The EntreMD Podcast

How to Own Your Goals and Finally Achieve Success

• Dr. Una • Episode 477

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How committed are you to your goals? We’re already halfway through the year, and if you’re like most entrepreneurs, you may realize you haven’t put in the hard work needed to achieve them.

Well, it’s easy to get caught up in distractions and lose focus on what’s really important. But here’s the reality—your time is valuable, and you only get so much of it. So, what are you going to do about it?

In this episode, I want to challenge you and actually reflect on your goals, ask yourself the difficult questions, and make sure you are truly ready and willing to do what it takes to be successful.

I’ll show you the powerful role of commitment and what it means for personal and business growth. Plus, some helpful tips on setting clear goals, making strategic decisions, and living a version of your dream life today.

Tune in now and take the first step toward committing to your success.

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Key Takeaways: 

  • 00:00 Intro
  • 00:20 Time is our most valuable resource
  • 04:37 What does commitment mean?
  • 05:31 Own your real goal
  • 11:26 Commit to doing what’s required
  • 16:43 Live your dream life now
  • 22:17 One of the goals I’ve decided to own
  • 25:30 Outro

—

Additional Resources:


When you are ready to work with us, here are three ways:

  • EntreMD Business School Accelerator - If you are looking to make a 180 turnaround in your business in 90 days, this is the program for you.
  • EntreMD Business School Grow - This is our year-long program with a track record of producing physician entrepreneurs who are building 6, 7 and 7+ figure businesses. They do this while building their dream lives!
  • EntreMD Business School Scale - This is our high-level mastermind for physicians who have crossed the seven figure milestone and want to build their businesses to be well oiled machines that can run without them.

To get on a call with my team to determine your next best step, go here ...

Speaker 1:

You have to be honest with yourself, because the question you want to ask yourself is at the end of the year. If I look back and all I did is what I set out to do, will I be happy? If you're not going to be happy, that means you haven't owned your goal. There's something that will make you happy that you've refused to own Hi docs. Welcome to the EntreMD podcast, where it's all about helping amazing physicians just like you embrace entrepreneurship so you can have the freedom to live life and practice medicine on your terms. I'm your host, dr Imna.

Speaker 1:

At the time of this recording, we are in the last part of June, which you know. When you think about it, this is the end of the first half of the year, this is the end of the second quarter of the year, and it usually gets me in this mode where I do a lot of thinking and I ask myself a lot of questions, and over the years, I've lived a life where every 90 days, I'm different, every 90 days, my business is different, my goals change, things shift. I'd like to say that I have a very progressive life. As far as you know my capacity growing and you know the level of my life and my business and all of that stuff growing, and I attribute a lot of that to asking questions and answering them honestly, right, and I figured I'd come share that process with you. This is a podcast episode that is gonna make you a huge difference in your business and your life. It's actually one of those that I'll say you probably wanna share it with a friend and say, hey, watch this and let's take these prompts and come back and let's have some honest conversation. And the reason for that is this I want you to think about something significant.

Speaker 1:

Like you got into a business deal and you lost $30,000, or you lost $100,000, right or you lost some material possession or whatever. Maybe even remember a time where it actually happened to you and it hurt. It doesn't hurt nearly as much as getting to be 80 or 90 and looking back and realize that you wasted your most precious resource, which is your time. And because we've woken up every morning, we've been alive. Sometimes we take it for granted. It seems like you know. Sometimes we take it for granted. It seems like you know we have a limitless source of you know amount of time to be on this planet, and the truth is that we don't right, and you know I'm not a morbid person or anything right? You guys know I attend my 90th birthday party fairly often just to see, like, am I on track? Am I doing what I really want to do? Am I doing what I set out to do? Have distractions gotten the better of me? Am I not owning my goals and all of those kinds of things. It makes me do that often.

Speaker 1:

And I want to challenge you to do the same. Like, if you continue on the trajectory where you are, are you going to be where you want to be? You know, are you going to have the life you want to have and all of that. So it's something to look at. It's something to think about and to think about often, right, the people who make the best decisions today are the people who have a long-term perspective. Right, if you make a decision just based on where you are in the here and now, a lot of times it won't be the most strategic decision.

Speaker 1:

Think of it, as you know, as a physician. Think about the long-term perspective you had when you were in high school. You behaved a certain way in high school. You behaved a certain way in pre-med. You behaved a certain way in med school because you had this long-term perspective. It helped you delay gratification, it curbed some vices that you may be tempted to get into and all of those things, because you're like, no, but someday, over a decade from now, this is where I want to be.

Speaker 1:

I'm just asking you to do that again with the most important part of your life, which is your actual life, all of it, right? So there are three questions that I've been sitting with and you know again you can. I mean, like lying to yourself is like one of the most terrible things to do. Right, because you require the right answer, the right questions to get the right answers. And the right answers are what you help you do, what needs to be done. It shows you where you're wasting time. It shows you where you're deceiving yourself. It shows you where distractions have gotten the better of you, like you putting yourself in a position where you can tell yourself the honest truth. I mean, like that's the best thing you can do for yourself. So I kind of want to share these questions with you and have you take the time to answer them for yourself. This is going to rock your world Now. You know, a lot of these questions come from the lens of business, right, but you can extrapolate, okay.

Speaker 1:

So first question, and this is all around your commitments. Okay, so commitment is a word we use quite a bit, but I really wanted us to look at the definition, so I'm going to give that to you here. What does commitment mean? It means the state or quality of being dedicated to a cause or activity. Okay, the state or quality of being dedicated to a cause or activity. And here are some words that are similar, that are synonyms dedication, devotion, allegiance, loyalty, faithfulness, fidelity, bond, adherence, attentiveness. These are words that are synonyms with the word commitment. Okay, and so these three questions have to do with my level of commitment. Okay, it has to do with your level of commitment.

Speaker 1:

So the first question here is are you committed to your real goal? Are you committed to your real goal? So let's break this down a little bit, okay, now, a lot of times and when I say real, I'm talking about your real goal. So let's break this down a little bit. Okay, now, a lot of times, and when I say real goal, I'm talking about your real business goal. Okay, we can even break it down and say your real revenue goal. A lot of times.

Speaker 1:

This is one of the places where I find entrepreneurs lie to themselves the most right, like what is my real goal? Most of them won't admit what their real goal is. Okay, and there are a number of reasons why that may be One, let's look at revenue goals. Like, I can't bring myself to own this revenue goal because if I do, it means I'm greedy, it means I'm manipulative, it means, you know, I just care about money, I don't care about patients and all of those things. And because they have all this mind drama, they have never, ever, owned their true goal. Some have never set goals, like, haven't even touched it at all. But those that set them they just put a goal so it doesn't quote unquote violate their conscience, okay, okay, some of the people don't own their real goal because they don't think they can pull it off and and they don't want what they think would be the pressure, they don't want the embarrassment, they don't want to be stressed out, and so they never own the goal. It's like, yeah, whatever, I'm just going to add 5% or 10% to what I'm already doing and that's fine, but that's not what they actually want.

Speaker 1:

Okay, some other people don't want to own a goal because maybe you're maybe you're a physician and you know being an entrepreneur is like being on the dark side and you don't want to. You don't want to be on the dark side, you don't want to be a sellout, so it's not socially acceptable and so you don't own the goal, not even to yourself. You don't own it. You don't own it Right, and some others just haven't sat down to like, really lean into what do I want, what do I truly want. And that doesn't mean you have to go post your goal on social media. In fact, please do not post your goal on social media, right? That doesn't mean you have to do that.

Speaker 1:

But you have to be honest with yourself, because the question you want to ask yourself is at the end of the year, if I look back and all I did is what I set out to do, will I be happy? This is the million dollar question. Will I be happy? If you're not going to be happy, that means you haven't owned your goal. There's something that will make you happy that you've refused to own. Now you may say, oh, you're making me so excited, great, when you turn 90 and you look back on 2025 and you see, this is what you used your life to accomplish. In 2025, what will 90 year old self say to you? Will 90 year old self be excited? Or will 90 year old self say you know, that's not what you really wanted to do?

Speaker 1:

And so, first of all, have I even owned my real goal right? Have I even owned it? And if you did, own it, are you committed to it? And people will say you know all the time I'm committed. But let me explain what that means. Okay, so let's go back to our definition. It is the state or quality of being dedicated to a cause or activity. It means being dedicated, devoted. You have allegiance, you have loyalty, faithfulness, fidelity, bond, adherence, attentiveness. Okay, it is you doing what is required. So, when I meet an entrepreneur who tells me you know, I love what I do, but I'm not going to market, that is a person who is not committed. Okay, okay, the person is not committed, and we'll get into that in a second. But are you committed to your goal? Have you owned it? Have you decided I'm going to pull this off? Have you decided this is happening? Have you decided to show up like the person who would do it? Have you decided I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. It's a commitment that you have to make. Okay Again, why is this important?

Speaker 1:

Guys, time is our most valuable resource. We don't want to go year to year, month to month, quarter to quarter, week to week, day to day, doing things that don't matter, doing things that we don't even want, not owning what we truly want, because if you don't own it, it's not going to happen. There are many people who want to run seven figure businesses. They've never owned it and if you don't own it, chances are it's not going to happen. You want to help a certain number of people. If you don't own it, chances are it's not going to happen. What do you want? Be clear on it. Own it. What is the absolute worst that will happen? You don't accomplish it. Cry me a river.

Speaker 1:

When I did my first book, the Entrepreneur Method, in the launch, what I decided was you know, we're going to do a thousand copies. We're going to do a thousand copies because I had read that the average nonfiction book does about 250 copies for the first year and I was like we're not going to do that, we're going to go ahead and we're going to take care of business. Okay, okay, so decided that, well, how many did we sell? 850. Okay, 850 didn't hit the thousand. Cry me a whole river.

Speaker 1:

Okay, because at the end of the day, your goal is designed to kind of point you in a direction and show you how to show up and show you how to behave and show you the actions you need to take to pull it off, Show you the kind of person you have to become to pull it off, and so you can go all in. But if you didn't hit it, so you're probably a lot better off than if you didn't set it at all. Okay, okay, so that's the first one. Have you owned your goal? Are you committed to your goal, or did you set a comfortable one? Maybe that's your thing, you just don't want to be bothered, so you just set something super comfortable that you can do in your sleep. Second one, second commitment Are you committed to doing what is required? Let me tell you something If you're not committed to doing what is required, you're not committed to your goal. Period, end of story. End of story.

Speaker 1:

Okay, now let me tell you some things. Let me tell you some things here. Okay, you can either treat your business like this thing that must be accomplished, or you can treat it like you know, it's a buffet. Oh, you know, there's marketing, there's sales, there's branding, there's mindset work, there's building a profitable team, there's leading a team, there's doing all that stuff. Ah, I think I'm going to have a little mindset there and I'm going to have a little bit of team there, but the marketing and sales I don't like that. This is not a buffet.

Speaker 1:

Your business requires what it requires, and I will tell you a few things that your business will require. Your business will require that you make the transition from physician to physician entrepreneur. You become the kind of person who understands how to use time, who understands how to cast vision, who understands how to set vision, who understands how to set goals, who understands how to buy back their time, who understands these things, who understands that money's not bad. Money is paper with dead men's faces on it, that mercury paper with dead men's faces on it. That's all that it is. Someone who understands that marketing is my job, selling is my job, all that it will require that.

Speaker 1:

It will require that you make that transition, and so, for as long as you are in resistance and as you listen to this, don't go like oh, I know this, I want you to check yourself because this is what I'm doing. I want you to check yourself, like do I do this? Is this what I'm doing? And so, as long as you're thinking I'm not going to do that and you're in resistance, it shouldn't take all that. I don't have to do this. If my service is good, if my bedside manner is good, if I can practice good medicine, I don't need to do any of this. As long as you are there, you are in a place that is just destined for pain and suffering that you created all by yourself. Because these things are required, they're required, okay, okay. So making that transition is required, marketing is required, selling is required, building a team is required. These things are required. You changing, you evolving this is a requirement.

Speaker 1:

Are you committed to doing what is required to make your dream a reality? Are you committed to doing what is required? So, all the time, people will tell me oh, I want to do this, but Dr Una don't talk to me about social media. And then I proceed to talk to them about social media, right? Because, oh, I want to do this, but Dr Una don't talk to me about social media. And then I proceed to talk to them about social media, right? Because, oh, I don't. You know, I don't want to have to do that. I'm a very private person, all that stuff. Well, so am I. But let me tell you the thing, right, the bigger issue is not the social media, and the reason why I always talk about it is because the bigger issue is not the social media.

Speaker 1:

The are things that are going to be required that you're not going to like. What is the evidence that you're going to do them? You can't come into a business like. You can't say, okay, I'm going to build a million dollar business. You've never built a million dollar business before. You've been at 500,000 for the last five years. And then you're also resistant to all the things that need to change for you to hit a million. The version of you that exists now cannot create a million dollars. If you could, you would have. So some things need to change, and so, as long as you're resisting the change, you're not committed.

Speaker 1:

Now you can say, but what if I don't do that? That's okay, that's okay for you. But here's the deal you have a gift of 24 hours every 24 hours. You have a gift of 90 days every 90 days. What are you going to do with it? Four hours, you have a gift of 90 days every 90 days. What are you going to do with it? Are you going to spend it deceiving yourself that you're committed to a goal that you're not actually committed to? Like, if you don't want to do it, just own it. Like I don't want to do it, I'm cool. If this is where I stay, I stay at this level for the rest of my life. I don't want to do anything else. This is like I don't want to do it. But if that's the case, they own it. But don't pretend like you want what you want and you're committed to it when you're not willing to do what is required. Do what is required. Now, you must understand that. You know like I'm talking to myself too. Okay, so all this stuff here, I'm talking to myself too, and I'm not going to let myself go for another, you know, another week, another 30 days, another 60 days, another 90 days without doing what is required. I'm not going to do it.

Speaker 1:

There's an area of my business where I was like, oh, we need a who to solve this problem. And for some reason, I found the person. And what was the price tag on it? $24,000. What do you think I do? What do you think I did? I paid $24,000. Why? And I'm up to like, I'm just giving you an example, okay Now, why did I do that? Because where I'm trying to go, it just flat out costs what it costs. So the question is, do I want it or not? And I don't know about you, but I want it. I'm committed to my goals. I'm committed to doing what is required. I'm examining myself and every place where I see resistance, I'm shifting that resistance and I'm aligning myself so I can change, and I don't. I'm like you. I'm a human being. I don't want to change, like that's not my default setting, but it is required. I decided that I like to change because it's a requirement. Am I committed to doing what's required? Are you committed to doing what's required? So, what is required? Am I willing to do it?

Speaker 1:

The you you are now cannot deliver the business or the life that you're looking for. He or she simply cannot. Does it have it in her? Does it have it in him? Doesn't? There's another version of you and you have to become that version of you. There's another version of you that pulls it off, okay. Third commitment that I'm looking at, and this is so important because I don't want to live in regret when I turn 90. I just don't want to, okay. So I want you to think about this. I want you to think about this.

Speaker 1:

I have talked to a lot of older people. I love talking to older people and I do it because I'm going there. I'm going there and I want to have some kind of foresight. I want to know now, at 46, some of the things that 90 year old me go like no, you shouldn't have done that, or you should have done that, or you should have paid attention to this, or whatever. And when I talk to older people, like I talked to my mom okay, don't tell her I called her older she thinks we're the same age.

Speaker 1:

My mom is in her seventies and my mom was a hardcore entrepreneur, right, like my dad, was not. I was more like my dad. My mom was an entrepreneur. My mom was a real estate investor. My mom was unstoppable, unstoppable. She set her heart to something, she did it. She negotiated like a boss. She did all the things. Okay, so she did all of those things, but now, in her 70s, she doesn't really talk about any of those things.

Speaker 1:

Very interesting transition. She doesn't talk about them at all. Like she has the property, she has all of that stuff. She sold her business and she doesn't talk about that at all. She talks about her kids. She talks about her grandkids. She loves spending time with her kids and her grandkids. She loves seeing the unity amongst all of us. She spends time on her health. She spends time on her relationship with God. That's pretty much it. And I look at that and I'm like wow, and she tells me things like don't worry about anything, nothing is worth just worrying about. You know, do your best, live your life, enjoy your relationships. It's very interesting.

Speaker 1:

Now, I've never been 70 before, but I've talked to a lot of 70 and 80 year olds and these are some of the things they really prioritize. And so, because of that, I don't want to live a life where I build businesses at the expense of the rest of my life, and I want to invite you to maybe take that up too. I don't want to do it. I don't want to get up there and go like man. You know, I wish I didn't sacrifice my marriage or sacrifice my kids and all of this stuff because I was trying to build this business and change the world. And so this third commitment is am I committed to living my dream life now? And when I say dream life now, okay, so let me explain what I do mean.

Speaker 1:

At every point in time, there's a version of your dream life that you can live. Okay, so maybe you can't take off three months a year, but maybe you can take off three weeks a year. Maybe you can't go to Dubai and you know, go to, you know some really luxurious hotel there and stuff to have this vacation, but maybe you could travel within the country and go somewhere you haven't been to before with your family. Maybe you know you can't be there every single day and spending hours with your kids and all of those things, but maybe you can build this, you know, like family tradition. Where Friday is, you can name whatever it is right Movie Friday or fun Fridays with mom or whatever it is and you can take a two hour block and make it a magical experience. That's a version of your dream life, right? Maybe you don't have the bandwidth, you know, to work with a trainer three days a week, but maybe you have the bandwidth to work with them once. Maybe you have the bandwidth for a massage every month or every week, maybe you have like whatever that is. So there's a version you can live right now and there's a version that you will live next quarter and next year and the next decade.

Speaker 1:

Are you committed to living your dream life right now? Whatever version that is that you have access to? And, for me, I really, really, really love what I do and I have an incredible work ethic, and so, because of that, I could unknowingly sacrifice my dream life because I just love what I do, so I can get lost in it, and so I have to have these regular checks where I'm like how is the rest of your life doing? How is your marriage? How is your relationship with your kids? How's your health? How are the relationships right, so outside of family, but the relationships that you've been gifted? What is your relationship with God like now? What are the skills that you're developing right, like your intellectual development? Like how is that piece going? What do your finances look like? Because you can have a business and it's doing great, but your personal finances are out of whack and there's no investment for the future and all of those things. What do all those things look like?

Speaker 1:

Are you committed to living your dream life, the version of it you can live right now? These are the questions I'm asking myself. And by committed, what does that mean? Do I have times where my husband and I can, you know, get together and talk and check in with each other? And all of those things Like, what is the system for that? Right? And you might say, oh, it should be spontaneous. Whatever, I have a system around me, okay, like with the kids, right.

Speaker 1:

And especially in the world we live in, like you can be on your device, they're on their devices and you're in the same room and you thought you spent time together, but you didn't. You really didn't, right. And so I'm looking at all these things like skill level Okay, when was the last time you read a book, your master skill for the year? Like, are you working on that? Right, these are powerful questions to ask. These are powerful questions to ask and if you ask them, they will help you make very strategic decisions.

Speaker 1:

So I want you to take this episode and I want you to share with another doc and I want you guys to sit and kind of talk through these things and you guys can call each other out and, like I see you playing small here Is this what you truly want? Like you know, like if this was, you know, five years from now, this is what you're geared to do, would you be happy with. Want, like you know, like if this was, you know, five years from now and this is what you're geared to do, would you be happy with it. But this is important. I will tell you one of the goals that you know I've decided to own and you know I worked it out till I got there and that's really that I want to support a thousand private practice owners. Now, you know, I have the goal of helping a hundred thousand physicians and all of that. But practice owners Now, you know, I have the goal of helping a hundred thousand physicians and all of that.

Speaker 1:

But when I look at the number of private practices going out of business every day is almost every day on Facebook, I'd see it, you know. Oh, I decided to close my shop and I'm not judging anybody, you know. Of course, there are different reasons why people will shut down businesses and all of that stuff, but there are a lot of them where the issue is cashflow, and so because of that, we built a very simple system, like we're just going to teach you five things. We're not going to teach you 1 million things, we're going to teach you five things. And if you can master these five things, you're going to put yourself in a position where you have a private practice that's profitable, that helps a lot of people, gives you financial freedom and time freedom right and you'll put yourself in a position where, okay, I'm good, I'm profitable, I'm profitable. If you want, you can come into the Entremdi Business School, we can take it to a whole other level, and all of that I decided I'm going to do that, okay.

Speaker 1:

So here's my big ask for you Any doctor you know any who is running a private practice. I want you to do me a solid and tell them hey, dr Una launched the Profitable Private Practice Movement. You should check it out. It's entremdicom forward slash movement, and it is for less than the cost of a cappuccino a day. I still have friends till today telling me that I have lost my mind for offering it at the investment level that I offered it at. But the reason for that is simple I don't want to see a private practice owner go out of business, except they want to, but not because they have to, because of cashflow and all of those things.

Speaker 1:

We do not get a business education. Yes, I know that, but we can learn a few things that can at least put us in a position where we're profitable. Okay, so that's mine and what's yours? What's yours? Own it. You're like how am I going to do it? You own it first, and then the how follows and then you commit to the how. Right?

Speaker 1:

I want you to take some time to do this, and what I really hope for you is, as you do this, that what you want to do becomes clearer. And please don't fall into the trap of well, it's not clear, I don't know. Stop and look and sit with it and search inside and ask yourself questions, but don't just walk away and say I don't know. You can't spend your one precious life not knowing. You can't. And you're a whole physician. You know a lot of stuff, you've learned a lot of stuff. You can figure this out too, right?

Speaker 1:

I want you to get some clarity on that and as you get clarity, the strategy will become clearer. And when you start executing on that strategy and I would love to see a DM where you're going, like Dr Una, you will not believe what happened. Of course, I will share it with me, right? So I'm rooting for you. Please hear me. I hope you can hear it. I am rooting for you. Look at this and answer these questions and make a decision that fear is not going to stop you and let's go on and create the most magical 30-day block, 60-day block, 90-day block that we have ever experienced, because now we're taking strategic action and we're committed, like all the way committed. Okay, so go do that. I'll see you on the next episode.