Boosting Productivity and Avoiding Burnout: The Power of the Pareto Principle

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. Una. Well, hello. Hello, my friend. Welcome back to another episode of the entremd podcast. Today we're going to talk about something that I hope you put yourself in a position to not have to deal with, and that's burnout. But this time as an entrepreneur, right? It really is a buzzword among, like in the physician community with numbers anywhere from 60 to 80% of physicians reporting symptoms, if you will, of burnout in the last 12 months. But for me, it's very rewarding, right? To see doctors who embrace entrepreneurship, whether that's their, whether they're intrapreneurs or they're deciding to become coaches or run their own private practices and things like that. And they come to this point where burnout is a thing of the past, right? Like, so they're, they're helping people is very rewarding to them. They are creating financial freedom for themselves, they're creating time freedom for themselves. They're taking more vacations, they're taking better care of themselves, they have better boundaries. So work is not seeping into family time and all of that. And it's really beautiful to see now on the other side, as they continue to grow and continue to grow, then they bump into this new thing where they're like, wait a minute, this feels like that did right? Where they're like, wait a minute, I feel burnout. But now this is of my own making, you know what I mean? Like, I took back control and I have autonomy, but I feel burnout. And what that does is it puts these amazing physician entrepreneurs running seven and multiple seven figure businesses in positions where they're like, I don't want to grow. Like, if more success means more of this, I don't want it. And they actually start sabotaging their own growth. And I don't want you to have to deal with that. Okay? So today we're going to, we're going to be talking about the number one reason entrepreneurs burn out is and what you can do about it. And this is something I've practiced for so many years. When I look at it like I am at the helm of running five organizations, right? And these are big organizations, you know what I mean? And so how do you put yourself in a position where you can do that and really you have more time, not less time, right? Like how, how amazing is that? So we are physicians, so we have the benefit of a picture that will really make this make sense. And I want you to think about somebody who is an emergency medicine doctor and who is running a code, okay? So I want you to think about it running a code that lots of people in the room, this is really high stakes. Somebody's about to die and there's what seems like chaos, right, to an outsider and all of that. Now when you think about that, the doctor in that position has no intention of fixing everything. None whatsoever. In fact, the doctor has an algorithm, right? So this is an adult. He has a whole ACS ACLS algorithm going on in his or her mind. And they're very clear in this situation. These are the things I do and this is the sequence I do them in, okay? So anything that's outside of that typically is something that gets procrastinated on or it is something that gets delegated. But the doctor is very clear. There are 3,000 things to do right now. And these are the eight things that I need to do, okay? So the thing that creates burnout really is trying to do everything, okay? So I've built the company and when I started off, I could run it as a 1, 2, 3 band show and get away with it. I could do all the sales, all the marketing, all the finances, all the operations, all of that. I could do all of it, okay? And then plus at Home, I have the husband or the wife and the children and the this and the that, and I could do all of it. But as growth comes, it comes with more things to be done, right? So there could be more things happening in your personal life and more things happening in your business. And sometimes what we do is we continue to take more and more things on. There is nowhere that leads to but burnout. And so what if you had an acls, BLS, or PALS card for your business where you're like, there are all these things going on, but these are the things I do. You've done it as a doctor, and you can do it as a physician entrepreneur. Okay, so what does that bring us to? It brings us all the way back to age old, really old concept called the parietal principle or the 8020 rule. Okay, now, the 8020 rule is pretty clear. It's this rule that states that 20% of your 80% of your results will come from 20% of your activities. Okay? So I want you to think about your business, right? And you do 100 things in your business, and you brought in $10 million. Okay? So you did 100 things. You brought in $10 million. That rule states that of the hundred things you did, there are only 20 things that accounted for $8 million. Okay? So you did 100 things. 20 of those things created 8 million. The other 80 created 2 million, right? And so the idea is, how do I put myself in a position where, one, I'm very clear on what the 20% is, and I spend 80% of my time living there. I want you to stop. I want you to stop for 30 seconds and think about this. Most of the things I do account for the smaller part of my success. There are a few things I do that account for most of it. Now, if I can learn to always analyze and audit and say, what is the 20%? If I can do that, then I put myself in a position where I can get so much done and I did it with less time. Because hear me, the problem with the 80% is, number one, it's low value. Now, that doesn't mean they don't have to be done at all. Maybe they have to be done, right, but maybe they could be done by somebody else. Some of them will need to be done by somebody else. Some of them may be done by you, but in 20% of your time. And maybe some of it just flat out needs to be deleted, right? But anyway, the problem with the 80% is 1 is low value, but 2 is high volume. That's the problem. This is the problem. The problem is the 80% is 80 things, but it only gives you 2 million. But there are these 20 things that can give you 8 million. So why don't we do the 20% things twice and end up with 16 million and we did it in 40% of the time. Do you see what I'm saying? So the 80% is the enemy. The 80% is the trap. The 80% is what creates burnout. The 80% is what creates mediocre results. The 80% is what creates overwhelm. The 80% is what creates paralysis. The better you get at identifying what the 80% is and either deleting it, delegating it, or doing it in less than 20% of your time, the better. And so I've been working on this concept for years. And for the next 12 months, I was like, you know what? I am going to live in the 20%. I am going to so aggressively filter my time, screen my time, that, you know, I am living in the 20%. My business time is spent on my 20% activities. My family time is spent on my 20% activity. Like thinking in that way, this will change your life. Okay, all right, now I want to give an example so I can try and bring this all the way home. Okay, let's. Let's use an example. Let's say you want more clients or you want more patients. Like that's a goal that you have, right? What is the 20% there? Okay, so now I want to make this very clear. 20%. Sometimes if you're like, what is that? Ask yourself, what are the things that I know are good for my business, but I procrastinate on the most? A lot of times that's your 20%, right? These are the things a lot of times we don't want to do. But now when you think about more clients, people can say, oh, yeah, I'll show up on social media. I'm going to do a direct mailer. I'm going to do ads. And there's nothing wrong with ads. Don't get me wrong. I have a lot of podcast episodes on this, but this is where people like to run to first. But at the end of the day, somebody saying yes comes from you asking them a question. Somebody saying yes to you. Working with them in some way, shape or form comes from some kind of sales activity. Okay? And so your 20% is going to be selling, is going to be selling, and is going to be the things that support selling, not prepare for selling, but support Selling. So let me give you an example. If you're saying I want to double the number of clients I have, that's my goal. What you will not hear from me is, that's a ridiculous goal. Like what? Let's do it. All right. What do you want to do to pull it off? And what I would be expecting to hear from you would be things that are 20% activities. Like, number one, increase the volume of my offers, increase the volume of my invitations. Right? So maybe I used to ask on social media or ask at events or ask speaking or ask for referrals or ask for all of those things. Maybe I used to do that 10 times a week. If you want to double the number of clients, it makes sense that you at least double the number of asks. So I'm asking people twice as much. I am up dropping the volume of my ask. Okay, that's a 20% activity. Right. Finding more people to ask. Right. Is another 20% activity. So you can ask and ask and ask as. But if you're asking the same people, yes, you're going to get result. But the law of diminishing return is going to set in at some point. Right? And so what that means is, well, I'm going to go guest on podcasts, I am going to go speak on stages, I'm going to attend that networking event. I'm going to go serve in other Facebook communities where my ideal audiences live. Notice I said serve, I didn't say sell. Right? We want to be respectful of people's groups. Okay? Except it's a group where people sell. All right? So I'm going to do all these things. Why? I'm going to double the amount of times I show up in front of new people, People who do not know about me. Okay? So if I want to double the number of clients, I am doubling my audience, if you will, or the number of times I'm showing up in front of new audiences, I'm doubling the amount of times I'm asking. Right? That's a second thing. The third thing is I'm up leveling my skill when it comes to selling. I'm going to become better. You might say, oh, but I brought my business to seven figures. I brought myself my business to multiple seven figures. Great. But what brought you here won't get you there. Right? And there are people. For instance, Russell Brunson showed up on a stage and did a 90 minute presentation and closed $3.1 million in sales from one 90 minute presentation. And so if you have not done that, I Dare say there's room for improvement. You can learn to be better at this stuff, right? And so improve your skill of selling. And this is why investing in yourself is so important. It's so important because that is what makes you say, I do not recognize myself. I did not realize I could do this. I did not realize I could pull this off. Which is what we hear in the entrepreneur business school all the time. Okay? So that's the. So the first thing is increasing the volume of your asks. The second is finding more people to sell to, right? The third is increasing your sell, your skill of selling. And then the fourth thing really is increasing your client results, right? One of your obsessions, if you serve people, whether this is a private practice setting or as a speaker, you always want to think, how can I get them bigger results? How can I get them better results? How can I get them results faster? What is confusing? What can I get out of their way? Why? Because the bigger their results, the higher the likelihood they will continue to work with you. The bigger the results, the higher the likelihood they will refer other people to you. The bigger the results, right? And you can start creating this snowball. You see what I'm saying? Now, if you're telling me this is what I want to accomplish and you tell me this, I want to, I want to double the amount of clients, patients speaking gigs that I have, and I listen to you and you tell me these are the things I'm doing. They're all at the same time. There'll be 700,000 million things that you're not doing, but I know that you're doing the things that will move the needle. So you can actually do this and you can double your, your client base, double your patient panel without burning out. Like, you may actually end up doing less because you got rid of all the 80%. You got rid of, you know, the email and the, and the, and the calendaring and even pitching the pocket. Like all of this stuff, you got it off your plate. You got other people to take care of it. Like in your personal life, in your, in your, in your business, like all over, you're building all these teams, right? So if you're going to take on more things, things have to come off. And if you're going to think, take on more things and you're going to get more done in less time than the 80% just needs to go. It needs to go. If you can adopt this way of thinking, you become unstoppable and you start having this life where things that take other People, five years, you're getting it done in a year, you're getting it done in six months, right? And the more you do it, the better you get at it. It will change your life forever. So this is my homework for you, right? I want you to. To do an audit, like, look at your calendar from last month or. Or things like that, and go like, okay, what are the things that are actually moving the needle in my business? How am I using my time? How much time am I spending on the 20%? How much time am I spending on the 80%, right? And make a commitment to double, right? Like, they take things. Take the 80% things off and replace that with 20% time. 20% activ. Will rock your world, okay? So go workshop this. This will really change your life. And, you know, if you're like, man, I need help implementing this, I. I need help. Like, I know what it is, right? Because the bigger your business is, the more like your 20% stuff is. Is not just doing, but it's doing things through team. And so building your team, training your team, hiring the right people, building the culture, all that becomes a huge thing. And growing to become the kind of leader who can lead that kind of team. Like, these are all now 20% activities, right? If you need help with that in any stage of that, understand that we have something for you, okay? And so if you need help implementing that, reach out to my team on trendy.com forward/call. That's entremd.com forward slash call. We're happy to help you, happy to support you on that journey, and I cannot wait to see the results you'll create. I want you to think about this. What if over the next 12 months, you're able to double your impact, double your revenue, double your time off? Think about it. Double your impact, double your revenue, double your time off. If you can do that, what is that worth to you? Is that worth doing this exercise? Is that worth figuring this out? Is that worth figuring out the 20% and living there a thousand times, yes. And that's what I'm going to be doing. So I invite you to do the same. And I cannot wait to celebrate you when you send me a DM and say, Dr. Una, I listened to this podcast episode you did a year ago, and I took you up on that challenge, and guess what? Over the last 12 months, I have doubled my impact. I have doubled my revenue. I have doubled my time off. And that will be so amazing. Okay? All right, so go do it. And this episode, share it with the doctors in your world. Share it on your social media. Tag us on Trendy. Tell me what resonated with you the most. Let's make this a conversation. I'll see you on social media and back here on the next episode on of the ontramd Podcast. Hey, if you love listening to the Entremity 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.comondemand and I'd love to have you join us us. See you on the inside.