Ep #161: How to Create Endless Momentum in Your Business

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. Welcome back to another episode of the EntreMD Podcast. Super pumped as always that you are listening.

And you know what? Why don’t I just stop and say this? I have a lot of respect for people who start habits and maintain them. There is something about habits that, you know, there’s something unique about them.

And that is that when you engage in a habit—like, you start exercising. So, you’re working out 30 minutes every day. Or you’re drinking, you know, half a gallon or a gallon of water. Or you decide, “I’m gonna read. I’m gonna read a book a week.” Or “I’m gonna listen to the EntreMD Podcast every Monday and every Thursday.” Right?

When you take on those habits, there’s no immediate change. There’s no immediate, radical transformation that people can see. And it doesn’t take away the fact that you still have challenges. It doesn’t do any of that.

But if you keep the habit up long enough, it produces radical, dramatic transformation. And I have some of you who listen, and this is what you listen to on your commute on Monday. This is what you listen to on your commute on Thursday. Some of you even added on the Doctors Changing Medicine Podcast, which is my second podcast, and we have episodes every Wednesday.

And you’re immersing yourself in the world of entrepreneurship. You’re immersing yourself in the world of possibilities. You are immersing yourself in such a positive state that, done over time, what it does to your life and to your business is so remarkable.

So, I want to take a moment and acknowledge you. Like, thank you. On one hand, thank you for listening. On the other hand, congratulations on being a regular listener, because you are doing something that seems little but is life-changing. Okay? So, I want to acknowledge you.

And listen, if you’re like, “I’ve already written a review,” and you’re getting wins, you can PM me, DM me, you can email me—DrUna@EntreMD.com—and say, “Listen, Dr. Una. You need to hear about this.” I would love to hear because I love to celebrate. You can post it on your page and tag me.

I would be happy to reshare, shout you out, and all of that. I believe in doctors. I love doctors. I believe in you. I believe in your vision, your idea, your dream, your business. And I love nothing more than celebrating you, rooting for you along the journey. So, thank you for listening, and congratulations for being a regular listener.

Now, I want you to take a moment and imagine having endless momentum in your business. Like, you have momentum. There may be challenges, but the challenges don’t stop you. The business is growing year by year in impact and revenue. Imagine that.

That’s what we’re gonna talk about today: how to create endless momentum in your business. I get asked all the time, like, “Do you ever feel like quitting?” Like, “Does this ever get so hard that you just want to be done with it?” And I’m like, “Well, the challenges come, but I don’t want to quit.” And I’m gonna tell you why. This is the secret sauce.

Now, one of the things that I’ve noticed that will create endless momentum for you is building a mission-based business. Where your business becomes a tool that you use to accomplish your life’s purpose.

Now, for many of you, you know, as physicians, you’ve achieved something that so many people would love to achieve, but either never said “yes” to achieving it or tried and they couldn’t. And so, you’ve done something pretty phenomenal. And you probably have the earning potential there. And so, yes, of course we want more financial stability and stuff like that, but maybe money’s not your primary driver.

Everyone wants a sense of fulfillment from doing meaningful work. Everybody wants a sense of fulfillment based on feeling like “I am in my purpose. I’m doing something that matters.” And when you convert your business into a vehicle to get that done, I mean, you feel like you’re not working.

In EntreMD, I don’t think I’ve ever worked in EntreMD. Because what am I doing? I am fulfilling what I consider as my life’s work, I consider as my life’s purpose. I have always been the person who’s wanted to help people become the best versions of themselves, and to be able to do that and that’s my job—oh my goodness. I don’t work. I just live out purpose.

Now, you might be thinking, “Wow. You know, that’s really good. But I can’t see that.” But I want you to just roll with me. Okay?

So, EntreMD’s not really about a podcast or about a business school or a book, and yes, I am writing a book. It’s called The EntreMD Method. It’s gonna be available spring 2022. So exciting.

It’s not really just about that. These are all tools. They’re all tools to help me do something. And that something is to help 80,000 doctors. Help them learn how to build profitable businesses—so, either start or scale profitable businesses so they have the freedom to live life and to practice medicine on their own terms. It’s about giving doctors their lives back. It’s about fixing burnout, because you know that I think that entrepreneurship is the fix for burnout. It’s about preventing suicides.

The business is a tool. It’s a means to an end. It’s so much bigger—so much bigger—than the tool itself. The mission is so much bigger. And so, when I look at it in those terms and the challenges come, I’m like, “Full speed ahead.” Because I’m like, “I’m trying to help 80,000 doctors.”

So, if I’m going out there and somebody says “no” to me or somebody slams a door shut, I’m looking for another door because I need to get to 80,000 doctors. I have to help them get their lives back. I have to help them own those businesses that they’ve always wanted to own. I want to help them own their voices. I’m out there trying to get my mission done. Okay?

And let me just pause and say this: I truly am on a mission. Totally not made up at all. And so, if you are listening and you’re like, “Oh, I know how to get EntreMD in front of this audience. I know how to get the podcast in front of this… I know who Dr. Una absolutely has to collaborate with…”

Listen, I am open. So, you send me a DM or a PM and say, “Listen, Dr. Una. You need to connect with this person.” I’ll be happy to make that connection. Okay? So, I just thought I’d throw that out there.

So, when obstacles show up, they’re not enough to tempt me to stop because of how big my mission is. So, you might be thinking, “Well, I’m so happy for you, Dr. Una, that you found what your thing is.” Like, “You found what your thing is. I don’t see how this applies to a private practice. I don’t see how this applies to my skincare line. I don’t see how this applies.”

And I’m gonna give you examples. Actually, I’m gonna give you five examples so you can listen and go like, “Wait a minute. Maybe I can… Maybe… I’ve already thought about it in those terms, but I just didn’t know what it was.” Okay? And I want you to own it. I want you to own all of it. A mission-driven business. Okay? Okay.

So, let’s start with private practice. All right? Let me give you an example of that. Let’s start with private practice. When I started my private practice 11 years ago, it was still mission-based. So, it was still local. It was a local business. I was not gonna help 80,000 people in the way that I was thinking about for doctors or anything like that.

But what was it? So, when I thought about it—I mean, there are five practices within a 10-minute drive from mine, and so the question is, why is another one needed? But I saw some things that I felt really strongly about. Like patients constantly saying like, “I’m a number. I’m just a number. I want a place where I’m known.”

Where parents, especially moms—and I love moms. My first choice was to be an OB-GYN. And that was because I love moms. That’s the category of patients I felt the most for.

And so, I was like, “Well, to be a mom and be heard… Oh my gosh. When you have kids and you’re so vulnerable and half the time you feel like you don’t know what you’re doing. To be heard is just so amazing.”

And it also seemed at the time that the doctor’s office and long wait times—they were synonymous. And I was like, “Wow, wouldn’t it be nice if you could have turnaround times that were an hour less?” When people are rude, they’re like, “That’s just the way it is in medical practice.” I was like, “Wow, wouldn’t it be nice to have a place that was warm and friendly?”

So, then I converted all of this into a mission. I’ll show you how. So, my thought became—I didn’t use exactly these words, but this is what it was: every mom deserves to be part of a pediatric practice where the staff are warm and friendly, so she does feel like she’s part of a family. Where she doesn’t have to spend all day there just because Johnny had a pink eye. And it would stay profitable so we won’t have to sell out to investors and turn it into a mill. So, she doesn’t have to be a number.

So, that became my mission. So, it was beyond just going in, seeing the patients, and going home. It was about changing the experience that parents can have when they go to a pediatric office.

And so, it just becomes bigger. It just becomes a lot bigger than the practice. And it takes away the “Oh, I just go in… I go in, I spend 15 minutes, I come out. And then I go in, I see another cold, and I come out.” It takes all that away because it’s now mission based. Okay? All right. So, that’s with the private practice.

What of a product? So, I talk about Dr. Yinka Skin a lot. And you should check her out. Okay, so Dr. Yinka Skin. She is one of the students in the EntreMD Business School, and she has a skincare line. It’s called Dr. Yinka Skin.

And her thing is she had gone to a conference and they had people try on sunscreen. And she’s a person of color. So, she tried on the sunscreen and it left white patches and all of that stuff on her skin. On everybody else, you know, they had lighter skin and it looked okay, but for her it looked absolutely dreadful. And there are many sunscreens that are that way.

And then she was like, “No.” That she wants to make sunscreen specifically for people of color that would not leave any patches or so they don’t look like they have white stuff caked on their faces. And this became her mission: to help people of color use sunscreen that is made specifically for their skin and all they have is a glow as opposed to all those patches.

And, of course, her business is bigger than that. There are other things that she does. But this now had a mission behind it. So, when she talks about it, she talks about it from that standpoint. It’s bigger.

And think about it. Think about an African American woman who maybe won’t use sunscreen because when she uses the sunscreen, she looks like she put white stuff on her face. And does that increase her risk for skin cancer? Does that increase her risk for aging earlier than she should? And the answer is yes.

So, think about how powerful her business is as opposed to just thinking, “Oh, I sell sunscreen.” Do you see how “I see sunscreen” and “I am helping women of color enjoy using sunscreen, and I’m helping them use it consistently, and I’m helping them look beautiful and natural with sunscreen on” is very different? And what does that do? It creates momentum because you’re a woman or a man on a mission.

Think about a content creator. Okay, so, I guess I’m shouting out a lot of students from the EntreMD Business School, but Dr. Beckford from UrCaringDocs.com—she is so passionate. Like, really, really passionate about helping people understand their health. Understand the diagnoses the doctors give them when they go for appointments. Helping them understand what happens during a doctor’s appointment and all of that.

And you know that there are many people who are not compliant with their medication—are not compliant with their care—because they just don’t understand it.

So, she’s a content creator, but she’s not just doing YouTube videos. That’s not what she’s doing. She is literally changing the world by helping people understand their diagnosis so they can stay compliant with their medications and their regimens so they can live healthier lives.

Now, when you look at that in the context of people who have chronic disease, hypertension, diabetes, it also means that she’s preventing stroke, she’s preventing amputations, she’s preventing early blindness… Like, that is what she does. So, she is on a mission.

So, think about it. “Oh, I do YouTube videos” vs. “I help people with chronic disease stay healthy.” I mean, they’re completely different things. And the thing about missions is that people will rally around them. Okay? Okay.

So, that’s the third example. So, we looked at private practice, products, a content creator…. So, let’s look at something like a book. Now, a book is one of those things, when people write books, I tell them, “Listen, that is not just about the book. It’s about the mission behind the book. It’s the mission behind the book.”

So, Dr. Stokes wrote this book called Sometimes I Just Don’t Like Myself. And it is a children’s book, beautifully illustrated. It’s available on Amazon. You should actually go get a copy. And it’s all about helping children realize the greatness that’s on the inside of them, helping them develop a great self-esteem. Think about that.

And so, she could say, “Oh, I wrote a book.” Which is true. Or she could own the mission behind the book. So, our kids don’t realize how valuable they are. They don’t realize the greatness on the inside of them. They have low self-esteem.

And because of that, they’re more prone to being sad, maybe even being depressed, not owning their own space, not trying new things, living way, way, way, way below their potential.

And her mission could be to elevate the self-esteem of the kids. And that mission now becomes so much bigger than the book. Do you see what I mean? And that’s the reason why she won’t stop pushing the book. She won’t stop marketing it.

She won’t stop reaching out to schools to say, “Hey, you need this book in your school.” She won’t stop going to be a guest on podcasts to let people know, “You need to see this. Your kids can discover the greatness on the inside of them. You parents, I can remind you of the greatness that’s on the inside of your kids. And you’re gonna empower them and you’re gonna help them become the best version of themselves.”

It is a mission. It’s easier to handle the “nos”. It’s easier to keep going because you know it’s so much bigger than the book. So, that’s with a book.

And the fifth version—and I’m trying to put all of these so you see that no matter what your business is, you can make it. You can dig a little deeper and make it mission based. And then it becomes part of your life’s calling. It becomes part of your purpose. It becomes easier to throw your strength behind it. It becomes easier to weather storms and challenges, because you’re like, “I’m gonna get this done because this matters.” Okay? Okay.

So, the fifth is, “Well, what if you’re an entrepreneur? What if you work a job? What if you don’t have an LLC—you don’t have a business? You know? And what could that be?” Well, it could be anything. But let me give you an example.

So, Dr. Shenelle Wilson—shout-out to Dr. Shenelle Wilson. She’s the founder of Urology Unbound. And she decided that, “Listen, I’ve looked at the statistics for urology and there is no diversity in urology.”

I mean, we’re talking—if you look at the statistics—it’s 2% of urologists that are African American and 3.5% are Latinx. Do you see what I mean? Like, no diversity.

And she decided, like, “Wait a minute. I’m gonna fix that problem.” So, she starts a nonprofit and she sets it up where the students—the African American students, the minority students—can get the mentorship they need. They can get mock interviews done. They can get exposure to ask questions and stuff to faculty. She set all of these things up.

This is not just, “Oh, you know, I kind of help urology students…” No. Her job is to change the narrative and her job is to bring diversity to an entire field. That is a mission. And it becomes bigger than you and people want to support you and help you do it and it makes your work so meaningful. You never really feel like you’re working. And you just create unbelievable momentum.

So, no matter what kind of business you have, you can create momentum around it by making it mission based. How does this business change the world? How does this business solve a problem in the world? How does this business change the lives of families? What does this business do? What would the world be missing if it’s not there?

And you might be saying, “Oh, you know, wow, these things sound so important. Like, bringing diversity to urology and a skincare line and writing a book… That’s all so amazing. But my idea is just…”

Okay. So, there is no idea as “My idea is just…” That idea that doesn’t look so special, if brilliantly and consistently executed, will turn into a masterpiece.

I literally have a doc who is a surgeon—Dr. Cranston, shout-out to her. And she does custom art and she has the most beautiful lettering ever. So, she has these inspirational quotes that she handwrites. It’s really beautiful art. You should check it out. Really, really beautiful art. And she does this and that’s her product.

But the story behind it—and I can tell you because she said it on the podcast—the story behind it is she had a time in her life where she had some really bad experiences that she had to go through, and she would have good days and she would have bad days.

And she was like, “You know what? That future version of myself that’s gonna have a bad day? I know what she needs to hear. So, I’m gonna write it all out on these and make it into beautiful art. And I’m gonna put it in places where I can see it. So when my future self runs into that, she will see it and it will encourage her.”

I thought it was the most amazing story. So now, it’s not just about a product that’s pretty art with inspirational quotes on it. It becomes about how to help people weather storms. That’s the mission.

“My mission is to empower you to weather storms and come out on top.” That is so different from “I do art.” Do you see what I’m saying? You just take that and put a mission—a mission—around it. Right? Okay.

So, that’s a lot of examples, and listen, your business idea is needed. That idea—you’ve tried to get rid of it. It’s been there since you were five years old. It’s been there since you came out of residency. It is needed. If it won’t go away, maybe act on it. And if you need help, come join us in the Business School. I mean, this is what we do.

So, what I want you to do… You’ve listened to this, and you maybe go like, “Wow. That’s a lot.” But listen, you can start thinking about it. I want you to start thinking about it and define what your mission is. And you might go like, “Ugh. That’s a lot. I don’t think I can do it.” But I need you to hear me. Okay? This can be messy. This may seem weird.

But guess what? You can write it. You can edit it. You can start trying it. You can get it clearer. The bottom line is just start. Just start. Own what you do. Think about it as a mission.

Flip it, and you’ll fall in love with your business in ways that you don’t know. You’ll generate unbelievable amounts of momentum. You will feel the pain of challenges, but you’ll go through it because you are a person on a mission. Your impact will go through the roof. Your revenue will go through the roof. Your fears will show up. And you will dare them because you’re on a mission.

Now, doctors—one of the things I know about us is that what we really want to do is we want to help people, and all I’m saying you should do is define your business a little—a little—deeper in the way that you help people. And own that. “I’m the woman for the job. I’m the man for the job. I’m gonna fix this problem in this sector.” Like, whatever your business is. “This is what I’m going to do.”

Own it, and it will change your life and it will change your business and you will feel so great because you’ll connect with how meaningful your work is. You’ll connect with it in a much deeper way.

So, I am so glad that you listened to this episode, and I want you to do the work. Please do not walk away and not do the work. Do the work. Think about it. Own it. And you might think, “What if I’m wrong?” Then you change it. That’s the beautiful thing about entrepreneurship. You’re not running a code. If you get it wrong, you can fix it.

So, just do that. And I would love to hear your story. I would love to hear about your mission-based business. And imagine a community of doctors. Like, all of us in the EntreMD community—going out and owning our missions, and in the process, having enormous impact and generating a lot of revenue. I mean, it doesn’t get any better than that.

All right. So, thank you for listening. Don’t forget to share the episode. 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.