Parenting, Entrepreneurship and Leaving a Lasting Legacy
30 Jan 2026 · 16 min
Dr. Nneka Unachukwu talks about raising four kids while building a medical business, focusing on teaching them faith, leadership, and entrepreneurship rather than just money. She puts her daughter on stage from age 8 to build confidence and suggests creating a deliberate 'legacy curriculum' to pass on what actually matters.
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Well, hello. Hello, my friend. Welcome back to another episode of the ontremd podcast. And I am very excited today because we are going to be talking about parenting, entrepreneurship, leaving a lasting legacy. And this is something I really love to talk about because I struggled so much as a mom, who was a pediatrician, who ran her own practice, who was doing multiple businesses. And parenting looks very different for me. And I had created this ideal that I thought I was supposed to live up to, which I could never live up to, of course. And just defining my own journey as a parent and what I'm doing with my kids and the gift I have to give them, why I am equipped to be a great parent, because I do all the things that I do. I mean, that whole journey has just been a beautiful journey. And it's brought me to this place where it is what it is. I'm confident in what I do. I may look different from other parents, and that is absolutely okay. I'm the perfect parent for my own kids. Right? And my journey is my journey. And so I wanted to come and share some of that with you. And it's kind of very fascinating, the space I'm in now. Because my daughter, I have four children and so I have three daughters and one son. My daughter, daughter, the first is 15 at the time of this recording. My son, who's the second just turned 14. And then my other daughters are nine and eight. So I have the big two and the little two, if you will. And yesterday we had our carol night service at church and my daughter got to perform. And one of the things that I really do is, and I'll talk about this as we go along in this episode, is I really try to expose them to those circumstances that maybe adults are scared of. I was scared of as a grownup, as a 32 year old, or things I didn't know at all. And I'm like, I just want them to have all those experiences now. I want them to gain the confidence now. I don't want them to be like me. Not that there's anything wrong with me. My journey again is my journey and I'm grateful for it. But you know, they have me, right? And so my ceiling should be their floor. And they have access to insights and information that I didn't have access to. And so they have a leg up and I want them to have that experience. And so I've put her on stage probably since she was 8 years old. I've been putting her on stages since then. And so when we did the first ontremd live, I had her do my introduction when I would speak at in my role as a pediatrician promoting my practice, I would speak at some leadership events and she would come and do my introduction. She's spoken at some of the retreats I've done. And so I've really put her on stage a lot. And so this time her uncle reaches out and says, hey, I want you to do a solo for the carol night. And she's, okay, I'll do it. Just what song do you want me to do? And so yesterday she did her performance. She really worked hard, rehearsing and all of that. And we're talking over 400 people in the building and she shows up and she shows up confidently and she nails it. And it was just, it was just so beautiful for me to see. And it's like evidence, like my experiment with my children is working. And so we talked about it before she went up. We talked about the rehearsals that she would have to do, both the ones that were with the rest of the worship team and the rehearsal she'll have to do on her own to master the song. So he talks about that skill. We talked about stage Presence. How do I show up and take up the stage, take up this space on that stage? We talked about what to do when maybe you feel confident and all of that, but when you get up there, then the nerves show up. How do you respond to that? And, of course, left her with this confidence, no matter what. Mama got you, I'm right here. You know what I mean? And so it was. It was really good to watch her pull it off and. And all of those things. And so, as I thought about it, I shared in the Entre MD Business school some of my philosophies around parenting and why it's so important that we take the time to dare our fears and become the best versions of ourselves. And all because people are watching. And our transformation inspires others. It creates new ceilings for them. It. It inspires them to go to the next level. And so I share that here, and I figured I'd just make a podcast episode for you. So I want to talk about my principles around parenting, the things that I've done. And really what I want is to set a stage where my ceiling, the height of my achievement, kind of becomes their floor. And that doesn't mean they're gonna be like me. That does not mean that they're going to. They must continue in the quote unquote family business. It doesn't mean any of that, But I want them to be equipped, and so they have options. And the thing about these skills is that these skills are transferable. Like, wherever they choose to use it again, it works, right? And that's the idea, right? Like my ceiling, their floor. That's the advantage they have of having a parent like me, having a parent like you. And if you think about it, right, like, you can teach your kid to fish, or you can give them a lot of fish, right? There are many families that I know, parents who are really wealthy and they left inheritance to their kids, but they did not transfer the work ethic, the knowledge, the wisdom, the character that produced the wealth. And so they couldn't keep the wealth. They couldn't hold onto it. I mean, money is currency. It goes to the person who knows what to do with it or who understands the value add, who understands all of those things. So you could give your kids fish, which is like an inheritance, or you can give your kids the ability to fish, which means even if you didn't leave them any fish, they could create their own fish, or you can leave them both. You can leave them fish, and you can leave them with the ability to fish. And I really Want to put my kids in a position where I give them the ability to fish, and I give them fish. And if I must only choose one, I will not choose fish. I would choose the ability to fish. That means when I'm gone, they can fish. When they're on their own raising their own families, they can fish. They know what to do. And so. So that's the way I think about it. And what we have to give is really going to be different. And so what I'm going to be talking about is what I have looked at and said, okay, this is what I have to give them, and I'm going to strategically give it to them. It may be different for you. You may have different skill sets, you may have different exposures, you may have access to different kinds of communities. And all of that, you really do want to take inventory of what is the. The wealth. And when I say wealth, I don't mean dollars. I mean your exposures, your experiences, your communities, your connections, like all of that. What is it, what is it that I have to transfer to my kids? This is intangible wealth, but it's a real wealth because it's what creates the tangible wealth, right? And the tangible wealth you can lose, but the intangible wealth you keep. And it can always go on to create more tangible wealth. Okay, so when I took inventory and I'm like, what would I love to leave them with? What are the things have made me successful? What are the things that have transformed my life? What are those things? And I came up with five core things. Of course there are more, but I came up with five core things. Again, these are not yours. I just want to kind of give you a way of thinking about it. This is a principle, but I'm giving my own example for context. So the first thing is my faith and my faith, my faith in God is one of the things that helps me weather storms, is something that helps me stay stable no matter what is going on. It is. Is something like meditating on the scriptures, for instance, is something that is great for my mental health. Like, this is something that is huge for me. And it's something that I've spent decades developing, decades building my faith, building an understanding of how to look at the world from the God's perspective and all of those things. And so it's more than just going to church or anything like that. And I'm like, man, there's so much gold here that it would just be sad for me not to hand this over to my kids. And so one of the things I want them, I want to be able to gift them is my faith is all the lessons I've learned from studying over the years, from praying over the years, from walking with God over all these years. Okay, so that's one, two is leadership. And I understand more now than ever before and that everything rises and falls on leadership. And if you're going to build great organizations, great companies, if you're going to lead movements, if you're going to do all of that, you must master leadership because it's through people. The only way to do great things is to have a great team, is to have a great group of people around you so you can pull it off, right? And so that's something that I want them even from now, to begin to cultivate, to learn. And, and it's something that I teach them very deliberately. And leadership doesn't start with leading other people. It starts with leading the first person on your team, which is you. And so teaching them how to lead themselves, how to lead others, teaching them servant leadership. Leadership doesn't mean you're better than other people. It means that you, you understand how to serve people and help them become their best and all of that, and that gives you the right to lead. And so I'm like, I've let learn all these lessons. I've been through all the pain of not embracing leadership. I've read so many books and I'm like, I want to transfer that to them. Entrepreneurship, right? And so all those skills from entrepreneurship, as a socially awkward, super shy, introverted introvert, I walked, I ran away from all the things that would make me a great entrepreneur. Speaking, networking, selling, marketing, all of those things. And so I get them embracing those things now. I get them selling like they have their own little businesses and they're selling and they're doing all. And really what I'm after is I want them to overcome the money trauma. I want them to overcome the fear of rejection. I want them to overcome feeling bad because they're, they're doing a value exchange, like giving value and taking money for it. Like all of those things, I want them to develop that because I mean, I had to deal with that in my 30s and 40s. I'm like, why? Why would they have to do that? I already took one for the team. The fourth thing is character, because this is the deal. Talent, skill, hard work, all of those things can take you to the top. But it's your integrity, it is your character that keeps you up there, right? And there are big rooms, you can be in. And if you don't have integrity, it will cost you millions and millions and millions of dollars, right? And so I'm like, yes, we're going to build all these things, we're going to be great at this, but we're going to build integrity, we're going to build character, we're going to learn to respect people. We're going to learn that our word is our bond. We get like all of these things, right? And I'm like, I want to transfer that because I don't want you going up and you have no character to sustain you. And then the fifth thing, and it's so funny that I put it in this order, but is really the order in my heart. But the fifth thing is academics, right? So whatever they have to do, school and all the A's and all those things, they have to give me. But I consider this a full education, right? I don't want you to just have the academics and you don't have the faith, you don't have the leadership, you don't have the entrepreneurship, you don't have the character. I'm like, I had one of the best educations. I became a physician. But when I came into the real world, I'm like, oh my goodness, wow. Like, I, I need a brand new education. And so that, that those were the things. I was like, I can gift this to my children. And I'm so grateful. Just watching my daughter on stage, like I was saying, just made me go, wow, this is working. Because up to me, like, oh, my goodness, did you see your daughter? I'm like, yeah. And they're like, do you see the level of confidence and all of that? And I'm like, wow, she is that confident at 15, I was not that confident at 30. Like, I was, I was not that confident when I was twice her age, right? And it was, it was just so good. It was so good. So what I want you to do, I want you to do two things. First of all, every physician who's a parent, I want you to grab the link of this episode. I want you to share them. I want you to share the link with them and tell them, listen, I want you to listen to this. And it's, it's, there's no judgment here. There's no. This is not a model. Like, my example is not a model. The principle is, right? Like, the principle is you have so many gifts and talents and skills and experiences and oh my goodness, being able to give those to your child, that is, that is what creates A lasting legacy. That's what makes you live forever, right? Okay, so share it with a parent. Share it on your social media. Tag us Entre md. I'd love to give you a shout out and thank you for spreading the word. And I want you to take the time to create your own legacy curriculum. Right? What? Take the inventory? What is it I want to transfer to my kids? What are the things that have made me successful? What are the things that, knowing what I now know, I WISH I learned 10 years earlier, 20 years earlier, because we can teach it to our kids. And sometimes people tell me, don't you think that's a lot? I don't think it's a lot. I mean, look at the things kids say, age, their, their ages are doing, right? I don't think it's a lot. If they can do all of that, they can do this. I have them read and people are like, don't you think that's. That's a lot? I'm like, no. If they can watch Black Panther and sit down for two hours over two hours to watch that movie, they can sit down and eat, read, eat that frog. They absolutely can. That's my philosophy anyway, so create your own legacy curriculum. And I want you to think about this. I want you to think about setting your kids up to have advantages because of you, because you took the time not just give them fish, but to teach them how to fish. Teach your kids how to fish. Okay. All right. So share this with another doc in your life. They will thank you forever. And I will see you, my friend, on the next episode of the On Tre podcast.
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