The EntreMD Podcast

How I Run 5 Companies in 20 Hours a Week

• Dr. Una • Episode 484

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👉 Ready for the next step? Book a call: https://program.www.entremd.com/call 

Ever feel like there’s just not enough time to do everything—build your business, care for your family, and actually have a life?

I get it. As a physician, entrepreneur, wife, and mom of four, I used to think I had to choose between success and sanity. But not anymore. In this episode, I’m sharing exactly how I run five companies in just 20 hours a week—without burning out, sacrificing family time, or losing sleep.

I’ll walk you through the five core strategies I use to protect my time and maximize impact. These are the same strategies I teach inside the EntreMD Business School, and they’ve helped countless doctors reclaim 5, 10—even 20 hours a week.

Tune in and discover how you can take back your time, scale smarter, and build a business and life you love!

P.S. Ready to build your million-dollar physician business? Download your FREE worksheet today: https://entremd.com/worksheet/ 

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Key Takeaways: 

  • 00:00 Intro 
  • 03:18 Clarity and focus
  • 06:22 Operating in your zone of genius 
  • 13:20 Ruthless time management 
  • 15:40 Prioritizing team building 
  • 18:30 System building 
  • 22:11 Your worksheet 
  • 23:20 Outro 

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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:

I am ruthless when it comes to how I spend my time. If I can spend most of my time doing my zone of genius things, a little time doing the other stuff, then guess what will happen. I get more done by doing less.

Speaker 2:

Hi docs, Welcome to the EntreMD podcast, where it's all about helping amazing physicians just like you embrace entrepreneurship so you can have the freedom to live life and practice medicine on your terms. I'm your host, Dr Una.

Speaker 1:

One of the questions I get asked all the time is Dr Una, where do you find the time to do all the things you do? Okay, and today I am going to show you how I run five companies on 20 hours a week. Okay, all right, now let's put all of this in perspective. So, first of all, I am a wife. I've been married for 19 years. At this point, I have four children. They are 17, 15, 11, and 10 at the time of this recording. All four of them are homeschooled. So I have that going on and I run five companies.

Speaker 1:

One of the companies is my private practice. Second company is Entrez MD, the company that is hosting this podcast YouTube channel. I have a marketing firm. The marketing firm is a firm that serves. It serves about six of our companies, like between me and my husband and I, and so it's an internal company, if you will. We haven't used it for external things much. I have Practice Pilot. Practice Pilot is a financial SaaS product for private practice owners which we use where you can track everything, like your revenues, the productivity of your team, where you are compared to your goals, all of those things Like. It's fantastic. It's called Practice Pilot. And then my fifth company is a nonprofit and from there, I do mentorship for thousands of people every single day. It's a lot of fun. It has this own YouTube channel and all of those things.

Speaker 1:

So five companies, okay, you know, and I do this and I have a life, I have a life, I have time for myself, I have time to think, I have time to go on family vacations. I have. I'm not stressed out. I love what I do, I love the people I have the privilege of serving and I keep looking for how to do more. Okay, so I want to share with you the things that I do and I want to give this disclaimer Maybe, maybe that's what I'll call it this is not about perfection. I probably don't do any of these things perfectly, but I do it enough for it to work. And as you listen into this, I don't want you to feel like this is something that you must do. I just want you to take one, two, three great ideas and implement it in your own business and your own life. So at the end of this episode, after you implement these things, you would have bought back maybe five hours a week, two hours a week, 10 hours a week, 20 hours a week, depending on how you can use this, okay, so in the Entree into Business School, the way we put it is we say we observe, we don't judge right. And so I want you to observe this and kind of take what works for you at this stage, this phase of your business and your life, and just go make it better. You see what I'm saying Just make it better.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so there are five things that I do. I took some time to think about this and I'm going to give you the five things. The first thing that I do that makes this possible is I am very clear on what my goals are and I'm very clear on the pathway I need to be on to get there. The more clarity you have with this. The reason why this is so important is that it eliminates waste. When shiny objects come your way, it's very easy to say no, because you're like this doesn't line up with my goal and this doesn't line up with my path. So I'm going to pass Right, and that is something that I've been really good at, because what makes it possible for me to do that is a high level of focus, high, high, high level of focus.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so, for instance, for my private practice, I'm very clear on the goals. I'm very clear on how much revenue I want us to bring in. I'm very clear what I want our online reputation to look like. I'm very clear on what I want the team to look like. I'm very clear and for our top objectives for the year, I'm very clear on how we get there. Very clear. I want you know because remember I said, this is not perfect. I need to understand this. It means that I have the clearest vision of the practice, where we're going to be at the end of the year, and I have the clearest vision of the pathway to get us there at the time. So, of course, week to week, month to month, we're looking like what's working, what's not working, what do we remove, what do we do more of. And so I'm not saying it was like, oh, we figured it out and we're done. We're still working it, but I have the clear version that I'm working with right now.

Speaker 1:

It's very important we understand that, because sometimes people tell me, oh, I don't have any clarity, and these are people running an established business. I'm like chances are that's not necessarily true Like you have some clarity, but you want to get clear, right. But because we think, oh, I don't have any clarity, then we're not able to capture with any kind of precision what it is we're trying to do. For me, I capture it, I'm very clear. So I'm clear for my private practice. I'm clear for a marketing company. I'm clear for practice pilot. I'm clear for entrepreneur MD. I'm clear for all of these things. And so, because of that, I don't wake up wondering what are we going to do? How are we going to get there? All of these things? I don't wonder about those things.

Speaker 1:

If there's a shiny object that presents itself, I look, I'm like this doesn't line up with anything I'm trying to do or anything I want to choose which one is going to be right, like I have to choose which one is going to be, and I start working the path. So because of that, I do a lot less things. I do a lot less things. I'm not fuzzy, I'm not distracted by what other people are doing. I can literally look at it and go like, wow, that is so nice, I'm happy for them, and I keep it moving. It never occurs to me, oh, should I add this to my business? Except it's something that's in line with where I'm trying to go, but if it's not, it's not. And I'm just like, wow, amazing for you. And so what that does is that it eliminates so many time wasters, so many time wasters. So I'm very clear this is the goal, this is the pathway that will get me to the goal.

Speaker 1:

That's number one, number two, wow, now number two I'm so grateful I get to do, and that is, I operate in my zone of genius. I operate in my zone of genius. It's such a gift that I'm able to do that, but I know what it is and I operate in it. Now I'm going to give you some examples. But what makes this very, very important is that it puts me in a position where I am able to get a whole lot more done by doing a lot less right, like a whole lot done, the amount of stuff I can get done in half a day. I promise you will take some people weeks to a month to do it, but it's because of where I sit, okay, so let me tell you. Let me tell you what that is. And zone of genius I started learning this a long time ago. I think the first person I learned it from was Brian Tracy, and then, after that, I learned it from Michael Hyatt. You know this whole concept of the zone of genius, but I'll tell you what mine is currently okay, because it's been evolving. It's not entirely different, but it's been evolving, okay.

Speaker 1:

So the first one is engineering coaching systems, right, and so I could be a coach and I could be very good at coaching, or I could be someone who engineers, builds coaching systems. So I'm building literally systems of transformation, right? So the Entree Indie Business School, for instance, is not quite a coaching program. You know what I mean. It's not just that, because there's so many other things that happen, right. We're like okay, how do we build the coaching piece? How do we build the curriculum piece? How do we build activities that will drive implementation? How do we build other systems of accountability? How do we build the community that will be the environment that is required for the doctors to thrive? It's a whole engineering project, right, and so that ability to create containers that will make people experience radical transformation, that's the zone of genius for me.

Speaker 1:

Now, when you say zone of genius, it's not just something you like to do, it is something that has the potential to have the biggest impact in your business. Right and you're good at it and you like it. So it's a high value activity and you have competence there and you like it. So, for me, coaching systems, I could do that all day, every day, like all day, every day. And what is the potential impact Now? In the Entrepreneurial Business School, we have it started in every day. And what is the potential impact Now? In the Entrepreneurial Business School, we have decided in June of 2020, okay, june of 2020. And there are people who've been in it since June of 2020. We have a very high renewal rates. We have a very high rate of people who've been there two years, three years, four years, five years. And the reason for that is the coaching system right, like so, between the accountability and the community and the mentorship calls and all of these things. It's a place where they get the support they need and they're getting wild results and, like you know what we do, more of what works and less of what doesn't. So if you aren't joining the business school, it's working, let's go right. So it's very high value, right?

Speaker 1:

The next thing that is my zone of genius is creating thing. That is my zone of genius is creating transformational content, whether that is on social media, email, podcast, youtube, all of that stuff. Now, what is the value of that? Well, my assignment is to disrupt the physician community and rewrite the narrative. Okay, the new norm for physicians now being this place, where we're free to practice medicine on our terms, free to live life on our terms, we have financial freedom, time freedom and freedom to pursue purpose. Like, we have the freedom to do that. And in order to do that, I'm going to need to have content that can change the mindsets, the ideologies, the philosophies, the way of acting, the way of getting results, the possibilities for physicians, whether they work with me or not, right? And so I do that through the podcast, I do that through a YouTube channel, I do that through social media, and it's such a game changer.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so many stories I've heard over the years. Actually, why don't we do this? Take a screenshot of this podcast episode and then post it on your social media and just say, hey, this is what this podcast has made possible for me. Okay, and whatever that is, just put your story there and tag us hashtag EntreeMD. I'll come amplify it, I'll come make some noise, but I really want my heart to know like you're listening to the podcast. How is it making a difference in your life, in your business? Right? So it's very high value and it is one of the best employees in my business, because when people listen to the podcast, they're like, oh my goodness, if I'm getting all these wins from the podcast, what will happen if I actually work with Dr Una? They come in, everything changes.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so it's very high value and I'm good at it and I like it, right, and so that's the second zone of genius. I want you to think about this already. If I build a coaching system that is able to create six, seven or multiple seven-figure entrepreneurs and I create this content, that's changing the lives of everybody who listens to it. And it's a nurturing tool, right, inviting people to come into the Ontario Empty Business School. Think about the results it's creating. It's two activities. It's two areas, okay, and then the third one. The third one is collaboration. Okay, and that has two parts to it. In a way, it's collaborating with my team. How am I creating results through my team?

Speaker 1:

I have, you know, great teams across all of these companies. I don't work in any of them by myself and I have people who do phenomenal work or people who can you know, like, for instance, people who could invite me to be a guest on a certain podcast or open a door for me to speak at a conference, or they're like, oh, I have a community of, you know, 10,000 private practice owners. Would you come talk to them? And things like that. These are all people that I can collaborate with right, and so these three activities are very high level. I'm really good at them and I like doing them. I love doing them most of them right and so I operate from there. I spend a lot of time there.

Speaker 1:

I spend most of my time working on the things within my zone of genius, and that leads to high level impact in less time, not more time, because we're talking three things Now. It's not only three activities, but it's three categories of activities. This is huge and you may not be able to find it right away, but you want to start thinking what is my zone of genius? You ask the people around you, like, if somebody asked you what your my zone of genius is, what would you say? And it's worth exploring it, and it's okay if you can't figure it out right away. That's okay, worth exploring it, and it's okay if you can't figure it out right away. That's okay, okay.

Speaker 1:

The third thing is I am ruthless when it comes to how I spend my time. I'm ruthless about how I spend my time. So let me explain what that means. It means a number of things. It means that I spend most of my time doing my highest level activities. Okay, so my zone of genius activities. I spend most of my time doing that. That's what that means. It also means I'm clear on the 80% activities. Right? These are the activities that you know other people can do. Maybe they should be thrown away altogether or they move the needle very little. I am ruthless about keeping those things off my calendar. Ruthless, ruthless, ruthless about keeping them off. Because if I can spend most of my time doing my zone of genius things, a little time doing the other stuff, then guess what will happen? I get more done by doing less. Right? So I'm very rootless. And so when I get invitations to do things that I'm not supposed to do, my answer is no. My answer is no.

Speaker 1:

You might be thinking well, dr Una, like, I'm not at a place where I can spend most of my time operating in my zone of genius, because I'm just not there. I don't have the team, I don't have all of those things. Remember what we said in the beginning this is a progressive thing, right? And so I want you to think of it in this way. Could I spend one more hour on my zone of genius? Could I get this off my plate to a team member? I already have, because what I have found in talking to physicians is many physicians are paying team members to do things and the physicians are still doing them. Okay, so let me get this one you know this one thing off my plate so that I can spend more time. It could be an hour, it could be two hours, it could be three hours in this zone of genius activity. Maybe for you. I mean, the big win is you find what your zone of genius is right, like, yeah, okay, so maybe that's even the thing.

Speaker 1:

But the way I like to think about it is if I was a savvy billion dollar investor, how would I think about spending money? How would I think about investing money? That's the same way I want to think about investing my time, because time is more valuable than money, right, and if someone can be diligent in managing money, I can be diligent in managing my time. Okay, I like to use the word invest better. Okay, all right, so that's number three. Okay, what are the things I do? Number four I treat team building as a top, top, top priority. Okay, so it's either number one, number two or number three, but it's all the way up there, okay.

Speaker 1:

When I started off, team building was like oh man, you know, like building this team, you know, talking to people, telling them what to do, coaching them to do it properly, training them to do it properly, holding them accountable, evaluating them. I don't want to do, probably, holding them accountable, evaluating them. I don't want to do any of those stuff. So it was like this thing that was on the side, that was a bother, that was optional, and all of that stuff. Let me tell you something I treat team building as importantly as I treated sales in the earlier days of my business. When I say that, please don't think I mean I don't sell. I sell all day, every day. It doesn't know what I mean. What I do mean is that it's a top, top, top level activity. I prioritize it.

Speaker 1:

I spent, literally I was working with my office man, my practice administrator for my private practice, and we had a one hour training session and the entire session was co-creating her calendar, like troubleshooting her calendar, so we can discover how she can spend most of her time functioning on her highest level activity. So that means what do we need to delegate? In order to delegate, what team member do we need to train? All of this stuff? We worked on it for an hour and to me that was some of my most important work, because, think about it If she's not able to use 80% of her time in her zone of genius, what does that mean for the company? What does that mean for her, like her feeling about how she's doing and what she's bringing to the table, and the level of significance and all that? Of course, the way you do one thing is the way you do everything, so of course, the ripple effect is going to be seen in her personal life, right? So I spent a whole hour and that's what we did just working on that.

Speaker 1:

Right, I see team building, whether it's recruiting, whether it's interviewing, whether it's onboarding, doing their ongoing trainings, the evaluations, all of those things high, high, top level activity. Why? Because the more highly competent team members I have, the more I'm able to get done without it being tied to my time. So I spend time. I train my EA, I train my salespeople, I train my office manager, I train my content production team. I train everybody and I don't see it as a waste of time and I don't see it as a bother and I don't see it as an aside. It is some of my most important work. So because of that, I can then have little to do or a lot less to do in the day to day, because I've trained so many people. But it's work. It's a whole lot of work, okay, okay, but it's fun, it's good work. The return on investment is huge. So the reason why that's important is because your team will be a multiplier. They will help you have more impact, more financial freedom, more time freedom. They're multipliers, okay. And number five is just like it.

Speaker 1:

I treat system building as a top level activity Top, top, top, top, top, right. So again, I identify as an engineer. I treat it that way because, my goodness, okay. So think about it this way right Before there were many trees, there was a tree, and that tree let's use like a fruit tree, okay. So let's say an orange tree or a mango tree. Now that tree had fruit, that had seeds, and those seeds had more trees in them, that had more fruits, that had more seeds, and on and on and on. And then you get this forest and get this thing that just keeps going, and thousands of years later, there's still trees making trees.

Speaker 1:

What if, every year, we had to build trees from scratch, like you have to start from the very beginning. You see how much of a problem that is. Think about the amount of effort it would take. And so I like to think about systems as a tree principle. And it's like when I do something, what do I need to do so I never have to start from scratch. When I do something, what do I need to do? So it's a one and done and somebody else can run it right. And so you start thinking about SOPs, standard operating principles, procedures, sorry, and you start thinking of those things and start creating them, because it reduces the amount of time it will take to re-engineer everything else from the scratch. And so if you're onboarding a team member, are you recording some of that stuff so you don't have to start over the next time that you do it? If you help somebody create a transformation, so this is for me, or if you're a coach, that you do it. If you help somebody create a transformation, so this is for me. Or if you're a coach, you're like did you document what happened? So this becomes a framework you can use over and over again. Because in the entrepreneurial business, I have frameworks, I have formula, I have all of these things. So we're not coming up with stuff from the beginning every single time, and so the more I can build systems, the more I can get my time back right, and so I tend to think in that way Okay, so if I'm onboarding somebody, I'm documenting the whole process. It's a one and done. If I'm thinking this is the way we create revenue, I'm codifying that into a framework. Right? So we have, like, the revenue generation framework In the Profitable Private Practice Movement, which is, you know, specifically for private practice owners.

Speaker 1:

I taught them the profitable team meeting templates. Like you want to meet with your team, you're not just oh, what do we talk about? The weather is nice. What you did yesterday was amazing. No, there's these things what did we do with 567? And you can just run through them, run through them, and it's kind of like your soap note, it's like your ACLS. Once you've done it a number of times. It's stuck in your brain and you can run a high level, profitable meeting with your team without even referring to it. What is that? It's a system, so we're not trying to engineer it from the ground up every single time, because that is such a time waster, such a time waster.

Speaker 1:

So these are some of the things I do. Okay, I'm clear on my goals. Oh, clarity will save you so much time. I'm clear on my goals and the path I operate in my zone of genius. I'm ruthless, ruthless, ruthless about how I spend my time. I treat team building as a top level activity. I treat system building as a top level activity. And then what it does is it puts me in this position where I can get a whole lot done. A whole lot done right, because those five companies, I mean those are some of the things I do. Some of the things I do. I mean I co -pastor a church with my husband, which is a whole other thing on its own. I homeschool my kids, which is a whole other thing on its own right. But how do I get to do all of these things? Is some of these systems and I use them professionally. I use them at home as well, right?

Speaker 1:

Okay, so what I want you to do we created a worksheet for you on this one, so entremedycom forward slash worksheet, and I want you to kind of walk through the activity. And the goal of the activity is to get you to where you're able to say, oh, I'm going to do these three things and this is actually saving me. Two hours a week, five hours a week, 10 hours a week, 20 hours a week right, and I'm not making up these numbers. These are things doctors in the entrepreneurial business will experience all the time. Like we had a doc who came in and within her first two weeks she was like oh my goodness, I just bought back 10 hours a week. 10 hours a week, that's 520 hours a year. That's a whole lot of hours. It's a whole lot of hours. So I want you to do that, because this is still like.

Speaker 1:

Think about it with me for a second. Just think about it. Five extra hours a week, 10 extra hours a week. Think of it. Think of being able to sleep better. Think of being able to maybe finally work out, because that's what you want to do. Think of being able to spend quality time with your family because you bought your time back. I would love that for you. And it all starts with you've listened to the episode. Now go do the worksheet. Okay, do the workshop thing right there and buy back your time. Don't believe the lie that because you're a physician or a physician entrepreneur, you've lost your life. You haven't. But skills are required. A new way of thinking, a new way of operating is required, and you can do it and I'm rooting for you. Okay, all right, I will see you with your worksheet. See you on the next episode.