Ep #173: What if it Works?

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, my friends. Welcome to another episode of The EntreMD Podcast. Listen, I was getting ready to go to work, this is a Monday, the day of this recording. So I’m going into Ivy League Pediatrics to see patients. And I was just thinking about this concept and I was like, “You know what, let me come record this and then I’ll go to work.”

So I’m in my scrubs, I’m all ready to go to work. But I’m taking out this 20 minutes to talk to you, and then I’ll go. So before we get into the episode, which is going to be mind blowing by the way, I want to read out something that a doctor said about the The EntreMD Podcast.

Now, this podcast turned two years old last week, which is unbelievable. 171 episodes, 154,000 downloads, 104 countries, tons of reviews, tons of lives changed. It has been the ride of my life, it has been so amazing. I never in my wildest dreams thought I would own a podcast, and I never thought I would have the reach that I have.

So this is so humbling. And I’m really, really, really grateful for it. So this is Dr. Sarolta Szabo, and she says, “Life changing. Through your podcast I connected with you, the EntreMD Business School, I’m changing my leadership style, and growing my business. Thank you, thank you, thank you, and happy birthday.”

Isn’t that so amazing? Thank you so much for your kind words, Doc. And thank you for being such a loyal listener and always letting me know how it’s changing your life. I’m so honored to know you, to be part of your world, part of your story. Thank you so much.

And if you’re here and you’ve never left us a review, listen, it’s our birthday. So head over to iTunes, go write us a review. Let us know how it’s helped you.

All right, so today we’re going to be looking at this concept, what if it works? What if it works? And why did I bring this up? Because a lot of times when we have new projects, new ideas we want to implement, new things we want to try to take our businesses forward, there is this fear what if it doesn’t work? What if it doesn’t work? And today, I want to challenge you to think differently. What if it works, right? What if it works?

And I really, really, really want you to get this concept because if you do, you will treat what seems like small decisions very differently. Because you will steer away from what if this doesn’t work to a whole new level of new possibilities where you’re like, “Wait a minute, what if this works?” And then you can decide if the possibility is greater than what you’re afraid of.

Okay, so let’s look at a few of these. And when we look at them, I want you to think of it this way, these are all little things that are like tangents. It’s like taking off on a tangent. So if you have two lines that are really close together and they just run out parallel it’s like okay, cool.

And if one veers off by half a degree, it doesn’t seem like much at the time. But if you trace that down a few months later, a year later, a few years later, the difference is literally night and day.

So that night and day difference that you want to experience comes from a little decision. Something that doesn’t look so significant that it should make a huge difference. But if you miss it, what you’re really missing is the night and day difference. Do you see that? Okay.

All right, so let me talk about a few of mine. So one is when we first started EntreMD, EntreMD wasn’t even a thing, right? But we’re like, “Okay, I know for the physician community that bad times are coming.” I was like, “I know.” 2016 I knew, but 2018 was when I made the commitment to go all out to help doctors.

So I was like, I mean, the loss of autonomy looks bad, but it’s going to get worse. The burnout looks bad, it’s going to get worse. We think we have job security, but a time is coming when we won’t. I knew all of this and I’m like, “Okay, I’m going to go out and help.”

And I started doing videos, and people were like, “Oh, this is helpful,” and stuff like that. I could have stayed there. I could have stayed there. And then one day I was like, “You know what, I should put on a little event and kind of just share the vision of what I’m trying to do.”

Now, mind you, at this time yours truly was that super shy, socially awkward, introverted introvert. And so the thought of putting on an event–   I was going to hold a lunch, that’s what I was going to do. I had never done anything like that, I wouldn’t know what place to find– Even selling tickets, I was like, “I haven’t done that before.” And I didn’t really know people in the area, I would be talking to strangers.

And it was really difficult. It was really fear inducing, if you will. And what if it doesn’t work? What if nobody comes? What if people come and they’re like, “What is this? Who cares about this?” Because I’ve gotten that on social media. And there was that fear. But I had two choices, what if it doesn’t work and sit with that? Or what if it does work and dare my fears anyway?

Well I went with what it does work. Now that event with all the marketing in the world that I could do, I ended up with five doctors and four medical students. That’s nine people that I had for lunch. And I think I broke even. I think I broke even at that event, and that was it. And I got up, there was no mic, there was no fancy stuff. I just said, “Guys, listen, this is what is going on. This is why I’m doing what I’m doing.” And all of that stuff.

So someone may look at that, it’s not really significant. It’s a tangent, it’s just something little, right? But because I did that, I have now been able to host on EntreMD live three times. The first one we had 47 people registered, which is so much more than five. And the one after that we had 238 people registered, which is so much more than five. And the one for this year we had 533 people registered, which is so much more than five.

Do you see? It started off a little and here we are. So what if I had allowed my fear to stop me and I hadn’t done that first one with five? I wouldn’t be where I am today, right? So what if it works?

So that’s the first one. The second one was with this podcast. Now, before the podcast my main content platform was YouTube. And I was doing a lot of videos, I was doing a lot of Facebook Lives and all this stuff getting my message out. And one day I did a poll. I’m like, “How do you guys like to consume information?” And people said podcasts. You’ve heard me tell this story many times.

And I was like, “My goodness.” Now at this time, I was not a podcast listener. That’s the funny thing, I wasn’t even a podcast listener. And so I had to look at podcasts. I literally had no podcasts subscribed to on my app, I had to go look for the app, look for the you know. And then I went I Googled how do you start a podcast? And Buzzsprout had this step by step guide. And then so I went to look at the guide and I’m like, okay.

And it was like, what if nobody likes it? What if nobody likes your message? What if you can’t keep producing content? What if you get all these bad reviews? And what if it doesn’t work? That was the thought. But what if it does work? What if it does work?

Now, I didn’t know what it would look like if it worked. But I was like, what if it does work? And so I got my phone and I started recording. Now, that podcast, I told you just celebrated its second birthday. So I’ve been doing this for two years.

The first year, I had an episode a week, every Monday. The second year two episodes a week, on Mondays and Thursdays. And I’ve never missed a week ever. And there has not been a week where someone hasn’t been like, “This podcast has changed my life.”

We’ve had 154,000 downloads, 104 countries, 173 ratings, thousands of lives changed, thousands of businesses changed. What if it works? A small decision, I’m going to make a podcast. Big, big, big, big reach. And this is just year two. We’re going to be doing this for what, 5 years, 10 years? Who knows? Who knows what happens?

Now, I had been working with doctors one on one and then I did my first 12 week program, it was called the Freedom Formula Masterclass. And I learned a valuable lesson about myself, because at the end of the 12 weeks, we were done. And the people were like, “Wait a minute, we’re done, so what happens?”

We had built a really strong community, we had something going and I knew that this was just a steppingstone for what was coming. And so after that I was like, “I am never done a 12 week program ever.” Just it doesn’t work with my personality, it doesn’t work with my philosophies. It just doesn’t work.

And then I experimented with a 10 month program. And I did that, it was called The Six Figure Club. And then after that was done, I was like, “I think I’m ready. I’m ready.” And the idea was to create a business school exclusively for physicians.

Now, you need to understand that, I mean, business school, are you serious? Harvard has a business school and you’re making a business school? What in the world? What is that? You’re going to tell people that? You’re going to tell doctors that?

And I had so much insecurity and drama around it. And I was like, “Yeah, I don’t know all the things.” I didn’t even know how to work Kajabi. There was so much I didn’t know. There was so much I did know and I knew I could help doctors, and I knew my work with them was getting significant results.

So I was like, what if this doesn’t work? What if nobody signs up? What if I’m not able to get them results? All those kind of thoughts. But then what if it works?

What if you’re able to help doctors at a bigger scale? What if you’re able to build a strong community that people can lean on to thrive? What if you’re able to affect thousands of lives in that capacity? What if you’re able to help people build six figure, multiple six figure, seven figure, multiple seven figure businesses? What if?

And so I gulped and I did it. I had the first class, we had 22 doctors sign up. And then we started and oh my goodness, it’s been 18 months now. And the dreams that I had for the school are slowly but surely all unfolding. I’m talking of the fact that we’ve served over 100 doctors, we have doctors who are building up to their first six figures. We have doctors who have hit multiple six figures. We have doctors who have hit seven figures. We have doctors who have hit multiple seven figures in the school.

It is completely insane, completely insane. Beautiful community that I can boldly say is the most positive space for physicians on Facebook, most positive. And not weird Kumbaya, la, la la, la, la kind of positivity, no. People share their wins, people share their challenges, people share their fears. People come in and do debriefs of things that they’ve done. It is so crazy.

So crazy how good it is. And I’m like, “What if I didn’t do that?” So the picture I see now is the picture of what if it does work? And it is working. I could have not made that decision and that would not have the impact that I’m having. And I would not be serving the doctors that I’m serving.

Little decision, what if it works? What if it works? Okay. Okay. So that’s that. And I can take you back even, actually even to when the first time that I signed up for coaching.

It was a speaking program. And a few days ago my husband sent me the picture we took at that event. And I looked at it and I was like, “Wow, the me in that picture and the me I am today are two completely different people, completely.” Like so evolved, right? So evolved.

So this was four years ago. And I look at it, it was “small decision” right? In the sense that I didn’t dramatically change once I signed up for it or anything like that. It was kind of like will you sign up, yes or no? Yes or no? What if it works? What if it doesn’t work? And it was 43 grand. So there was a lot of what if it doesn’t work, right? Like I just flushed that down the toilet. But what if it does work? And it has worked. It has worked.

And so I’m saying this because I want you to take some time and look at the decisions that are in front of you. Now, the one thing you don’t want to do is not decide, right? Because that’s a decision and the default, as long as you’re on planet Earth, the default is always bad.

So you buy a piece of land, you don’t do anything on it, you’re not just going to go there and see wonderful orange trees and stuff, that’s not the way that works. You’re going to get weed. So when you don’t make decisions, you’re signing up for weed, like weeds in your garden. Not good. So you’re going to make a decision.

Now, the decision you’re going to make is going to be based on what if it does work? Don’t let fear guide your decision making. So if you’ve been thinking about starting a podcast or YouTube channel or blog, do it. Look at it, analyze it, if there’s a strategic reason why you shouldn’t, okay. But if the reason is what if it doesn’t work, I’m inviting you to throw that reason away.

You’ve been thinking about starting a business, okay. Strategically you should, but what is stopping you is what if it doesn’t work get rid of that. Pick instead, what if it does work? If you’re supposed to reach out to a certain referral source that you know if this person decides I’m sending my business to you, your business is made and strategically it makes sense. And the only thing holding you back is a fear of what if it doesn’t work, I’m inviting you to throw away the fear and think of the possibility What if it does work?

Now, if you are an entrepreneur and you’re struggling, or you know there’s more and you want it, or you’re like, “I don’t know the next steps that I should take in this business thing. I’ve started, but I don’t know what to do next.” Hear me, you’ve thought about the charity business school. It’s a small decision that can have big results.

Strategically you know you should. You know you should, you love this podcast. You’ve gotten so many results from this podcast, you know you should. If the reason you shouldn’t is strategic, okay. But if the reason is what if it doesn’t work, what if I don’t make the time, what if it doesn’t work for me, and all those kinds of things, I want to invite you to toss that.

And instead of that, I want you to look at the possibilities. What if it does work? What if it does work? It has worked for so many doctors, you’ve heard their stories. On our YouTube channel we have the EBS Show with 12 stories from the current students, full interviews. We’re talking full interviews. You can listen to those, this thing works.

So instead of thinking of what if it doesn’t work, think of what if it does. How would my life be different? How would my business be different? What doors would be open for me? What would it make possible for me? I want to invite you to dare your fears and say yes, go register entremd.com/business.

And if you’re listening to this when the school isn’t open, get on the wait list. We open twice a year and when it opens up again, get in. Get in, it’ll make all the difference. Don’t hold back because you’re like, “What if it doesn’t work?” You’re a physician.

The odds of you becoming a physician, the odds were against you. The average acceptance rate to medical schools runs 1 to 3%. But you didn’t say, “What if it doesn’t work?” and stop. You said, “What if it does work?” And you went for it, and you got six figure debt to do it. You would do these kinds of things, it’s worked before, it will work again. So go get signed up.

But regardless, make those decisions, say yes, move forward. And like me four years from now, you’re going to see a picture from today and you’re going to be like, “Wow, how did I become this person?” I want that to be your story.

So we are EntreMDs, we don’t hold back in fear, we make strategic decisions, we dare our fears and we move forward. So I will see you in the Business School. I will see you starting your podcast, YouTube channel, whatever. I will see you up-leveling your game. I cannot wait to celebrate all of it. Go make decisions, my friend. 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.