Ep #251: How I Position Myself to Get the Most Out of Coaching with Dr. Emeka Obidi

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.

Dr. Una: Well hello, hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The EntreMD Podcast. As always, I am super excited that you’re here. And I’m especially excited because I have the amazing Dr. Emeka Obidi here with me and we’re going to have a great conversation.

I especially love this because I love any opportunity to get behind the scenes with a real life entrepreneur because there’s so many lessons to be learned. So I’m excited about what you get to hear, I’m excited about what I get to hear. So you know, lean in, glean everything you can from this episode. And whether you are a startup or you are building a multiple seven-figure business, this episode is for you. So Dr. Obidi, welcome to the show.

Dr. Obidi: Thank you very much, Dr. Una. It’s a pleasure to be with you on the podcast.

Dr. Una: Absolutely, I’ve been looking forward to this. So tell the listeners a little bit about you, who you are, what you do, and then we’ll kick this off.

Dr. Obidi: Sure, sure. So I’m a board certified pediatrician and I have been practicing for, gosh, going on 18 years now. And I practice out in Western Maryland. I have practiced at the same location for about 17 years and I’ve owned it for the last eight. It’s a family practice, I employ four other family practitioners who practice alongside me and it’s been quite a ride, yeah.

Dr. Una: Wow, true this.

Dr. Obidi: Yeah. I’m also married and have three kids. And yeah, just loving the journey of entrepreneurship.

Dr. Una: Awesome, I’m excited for you. 18 years is no little feat, right?

Dr. Obidi: Time creeps up on you.

Dr. Una: Yeah, that is amazing. So I’m going to dig in and ask all the questions I’ve wanted to ask. I have you on the mic now so I’m going to take full advantage. So you’ve been practicing for 18 years, you’ve owned the practice for seven years, you’re a very successful physician entrepreneur. And so let’s go to the beginning.

You’re part of the EntreMD Business School, what was your motivation? I mean, you have what people want, right? Like you have “arrived,” right? What was your motivation for seeking out something else and choosing to join the EntreMD Business School?

Dr. Obidi: Oh, that’s such a great question. I think it just goes back to what you want personally. Yes, in some ways you could say I’ve arrived in quotes, because I have a practice, it’s successful. I’ve grown it to be more than twice the size of what it was when I took it over seven, eight years ago, and patients are still coming. And we have the best Google reviews, the most Google reviews here in the area.

So in some ways, yes, it is a successful practice. But I think success is always relative. I was successful, even the first year running the practice, you know, I saw major success. But I think more importantly, though, is where I see myself going and the future I want for myself and the practice.

And one of the things I love about your personal mission for the business school and for what you do in the business school, is to help physicians run profitable practices or businesses, it doesn’t have to just be a practice, businesses so that they can live life on their own terms and practice on their own terms. And that just was very appealing to me because I do have a place I am striving for.

I have a passion business that was just started as well. And there’s a certain level of involvement I want to have in the practice as it grows. And so I just knew that was one of the things I’ve learned in the last maybe eight years of, I might actually say in the last five years of running my practice here is the thing that has made probably the biggest shifts for me as an entrepreneur and person is coaching.

And I have come to really appreciate the power of very good coaching. I’ve been fortunate to have gone through a couple of coaching programs, and I will do every single one of them again all over again because I got so much out of them. Yes, just made the biggest shifts, is the mindset and progress during those programs.

And so for me, when I followed you for a while, one of the things that I really appreciated about what I was witnessing when I sort of delved into the EntreMD business world was that you are a practitioner of what you preach. And I could just see some of the things you were saying just unfold as I listened more and more to the podcast, which is how I initially got to get introduced to you and your work.

I had seen you speak at one of the physician entrepreneurship sort of summits, and your message resonated with me. To start with, you’re a fellow pediatrician, yes?

Dr. Una: Yeah, go peds.

Dr. Obidi: Go peds. But it was amazing because you basically took away every excuse to not really do this well, do the business of entrepreneurship at the best and highest level, right? I can’t say, oh, I’m a pediatrician. I can’t say, oh, this is not what I was trained to do. I can’t say that I am introverted. I can’t say any of those things. I can’t say, well speaking is not my thing.

Why? Because you took all those excuses away. And I could just see some of the principles that you teach sort of unfold. You know, when you say to make yourself bingeable so people can get to really know you and get to know, like, and trust you, like they say. I can see that, it does unfold.

The more I listen to your podcast, the more it resonated with me. The more I could see what benefit that could be for me as well, what benefit I could get out of the business school.

And I could keep talking and talking, just stop me whenever you want to.

Dr. Una: Yeah, this is like a whole masterclass going here. I do want to interrupt you, but just because I want to make sure that everyone listening is able to unpack what you’re saying, right? Especially when you talk about for you over the last eight years, the discovery you’ve made is that coaching has made the biggest difference for you.

And I resonate so deeply with that because it’s made the biggest difference for me. And literally, when I make my budget for the year, I budget for coaching. Like it’s a non-negotiable. And sometimes people say, “I’m struggling in my business, I’m cutting my expenses so I’m going to get rid of coaching.”

I’m like, “No, there are other things you get rid of. That is not the thing to get rid of.” And especially not at that time, you know what I mean? And so that’s really powerful.

But there is something I’ve noticed about you, though, because when you signed up for the business school, you signed up two months before it was actually going to start. And then so what we had done is that we gave everybody who signed up then access to the vault so you could start working on it. And I said some of you would make back your investment before you even start the school, right? And you went like, “Oh, I’m making my investment back.”

So it made me start thinking that you have a certain approach to coaching, because there are many approaches. Some is the coach as the hero, the Savior. The other is the coaching or the coaching bucket or program as an opportunity, right? And you’re like, “I’m going to get the most out of it.” You know what I mean? And stuff like that.

So I’m curious as to what your approach is. When you sign up for a coaching program do you decide I’m going to get a return on investment? Do you decide how you’re going to show up? What is your approach? Because I’m really curious about that.

Dr. Obidi: That’s really interesting, a great question. I think that has sort of evolved over time. I think the very first time I encountered coaching, I think I was hoping it would just be the savior, right? You know, the person just swoops in and just tells me everything to do. And like, you know, this is all and I can just go execute and I’m done, right?

But of course, good coaching isn’t that way. A good coach really just pulls out what’s already in there. They are able to reflect back to you what you’re thinking. They’re able to sort of be the objective voice in the room. They’re not passionate, or they’re passionate about what they do and they’re for you, but they’re also not sort of entangled by the emotions of whatever you’re going through so they can sort of give you a very objective feedback.

And so I think over the years I’ve really appreciated that. And so coming into a coaching program I am excited for what the program gets to reveal about me. Like hidden parts of me that I haven’t discovered yet, if that makes sense.

So, for instance, since joining the business school I have done more speaking in front of a camera. I hadn’t yet started that journey in working on my online course, but I’ve done so much more speaking in front of a camera. I’ve done so much more live speaking as well, that I’m getting more and more comfortable with that, right?

And that’s exciting, because I would not have discovered that about me or stretched that part of myself or worked on that muscle of being able to show up live and being able to just represent your thoughts and ideas clearly in front of a camera or mic. I hadn’t exposed myself to it, right?

And that was actually one of the reasons I actually signed up maybe a full year earlier than I was going to.

Dr. Una: Because of the speaking?

Dr. Obidi: Yes. Well, you know, like you said, if you make yourself bingeable people can know, like, and trust you and you shorten the distance that it takes for them to work with you. And I just saw that happen.

I mean, at some point in listening to the podcast I just said to myself, “Oh, it’s a matter of time before I work with Dr. Una.” Like, you know, it wasn’t even like a negotiable anymore. But I just wanted to take care of a few other things, you know, I had some other programs going and I said, “You know what? I’ll probably just do this later on.”

But then you had the visibility formula workshop. And in the workshop, you had some assignments for us to do at the end of each day. And I think it was a four or five day event, right?

Dr. Una: Yeah.

Dr. Obidi: And one of the things I’ve learned over the last several years in coaching is to lean more and more into a bias for action, right? And so, when you said, “Okay, this is the assignment for the day,” I just leaned into it.

Now, maybe five years before I would have argued or said, “Oh, that’s for the other people,” or whatever, right? But I think at this stage of the game, I know there’s benefit in action. I know that’s where everything happens. So I just leaned into it, did the assignments, and I was just blown away by the results.

And this was a free workshop. It was so good that I thought, “Okay, what will I be missing out in one year if I don’t do the school now?” If I wait for a whole year, if I could get that much benefit from just a free course over a few days, how much more will I benefit from really delving in?

And when I looked at all the things that I had going on, they were in contradicting each other, they were duplicating each other. But I had some time and capacity to really put into it when I actually looked at my time. So it was an easy decision.

Which, again, is a testament to what you teach also, right? Because you also say if you give people value and they actually can get some tangible benefit from what you’ve given them, they’re more likely to also want to work with you because they’re like, “Wow, I can get this for free, imagine what the paid stuff would look like.”

Dr. Una: Wow, okay. Yeah, you’re just telling me all the stuff I say, okay.

Dr. Obidi: Trying to be a good student.

Dr. Una: I love it. And you got me at bias towards action because that really is where the rubber meets the road. And so that’s amazing that you say that, and for everybody listening, that’s such a great thing to pick up on and take on even if you’re nervous. Even if you’re scared you won’t be able to do it perfectly. Even if you feel this is not the right time, right?

And when I say not the right time I mean, you know, like I’ll do it later, I want to get more prepared. You know what I mean? Just let that go and embrace the action, it’s beautiful.

Dr. Obidi: Yeah, and you never know what’s on the other side. I’ll give you an example, there was a lady who I’ve admired and just looked at her work for a long time and had said, “Okay, someday I’m going to approach her to ask to be on her podcast. Maybe like another year from now when I’ve worked on my program and it’s longer and it’s really perfect.”

And during the visibility formula workshop you had said one of the assignments one of the days was to ask her to be on podcasts. And so I had asked a couple other people in the community, but I also went ahead and asked her and she said yes. And I almost fell out of my chair because I was so sure it was going to be a no.

Dr. Una: That’s amazing.

Dr. Obidi: But you never know, right? I would not have asked, you know? But yeah, so it was encouraging. And it was scary, but I’ve learned to do things scary as well.

Dr. Una: Love it. Bias towards action and do things scared, I love it. And actually, I hope you have opportunities the entire time you’re in the business school to almost fall out of your chair, multiple times.

Dr. Obidi: Hopefully.

Dr. Una: hopefully, that’s what we’re gunning for.

Dr. Obidi: Okay, awesome.

Dr. Una: So now you had that two month period where you had the vault. So you were kind of in the business school, but it was kind of all pre-recorded and stuff like that. And then you’ve been in the business school for less than a month at this point, right? So talk to me between your pre EBS, right, like your two month pre EBS time and now what has happened?

And guys, I have no idea what he’s going to say. But share a little bit of that transformation. And the reason why I bring this up is because we get the highlight reels and the Instagram polished pictures of this is what happened. And sometimes people don’t see the power of what could happen in 90 days, the power of what can happen in 30 days, right?

And what it does, is it helps people take action sooner rather than later, realizing that so much can change just from a yes and then a bias towards action and doing it scared. You know what I mean?

Dr. Obidi: Yes. Oh boy. So a number of things. The biggest ones, and there have been tangible ones that I’ll get to in a second, but I think the biggest ones have been intangible. Just the mindset shifts have been wild. Absolutely wild.

From just money mindset and just embracing that some more, to just embracing the fact that you serve and you earn. I mean, I knew that already. I mean, I run a practice, right, it’s profitable. It can always be better, that’s what we’re working towards, but it’s profitable already. So I know that, but there’s a difference between knowing something in your head and maybe even just knowing it to some degree in your heart, and then really feeling it and it really being in your bones, right?

So it was just really understanding and embracing that there was nothing dirty about money. And not that I felt like, I didn’t even think I felt that way, but I think now that I’m on the other side of it I felt like I know there was some degree of it still going on, right? So just that alone is just worth the price of the program.

Enforcing what I was already learning, to do things scared and to do things and to just keep on defaulting to action as, you know, having a bias towards action.

There was one really interesting one, it was a teaching you did on self-concept. That teaching sort of just, like I said, blindsided me. You know when you see something on money mindset and you kind of know where it’s going. Or when you see something on maybe you’re working on your calendar you kind of know where it’s going. Working on content you know where it’s going. But the one on self-identity was like a really interesting one.

And it was a good teaching and I really said, “Oh, that’s really great. Yeah, I do need to work on my self-concept and really raise that.” But I’ll tell you why I said that it really sort of threw me for a loop. I am working on a big project right now and I was working on it and at some point while working on it I had this resistance to it.

And in the past I would have allowed that resistance to continue. I would have interpreted it as, oh, it’s probably just not the right time. It’s probably not the right circumstances. I would think of 1001 reasons why I’m experiencing this resistance and probably just have to pull back or not fully give myself to the project.

But it just suddenly struck me, because I had probably listened to the teaching like maybe a couple of weeks before then. It suddenly struck me that, oh, actually, what’s going on right now is a self-identity problem. You’ve not fully embraced the fact that you’re the kind of person who owns this kind of project.

Dr. Una: Wow, that is so amazing.

Dr. Obidi: And it was such a big shift. I’m telling you, because what it allowed me to do was to relax and know that okay, yes, I’m feeling this resistance, but there’s a reason for it. And it’s a reason I can fix. It’s a reason, okay, now I know that this is a self-identity problem. I can work on becoming the kind of person that does this kind of thing, right?

And that alone sort of already got the ball rolling in the right direction. And so who knows what would have happened to that project. I probably would have self-sabotaged it, just not knowing that the whole reason for the resistance was just the fact that somewhere deep inside I wasn’t believing that I was the kind of person who could do this kinds of thing.

Dr. Una: Wow, I have like chills. I have chills.

Dr. Obidi: I do too.

Dr. Una: Because that’s the difference between having a project on your hands and going all in, or shrinking back and never doing it. And by going all in and accomplishing that, it’s a vicious cycle because it’s like, huh, if I could do that, I bet I could do this, right?

Dr. Obidi: Yeah.

Dr. Una: And then if you do that, this other opportunity goes on. So the opportunity cost of not recognizing that and elevating your self-concept is like huge.

Dr. Obidi: Huge.

Dr. Una: Wow, that is amazing. That is so good.

Dr. Obidi: Yeah. So that’s some of it. On maybe more tangible things, like I said, I’ve done just way more speaking. I’ve been on, even before the school officially started I had probably received like five or six invitations to be on podcasts, and live interviews, and live shows, and recorded a couple of them already even before the school started. And since starting I’ve maybe double that now.

I was already working on launching my online course, it’s a preparation course for new moms and just preparing them for their newborns. And that was already in the works. But one of the beautiful things that I really got out of the teachings before the school actually started, you know, from the vault as it were, was the whole idea of setting ahead of time all the things you need to do to get the results you want to get.

You know, setting that out in stone. And then just taking your emotions out of it and just doing what’s on the paper. And I can’t tell you how big that was for my course launch, because there were many days I woke up and I didn’t feel like doing what I should be doing. But I just looked at the paper and said, okay, I’m supposed to do a Facebook Live today. I’m supposed to do this today. I’m so let’s send out this email. I’m supposed to go visit this OB/GYN office.

I would have not gone to the OB/GYN office. I would have woken up that day and said, okay, tomorrow. Maybe next launch. But I’d already committed so, okay, this is what I need to do for this launch and I am going to just do it. And so I just got up that day, that was what was on my list of things to do and I just went and did it.

And so it was interesting because at the end of the day it was a successful launch. I was able to get 10 clients in. And just the experience of running the course just to see that what I envisioned it to be actually came to pass and that people actually got real value out of it, right?

So much so that I don’t even have to tweak the content. Like everything I sort of put out there landed exactly like it was supposed to. Some of the feedback that, the only things I’m going to change are things like, we don’t want breaks in between the teaching. Just do away with the breaks, it’s only one hour.

Dr. Una: Oh man.

Dr. Obidi: It was so engaging and the material was so engaging that we could have done without the breaks. I mean, I will take that sort of feedback any day.

Dr. Una: Yeah, that’s amazing.

Dr. Obidi: But that course launch wouldn’t have gone the way it went without some of the teaching I’d already received. And I was already sort of on that journey, but to fully embrace whatever it was, even if I had only one person sign up, I was willing to just do this course full on for that one person, just knowing that it’s setting you up for what’s to come.

And yeah, so I think even just some of the plans I have for the practice moving forward has been influenced by some of the teaching I already had. You know, I’ve gotten so far. And so I’m just excited.

And I will tell you, I think I’ve heard this on maybe some of the podcasts and things you’ve said and things other students have said even before I joined the school and I can totally relate to that now, is the community is amazing. I mean, I have met such amazing Doc’s in not just the bigger EntreMD world, yes, but even the EBS school has just been amazing.

I’m actually in the process of putting together a round table for moms coming up very soon in a few weeks with the other docs.

Dr. Una: Yes, that is so good.

Dr. Obidi: And it’s just been, just a beautiful community. Very supportive and just learning from each other. And it’s only been a month, so I’m so excited and looking forward to the whole year.

Dr. Una: Wow. This is exciting. I’m excited for you. For those of you listening, I did give him his own title. He’s the master of curriculum because people ask questions in the group and he’s like, “Oh, look at this. Go to Kajabi, look at this training from this day and this training from this day. This is exactly what you need.”

Dr. Obidi: I listened to almost every episode of EBS again before the school started.

Dr. Una: Oh my god, you’re an absolute rock star, I’ll tell you that.

So what would you say to the doc who’s been on the fence, maybe thought, you know, business school, I can do that? Or has maybe thought no, I got this. I already have a successful practice or a successful business, this is not for me.

You’ve played a lot of these scenarios in your mind. You’ve talked about a number of them on here, but what would you say?

Dr. Obidi: I will say, I think one of the things I’ve also learned in last few years is that the greatest investment I can make is an investment in myself. It’s the biggest investment I can make. If I, again, going back to self-concept, if I can grow myself to handle any business level or success, so that’s part of what something like EBS will do.

And I think one of the things I like about your approach to the business school is that there is, again, bias towards action. It’s not just we’re learning all these things in theory, but we’re actually doing them.

And actually one of the things I was really excited about the school actually starting, beyond just listening to past recordings and teachings, were the challenges. Because I knew that if I can lean into those challenges and actually do as much of it as possible, I will see results. Like it’s like guaranteed. There isn’t any question to it.

And so I think that regardless of where you are, I mean there are students in the EBS school whose businesses are way past what mine is doing at this point, right? And maybe in the former life I would have been intimidated by that, but I think where I am right now I’m excited for that because it just means I get to learn from them. And I get to be challenged by them. And I get to have an example of something I can attain to that’s not just out there, but in here. My community that I can ask them questions and I can sort of glean from them.

So I don’t think it matters where your business is right now. There’s something to be gained by being in a group of like-minded entrepreneurs. And one of the wonderful things, I didn’t mention this earlier on because, again, your community is the physician community, right? One of the greatest gifts you have given me is appreciating what my medical background brings to the table. I had never seen it that way.

In some ways I had seen it as a handicap. Like, you know, my friends who went to business school, my friends who did XYZ probably are doing this a whole lot better. But it was really interesting to sort of look at it from a different lens, the fact that we’re lifelong learners. I mean learning is like, whatever,  so we’ve got this down pat, I mean every physician.

And I love the fact that you can say that without even blinking because you know there’s no way you have MD at the end of your name if you didn’t learn, right? You could just say you’re a learner, and you don’t even have to blink to say that because you know that that goes without saying, right?

So to know that I already am a learner. I already have a certain work ethic I bring to the table. Every physician has a work ethic they bring to the table, hands down. Like there’s no question about it, right? We’re not afraid to work. We’re not afraid to put in the work, the hours. We’re not afraid to put in the miles.

And I think we’ve divorced all those characteristics from business and from entrepreneurship. And it was just such a gift to be able to bring all of that in and to fully own it. And to add to that, the passion you have as a physician and the love for your patients you have as a physician that just makes it even that much more special. So yeah, it’s just been, it’s been wild.

Dr. Una: Oh man, this has been such a fun conversation. Now people are going like, “Okay, Dr. Una, enough, how can we follow him? How can we find him on Facebook? Where do we find Dr. Obidi? We want to follow him, he’s amazing.”

Dr. Obidi: Sure, I have a blog that I put out. It’s geared towards newborns, I geared it towards moms and newborns. So it’s a Newborn Prep Academy, which is my new passion business I’m doing alongside my practice. And so they can go there. I am on Instagram @DrObidi, so it’s D-R-O-B-I-D-I. and I’m on Facebook at Dr. Emeka. Obidi, D-R-E-M-E-K-A-O-B-I-D-I.

Dr. Una: There you go. People go follow him, his Facebook Lives are amazing. His patients love him.

Dr. Obidi: I didn’t talk about my Facebook Lives.

Dr. Una: Yeah, but I mean you said Facebook, they’ll follow you there. His patients love him, it’s an amazing thing to see. And thank you for really sharing because I think your story is so powerful. And the way you approach this is so masterclass and stuff. I mean, I think you know I don’t flatter people, so it’s not it’s not flattery, it’s the truth. So thank you for sharing that.

Dr. Obidi: Thank you so very much.

Dr. Una: And this is so helpful. And really, what I’m about to say is not for everybody, but if you’re here and you’re like, “I want to do this business thing like I mean it. I’m scared, I don’t know the how, but I’m willing to do the work. I’m willing to bet on myself and all that,” come join us. Come join us in the business school. It’s entremd.com/business, you’ll have classmates like Dr. Obidi, I mean, what can I say?

This conversation doesn’t need to end here, okay? But Dr. Obidi, thank you for coming. I can’t wait to bring you back, right? Like six months in, we’ll do a six months update. Let’s see what’s going on with Dr. Obidi. That would be amazing.

Dr. Obidi: Thank you so very much for having me on, Dr. Una. I would love to come on.

Dr. Una: But thank you for coming. And I guess I will see you tomorrow in and we’ll continue with our challenge.

Dr. Obidi: Yes, can’t wait.

Dr. Una: And for everybody else, go share this episode, it will be such a blessing to any physician entrepreneur, really. And I’ll 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.