Business Lessons From My Dad, Dr. Chineme Part 2

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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. Hello. Hello. Welcome back to the Entre MD podcast. We are doing our legacy series, Business Lessons from my dad, Dr. Chenema. And if you didn't listen to the first part, I think you should actually pause this and go back and listen to it. This is part two. We're going to take it from here. And. And you know, like I said in the first episode, my dad lives such a phenomenal life and I'm just like, I have to share this. And so we can learn all the lessons from it and learn from his legacy and glean from his wisdom. So if you missed the first one, go listen to it and we're gonna walk into the second one. Now, my dad, my dad was a man of habits. And he's really the most principled person I know. And I don't say that because he's my dad and he's not here anymore. And we say nice things about people who aren't here anymore. You're going to see what I mean. Like, very, very, very principled. Okay, so I'm going to give you seven examples, okay, of this principle thing. And then we're going to take a look, like, so what does that mean for Me, what does that mean for me as an entrepreneur? What do I need to tweak? What I need to change? All of that? Okay. Okay. All right. So the first habit we're going to look at is his dietary habits. My dad always, always had a balanced diet. Always. And I'm 42 years old, so I've known him for a while, and balanced diet. He was not a junk food eater. I don't even know that I. I have any recollection of him eating at a fast food place. Any recollection whatsoever? None. None at all. And his philosophy was, if he's nice to his body when he's young, his body will be nice to him back when he's older. So he was very, very disciplined. About that, I would like to say that I'm just like him. No, I, you know, I have a fairly balanced diet, but, you know, I still do other things here and there. But no, not my dad. No junk food. None whatsoever. And he typically skipped breakfast, I guess by default. He lived. You know, he did intermittent fasting, even though that was not his intention and that's not what he called it. But he would always skip breakfast and he would do lunch and dinner, and it was always balanced. And he'd always drink a lot of water, and he did drink beer. But. But let me tell you this, okay? Because again, he. He's very interesting. This is why I'm doing four whole episodes on him. He would drink beer, and he would drink two bottles of beer. One brand, two bottles a day. That was his thing. And he would not do more than two. He would not do less. He would. That. That was just his thing, you know, and he was in such control of it that one year, I think they did some really crazy price bump, and he just decided, you know what? I don't know, that I want to drink beer anymore. And that was the last time he drank beer. Like, who does that? And he. And that was it. That was just it. So very disciplined with his diet. Very disciplined. And the second one is going to sound a little odd, but he was very disciplined with his dressing. So you would have noticed some trends. Like, Mark Zuckerberg is kind of like a one T shirt guy, right? I like this T shirt. I buy 10 of them. That way there's no decision as to what I need to wear. I just dress up and go do what I need to do. That's a distraction. Well, my dad was like that, too. So my dad would walk into a store, he would see a shirt, he would try it on he's like, this shirt fits and it looks okay. And he would buy seven of them. You buy seven of the same exact shirt. And we're like, dude, he did the same thing with shoes. Who does this with shoes? He did the same thing with shoes. He would, he would buy. He would look, he would try it on. This is good. It's comfortable, all of that. He'll buy five pairs. I mean, like, so what, you're going to wear the same pair of shoe forever? If you let him. Yes. So actually on that one, we kind of banned him. We didn't let him do any shopping. After, after some years, we decided, yeah, you can't shop. We'll take care of the shopping. And that's the way that worked in my house. But that was his habit. His third habit was exercise. And he did every sport available to him when he was growing up. So when he was in high school, he did cricket, he did soccer, he did track, he did. I mean, like, he did all sports. That, that was his thing. He was very athletic. And when as he be, you know, as he approached adulthood, then he took on tennis, and tennis was his thing, you know, hours and hours and hours, very physically active. And then later on, I want to say about 1990s onwards, then he adopted golf. And that's what he did until he was much older. So he, he was very physically active. Very, very active. And he recognized that, again, as, you know, I want to be healthy when I'm older, you know, and he didn't just say that like, this is what I want, but he was willing to put the effort behind it. And between his diet and exercise, he really was very healthy. He had a family history of a lot of chronic illnesses, but he had very mild hypertension that he took, you know, one pill a day for. And that developed, you know, much later. I mean, like, he was in his. In his 70s when that happened, but otherwise he was. He was a really, really healthy man. And I said in my last episode that his, you know, what he wanted was to die in his sleep. Like, you know, he's like, I'm not going to be sick for a long time, and all that kind of stuff. When I'm ready to go, I'm just going to go. And he always used to say that, and that's exactly what happened. And he had the habits to support what it is that he wanted. His fourth habit, I'm telling you, creature of habit is sleep. The man went to sleep at a specific time. He woke up at a specific time, every single day. Now, as he went through phases of life, the times were different. That's why I didn't say a specific time. But it was always pre planned, right? So when we were younger, you'd go to bed at 10 and he'd wake up at six or seven, I think it was seven. And then so that way he's getting his nine hours in. As he got older, you know, he went to bed a little earlier, woke up a little earlier. So, you know, but he always got his eight hours and it was always set like it was always said. And so that was his habit. And I need to learn that because I'm still working on it, you know, the sleep piece. And that was just an amazing habit that he had. And number five, I put this as a habit because it's really, you know, and if you're a parent here, this is something is worth copying, right? So is this relationship with his kids, with us. And the part, you know, the part I'm referring to is he had no obvious favorites. Nobody knew. Nobody knew. And I'm sure, I'm sure he had something like, oh, I really, you know, I don't know. But he had no favorite. He had no obvious favorites. He never played favorites with anybody. He seemed to treat us exactly the same way. And he did that intentionally because I heard him talk about it once, but he did that intentionally and it made us feel like, you know, we were all loved equally and he believed in us equally and it was just beautiful that he could do that, you know, especially because, you know, culturally and in the time that he lived and it would not be unusual for one person, you know, for, for a parent to pick on one person like, this is my favorite and stuff like that. But, you know, he just never did it. He never did it. So that's just really cool. Really cool. The sixth habit had to do more with organization and cleanliness. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. My dad. Cleanliness was just his thing. It was a little too much of his thing. We're like, oh my goodness. And so, you know, beds made everywhere clean, all dishes completely washed before you go to bed, all of this kind of stuff. He was a stickler for that stuff. And I mean, like we're talking inspecting under your bed to make sure there's nothing under your bed, the whole nine yards. He was a stickler for that. And he was very organized. Like if you blindfolded him and you told him to dress up and get ready for work, he could because he knew exactly where everything was. Okay, my mom is the exact opposite. And I took after my mom, so. But he knew where everything was. He was very organized, Very, very organized. You know, this is at 4 o', clock, this is at very organized. And his seventh habit was his habit with TV. TV, TV, TV. He interpreted TV as junk, right? He's like, oh, you know, you watch the movies, they're just shooting and they're doing all this ridiculous stuff. He just decided it's junk. And he never watched tv. Now during the Olympics we might could get him to come watch a few things, but now he just interpreted as a time waster. And he just never did. He would listen to the news on his radio and all that kind of stuff, but he just wouldn't do it. And if you think about the average Americans watching, you know, this is pre Covid numbers, you know, five hours of TV a day. Think about all you can do. If you could just shave off some of that, right? So he just never did. He never did. And what makes this so impressive is these are not habits that he had for a year or two years. These are habits that he had the entire 42 years that I knew him. And even as he got older, even as he was in his 80s, he still had these habits. And so what was the outcome? He had a really healthy life physically. He had great relationships with his kids. He had time for the things that mattered. I think it's his habits that helped him live life on his own terms. He said, I won't get sick, I'll just die in my sleep. And that's exactly what happened. So his habits led to the outcomes that he wanted. Now for you, what does that mean? Think about it. What habits do you need to develop in your business? What are the things that people always be able to predict that you'll do, right? And you may go like, I don't know. And I want to, I want to give you some thoughts, right? Things that you can make as habits. And years down the line you'll look back and you say, look, I made my dream business become my reality. And one of the reasons why is because of all these habits that I built. So one of your habits would be what in the entremd world we call RGA's revenue generating activities, right? Do you have a habit of speaking? And when I say speaking, I mean speaking at events, being a guest on podcasts, being a guest on YouTube channels, doing Facebook lives, hosting masterclasses and workshops. Do you have a habit of speaking, putting your message out there? Because if you have a habit, then the consequence Is your audience keeps growing, but it can't be something you do once in a while. It's something that you do on a schedule, like, oh, I'm going to speak four times a month or I'm going to speak twice a month. But this is something that you do habitually or something like networking because at the end of the day, your network is your net worth, right? So are you networking habitually? Are you saying, every two months I'm going to put myself in a room of people I don't know who are in a position to help me get better, help me build my business better? Are you networking? Are you, are there any collaborations, joint ventures that you're doing with others? Your social media, is that a habit? Showing up intentionally, deliberately, as an entrepreneur on social media, are you sending out emails? I know so many people who have email lists and they're not sending, they don't have a habit, right? Can people say, I know Every Monday at 8 o' clock I'm going to get an email from her, right? Or from him. So I want you to think about them. Do you have revenue generating activities that are habits? Have you made them habits? Right. Like a lot of these things we talked about, then we talked about social media speaking and collaborations. During Entre MD Live, you can always go get the replay of it. It's entre md.com forward/event and you can get the replay and then you make that a habit. You make that a business habit. If you do, what will happen is your audience will keep growing, the number of people who want to work with you will keep growing and they're going to, you know, share the testimonies of what they're doing with others who also want to cut you. Like you will create a snowball, but it's tied to a habit. Not something you do once or twice, but things that you do habitually. Now, there must have been times when my dad didn't feel like exercising, didn't feel like going to sleep at the right time, didn't feel like spending his time properly as opposed to watching tv. But it's a habit and he applied discipline. And discipline means doing what you should, when you should, whether you feel like it or not. He did that and you can do that. Okay, you can apply that to your business. Where this is my habit, these are my habits, my business habits. So that's number one is revenue generating activity. The second one is, you know, like improving your product. Do you have a habit of spending the time to improve your product? Now, when I say Product. What I mean is, whatever it is your, your business gets. So if you own a private practice, that experience that people have when you come to your office, that's your product, right? If you have a personal brand, that personal brand is your product. If you have a coaching program, that coaching program is your product, right? Are you improving it? Are you doing such a way when people come to your private practice, it's a better experience. The wait times are shorter, the staffer have higher customer service levels. Is that what's happening? Can people come into your practice and say, wow, I was just here six months ago. So much has changed, so much is better. If you have a coaching program, can people come to your coaching program and say, man, can they look at you and say, oh my goodness, she's getting better. Like every time I see her, there's something different. There's something she's up leveled. Are people saying that right about your brand? Are people realizing, I just can't ignore this person, like she keeps, you know, he keeps moving forward. Can they say that? And this is a decision that you make? I have the habit of improving my product. The people who worked with me a year ago know that it is such a different experience now. In fact, when I hosted Entre MD Live, I hosted on Tremd Live almost a year after launching the On Trendy Business school. So there are people who had shown up and seen me every week. I'm, you know, I'm there for the live sessions, I'm there in the Facebook group. They've heard a lot of my concepts. They listened to so many podcast episodes. And I made a decision. I was like, On Trend Live is going to be so well executed and the content is going to be so good and the experience so good that even the people who are with me every week are going to be blown away. What is that? It's a habit of improving the product. And I'm happy that I pulled it off because they're like, oh my goodness, Dr. Una. Yeah, that's exactly what I wanted. The people who came last year and came this year, like, oh my goodness, that was the intent. Because the habit is improving my product. So that's the second habit. So the first is revenue generating activities, the second is improving your product. The third is improving yourself as an entrepreneur. The most important part of your business is you. Because when you get better, everything gets better. Everything. You may say, oh my goodness, my team sucks, right? Or I can't find a team, or you know, finding good people is hard. But let me tell you Something you as the entrepreneur, if you develop the skill, remember, all business skills are just that, skills. If you develop the skill of hiring and firing and team building, guess what? You will have a better team. You'll have a better team. If you increase your capacity to believe for bigger outcomes in your business, you will have bigger outcomes in your business. If you improve your ability, your speaking ability, your business improves. Once you get better, your business gets better. So do you have a habit of improving yourself as an entrepreneur? Do you? Are you reading? Are you taking bold steps? Are you in the programs you're supposed to be in? Are you engaging and applying what you're learning in the EntreMD business school? It is set up in such a way that every, every single month you're challenged. Why? Once you get better, everything gets better. Everything. So your revenue generating activities, improving your product, improving yourself as an entrepreneur, what if you had habits of doing this on a regular basis? What if you had habits of doing this on a daily basis? Or what will happen to your life? What will happen to your business? What will happen to all of it a year from now? A year from now? If you did this consistently, what will your life look like? What will your business look like? Would you have launched it? Would it have crossed first six figures? Would it have crossed multiple six figures? Would it have crossed your first seven figure year? How many people would you have been able to help? What would the consequence of that business be for you? Will you be able to cut your clinical hours? Or will you be able to invest massively in real estate like you've wanted to? Or will you be able to take a month, two months off and just travel with your kids? It's all possible if you build the right habits. You make your habits and your habits make your future. Okay? So I want you to take a moment and sit and I want you to think, what RGA's am I going to do and do on a schedule? What am I going to do to improve my. What, what's my time to sit and work on my product? For me, I do that on Thursdays. I work on it, I tweak it. What am I trying to do? Make it better, Help people get results even faster, Help people get even bigger results, make the process even simpler? I'm working on it, right? And then those habits of improving yourself as an entrepreneur, I want you to think, what am I going to do? What am I going to do to do these three things? Because if you do them, everything changes. Everything changes. All right? So that's what I have for this episode. And guess what? When everything changes, because it's a habit is the gift that keeps giving. So it changes now. Then it changes again and changes again and changes again. It snowballs. It's just amazing. Okay, so I want you to do this. One of the best ways to learn. One of the best ways of learning is teaching. So I want you to take whatever your biggest aha is from this episode, I want you to share it on social media, and I want you to use two hashtags, Entre MD and Entre MD Legacy. Remember, this is our Legacy series. Doing this in honor of my dad, and it will really mean a lot to me if you do that. All right? Okay. So I'll see you, my friend, on the very next episode of the entremd podcast. Go build that habits, and I'll see you then. Hey, if you love listening to the ontramity 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 entremd.com ondemand and I love to have you join us. See you on the inside.