let me tell you something, it’s a muscle. The more you use that muscle, the more you practice living outside your comfort zone, the more comfortable being uncomfortable becomes. I am so comfortable being uncomfortable. I am so comfortable embracing things that are scary.

When I see scary things, I get excited. I’m like, wow, let’s go conquer that. Now, that doesn’t mean I don’t have the fear. It doesn’t mean I don’t have to work on my mindset. It doesn’t mean any of that. But the more you do it, the more you realize, “You know what? This fear’s not really real. The fear doesn’t kill me. We can get stuff done even though the fear is there. Whatever, it’s a beautiful place to be. I never knew I’d be here. It’s so much fun.” Where you can feel the fear and still realize, I can still do what I need to do. It’s amazing.

Anyway, are you willing to give up, like he gave up his chips for a book, are you willing to give up your comfort zone for your discomfort zone? Are you willing to give up your comfort for courage? Courage doesn’t mean fear is not there. It means you keep moving in spite of it.

So, this is your come to Jesus meeting, five things. Am I going to give up TV for thinking time? Am I going to give social media up for reading time? Am I going to give up money, savings, whatever, to invest in my own development? So, maybe it’s a program.

And of course, the EntreMD Business School, I will recommend that very highly, entremd.com/business. Go get on the waitlist, you’ll be the first to know.

Are you willing to give up bad or neutral relationships for relationships that will take you forward, that will help you accomplish your goals? Number five, are you willing to give up your comfort zone so you can settle in your discomfort zone.

This, if you would actually take the time to sit with yourself and have a come to Jesus meeting and call yourself out – because the worst thing you can do is lie to yourself. I mean, because that’s deception. You are the one triggering your own deception. You tell yourself, “Self, you’ve been watching TV for too long.” And every time they ask you why you haven’t started a business, every time you think about, “Well, I could have made this business better,” you say, “I don’t have time.” Turns out, yes you do. How about you give up some of that TV?

You think about it. You look at your phone and you’re like, “Dudette, six hours on social media, you trippin’…” and you haven’t read more than three books. And we’re already in the seventh month of the year. Like, put that on pause.

And I know that many of you are using social media for your business. But then again, you have to get smarter, okay, how you use it. So, what that means is if you need to post five days a week because that’s what a good entrepreneur does, you can sit for an hour. You can batch-produce all that content, boom, done. And you can spend the time to read.

Then you ask yourself, where do I need to invest so that these deficiencies I have as an entrepreneur, I can fix them? And you invest in them. I make a budget every year for what I’m going to spend on coaching and programs and all of that. Like, it’s a pretty nice-sized budget. And I set that whether I know where I’m going to invest it or not. Like, this is the budget for that, and then I start looking.

You’re going to take a look at your relationships and you’re going to go like, “Well every time I talk to her, the little confidence I had to go do this entrepreneurship thing, I lose it.” When I talk to these other people, I start thinking, well it doesn’t take all that. Maybe I should stop this thing that I’m doing.

I don’t have anybody in my life, I don’t have one person in my life, or one person in my circle, my core, who is rooting for me, who is telling me that I can do it, who is showing me, “Look, these are all the failures I had. But look at the success I’m having now. You can do this.”

Don’t have one person whose life, just because they’re alive, like I just have one 10-minute conversation with them and I’m on fire. I don’t have that person. So, fi you don’t have that person, you’re going to go like, “Well, I’m going to find them.” You write it down, one, two, three, four, five. You start looking for them.

Now, if you’re coming to the EntreMD Business School, they exist. It is on fire. The wins people post are so crazy that if you walked into that place sad like, “I don’t know about this business,” then you’re leaving there like, “Oh wait a minute, when she started, she didn’t know anything. She was scared of everything, what’s going on?”

But find these people. And you’re going to ask yourself, where am I holding so hard onto comfort that it’s not letting me move forward? What are the things I decided not to do because they’re uncomfortable? I decided not to network because it’s uncomfortable. I decided not to ask for referrals, ask for reviews because it’s uncomfortable. I’ve refused to start that podcast I’ve dreamt about for five years because it’s uncomfortable. I’ve refused to hire a team because it’s uncomfortable to do that.

You’re going to look at those things and you’re going to have a moment with yourself and you’re going to say, “You know what? I’m going to live I my discomfort zone. That’s what I’m going to do.”

So, I want you to have that meeting and I want you to make these changes. This is so powerful that if you do it, you’re going to look back in the next 90 days and you’re going to be like, “Oh my goodness, all these changes. All these changes. Oh my gosh, who would have thought.”

And when that happens, I want you to tell me all about it. So, you can PM me, DM me, email me, druna@entremd.com and let me know about it. I want to celebrate with you.

Alright, so I want you to take a moment, take this episode, take a screenshot, post it on social media, and I want you to say what your biggest a-ha moment was, and tag me #entremd. And when Chidi comes back from camp four weeks from now – the mommy in me, four weeks from now – I will show him all the posts and say, “Look, you are inspiring change in the world. You exchanging chips for a book is inspiring a lot of doctors and look at all the massive change they’ve created in their lives.”

Alright, so thank you so much for listening to this. as always, I am rooting for you. I believe in you. I believe in your business. It doesn’t matter how good it’s going or how not good it’s going. You can do this. You are a seven-percenter. You are somebody who picked a profession where only 7% of the people who try to get in get in and you are rocking it. So, that tells me that you have what it takes to pull this off.

So, go be great. Go do your thing. And I will see you 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.