Latest / Coffee Playdate Podcast with Dr. Olga Deengar / Living with Unlimited Options Ep 23: Dr. Letizia Alto on Freedom, Family & Purpose
Transcript
- Coach Olga MD: Welcome to the Coffee Playdate Podcast. I have a very special guest with me today, Dr. Leti Alto. Welcome! Letizia Alto: Thank you, I'm so excited to be here with you Olga. Coach Olga MD: like to start off by asking if you drink coffee and if so, how do you like your coffee? Letizia Alto: think most doctors, if not all, love coffee. I'm big latte person with like regular milk. Coach Olga MD: Okay, we're gonna start off playing our rapid fire questions game. ⁓ I'm gonna you ⁓ four questions and you just choose between the first or second answer. You don't to give an explanation why you're choosing it. ⁓ Just go with your gut instinct. Ready? The first one is, ⁓ do you like read 10 books or listen to 10 audio books? Letizia Alto: Okay. I would read 10 books all day long, because I like to be able to underline things. books have like a billion dog ears in them. ⁓ I just can't do that with audio books. And so even though I love hearing the author's voice, I prefer reading books. Actually, I also like to do both at the same time, right? Like you can listen to the audio book and read the book. I learned that from Alex Hormozi And I think it's actually a really good way to just even ⁓ more deeply the book as you go through it. Coach Olga MD: You You kind of hone into two different senses, the seeing and the hearing. So it makes the experience a lot better for sure. Letizia Alto: Mm-hmm. Coach Olga MD: How about this one? Do you like to host a retreat or record an episode on your podcast? Letizia Alto: Host a retreat. love to, I mean a lot more work, right? But I'd, I love to be in person with people and I love to see the conversations that happen between each of them, you know, that don't involve me per se. I really like that kind of interactions and enjoy seeing people help each other through their experiences and not just being only just a one-on-one situation. Coach Olga MD: Hey, remember how I said we don't need to give the explanation? Just kidding. Although I love your explanations, they are amazing. about this one? ⁓ your kids about real estate investing or how to create their own business. Letizia Alto: ⁓ yeah. Can I choose both? Business ownership. And I will not give you an explanation for why. Coach Olga MD: Yes. Good. the last one is, would like to take a day off to rest or to catch up on unfinished tasks? Letizia Alto: Rest. Coach Olga MD: the next game is take a sip and here you can elaborate on your answer if you want to. It's the same concept but we're both going to answer and if our answers match then we take a sip from our coffee cup. Here we go. The first one is hiking adventures or fishing trips with your family. Letizia Alto: Okay. So it's like two of my favorite things. I'll go with fishing trips. Coach Olga MD: I'm going to say hiking adventures. I've actually never been fishing before, so I don't know if it's fun. Letizia Alto: it's so good. We go every single year to Alaska deep sea fishing and ⁓ such a phenomenal experience to do every year. So that's, that's why I chose it. But honestly, I love hiking too. Coach Olga MD: Amazing. The second one is baking experiments or meditation mornings. Letizia Alto: baking experiments because afterwards you can eat it. Coach Olga MD: you can't eat the meditation. I'm go with meditation mornings. I think ⁓ it me really feel grounded and gets me through the day. How about this? A girls night out or a couples getaway with adventure sports? Letizia Alto: Couples get away all day long. My husband is my favorite person and so I would never say no to more time with him. Doesn't matter what we're doing. Coach Olga MD: Yes, me too. love couples getaways and there's so much needed. Letizia Alto: Yay! We get to drink! Coach Olga MD: And last one, Italy family vacations or Puerto Rico beach days. Letizia Alto: Italy family vacations because of the food. ⁓ Coach Olga MD: Yes, too. Alright, ⁓ wanted to get our listeners to know a little bit more about yourself and how that relates to your businesses. Can you tell me more about yourself? Letizia Alto: ⁓ Yeah, so I'm a family medicine trained hospitalist. I live in Puerto Rico right now, which is why the Puerto Rico thing. about half the time ⁓ have that freedom because ⁓ transitioned, ⁓ first I added real estate investing on top of being a physician to build another source of income outside of medicine. ⁓ really bought me ⁓ freedom and then have since started multiple businesses. So now I'm really, ⁓ focused on running my businesses, doing my real estate. as kind of a side gig and I stopped practicing clinically in late 2020 as well. And then I have three little kids at home, a 10 year old, a seven year old, a four year old. I have a 22 year old stepdaughter and an awesome husband. Coach Olga MD: You have a lot going on Leti how do you do that? Letizia Alto: I don't know, I just, take one step and run on the other. I get a lot of help. I have a nanny who homeschools my kids. I have a husband who does a lot of this with me and that really helps because I have an awesome thought partner kind of built in and he's an extremely hard worker. And then I have team members in my businesses who help a ton And then I have help around the house too, as yeah, we have a lot of support. That's the only way. Coach Olga MD: amazing. You seem to have a lot of different systems in place and a lot of who's to delegate to So how did you ⁓ kind of build that system? Is it something that you thought about the get-go or something that kind of naturally evolved over time? Letizia Alto: Yeah, this is such a great question because I was thinking of that when you were just talking. I was thinking, I started by prioritizing what I really wanted. So that's what I do first. So what do I really want each year? And so for me, personal development is a huge one and being in masterminds and learning. So every year I sign up for a couple masterminds. So I kind of set up the time. Then spending time with my husband is a huge priority of mine. Every year I'll take a couple weekends and plan that for us, just us time. And then of course, my kids, I want to make sure that we have some opportunities to do things together. So then I plan that. The businesses kind of need to work around that. They, ⁓ you know, I travel at least one week a month. We do as mostly as a family. So always on the move. And so ⁓ just kind of built everything around. what I wanted, but it started with the vision of what we wanted. And Kenji and I were always aligned, so far anyway, ⁓ what we want. ⁓ that allows you to kind of come up with the decisions that are aligned with that. ⁓ you know, like ⁓ me, out of the box living and being able to travel a lot of the time is important to me, ⁓ that's especially important to me because of all these masterminds. ⁓ then that says, what do you do with your kids' education? Well, it needs to be flexible. and it leads to allow your kids to travel with you. Otherwise, if you're traveling one week a month, you're not necessarily gonna see your kids for that period of time. So then that makes the decision about how you hire childcare differently. then, so everything comes from the central premise of how do I wanna lead my life and what do I value right now? And I have to say that that can also change over time. So you build yourself flexibility so if something changes and you're like, this doesn't work anymore that you can then shift but you always do so from a space of what do I really want first. Coach Olga MD: So you have your non-negotiables, you schedule those into your calendar first, the activities related to those, and then everything else comes secondary. Letizia Alto: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And even like, you know, I recently had a number of members of my team, one of my businesses leave, I had a mastermind scheduled. And I was like, I'm doing the mastermind. Like, we're going to just figure it out. Like, I'm not going to cancel all my stuff because of this. it ⁓ really, some boundaries, right, that I'm going to maintain. And I'm going to figure out the business is going to work around those. And it's possible to do if you have the right individuals. in your life to be able to support you to do that. Coach Olga MD: Yeah, well, you've definitely done it. You've grown multiple six, seven, eight figure businesses. there any mindset shifts that ⁓ you used or that helped you on your entrepreneurial journey? Letizia Alto: Yes, a lot, a lot of mindset work. ⁓ of masterminds that I sign up for are mindset because I think it's the most important thing. One tool that I still use all the time is just like, this is life happening for me. Because in business, all you do is solve problems. That's ⁓ what do as a CEO. ⁓ there ⁓ never lack of problems to solve or issues. ⁓ Things all the time. There's always, you know, laws, new employee issues, new know, customer changes, like there's so much going on in business. And so if I can get out of suffering and move into a space of saying, okay, this life happening for me, let me look for the ways that are good things are going to come out of this, or at least at the very least shift out of suffering and go to solutions and move forward. That one helps me immensely because you could use that almost every week, honestly, with, ⁓ with the challenges you face in business. Limiting beliefs is another one, just to kind of understanding that I initially had a lot of limiting beliefs and still do have them pop up sometimes. And so ⁓ kind of recognizing when you're telling yourself a story that's not true about your own abilities or about how the world works or ⁓ yourself what's realistic or what can't be done, ⁓ that as ⁓ limiting belief and saying, okay, is that really true? ⁓ then switching it around and saying, hey, let me take the opposite of that. And why don't I choose to believe that instead? ⁓ So that's really helpful. And again, an ongoing skill that you can use years into your business, 10 years into your business, because limiting beliefs will crop up along the way. And I think lastly is just kind of realizing everyone's doing the best they can. It's just whenever you relationships with human beings, things don't always go as you expect them to. People don't always. the way that you think they will, right? ⁓ a David Rico, ⁓ Robbins talks about the David Rico five givens and one of them is people are not always loyal and kind. so that are doing the best they can, all of us are limited. All of us, know, are growing and just kind of, it allows you to ⁓ let things go, think a little bit more and just move on and ⁓ not again, suffer much when things don't go the way you expect. Coach Olga MD: Oh, there's so much to unpack there. You gave us so much insight. I love the different mindset tools that you've introduced and elaborated on. One thing I did want to ask you is as you were growing your business, semi-retired MD and transitioning out of medicine, how did you, what was kind of the pivoting point for you to really... help grow that business ⁓ and make it much more bigger and much more widespread? Was it building the community of empire builders or were there any other things that really helped you kind of spread the word? Letizia Alto: Yeah, blogged and helped people for free for over a year before we even had a product available for sale. And so I think that was really helpful because people knew that we ⁓ there because we really wanted to help and we were putting out a lot of content. And so we were able to create a lot of know, like, and trust ⁓ we were just there showing our expertise and contributing and giving value. But I will say the number one thing that helped us was actually relationships. It was relationships with other physician entrepreneurs who were willing to share their community with us. When we created our course, had affiliates. We gave them a pretty significant chunk of the value, I mean of the purchase price of the course. And so it was a win-win situation that we set up. and allowed them to be motivated to want to get our course in front of their audiences to extend their know, like, and trust to us, which was hugely valuable to us because ⁓ you're starting a business, finding the right people who want what you need and then creating the relationship so that they realize there's actual substance that you're actually going to deliver that you really actually care about them. so like when you think about advertising dollars, it's kind of like advertising dollars, but it's so much more because a know-like-and-trust is associated with it. Coach Olga MD: That's a really helpful tip. Yeah, thank you for that. And as you were transitioning from semi-retired MD to building Beyara, which is one of your newer businesses, I wanted to know, was that transition pretty natural or did it evolve from a different kind of mindset that you've had? Letizia Alto: Yeah, so it wasn't a transition, it was an add-on. Because that's what we doctors do, right? We always add on more. I had wanted to start a business to help female entrepreneurs for like three years and had not found the right individual to do it with me. Coach Olga MD: You Letizia Alto: And so for me, I knew that I needed somebody or I wanted somebody in that business who is going to be able to carry a lot of the weight of the business. what I really needed was a head of business. ⁓ And so I, I, And it kept my eyes open for competent people. When you run into a competent person, you usually realize it pretty quickly because most people are not that way. And so when you run into really phenomenal people, you have to start recruiting them right away. So I ran into somebody in a mastermind. already had another job, but I said, hey, if you ever need a job, let know. And that was in March. And then the mastermind ended up closing down in November, they told us. And so I immediately wrote to the person. And then the individual had lots and lots of offers, but they talked to me about what the vision was and said, yeah, I can do this. And so I got basically head of business for Beyara, which means that I can be there for the content. I can be there for... the supporting the ladies and helping them think through their issues and doing the hot seats and all those pieces, but I'm not doing the things like going and doing anything really operationally. I just get to do content. I get to do the pieces that light me up you have to ask yourself what you want first, and then it will become clear which decision the right decision. that's what allowed me start Otherwise, this business would not exist. I needed the right person with me. Coach Olga MD: Do you still feel that you have the right person and the right team in the Beyara business? Letizia Alto: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because share the same values, which ⁓ our first, mission driven. ⁓ love on community so much. Even in semi-retired sometimes we have referral partners. ⁓ And if they complaining about the community, ⁓ I know they're the right fit. I have to get rid of them. If somebody is so passionate about the community and loves the members of the community as much as I do, that's the right individual. And that's really the guiding principle in all of my businesses. How do we make our students more successful? All the businesses, that's what ask everybody. ⁓ And that drives the decision-making. And so when I have somebody who's as passionate about, as me, about who we serve also competent, like pieces fit. Coach Olga MD: So glad you found that perfect fit. Amazing. has there been a particular challenge that you faced as you were growing your businesses and how did you overcome that ⁓ particular challenge? Letizia Alto: There are so many challenges. I just hope everyone hears that loud and clear. In real estate, are businesses. In any business you build, any time you do something different, ⁓ about internship, all the challenges you face. Life is ⁓ of challenges. ⁓ part of how we grow. I think probably some of the most challenge, biggest challenges for along the way have been building team and having the right employees in the right seats, ⁓ really understanding what an A player is who has the ability to produce ⁓ and certain outcomes, ⁓ and then also is a culture fit. ⁓ And, know, I've done lot of bad hiring in my day and I've held on to people longer than I should have. so, yeah, I think that if I had hiring mastered at the very beginning, like I'd be in a totally different situation than I am today. Like you just get there so much faster. And so I would say that those are some of the biggest challenges, but also the most important challenges, because if you don't have a great team, there's a limit in what you can do on your own. So ultimately, It all comes down to people. Coach Olga MD: We all just have 24 hours in a day. we've got to make sure that we're efficient and we're utilizing that time well. Letizia Alto: Yeah, and we're using leverage and we know how to delegate and that we have the right people in the right seats on the team. Coach Olga MD: now that you have reached a certain level of financial and geographical freedom, do you think that you have successfully defined yourself as a semi-retired MD? Letizia Alto: good question. ⁓ have all the choices in the world now, ⁓ yet I choose to still work extremely hard because now I fulfillment and purpose. And so I when I look back to 2015, I was like, ⁓ I just want to get financially free. I want to be there with my kids. ⁓ And I want be there with Kenji. And I want to go hang out in Italy in a villa. Now my priorities are a little bit different. Of course I want to be there with my kids and Kenji and to be able to have time where we're just chilling in a villa, that's great. But even more so what drives me now is contributing and seeing my students kind of transform and believe in themselves and see what they've accomplished and be able to celebrate with them. in their own experience of themselves and what they did and to be able to the results that they get in their lives and how their lives change, that's what fills me up. so... Again, I work far harder than I think I ever thought I would. I'm probably, if you asked me in 2015, I'd probably be like, yeah, I'll just travel for full time. I'm not going to do anything. I don't have to do anything. Why would I do any? But semi-retired always had the idea that you're going to contribute some way. But I didn't think, I definitely wouldn't have thought I was working as much as I'm working now. And yet, again, what's most important to me is seeing other people light up now and contributing. And so it's just shifted in a really dramatic way. Coach Olga MD: do admire all of your work and I think that you bring so much to all of your clients and all of your students. So thank you for the work that you do. Letizia Alto: ⁓ thank you, Olga. It really is my pleasure. ⁓ When I see somebody like you to go out and purchase a property or get to become an entrepreneur and believe yourself in a way that you maybe didn't before, or you ⁓ get experience yourself and a different side of yourself or the growth of yourself or the becoming of yourself, Coach Olga MD: Perfect. Well, thank you so much, Leti for being on the Coffee Playdate podcast with us today. was a pleasure having you on and I hope to have you in a future episode. Thank you. Cheers.