Navigating the Storms of Business

You will experience storms as you build your business.

When you find yourself in the middle of one, make sure you hang on tight to your vision. Don't let it go in the storm.

You will weather the storm and get back to working toward your vision—as long as you don't lose sight of it.

This is the first thing I tell EntreMD Business School students going through a storm. You cannot lose sight of your vision.

During a storm is the time to go all in and do what you can to retain that picture. I'll tell you some of the things I've done and some of the things I've taught my clients to do to hang on to that picture in this episode. You'll LOVE my strategies!

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hi dogs, welcome to the Unchanny 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. Umna. Well, hello, hello, my friend. Welcome to another episode of the Entre MD Podcast. And let me tell you, I am grateful that you listen. I am grateful that you share. I'm grateful that you review. And I say that because I am learning, especially as I get older, not to take things for granted. You don't have to listen to this podcast. You don't have to share it with somebody else. They're, you know, like you don't have to do any of these, but you did. And so you did and you do. And I'm so grateful. And I don't wanted to let you know. And I was talking to my sister, and she's a pediatrician as well. She works um in the emergency department uh in the urgent care. That's her thing. She loves it. I tried so hard to get her to come and work with me in my practice. And she was just like, I don't want the continuity of care. You deal with that. I just want to take care of people, fix them, and send them home. And so we could not be more different. We're very different, um, but all both with really great strengths. And so someone I really admire, have a lot of respect for. And we were talking about life in general. We're talking about storms. And, you know, we're both in our 40s. So of course we've experienced a lot of storms. And, you know, I was talking to her about some storms that she had gone through. And I was like, it's just so inspiring watching you because you are just this person who's made of steel. You know, like, you know, storms could come your way. And sometimes, really, all you can do in the storm is do everything you need to do. And, but you still have to stand. Because after doing everything you know to do, the problem may not get resolved right away. The problem, it may still last for months. For some of them, they may last for years, right? We're talking about life here. And it's like you do what you know to do. You you stand in the belief that this is only working out one way. I succeed. And you stand. And it's so funny because we're, you know, we're standing outside by her car, and we, you know, we I think our neighbors must have thought we were crazy because we both stood and you know, just took this stance, like we've braced ourselves for impact, you know, like we can, we, we, we can take it. And sometimes in the midst of that, there's there's you know, doubt that creeps up, and you and you see the situation not quite working the way you expect it to, but all you can do, like the win is that you didn't quit, like you just stand, right? And so I started thinking about that, you know, in terms of business. And there is really no such thing as a business that does not face storms. And it doesn't mean like dramatic, crazy storms. It may be a period where you've done everything you know to do. You do you're doing all the things you did in sales that brought you to a million. And you're just looking at the results you're getting, and you're like, wait a minute, this is not, this is not, the math is not mathing. This is not playing out the way it should, right? You know, with the effort that I'm putting in, it may be that you're trying to build a team and you you have a number of team members who left, and you were already maybe a little short staffed before they left. And you're like, oh my goodness, how are we going to manage that? And and and that right there, right? Right, that right there is a storm. Sometimes the storm is not anything really external. It's just you go through this season where maybe things haven't quite worked out as well, and you have this self-doubt. Or things worked out so well. You had this, you know, you you crossed your first million and you're like, and you were optimistic, right? They're like, oh my goodness, we did all this, we're here, now we're gonna go there. And maybe you set your goal like, oh, we're gonna do another million dollar year, or we're gonna do 1.5 or two, or we're gonna like, you're like, we're gonna 5x this thing. And you're hit with an intense, intense, this intense season where it's self-doubt the entire time. Well, you know, that first million happened, but really was a fluke or it was an accident. You don't have what it takes to pull it off. And maybe there's some situations that actually even reinforce that, and you're like, oh my goodness, this is true. And the number doesn't have to be a million, it could be any number, but the point is you got a victory, and then, you know, like you have this wave of this was a fluke. And so you're dealing with this place where you just feel like you're a fraud and you show up or you're showing up apologetically, and and because of that, you're not getting the result, and it's like it's a self-fulfilling per, you know, prophecy, and all these things are going on, and you're like, what do I do? Right. And the thing is that there's so many things that you can do, but I really only want to talk about two today. And when you find yourself in the middle of a storm, no matter what kind of storm it is in your business, you find you find yourself in the middle of a storm, the first thing, the very first thing to do is uh to make sure you don't lose your vision. Right? Make sure you don't lose your vision, that your vision stays top of mind. You know, in the entrepreneur business school, they'll tell you, I say this all the time, that a lot of times the problem is not the problem. The problem is the new picture of yourself and your business and all of that that the problem makes you have, right? You have this distorted image, you can't believe the vision anymore and things like that. That's the real problem with the problem, right? And so you say you have this drought where sales are not working the way the way they should, or you're just having this horrible time with team, and and you know the people are walking away and they're telling you you're not a good leader and all these things, all the. And it that's not the problem. The problem is then you start seeing yourself as someone who's not a good leader. And you're you're like, I can't hire that kind of person because I can't lead that kind of person. All these kind of things come up for you. The first thing is you you cannot lose sight of the vision. That is the time to go all in and do what you can to retain that picture. Part of part of standing is like, I'm not letting that picture go. I'm not letting that picture go. I'm hanging on to it. And, you know, I'll tell you how that plays out practically, right? Because this is not something you're gonna say, oh, I'm gonna hold on to the picture. Oh no, because everything on the outside is talking to you about how that vision is so stupid and you should throw it away, right? You're gonna hang on to it. And I'll tell you some of the things that I've done, there's some of the things I've taught my clients to do as far as hanging on to that picture. They're all strategies, but the idea is just to you are seeing what is not working, you are seeing what is not going according to plan. You must see even more where you're going, right? You can't lose sight of that. And so I have done so many things. I have done vision boards, and those are like visual representations of the vision, right? You know, representations. And so for me, you know, like with entree MD, I have this picture of helping 100,000 doctors, right? Profitable businesses. I have a picture for what I want the entree MD business school to look at, how many doctors I want to be in the business school, the kinds of results I want them to get, and all of those things. I have all of those pictures. And so I have a vision board, which is just a graphical representation, a picture representation of what I am, you know, what my vision is. Okay. And some people are like, oh, that's woo-woo. This is not woo woo. This is how you fight. Storms will show up in your business. This is this is a critical part of how you fight because once the picture is gone, it's all gone. Okay. I mean, think about it. If if you're in a room and in a house and it's nighttime and all the lights are on, you can run through the house. If all the lights are off, you can maybe still move, but you're not going to run, right? Your ability to go at a speed, your ability to accelerate is tied to your ability to see. If you can't see, you're not running. Anyway, so a vision board is something I would do. The other thing that I would do is like I am, I'm really moved by words, and I have a photographic memory. And so when I see something that's written and I close my eyes, I can see it all over again, right? And so I would have a written version, right, of my vision board, a written version of what my vision is, right? With the 100,000 doctors that I'm helping with the number in the on-training business, like all of those kind of things. I would have that, and you know, there's Canva, so I'll put it on a Canva thing and make it a lot of times, even till this day, that's the screensaver on my phone, that's the screensaver on my desk, on my on my laptop. So every time I'm opening these devices, that's the first thing that I see, right? And, you know, so I so I have that. I also have, you know, I started this recently where I would describe in detail what my vision looks like. Like my vision for the entree MD business school, the entree MD is about four pages long. And I tell the story of it. I tell, you know, how we're positioned in the marketplace, how we're perceived, the results we help people get, how many people are in the school, the kinds, you know, the kinds of doctors who are in the school. We, you know, we talk about, we talk about all of those things, right? The podcast, what that looks like, the number of downloads we have of the podcast, and all of that. And it's it's really written out with the story, with the feelings, with all of that. And and I would read that. I would read that, you know, because what am I trying to do? I'm trying to make that picture as concrete as possible. That no matter what is thrown at me, I don't lose that picture. Okay. The other one I'll do is, you know, I learned, I don't remember who I learned this from, but I need to find out so I can give them credit. But I would have times where I would actually record myself as though I was, it was me from 12 months from now, right? So 12 months from now, I do it at the beginning of the year. So that would be me at December 31st of whatever that following year is. And I am at a place where everything we tried to accomplish, we had accomplished it. And I would say, hey, hey, listen, this is me from December 31st. Let me tell you, we did this, right? And I like, you know, we accomplished this, we accomplished that, we accomplished this. It's so amazing. You know those things that you're afraid of? It didn't stop us. You know, the oppositions, it didn't stop us. Like, we got it done. And I recorded on my phone. And so sometimes where there's a little self-doubt or things like that, I just hit play and I'm listening to myself say that. So powerful, right? And so these are like different things that I do. And, you know, like so for the vision board, I'm looking at it. For the the written verse, I'm looking at that. For the four-page long one, I'm reading that out loud. You know, for the, you know, back from the future, me talking to me, you know, I'm playing that. And I do that all so that I can hang on to that picture. So when I come and I'm recording a podcast episode, I'm doing it from there. If I am teaching on a Facebook Live, I'm doing it from that standpoint. When I'm teaching in the on-trained business school, I'm showing up as that person. Like it drives the way you show up, it drives the way you act, it drives your attitudes, it drives all of that. And so I keep that in front of me. Now I do that on a regular basis, but in the middle of a storm, oh my goodness, even more. Because part of your standing, part of you saying no retreat, no surrender, part of what will make you not quit, whether that's obvious quitting or quiet quitting, right? You know how you quit on your business, but nobody knows but you. Yeah. Like when you are in those seasons, you double down on that stuff to keep your vision. Okay. To keep your vision. The second thing is, you know, when you're in the middle of a crisis, you're gonna ask a lot of questions. Like, what is not working? Why is it not working? What do I need to tweak? Where do I need to pivot? And all of those things. But the one thing you don't want to stop is you don't want to stop taking action. Right? And so, for instance, you may say, this year, yeah, I don't know what's going on. I'm not getting as many clients or as many patients as I wanted to. It was working better last year, and things like that. That is a perfect time to audit and say, okay, am I actually doing the things or do I have them planned, but it's not happening? Is my team actually doing what they're supposed to be doing? You're looking at metrics, you're looking at all of those things. You're like, okay, has the market changed fundamentally, right? If the market's changed fundamentally, how do I need to pivot so I can still serve them where they are and still get the clients I need and all of those kind of things? You can say, well, is it an ignorance problem, right? Like, so maybe, maybe it's yeah, maybe it's time for me to join the entrepreneur business school, maybe to lean in if I'm already in the school and like learn the strategies and all of those things. Like, what exactly is going on? But it's not about coming to a full stop and then examining what's going on, and you have like weeks and weeks where you've taken no action. No, you stay in action, you do what you know to do as you discover how to do that better, right? Like you discover quickly, but you stay in action. Now, when you're in the middle of a crisis or you're in the middle of a storm, sometimes it's it's so hard. Like because you just want to curl up. You just want to curl up and sleep and not do it. And the thing is, that's that's not the time to do that. Part of your standing and just weathering the storm, and part of, you know, this, the whole break breakthrough today is that I didn't quit, is just staying in action in spite of, right? Staying in action, especially these are test tried and tested things, right? Like staying in action. Now, having said that, there may be times where you're like, this is too much, I can't, I really do need a break. That's why you have a team, right? And so that means you can have your team like, guys, we need to be out here, we need to be doing sales. If your big thing is hiring, we need to be putting out, we need the ads out, we need to be reaching out to our contacts, we need to be interviewing and all of those things. Like, lead your team and go take the break. But your company, you don't want your company taking a break where there's this whole season where there's no activity at all, right? Because if there's, you know, like what you see you're in your business today is as a result of things you did maybe 90 days ago, right? It's not stuff you're doing now, it's not stuff you did yesterday. And so if you have, imagine having a 90-day season where you don't put in the work, you don't, there's no activity, there's nothing happening. What that means is three months from now, you're gonna have this really big, like self-created personal recession because there's nothing to produce results there. Do you see what I'm saying? And so, in the midst of the doubt, in the midst of the concern, in the midst of, oh, this hurts and all of that, you wanna make sure that your company, you're still leading your company to the activities that will produce the result, right? And so that's part of the way you stand. And I really stop to explain this because there will always be things, always be things. It could be in your business, it could be in your personal life. And there will always be things that will show up. There will be seasons when they'll show up. And when they show up, you want to be ready. When they show up, you want to stand. This stuff, this stuff I'm talking about, there's nothing cute about it. Let me just tell you now, there's nothing cute about it. There's nothing cool about it. These are the things that people will probably never post about on Instagram or TikTok or whatever, right? We see the highlight reels, but these things happen. And I want you to understand that they happen. So when they do, you're not thrown off. And then two, I don't want you to quit in that moment. Now, are there reasons to quit? Yes, there are, but you want quitting to be a strategic decision. Like I decided I'm not gonna do this anymore, which is very different from oh my goodness, the storm came and I just quit quit and walked away. I couldn't take it anymore. I don't want you to do that. You're a whole physician, you've had so many opportunities to quit, like because what you've gone through, what you've trained for, it's hard. But you didn't. And I'm just asking you to not quit, right? So this stuff is messy, it's ugly, it's hard, it's trying, but I am telling you you can get through it. Okay. You can get through it. I even want to pause and give you a third thing, right? So, you know, we talked about holding on to the vision. We talked about staying your company staying in action. The third is really leaning on your community. Nobody, nobody is designed to do this business thing alone. And I talk a lot about it. And for instance, if you know, you're you're a physician, entrepreneur, and you're committed. This is part of the reason why we fight so hard to build the community that is the entree MD business school community, because you need that community. You need them in the good times, or oh my goodness, do you need them in the storm or what? Right. And so many doctors in the school have had personal storms, have had business storms, but they didn't have to do it alone. You don't have to do this stuff alone. Now, you might say, well, you know, I have my own community, and that's good, right? But I'm I'm but I want you to lean on your community. Don't be ashamed or afraid to ask for help. Don't make, don't think it makes you weak. Don't think it makes you it means that you don't know what you're doing. Everybody needs help. Everybody needs help. Imagine a president who's a president alone. Imagine the CEO of a Fortune 500 company who's running the company alone. That does not exist. You can't do that, right? And so lean, don't be afraid, don't be too proud. Don't be too proud to take help that you suffer in silence. Like you don't have to. That is optional. It's so optional. Okay. All right. So I want you to fight. I want you to fight. I want to see doctors build like the most phenomenal businesses in Ultra MD business school. Every time we end our call, I'm looking like look, guys, we are building the most innovative, most impactful, most profitable businesses inside and outside of the exam room. And that's what we're doing. I want to see so many businesses thrive. Why? Because we need enough examples, enough examples to tip, to tip the entire narrative for the physician community. And guess what? We're the visionaries who are gonna pull it off. You and I, right? And so don't quit. Okay, when the storm comes, I want you to go like Dr. Una told me about you, and I know what to do, and I'm gonna stand. Like you take that stance, like put your heel in, like I brace yourself for impact. Like, I can do this, I can take this, and I'm gonna come out on the other side. And that's the beauty of storms. If you go through them, if you go through them with the right attitude, with your radical ownership, with holding on to your vision and all of that stuff. The truth of the matter is you come out stronger, better. You end up saying, you know what, I never want to go through that again. But I wouldn't trade that experience for anything. I want that to be your story. Okay. Where storms were like it's a part of life, it may hurt, but we're gonna stand. We don't quit. We don't give up on our vision, we don't give up on our businesses. And wow, I would love to celebrate all of that with you. Okay. All right. So this is not a jump all over the place type of episode, but it is to prepare you so you're always ready. It could be a pandemic, it could be a recession, it could be hyperinflation, it could be a hospital came and put a practice right next to your practice, it could be, you know, like a one-star review, it could be a team member quit, it could be anything, right? It could be anything. You could be a coach, you went on stage, you didn't do so good, and all of that stuff doesn't matter. We could come out of all of this on top, right? And that's what I want to see for you. So I want you to take this episode. I want you to share this with the doctors on your life, in your life. I want you to share it on social media. Say, hey, check out this episode. And oh my goodness, subscribe to this podcast is the free MBA for all physician entrepreneurs because we are part of a movement. We are creating change in medicine. I'm so grateful I get to do this with you. And I'll see you on the next episode of the OmtreMD Podcast. Hey, if you love listening to the Om Train Day podcast, I want to invite you to join OmtraMD 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 omtramd.com forward slash on demand, and I'd love to have you join us. See you on the inside.