A Ted Talk, Massive Business Growth And Life On Her Terms with Dr. Catherine Toomer

If your business isn't working the way you expected, it's not because you're bad at business. It's because no one ever taught you how it actually works. We were trained to master algorithms in medicine, but when it comes to revenue teams and growth, we were never taught anything. We weren't even told to figure it out. We just assumed somehow we'd know. Like it would magically make sense. But it doesn't. The era of the seven Figure Physician CEO is here. And it's not about working harder. It's about learning entrepreneurship as a system. The same way you mastered ACLs and pals, you can master the algorithm of building a profitable scalable business. That's why I recorded the Seven Figure Physician CEO audiobook. Whether you're building a medical or non medical business, and whether your goal is your first million, first 2 million, first 5 million, first 10 million, this is where the journey starts. There is no calvary coming to save us. We are the Calvary.

So.

So go get your audiobook now. Www.entremd.com 7Figurebook. And let's rewrite the narrative for physicians starting today. Hi, docs. Welcome to the Entre MD 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. Unna. Hello, my friends, and welcome to another episode of the On Tremd podcast. Now, this is a special episode that is part of the EBS show series. So it's kind of like the inside scoop of what happens in the ONTRAMD business school. So Dr. Tamara Beckford is an emergency medicine trained physician and she is the founder of youf Caring Docs. She's a student, a proud student of the On Trendy Business School and she is the host of the EBS show. So she interviewed students from the Entrepreneur Business School to feature their journeys and she uncovered it all. The good, the bad, the ugly. So whether you're a veteran entrepreneur or all you have is an idea, there is so much to learn. So I want you to lean in. So now let's join them.

Hello.

Hello, everyone. This is Dr. Tamara Beckford with the EPS Show. Yes, EBS. You're like, what is that? Well, it's the Entre MD Business School, which is the premier business school for physician entrepreneurs.

Yes.

So I am going to be introducing one of our talented entrepreneurs today. This is Dr. Kathryn Toomer. So Dr. Toomer is a community and family medicine specialist. That's right. And she is a TEDx speaker, and she is also the founder and CEO of Health and Wellness Weight Loss Center. She is the courageous crusader. She's pulling out all our courageous people, and she's helping them, getting their mind right, getting them to the whole new you. But today, we're gonna pull apart how all of this happened and how Entre MD Business School was able to help her level up. All right? So thank you, thank you, thank you. Dr. Catherine Tuber.

Hello. And we like to do Jazzy hair. Jazzy hair.

So, Dr. Tuber, thank you so much for stopping by.

Thank you for having me.

Absolutely. You know how it is. I'm a dig into all of the information, right. Because I know people are listening and they're watching it, like, wow. Like, you know, how do I even get to TEDx? Like, how do I even get there? So before we dive into that part, give them an idea of what it was like before, before you got introduced to Dr. Una, before you even started the Entrepreneur Business School.

Well, I started my business around my own story. My business is health, Wellness and weight loss Centers. I founded it because 20 years ago when I lost weight, reversed my type 2 diabetes. I was in congestive heart failure and told that I had a 50% chance of living five years. And I tried to get help because I knew that my obesity was part of my problem. I couldn't control what my heart was going to do, so I wanted to focus on what I could. Even when I tried to get my diabetes under control, I kept being told, you're too high risk. When I went to try to get weight loss, get help with weight loss, I found I kept being told I was too high risk also then. And I thought, well, how can I be too high risk for a healthy process? And I learned a few things. That there are people out there who are helping others in processes that they themselves have never experienced. And that the system we were in did not allow for us to truly help people to reverse their diseases. And we could do some prevention, but reversal takes time, takes listening. And the system we were in just didn't allow for that. And so when I was able to go back into work, I started trying to use the process I had developed for myself to lose 60 pounds, reverse my diabetes. I got off insulin, my depression. I was very depressed before, and it reversed. But trying to use that became very difficult. So that's when I decided to start my own business. And what I decided to do was. And I needed to do that also just for my own health. I could tell that the system I was in was also affecting my health. And I wanted. I needed something I could control, that I had full autonomy. And so I created health, wellness and weight loss centers. And the first thing I did was I formed an LLC even while I was still working for someone else. And then I thought, I have a few. Well, my father and my sister have. Are very well versed in organizational development. And so I asked them, you know, what are some of the reasons that businesses fail? And usually it's because what I was told was they bite up to more than they can chew right off the bat, and they're being driven by their overhead rather than their service that they're providing. Wow. And so I decided then that I would keep my overhead very, very low. So I did. That's what I set out to do. However, I was sort of handed a weight loss business that was going out of business. And it wasn't so much that it was. It wasn't a weight loss business that I would have done on my own because it's, it's. It wasn't a medically sought. It was an HCG injection type thing. And I was like, okay, I can take on the patients, I can take on the office, I can take on all the other things, but I'm going to change the message, change, whatever. And in that process, though, I started getting lost in the reads. And that's when, that's when I sought help.

Right.

I thought I'd never had coaching before. I didn't even. Wasn't really clear on what coaching was. I knew what mentorship was, but I'm not really good about asking for help. I'm good about. I'm good with paying for help, but not good asking for it, if that makes a difference. So when I found out that. So I went to a conference And I saw Dr. Una speak. And when she described her day, she described how often she was in the office. When she described, you know, the revenue, when she described her own business, I said, okay, she's the person I need to speak to because she has exactly what I'm trying to get. Wow. And so when she started the business school, I already knew that she had already helped me with clarity. She had already helped me clarify my story and use my story as a means to describe why I was doing what I was doing. She helped me really formulate my why that was really important. And she also got me comfortable with telling people my story. Now, that was very difficult for me. I'm very. I'm pretty private.

Right.

I have mastered. I Think anyway, mastered the art of hiding in plain sight. And so.

So you're talking, talking to those people out there who have that same ability. You're known, but you've mastered the art of hiding in plain sight.

But she's able to. People see me. Well, people see it, they see me, they hear things about me. They feel like they know me. But if they truly knew me, they'd realize there was a whole lot of stuff I wasn't saying. And so one of the things that I learned to do was to actually say those things because it really made a difference. My story was such that other people needed to hear it. So they know. They know. One, that I understood them and two, that they weren't alone because I was very, very, very scared and very overwhelmed and overweight. And I just want. I just don't like people feeling that way.

Yeah.

And I know I can help them not feel that way.

So just kind of like caps encapsulating all that you have just told because you've talked about a lot of big steps. So number one, you know, you have your journey where you are told you can't, you can't. You're to this.

You're too.

That you're too high risk to change to reverse this portion of your life. You're too high risk to reverse this other portion of your life. But you know, in true fashion, you said, okay, well, if they aren't able to help me, I'm going to help myself. And you were able to do that. So you did that, and then you.

Were able to chronicle it.

And then you're seeing others who are going through similar processes, and you said, I want to help them. But in order to do that, you know that if you went into business and just jumped in headfirst because you got warnings from those who are experts and said, this is the reason why a lot of businesses fail. So you're like, well, I'm not going to do that. Right. So you see someone who is outlining some of these steps, but although you want to help others, you're still been hiding in plain sight. So now you jumped in. The business school is now available, and you're like, okay, let me take that step into the business school and stop hiding. So what are some of the things that you started doing when you stopped hiding?

Well, one of the things I did was I recognized very quickly that I function on two philosophies. I don't know what I don't know, and I don't believe everything. I think, oh, that's Wonderful. And my other philosophy is, if I want to know how to fly a plane, I'm not going to ask a pilot. I'm going to ask the person who taught the pilot how to fly the plane.

I love it.

And that's. That's what.

That is.

Brilliant.

I love it. So I'm not going to believe everything my mind tells me because what's your mind telling you?

Oh, not be true?

Absolutely. Why would you even want to do that? You want to. You want to be a business owner, you want to be an entrepreneur. So you're not believing that. You're not believing that. I can't. And then you're going to. Not the person who's doing it, but the person who taught the person how to do it. All right, this is.

And so what I saw in Dr. Uno was someone who had done it and taught herself how to do it, taught herself how to perfect it. It wasn't so much. I mean, she didn't reinvent the wheel, but what she did was invent something that, that spoke directly to me, a physician who wanted to have my own practice on my own terms and for it to be successful. And that's what she did. But she also had a very clear roadmap on how she did it and how she'd help other people do it. And one of the other things that I felt about the business school is that I wasn't the product. And when I say that, what I mean is there are a lot of coaches out there and they're doing wonderful work, but mainly what they're selling is their own clients. If someone's telling you how to make money, but the way they make money is off of me, my involvement, then I'm the product.

Absolutely.

And one of the things that I loved about the business school was that I am not a product. It was created and run by a woman who had her own separate seven figure businesses. She didn't need the business school to create that. She had already done it. So what I want, and also given the cost of it, is just like what I was getting for what I would pay. It just makes. Is just phenomenal. So I knew that this was about school. This was about really, it was a movement. It wasn't about money. And I could tell, I mean, she, she said she wanted to help at least 80,000 physicians become entrepreneurs and, and practice medicine in a way that made them happy. I know I'm not giving her description justice, but. And it was. But it's clear that's what the business school was because she wasn't charging enough for it to be about money. I can tell you that. Not for all that we are getting. I mean, and the value of the group was just. It's immeasurable. I mean, it's invaluable. You can't. That collective mind. You're talking about powerful people who, you know, gone through medical school, who've taken large amounts of information that they didn't know. So not only did they not know this information, we learned this information, and then we use this information to save lives. And that's. You think how daunting that is. And then you take those people and you put them all together, and every single. All your insecurities are being addressed, all your fears are being addressed. Anytime you have an issue, you got somebody pumping you up. Anytime you have a question, you've got folks who can answer it, who've been through it. That's a movement that is not about money. That's what the business school has been for me was because the steps are clear, they work, and I know they work because I'm a product of that. I can draw a line from my successes in my business directly to something that I have learned through the business school, Something that's being taught through the business school, something that's being shared in the business school is very, very, very clear. And because the business school itself is a creation of the mastermind behind it, that's where I'm. That's. That's my philosophy. Go with the person who created the information that you actually need.

One of the things that I wanted to know, now there's some people who are there, and they're thinking, entrepreneurship, it sounds great, but physicians, I don't really think we're cut out to be entrepreneurs. You know, I'm afraid that I might lose my life savings or I don't have any extra money to go into this, or I don't even know what I would do. I don't know if this is for me. What would you say to those people?

Ask the people who've done it. If it's something you want to do, then ask the people who've done it. Those are all questions that can be answered in the business school. When we went into medicine, we had those same questions. Did it stop us? No. Did we go into debt to do that? Yes. Did we lose everything to go into that debt? No. It's no different. Some people may say, well, physician salaries are guaranteed. Oh, no, they're not. And so however a good idea presented in a good way is a guarantee. And that's really what you do. And it's really about the work. Anyone could go to med school and flunk out, but we put work in to make sure that didn't happen. The same thing is with business. You just put the work in to make sure that you don't fail. And even if you fail a section of it, it's like the equivalent of failing an exam during med school. Didn't stop you from graduating. It's the same thing with business. Having one little thing of your business being unsuccessful doesn't suddenly negate everything else that you're doing in your business. And I've just watched too many successes for physician entrepreneurs, physician entrepreneurs within Entre MD Business school to know that it's absolutely true. You can be a physician and an entrepreneur. In fact, any physician who owns their own practice is a de facto entrepreneur, whether they want it to be or not. So you might as well do it well.

You might as well do it well. I love it. So now let's. Let's go through some of the things that have happened since you joined the business school. So you are even like, you know, been inspired and been under the tutelage of Dr. Una. So one of the things that I just mentioned, the TEDx. So would you have been a speaker telling about your journey, going out there and becoming this TEDx speaker had you not, or would you still have been hiding in plain sight?

Probably still would have been hiding in plain sight and mainly because TedX. It's interesting. The first time I wrote down that I wanted to be a TED speaker was at a Dr. Una retreat when we were doing vision boards. And I put it on my vision board. That was two years ago or a year and a half ago, 2019. And it was. I consider that one of my lofty goals in the course of working with her and is one of the things that she emphasized that I needed to put myself out there, I needed to stop hiding, I needed to get my message out and I needed to start making videos or doing something, having a YouTube channel, doing Facebook lives. And I'm thinking there is absolutely no way.

What is she talking?

First of all, first of all, didn't like the way I looked on camera. So I'm just like, oh, I like my voice. I don't like the face on camera. I said, I'll be somewhere only I can. They can hear me. Then I'll be fine. Podcast was probably better for me, but then I'm. The consistency was gotten my way, so. But then One day I was on a Zoom call, a Zoom conference through Dr. Una, and I was actually sitting in this spot, and I thought, oh.

I don't look so bad on camera.

Maybe I can do videos. So I did a few videos. I put them out there. I got more and more comfortable. They got better and better. Somebody saw one of my videos and asked if I had ever considered doing a TED Talk. Wow. And I thought, wow. So anyway, I ended up with the TED Talk coach who had a platform on Facebook. His name is Cesar Cervantes. Everyone I put him in contact with, he has gone on to do a TED Talk. His coaching is phenomenal. But that came directly from me putting out videos through my instructions, as, if you want to do this, this is what you need to do. And because I had also done that when everything closed down because of COVID I really didn't have to shift that much because I had already had everything in place in order to keep my voice out there. Because I was using social media, doing different things, which I would never have done had I not been pushed by the. If it wasn't one of the challenges, I doubt I would ever would have done that. I ever would have. And so, yeah, I have a TED Talk now. I'll probably do more. You know, I'm working on a few others. And because of that, I have been offered radio station spots. I've been offered other speaking engagements. I just got contacted if someone's saying they saw my TED Talk and they wanted to talk to me about being my agent and representing me to get me on television and other media. And so, you know, doors open, and you just never know what doors are going to open when you walk through them.

Wow. Like you said, doors open. So you have your business, you worked on your business, Covid came, everyone had to shut down. You're able to switch your business and keep it thriving. During the pandemic, you became a speaker, so you are no longer hiding in plain sight. Ended up a TEDx speaker, ended up getting someone who wants to be your agent. You're on radio stations, you're on podcasts. All of this from the person who used to hide in plain sight.

Oh, yeah.

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. So what are you saying to those persons who are like, I don't know, is this for me? I don't know if I should join the business school. What are you saying to those people right now?

What I want to say might sound a little harsh, but my first thought is, if you're having that much doubt, then sit in your doubt. But whatever you're. If you, if you sit in your doubt, how different will your life be five years from now? Are you going to be in the exact same spot? Are you going to be somewhere different? If you step out of that doubt, you know that where you're going to be five years is going to be different from where you are right now. And even if it's not exactly where you want to be, you know, you tried and you did something about it.

So how has your trajectory been during entrepreneurship? Has it been, like, all up, or how would you explain that to someone?

The way I would explain entrepreneurship and how to view successes and setbacks. It's sort of like having multiple stock, and you're watching all your stock go up. And so what happens is one or two stock may go up and down, others may just go up, others may only go down. But overall, you're still making money, you're still gaining. And so what happens, you often see in business, though, especially when someone who doesn't consider themselves a business person or an entrepreneur, when one of their stock goes down, they think it represents all of their stock. Instead of looking for the things that are going up, things that are going well, things that are actually indicators of success, they're focusing too much on what they think are the indicators of failure. That is something that is a mindset shift that needs to occur. Because probably, if you look, if they looked at their life, they probably have that same pattern everywhere, except when it came to med school. And if we apply what it's like, everything I learned, I learned in kindergarten. Well, everything in life I learned, I learned from med school. If you need to know who you are, apply what you learned in med school. You're not someone who gives up. You're not someone who's allows a setback to stop. Otherwise, we all would have quit. None of us would be doctors. We would have quit during med school, we would have quit during residency. We would have quit during our first year of being attending, you know, but because we have all those other things telling us that we've done something well, we know there's good that comes along with the bad, and so we just don't give up. And it's the same thing with entrepreneurship. You just have to focus. This is something we learn in the, in the business school. Focus on your wins. Also, if you focus on your wins, the setbacks don't seem as monumental.

And that's the thing, like you said, the camaraderie allows you one, you get the support. So when. Because when One period of your life is going down, as you said, you're going to feel like the entire thing's going down. But when you start focusing on your wins, you realize it's just one of the 10 things that went not the way I wanted. But there are still nine other things that are going well. But your mind will tell you that all 10 aren't going, that are not. So when you're part of the group and we're like, well, let's hear your wins, and you start saying, well, and then you start realizing, wow, I am still winning, Right? So that camaraderie, as you mentioned, is priceless.

Is priceless. And when you, when you're around people you respect and you hear what they truly believe about you, not what you're telling yourself, not what your family's saying, what people are saying, who have never created anything in their life, never achieved the level of success you've achieved in your life, who are telling you what you've got, people who you respect telling you, not only can you do this, but I'm watching you and you inspired me. And you know, what you're doing makes a difference, not just to other people, but to, you know, in my life. You can't help but feel like that you have to go on. I mean, you want to go on because the end point, what you think is your endpoint, you've already reached, you've touched, you're touching people in a way, that, which is the whole point. And so having that immediate feedback, it is, it's priceless. It really is priceless.

So with that, we're telling you, if you are on the fence, come on now, right? If you're in self doubt, think about it. Am I going to stay in that level of self doubt for the next five years or am I going to make a change and then look back? Because some of these changes, although Dr. Toomer started her LLC five years ago, she's been on an upward trajectory. Although there were some valleys, the valleys were on the way. The valleys were actually the peak of the next level.

Right?

So that valley was just the peak. And you get the support, you get the tutelage, you get someone who cares about you, and then you get to see others who are also thriving and they help to, to build you up. All available here on the entremity business school. I'm Dr. Tamara Beckford. Thank you, Dr. Toomer, and we hope to see you guys in the business school too. So take care.

Thank you so much for listening. I hope this inspires you to take even bigger steps as an entrepreneur. And if you're ready to go all in, come join us in the Ontarian B Business School. It is the only, only school of its kind created just for you. And I'll see you, my friend, on the next episode.