5 Reasons to Set Bigger Business Goals

Dr. Nneka Unachukwu explains why physicians should set ambitious business goals beyond revenue targets. Bigger goals force you to upgrade your identity, reveal hidden strengths, and demand new skills like public speaking and team leadership. Static businesses move backward in competitive markets.
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Hi, docs.
Welcome to the OnStreamd podcast where it's all about helping amazing physicians just like you embrace entrepreneurship so you can have the freedom to live life and practice medicine on your terms.
I'm your host, Dr. Umna. Well, hello my friend. Welcome back to another episode of the entremd podcast. Super pumped to be in your ears as always. And I am really looking forward to this conversation we're going to have because it's something that becomes a trap. We're going to be looking at, you know, five reasons to set bigger business goals. And I see a lot of times where people start questioning, asking themselves, when is enough enough? Like, when are you going to be satisfied? Why are you still pushing? And maybe you're here and you set goals for this year for your business. And when I talk about goals. Let me, let me pedal back a bit. Is not just revenue, right? Like, so it can be revenue where, you know, I want to cross seven figures this year. I want to, like, you could be that maybe it's not revenue. Maybe it is a bigger goal as far as team goes. So maybe you have a team of people who are all producers, and you're like, I want to bring managers in, things like that. And you have not led a manager before. You have not done the payroll for a manager before. And, you know, that's a, That's a. That's a bigger goal. It might be a new vertical in your business. Your business is at the point where it's established, it has a client base to support another vertical. And you're like, that's what I want to do. Like, so it's not just revenue, right? Maybe, you know, like, I had a year when I was like, okay, I wanted to work a day, a week. Now, there are a number of things that have to go into place for you to do that, right? Whether that is revenue to support the team. The kind of team moving your business from where it is, is focused on the owner to where it's focused on the business. And so people want to interact with the business, not just the owner. So many things, right? So that's. That's a bigger business goal. See what I'm saying? So it's not just revenue, right? And so why. Why do we want to do that? My. My advice for anybody is we shouldn't want our businesses to stay exactly the same way year after year, right? Like, we should want to grow in some kind of way. We want. Want to grow, want to become bigger, not just revenue. And I want to tell you five reasons why you should. Okay, so. So let's get to this. All right? So the first one is that you can't really maintain a spot, right? You can't maintain a spot. And so you are either moving forward or you're going backwards. There is no for instance, oh, I hit seven figures. I just want to rest. We're just going to keep everything exactly the same and just have a cruise year. We'll get back to dreaming again. The problem with that is that nothing else is staying the same, right? And so if you decide to stay exactly the same, the truth of the matter is you're going backwards, right? So think about it. You're deciding, I'm going to stay exactly the same, but your competition is getting better. You're deciding, I want to stay exactly the same, but the cost of doing business is getting higher. You want to stay exactly the Same. Let's even use some examples. Like there was a pandemic here, right? If you had nothing to strive for, if you weren't working on making yourself better and all of that, a crisis like that would have caught you completely unprepared and you won't survive it, right? Think about, I want to stay exactly the same, but there's a recession, though, so you can't stay the same, right? I'm going to say exactly the same, but, you know, I've had this amazing team and we're just going to keep everything exactly the same. We're not going to change a thing. And then the great resignation hits, right? So you never can actually stay the same. Staying the same is the same as going backwards. And so to stay ahead, to stay in the same spot, actually, you have to dream bigger, right? And so this is just something that we can adopt as a way of life, you know, as entrepreneurs, is that we strive to be better, we strive to make our businesses better, we strive to be better as entrepreneurs. We strive for that. We keep tweaking at it. We don't arrive, we don't settle, we don't do any of that. Now, I want to be very clear. I'm not talking about hustling and stressing ourselves out. And do not. That's not what I'm talking about. I am talking about dreaming bigger, right? And if you're going to be someone who continually dreams bigger, you're also going to be a person who learns to be the kind of person who can do things like that. And it puts you in a position where you actually start getting a whole lot more done with a lot less. Anyway, so. So the first is you can't maintain a spot, you can't stay the same, right? You just can't. The second is when you adopt a bigger goal, a bigger dream for your business, the next thing you have to do is that you have to upgrade your identity, right? Like I'm the kind of person who does stuff like that, right? And that is, I mean, bringing yourself to a point where you're constantly holding yourself accountable for higher levels of you is putting yourself in a place where you continually get better. You constantly get better, you constantly become a more evolved version of yourself. It is. It is like the best place to be. And giving that up is too expensive in my mind, right? Giving that up is too expensive. Think about you before you became a doctor and you decided you set this big goal, I am going to become a doctor, you started identifying that way. Look at what it is produced, right? And then you said, oh, I'm going to become, you know, this kind of doctor and then I'm going to become an entrepreneur. And then I'm going to cross six figures and then I'm going to cross seven figures, then I'm going to lead a team. And all like, all of that requires you continue up, leveling yourself. And so if you think about it, I mean, think about where you are in your life right now and maybe you have another 60 years here or 50 years, 40 years, whatever that is. Imagine if you continue doing that, where would you be, right? So, so that's number two. Number two is that it forces you to become a higher version of yourself. It's amazing. It holds you accountable. It's like a coach. The third thing, which is linked to the second, is it reveals you to you. Until you start embracing big goals, big dreams and things like that, you never really know who you are, right? You never really know what you're good at. You're right. You may not even know what you really like. And I'll give you an example. Now I talk about my journey as an entrepreneur. I really did start as a, you hear me say it all the time, socially awkward, super shy, introverted introvert. And I mean, there are so many things I thought were off the table for me. And so I thought networking was off the table. I thought, you know, being assertive and building a business, that was off the table for me. I definitely thought speaking was off the table for me. Hosting events, completely off the table. But the thing is this, because I was willing to embrace bigger goals, right? Like, you know, bigger goals, one after the other after the other. I got to this point where it dawned on me what I actually like, right? And one of the things I like that really shocked me is I love hosting events, especially live events. I love hosting them. And so to be in a position where I can bring people together for two or three days, take them through a transformational experience where people, you know, like six months later are like, oh, my goodness, these are the goals that I set at that event. And it's now my reality. Like that is just mind blowing for me. I love reading the room and, and I have the, you know, the content that I, that is required for the event, right. To pull off that experience. And then also being agile enough to, and flexible enough to look at the room and read the room and say, oh, we need to put in this element. And that element is like, oh, it's like creating masterpieces. I love it now If I did not set bigger goals, I would have just made the assumption that that's not something for me. That's not something I can do. That's not something I like, because I'm an introvert. And I would never have found out that there's this thing that is almost a superpower for me, you see? And so as you embrace those bigger goals, whatever they are for you, you become. You find out who you are. You're revealed to you. It's the most amazing thing. And so that's the. That's the. That's the third reason why you should set bigger business goals. Okay? The fourth reason is it forces you to learn new skills. It does. It forces you to learn new skills. As I was thinking about this episode, I was like, wow, let me think about it now. When I started Entre md, I had already been an entrepreneur for six years. I had run my private practice for six years at that point. And so it's not as though I wasn't an entrepreneur, but I then I had this bigger dream. Like, I wanted to help doctors. I wanted to help them build profitable businesses, you know, because we've been lied to, of course. We can live life, practice medicine on our terms and things like that. And so I started thinking about all the skills I had to acquire, right? So I acquired the skill of speaking, right? Because I know speaking is the way you get your message across. If you're going to be a crusader, like, really, that's what I am. You're going to be the leader of a movement, you know, like Entre md, then you have to embrace speaking, right? It's also the fastest way to grow any business and all of that. So embrace speaking. I didn't even listen to podcasts at the time, right? And became a podcaster. Learned all about that. I had built teams as, you know, private practice, but not at the level that I built it, right? To set myself free to be able to do all the things I do with Entre md. So I had to really grow in my capacity to lead teams, to hire, to, to fire, to build company culture, all of that. I had to grow my capacity to sell. I had to grow in my capacity, you know, building a dominant brand on social media, hosting events, writing books. And these are all skills that I acquired to pull off this bigger dream, right? And then what that. That. What that did is, you know, like, when you acquire the skills, they're yours to keep. You know what I'm saying? And it's like, so I layered all this added value on top of what I already had. And I didn't set out to learn any of these things. This all happened because I was like, I'm going to accomplish this goal over here. And the way to go there is to do all these things, right? So it forces you to learn new skills. It does. And the fifth is that it really, it really does make every aspect of your life better. There is this statement and people argue with it, but understand where the, where the person is coming from. The way you do anything is the way you do everything. And so if you start adopting, building, you know, practice habit of, you know, big dreams for your, your, your business, you're not going to stop there. It's going to filter to your life. If you adopt this attitude of, I'm not just going to wait and let life happen to me, to my business, I am going to create these results. You're then going to show up in your life and start creating results as well. If you decide, well, everybody says, you know, physicians, we can't build successful businesses, I'm going to dare that. I'm going to get it done. Then you start looking in your life, like, what else do people say? I can't do that. Hello, I can actually do. If you build an incredible work ethic over here as an entrepreneur, you can take that back to your home. If you learn to delegate as an entrepreneur, you learn to delegate at home. You see what I'm saying? Like, what you learn is portable. The mindsets you develop, they're portable, right? They can translate. And so I say that one of the greatest, one of the greatest rewards of entrepreneurship is really who you become in the process. That's one of the biggest rewards. And it does filter, right? So one of the things I love seeing a lot, this happens a lot in the entrepreneur business school is where people almost seem a little shocked, like, wow, like, I, yes, I have business wins, but it's almost like I have these bigger wins that have nothing to do with my business, right? And so people would, would post about, you know, how they got on an exercise routine, decided to take their, you know, their, their life and their health back, and, oh, you know, I lost, you know, 10 pounds, I lost 30 pounds, or whatever it is, people saying, you know, like, and this happens maybe when we have live events, people walk up to me and say, you know what? Like, I know you hear about all the business wins and all of that, but the truth of the matter is the biggest benefit I've got from the Entre MD Business school is that my Marriage is so much better. And it's not as though we have sessions on marriage per se, right? We talk about taking care of you as the entrepreneur and all of those kind of things in your CEO calendar. We do talk about things that would support. Support that. But I'm like, they're like, my marriage is better. People have said, oh, my goodness, that this has done more for my mind than therapy has in the last three years. And please don't hear what I'm not saying. Like, I'm not saying don't do therapy. What I am saying is that this also provides a huge benefit. Do you see what I'm saying? And you know, like, you know, people would post like, I always wanted to have this kind of home and I just bought my dream home and things like that. And it's just wild to see. And so it does make every aspect of your life better. It touches every aspect when you start dreaming bigger, especially when you're dreaming bigger in the context of making sure that you're doing your dream life and your dream business at the same time, which is what on Trendy is all about, right? And so when you think about this, then it's a huge disservice to say, oh, this year we're just going to stay the same, or just see what will be, will be, and all of those kind of things. You really do want you to set yourself up such that you have that next quantum leap in front of you because of all the benefits, right? Like, yes, your business will be better. Yes, you'll probably bring in more revenue. Yes, you probably have a better team and all of that. But the ripple effect is, is ginormous, almost bigger than any result that you can see in your business. So the point of this is, if you're in a status quo kind of place, like, yeah, we just do that, you probably will find that you might be feeling stuck, you know, you might be feeling overwhelmed, you might be frustrated, you might be actually unhappy because it's almost like humans, we're wired for progress, right? And so, or maybe you said something that's, you know, it's a really itty bitty dream. And when I say itty bitty, I do not mean in a disrespectful way, but, you know, right. So. So let me, let me use a rubber band to describe this. Okay? So you want. The goals that are inspiring tend to be goals that will stretch you not so crazy that they'll break you. Right? Like think about a rubber band. So it stretches, but not to the point of breaking. But you want to have those goals that are. They stretch you, right? We're happiest when we're stretched. We're most productive when we're stretched. We're most innovative and creative when we're stretched. And so you want to have that stretch goal and you want to strive for it. Sometimes people don't want to set goals because they're like, what if I don't hit it? I have set so many goals that I didn't hit. I'm not offended by any of them. Right? My. My philosophy is I set a goal and it will be a stretch goal. Sometimes it's an impossible goal, but I am going to come out and I am going to assume that my success is inevitable, and I am going to leave everything out there. I'm going to do all the things. I'm going to give it my best shot. And If I get 30% of the goal, 50% of the goal, 90% of the goal, 100% of the goal, I'm fine. But I will push, right? I will push and push and do all the things I can to make it happen. So. So don't worry about that. If you don't hit it, right, like 50%, and you probably will do more than 50%, but I'm making a point. 50% of your dream goal, that's your stretch goal. That inspires you, that makes you innovative, creative. All of that is so much better than 100% of a goal that actually annoys you, frustrates you, doesn't even. You know what I mean? So go after it. So my challenge to you today is go take another look at your goals and engage. Maybe you have them, but you haven't engaged with them. Like, engage with them, own them, decide to go after them. Decide to evolve in a way that's required for you to hit those goals. Decide to acquire the skills you need to acquire to hit the goal. Decide. Decide that you're going to do that. Be excited about the new version of you you're going to see on the other side of your goal, like, embrace all the things and get this done. Because if you do this, you're going to turn around and you're going to say, wow, you're going to make this statement. I hear it so often, the business school where the doctors say, I don't even recognize myself. I don't recognize myself. I don't recognize myself in a very good way. Right? And I would love for that to be your experience, too, where you're like, how did how did I become this person? Right? And you can set your next quantum leap and become an even more evolved version of you. Okay? So I want you to go do that. So take this episode. You know, for physicians, we, the physician community, we are in a space where we really, really, really need to see what is possible for us and start engaging that process. So please share this episode with the doctors in your life. Share it on social media, tag me, hashtag ontreamd. Love to give you a big shout out and I'll see you on the next episode of the ontremd podcast.
Hey, if you love listening to the ontremd podcast podcast, I want to invite you to join Entre MD On Demand. It is my signature subscription program that gives you access to a library of business courses designed to help you do one thing as a physician entrepreneur and that is to thrive. Just head out to entre md.com on demand and I love to have you join us. See you on the inside.
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