Struggling to grow your practice online? Reuben Rock brings the answers.

This 20+ year search ad expert knows medical marketing. Learn which lucrative treatments respond best to paid search, how to craft focused landing pages, budgeting secrets, and more! with digital ad expert Reuben Rock.

Packed with tips to choose the right PPC partner, double conversion rates, and avoid return-killing mistakes, Reuben simplifies patient acquisition. Now is the time to start dominating Google and stealing market share! Tune in now to transform your digital presence.

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Transcript

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Hey guys! This is Dr. Mike Woo-Ming. Welcome to another edition of BootstrapMD, the podcast for healthcare and physician entrepreneurs. From time to time, I get a lot of questions about how can I get traffic to my website, especially if you own your own practice and today, I think we’re in for a real treat.

I definitely have one of, I consider one of the biggest traffic experts. In fact, he’s so good. I’ve heard him for the last year or so. And he does all of our advertising or online advertising in terms of Pay Per Click. [00:01:00] So, those are things like Google AdWords now called Google Ads. Also, you might consider Pay Per Click like Facebook Ads, Bing Ads, those kinds of things. And if you want to get traffic tomorrow, the way to do it is you actually have to pay for traffic. And if you’re new to all this, don’t be afraid because he’s been doing Google Ads for over 20 years. And I didn’t even realize it was available for that long.

And luckily enough, I have him on the program. He’s going to talk about why you need to start considering Google Ads and why is that important for your business? So I want to bring on the program, Reuben Rock. Reuben, how you doing?

Reuben Rock: I’m doing great. Thanks for having me today. I’m happy to be here.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Awesome. Awesome. So, like I said people saying I have a website. I have it for my business. We have many people who listen on the show. They have their own practice, or maybe they’re employed in a practice and they’re looking to get new patients, new [00:02:00] customers to their business. Why do you consider Pay Per Click advertising important for the business owner or entrepreneur to have?

Reuben Rock: Yeah, absolutely. Like you said, there are a lot of types of practices out there who could benefit from this. And I think the biggest reason is that 90 percent of consumers are influenced by ads when they’re making purchase decisions. And that it goes not just for Nike and Apple and some of these big corporations.

It also goes for the shops down the street from you. The practices down the street from you. They need to advertise to bring in customers as well. And if you’re not advertising, you’re not putting yourself in the consideration set for people who are looking to buy the services that you offer.

Believe it or not, people are out there looking for the services that you offer right now. Even in the day of the days of TikTok and Instagram, people are still going to Google to look for local service providers. And so if you have a practice, who’s offering something like weight loss, hormone treatment, aesthetics, you can get in front [00:03:00] of those people a lot quicker if you’re willing to advertise. And you can push your competition out of the way a lot quicker if you’re willing to advertise because a lot of your competitors are not advertising. So this is really the shortcut to getting in front of a pre existing group of people who are already looking for what you offer.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Now, we’ve got a whole wide spectrum of people here. You got pretty advanced people you’ve got. Maybe they already have a marketing team. Maybe they’re marketing themselves and the people maybe they’re just new to the online. So, could you first give us an example of what an ad would be when we’re searching on Google? Where are they? Where are they located? Where could we find them? I think it’s intuitive, but I want to start with the basics. First and then we’ll move forward.

Reuben Rock: Sure. So anytime you search in Google, whether that’s using an app on your phone, or if you go to google.com on your computer, or even if you just type right into your browser bar on Chrome, if you’re using Chrome as your browser, you’re searching on Google, right? And you’re probably going to see the page of Google results that you’re used to. And these days, if you’re looking for a local business, you’re probably going to see some [00:04:00] map listings near the top, and then you’ll see the Google’s organic listings underneath that.

The beautiful thing about Google ads is that an ad on Google, it looks just like many of the other listings on that page, but it shows up right at the very top of Google. So if you’re looking to get above even the map listings above, the person who ranks number one in your city for a certain term, like Botox near me or medical weight loss or something like that, ads will put you right at the very top of a Google search results page. When people are looking on their smartphones, on their computers, on their tablets, you can even get placement inside of Google maps, if you have a Google business profile.

So there’s a lot of opportunity to get to the top of Google quickly if you’re willing to advertise for it. But these ads, they look just like a standard Google search result. They say, they often say ad or sponsored next to it, but most consumers, they don’t see a lot of difference and they’re perfectly happy to click on an ad if it helps solve their problem.

And so, that’s Google’s main mission, right? Is to help people solve their problems, find what they’re looking for. And these ads often are a shortcut to help people [00:05:00] find exactly what they’re looking for.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: And Google is more than just search. We think of Google as a search engine, but maybe we can talk about the different types of Google ads because it’s, like you said, it’s more than just search.

Reuben Rock: It is. It’s a lot more than search these days. And in the future, it’s going to be a lot more than search. Google is also YouTube, right? So Google is the largest search engine in the world. YouTube is also one of the largest search engines in the world. And Google owns YouTube as well. So if you want to run ads on YouTube, you run those ads through the Google ads platform.

Google is where you go to advertise on YouTube as well. Google also owns many of the ad placements across 90 percent of the websites out there on the internet. So if you want to put your ad on cnn.com, if you want to put your ad on your local newspapers website, if you want to put your ad on a niche blog, somebody who’s talking about services in San Diego services in wherever, right?

You can get those ad placements through Google’s display network. Google has a couple of other ad networks as [00:06:00] well that you can tap into. Google has a few new ad types that you can run these days. Things like discovery ads. Discovery ads are actually phasing out right now. And Google is bringing a new program called Demand Gen.

But many of these platforms are what you can leverage to promote your MedSpa, to promote your Dermatology practice, promote your Anti-aging practice, whatever kind of practice you have. You may be able to promote them on some of these networks. Now, one of the keys to remember, and this may be getting a little ahead of myself is that, while Google has all of these networks available and you can run ads in many different places, Google has some restrictions in place about the types of ads that you can run on some of these networks.

And so depending on what type of practice you’re operating, you may not be able to leverage all of these networks directly. You might need to get a little more creative with your ads. And that’s where it starts to pay to bring in somebody who’s run ads for a practice like yours before. So we can get a little more into that later, I’m sure.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: So, yeah, and we’ll [00:07:00] remember, that’s very important, especially our audience is medical. Unfortunately, there are a lot of restrictions and understandably you have to be very careful with that. But, yeah, we’ll remind it to talk about that later. Let’s say, I’m a practice owner and I want to look into getting more patients for me. What should I think about or what should I look? I know before I actually dive into ads. Is there some things that I should be looking at in my own practice to decide if this is the right path for me?

Reuben Rock: Absolutely.  A couple of things I would look at first is, are you even showing up on Google? Are you even eligible to show up before you start thinking about advertising on Google? There’s a couple of bases that you could cover that won’t cost you a lot of money or any money at all. And they might be good first steps for people who are thinking about getting into advertising, but maybe haven’t covered these basis yet.

So we could even back up a little bit and we could talk about something like Google business profile. If you haven’t claimed and verified your Google business profile yet, that might be a great first step for [00:08:00] you. Google business profile is what powers your map listing on Google. If you want to show up on Google maps, when someone is searching for a practice like yours, dermatology practice near me, something like that.

Then you want to have a map listing on Google and Google business profile is what powers that map listing. So go create or verify or claim your Google business profile. If you haven’t already, fill out all the information there, make sure it’s all accurate and up to date. That can also help improve the performance of your ads later if you decide to start advertising.

So start by making sure you have a Google business profile. Also, make sure that you have a good website for your practice. If you don’t have a website already, I would go create one, have one created for you and then connect it to your Google business profile so that Google can start to associate your website with your business profile and all the information that you’ve included there, like your phone number and your address.

This will really give Google a good idea of who you are and will make you more eligible to show up when people are searching for the services that you offer. Today we’re talking about ads specifically, and the reason ads are so powerful is because [00:09:00] you can go do all those free things and they can help you get found on Google, but they can take a little bit of time, right?

And some people don’t. They don’t wanna wait six months for the results to start rolling in. They really need to start bringing in patients today. And ads are one of the more powerful ways that you can do that. So, if you’re thinking about running ads on Google. Then really, you should have a website first because you’re going to have to send that ad traffic somewhere, right?

You’re probably going to send that traffic to a page on your website, or maybe a landing page. If you’re working with somebody to create a landing page for your ad campaign. But you got to send those clicks from your. Somebody searches for your service on Google, like dermatologist near me. They click on your ad. They have to send that click somewhere. Somebody has to go to your website, right? So create a great website. Make sure your website can capture leads. It’s really important that you can capture leads on your website. And this I think is a good first step before you even think about advertising.

Because what I’ve found in advertising for practices like yours, Dr. Mike, is that a lot of people are actually not going to pick up the phone and call you after they click on your ad. For [00:10:00] some of the other clients I work with, we get, we drive a lot of phone calls. With some of these practices, though, in the medical space, we find that people, they want to fill out a form online or they want to contact you online through a form, through a chat bot. They want to book online. They don’t want to pick up the phone and call you necessarily. And there may be many reasons for that. But make sure that your website gives people that option. If you don’t have a form on your website, a lead form, a contact form, some sort of a form for people to fill out to say, Hey, I’m interested in your service.

Make sure your website has that form. If you don’t have click to call buttons for the people who do want to call you, make sure your website can do that. If you want to offer online booking, if you have the capability to offer online booking for people to just reserve a spot on your schedule, make sure your website can do that.

If you cover all those basis before you even start advertising when you start advertising, your ads are going to perform a lot better because a lot of times when we start a new campaign for a client, we have to go back and we have to set all of those things up. We have to get them all in place. And a lot of times we’re [00:11:00] doing it for the first time.

But if you can get all of those things covered before you even start advertising, then the day you start running your ads are going to perform a lot better than some other people’s ads.

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Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Oh yeah, that’s great. Really good to know. So, [00:12:00] okay, let’s say I’ve done this. I’ve got claimed my Google My Business page. I’ve got my website up. I know you’ve worked with hundreds of businesses. What’s the next step? Let’s say, okay, I’m ready to do ads. What are some of the questions that we need to know, or you would like us to have for you when you, we decided to work together?

Reuben Rock: Absolutely. So when I’m talking with a potential new client about running ads, usually I want them to ask me certain questions. And if they don’t ask me these questions that I will prompt them to ask me these questions because these are things I want a business owner to think through. Before they throw money at advertising, we want to make sure that you’ve got a plan in place that you have some chance of success, right?

Before we start putting money down on the table especially when it comes to things like Google, because Google will take any budget you give it and it will spend all of it. If you tell Google to spend $500 a [00:13:00] day and send the traffic to a website that doesn’t even have a working form on it, or your phone number or the name of your business, Google is happy to take that money and they’ll let just buy that traffic all day long.

So questions I usually tell people that they need to think about before they get started with ads. Number one, do they have everything in place already that they need? Do you have a functional website and not just functional? Do you have a competitive website? Go out and look at what your competitors have for a website. If there are other people near you in your direct area who offer the same services that you do, go out and look at their websites. See how their website is set up. See what pages they have on their site.

See if they have a form on their website. If they offer online booking. If they do offer all those things, then you need to at least match that with your website, right? If their website looks great, your website needs to look great. What you don’t want to do is you don’t want to have the ugly house on the block, right?

You need to look competitive. You need to look like a great place to go spend money and have a quality experience. I’m going to get the results that you’re looking for, right? If I’m looking to meet a dermatologist, I’m looking to lose weight. [00:14:00] If I’m looking to get hormone treatment, I want to make sure I’m going to get quality results.

And honestly, these days, if your website doesn’t scream, we provide quality results that I might click elsewhere. So, take an honest look at your website. Take an honest look at your competitors and make sure that you’re competitive. The next thing I would look at is budget. And this is another place where I think sometimes people they don’t know where to start. They don’t know what a reasonable budget is. And so they really need to think through how much this is going to cost and if they can afford to do this long term. And if they, if this is something they’re ready to get into. In terms of budget, you’re probably going to want to set a minimum budget of at least a $1, 000 a month in most markets.

And that’s an ongoing monthly expense for any types of ad that you’re going to run on Google. You’re probably going to spend at least that amount for a basic search campaign on Google for any service that you might be providing at your practice. That’s kind of the starting point these days for these types of ads.

If you’re comfortable with that and you’re comfortable with that budget long [00:15:00] term, then you’re at a good starting point. But that’s a starting point, right? So it depends on the types of results that you want to drive. And that’s another thing that you should think through before you get started.

If you are in a position where you have no customers coming in, no leads coming in, nobody’s contacting your practice at all. And you’re trying to get traction from zero, right? Then your budget in order to get the phone ringing enough and to get customers coming in at a rate that will make you profitable and prop your business up, right? You may have to have a much larger budget for that. It might cost you a lot more in order to buy all of the customers that you need to fill your schedule and to fill your practice.

If you’re already in business, you already have repeat regular customers, you have referrals coming in and you’re adding in paid media as an additional channel, then you may not need to spend so much, right? You may be able to just happen to some of the existing, search volume that’s out there. Bring in some new customers to help. Inject new blood [00:16:00] into your business. Bring in new customers to help you grow your business from where you’re at already. And to help you bring more people in who are going to become referrals, who are going to be, or who are going to refer their friends, who are going to become repeat customers, who are going to grow a lifetime value with you. Google ads, or any paid advertising could just be an additional channel for you.

So your budget, it really depends on where you’re at, right? Do you need it to complete fill your schedule from zero, or do you need to just add a few extra customers per week? Think through how much budget you need to put into this before you get started and then make sure that you’re comfortable running that budget for at least 90 days because to get an ad campaign up and running, you can’t do it in a week and you can’t deliver the results that you’re looking for overnight. This does take a little bit of an investment and I usually tell people be comfortable spending the budget that you set, be comfortable spending that for about 90 days.

If you can do that, then you should start to see the results that you’re looking for. And by the 90 day point, you can decide if you want to adjust your budget up, down and make changes to your campaign, make changes to your website. [00:17:00] But it’s a good place for you to start growing from. Those are a lot of the things that I usually recommend people think through before they get started with ads. If there’s anything that I’m missing, let me know.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: No, I know that’s a great starting point. I know when you sit down with a prospect, you do your best to understand their business. And what kinds of treatments because often it’s the treatments or the keyword phrases. The keywords that are going to be looking for. And I think this would be a good time to actually talk about some of those phrases that maybe Google doesn’t like. Can you speak to this?

Reuben Rock: Yeah, there are a lot of them. Unfortunately, if you’re trying to advertise something simple like your plumbing business or your roofing business, things are pretty straightforward.

Google is happy to let you buy the keyword “roofer near me”, “plumber near me” all day long. When you start trying to offer something like Botox, Google has a few more questions for you. Are you authorized to be selling Botox? Are you authorized [00:18:00] to be providing Botox to people? Does Botox know that you’re running these ads? Do they give you permission to put those words in your ad or even bid on these keywords, right? So some of these questions start to pop up for some of the services that you might offer. Google has a few policies around medical content and speculative medical treatments.

So when you get into things like PRP or what am I trying to think of? Stem cells. If you get into any kind of treatments that involved anything like that, you may run into some of Google’s medical policies, and it doesn’t have to be a stopping point. There are people you can work with who can get you over the finish line and help you run ads for some of these things, but there may be challenges along the way because Google just wants to make sure that they’re connecting people who are searching for services with people who are really qualified to provide those services, right?

And so if you’re a practice owner out there who’s providing a service in an area that Google police is a little more heavily. There might be a little more [00:19:00] legwork to get your ads up and running. I can also tell you that most of your competitors are going to fail to do that legwork. And if you can manage to be the one in your local market, who’s done it, who’s running the ads, there’s a great reward to be had for doing that. I’ve helped people get botox. Botox ads up and running, for instance, and had just a flood of leads come in from it almost instantly. And I think that was largely because most of the other providers in the area are not willing to put in the work to get approved to run those ads in the first place.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: It’s a little bit of work, right?

Reuben Rock: And so that’s when it really starts to pay to work with somebody who’s done this kind of thing before. There’s a lot of people who run ads on Google. There’s a lot of people who run ads on Facebook. There’s a lot of people who run ads on the internet, right?

But in this space, in particular, if you’re working with anything medical, if you’re doing any sort of treatment for people, you may want to work with somebody who has experience running these types of particular ads, because you’re likely to run into some bumps along the road. And you want to know that you’re working with a partner who can help you get over those bumps.[00:20:00]

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Yeah, and I know for, like yourself, you’re very familiar with the industry. Obviously, that’s a very important quality when you’re looking for a marketing provider to work with. So that gets into my next question. We talked about how making sure that they’re very familiar with this. I know you have identified which treatments work well with Google and which don’t. What are some other questions where we’re a practice owner? Because we do get bombarded by lots of different marketing agencies. They promise you the moon. Oftentimes they fall short. What are some of the questions that we should be asking when we’re looking for a marketing provider to help us with pay per click advertising?

Reuben Rock: Sure. I’d recommend that you ask if they have any experience running the types of ads for the types of services that you offer. So if somebody is wanting to run ads for your practice on Google, for instance, and you have a dermatology practice, you’re going to want to know that they’ve successfully run ads for a dermatologist in the past.

And if possible, ask to see [00:21:00] some sample results. You can even don’t be afraid to do this. I’ve had clients ask me for this. I’ve had a prospect ask me for this. Don’t be afraid to ask for a reference. If you want to speak with some somebody who’s worked with this ad buyer before and hear what their feedback is. Ask for a reference. You can totally do that. If anybody is comfortable running ads, anybody who’s comfortable running ads would be more than happy to provide a reference of somebody that they’ve run ads for in the past who was happy with their service, right? And I think in this space that goes doubly, you should be working with somebody who’s qualified and has a track record.

They should be able to show you that track record as soon as you ask for it and if they ask, if you ask for a reference, they should be able to have references to provide. I think those are all perfectly acceptable things to look for. I was gonna say that you actually might want to look for somebody who’s a Google ads partner. Google, anybody can become Google ads certified.

I have a bunch of Google ad certifications to become a Google ads partner. You actually have to be managing a certain level of ad spend on Google and have a certain certifications. [00:22:00] So if you are approached by an agency, who’s a Google ads partner, that’s a good indication that they are successfully running ads on Google and that Google is happy with what they’re doing.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Yeah, and then another thing, too, is just like, it’s the old specialist versus a generalist. You’ll have a marketing and let’s say we’ll do ads. We’ll do your website. We’ll do your reputation management. We’ll do social media. And it’s just like as the same goes, jack of all trades, master of none.

I would rather have a specific partner, just really focused on just doing that particular aspect. Not that you can’t, it’s to keep up with marketing is you. It’s a daily education right? And Google is always changing. Facebook is always changing. And that’s a lot to run.

Another thing, too, is sometimes when they’re, like, too big, [00:23:00] I found out that they take shortcuts, to do things and you don’t often get the same quality than those a handful of clients. Knowing how many clients that they actually have, or at least per for whoever you’re working with to know how many other clients they have is going to go a long way.

Hopefully they’ll tell you the truth what they’re actually doing. But those are some of the questions that I like to ask when I’m deciding to choose a partner.

Reuben Rock: Yeah, and also whose number can I call when I have a problem? If something’s not going well, who can I call? And will they answer the phone? That’s always a big one.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: I know you wanted to share some like high level tips through the basics. Let’s talk about some tip strategies for success more of a higher level that we need to know about or you’ve been identified as something that’s worked for [00:24:00] well for you and your clients.

Reuben Rock: Yeah, we’ve had a lot of success in using landing pages with specific offers. So if you can put a price in front of somebody, if they’re looking for a service and then lead them directly to a page that has that price on it and says the service. So, for instance, if you’re selling Botox, right? And you’re doing a Botox deal for $179 or $197 or whatever your price is, put that price in your ad. Put that price on your landing page and put the word Botox on your landing page, right? And then as long as you have approval to run all those ads, then you’ll get a lot more leads. You’ll get a lot higher quality lead.

And people, you’ll get people who are basically ready to buy. A lot of people make the mistake of saying, we offer these services, contact us if you’d like some of these services, right? And they’re vague and they’ll give you a form. And they’ll say, check which services you want on this form.

We really have a lot more success if you’re more direct and more specific, right? If you if somebody is looking for medical weight loss, send them to a page about medical weight loss with an offer about [00:25:00] medical weight loss with a form that they fill out. That’s only for people who are looking for medical weight loss, right? And then follow up with them about medical weight loss. Make it as specific as possible and you’ll have better results with it.

As far as tips for running paid ads I would recommend focusing on search for most practices. You may have opportunities to run some display ads or some demand gen ads or other types of ads. But if you’re just starting out, I would focus on search ads. I would pick a maybe two to three of the services that you offer. If you have that many services at your practice, pick two to three of those services and try running ads for each of those. Put a budget together that can support ads for two to three services. Run them for 90 days.

And I’m willing to bet you’ll see leads come in for more than one of those services. And then really dig into the ones that are working for you. I was, I’ve been surprised at some of the clients I’ve worked with in the past where they brought a service to me and said, I want to run ads for this. And I said, [00:26:00] okay, we can do that.

But in the back of my mind, I thought, I don’t know how many clicks we’re going to get for this. I don’t know how many leads we’re going to get for this or people really searching for this. And all and behold, we’d run the ads and we would get results. So I think that if you are going to run ads on Google, pick if you’re offering four or five services. Try running ads for all of them, because there’s a high likelihood that people are looking for those. Put together a landing page for that service. Put together an offer for that service. And then nurture those people with something specific, some communication specific to that service.

The other thing I would say is, if you’re going to bother to run ads, and this is a platform that I tend to harp from, constantly follow up with your leads. There is no point in running ads and paying money for people to come visit your website. If you are not going to follow up with your leads, and if you’re not going to follow up with them quickly, you lose something like 80-90 percent of the value of your lead.

If you don’t follow up with it in the first 5 minutes. So if you don’t follow up with somebody when they request information within the first 5 minutes, [00:27:00] they’re gone. They’re calling the next person. They’re calling the practice down the street. Follow up with their leads and follow up with them more than once.

It’s not enough to just call somebody back. It’s not enough to just send somebody one email. If they don’t respond, follow up again and say, Hey, you don’t have to, you don’t, you’re not bothering them. They requested information, right? Follow up and say, Hey, are you still interested in this? We’re still interested in you. And you’ll maximize the value that you get out of your paid campaigns. A lot of people, they miss that part, but you will maximize your return on investment if you follow up with all your leads. Okay.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Yeah, lots of great points there. It’s common sense, but if you’re showing an ad for you know, you’ve got, let’s say you’re looking for an emergency dentist and this happens so often you go to a web page and you’re greeted by teeth whitening and then you have to scroll to the bottom.

I was like, man, I got a toothache. My guy’s killing me and I don’t make any work. Yeah, if I got to go find it for a number or find it that you can [00:28:00] actually help me, I’m moving on to the competitors on there. So like you said, whatever treatment you’re offering, make sure that’s the first thing that you see.

It’s above the fold. It’s there right there. And it makes sense. This has been a lot of information. Obviously, you’re an expert at this. I understand you’ve got something that can help us understand paper click advertising a bit more. We’re going to go to to get the.

Reuben Rock: Yeah, so I put together a cheat sheet. It’s over at spalaunchpad.com/cheatsheet. And this is not just focused on PPC. It’s focused on a couple of the other things we talked about today. Some of the basis that you should cover before you get started with PPC. So I think this will be helpful for anybody, no matter where you’re at in your journey. Whether you’re just getting started or whether you’ve had your practice for years now, you can go through this checklist and you can see what you’ve already got in place. What you need to get in place. And PPC is included on here. If you’re thinking of running ads on Google or even on meta Facebook, Instagram that information is included on this cheat sheet as [00:29:00] well. So go to spalaunchpad.com/cheatsheet, grab a copy of that. And I hope it’s helpful to you.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Reuben, that was great. Again, a crash course on pay per click advertising. A lot to take in. What’s, what are some what’s like one tip or you can leave with our audience to see if this is pay per click is the right area that they should go to?

Reuben Rock: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. If you need more customers, then pay per click is probably right for you. And especially if you have the budget for it, if you’re not quite ready for pay per click, there are some things you can do first. Like I mentioned, you could get involved with Google business profile. You could work on your website. Those are great first steps, but at some point you’re going to need to put some budget, some marketing budget behind your business, right?

Marketing is always one of the line items on any PNL for any business. And if you’re going to spend money on marketing these days, Google ads is one of the best ways to spend that money. So I honestly, I think if you need more customers, PPC is a great way to spend your marketing budget. I think it’s for just about anybody. And it’s as simple as [00:30:00] that. Go run some ads.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: All right, Reuben. Thank you so much. Again, a crash course on pay per click advertising. Go and grab that cheat sheet. We’ll have the link below. Thank you again for joining us on the call today. It definitely has been eyeopening for many of us who are looking to get traffic to their business.

Reuben Rock: It’s been a pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: And thank you guys for joining us as always, as an entrepreneur, you can have your ups and your downs, do something every single day to keep closer to

 

Dr. Sarah Breen shares her journey from practicing pediatrician to becoming COO of the global company BREpic Network. She talks about how she was immersed into the entrepreneurial world through her husband, fell in love with the concept, and brought her communication strengths as a physician to become COO. Sarah provides insight into balancing her clinical work, family life, and new business endeavors. She advises doctors who feel stuck in their career to listen to their gut, try new things, and not be afraid to open new doors.

Key Takeaway: You only live once – don’t be afraid to explore entrepreneurship and open new doors outside of medicine!

BR Epic Network – Connecting Visionaries to Serve Humanity

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Transcript

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming:  Today, we’re going to delve in the fascinating story of a dedicated pediatrician who went away from the stethoscope and transformed herself into the CEO of the global company, BR Epic Network. You’re going to hear her transition from the medical field to the business world, and she’s going to share with you challenges and triumphs she’s learned along the way. How she was able to harness her communication skills honed in medicine to excel in entrepreneurship while still maintaining that delicate balance of clinical work, family life, and her new role in business.

More importantly, you’re going to learn invaluable advice to you, the medical professional. So if you’re someone who maybe you’re feeling a little bit trapped in your career, I think this episode will offer you some beacon of hope and perhaps a call to action to embrace new possibilities.

I think you’ll really be inspired by her story. My interview with Dr. Sarah Breen on this episode of BootstrapMD.

Welcome to BootstrapMD, the physician entrepreneur’s podcast. Your source to help you, the entrepreneurial doctor live life on your own terms, get new ideas and inspiration to help you find more balance in your professional life.

If you’re ready to get the knowledge without all the hype, you’ve come to the right place. It’s The BootstrapMD podcast, and now your host, Dr. Mike Woo-Ming.

Hey, happy to announce something really cool that you won’t want to miss. We just launched The Lounge. This is a free weekly newsletter tailored just for you, the physician, entrepreneur, and investor. You’re going to stay ahead with the latest news and tech trends, entrepreneurial strategies, alternative investing and passive income tips. And there’s so much more all designed to further your career and financial goals delivered straight to your inbox every week.

We’ll also be spotlighting fellow physician entrepreneurs, sharing success stories and providing valuable lessons from peers who are navigating the same exciting path that you are. No cost, no hassle, just important insights delivered straight to you every week. To sign up, just go to bootstrapmd.com/the lounge and subscribe today. It’s a hundred percent free. Once you enter The Lounge, get ready to start shaping your future now.

Hey guys, this is Dr. Mike Woo-Ming. Welcome to another edition of BootstrapMD. This is the podcast for healthcare and physician entrepreneurs. You know, from time to time, we spotlight physicians who are going outside of the box, starting their own businesses or working in other businesses, and this is certainly no exception.

And I’m really excited to bring her on. She’s a board certified pediatrician. She’s been practicing general peds in the north suburbs of Chicago since 2011 after being fully immersed in the entrepreneur world by her husband, Justin Breen, Sarah fell in love with our epic network and became the chief operating officer this year in 2023.

She enjoys spending time with her 2 sons. Exercising her three doodles and traveling the world where their husband, Justin. Now if that name sounds familiar, we actually had him on the program just a few episodes ago. And we thought it’d be a great opportunity to learn about his other half. Justin would say his better half and who’s someone who actually happens to be a physician and actually traversing in this world of. This world, which she most likely didn’t have a lot of exposure to. At least I know in medical school, we hardly get any business experience at all.

So I’d like to welcome to the program, Dr.. Sarah Breen. Sarah, how are you doing today?

Dr. Sarah Breen: I am great. Thanks for having me.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Thanks. Yeah. So I met Justin at a mastermind. We were sitting at a table and just talking about all of his different experiences and he mentioned that’s where you first mentioned that his one of his real superpowers is you, his wife, and I think was pulling it into to his world and maybe he took some cajoling and you finally decided to do it.

So I want to talk about your upbringing. First let’s talk about why you became a physician and then specialize in Pediatrics.

Dr. Sarah Breen: Sure. So I always say if there was anything else that I wanted to do, I would have gone into it. I just absolutely loved medicine from the beginning. I actually thought I was going to be a veterinarian.

So from seventh grade on, I did a lot of volunteering with different pet hospitals and different sizes of animals because you have to get everything in so that looks good on your resume. President of the Pre Vet Society at WashU, fully into veterinary medicine. And when I started to apply, I second guess myself, I shadowed a family friend who is an ER physician and I absolutely loved it.

And I felt like I was doing the veterinary stuff because I had to, and I really enjoyed shadowing for humans. So completely changed my mind, went to medical school, kept an open mind until rotations, but veterinary medicine, pediatrics has some similarities. So not fully surprising to anyone. I fell in love with Pediatrics, general peds and never second guessed myself.

Love the choice I made. I love animals, obviously I have three dogs now, but I am really happy and have been in Pediatrics.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: So tell me about your pediatric practice. How is it organized? How does it work?

Dr. Sarah Breen: Sure. So I’m still lucky enough to be in a private practice. We are not owned by anyone. We are just associated with two different hospitals.

So I think that makes a big difference in some of the choices that we’ll probably talk about later. It is a bigger group as well. So there are about 10 of us right now. So we have two different locations and I started part time, or I’m sorry, I started full time right out of residency. I worked 10 years of full time, dropped to part time during COVID and dropped more part time as I started to work in my husband’s business.

So I work two days a week now in the office and then I split call and rounding with my partners.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: So let’s talk about your journey from clinical duties to nonclinical duties, your current work with your husband. Tell me first, like, how did that start? When did he first mention it to you? Or did you mention it to him? How did that all begin?

Dr. Sarah Breen: That is a great question. So we were at a couples connection weekend for one of his mastermind groups. It’s the third time we’ve been and it every time that I’ve been to it, I couldn’t put a name to it, but I had trouble transitioning from that meeting back to what I call normal life as I was sitting there this time.

It truly was a snap decision there. I’m sitting in a room of entrepreneurs and some of them working with their spouses, some of them without. And for those of you who did listen to my husband’s podcast and have already figured out in the first five seconds, we are very different, especially at communication. And I’ve always known, of course, that we’re very different, but I realized that my weaknesses are his strengths and my strengths are his weaknesses. And so I thought, wait a minute, I could probably help you communication wise and we could do something together. And so it was a hundred percent my idea.

Neither of us ever had thought about it before. I grew up. You go to college. You go to med school. Get a job and you, that’s how you’re going to be until you retire. So it never even occurred to me that there was not a straight line path because that is always been my mentality is just go. I think a lot of us just go.

And it just took off from there. So I decided to work with him. He has two companies. This is his second business that was not off the ground. They had two visionaries trying to figure out how to run this, but nobody to actually do it. And so I was able to start it and do it.

As a doctor, I wasn’t used to asking for help, especially when it came to subjects outside of medicine. But then, I found physiciancoaches.com. In an instant, I found hundreds of experts to help me in all aspects of life, on areas I was afraid to ask. Dealing with burnout, starting a side gig, money management, even help with my marriage. And the best part? Nearly all experts are physicians themselves. After reading their profile in a quick chat, I knew I found the right mentor for me. At physiciancoaches.com, help from professional colleagues is just a click away.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Explain the difference between a conference where you’re getting CME that you’re going to versus a conference of entrepreneurs, you set the stage of what to expect, because I’ve explained it a few times, but for those who haven’t been to a conference that didn’t require you to get continuous medical education credits. How different are they?

Dr. Sarah Breen: Entirely. So the goal of this is to almost use business like strategies to determine your future. So you talk about your 1-year plan, your 5-year plan, your 10-year plan. And it’s both as a couple as in business, your family, different goals. You have setting goals for yourself.

It’s all about inner work. And a lot of it are things that I find the most fascinating are the things that I’m bad at. I’m not good at future planning. Neither. Actually, neither of us are. So to set a 1-year goal was very hard for us and something we’ve never done, which is great for us. There’s a lot more communication that goes on.

So they have you do this and then you break into groups and you talk about it with other people. And I have to say that those other people are the reason my life changed. I talked to another couple and I was talking about a goal of a new house or a bigger kitchen or, that kind of thing.

And this one of the entrepreneurs, he looked at me and he said, Sarah, he said, I know your husband and I know what he’s going to do in this world. I think you need to think bigger than what you’re thinking right now. And that has stuck with me and it made me see a bigger future than what I’ve been thinking.

It’s just not how I think at all. So it’s people who are just so completely different and helpful in their own ways, and they look at things from the outside and help you. It has nothing to do with sitting there listening to someone talk about over. It’s all about the, it’s all about the connections, really.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Yeah, you had mentioned that as physicians, we kind of have a linear path, right? Like you said, if you want to get into to become a doctor, you’re going to do well in school. You’re going to take the MCAT or some type of medical boards to get into medical school. You do well in in residency to get into the specialty that you want.

So it’s dictated when you go into business, not so. And one of the difficulties that many physicians have to reversing into the business world is overcoming risk. We’re not trained to be involved in risk, we’re risk averse, right? As physicians, did you have any difficulty with that going into the unknown?

Dr. Sarah Breen: Yes, definitely. That is also something that, yes, that’s something that we struggle with all of us, I think. And I, part of the reason I was able to one is because Justin is very much a risk taker that has helped me take a little bit more risk for sure. He’s helped me mentally take a little bit more risk.

I obviously did it slowly from my path of I kept working three days a week in the beginning and just also working as the COO and then eventually dropped a day and also I still am doing both. So I wouldn’t say it was a huge risk, but also I believed in the company.

So this company, it’s a great idea. I wanted to see it. And honestly, doing this is really fun for me being a COO, meeting with entrepreneurs. Our entire company is based on visionaries who are serving humanity. So it’s all about people helping people, which is still.

It’s not far off. I talk to people all day. I’m good communicator because of my training and high level people are, they’re just very fascinating. So, I understand the risk portion is hard, but I do carry the insurance. I do. That was the whole thing when he started his business was that, it wasn’t as much of a risk for him because I was working full time, carry the insurance. It was not as risky as a lot of entrepreneurial journeys, but it was terrifying for me to make the mental leap because my identity is associated with being a physician.  You’ve got your family, your friends, everyone has something to say. And it’s just, it’s hard, but you going inward and looking at the bigger picture and the big goals, it’s worth it.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Now, when I talked with Justin, he talks about finding visionaries and he also was very upfront about what his weaknesses were in.

We talked about Kolbe scores where he strength slide, where his, where he was weak. You had intimated that where he was weak, he found strengths. What were exact those strengths and were those strengths also derived from you being a physician?

Dr. Sarah Breen: Definitely. So communication for sure. He, people who love him, but he is not the easiest to understand. Sometimes I would say he doesn’t answer questions completely. You probably notice that there’s people who will get him and love him, but most of the world doesn’t understand him and are very confused by him. So they may think that he’s coming off aggressive, but that’s just how he is.

And so I, my strengths are communication. I talk to people every day. I talked to worried parents. Worried parents are the most stressed out people in the whole world. So, I find, for sure that has helped me plus just going to medical school and dealing with surgeons, angry people yelling at you when you’re holding something wrong.

I was definitely not the same person before I started medical school as I was after and I found strength in myself. You have to find strength in yourself going through medical school, not sleeping through residency and all of that. So definitely our biggest difference is our communication.

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Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Yeah. And I can share with you a personal experience with your husband. That he’ll get a kick up, but I hardly ever heard of this before. As a physician, I have employees when I’m on practice. Physicians, let’s face it. Sometimes we’re coddled at a certain level, right? So when someone comes up to you and it’s not something that is a little bit shocking to you. That was definitely very interesting. So long story short at the mastermind that I was in, we had an icebreaker.

And so they took us to a bowl, they wanted a bowling tournament and Justin was on my team and I hadn’t bowled in years, Sarah. So I didn’t take offense to this. So as I got up and you’d be nervous. And went straight into the gutter and it was a pattern that kind of, occurred during the evening and it just after a couple of frames, he says, Mike, you are the most horrible bowler I’ve ever met in my entire life.

This is within 20 minutes of actually meeting Justin and I was thinking about nobody talks to me like that. But like I said, I have I kind of understand because I have a son who’s similar in that very direct and from that we became friends and led to this podcast. So, but yeah, so I have personal experience with that as well, but I get it every day.

So yeah. Yeah. So with the communication, it sounds like talking to you’re as a pediatrician, right? You often talk to individuals who can’t speak, obviously or difficulty communication and doing that. So that’s great.

So talk to me about when you decided to go, you were already working part time. It was that a gradual transition. Did you have to talk to your current colleagues about what you’re trying to do? Or is this kind of, you’re doing it on your own? How does that work? Because that’s often a big topic of discussion for physicians who want to do something outside of their norm.

Dr. Sarah Breen: Yeah. And I’m not very good at confrontation or dealing with things like that. So I definitely, again, had to go inward and say, you know what, this is about me. And I want to be a hundred percent honest because also Justin is a big social media person. So I don’t want there ever to be anything where it comes back that I wasn’t honest, or and it’s, it is what it is.

So yeah, I went in early to early being school physical season is the summer. So the summer is very busy. I have built up over 12 years at this practice. A good patient populate. I love, I have a lot of patients. So my boss wasn’t thrilled that I was cutting back, I said, listen, I have two kids who are in elementary school, who are in sports, who are busy too.

I want to be around for them. I’m also right now helping Justin start this company and I need to drop a day. So I just went in with quick, easy facts. And I also gave him time. I said, listen, I know the summer’s busy. I’m fully booked. I get that. I will not drop until August when the kids go back to school so that I don’t want to mess things up here either.

So it was timing too. We had just hired 2 new physicians. So that was a win. And I said, if you want me to leave earlier so they can fill up, that’s fine too. That was a hard. So, you know, so it’s been fine. Again, because we split call and rounding evenly. I don’t think it doesn’t really impact people too much that way.

My patients, unfortunately it does, they have a harder time getting in with me, but I really still love doing both for now. So, obviously both parties would like me to do one, but it’s really not up to them. So as much as I’m happy doing both. I’m happy. Like I said, I love being the COO of the company.

I absolutely love it. I love working from home. I love talking to people all day, but I also still really enjoy going to work. And I love my staff and I love my patients. So for now, I’m happy doing both.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: So you’ve got the, your job as a pediatrician, your job heading up this company and obviously your wife and mom, what is, how do you balance all of those things? Can you talk about it and maybe what is your kind of current day? How do you split all these different duties up?

Dr. Sarah Breen: Yeah, good question. Number one is I work out every day. I make time for myself every single morning. That’s how I start my day. I would, I will get up an hour. Two hours before, the kids get up or if they’re, if it’s a day I’m home, then I will work out as soon as I get them off to school.

But I’ll block my schedule because working out and taking care of myself is most important. And I also have set boundaries. I try not to do meetings on Mondays because otherwise my entire life is meetings. And I try, I really try to block time so that because I do, I’m also doing all the laundry. I did three loads of laundry this morning, taking the dogs to the groomer. Cooking and taking the kids everywhere. So it’s not just two jobs. It’s everything else too. So I try to set boundaries and during the week. And also actually I told my husband who doesn’t take days off. I won’t respond to him work wise on Sundays.

So I literally won’t respond to him. I won’t respond because it is. It’s even harder with your spouse because they’re right there. And I just want to spend time with my family. That’s part of the reason I’m doing something outside of medicine because I want more time with my family. I want to be home.

I want to be able to drive them to soccer. That’s something I really want. My kids are literally the most important things in the world to me. So I’m not going to let this take over that.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: But let’s talk about the company. What’s involved? You say you talk to visionaries quite a bit of time. Give us more information about this.

Dr. Sarah Breen: Oh, absolutely! Network is a connectivity platform, a vetted. Highly vetted connectivity platform exclusively for visionaries who are changing the world who just want to meet, connect and collaborate with those doing the same. So it’s truly a group of the most amazing visionaries on the planet.

It’s global. We have members in Chile, Saudi Arabia, bunch in Canada, US, Abu Dhabi. We have someone who’s about to sign from, oh, my gosh, Australia. I was going to say Alaska, Australia. So they’re all over the planet. Any sort of vertical. It doesn’t matter. It’s all about high character, high quality people who literally just want to connect and collaborate.

So this group is just people who are motivated to connect with anyone and see what comes from it, which is really cool. We have a connection platform that’s exclusively ours. And we also have a monthly mastermind that we put together as well. We now offer it three times a month because we want them to be interactive.

Again, we don’t want someone talking to us for 90 minutes. The goal is interaction and the meetings are not about businessy type things. They’re about issues that entrepreneurs face, especially doctors like imposter syndrome. We’ve all been through that. Showing up as your true self really and truly being present.

How to show up to meetings. So it’s really the bigger picture. Is what we talk through and it’s almost exclusively zoom because everyone is global, but we are having in person events as well just to increase the connections, but it’s been really awesome so far.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: So can physicians become  visionaries and might be interested in this? This group.

Dr. Sarah Breen: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It’s all about the where yo ur brain is. It’s we do have some physicians, we have physicians working on longevity. We have dentists, publishers, podcasters. We have an artist. It’s literally across the board. And you never, what fascinates me the most is you never know who you talk to that’s going to change your life.

And so the people that are connecting within the network who are forming new businesses are sometimes shocking to me because you would think they would have nothing in common, but you just never know, unless you talk to people.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: And where’re we going to go to find more information about BR Epic?

Dr. Sarah Breen: We have the brepicnetwork.org website. So it’s brepicnetwork.org. And the website also has my contact information, so you can connect with me right through the website.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Sarah, this has definitely been enlightening. Thank you for sharing your journey. Maybe you can give us, give advice to a doctor out there who’s listening to this. Maybe they’re working right now. We find that a lot of our listeners are listening to this in the car, or maybe they’re listening to it at lunch. They’re working a lot. Maybe they’re happy with their job, but they’re looking for something else. Or maybe they’re a little bit dissatisfied and looking for a new opportunity, but they’re not quite ready to do it. That was your story. I think definitely resin will resonate with a lot of our listeners. What do you say to that? Someone who’s thinking about it, but just not ready, not sure if this is the right time or not. How do they know?

Dr. Sarah Breen: Yeah, sure. I think you never really know. I think you have to go with your gut and your heart. I think if and you don’t necessarily ever know what’s 100 percent right for you, but if you’re feeling like trying it, you, as far as I know, you only live once and nobody has to do the same thing for the rest of their life, which is what we’re all kind of program to think about.

And so why not try it? You’ll always have your medical degree behind you. You never know what doors are going to open after that. And I think it’s. It makes life more fun to try new things and just go with your gut.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Sarah, thank you again for joining us on the show. The website again is brepicnetwork.org is that correct?

Dr. Sarah Breen: Yes,

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: That’s your B. R. E. P. I. C. network. org. And we’ll put that in the show notes and your contact information. If you want to reach out to her, she is gladly allowing us to do that. Again, thank you for coming on a call and spending time with us today.

Dr. Sarah Breen: Thank you so much for having me and this was fun.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: And thank you for listening. Thank you for supporting the show. If you’re a physician right now, maybe you’re starting a side gig, or maybe you’re still considering it. Like you said, if you have a story to tell, maybe there’s a bigger mission that’s out there for you that maybe you’re currently not fulfilling. Entrepreneurship may be the answer for you. Again, thanks again for supporting us, and as always, keep moving forward.

You’ve just listened to the BootstrapMD podcast. For more valuable resources, as well as past recordings of our show, check out our website at bootstrapmd.com. Now, let’s get to work.

Today we are joined by a productivity expert, the amazing Dr. Ann Tsung, an emergency medicine physician, trained in critical care and aerospace medicine, works as a flight surgeon at NASA while also dedicating her time to working in the ICU and ER. With her busy schedule, she has managed to excel in multiple professional domains. Today, she will offer valuable insights on how physicians can find time for new business ventures and achieve a better work-life balance. 

Among the topics you will learn include overcoming the mindset that physicians are “stuck” due to demanding schedules, strategically blocking off time for family and priorities, overcoming distractions, using technology to stay focused, and taking consistent action to achieve your dreams. Her expertise and experience are sure to provide valuable guidance for healthcare professionals seeking to expand their horizons and build multiple streams of income.

Dr. Ann Tsung’s website: www.ProductivityMD.com

Book Your 30-Minute Productivity and Peak Performance Coaching Discovery Call and get 10 hours a week back in 1 hour

Transcript:

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: [00:00:00] It’s not easy juggling your work life with your side gig life or entrepreneur life. If you’re a physician, a full time physician, I’m sure you’re working 50-60 plus hours a week. How are you going to have time to start your own business? Well, that’s where my next guest comes in. She is a productivity expert.

She’s a physician. A full time NASA flight surgeon. A part time ICU ER doctor. She’s climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. She’s traveled the world. She is a mother, and at the time of this recording, she was pregnant with her second child. She is an expert in product activity, and she’s going to tell you how you can shave 10 hours every week to start your own side business. My interview with Dr. Ann Sung on this episode of BootstrapMD.

Welcome to BootstrapMD, the physician entrepreneurs podcast, your source to help you, the entrepreneurial doctor live life on your own terms. [00:01:00] Get new ideas and inspiration to help you find more balance in your professional life. If you’re ready to get the knowledge without all the hype, you’ve come to the right place. It’s the BootstrapMD podcast and now your host, Dr. Mike Woo-Ming.

Hey, happy to announce something really cool that you won’t want to miss. We just launched The Lounge. This is a free weekly newsletter tailored just for you, the physician, entrepreneur, and investor. You’re going to stay ahead with the latest news and tech trends, entrepreneurial strategies, alternative investing and passive income tips. And there’s so much more all designed to further your career and financial goals delivered straight to your inbox every week.

We’ll also be spotlighting fellow physician entrepreneurs, sharing success stories, and providing valuable lessons from peers who are navigating this same exciting path that you are. No cost, no hassle, just important insights delivered straight to you every week. To sign up, just go to [00:02:00] bootstrapmd.com/thelounge and subscribe today.

It’s a hundred percent free. Once you enter The Lounge, get ready to start shaping your future now.

Hey, guys, this is Dr. Mike. Welcome to another edition of BootstrapMD. This is the podcast for healthcare and physician entrepreneurs. I’ve heard from many of you says, I want to start a business. I want to start a side hustle or be involved in investments, but I just don’t have the time.

I’m working 50, 60, 70 hours a week as a W2 barely hanging on. How am I going have time for these other endeavors? I understand the importance of passive income and building multiple streams of income, but I want to get started, but I just can’t seem to find the time. Today is your day.

We’re in luck. We’ve got a productivity expert who also happens to be a physician. Not only a physician. She works for NASA. So I think you’re going to get a lot out of it. She is an emergency medicine physician, critical care, [00:03:00] an aerospace trained doctor. She works full time as a flight surgeon at NASA and works part time in the ICU and the ER.

She’s also a real estate investor. She is the podcast show host of Productivity MD, where she helps other doctors. Find more time and help people free up 10 hours a week or more in one hour. So they can be in their zone of genius. Just incredible individual. I got to meet her a couple of times and just amazing.

And she found the time to come here today. She got a little bit of a cold, but she says she’s gonna, she’s going to power through it. So I think we’ll get through it today. And how are you doing?

Dr. Ann Tsung: Thank you so much, Mike for the kind words and I’m doing awesome. I’m so glad to be speaking to the physicians here to share what I’ve learned throughout the years to get my efficiency 10x, especially after my having my first baby.

I just felt like I really needed to do something. If I were to actually achieve the 5 freedoms that we talk about the most.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: And I didn’t ask you [00:04:00] about this, but I think it’s fair to say you’re actually working on your second one right now. Currently.

Dr. Ann Tsung: Yes. Yeah. I am pregnant currently with a second baby. And I just know that there, I’m always trying to make things more efficient. And really the end goal is to achieve like the five freedoms and to not sacrifice quality time with my kids and my husband, which is why I’ve always been an efficient person my whole entire life. That’s what my friends know me as, but I became like ultra efficient after having a baby, even boosted my productivity was able to start new ventures because I was forced. To do it with the new board.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: That’s amazing. I think you’re just taking on new challenges as they come up to see how much you can do it at one. But I want to talk about your origin story. I’m a bit of a comic book nerd. I love to hear this. The story is how ordinary individuals become superheroes.

You definitely fit in that category. But let’s talk about first about your medical journey. How did you get into [00:05:00] medicine? Were you around other doctors in your family? How did that get started for you?

Dr. Ann Tsung: Yeah, I think first, Asian families always want you to be a doctor or a lawyer, though behind that was a strong push or pull, not just from my mom, but we, I was born in Taiwan.

I moved here when I was nine years old in fourth grade. It was just my mom and I, because they were divorced when I was a baby. So my mom worked really hard seven days a week as a waitress at IHOP, at other Chinese restaurants sometimes working till 2am because she wanted to take the night shifts and she had been robbed after those night shifts of her tips were all gone.

It’s probably at that time was like maybe 40, 50 bucks, but it was everything to her at that time. So there was also that push that we, I cannot fail her. I cannot fail this family because we’re all each what each other has essentially. She’s all I have and I’m all she has. So I cannot fail this.

So, [00:06:00] and I had, I talked to my high school Chinese teacher who spoke to me about medicine. It is the one career where you’re really, truly helping people every day. I mean, at least your true intention, right? There’s logistics. You can talk about medical administrations, the charts and everything.

But it really overall, you go into work and you’ve helped somebody every day. And that’s what pushed me to succeed. That’s what pushed me to have maximal efficiency so that I can succeed and be as productive as possible while making mistakes along the way, of course.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: And where did you go to medical school?

Dr. Ann Tsung: So medical school at UT San Antonio. University of Texas, San Antonio residency at University of Florida in emergency medicine.

And then I did anesthesia, critical care at Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. Then the aerospace medicine fellowship, which came with a master in public health. And that’s a University of Texas in Galveston. And they have very close ties with [00:07:00] NASA. And I knew I wanted to work for NASA and go into space medicine since I was 19 years old.

So it was always going to go into that route, no matter what specialty I picked anyway. So after that applied to NASA and because the residency or the fellowship, the aerospace fellowship was essentially like a, almost like a two year interview. So people get to know you. You do rotations there. And it was awesome that I finally got the position there.

I think when I calculated it, it was about 16 years after 16 or 17 years after, yeah, 16 years after I set the goal to be a NASA flight surgeon. And finally I got there and I’ve been there for two years now.

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Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: So this is very intriguing. It’s not had a common occurrence. We’re here of a doctor interested into space. You said at an early age, you were very fascinated by it. What in particular in space really made you interested in choosing this as a career?

Dr. Ann Tsung: I think most people think overall, it’s just such a cool thing, such a unique thing. Since I was little, I read encyclopedias like people. I think friends and family bought me encyclopedias when I was five years old of just photos of planets, the earth, et cetera, space in general.

And then moving to Houston when I was in fourth grade exposed me to [00:09:00] the space center Houston. So I was even more fascinated. And now I think it is just an awesome place to. It’s a good balance from ER and ICU. The stressor is way less. You don’t have high cortisol your entire shift and also it’s interdisciplinary in a crazy way with other biomedical engineers with radiation, with people like working on power, people working on like satellite communications and things like that.

And everybody is so dedicated. Everyone pretty much has a PhD and is an expert in their field and everybody is very detail oriented and resourceful and just like everyone is type a basically and it’s like interdisciplinary teamwork on steroids.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: And I know we’re going to talk about productivity and helping our audience to shape off more hours out of the week, but I want to know more, a little bit more of like your day to day, [00:10:00] because it’s so fascinating and I don’t have a usual guest who they say it isn’t rocket science, but in your case, it truly is.

So tell me for example, what are your duties that you do at NASA?

Dr. Ann Tsung: Yeah, and even amongst like the 30 plus flight surgeons, we have each of our duties are can be different depending on what you’re assigned to. So I can tell you my current duties. I am the deputy surgeon for 1 of the astronaut who is currently on the space station right now.

And then my colleague is a prime surgeon. Each assigned astronaut going on a mission gets two surgeons, the prime and the deputy. So my main job right now, she launched about almost a month and a half ago. So my main job right now is sitting at mission control at Johnson space center, working through the meetings, talking to her, doing private medical conferences, ensuring that she is in peak performance.

This is why human optimization. I love it as well. And I get to do on my actual career. Peak performance, she just had a [00:11:00] spacewalk actually two days ago. So you staff the spacewalk, you make sure she’s ready before and after. And there’s just a lot of meetings, different types of meetings that discuss operations throughout that you attend.

And also you are coordinating with European surgeons, Japanese surgeons, Russian surgeons, because all of them are on the station right now as well. Some other duties I am also assigned to, it depends on the projects or like vehicles you’re assigned to. So I’m assigned to international space station, but other people are assigned to human landing system to gateway to Orion capsule.

So they work on those meetings separately as well. And I work on space flight associated or ocular syndrome. So I am like the CNS lead, central nervous system lead for that on this side. So it’s variable overall. You would just make sure crew is healthy there and can perform well in tip top shape, peak performance.

And you [00:12:00] give inputs to other disciplines in the mission control, depending on if there’s any health risks or any health inputs. And that you give future vehicles, spaceflight systems, your inputs on the design and how to make sure that the human have what they need in terms of equipment and medical medications, et cetera, et cetera.

So that is a. And you go to launches and landing if you’re assigned to a crew. But that’s a very brief summary of what it’s like. Lots of meetings.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: I love it. I could probably talk about this or just pick your brain on this for hours. My science nerds brain is tingling, but I want to talk about this because you talked about optimization, which leads into productivity.

You said you always been productive. Your friends tell you, you’re most productive individual they know. So what led to deciding I think I’m going to coach others how to be more productive.

Dr. Ann Tsung: Yeah, it’s so funny [00:13:00] because when I initially started my coaching, it was like I, I coach on peak performance, human fulfillment, which I want you, I want people to be productive and be fulfilled at the same time and not just do busy work.

And so it’s very broad cause I do like functional medicine in a way. Like I love like the concept food is medicine. I also love weightlifting. So there’s that component, but I needed to, I felt like I needed to niche down, figure out one zone of genius. It’s really broad. It’s not very clear. So that’s exactly what I did.

I took the high five test. It gave me the top five, my top five straight. And then I just asked my friends, because sometimes when you are so good at what you do, it becomes natural and you don’t think it’s any different. Actually, because I can do this and this and this and this and this, but when I asked my friends like, Hey, what is the one thing that you would recommend your friend to come talk to me to or what is that one quality that you feel like I can share with the [00:14:00] world that I can benefit the world or what that you would come ask me all the time or the first word you think of and like probably 90 percent except for like one person said efficiency and productivity.

So essentially, whatever goal I set, I will get it done and multiple things at the same time, too. And I will get it done.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: That’s great. That’s amazing. That’s what led you to NASA and said, that’s my goal at the age of 19. So our audience, mostly physicians, we do have other health care professionals, dentists, nurse practitioners, et cetera.

And I know this is a current population that you’re familiar with, obviously. Do you, are there any like traits or qualities of these that you can maybe help pick out? Because the reason why I mentioned it, I remember talking on a physician on the podcast and this one physician kind of pushed me one way talk about productivity.

They said, you know what, we’re already high achievers. We need to, we got into medical [00:15:00] school and we, most of us graduated hopefully. And then we don’t need to be more productive. So what do you have to say to someone like that? Who perhaps dismisses the benefits of being more productive?

Dr. Ann Tsung: Yeah, I would say productivity is not just work productivity. I would say that productivity is being able to achieve your dreams. Things that you always wanted to do as well, not just in the back of your mind and you being able to take action without sacrificing your other aspects of your life. Your other wheels of your life, like your family, your own health, your spouse, if you have kids.

And so people can be productive. I’ve seen many physicians who are productive at work and they don’t have time to spend with their kids. They don’t have time to work out. They feel stressed. They are stressed about the stuff at in the house as well. They feel like they’re just the productive at work.

But they’re actually just going on a hamster wheel and just reacting to life instead of being [00:16:00] proactive in life in all aspects.

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Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Yeah. So we just had a call, a coaching call last night. And we [00:17:00] had a physician who says, I’m working really hard. I’m working in the hospital. I’m doing everything I can. I want to start a side venture or just be involved in other things. And I currently, my career doesn’t allow me to do it. And it’s, it was almost like you gave up, gave it.

So what do you, how do you first start addressing that issue with them where they feel like there’s, it’s impossible. I don’t have any time whatsoever.

Dr. Ann Tsung: Yeah, absolutely. It’s very common. People want to do real estate. People want to start, maybe their own practice or people just really want some time for themselves to work out, but they feel like they’re trapped.

So I think you can’t you will have time. There’s always cuts of time. It just needs to be examined and prioritized. But I would say that also regarding the time you’re never stuck. You’re always free. You have the freedom to choose where you work, who you work for. You are never stuck. That’s a mindset of scarcity, right?

This is the only job for me at this hospital, even though I have to take like maybe a toxic atmosphere or [00:18:00] a scheduler who doesn’t care. It’s so funny two days ago, I had a coaching client. I asked her, Hey, can, she wants to spend more time with her parents. And her kids, and she thinks that she only has one weekend a month to schedule out.

But she said, I said, what can you just pick one weekend a month? She’s an ER physician, one weekend a month, January, February, March right now, and set it with your kids and your parents so you’re good to go. And then so she said, no, I can’t because I have to wait for my schedule to come out that you are scheduled.

And I was like, can’t you just tell your ER that you cannot work this weekend now and do not schedule you. And it was so amazing that she had never thought about that before, because we have been just so ingrained in our head since medical school days, since residency, since fellowship, that our schedule is our schedule and we have no choice and we just have to take what’s given to us is and I see that so common.

It’s not. It wasn’t just her, but I’ve seen it multiple [00:19:00] times where I say that and they say, Oh, I never thought about to request like a specific day off of the week or a month and we forget our boundaries. And we forget how valuable we are, and so we forget that there’s actually an abundance of opportunities out there for those people who feel stuck.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Yeah, it is amazing when we see that. I remember working with doctors, and this one doctor said, she’s a radiologist, that she’s been miserable. Why are you miserable? She says, the best part of my day is when I get to go home, and the worst part of the day is when I wake up. And I go, and she says, then it sounds like you’re in a job that’s miserable for him.

And she said, yes. And I said, why are you in that? I have a lifestyle that I need to lead, or I have pays very well. And they don’t realize is that they do have choices and they have options. And they’re most likely in their business or in their medical practice. They’re probably the ones making the most revenue for that [00:20:00] practice.

So, I don’t know why we’re unable to raise our hands. Like you said, it is probably ingrained. From just pleasing others and but they do have choices. So when you work with a client, maybe you could talk about what are some things that you look at and what are like the next steps you do to define time in their schedule that they can devote to themselves.

Dr. Ann Tsung: Yeah, I think this is I can quickly summarize the steps when I intake a new client. The first is we’ll create a life vision of where they are when they’re 85-90 years old with full vitality and full health and mind capability. What they’re doing? What they’re contributing to with their hobbies? What they’re learning?

Who they’re spending their time with? Where they’re traveling to? What businesses do they have? What residual income do they have monthly that’s coming in? What businesses have they sold? And just what are they, what impact are they having? And then we backtrack to about five to five goals for the [00:21:00] year.

That’s going to take them to that vision and start eliminating anything they’re doing now that has nothing to do with life vision. So what’s the point of doing it? You’re just wasting your time. And then we take a look at the time audit of how they’re spending their time hour or by activity through the week and then we see which one is in their zone of genius, which one needs to be automated, which one needs to be eliminated and delegated.

And then we keep it just depends on each person’s level because it’s one on one and super customized. And then we figure out solutions. We enacted, we come back in 2 weeks and then we just get things done at a way faster pace when you actually have accountability. So that’s a very short summary of what we do.

And then we talk about a lot about delegation, which is huge because like you, the trait, another common trait is sense of control and need for control.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Yeah. And the other thing too, is what do you see as like productivity [00:22:00] wasters? I can surmise. I remember like the one doctor was telling me he’s so busy and he has no time for his family and kids, yet he’s telling me all about the shows he binge watched on Netflix and tells them about the storylines and everything like that. Probably not the best use of your time. Social media also is another. Have you noticed some areas that we need to be aware of that? Maybe we’re spending too much time and not really helpful in our own life.

Dr. Ann Tsung: Yes, yeah, agree. Social media is huge. I know a lot of physicians I’ve talked to or people in general, they scroll through their phone right before bed and have it before bed. They don’t have blue blockers on, so they have no melatonin. They don’t feel sleepy, but their body is tired. Another thing is not being intentional with their goals of the day and not being intentional to time block.

Those non negotiables, right? Why do you give your worst self in the afternoon to your kids and family? Why not your best self like in the morning to your kids and family? Just so first is time blocking those non [00:23:00] negotiables, which for a lot of people they said is their kids and family, but they don’t do it.

They actually. They don’t block off time and they schedule meetings and work through that time. And then when they have spare time, which they don’t, you don’t, you won’t find it if you don’t set it that you don’t get time with them. And then number 2 is always set intentionally the night before your top 3 priorities for the next morning.

So that the next morning, when you’re in your golden hour of productivity, you set them in order, rank them 1, 2, 3, the hardest thing, the thing that takes the longest, the thing that you don’t want to do, the thing that requires creative and deep work. That’s what you do first. Most people do. I don’t know, check my email or make a call, make an appointment or something like that.

That’s something quick. And most people, because they could check it off. That’s the it doesn’t move the needle of your 5 goals and we’re doing busy work and I’m not moving the needle.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: What is your opinion of productivity apps? I made a statement and this is probably because I’m a [00:24:00] bit of a nerd in terms of product. I think nerd like retouched, but that’s true in terms of like productivity apps. And if you’re asking, what’s the best productivity apps? And then what I realize is that, this is my opinion so I’d like to hear yours. I spent too much time being unproductive searching for the perfect productivity app.

So I’m curious what worked for 1 person probably doesn’t work for another. But what do you have to say about productivity apps?

Dr. Ann Tsung: Yeah, I definitely use apps to decrease distraction. And I can tell you, I don’t use that many not apps, they’re extensions, actually. Number one extension I recommend everybody gets is Gmail extension. A Chrome extension for Gmail.

It’s called Inbox When Ready. So once you have that extension, when you log into your Gmail, you don’t have that fear of getting distracted because you are going to because it just it’s blank until you press the button show inbox. So that way when you have important emails to respond to or compose, you just search for that [00:25:00] email or you just compose without getting distracted by all the other emails.

And then later when you’re ready, when your top three priorities are completed, then you go in there and then you press show inbox and then batch check just twice a day. Number 2, in terms of apps, I used to use a Pomodoro timer for 25 minutes and 5 minutes. I don’t do that anymore.

I use brain.fm. It’s a special music that essentially you can pick for focus, deep work, creative work, or sleep or relaxation. It has a timer on there. So I do a 60 to 90 minute flow session work session, and I just time it. And when the music stop, it’s time for me to get up to go look out to white space. So that’s what I use now, because I find that I can focus longer than 25 minutes.

Now I’ve trained my brain to not get distracted. Other things about tech and app, I actually I don’t have any. I know there are apps that restrict like your, you go into other websites and there’s other extensions that do that. I [00:26:00] think, I guess, I’ve trained myself enough to not have to do that, but I can imagine that can be helpful.

And then the one thing is phone set up for those of you guys. If you, I don’t know if you’re going to be able to see this on video. I could send a screenshot, but my phone is always black and white. And I could have a shortcut set. If you just Google how to set your phone on grayscale, I can turn it to color just with three clicks on the side button when I need to look at photos and video.

So basically it’s a dopamine desensitization. You want to progressively desensitize your brain to any dopamine colors. So the colors are gone, you’re not distracted. I have no badges, no notifications, nothing on lock screen, nothing that swipes down on my phone and everything. All of my messages and email are on the second screen, not the first screen.

And everything is grouped into something called inbox and I batch check it twice a day. So I would say it is actually your internal. It’s training your [00:27:00] mind and training to discipline your internal distraction. That’s probably going to get you the most productive and that but the technology will help you there.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Oh my god. That’s amazing I’m looking at my phone and my problem is I got a zillion apps and I have to go through 10 different pages even to make a phone call. That’s how bad I am unproductive on my phone. And then the inbox extension, I got to try that too, because I do, as soon as I get Gmail. I live in fear that I’m going to get sucked into something, but it’s..

Dr. Ann Tsung: It’s a test every time, right? It’s oh my God, I’m going to fail when I log in or I’m going to pass. So just take it away and just don’t even seriously, when you log in, you’re going to have like relief. You’re not going to always have that anxiety because it’s just..

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Yeah, well, I know you’re productive, but I want to respect your time, obviously, to the productivity expert for someone who is having feel that they’re [00:28:00] not productive. You are a coach. Maybe you can talk about what, how does a productivity coach, how can they help you? Intuitively we understand it, but for someone who reaches out to you, what can they experience? And maybe you can share like a success story for someone who’s worked with you.

Dr. Ann Tsung: Yeah, I would say what you can expect. We talked about the life vision, discovering your five strains, your time audit, and then how to automate, eliminate, delegate, and have action plans. So I would say as an example, before it was very unclear. Like I have some clients who are very unclear, have 10 goals on their list and they want to do this and jump multiple steps and do this.

But the most immediate goal and the next action step is actually not there. And it’s not specific. Oftentimes it’s not very specific. Like I want to invest in real estate. Okay. By when? How many units? How much do you have? Do you know your finances, et cetera? Or I want to start a coaching business though. Okay. Who’s your avatar? Like how niche? Or [00:29:00] why do you want to teach on that subject? Where do you want to take this?

So essentially coaching can get you to be ultra specific and get you the next action step. Within two weeks, we follow up. Make sure you completed it. So we have Q quarterly goals that we meet. And oftentimes my clients find that. One of my clients, she had her five goals, but within 3-4 months, she already achieved three of them. So she needed a new goal. So you should have five goals for the year. But within 3-4 months, she hit three of them already.

So we essentially, what coaching does is give you your time back and quicken up the pace to your dreams and your goals. And we also not just talk about optimization, but also what you’re eating, your workouts, your mindset, everything that’s going to. That it’s all, it’s an entire spectrum. It’s not just systems and knowledge, but it’s an entire spectrum of your mind, body and technique to get you there.

So that’s why I say it’s peak [00:30:00] performance, human optimization and productivity all at the same time.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: That’s awesome. And if you happen to be an astronaut, I want to be on the ISS, you’re probably the person we need to talk to. If that is your goal, who knows? You never know who might be listening.

And this has been great. I know we’re going to have some resources in the show notes, but if somebody wanted to read, to reach out to you, possibly learn about your coaching and what’s the best place to go.

Dr. Ann Tsung: Yeah, I would say, they can go to productivitymd.com. If you’re interested in learning more, what the coaching is, you can book a 30-minute complimentary discovery call with me and I have some resources I can share with you guys.

Cause I talk about automating, delegating, eliminating a lot, and especially delegating, like I have some resources on how to create somebody create slideshows for you. The person I use. Resources are where I found my virtual assistant or a virtual professional and what kind of example tasks have I had them [00:31:00] do for me so you can get inspirations and I will have resources of the house manager that I have and all of their roles and responsibilities.

So just reach out to me. You can book a call with me and that I could share those resources with you so that you can just take that away and actually start enacting some of those resources.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Oh, and okay, this is tremendous. We’ll need to get you back on the show. You can go to productivitymd.com to reach out. We’ll share again the resources here in the show notes.

Thanks again for joining us. Any last minute thought before we end the call today?

Dr. Ann Tsung: And actually, I’ve wanted to mention as well. So currently the podcast has a lot of free knowledge. It’s right now call it’s not Rocket Science show, but it’s transitioning to Productivity MD very soon.

So you can search for both depending on the timing when you listen to it. It’ll pop up show notes are on productivitymd.com. And you can find me on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn at Ann Tsung T S U N G M D doc, just [00:32:00] MD and really for the clients right now, for your audience right now, I just want to say that, inaction leads to dreams killed.

So what I’m saying is that no matter, just don’t listen to this podcast. And that’s it and be done with it. Just absorb the knowledge without action. I would urge you to no matter what either download Inbox When Ready or maybe do a time audit or what is the non negotiable time block. You’re definitely going to spend time with your wife and kids or your husband.

Or when’s the next date? Now you’re going to plan. Do something because then finally, you will actually be able to get to your life vision. Get to your dreams and don’t ever settle just because you feel like you’re stuck. Don’t ever settle. Feel like you have no choices because of the lifestyle, because you can have an even better lifestyle doing something you love.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Again, love it. This has been an action packed, power packed [00:33:00] episode. Appreciate all of the resources. Thank you again and for joining us on the podcast today. And thank you the listener for joining us today. I’m sure you’re going to get a lot of those resources. Check those out. Check out the inbox extension, the focus, all that stuff.

That’s great stuff. And as always, you’ve got like lots of different goals, maybe too many goals. If you can just pick one thing that, that, you know, empowers you, makes a difference in your life. Do one simple, one simple thing every day to get you closer to your goals and keep moving forward.

You’ve just listened to the BootstrapMD podcast. For more valuable resources, as well as past recordings of our show, check out our website at bootstrapmd.com. Now let’s get to work.

 

We delve into the remarkable story of Justin Breen, an author and entrepreneur who has found success through his exclusive connectivity platform, BR Epic Network, and is the CEO of global PR firm BREpic Communications. His first book, Epic Business, was a bestseller in six countries and No. 1 for Entrepreneurship in the US.. After meeting at a mastermind group, I read his latest book, “Epic Life,” which reveals why he works exclusively with visionaries and that his true superpower is his wife, Dr. Sarah Breen, a pediatrician, who has also recently transitioned and collaborated on their new company. Throughout this conversation, we will explore his entrepreneurial achievements and gain insights into what it takes to become a successful global company.

Transcript

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: [00:00:00] I had the pleasure of meeting my next guest and we really hit it off. We met at a high end mastermind and we had a discussion on the importance of entrepreneurs becoming visionaries of their company. He has a really interesting path for himself as he became an entrepreneur. I recently read his book called Epic Life and I really found it impactful and it was also very touching.

He comes from a journalism background so it was, obviously. This man is a very accomplished writer. Some of the chapters were really unique with titles such as Uncertainty Is An Opportunity To Collaborate, Conversation Becomes A Product. And one of my favorites, Mediocre People Don’t Like High Achievers and High Achievers Don’t Like Mediocre People.

I think if you’re an entrepreneur or someone who wants to aspire to become an entrepreneur, I think you will really enjoy my next interview. [00:01:00] My talk with Justin Breen. I’m The Author Of Epic Life on this episode of BootstrapMD.

Welcome to BootstrapMD, the physician entrepreneurs podcast, your source to help you the entrepreneurial doctor live life on your own terms, get new ideas and inspiration to help you find more balance in your professional life.

If you’re ready to get the knowledge without all the hype, you’ve come to the right place. It’s the BootstrapMD podcast. And now your host, Dr. Mike Woo-Ming.

Hey, happy to announce something really cool that you won’t want to miss. We just launched The Lounge. This is a free weekly newsletter tailored just for you, the physician, entrepreneur and investor. You’re going to stay ahead with the latest news and tech trends, entrepreneurial strategies, alternative investing and passive income tips.

And there’s so much more, all designed to further your career and financial goals delivered straight to your [00:02:00] inbox every week. We’ll also be spotlighting fellow physician entrepreneurs, sharing success stories, and providing valuable lessons from peers who are navigating the same exciting path that you are.

No cost, no hassle, just important insights delivered straight to you every week. To sign up, just go to bootstrapmd.com/thelounge and subscribe today. It’s 100 percent free. Once you enter The Lounge, get ready to start shaping your future now.

Hey guys, this is Dr. Mike Woo-Ming. Welcome to another edition of BootstrapMD. This is the podcast for healthcare and physician entrepreneurs. I met this next gentleman at a mastermind group that I’m in. As I mentioned before, I belong to a couple of high end masterminds and we really connected. I didn’t think so at first, but it seems that we really connected. And once you hear his story, you’ll learn why.

And once I got to know him, and actually I had the privilege. He actually gifted me his book, Epic Life, which was tremendous, and we’re going to talk all about it. [00:03:00] He is the founder and CEO of the exclusive connectivity platform, BrEpic Network and Global PR Communications. His book features a fellow as they did a bestsellers list.

We really connected once I found out that his wife is a Pediatrician, Dr. Sarah Breen, and she is actually I want. But she’s actually transitioning to working on a new company. We talk all about it. He’s got his children, Jake and Chase, his dogs. He doesn’t heard it a 3rd dog. I want to bring that to the table someone I’ve learned a lot about really quickly. Justin Breen. Justin, how are you doing today?

Justin Breen: Well, it’s a wonderful day and very grateful to talk to you. I think your story is it’s a wonderful entrepreneurial journey. That’s just beginning, really. And then before you hit record, I wanted to ask you what you would learn from your son, Ryan, who’s now [00:04:00] 24.

And I don’t know if you wanted to tell the audience that, but he was diagnosed with autism when he was four, correct? So 20 years.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Yeah, actually didn’t at that back then, they didn’t really give him a diagnosis and because that it’s the way that the system works. If you diagnose them too early or too late, you have certain you get certain.

You want to be labeled in particularly. So they called it the ICD Code Disorder. ICD Disorder was pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified. But then later, yes, he was diagnosed autism. Thanks for asking. And just to share with the audience, and I’ve said this to too many of my colleagues and friends that I probably wouldn’t be where I am running a number of different businesses. Starting my own practice if it wasn’t without Ryan. I was, or I was working for a company. I was the low man on the totem [00:05:00] pole in this position group, made a nice salary, but I was working what we call The Golden Handcuffs, just working and just working in probably working there continuously. But it showed me that there was different, the importance of family, which is something that resonated in your book, Epic Life that I again and again, like, why are we all doing this? And the love that you have for your family. Yeah, exactly is really what should drive all of us to do what we want to do. So thanks for bringing that up.

But yeah, this I’d like to talk about you and spotlight you and what you’ve done. You started as a journalist and I don’t think entrepreneurship really came into your mind. From what I understand until you also had a kind of similar enlightenment in your life. Well, let’s speak to that.

Justin Breen: Tremendous use of enlightenment and why I had said your journey is like, it’s just an entrepreneur journey. So [00:06:00] what separates entrepreneurs from humans, there are only four things, only four. All I do all day is talk to top visionary entrepreneurs on planet and then simplify what they say into patterns. The four things are bankruptcy or potential bankruptcy; (2) depression; (3) highest level of anxiety; and (4) likely and or possible traumatic experiences as a child or young adult.

So for humans, business owners, consultants, those four things are excuses. And then people like us, you turn those into multiple companies. You turn those into spending more time with family. That’s what an entrepreneur is. They’re the most damaged person with the best coping skills.

So the highest IQ, highest EQ, most hustle, most guts, most ability to understand enlightenment or, hey, this very difficult situation is going to lead to enlightenment. So I started first company in 2017 with zero business background. I was a journalist for 20 years [00:07:00] and created an entire first company based on how PR firms annoyed me for 20 years.

I don’t know what PR firms do. They just annoyed me and then started it. Job salary was cut in half, couldn’t find a job. Incorporated six days after turning 40. And then with zero business background, while I was working full time at half salary. Reached out to 5, 000 people to find first five clients. So that’s not most people aren’t born with the wiring to do that.

I didn’t even know what an entrepreneur was. I just, I was just born like this. So, now have two global companies that partner and connect people like us. So it’s a, I think it’s a somewhat similar journey years in mind. We were both faced with very difficult challenges, but turn those challenges into really finding what the true meaning of life is, and then creating companies based on that purpose to help others. So I think there’s a lot of commonalities there.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Why did you [00:08:00] write the book Epic Life? Why did you feel you need to tell that story?

Justin Breen: Well, I think in a way, I think it’s similar to why you’re doing what you’re doing because you’re a litmus test for people you serve. And then you see physicians and health care folks struggle with overworking and they’re doing all this stuff and then they never see their family or they torch their family or never have one.

So you created companies so you could see your family and have all this time. And if you’re not a litmus test for people, you serve that’s hypocrisy. So purpose of my life is to be, to connect visionaries to serve humanity. So connecting visionaries, not humans, not business owners, not cause it’s just pure visionaries and to serve humanity, pure global thinking.

And then formula for creating a successful global company is simple, is you see a problem, create solution, problem solved, successful global company, so you saw a problem with physicians being overworked, no passive income. Okay, create companies to help them do that, [00:09:00] create them, successful global company.

The book, Epic Life, which I’m very grateful Dr. Peter Diamandis, who very rarely does it, but he did it for me, I’m very grateful, he wrote the foreword. He’s one of the top entrepreneurs on the planet. It’s how to build collaborative global companies while putting your loved ones first. So it’s the same formula.

I talked to one to two people like us every single week that have let entrepreneur life destroy their family life or preventing them from having a family. So I’m like, okay, create solution. How to build collaborative global companies while putting your loved ones first, write about it, solve it. Successful global company. So to me, the book is just a successful global company.

As a doctor, I wasn’t used to asking for help especially when it came to subjects outside of medicine. But then, I found physiciancoaches.com. In an instant, I found hundreds of experts to help me in all aspects of life, on areas I was afraid to [00:10:00] ask. Dealing with burnout, starting a side gig, money management, even help with my marriage.

And the best part? Nearly all experts are physicians themselves. After reading their profile in a quick chat, I knew I found the right mentor for me. At physiciancoaches.com, help from professional colleagues is just a click away.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Why is it important for visionaries to connect? We talk about entrepreneurs. We talked about how lonely it can be, but why do we, why? So I should be in, in charge of everything. Why should I need to connect with other visionaries? Why did you feel that was important?

Justin Breen: Yeah. So thank you for asking that for your audience. I know the answer to that one, cause you’re involved in multiple high level masterminds, but two, you’re a visionary. So a business owner would not ask that question, but a visionary entrepreneur [00:11:00] would. And then again, all I do is talk to people like us and simplify it. So there are two fundamental things that will never change. Never, that will never change.

And I’m also in top level masterminds and then created own, which is high price point invite only connectivity platform for visionaries. So not only in the rooms, but created own room. And then in top tech masterminds, where we talk about people living 400, 500 years old, AI, all that stuff, blockchain.

So there are two things that will fundamentally never change. One, power of storytelling. We’re a world of storytellers, so viable hieroglyphics, smoke signals, I don’t know, the constitution, whatever that is. We’re world of storytelling. And then two, never will, never, will never change. Power of real human relationships.

Power of real human relationships. So AI and all this stuff, I’m a simplifier, so all this tech will just make power of [00:12:00] storytelling better and then power of real human relationships better. Because no matter how big of aliens that visionaries are, they still want to connect to other aliens because they want that sense of belonging.

They want that sense of belonging so they don’t feel lonely and people like us are usually alien, not always, but usually aliens within our own family community and verticals. The only people that understand us are top entrepreneurs on the planet. So it’s a very lonely world at first, very lonely. And it took most of my life to find people who actually understood what I was talking about.

And now that I found them, 2 becomes 4, 4 becomes 10, 10 becomes 20, 20 becomes 100. It never stops because people like us want to hang out with people like us.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Now, when we first met, one of the first things you told me, which I probably have never, met someone like you is you told me how you scored on a personality testing. Can you elaborate that for the audience on [00:13:00] what exactly that’s all about?

Justin Breen: Oh, okay. Sure. If you think the opposite of me, that would be my wife, who’s a pediatrician, kind, loving, 100 percent gray, rules, order, and then I’m like, I see the world in numbers and keywords, 100 percent black and white, very direct.

And then she’s you have to stop identifying people as numbers. I’m like, that’s how I see the world in numbers, like IQ and then the test that you’re talking about, which actually is not your personality, which is that’s why I like it. But it’s called the KOLBE test, K. O. L. B. E. kolbe.com, a index.

It takes 20 minutes. I think it’s 55 U. S. Dollars and it measures how your brain takes action, how folks take action, and I don’t really care what someone’s personality is. It’s, I don’t really care what someone does. I don’t care where they live or how many employees. I just want to know if they’re visionaries or not, or if they’re going to do something.

And Kolbe, I have found, I’m not affiliated with it at all, but for me, it’s [00:14:00] been the easiest way to identify who a visionary is and who is not. And Kolbe, the Overwhelm, there’s four numbers, there are four numbers. Most of the people I talk to, not all, but most of them are very high quick start, that’s idea, shiny, object, shiny, and then they have little to no follow through. So that’s like ADD, ADHD, diagnosed or undiagnosed, it’s not a disorder, it’s a sign of genius, mislabeled by humans, and then I’m the very, very rare visionary that has high quick start, boom, boom, and then high follow through as well.

So it’s hit the gas, pump the brakes, hit the gas, pump the brakes. It’s ultra focused. And then the typical human or doctor or pediatrician, like my wife, is lower quick start, higher follow through. So analyze, then make a decision. But then once that decision is made, never stop following through. So that’s why my wife is such a great COO integrator for second company.

It took her 19 years of hanging [00:15:00] out with me and people like me to realize, ah, I want to become someone like that. And then now she’ll never stop following through. She’s an onboarding machine.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Yeah. So tell me about your wife. When I read your book, I could definitely see when you spotlighted your family. You could tell that the word you really lit up because that was like, the biggest take home that I got. That’s your world. So tell me about Dr. Sarah Breen and then maybe her journey and then her decision to start up and work in your company.

Justin Breen: So it’s a wonderful journey and wonderful story. I am not a very emotional person, but when I think about my wife and our children, who, by the way, our children are both nine quickstart to follow through maniacs, that’s a maniac as a compliment, they’re pure visionaries. They’re ten and nine years old. And then [00:16:00] actually our 10 year olds about to turn 11.

So probably when this. He’ll be 11. So which is very interesting. But so usually I don’t say this, but I think your audience will appreciate this. My wife and I our first date was the day before she started medical school. Literally the day before she moved into the dorms to start medical school. I’m five and a half years older than her.

And so if there’s anything comparable to entrepreneur life journey, it’s going through medical school. You’ve done both. So that’s a really interesting and we never really dated for we never dated until we met in 2004 we never really started dating until 2018 and that was after we had our two children, our two sons.

So it was like 14 years of [00:17:00] whatever dating a doctor is, I’ve experienced it okay, and then I’ve been an entrepreneur for Since 2017, six days after turning 40. And my wife, just after turning 40, we were at, in one of the entrepreneur groups we’re in, it’s called Strategic Coach. Very grateful to be in that.

Dan Sullivan and Bab Smith, our husband and wife, and their co founders are Strategic Coach. I’m sure a lot of folks in that. And they have a thing called Couples Connection, where the entrepreneur and her, his spouse or partner, boyfriend, girlfriend, they go to and a weekend long event with other entrepreneurs and their partners.

And then they just talk about entrepreneurial couples. So we went to San Diego area earlier this year, and this is the third time we had done this event. And we’ve almost been together 20 years now. So my wife, again, low quick start, high follow through, high fact finder, she just [00:18:00] absorbed this for year after year, and then met all these couples where the spouse had transitioned out of whatever line of work they were in. And then decided to become an entrepreneurial couple, literally working together or completely just becoming an entrepreneur themselves.

And at the end of this most recent couples connection, my wife is Sarah, Dr. Sarah, she goes, I have an idea. What if I transitioned out of Pediatrics and became COO of your second company? I’m like, okay, great. Here’s the microphone. Tell everyone, cause I don’t overthink anything. I’m just like, okay, great. And that was a couple months ago. And she’s been COO for about two and a half months. And just to land the plane, which I don’t usually do, but for her, I will.

She’s on boarded almost 300, 000 US dollars into new company and new members. She’s an onboarding machine, right? Yeah. Cause she’s high, low, quick start, high follow through. She’ll never start. She’s [00:19:00] planned our first big in person event, which will be May 15th and 16th in Phoenix, I believe.

She does all the backstage stuff. She helps run the meetings with my partner who’s in San Francisco. He does eight, nine figure deals all day. That is not my world. I just like to connect people, I guess. And then she’s down to two days a week PD, she’s lower quick start, so she won’t admit it, but I’m higher quick start. I already see it. I’m guessing she’ll be out of Pediatrics completely within 12 months.

The kids and I have a bet on that. Our 10 year old said 6 months, 9 or the 9 year old or the 11 year old said 6 months and the 9 year old said 9 months that my, my wife will be completely out. We were trying to plant the seed with her on that, so that’s a long answer, but for me, with her, it’s really important to do that because one, of how much I love her, but two, her story is, I think, the template, not only for your [00:20:00] audience, but anyone who’s not necessarily a visionary, like us, like you and I were born to be this person. My wife and people like that, they’re not born like this.

So they, but they can hang around people like us and then become like this. And that’s a beautiful thing to me.

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Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: But are you saying that’s what a visionary needs is an executor is an operator. I think I watched a video where you had mentioned your partner in a BREpic Network and you had this event and they saw the video of the event. I believe you had met him for the first time ever. You want to share that story. I think it’s funny.

Justin Breen: It’s funny and amazing and again, another wonderful thing that, this is another reason why I wrote book because I do think that the way my partner’s name is Mark Fujiwara. Great. He’s a great, just a great guy. He’s in San Francisco. I’m in Chicago. We’ve met 2 times in person now.

One was at the launch party, which was in 2021. So before we even had the [00:22:00] platform for the company, we had a launch, we had a launch party. And then by the way, you saw the video, my wife’s in that. Which is really interesting and that was well before she was COO, but it almost had planted a seed wound up becoming what it is now.

And that’s how you learn in real time is by doing something and then you see what happens. But Mark and I had met virtually also in strategic coach. And one of the chapters in Epic Life was find your Babs or have your Babs find you. Again, Babs is the wife and business partner for Dan Sullivan, and I was talking to Dan virtually right at the start of COVID in another mastermind called Abundance 360, which is led by Peter, Dr. Peter Diamandis, who wrote the Ford for Epic Life. Again, if you see the connections here, And I was telling Dan, Hey, I need to find my Babs for second company, because I can’t build a tech platform. I don’t, I would blow myself up doing that. I can barely hold a [00:23:00] pen right. As you saw earlier. But so I’m like, Hey, I need to find my Babs.

And then Dan’s, Oh, no, the trick is have your Babs find you. So I’m like, Oh, that’s a good idea. I’ll do that. So strategic coach has a thing called an Impact Filter, which like you have to fill out 7 to 10 things that need to work out for this to be a good match. And I filled it out and I started sending it to people and then Mark was one of them and he’s, Oh, that’s a good idea. Let’s do that. I’m like, okay, great. Let’s here we go. So, that was 2021.

And then we had the launch party and then Epic Life came out in 2022 where we talked about the formation and then my wife, Dr. Sarah became COO earlier this year, and now it’s taking off like a rocket ship. So planting seed after seed after seed, then it grows into a beautiful garden and then it keeps growing. It never stops.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: And certainly in this case, you married your Babs. [00:24:00] What other ways can they find us? Is it going to events? Is it putting in? What is it?

Justin Breen: The answer is yes. The answer is yes to all, the, okay. So this, to simplify everything you’re saying, the answer is doing something. It’s taking action and I appreciate you reading Epic Life book. I appreciate it. Chapter one is the cream rises to the top. That’s something my dad said every day that he was alive. And he was 61 when I was born. He was born in 1916. So he’d be 107 now. And he died when I was 13. And then he was a World War II hero. World War II hero who was shot down multiple times in combat many times without a parachute and got back into a plane.

So that’s my litmus test for you’re either someone who can do that or you’re someone who makes an excuses. So the reason why the answer to anything you was you were going to ask is yes, is because everything you’re asking is doing something. It’s putting [00:25:00] yourself out there to attract something.

So whether that’s a social media post, it’s whether it’s going out in actual public, whether it’s doing an impact filter and sending out to your friends, whether it’s, Hey, you know what? This is the day before my wife’s starting medical school, but I love her anyway. I’m going to date her, which I told her, I loved her after one week. I would have told her the first day, but I didn’t want to scare her the day before medical school. So I waited a week to tell her, but no, it’s by taking action.

It’s by doing something. And then again, what my dad said, the cream rises to the top. The cream rises to the top because of those are the ones that take action and make investments. They don’t make excuses. No excuses. Figure it out.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: I love it. I love it. I know your time is short. I know connecting visionaries give us a 1 or 2 advisor. There’s physicians who are on this call right now. I know some physicians are visionaries. I know some may be more operators. What’s the next step for someone who’s got an [00:26:00] idea? They can change the world, but they’re not sure what the next step could be. What would you, what advice would you give that person?

Justin Breen: Okay. One, that’s tremendous. Normally, I don’t like landing the plane questions, but that’s a really good one because you are being a litmus test for people you serve, and then they will do it if they just have an answer because they’re all intelligent. They’ll put in the work.

If you get through medical school, you can, rotations, residency, you can do anything. So you’re asking something for a group of people that will do it. They will do what it takes. Okay, so I’ll give you a step. If it’s helpful, a step by step. If it’s helpful. Okay, and if it’s helpful as background, because almost all these people are probably high fact finders, because I don’t think you can get through medical school without being a high fact finder.

Chapter two of Epic Life book is the Perfection of Patterns. So it’s a deep dive into pattern, answer, pattern, answer, pattern, answer. [00:27:00] Okay. So one, I would take the Kolbe, K O L B E. com. Again, if you’re a visionary, that means probably not always, but probably ADD, ADHD, all over the place. That’s high, quick, start, lower, follow through.

And if you don’t hire humans. Really smart ones to help you total, total disaster. So those type of people are the ones they’re usually they’re running the healthcare practice. They’re a visionary who’s happens to be a doctor. They’re a visionary who happens to be a dentist running a giant dental practice. They’re a visionary who happens to be running a massive hospital thing.

And there’s 50 people under them. Okay. So that’s one. And then regardless of what the Kolbe is, find someone who’s the opposite of you, because for me, anything that’s a weakness, if you want to look at it that way, is a find, is a chance to find collaborative strengths.

So, my partner has, and I’m a [00:28:00] visionary, but he’s an even bigger visionary than I am. And then I have slightly more follow through than him. My wife, who again is a Pediatrician, is a stabilizing human, but we’re both Achiever Three in Strength Finders. She just does it with harmony and relationships. I do it with activate, maximize, so go.

And then in Strength Finders, Gallup Clifton Strength Finders. I am dead last in empathy, there’s 34 of them. For top visionaries on planet, I have endless empathy, endless. My partner, Mark, is competition one, maximizer two, empathy three. He’s third in empathy, so collaborative empathy. I am 31 out of 34 in harmony.

My wife is harmony one. She is collaborative harmony, collaborative follow through. But we have this. She and I have both have very high IQ and we’re both achievers three. So again, find out who you are and then find the right collaborators who can [00:29:00] really help with the things that you’re just not great at.

So I hope that’s helpful. And then a deep dive into maybe how a healthcare person thinks brainwise, strategy wise.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: I love it. Finding somebody who’s opposite. I have my executor. Her name is Michelle’s amazing. That’s the only way that we were able to run different products.

Justin Breen: Yeah, it would be. Imagine and then I’m guessing in your family, your wife’s a stabilizing. I would think.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Just that you think and present for sure. Justin, this was amazing. I love just getting access to your wisdom and knowledge. Work in the good if they want to find out more information, we got your book Epic Life, but you also have your network. What’s the best place to find out more information?

Justin Breen: One, this was tremendous. Just a tremendous interview. You’re a great simplifier. And then your companies are great multipliers. I’m a hundred percent simplifier and companies are a hundred percent multipliers, so I can understand. And [00:30:00] then BREpic Network, the website is BREpic, B R E P I C network.org. And then you can read about how awesome my wife is on the site.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: I love it, Justin. Again, tremendous, go check out his book, Epic Life. He also has another book called. So you are in your entrepreneurial journey. Feel free to reach out. Justin, thank you again for your time. Again, amazing interview. We’ll need to have you back at some future point as well.

Justin Breen: Oh, get my wife on. You got to get her on. She’s more, she’ll be a bigger, that’s what I’m really like when the new company is really taking off. Now we’re about to be named one of the top five masterminds on the planet, which is, I’m very excited about that.

I don’t know the timeline of that, but I know the articles coming out soon. It’s in one of those major travel magazines. And then like my wife will be like, cause she’s relatable to anyone and she can communicate with anyone. So she would love to talk to you if [00:31:00] you want to, I can introduce you to her from here.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Yeah. Yeah. If you have her people call my people, we’d be happy to have her. Thanks again, Justin, and thank you for listening. Remember, entrepreneurship has its ups and downs, but do something as he says. Take action, do whatever you can to help meet your goals and keep moving forward.

You’ve just listened to the BootstrapMD podcast. For more valuable resources, as well as past recordings of our show, check out our website at bootstrapmd.com. Now let’s get to work.

It’s no secret physician private prqctice ownership is at an all-time low.  It takes out of the box thinking to survive and thrive in today’s medical climate, and that’s why it was imperative to have my next guest onto the podcast.  Andy Greider is an innovative healthcare entrepreneur whose company, Healthcare Evolution Group, has successfully created multiple turnkey solutions that helps doctors meet Medicare compliance, boost patient engagement, and increase revenue.

After listening to this episode you will discover new income streams most can add to their own practice, while learning alternative revenue sources behind traditional healthcare services.  Don’t miss this one!

Learn More About Healthcare Evolution Group (Affiliate link):
https://www.healthcareevolutiongroup.com/bootstrapmd

Transcript:

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: [00:00:00] According to the American Medical Association, in the 1980s, three out of four physicians owned their own practice, 76%. Last year in 2022, it’s down to 44%. So it’s probably not surprising to you that most medical practice owners are not physicians. The main reason for this physician owner exodus, declining reimbursements, leading to more financial instability.

Well, my next guest is here to help change all that. He’s a healthcare entrepreneur who helps providers provide turnkey solutions to help increase patient engagement and add additional revenue to their practice. During these times, you’re going to need some out of the box thinking, and he certainly brings the goods. My interview with Andy Greider on this episode of BootstrapMD.

Welcome to BootstrapMD, the physician entrepreneurs podcast, your source to help you, the entrepreneurial doctor live life on your own [00:01:00] terms, get new ideas and inspiration to help you find more balance in your professional life. If you’re ready to get the knowledge without all the hype, you’ve come to the right place. It’s the BootstrapMD podcast, and now your host, Dr. Mike Woo-Ming.

Hey, happy to announce something really cool that you won’t want to miss. We just launched The Lounge. This is a free weekly newsletter tailored just for you, the physician entrepreneur and investor. You’re going to stay ahead with the latest news and tech trends, entrepreneurial strategies, alternative investing and passive income tips, and there’s so much more all designed to further your career and financial goals delivered straight to your inbox every week.

We’ll also be spotlighting fellow physician entrepreneurs, sharing success stories and providing valuable lessons from peers who are navigating the same exciting path that you are. No cost, no hassle, just important insights delivered straight to you every week. To sign up, just go to [00:02:00] bootstrapmd.com/thelounge and subscribe today. It’s a hundred percent free. Once you enter The Lounge, get ready to start shaping your future now.

Hey guys, this is Dr. Mike Woo-Ming. Welcome to another edition of BootstrapMD. This is the podcast for healthcare and physician entrepreneurs. We always love to have guests who are helping other doctors, whether it be in their career, helping them with their practice, maybe helping them with their productivity, even their life.

And I think we found another gem. This gentleman is a problem solving consultant and entrepreneur who enjoys connecting dots to create win solutions for clients. He’s currently working as a managing partner for healthcare evolution group, where he and his partners have created multiple turnkey solutions. Helping doctors meet Medicare compliance, increasing patient engagement, increasing revenue, improve RAF and add other new income streams among other things that we’re going to be covering on today’s podcast.

And he’s always loves to learn new [00:03:00] things. He likes to cook. I’m a horrible cook. I probably skipped that. I can microwave. Hike, read, just being in nature and traveling with his wife and family. Want to welcome to the program, Andy Greider. Andy, how are you doing, my friend?

Andy Greider: I am fantastic, Mike. Thanks for having me. This is a real pleasure. I’m just super thrilled to be here.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: I’m here. So just before the program, we, were connected with a mutual friend, Justin Green. And we were talking about that he has the pulse of like networking and it just seems to know a lot of folks. He says, I need you to meet Andy. He, I think you need, you guys need to connect you guys to line in common. And so that’s what started the impetus for this podcast episode today.

But I want to talk about your entrepreneur beginnings. We were just before the call, we were talking about possibly going to the same marketing events back in [00:04:00] the day. We’ve got mutual friends. How did you get involved into entrepreneurship?

Andy Greider: Ah, wow. Well, I can thank some big corporations for that. I’ll try to leave out names to protect the guilty, but AT& T and some other folks that caused me to decide that corporate really wasn’t my gig and get into the entrepreneurial world all the way back in the early to mid nineties.

I helped start a .com. I helped do a couple other things along the way, fell into consulting and problem solving because that’s the way my brain works. But I’ve done a lot of different things. Mike, I’ve got a really wide swath of background. I made jewelry for a few years. I am a big sound fanatic. I actually installed home theaters for a couple of years. Some of those were side jobs. Some of those were main jobs.

Really my heart has always been in helping other people. And the easiest way I’ve found to do that is to solve problems that people are having. And the more that you can do that in ways that help everyone, and healthcare is a beautiful place to do [00:05:00] that in, because there’s, you have staff, you have doctors, you have patients, you have the system itself that needs fixed.

So there’s all sorts of different challenges and possibilities there. So it really, that’s what kind of got me all the way up to healthcare. But I’ve worked in finance. I’ve worked in insurance. I’ve worked in tech. I’ve worked in pharmaceutical. All over the place, life sciences, all, and it’s been fun, but it’s always, there’s always a new challenge out there. There’s always a problem that needs solved.

As a doctor, I wasn’t used to asking for help, especially when it came to subjects outside of medicine. But then, I found physiciancoaches.com. In an instant, I found hundreds of experts to help me in all aspects of life. On areas I was afraid to ask. Dealing with burnout, starting a side gig, money management, even help with my marriage.

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Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: When I always love asking this question about entrepreneurs. You said you’re in the corporate world. I think we caught the company you work with, but we can edit it later if you’d like. But did you have like family members who were entrepreneurs? Did you have that crazy uncle doing multi level marketing?

Andy Greider: No, actually, no, I really didn’t. My parents, my dad was a school teacher and my mom worked in the, actually I’ve worked in the healthcare arena doing, teaching residents how to alleviate their medical debt. I did have exposure to healthcare early on, but not really entrepreneurship. And so I just, again, my heart’s always been there.

I own my own jewelry company. I made jewelry for a couple of years when I was younger and that kind of that really lit the [00:07:00] bug. And actually, I guess it really harkens all the way back to high school. I had a company VCRs back when you had to do the dial in on the because parents would come in by this VCR and they’d have no idea how to program it.

And I had a couple of friends that I take care of and they’d go out and help me install and I’d sell the VCRs and then go install them and it was fun. It was an opening kind of foray into business. And then beyond that, we, I followed that niche in college. I tried to go corporate for a little while and it just didn’t work for me. The entrepreneur bugs bit me since I was about 22, which is a good 30 plus years ago now.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Now Andy, you did just date ourselves because there’s a whole audience that has no idea what VCR means. Just for my audience, because I think I’m about the same age as you or getting close to it or older, perhaps, VCR stands for Video Cassette Recorders.

For your audience who are listening, before that they had TiVo or automatically recording [00:08:00] programs. We would have these cassettes that could be Betamax or VHS. And then if you wanted to record your show, let’s say Trees company. Okay. Friends or whatever you would go in and you would set your clock to record.

And I think probably about 15 percent of the population actually knew how to record on time, and I guess you’re 1 of that 15 percent that figured out how to do it.

Andy Greider: It was a necessity thing. I actually worked in a video store, running videos and the 1 day. Can you figure out how to do these? And I said, sure.

And I figured it out and he said, can you teach other people? And I said, sure. And he said, let’s figure out how we make that into a profit center. He was a former construction worker who was an entrepreneur. So that was probably my entrepreneurial influence. Now that I think about it, Mike, I don’t know. I’ve ever really thought back that far to that whole Genesis, but there you go.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: And then, if you would have been able to actually stop the [00:09:00] 12 o’clock because my dad always had that. You never figured out how to stop the 12 o’clock.

Andy Greider: Oh, Lord. Yes. Yes. Indeed. There were all sorts of challenges, but we were usually able to overcome them. Very few people knew how to do it. So anyway, yes, go ahead. Please.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Okay. Let’s with that segue, let’s talk about health care. What got you involved in health care? That’s the big behemoth, right? Everybody says there’s a lot of money to it, but there’s a lot of problems to it as well.

Andy Greider: Well, and I think actually the last part of what you just said, Mike, is what got us involved is there’s a lot of things that need to be solved.

We came across an offering that we really liked through a who’s a gentleman who’s now our third business partner. My partner, Buzz McComber and I had healthcare evolution group running for a while. We brought Jorge Gonzalez in with us along the way, but what we were shown was a program that helped doctors.

With their compliance issues with their patient engagement side of things and with new revenue, and it [00:10:00] kept them away from dealing with the macro law that’s out there. 9 percent penalties are never a good thing when you’re running a 20 percent margin. And so the 1st thing I looked at as well this is a huge risk if you don’t actually take care of it.

Now, 2nd part was, oh, wow, we can engage the patients. And help avoid emergent care situations and help the doctors see the people they need to see in the timely fashion that they need to see them while we maintain a baseline on all the people that are doing well enough, but might have something emerging.

And then the last part is we can create brand new revenue. We’re not robbing Peter to pay Paul. A lot of the programs that I’ve always seen in healthcare borrow from some other column in order to create quote unquote new profit. Ours is actually brand new profit. And then I got further into it and I love this because it looks and feels like the practice. There’s no real integration issue. There’s no tech integration issues. There’s no HIPAA risk. There’s not even an issue with the EHR. We basically can log directly in and the doctors are pulling up [00:11:00] their soap notes right in front of them. Boom. Boom. It’s really easy to put into a practice and it really helps the practice.

Once that kind of came in play, we started talking with a lot of groups. We started recruiting a team of former healthcare executives. Folks that had been retired and who wanted to get out of the house and go do something fun and visit their old friends. And or the people that took their place when they left.

And we started running this out and seeing what would happen. And that was maybe a year ish ago. And in the last 9 months, we’ve added 3 other services into the stack. So we call it CPR compliance, patient engagement revenue. We partner with a company that is a tremendous branding partner and execution partner on that part.

And again, like I said, what they do is remarkable and what it helps anybody that takes Medicare, whether it’s the patient, the staff, or the doctor, it’s a huge help to them. So and again, when that’s what we’re looking for the next parts I can [00:12:00] get into, but I’ll pause.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: So you talked about that you have 4 major services with healthcare evolution group. I’m just curious working with doctors. Have you seen like a common theme with the doctor owner? Are you seeing the same problems again and again? Is it, is there something that you can point to that maybe will help the practice owners who are listening to this program? Just be aware of, or just be aware of that these problems can occur.

Andy Greider: That’s a really good question, mike. I think the biggest problem they’re facing is a bit of it’s a combination of apathy over laws that have been passed, but not enacted. And that’s macro for you. I was passed in 2015. They only enacted it at the beginning of this year. So they’ve been being warned and warned and it’s a big, it’s a little boy that cried wolf and the government’s a little boy.

And so they keep saying, oh, we’re going to do this. We’re going to do this. And now they actually are. I think there’s [00:13:00] a certain amount of skepticism is the other word I would say. What we do is we run a report for them. A lot of times I see skepticism. I see a lot of folks saying our SEO or MSO or whomever takes care of this for us. And in real and realistic terms, they usually don’t. They don’t do what they need to do all of it anyway, and certainly not at the level at which we’re able to perform for them. So we run a free report for them, so there’s no upfront cost to any of what we do either.

And we run this free report that shows them where they stand. I’d say finding out where you stand with cMS and how CMS is seeing your practice is probably the biggest thing that most people need right out of the gate. They don’t know they need it until we run the report for them. Reports as simple as getting a number from them and saying, okay, let’s run and see what CMS is seeing.

We have a ability to do that at a level that is pretty impressive. And the report that comes back shows them on those 46 touch points for Medicare and the macro law. Where are they [00:14:00] compliant? Where are they not? What do they need to do to get compliant? And then we show them how we can help. I think a lot of times doctors also, let’s just be honest.

I think most doctors are like most people. They’re human beings. They don’t like to ask for help. They don’t want to say I need help. I was going to say possibly more. But in this case, what the help looks like is very congruent to their practice and very much congruent to what they want to do and how they want to practice.

So we’re a helping hand that comes in the background, looks and feels like them and can perform a lot of these touch points. The typical Medicare patient is seen somewhere between 2 and 4 times a year, right? There’s no way you can do 28 services that are required in those 2 to 4. If it’s 2, especially even in 4, there’s just no way.

And then if you’re not compliant with 28 out of the 46, you’re going to end up with your fines and your penalties. So it breaks down that simply. So a lot of times it’s just [00:15:00] asking them, are you aware of what you’re up against? And they might think they are. And then we can show them that, Hey, here’s what, this is really what’s happening behind the scenes.

This is what they’re going to send you. Probably shortly is this letter that says, hey, you need to actually put together an action compliance plan. Once they do that, then you’re on the clock. The good part is we can get to you before that before you get the letter and get you compliant and not ever have to get the letter.

And again, I think there’s a lot of people that judge this is something that, oh, that’s not going to happen to me. That’s only going to be the big systems and they’re right, they’re going to start with the big systems. Don’t get me wrong, but we’ve gotten plenty of people that have come back to us in the last 6 months that have said, hey, I got my letter.

I should have listened before. So that’s the stuff. I really want to avoid Mike because it’s a panic moment. It’s a really intense. Oh, no. Oh, my gosh. This could be a really devastating piece moment.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: I guess it’s just human nature just as we do with patients. They don’t want to get their lab tests because they’re afraid of they’re [00:16:00] going to find out something. Sometimes you just need to bite the bullet. Just get it done before you find out that it’s too late.

Andy Greider: And if I may Mike to that example, and it’s a good 1, except the 1 part is, if I’m getting lab results back, I don’t know what I’m getting back and I don’t know what we can do about it. Here, no matter what you get back, we actually know what we can do about it. So there’s, there’s a lot less of a fear factor. If you look at it logically.

Now, again, logic and fear don’t always go together. So it’s but realistically, I think you’re right. I think a lot of people are a little scared to pull back the curtain and see what’s back there. They’re a little worried that it’s not going to be pretty. And in a lot of cases, they’re actually right. But we, again, we have an ability to make that part pretty, which is nice. And then, like I said, we have other things we can bring in. And I should say we concentrate on the primary folks with the primary relationship with the Medicare patient, so it’s primary care. It’s internal medicine. It’s geriatrics and [00:17:00] it’s family medicine largely that we work with.

And then we work with everybody from the small clinics all the way up to the largest systems in the country health care system wise. So it’s a fun. It’s a really fun space to be playing in and there’s about 88 percent of positions that are still not compliant. So it’s a pretty wide open field too.

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Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Wow. So let’s talk about some of the other services. Wound care is one of the services that you can that you offer.

Andy Greider: Yeah, it’s a field that has always had a bad rap because traditionally a doctor is going to refer that out to some external source because wet wraps and Manuka honey and things like that are not something they’d usually want to play around with.

It’s usually a very long healing time. It’s got a high recurrence rate. It’s got a fairly high infection rate. It also leads to a lot of problems for the patients that the patients turn around and blame the doctor. And that’s not a that’s not a good situation for any of them. So what we have done is we’ve built a turnkey solution that is a really powerful deal with a partner of ours.

Again, that is a full software package that goes through all the ordering goes through all the tracking goes through all the patient [00:19:00] pieces, all the picture taking all the we can even do all the billing for them on the claims. Mike, are you still there?

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Yeah.

Andy Greider: Okay. I though I lost you. The best part about it is there’s no out of pocket cost because we can do it at nine at 60 day net billing. So these patches are, they’re amniotic patches, they’re dehydrated. So they’ve got shelf life, but you don’t want to have to buy 10 of them at a time out of your own pocket in order to get a discount and be committed to an ongoing program to get a discount.

We’ve made it so that it’s really simple, really easy, very turnkey. To bring in an average doctor with a thriving practice is going to refer out between two and four patients a month to somewhere else. This allows them to bring back in probably 75 percent of that current patient load, because there’s certain things we would still need to refer out.

There’s exposed bone and things like that are going to probably be referred out to a surgeon or some somewhere else. When you look at the actual [00:20:00] caseload, a lot of these doctors are picking up 3 or 4 new patients a month, and it’s a substantial increase to their practice bottom line. And again, at very little risk to them, if there really is any risk at all, because the programs also, there’s no contracts.

We encourage people to give it a good six months. And make sure that they’ve given it its full best, but we have yet to have anybody drop out. We have yet to anybody even really be anything other than thrilled with what happens because we’re able to do provide a service for their patients that they weren’t able to provide before.

Word of mouth takes care of the cousin, the neighbor, the coworker coming in and suddenly you’re seeing instead of 2 or 3 patients a month, you’re seeing 7 or 8 and your profit center just keeps increasing and you become more and more popular in your hometown or in your area.

The only place it’s all part Medicare. We do not work with the part a side of things. So we don’t work with hospitals on the wound care. That’s a whole different animal and we don’t play in that field or in that space. But podiatrists, dermatologists, home care, nursing homes, [00:21:00] assisted living, we even can work directly with our ends and I should say.

Nurse practitioners in large part depends on the state on whether they need a sponsor or whether they need other training, but like Florida, they literally open their own practice and the woman who we partnered up with has had a career much like you have Mike of helping physicians open successful practices.

She just applies that over to the nurse practitioner side. Then from there, it’s been fun. That’s been a great piece. That’s one of the other pieces that we work on.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: So speaking of wounds, one big wound that we have in practice is when we have, we provide a service and then we don’t get paid and we have to use a collections agency.

And with that really awkward segue, talk about how you can help the practices get I want their money back.

Andy Greider: Oh, thanks, Mike. It’s a sentence I never thought would come out of my mouth in my lifetime. If you had asked me a few years ago to say that I work and I work with and in debt collection. But what we [00:22:00] found is a company that we partnered up with.

It is a compassionate and empathetic debt collection company, and that’s I know that’s hard to even fathom for a lot of people, but they don’t use lawyers. They don’t report to credit bureaus. They don’t threaten. They don’t manipulate. They don’t push. They literally meet you where you’re at, and then they use AI to check in.

So they might send you a text that says, hey, Mike, can you make that payment this Friday? And you say, yes, or no, and if they say, no, then you get a nice phone call that says, hey, how can we get you back on track? What happened? Are you okay? That kind of thing, but they collected about 1.5 to 3 times as much as a typical agency.

And the other thing that’s really important to understand there, Mike, is whether you’re in a specific state or nationally, there are a lot of new laws about collections, especially around medical debt and medical debt 500 and under, which is about 80 percent of medical debt that are going into play that are consumer protection bureau act that eliminate the ability to go to a credit bureau, which is page one of most people’s playbook.

[00:23:00] The folks we’re working with they don’t do it at all. So that’s not, doesn’t affect them. And so a lot of people that are with traditional companies are going to see that level drop even more because they aren’t able to use their 1st page of the playbook anymore with these guys. We again, I think that’s why they’re getting up to around the 3 percent or the 3 times return.

But 1. 3 to 1. 9 is pretty typical higher return. And again, this is all money that you weren’t sure you were ever going to get back, so it’s bonus money. So why not get more of it? Or why not? Why not get more of it back? And on top of that, Mike, and you already alluded to this a little bit, but you don’t end up upsetting the patients.

The patients don’t come in and spend the 1st part of their appointment complaining about the collection bureau. You send them to and how nasty they were. But I talked to enough nurses and enough doctors to know that happens.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Yeah, we, they’re just like, we realize that we’re not going to ever get it back. So just having that option, but it does sound like [00:24:00] not having that. Having that negative sledgehammer approach just doesn’t work all the time. Finally, I know our time is coming to a close. You also help doctors protect their assets and help them with privacy. Tell us about that.

Andy Greider: We are fortunate enough to work with a trust that is a contract law trust. It is unlike most trusts that are out there. Most of them are changeable by either state or national legislation and with ours, it’s contract law. So it’s actually pretty much rock solid. And it’s a trust that will help increase privacy. It will help do tax deferral and shield from malpractice suits and things like that.

It’ll help protect the nest egg they’ve been building and help them build generational wealth over time. So it’s something they can use as a legacy tool as well to leave things behind to the kids. In a way that they might not have otherwise been able to do. Doctors are always burdened with higher tax brackets and a stranger [00:25:00] requirements and all sorts of stuff they have to carry insurance wise and protection wise, this is probably one of the smartest things.

The other thing that’s great about it is it’s a one time charge. It’s not a yearly, it’s not an ongoing, it’s a one time setup and done. And again, with legislative and statutory law, those can change a couple of times a year, sometimes they’ll change pieces of it and you’ll have to go pay the lawyer that you had set it up another fee and another fee.

And then they’ll you have to refile it. This is the other thing about this trust is it files once every 21 years and you don’t pay the fee again in 21 years, you just refile. So it’s not, there’s not a extra whammy at the end of it. But again, when you’re talking about people that are making. Upper middle, upper class income and up, it’s usually, especially if they’re K1 or 1099.

It’s a, it’s really a strong tool. There’s other things we do within that to help the doctors. There’s wealth acceleration vehicles. There’s policies that we can put in. We can protect their IP. We [00:26:00] can protect their practice. We can protect all the equipment they have. There’s a lot of things we can do with this trust that are pretty beneficial and pretty amazing. Again, it’s something that’s really easy to learn about and we can make all the information available as people want to know.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Could you just share? I know you, you work with a lot of doctors and I know you’re rolling out some big things that are coming out. Maybe you share like a couple of success stories. What are your success stories of groups?

Andy Greider: One doctor that we started with pre covid. So it’s going back away. So we got a nice track record there. Was running the CPR program and it has been for still is. They weren’t sure it was going to work for them. They were actually ready to go to private. Private pay, they wanted to cut out Medicare entirely.

They were in Florida. So they probably had the population to do it and the area of Florida they were in. They probably almost definitely have the population to do it, but they decided to take a chance because the person who talked to them was a good friend and they rolled the dice and went [00:27:00] with it.

The first year they did really well, they started seeing new income. They started seeing patients they hadn’t seen before. They started increasing their patient base and seeing people come in more often. Cause that’s the other thing we can do is book appointments for the people that need them. We don’t take any of that income at all.

And then the backside of it is three years later, they had enough revenue coming in between the two partners practicing physicians, that they are now able to open a spa. That their wives wanted to open when they were going to retire and now they’re able to open it early and everybody’s able to work and it’ll be their retirement vehicle.

But they were able to do it out of brand new income, which is never a bad thing. I would say one other quick one is the wound care program because of how fast actually both programs, CPR and wound care produce revenue very quickly, 30 to 60 days. We’ve got revenue coming in for the doctors, which is pretty much unheard of to you.

Don’t usually get programs that are brand new that they usually take 6 to 12 months to move. [00:28:00] Anyway long story short we’ve saved a bunch of practices and I don’t mean to sound melancholy or I’m not melancholy overly dramatic about it. But I don’t want to sound melancholy either is what I started.

My tongue got ahead of my brain where it’s not a big deal. It is a really big deal. A lot of these doctors were struggling after covid. They were trying to figure out how to regain their footing. They had taken some serious hits and some disappointing losses and we’ve been able to put profit centers in place for them that have been very easy for them to bring in for their staffs to run for their patients to grok to and work with again.

It’s all and they really soup to nuts part of what we do. The fact that it’s a turnkey solution, they don’t have to really do a whole lot other than participate.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Awesome. Awesome. Again, Andy, you do so many different things. I know we’re just scratching the surface on some of the programs really can’t wish we could go had time to go more in depth, but [00:29:00] we’re going to leave a link for those who are interested in learning more, whether it be the wound care, the CPR, the collections, the helping.

Helping doctors with their assets. We’ll leave a link in the show notes today. This has been tremendous. I can tell by your heart you just love helping others helping other physicians. I’m sure you’ve already talked about it. You’ve seen it firsthand our doctors are struggling out there, but guys, there’s always options.

There’s always solutions out there. People have figured it out. You don’t have to completely abandon things. There is still hope for us. But for Andy, again, thank you again for joining us on the program. Any last minute thoughts before we end the call today?

Andy Greider: I want to echo some of what you said, Mike, we see a lot of folks that are tired, they’re worn out, they’re beat down and they’re maybe not enjoying medicine the way they used to. They’re not enjoying what they signed up for because a lot of times it’s gotten to [00:30:00] where they’re filling out charts and punching screens more than they’re doing anything else. One of the nice things about all of our programs is it helps eliminate some of that as well.

And I love seeing that reaction from doctors. They’re like, wow, I got some of my time back. I got some of my life back. I got I’ve got an ability now to I’ve got new revenue. I can actually hire the person. I really needed to hire, but I couldn’t afford all sorts of things like that. That are again, either a large or many success stories.

But they’re all positive gain. And to your point, there is hope going to complete crap at this point. It’s frustrating. It’s aggravating but there’s a lot of changes that are happening in the move to value based care in this move to quintuple aim that are actually positive. And that I think we can certainly talk with folks and help address.

Again, thanks Mike for having me. It’s just an absolute thrill to be able to help a lot of people. And through your program, I hope we get to help a lot more.

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Thank you, Andy. Again, his company is a propose of its healthcare [00:31:00] evolution group because that’s what you need to do. You can’t stand still in it. You need to evolve. Think about considering some of these programs that Andy’s presented to us and whether or not you would decide to go with it his program or other programs out there, just realize there may be somebody out there who’s maybe I figured it out, found a shortcut, maybe an easier way of doing things.

The definition of insanity, right? Is keep banging your head against the wall and keeping things will change. Thanks again, Andy, for joining us and thank you for listening. And as always, guys, don’t just stand still. Find out different options, find out different paths to success and keep moving forward.

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