Latest / DPC Life: Direct Primary Care Podcast / Dr. Una on Physician Entrepreneurship: Mindset Shifts Every Doctor Needs Now

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Dr. Una on Physician Entrepreneurship: Mindset Shifts Every Doctor Needs Now · DPC Life: Direct Primary Care Podcast

• 0:00
  If your backup plan is your real plan, you have to pay attention
• 0:03
  to your dissatisfaction and you have to say yes to the scary
• 0:06
  things. The gravitational pull of your
• 0:08
  formal self is real. You must respect it.
• 0:12
  Like you think, oh, I read a book and now I'm going to do
• 0:15
  things differently. Oh no you won't.
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  Not except you're very intentional about it because you
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  may do it differently for two weeks and you will go back to
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  the way you've always done it because you've done it maybe for
• 0:24
  years, right? There's no award category for
• 0:27
  mom that did it all. If we choose this discomfort
• 0:31
  like the right discomfort, then we're setting the stage for
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  greatness. Welcome to DPC Life, the podcast
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  where independent doctors share real stories, bold ideas, and
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  the freedom of doing medicine on your own terms.
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  I'm your host, Doctor Anne Gonzalez, and together we'll
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  explore the wins, the struggles, and everything in between.
• 0:54
  Let's dive in. Welcome.
• 0:57
  Come back to DPC Life, the podcast where we talk about all
• 0:59
  things DPC and everything beyond.
• 1:02
  I'm very excited about my guest today, Doctor Nika Unichuku,
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  also known as Doctor Una. She is the founder of the Andre
• 1:10
  MD Business School, A pediatrician, mom, wife, pastor,
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  physician, entrepreneur. She has made it her mission to
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  help 100,000 doctors to build businesses that they love and
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  practice medicine the way that they want to.
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  But before we dive into the interview, I want to start with
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  a little honesty and I guess I'd call it a little confession.
• 1:35
  So as many of you might know, and maybe not, you'll see why
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  some of you may know that I have developed ACRM, which is a
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  customer relationship manager that is specifically for DPC
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  practices. I hope will help other doctors
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  who are thinking about DPC get their practices up and running
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  and growing and help them be successful.
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  And I'm hoping that it will help people who are kind of on the
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  fence about DPC to realize that it is possible and that there
• 2:07
  are things to help them with reaching out and advertising
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  their services. This platform, it's based on a
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  high level platform. We started using it in our
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  practice this past summer. And when we started, I thought
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  this is amazing, this would help so many other DPC doctors get
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  themselves organized and decided that I was going to create ADPC
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  specific version of this. This is not what I obviously
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  trained in. I mean, I enjoy tech and I
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  consider myself to be pretty techie and not everyone is.
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  So the goal is to make it for people who are not very tech
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  oriented. So the CRM that I've developed,
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  it's called Harmony OPS for DPC and it's meant to help doctors
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  that are just starting out all the way up to establish
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  practices. The platform comes in different
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  tiers. There's the most basic, which
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  would be a chat widget on the website all the way up to fully
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  done for you, posting your social media, running your
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  calendar, all the automations done for you completely.
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  So there's a whole spectrum of how Harmony OPS for DPC can be
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  used. I wanted to make it affordable
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  for people, especially when they start out because as a small
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  business, it is sometimes very tight, especially if you do not
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  have patients yet. I firmly believe that this will
• 3:32
  be helpful for those DPC doctors that are just about to launch or
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  brand new. And this is new territory for
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  me. So sometimes when I am talking
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  to people about the platform, I get a little bit of the ick
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  feeling because this is new for me.
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  Like I can talk to people about DPC all day long.
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  I feel very comfortable promoting that.
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  But this is still new. And I keep thinking about what
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  Doctor Una says in her books, that number one, no one's going
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  to know about you unless you tell them about what you do.
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  And two, if you believe in something and you know that it's
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  going to help somebody, that you have to share that with other
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  people. Because, for example, if you
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  don't tell people about your DPC practice, then you are depriving
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  some people from probably the best medical care that they
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  could get. Because I've started talking
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  more to people about Harmony OPS, I have noticed that I've
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  been feeling a lot like I did when we first opened our DPC,
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  like constant nausea, very anxious all the time, can't
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  sleep well, Yeah, So all of those things like not eating,
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  all of those things that I felt when we opened our DPC
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  initially, and I'm doing it again.
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  And why? Why am I doing this?
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  I think a lot of business owners think that, but I do believe the
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  platform is going to help a lot of people.
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  So like I said, I feel like it's my duty to tell people about it.
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  Even if it's scary and uncomfortable and you're
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  nauseous and sick to your stomach.
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  You just have to do it. Even if you feel like you're not
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  ready, you're never going to be quote UN quote ready.
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  There's never a perfect time. You're never going to have
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  everything perfectly set up. If you wait until that day, it's
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  just going to take forever for you to get started.
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  So you just have to start and we'll figure things out on the
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  way. And people may not know that you
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  feel like you want to vomit, but you have to do it.
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  So this is one of the lessons in Doctor Una's books that selling
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  is service because again, you're providing something that can be
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  helpful and you don't want to gatekeep that.
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  So you have to tell people and also they will not know about
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  you unless you tell them. So that those are some of the
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  biggest lessons that I took away from Doctor Una's books.
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  So that ties into our interview today with Doctor Una.
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  She helps physicians get past the fear, get past the ick,
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  understand that selling is service, and by believing in
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  what you're promoting and what you're selling, then you'll
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  convince the right people to join your practice.
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  So that's my little business confession for today.
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  And maybe in the next couple of weeks I will be able to come on
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  here and say that I've had a little less of the IC factor.
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  I hope so. I think so.
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  It just gets better the more you do it.
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  Thanks for letting me unload what's been going on in my head
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  recently. So now let's get into the
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  conversation with Doctor Una. I'm so super excited and honored
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  to introduce my guest today. She is a renowned author,
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  speaker, pastor, mom, wife, physician, entrepreneur.
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  You know you're famous when you have one name.
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  Doctor Una. Doctor Nika Onichuko, thank you
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  so much for being with me today. Thank you so much for having me.
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  I've been looking forward to this.
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  Actually signed up an hour early.
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  I was like, oh. Oh my gosh.
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  Wow. So yeah, this is going to be a
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  great conversation. It is.
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  It is. There's so much to talk about,
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  so let's start with talking with us about how coming from Emloyed
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  Osition and how you became a hysician entrepreneur and those
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  big mindset shifts that you had to make to get there.
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  Yeah, I mean, when I started off as a physician, if you will, a
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  pediatrician just got my first job and all that
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  entrepreneurship was not a thing on my mind, not not even
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  remotely. And I think that's important for
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  people to hear because for many physicians, that's not where we
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  start from. And so, but I remember seeing my
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  first patient, right. And there's something about
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  being attended. You see your first patient, take
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  care of them, write the script, all that stuff.
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  I walked out of the room and I had this feeling it would feel
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  like, yeah, like we're, we're in the big league now.
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  But it was very anti climatic. It was like, So what I just did,
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  I'm going to do this 20 times a day till I'm 65 or whatever,
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  then I'll retire. I was like, this is not
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  happening. Like there has to be something
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  else again. I didn't know it was
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  entrepreneurship. I didn't know it was anything.
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  And so for someone who just has that nudge, like don't ignore
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  it, you know what I mean? Like don't quiet down, just pay
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  attention to it. And so I made a decision.
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  I was like, I have to find what that is.
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  I'm only going to give this 10 years of my life.
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  I have to figure out what it is. And you know, I worked my job.
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  It was a great experience. My boss came and he says after
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  the first year he's like, here's a five year contract.
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  And I was like, wait. I was like, I've been married
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  for three years. I just finished a three-year
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  residency. My idea of forever is 3 years
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  and five years sounds like a very long time.
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  And so he was the one who planted the seed because he said
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  when I told him I wasn't going to renew my contract, he said,
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  well, if you're not going to renew your contract, start your
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  own practice. I was like, first of all, like 9
• 8:57
  months out of presidency, this is not a thing that people
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  think. Just in case you don't know,
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  this is not a thing that people think.
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  And then I said, second of all, in case you missed this
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  ginormous bump here, I'm pregnant.
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  Like this is not the time to start a practice.
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  And then he said, no. Like when the baby's little baby
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  will need you a lot, but the practice will be little, won't
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  need you as much. And when the baby's older and
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  doesn't need you as much, the practice will need you more and
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  you'll be ready to be needed more.
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  And he's like, if you have questions, you can ask me.
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  OK, so this was the best and the most deceptive conversation that
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  I had at the same time, right? Because I walked away going
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  like, I'm going to start a practice.
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  And then I also thought, and all I'll have is some questions.
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  That's it. It's going to be great.
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  I'm going to hang the shingle. They're going to come.
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  So where we moved to was ultimately 45 minutes away.
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  So it's not attracting any patients from that practice or
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  anything like that. And I had this philosophy, I'll
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  hang the shingle and they will come.
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  I hung the shingle and they did not come.
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  It was the most terrifying thing.
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  And when that happened, then I found myself in a challenging
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  situation because I couldn't get out of lease and all these
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  things. I just signed a bunch of a bunch
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  of contracts, but I was like, I don't know how to make this
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  work. And I think like marketing, all
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  these things will need to, but I'm a professional.
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  I don't do things like that. And that's really, I was there
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  for a few weeks, a few months, and I read a book by Brian
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  Tracy, Eat That Frog. And he said all business skills
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  are learnable. If you see a business doing
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  better than yours, they're not better than you.
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  They just know things you don't know.
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  And that was the starting point of all things entrepreneurship
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  for me because I was like, I may not know how to market, sell,
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  hire a team, do any of those things, but I do know how to
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  learn. And so I started this lifelong
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  journey of learning marketing and sales and service delivery
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  and operations and all of these things.
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  And the business took off and we hit our first million, I think
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  of the third year, built the practice.
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  We could work without me. I haven't seen patients, they
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  are like in a really long time, but the practice exists still
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  doing some figures, doing all the things that it does.
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  We're very grateful for that. Then I went on to build Andre
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  MD, which is a company where I serve physicians and help them
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  build profitable businesses. So they can live life for
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  practice medicine on their terms.
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  And the rest they say is history.
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  And I like to tell those pieces because a lot of times people
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  feel I'm not like that person. You don't have to be.
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  You just have to honor their nudges.
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  You have to pay attention to your dissatisfaction and you
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  have to say yes to the scary things.
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  I yes, I did not ever think, you know, if you'd asked me five
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  years ago that said you're going to have a practice and you're
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  going to be doing a podcast, you're going to be doing all
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  these things. I always said, you're crazy.
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  Yeah, we have. My husband's a pediatrician as
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  well. And yes, so he's a partner in
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  his practice. And I always thought, well,
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  that's enough. One partner is enough in a
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  family. And our kids were little and I
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  heard about DPC in 2013 but didn't open for eight years.
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  So yes, a part of the reason for this podcast is I'm one of your
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  minions, I will say because I've taken up the mission, right?
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  The mission to get doctors out of employed practice and doing
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  their own thing. So that's why I want to do this
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  too, is because I don't want people to wait eight years to
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  start their own practice because you don't have time to wait.
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  You've taken one for the team that's nobody else takes.
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  Clock. The clock is ticking, so one of
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  the things that I tell DPCS when they're first opening is read
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  the DPC books and then the next book you have to read is Entree
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  MD by Doctor Una. Well, thank you.
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  I apologize. Oh my gosh, I've told that to so
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  many people. And the reason why is because
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  you talk about the mind shifts towards money and selling.
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  And that was the biggest eye opening in your book that I got
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  out of it when I read it. So tell us more about how you
• 12:58
  always talk about how you're an introvert.
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  How did you get past that? So I think the starting point
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  for that was really redefining that word, right?
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  So I used to think being an introvert meant I'm super shy.
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  I'll never be able to speak while on stage, I'll never be
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  able to network like a pro. I would not be a go getter if
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  there was competition I had to come up against, right?
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  Like Med school, I can do that because I'm taking my own exams
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  in my own space. But if I had to compete, I
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  couldn't. And but that's not really what
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  an introvert is, right? If you think about it, 50% of
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  the population, if they're introverts, we can't all be bad,
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  you know what I mean? You can all have a defect.
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  And so I started studying it and I found one thing about
• 13:44
  introverts are they are people who recharge in solitude.
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  I was like, aha, I can get behind that.
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  I can. I like, yes, I recharge in
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  solitude. So if I went somewhere was an
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  event and all of those things at this stage of my life, I can
• 13:58
  enjoy an event. I can network, I can speak
• 14:00
  effectively, I can do all those things, but that is not an
• 14:03
  inner. It's energizing in the moment,
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  but I'll be drained when I'm done and I need to go take a
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  walk by myself, take a long shower, do any of those things.
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  I get to the point where I'm like, I've recharged myself,
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  right? So if that's the case, then it
• 14:17
  also means if you look at it, speaking is a skill, networking
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  is a skill, confidence is something you build over time.
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  These are not personality types, these are skills.
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  So I brought myself to this place where I was like, no,
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  these are learnable skills. I will learn the skills and
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  master the skills. And then I'll also honor who I
• 14:36
  am by always acknowledging that I recharge in solitude.
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  So for instance, I host a three day events for my clients every
• 14:46
  year, a vision retreat where we plan the year and we do all of
• 14:48
  those things. And I do quite a bit of speaking
• 14:50
  for those three days. And I'm with like maybe 50 of my
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  clients and like stuff like that.
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  I know if I start hanging out with them on day one, I'll be
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  out. I'll be out by day 2A, day
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  through, they'll have like 75% of me, then 50% of me and stuff
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  like that. I know that.
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  So what do I do? I'm in solitude, right?
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  Then I come out, do my sessions, maybe hang out for 30 minutes or
• 15:13
  so, go back to my room, solitude to recharge and all of that.
• 15:16
  And day three, they know after day three, they all know we're
• 15:18
  going to all hang out with doctor.
• 15:19
  You know, if we need to stay for hours, we can because she's
• 15:22
  delivered what she needs to deliver.
• 15:24
  And even if she's so tired after, that's fine, She's going
• 15:26
  home. Do you see what I mean?
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  So I honor how I recharge, but I don't accept that there's
• 15:33
  anything I can't do because I'm an introvert.
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  So I can be a rock star entrepreneur.
• 15:38
  I could be a dominant speaker. I can network like a boss, I can
• 15:41
  lead high quality teams. I can have difficult
• 15:44
  conversations with people. I can do all of that as an
• 15:47
  introvert because those are skills.
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  But then I also honor like, if you're going to go do this big
• 15:53
  events, you have to figure out where you're going to recharge
• 15:56
  because you're going to need to recharge.
• 15:58
  So I don't let it stop me. And in fact, I do see it as a
• 16:01
  superpower because one thing about introverts is they're in
• 16:03
  their heads a lot. They think a lot, they analyze,
• 16:06
  they observe a lot. And so for me, when I think
• 16:09
  about the frameworks I developed for this is how, for instance,
• 16:11
  you can take your business to seven figures, all this stuff.
• 16:14
  Part of it is because I study everything.
• 16:17
  I study businesses, I study them in different industries, I study
• 16:20
  entrepreneurs and what they do. I observe a lot of things.
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  I'm playing around with these frameworks in my mind.
• 16:25
  So actually, I think being an introvert is a superpower at
• 16:28
  this point. I wouldn't trade it for.
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  Any Yeah, absolutely. It's your social battery.
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  Someone told me that recently. So yeah, social battery.
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  And that's kind of goes into one of the questions that I wanted
• 16:40
  to ask you, because you're very measured with your time and you
• 16:44
  protect your time. And so one of my questions was,
• 16:49
  what kind of things are you saying no to to make room for
• 16:54
  other things in your life? That's a great question.
• 16:59
  Well, so this is the way I think about it, right?
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  I have one life and let's say I have a 12 block, well, 12 month
• 17:09
  period I'm looking at. So I have this 12 month block
• 17:11
  and in this 12 month block I have defined what I want to
• 17:15
  accomplish. OK, so let's say I'm making this
• 17:18
  up that I wanted to help 1000 doctors in this 12 month block
• 17:23
  and I wanted to help them do their first or next 7 figures in
• 17:27
  revenue. This is my agenda from a
• 17:29
  business perspective. OK?
• 17:31
  Now in order to do that, I'm like OK, we need to work the
• 17:34
  marketing, we need to work the sales, we need this kind of
• 17:37
  team. And these are my core roles.
• 17:39
  These are the things only I can do.
• 17:41
  Once I've defined that, then it becomes very clear what I should
• 17:47
  spend most of my time doing. And I take it a step further
• 17:51
  where I also define these things you used to do, you no longer
• 17:55
  do. So for instance, maybe I used to
• 17:57
  manage my own social media. And it's like, well, if you're
• 18:00
  going to do that, you're not going to be able to manage your
• 18:03
  own social media. But because I've done it for so
• 18:04
  long, then I put on there like, this is an 80% activity.
• 18:08
  This is an activity I no longer do, right?
• 18:10
  Maybe I used to manage my own e-mail and calendar.
• 18:12
  I'm like, no, you have an executive assistant now that you
• 18:15
  hired this person takes care of all of that for you.
• 18:18
  I used to do my own sales calls. You can't do that anymore.
• 18:20
  Now you have this person who like, I literally document it
• 18:24
  because it's a, it's something I've done as a habit.
• 18:27
  I have to stop it. I have to.
• 18:29
  And this list, I look at it every day like, hello, Doctor
• 18:32
  Una, these are the things you do not do, these other things you
• 18:34
  do, right? And so I have to rewire my brain
• 18:38
  because this is what I tell my clients.
• 18:40
  I say the gravitational pull of your formal self is real.
• 18:45
  You must respect it. Like you think, oh, I read a
• 18:48
  book and now I'm going to do things differently.
• 18:50
  Oh, no, you won't, not except you're very intentional about it
• 18:53
  because you may do it differently for two weeks and
• 18:55
  you will go back to the way you've always done it because
• 18:57
  you've done it maybe for years, right.
• 19:00
  So I have a list of these are the things you do.
• 19:02
  These are the things that are good.
• 19:04
  There's nothing wrong with them. In fact, they got you where they
• 19:06
  are, where you are now, but you no longer do.
• 19:09
  Now I'm going to make mistakes and all of that stuff, but I, I
• 19:11
  don't even see them as mistakes. I see them.
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  I'm wearing training wheels, right?
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  I'm trying to function at this higher level.
• 19:17
  And then because I've defined where I'm going, when somebody
• 19:21
  comes with an opportunity that doesn't line up with where I'm
• 19:25
  going, it doesn't matter how good it is, it's not taking me
• 19:28
  where I'm going. So the answer is no.
• 19:31
  This is what I mean. When someone come, oh, I want to
• 19:33
  be a part of your team and I look and there's nothing you're
• 19:35
  doing that takes us where we're going.
• 19:38
  So the answer to that is going to be a no.
• 19:41
  It becomes so much easier. But there's no way to get there
• 19:45
  where it's crystal clear what is a shiny object and crystal clear
• 19:48
  what is a distraction, except you define with clarity where
• 19:52
  you're going. And I have talked to a lot of
• 19:54
  people, physicians included, and I say this respectfully, I was
• 19:58
  there as well. It's you would think most
• 20:01
  physician entrepreneurs have goals for their business.
• 20:04
  They don't. They don't.
• 20:06
  And so if you don't, it becomes hard to say no because you don't
• 20:10
  know what is a good opportunity and what it's not.
• 20:12
  You do not know who you need on your team and who you don't.
• 20:15
  You don't know what you should spend most of your time doing
• 20:17
  and what you shouldn't, because it's almost like you have the
• 20:20
  GPS but you didn't put the address in.
• 20:23
  So there's no direction. And so it starts from defining
• 20:26
  what that is. Many other things become very
• 20:29
  clear, and the things you should say no to become very.
• 20:31
  Clear. Yeah, Yeah.
• 20:33
  It's like Simon Sinek, what's your why, what's your purpose?
• 20:37
  And then you kind of work backwards from there, right?
• 20:41
  Always, always reverse engineering.
• 20:43
  Always. Well, a lot of the listeners are
• 20:47
  either just starting out their DPC or I call them DPC Dreamers.
• 20:52
  They're thinking about it, they're getting ready to to leap
• 20:54
  and so they're solo and a lot of the people who listen are also
• 20:59
  moms and they carry a lot of weight at home as well.
• 21:05
  What kinds of suggestions do you have for people who are starting
• 21:08
  out that are alone? They don't have a wonderful team
• 21:10
  like you do. What kinds of things can they do
• 21:14
  to help move themselves along? Yeah.
• 21:18
  So there are many ways to look at that.
• 21:21
  So I'm going to start from where I start from and if you want
• 21:23
  some clarification, just point me in the direction and we'll go
• 21:26
  there. Let me say two things.
• 21:27
  The first is especially to the moms you you talked about moms
• 21:32
  when I started my private practice, I had a 2 year old and
• 21:37
  a four month old, OK? And I did not qualify for a loan
• 21:44
  because I was born in the USI left when I was 6.
• 21:47
  I came back after medical school, OK.
• 21:48
  So I had no credit history and all of these kind of things.
• 21:51
  And so when I got when I was time, I didn't qualify for a
• 21:55
  loan. I self funded.
• 21:56
  So I was working about 12 to 20 hours in the local urgent care
• 22:00
  in addition to all of this. OK.
• 22:03
  And then because that is not enough, at the same time, my
• 22:06
  husband and I planted a church. So this is called chaos of the
• 22:11
  highest order. OK, let let me define what that
• 22:14
  is. Now I'm telling you what I
• 22:16
  didn't know then, but I learned, OK, it took me a few years, but
• 22:20
  I learned. When you decide to become ACEO
• 22:25
  of physician entrepreneur, one of the best things you can do
• 22:28
  for yourself is see yourself as the CEO of your life, meaning
• 22:33
  your business on your home, not the CEO at business and regular
• 22:37
  mom at when I say regular mom, I don't mean that in a disparate,
• 22:39
  respectful way, like status quo, what you've always done, because
• 22:43
  in order to take on new things, you have to let go of some old
• 22:47
  things. OK, so if for the moms, consider
• 22:52
  getting a home team, not just the getting a team at home
• 22:57
  because there's so much you do. There's no award for doing it
• 23:01
  all by yourself right now. That team would include your
• 23:06
  family, your kids. I was talking to a lady at a
• 23:09
  conference I was speaking at and she said her 15 year old, she
• 23:12
  was doing his laundry or something.
• 23:14
  I was like 15 years old and no, ma'am, this will be a hard no,
• 23:19
  OK? This will be a hard no.
• 23:22
  So it includes getting your teen, your family on board.
• 23:25
  They will help you if you ask them.
• 23:27
  Your children will help you if you hold them accountable to it,
• 23:29
  right? OK, so it includes that.
• 23:32
  It includes volunteers like I had in my world, A lot of people
• 23:37
  I mentored, right? A lot of people I mentored.
• 23:39
  When I had my fourth child, I was like, listen, y'all go make
• 23:44
  a roster, okay? Who's gonna come spend time with
• 23:48
  the baby so I could take a nap? They literally had a roster
• 23:52
  because I'm like, I spent my whole life with you guys
• 23:54
  mentoring, doing all this stuff. No, you're gonna come hand with
• 23:56
  the baby. That's what you gonna do.
• 23:57
  They had a roster. My life with the 4th baby, if
• 24:00
  she was my first and that's the way I did, I probably have 10
• 24:02
  kids. It was so fun.
• 24:03
  I was up with the baby at night. It was amazing.
• 24:06
  So there are people in your world who will help you.
• 24:09
  So these are like your unpaid team, if you will, right?
• 24:12
  Because you've put things in the reciprocity bank so you can
• 24:14
  withdraw, right? And then people, you pay like,
• 24:17
  Oh my goodness, if you can pay a teenager to do your laundry, pay
• 24:21
  the teenager, teenager's happy, you're happy, everybody's happy.
• 24:24
  But I, you know, start thinking of yourself as the CEO of your
• 24:28
  home. It will give you so much peace
• 24:30
  and quiet. And there's no award category
• 24:33
  for Mom that did it all. Yeah, it's in the category like
• 24:36
  that, right. So that's on that side.
• 24:38
  Now when it comes to the practice itself, one of the
• 24:41
  things that has helped me accomplish so much more in the
• 24:45
  quote UN quote little time that I have like multiplied my output
• 24:50
  is spending 80% of my time doing what I consider 20% activities.
• 24:55
  What are 20% activities? These are the needle movers,
• 24:59
  right? Like tweaking your business plan
• 25:01
  for the 700 time is not a needle mover.
• 25:03
  Playing on canvas is not a needle mover.
• 25:05
  Picking paint for the office, like must you pick paint?
• 25:08
  Yes, but it's not a needle mover, right?
• 25:10
  And you got to be clear on what is the needle mover and what is
• 25:13
  not. Now when you are starting your
• 25:16
  marketing is the needle mover of needle movers.
• 25:21
  And so every time we avoid, I'll tell you what I used to do
• 25:24
  because nobody else does this right when I have something
• 25:27
  important to do like marketing that I don't want to do that at
• 25:31
  the time. Do you want to do right?
• 25:33
  I would do everything else. My To Do List will be full.
• 25:35
  But it that is all procrastination, like all 12
• 25:38
  things are just my method of procrastinating.
• 25:42
  That's all that it is, right. And so getting your patience is
• 25:46
  like the most important thing to do, even if you haven't opened
• 25:49
  yet building the brand, have you an e-mail list and saying sign
• 25:54
  up for my VIP wait list or whatever.
• 25:56
  So when I start, you'll be the first to know.
• 25:57
  And all of those things is the most important activity.
• 26:00
  So the more you avoid it, the more work you'll have to do.
• 26:04
  And and that's the truth right now, you might say, oh, it's
• 26:07
  nerve wracking, it's uncomfortable, it's all the
• 26:10
  things. And you know which it is, but so
• 26:12
  was putting in IV lines at some point.
• 26:14
  So is intubating babies at some point.
• 26:16
  So is running codes at one some point.
• 26:18
  But you didn't afraid and you put in enough reps and you
• 26:22
  learned how to do it and you became really good at it.
• 26:25
  It's the same thing with marketing and the rest of the
• 26:27
  things, right? And so I would say home team, I
• 26:30
  would say go all in on marketing and don't avoid the
• 26:34
  uncomfortable things in business because discomfort is where the
• 26:38
  greatness is. Your comfort zone is where the
• 26:39
  status quo is. So we get to, we can only choose
• 26:42
  one. If you choose comfort, you're
• 26:44
  choosing status quo. We're not moving forward.
• 26:46
  Nothing's happening. Nothing is happening.
• 26:49
  If we choose discomfort, like the right discomfort, then we're
• 26:54
  setting the stage for greatness, right?
• 26:56
  And so, yeah, yeah. Yes, and I think a lot of times,
• 27:01
  especially because DPC doctors, they're always like
• 27:04
  bootstrappers, trying to do everything with as little money
• 27:07
  as possible because you know how it works.
• 27:10
  You just don't have a lot then, especially if you're coming out
• 27:13
  of residency, right? There's some people coming out
• 27:15
  that are doing this, which is amazing, it's wonderful, but
• 27:19
  they want to do everything. They want to answer all the
• 27:20
  phone calls. They want to call everyone back
• 27:22
  and explain DPC. And I think, well, you know,
• 27:25
  maybe you could get a VA because you need to go out and you need
• 27:30
  to talk to business owners and you need to be showing your face
• 27:34
  and networking at the chamber and B and I or whatever it is,
• 27:38
  because no one else can do that for you because it's you.
• 27:42
  You're the brand, right? So yeah.
• 27:46
  Absolutely. And I don't think I bootstrap,
• 27:49
  right? I told you I couldn't qualify
• 27:50
  for a loan or do anything. And actually as an insurance
• 27:53
  based practice, I did it all. I answered my own phones.
• 27:56
  I was the medical assistant, worked up the patient, saw the
• 27:59
  patient, gave my own vaccines and get this, I build the
• 28:03
  insurance company. I did everything and I did it
• 28:06
  not because I couldn't, because I had a fundamental reason, like
• 28:10
  I don't want to hire, I want a bootstrap.
• 28:12
  I was afraid. I was like, I don't even know
• 28:14
  what I'm doing. If I hire somebody and they come
• 28:16
  in here, they'll figure out I don't even know what I'm doing,
• 28:19
  right? And I'm like, where will the
• 28:20
  money come from? Like I'm asking where will the
• 28:22
  money come from for a medical assistant, right?
• 28:24
  So I get it. However, the opportunity cost of
• 28:30
  not hiring that person means that I don't get to go out and
• 28:33
  market. So I could have now had 200
• 28:35
  patients on my panel as ADPC doc and I have 50 because I was
• 28:40
  answering the phone. Get off the phone and go get the
• 28:43
  other 150. You see what I'm saying?
• 28:44
  Like it's too expensive. So you can still do things in a
• 28:48
  cost effective way, right? One of the things I teach about
• 28:50
  a lot is the profitable team. Like, how do you bring on team
• 28:54
  members in such a way that as you bring them all, your profit
• 28:56
  grows? It doesn't disappear, right?
• 28:59
  But doing it all yourself is not necessarily the answer.
• 29:04
  There is a better way. And with you talking about how
• 29:08
  you didn't have a loan and you had to work in the, you had to
• 29:11
  moonlight and that's what a lot of people have to do with their
• 29:14
  practices. They're kind of half DPC, half
• 29:16
  hospital or half urgent care. Did you feel like that hindered
• 29:21
  your growth? I mean, you had to, but
• 29:25
  obviously you would have preferred to just work on your
• 29:27
  practice. But what do you think it would
• 29:29
  have been like if you hadn't done that?
• 29:32
  Well, I don't know that it would have hindered my growth.
• 29:35
  I think it's because of the way I handled it.
• 29:37
  Like some people did half and do half and half, and that's not
• 29:40
  what I did. What I did was I need the
• 29:44
  revenue. I need to fund this.
• 29:47
  Like literally was my funding strategy.
• 29:50
  Like if I had taken a loan, I would have had to pay back
• 29:53
  interest and do all of that stuff.
• 29:55
  There's stuff that, and to me, I just saw it like this is me
• 29:57
  paying interest. That's what that was.
• 30:00
  And so I started with, in the beginning, we're not really
• 30:03
  busy, so I could do as many shifts as possible.
• 30:06
  And every time I added on more patients, I decrease my shifts.
• 30:10
  It was a titration like, yeah, my priority was not working the
• 30:14
  job. Like I'm going to do both.
• 30:16
  It was not about doing both. It was about funding my practice
• 30:20
  because of the intention. It never became a distraction
• 30:25
  and I never came a place where this is safe.
• 30:27
  Do I hold on to this? It was never that because the
• 30:30
  job was, it was not a safety net.
• 30:32
  It was not something I do. So I just have revenue because
• 30:35
  what that does is then you don't put pressure on the business,
• 30:38
  right to grow and stuff like that.
• 30:40
  So it was never 1/2 and half. It was never a safety net.
• 30:44
  It was literally I have to pay the rent for my practice.
• 30:47
  I have to pay this, I have to pay that, pay a few bills.
• 30:49
  So I don't put pressure on the newborn, right, because the the
• 30:52
  practice was a newborn. But yeah, this newborn is going
• 30:56
  to pay bills in a second. And so I probably overall
• 31:00
  probably did that for a year and a half.
• 31:01
  And of course it started off heavy and just kept dropping
• 31:05
  that since maybe 2 * a month. And it got to a place I was
• 31:08
  like, forget it. I'm not, I'm not doing it
• 31:10
  anymore. So it didn't hinder my growth.
• 31:12
  But if that is not the intent, it can, right?
• 31:14
  If we're like, I have two sources of revenue, my practice
• 31:17
  on my job that yeah, that's, that's gonna hinder stuff big
• 31:21
  time. Yeah.
• 31:22
  I think that you, what you said, the safety net, I think that's
• 31:25
  what a lot of people are doing is because they're just like, I
• 31:28
  don't know if I can get the patience, let me just kind of
• 31:30
  keep this. And in that situation, I think
• 31:33
  it is a hindrance. I think you really have to.
• 31:36
  I like the way that you said you you've just balanced it out.
• 31:39
  I don't think people think of it that way.
• 31:42
  Yeah, because it was not, I didn't see it as a source of
• 31:45
  income. I saw it as self funding my
• 31:47
  practice. Yeah, like, and you bring up an
• 31:50
  interesting point because and it's important is if you're not
• 31:54
  committed, it is hard to win in entrepreneurship.
• 32:00
  For instance, in my program someone said can I come try it
• 32:02
  out? I was like, no, and I would love
• 32:06
  for you to try it out, but this is what I know.
• 32:08
  If you try entrepreneurship, it doesn't work.
• 32:11
  It's like try medical school, like it's not going to work
• 32:15
  because that's going to require commit.
• 32:17
  Like I'm all in because tough times are going to come and it's
• 32:20
  going to require a version of you that doesn't exist now,
• 32:24
  right? And so if you have a safety net,
• 32:26
  you can have a philosophy that I don't want to market, but if you
• 32:30
  knew you had to grow it, you go like, OK, how do we figure this
• 32:33
  stuff out? Right?
• 32:35
  If you had a safety net, you know your pricing is wrong.
• 32:38
  You know you should raise your prices, but you're like, I just
• 32:42
  get them and I just work an extra shift here to make up for
• 32:44
  it. But if you didn't have that,
• 32:47
  then you're like OK, how do I raise my prices?
• 32:51
  They get rid of the mind drama, raise my prices and offer it
• 32:55
  confidently knowing people will say yes to it.
• 33:00
  If you have a safety net, you won't do that, right?
• 33:02
  And so it doesn't mean throw away reason because sometimes
• 33:05
  people go like, I quit my job three months ago.
• 33:07
  I'm ready to start my business. I'm like, Lord have mercy.
• 33:09
  No, that's not the way this works.
• 33:11
  Please don't. You're still going to have to.
• 33:12
  The newborn is not going to be right.
• 33:14
  Like, so I'm not saying throw away reason, but what I am
• 33:18
  saying is if you're like, I'm going to keep this job just in
• 33:21
  case this doesn't work. Like your backup plan is your
• 33:24
  real plan. That's the way humans are,
• 33:27
  right? And so you want to go all in.
• 33:30
  And if you could learn to run codes, intubate people literally
• 33:35
  like running a code is like raising people from the dead.
• 33:38
  They died. You got them back up.
• 33:39
  Like, think about what you learned to do.
• 33:41
  If you can do that, you can learn marketing, you can learn
• 33:44
  selling, you can learn operations.
• 33:46
  You can learn to, you know, look at profit and loss statements
• 33:48
  and not break out in hives. You can learn all these things,
• 33:51
  right? Yeah.
• 33:52
  So you can learn, but commitment is required.
• 33:55
  If you're like, let me test it out.
• 33:56
  That doesn't work. Yeah, it doesn't work.
• 33:58
  Yeah, definitely. And that also brings me to
• 34:00
  another question I had. I think entrepreneurs, physician
• 34:04
  entrepreneurs particularly, they have a growth mindset, right?
• 34:08
  Because like you said, do it scared that you have to learn
• 34:12
  all these new things and so you have to have a growth mindset.
• 34:15
  But some people think that they have a growth mindset, think
• 34:22
  that they're this is what they want.
• 34:24
  And maybe they're just not educated, like they hadn't
• 34:28
  educated themselves enough about what goes into opening a
• 34:31
  practice and they get into it and they're like, I don't want,
• 34:35
  I either I can't do this or I don't want to do this.
• 34:38
  What kinds of things? If people really take a hard
• 34:41
  look at themselves, right? What kinds of things would you
• 34:44
  say? Maybe this is not for you?
• 34:46
  I'm certain. Yeah, yeah.
• 34:51
  So there are a number of things. First of all, if you are
• 34:55
  unwilling to change, and this is what I mean by that, we had to
• 34:59
  do a lot of work to become physicians.
• 35:01
  We're talking a decade of evolution.
• 35:04
  And sometimes we get to this point where we're like, I'm
• 35:07
  pretty much done, Like I don't want to have to change anymore.
• 35:10
  I don't like I've arrived. We almost feel like I study too
• 35:14
  hard to still need to study marketing.
• 35:17
  You know what I mean? Like this should just work.
• 35:19
  I take great care of patients. Medicine shouldn't be a business
• 35:22
  and stuff like that. Like we should just take care of
• 35:25
  patients and everything should be good.
• 35:26
  I only want to take care of patients.
• 35:28
  Then I would say especially private practice, like a DPC is
• 35:32
  probably not for you because there's going to be a lot of
• 35:36
  pain and suffering. Now, can you flip the attitude?
• 35:39
  You can. But if you want to keep the
• 35:41
  attitude and you can, there's there's no right or wrong, but
• 35:44
  if you want to keep the attitude, you probably want to
• 35:46
  leave DPC alone, right, And work a job so you can see the
• 35:50
  patients and then somebody else would do all the things you want
• 35:53
  to do. That's a decision.
• 35:54
  You can make that decision. You can decide that this doesn't
• 35:57
  align with my life and that's fine, you know, So that's one.
• 36:00
  The other thing is maybe not so much don't start, but it will
• 36:05
  make it challenging if you don't have a why like somebody.
• 36:09
  OK, I'll give you an example. A client of mine said this to me
• 36:11
  once. She said I want to start a
• 36:13
  coaching program for doctors so they can kick the insurance
• 36:18
  companies away and start cash pay practices.
• 36:20
  I said OK. I said wonderful.
• 36:23
  She runs a private practice, thriving private practice.
• 36:26
  I think she'll hit seven figures this year.
• 36:27
  I said why do you want to start it?
• 36:31
  Because you are mad at the insurance companies?
• 36:34
  Or do you want to start it because this is the legacy you
• 36:36
  want to leave? She said I'm mad at the
• 36:39
  insurance companies. I said, OK, that anger will not
• 36:43
  be enough for you to weather the storms that come with building
• 36:47
  this business like I'm doing that.
• 36:49
  So I of course I can help you do that.
• 36:52
  But what I'm telling you is that this why is going to wear off.
• 36:56
  It's a negative. Why, if you will, right, I'm mad
• 36:58
  at you. So I'm going to say right, I'm
• 37:00
  like, so, so you sit with it. If it's legacy, let's go.
• 37:04
  If it's anger, you're going to hate it.
• 37:07
  You're going to build it, you're going to hate it.
• 37:09
  You're still going to hate the insurance company, everything.
• 37:11
  It's not going to be fun. And so we look at the motive.
• 37:16
  If the motive is look at how much my boss is making off of
• 37:18
  me, I'm going to go do it myself.
• 37:21
  It doesn't work because it's not going to be like your job
• 37:25
  because this is your job, the technician, if you will, the
• 37:28
  physician plus the job of the manager and the job of the
• 37:30
  entrepreneur. Now you acquire 2 new jobs.
• 37:33
  So now you work 3 jobs, right? It's not going to be enough.
• 37:38
  So that's the motive. Then being an entrepreneur is
• 37:41
  going to be painful, right? That's, that's the second one.
• 37:44
  I would say the third is if you're not, there's a part of
• 37:50
  you're having a growth mindset, but if you're not willing to do
• 37:53
  the work to learn and evolve, then you don't want to do it
• 37:58
  right? Because it's all learning.
• 38:00
  If you think about it, right, We had to learn marketing, We had
• 38:03
  to learn selling. We now realize we had a mind and
• 38:06
  that mind is full of mind drama that we need to manage and we
• 38:09
  have to think of pricing and leading team and Oh my goodness,
• 38:12
  leading more team and all the. So when you think about it, it's
• 38:16
  a whole lot of evolution and if you're like, I've paid my dues,
• 38:21
  I just want to stay at home with my babies.
• 38:23
  I have time for my then maybe not now.
• 38:26
  Could you still, could you do this?
• 38:28
  I have time for it, Of course. I mean, I homeschool my kids.
• 38:30
  Of course you can. There's a way to do it.
• 38:33
  But if you're not willing to pay the price to do that, then maybe
• 38:36
  not. It will be painful because
• 38:38
  you're resisting the inevitable, right?
• 38:41
  Like so it would just be so painful.
• 38:43
  Yeah, we do aesthetics at our practice as well.
• 38:46
  So it's DPC and aesthetics. And so people say, well, I'm
• 38:50
  thinking about getting into aesthetics.
• 38:52
  Like are you really? Because you're going to have to
• 38:55
  think very hard about that one. It is not regular medicine.
• 39:00
  It is completely different ball game.
• 39:02
  So you know, you have to learn marketing.
• 39:05
  You have to. If you think you're putting
• 39:07
  yourself out there now, we'll just wait. 10 exits.
• 39:13
  That's what you. Mean exactly exactly well doctor
• 39:16
  Una I do not want to take up too much of your time and I really
• 39:19
  really appreciate you I feel like I just got a whole like
• 39:22
  coaching list it's like personal I am so excited well I'm.
• 39:27
  I'm happy to hear that. I know I didn't realize that's
• 39:31
  what was coming so I got tons out of this, but I really,
• 39:35
  really appreciate you being here and it.
• 39:38
  Do you have any last thoughts that you want to give to those
• 39:42
  moms out there who are thinking about DPC?
• 39:46
  This is what I will say if you're thinking about it and
• 39:49
  you're scared because you're like, you know what?
• 39:51
  If it doesn't work, I don't know what to do.
• 39:53
  This is very different. I want to remind you of who you
• 39:57
  are. You are a physician, which means
• 40:00
  at some point in time. The 300 things you can do now
• 40:06
  that make you special, you couldn't make you special as a
• 40:09
  career. You couldn't do that.
• 40:12
  And sometimes we hang out with ourselves so much that we don't
• 40:14
  realize how cool we are. Like there's over 330 million
• 40:17
  people in the US. There's 1,000,000 physicians.
• 40:21
  That's you. So you were able to have a
• 40:24
  dramatic transformation that took you from a person to a
• 40:29
  person who can bring people back from the dead.
• 40:31
  OK, thank you for use that analogy.
• 40:34
  You can make any transition that is required for you to be a
• 40:37
  successful entrepreneur. Any will it be uncomfortable?
• 40:40
  Yes, but it's a good discomfort. It's like lifting weights at the
• 40:43
  gym doesn't feel good when you do it feels excellent when
• 40:45
  you're done. And you can learn every skill
• 40:50
  and you can thrive at this. And I'm not saying it to like
• 40:53
  flattery or anything like that. I've watched hundreds of doctors
• 40:57
  do this. You can thrive at this.
• 41:00
  You can become a version of yourself that you're not now.
• 41:03
  You could market confidently. You could sell confidently.
• 41:05
  You could do your pricing. You could lead A-Team.
• 41:09
  You can manage your time in such a way that you have more time
• 41:12
  for your family. You can run your business in
• 41:14
  such a way that you create financial freedom, right?
• 41:18
  The vacations that you've been thinking about, you can fund
• 41:21
  them. You can change your life using
• 41:24
  entrepreneurship. Where you need to change?
• 41:26
  Yes. Where you need to go
• 41:28
  Uncomfortable things, yes, but that is not new to you.
• 41:30
  There's a lot of evidence you have evidence that you've done
• 41:33
  this before and you can just do it one more time.
• 41:35
  And so don't let the fears hold you back.
• 41:38
  Fear, except of falling off a Cliff, has never been your
• 41:41
  friend. It never has been.
• 41:43
  So don't build a relationship with it now Instead go like,
• 41:47
  huh, what if what if I could do that practice?
• 41:50
  What if I could do that practice and and I had time for my
• 41:53
  family? What if I could do that practice
• 41:55
  and it worked financially? What if I could do that practice
• 41:58
  and do it confidently? What if I could do it and it
• 42:00
  would be the best thing that ever happened to me?
• 42:01
  Like allow yourself go there, find the next steps you need to
• 42:05
  take and start taking them. But if you look and you've
• 42:08
  waited for two years, guess what?
• 42:10
  2 years has come and gone. The question becomes will the
• 42:13
  next 12 months come and go? Will the next two years come and
• 42:16
  go or would those two years come and then you're like, you know,
• 42:20
  look what happened over the last two years, right?
• 42:23
  So we don't even if you live to be 200, life is short.
• 42:28
  We, we don't have all the time in the world.
• 42:30
  Someday we're going to be celebrating our 90th birthday
• 42:32
  parties, right? What do you, what do you think
• 42:35
  90 year old you is saying? Probably saying, come on, girl,
• 42:39
  you could do it, right? So maybe listen to her and stop
• 42:43
  waiting. Find the next step.
• 42:45
  Take that, let's go. Yeah, I like it.
• 42:49
  Let's go. Let's go.
• 42:51
  Doctor Una, thank you so much. I appreciate you.
• 42:54
  Thanks again to Doctor Una for such an inspiring interview.
• 42:57
  I hope that this will help some of you who were thinking about
• 43:00
  DPC to finally take the leap. And if you found that
• 43:05
  interesting, I have a companion workbook for the episode, which
• 43:10
  has several prompts to help you think about the mindset shifts
• 43:14
  that you need to take in order to become a physician,
• 43:17
  entrepreneur, and CEO of your DPC.
• 43:20
  If you want to grab that, just DMDPC on Instagram, the handle
• 43:26
  is DPC Life and we'll send that over to you.
• 43:29
  Plus, we'll also send our five day DPC Confidence course.
• 43:34
  You'll get 5 days of emails that will help get you started on
• 43:38
  your DPC journey. Thanks again for listening and
• 43:41
  I'll see you on the next episode.
• 43:43
  Thank you for listening to DPC Life.
• 43:46
  If today's conversation inspired you, hit follow.
• 43:50
  Leave a review and share it with a friend who's ready for change.
• 43:54
  Remember, wherever you are in the journey, your DPC family has
• 43:59
  your back. Until next time, keep building a
• 44:03
  practice and a life that truly fits you.
• 44:08
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  thrive.