Dr. Una is passionate about helping physicians embrace entrepreneurship so they can grow their wealth and win back the freedom to practice medicine on their own terms. Learn more at: https://entremd.com/. Dr. Una helps physicians build and grow their businesses to 7 figures and beyond. Each week, she will share key insights on how you can turn your medical experience into a profitable, passion-based business that gives you time, freedom, and a deep sense of purpose. Be sure to follow the podcast so you never miss a new episode!
Every entrepreneur goes through valleys—seasons of delays, disappointments, denials, and results that are taking longer than expected.
The question is not whether those seasons will come. The question is: Who will you become while you’re in them?
In this episode, Dr. Una shares three powerful ways to navigate the valleys of entrepreneurship without losing your confidence, your peace, or your momentum. You’ll learn how to separate your identity from your results, evolve as a CEO, develop the skills your next level requires, and practice patience without becoming passive.
Because the valley does not have to be wasted.
Handled well, it can become the season that makes you stronger, wiser, more skilled, and better prepared for your next mountain.
When you are ready to work with us, here are three ways:
The Profitable Private Practice Movement - If you want to build a thriving private practice that serves a lot of patients, while creating time and financial freedom for you, come join us here.
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 ...
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You evolve in your identity, you evolve in the way you think about yourself, the way you think about your business. Um, if they're things you be high in mind, you don't want to all those mindset palettes you can get them up because mindset palettes they're not your friends, they're not they put in a business. Hi Doc, welcome to the Unchamity 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. When I started off as an entrepreneur, I interpreted everything that was not going to, according to plan, of something that represented an issue with me. I was not good enough as a CEO. I was not good enough as a founder. I was not good enough as a team leader. I was not good enough at creating vision. I was not the kind of person for the job. But here's the deal: delays, disappointments, and denials are part of the journey. You can never be so good as a CEO that you will not have challenges in your business. You cannot be so good as a leader that you will never have a bad hire. You cannot be so good as a visionary that you won't miss your way, right? These are things that happen. Um, and it's not whether they happened or not. It's inevitable. It is gonna happen. The question is, how do we respond to it? And so in the beginning, I made it about me. There was something wrong with me. I took it personally. But now I've come to a different understanding. And that is the understanding that there is me, the entrepreneur, and there are my projects. We are two different entities. I am me, these are my projects. I can have failed projects, but I don't fail. I can have a failed project, a failed hire, a failed um goal, a failed whatever. There may be denials, delay, delays, all of those kinds of things, disappointments, but it doesn't reflect on me. It reflects on the project. So I, the entrepreneur, had a failed project. And guess what? If you're going to be successful as an entrepreneur, you are going to fail your way there. And that's not to say we intentionally don't learn, we just keep failing. That's not what it is. But you can never be so good that you will not have failed projects. Okay, but that does not make you a failure. And so what I tell my clients, like the doctors in the entrepreneur business school, is this is what I tell them. I say, when you think about yourself as an entrepreneur, I want you to think about yourself as a great entrepreneur, a great CEO who's committed to being better, committed to getting better. So if there's something that I did not know and that created a challenge, well, that is something I can get better at. But I'm a great CEO. I'm a great entrepreneur. The energy of that is just completely different. And it puts me in a position where I can keep moving forward. Okay. So the so there's there's the there's me, the entrepreneur, and then there's the project. I don't fail, but I can have failed projects. And that's that starting thing. Like I separated from myself, myself from it. The other thing that I did is I recognize that, you know, it would be really nice for entrepreneurship to just be linear. Like you go from one to two to five to ten, to the, you know, it would just be so great. But usually it looks like valleys and mountains. So there's a valley, then there's a mountain, then there's a valley, then there's a mountain. Think about it. There's no such thing as a mountain range if there is no valley. In fact, the mountain, like a valley, is called a point between two mountains. Like these things go together. Mountains and valleys go together. If you were at a mountaintop, you will not be surprised if you saw a valley. That is the same way our journey is as entrepreneurs. We have high highs and we have low lows, and we have high highs and we have low lows. But the thing is, can you become the person who maintains their enthusiasm, maintains their commitment, it maintains their work ethic, maintains their attitude in the high highs and in the low lows, knowing that both of them are part of the game. In fact, when you watch high-level entrepreneurs, a lot of them have high highs and low lows at the same time. Like these things are happening concurrently. But you don't see them bent out of shape, and they're not bent out of shape because they understand this is the process, this is the game. Okay. So here's the deal. I want to give you three things to do when you're in the valley. In the presence of delays, you've been trying to hire a position, you haven't been able to fill it yet. Um, you have been trying to hit a particular goal. It may be your seven figures, it could be multiple seven figures, eight figures, not been able to hit it yet. Um, you have been trying to grow your podcast or grow your YouTube, and it's growing, but not as fast as you want. Like the goals that you set, you have not accomplished them yet. Um, you've been trying to create this time off for yourself. You haven't been able to create it, been trying to delegate something, haven't been able to delegate it, um, whatever that is. There's a big issue in your business, haven't resolved it yet. Um, it's time for your lease is up and you need to move and you haven't found a place yet. Like it, there's a lot of things could have been going on, and these are all normal. Okay, like one of the things we do, what I do among my clients is I normalize these things because sometimes we think, oh, it's something I'm doing wrong. Now they could be something you're doing wrong, but chances are is just what business is is valleys and mountains. Okay, so what do you do when you're in the valley? What do you do when things don't seem to be going according to plan? What do you do when there are delays, there are disappointments, there are denials, what do you do? Number one. Number one is now before we even talk about number one, I need you to understand this, okay? And this will set you free if you can just think about it. If you find yourself in a valley and you're moving, it means you're going in the direction of a mountain, okay? Because after the valley is a mountain, okay? So it means a few things here, okay? So, number one, while you're in the valley, because this is going to end, it's not always going to be that way, except you quit. Well, we don't quit in on train d right. Okay, so what do you do? You evolve as a CEO. Like as a CEO, you evolve. You evolve in your identity, you evolve in the way you think about yourself, the way you think about your business. Um, if there are things you've been harboring, like, oh, I'm not good at sales, and oh, I'm not a confident person at all. You got to work through all those mindset viruses and get them out because mindset viruses, they're not your friends, they're not pets. They will hurt your business, they will hurt your vision, right? So we work through all of those things. Um, I'm not the kind of person who can hire this caliber of person. I'm not worthy of this kind of team and all. We need to evolve and become the people who know I am confident, I am a master at persuasive speaking, I am, I lead an A-team of specialists. Like these need to be your become your default way of thinking. The vision you can have your business for your business, how big it can be, how much, how confident you are in owning what you truly want, instead of picking goals you think other people will approve of, right? Like, so you evolve. You evolve. That is a valuable use of the time in the valley because you're the you can make the value profitable. I make my values profitable. I'm profitable when things are really working. I'm profitable when it looks like things are not working as well. When it looks like there are delays and denials and disappointments. Okay. So you the first thing you want to do is you want to evolve as a CEO. We do an extra extraordinary amount of work pulling this off, but you want to evolve. It is a good use of your time in the valley. The second thing you want to do is you want to acquire new skills because ask yourself, for the next mountaintop I'm going to, what skill do I require? Now, if you're here, for instance, and you have a business doing under a million and you're still in this place where you don't like selling and selling's inconsistent in your business. Sometimes there's sales activity, sometimes there's not. A great skill to acquire is the skill of selling. Getting comfortable asking, asking people to work with you, asking people to continue working with you, ask team members to join your team, ask referral sources to refer to you, ask like asking. If you decide this value period while we're working all these things out, I'm gonna get really good at asking, I'm gonna get really good at selling. My goodness, like yes, you're gonna get to the peak, and at that peak, you're gonna be able to peak on the peak, right? Okay. So acquire new skills. If you're over a million and you're strapped for time, and it looks like now your profit margins have been eaten into, and it's almost like you're banging your head against the wall, can get to multiple six seven figures, can get to get to eight figures. A lot of times, like sales may be a part of it, but a lot of times it's team, right? Because now you're hiring team members, but you don't quite know how to lead them. So for every person you hire, your profit margin is disappearing. For every person you hire, your headaches are increasing because you don't know how to lead them and your frustration is growing and all of that, and you get less time, not more time, because you spend more time troubleshooting instead of training them so they free you to get more time, right? And so a lot of times it's team and learning how to build an A team becomes this really great skill that you can acquire. It is worth using using your valley time to do that, okay? Okay. The third thing you can do when you're in the valley, oh, is to be patient. Okay. Is to be patient. Now I'm going to read, I'm going to read the definition of patience. This is very, very important because if you understand this, it's not some lie, you know, like casual word. Okay, so pay attention to this. And this is from what is the name of the Merriam-Webster dictionary? Okay. What it says is, and I'm gonna read a number of them, um, enduring pains or trials calmly or without complaint, the ability to persevere over a long period of time, despite opposition, difficulty, or adversity, right? It is acting calm or restraint under provocation or strain, right? And there's been definitions I've seen that the ability to tolerate delays, disappointments, and denials without irritation and frustration. And I want you to think about a CEO who's like that, where there are challenging times, but they're calm. There's challenging times, but they're not losing it, and they're able to calmly lead their people out of that challenge. I remember when, you know, COVID hit, there's so much uncertainty, right? There's so much uncertainty. And I'm sure my employees had a lot of uncertainty, but I had to pay their salaries. I had more uncertainty, right? But I had learned these things that I'm talking to you about, and I'm like, you know, um, we are, I made a quality decision. We're gonna thrive. I'm not sure what is going on, but we're gonna figure it out. There's never been a time in history that hard times came and some people didn't thrive. I'm choosing to be amongst the people that will thrive. And so my people didn't get a frazzled CEO, they didn't get a panicked CEO, they didn't get any of that. I was calm, I was collected, I was strategic, I was able to lead them with certainty, certainty in uncertain times, and we came out of it on top, right? And so it's patience. Now, let me describe this. This patience is not passive, this patience is active. And what that means is we are patient with the results, but not patient with the actions. Let me explain what I mean by that. So I gave an example of us during the pandemic, and I was, you know, like I had patience and I was, I was calm and I was ready to lead. And yes, there was opposition, yes, there were difficult times where we're gonna get through it and we're gonna thrive. That was my stance. Okay. Now I was willing to be patient with, okay, how is this gonna affect our results? How is this gonna affect our revenue? How's it gonna affect all of those things? Right. Like I was like, let's, you know, like we're we're gonna navigate this, but with the actions, we were on it. Like, I'm I'm talking, we're like, okay, patients are afraid of coming in. So we start sending out these emails to let them know what was going on and what we were doing to make it safe for them to come to the office. We started coming up with new strategies. Well, we could call patients, we could call everybody, but we can prioritize patients that have three or more kids. And so for every person who says yes, we're bringing four people in. So we did that. We repurposed our team. We're like, okay, we're not, you don't tell me this is what I do as a front desk or this is what I do as the MA. Now you do whatever is required. So we repurposed our team so everybody was still productive and profitable, right? Even though things had changed. We went all in on telemedicine, we went all in on so many things. So we were busy, we were active, we were responding to the challenges, but we were patient, right? Like if things were not happening as fast as we wanted them to happen, we were patient with that, knowing that everything is going to turn out and turn around and work for our favor, work in our favor, but we were not patient with the actions. Do you see that? So the results, yes, I can be patient with that. But what I need to do, I have 100% control over me. We're getting this done today, right? And so I want you to think about it. If you know, and if you look in your life, you've come out of every valley. You've come out of every valley. Okay. Okay, so we have the valleys. If you know that at the end of the valley is a mountain, at the end of the valley is a mountain. It means we don't have to quit, we don't have to get bent out of shape. We've been around this multiple times. It's just in different areas of life, different areas of our businesses, but now we're savvy, we can see it, right? And so I will say, if I know I'm gonna come out of this, how do I want to act in it? How do I want to act in it in such a way that when I get to the mountain peak, I'll look back and I'll be proud of myself. In the midst of a valley, upgrade yourself, evolve as a CEO, evolve in your identity, involve in your ability to see vision, evolve in your ability, you know, like the way you think about yourself, the internal picture you hold about yourself, right? Okay, you want to acquire skills, the skills required for where you're trying to go. Take a look, what skills are missing, acquire them. And then you want to be patient. Patient meaning you can tolerate the delay, you can tolerate the disappointment, you can tolerate the denial, and you're moving full speed ahead on what you know you can do to get out of it. Right? And if you will do this, then you can redefine your relationship with mountains and valleys. You can be somebody who's full of joy in the high highs and full of joy in the low lows. You can be a person who's at peace in the high highs and a person who's at peace in the low lows. And what will end up happening is every valley will be profitable for you because every valley brings a new version of you, a version of you who has new skills, and a version of you who does what is required to make the valley a historical fact. My goodness, right? So for me, valleys are profitable. That doesn't, that doesn't mean I'm excited, but like, yeah, let's go find a valley to you know dive into. No, but if it's gonna come, we're gonna win. And oh man, will I love this for you? Would I love this for you to have this kind of attitude and show up in this kind of way? Okay, so I want you to think about it. Am I in a mountain right now or am I in a valley right now? Think about the valleys you've been in before now, and think about you know the fact that you came out of them and think about the fact that they're lessons you learned. Like stop and think about what did this valley teach me? What did that valley teach me? Right, and then realize every valley makes you stronger, makes you wiser, makes you more experienced, and all of those things and makes you more capable to handle the next value that shows up. So you're doing so much better than you think, and you're so much stronger than you know, and so much wiser than you know. Don't let any delay, any disappointment, any denial, any difficulty throw you off track. You're winning, you've been winning, you continue to win. And from now on, every value will make you so much stronger. Okay? What I what I want you to do, I want you to take this episode and I want to share you to share with every physician, entrepreneur, you entrepreneur you know. Why am I asking you to do that? Because entrepreneurship is challenging. Now we can win, but it is challenging. And it's so much better to do it understanding that after every valley is a mountain and knowing what to do in the valley in the valley. So the valley, even though you will never wish it on your worst enemy, becomes something you would never trade because it made you who you are. I'm rooting for you as I always root for you. I'll see you on the next episode of the On Tradem Day Podcast.
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