Revolutionizing Problem-Solving: Developing a Strategic Mindset and Harnessing the Power of Questions

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. Umna. Well, hello. Hello. Welcome back to another episode of the ontremd podcast. And today we're gonna be talking about something that is so fun and that is strategy and how to develop a strategic mind. And I started thinking about this because a doctor in the ontremd business school is like, how do you think strategically? Sometimes you, you ask these questions and I, I don't even know where to start from then and thinking about it. And so we're going to talk about it. And we just recently hosted the Entrepreneur Business School Vision Retreat. Oh my goodness. So the Vision Retreat is a retreat we host once a year in October, because that's when our year starts, in October and we set our goal for the next year. And all of those things is just so good. And there's so many opportunities for hot seats and questions and all of those kind of things. And when we're together virtually, it is unbelievably amazing. When we're together in person, it's just magic. There's no other word to describe it. It's just pure magic. You can actually go to Facebook or Instagram and just put in the hashtag, hashtag EBS retreat. And you'll see, you just see all the people talk about their experiences and stuff. They're just so good. But a doctor came and came up and was talking about how people she, she was so overwhelmed with all the things that she needed to do and the fact that she was doing so much and it was bringing in little compared to her goal and, and all. And she's like, I don't even know where to start from because if I have to rev up my revenue, then that means that I have to do this even more and where would I get the time and all of that. And so I have learned. I have learned that statements can constrain us, but questions, the right questions, high value questions, empower us. And so I, as she was talking, I walked to the board and I put there. I was like, how can I do this in half the time? How can I do this in half the time? And so when she was done talking, I said, okay, I have one question for you. I was like, how can you do what you're doing in half the time? And initially she was like, wait, I could see on her eyes, of course I can't do this in half the time. This is how much time it's taking me. I was like, what if it was possible? How would you do that? And she said, well. And she gave. I would do this. I'm like, great, what else would you do? I knew I was going for at least five, and she came up with the second one. I'm like, okay, what else would you do? And she's like, wait, wow. And everyone started smiling. I was like, you're blowing your own mind, are you not? Yeah. I'm like, okay, so what is it? Then? She said, the third thing. I said, great, what else would you do? She said, that's all I would do. I said, what else would you do? What if there was more? What else would you do? And she came up with number four, and she came up with number five, and she came up with number six. And she just was like, oh, my goodness. And at the end of those six things, not only did she find out how to do it in half the time, she found out how to leverage a team she already had. She found out the projects that were 20% style projects that were bringing in most of the revenue. And she said, I'll go for this. She even figured out to get more help in her personal life. By the time she was done, she had figured out how to create so much more revenue doing this thing and doing it in half the time. And I Suspect it's actually less than half the time, but I'll be able to talk with her in a few months and see what she did. Right. And that was all from one question. And so think about in your business, if you get into the habit of. Rather than making the statements of, oh, it's not working. Oh, I'm not getting return on my investment. Nobody's buying, nobody. There are no good team members anywhere. I can't figure out these systems. Think about if instead of making those kind of statements, you were asking better questions. Okay, so what I want to do today is I want to give you a few questions to kind of jumpstart the process for you. And this will be one of those episodes I'm going to keep it short that you want to go back to and listen to over and over again because you have the opportunity to workshop it, right? So you write out the question, you stop, you actually think it through. You can decide. Five is my number. Every time I ask, I pull up five answers, I pull up seven answers. Now, I learned this from Brian Tracy. Whether it's brainstorming or mindstorming. So mind storming you're doing by yourself. Brainstorming, you're doing with somebody else. If you can pull to 20 questions, you. You're gonna squeeze out some juice that will rock your world, right? The first five, you just be like free flow. The next five, you'll work hard for it. The next five, you'll sweat for it. And the last five will be like squeezing out blood, right? But what you're doing is you're retraining your brain. You're training your brain on how to look for solutions. You're training it. I have done this for so long. I heard Brian Tracy talk about mindstorming and brainstorming. Wow, it must have been like 2012, 2010. So I've done this for at least a decade. So much so that when somebody's talking to me, it's almost like the words they're saying, they're all being thrown up in front of me, right? And then I'm able to pull out, okay? These are the things that matter. These are the answers to those things. I'm able to organize it, make it nice and pretty. I'm like, okay, here are three things you do, right? And it's just because that aspect of my brain literally has a six pack, okay? And it's not because I'm super special. Because remember, before we became doctors, we didn't think like doctors. Before we became doctors, if we saw somebody Running a code, all we will see is chaos. But now, because we've been trained and that part of our mind is used to seeing all those things, we're able to say, okay, ABCs, your ACLs are algorithm. Your pals, algorithm. Like, you're able to see all of those things even in the midst of the chaos. It doesn't look chaotic to you. So imagine if your business didn't look at least for the stage or. And it did not look chaotic to you, could put things in boxes and decide how things needed to work. Right? So this is something you want to put the reps in. You just want to put the reps in. I have a dry erase board right in my office where I'm working. Every so often, I'll pull out one of these questions, I'll just put it up there and I'll start working through it. I even started doing that with my kids where I just come up with something I was like say I was going to do. And for me, it could even be hypothetical. It could be real. I'm like, what if we were doing an event and we wanted this event to be an event that brings in $2 million? Right. And so this is a stretch. How would we do that? I don't know. Well, let's think about it. What if we could do it how we do it? We will sell tickets. Great, we'll sell tickets. What else would we do? I'm like, how many tickets? How much? We'll put the number together. Okay. We still have money left. We need to make more money. Oh, well, we could have sponsors. Great. How much would you charge each sponsor? How many sponsors would you have? They say the number and we put that up and. Okay, great. What else would you. We could sell merch. Okay, great. How much would you would sell? T shirts and. Okay, on average, how much would that be? How many would you sell? And we just keep going. It's just a way of thinking. Okay, It's a way of thinking. And in the entrepreneur business school, we call it the EBS puzzle, right? Where we just put a revenue number. Like, how would you do that? Say how. How would you do that? Right. Okay. All right, so. So five questions here. All right, Five questions. The first is, how can I create X dollars in revenue? That's a. I mean, you already set it as a goal. And maybe when you said it, you didn't know the how, which is the thing about goal setting, right there stretches. Sometimes we don't know how. I've had goals. I said I didn't know till March how I couldn't even create a roadmap to the number. And so you start playing with that, like, how could I do that? I'm going to write 10 ways I could generate my first million or my first 2 million and get on the 5,000 list or whatever. Right? And so you're right. I will do this, I'll do this, I'll do that, I'll do that. And the important thing is not to edit, is just to write it. Right. And start thinking. We have, you're a physician, you have a super smart computer. Your brain is so amazing, so well developed, Right? And we're just going to get it good at something else. So just keep asking and asking and asking. Could do it by yourself. You can do it brainstorming with others and just play around with it and your brain will become good at this. You'll be really good at seeing possibilities and all of that stuff. And whatever it is your goal is becomes more and more subconscious because you're working it. So that's the first question. The second question is, how can I find X kind of team member, whatever that is for you? Maybe you've wanted an executive assistant. Maybe you've wanted a lead medical assistant or lead front desk person or office manager or practice administrator, a CEO or director of marketing or whatever. And usually this was very true for me. When it comes to team members, I'm like, they don't exist. I'm like, stop being ridiculous. What do you mean they don't exist? I mean, you're going to hire an adult, that means of course they exist. Right? Right. And so. And I'm like, Amazon Pre pandemic had 566,000 employees. Apparently there are people all over the world willing to work and people who have experience and all those things. So how, how would I, like, how can I find them? Okay, I could post on Facebook. Great. What else could you do? I could do an add on. Indeed. Okay, what else could you do? I could tell people who hire people like that maybe they know something great. What else could you do? I could look in different companies and see what roles they have there and reach out to the people who have those roles and ask them if they're looking or if they know someone who's looking great. What else could you do? Right? And you're like. And you'll get to a point where like my wonderful doc who is like, wow. You blow your own mind. You're like, wow. Okay. And you never accept that this cannot be done because treat it like A game. Of course it's possible. So how would I do it? All right, the third one is, how can I do this in half the time? How can I do this in half the time? You're like, of course it can be done in half the time. But you don't know that. Not until you ask the question, how can this be done in half the time? And you may find out you have a team member on payroll right now who could do it. And it doesn't even need to be done at all by you. Right? How can this be done in half the time? How can this be done in half the time? As that. Okay, I could automate this part. I could delegate this part. This part. I say the same exact thing every single time. I could create a handout for it. Like, all kinds of creativity comes to play. All right, number four, how can I overcome this challenge? So something happens. You get. Let me make up one. You get a tax bill. You're like, lord have mercy. I just got a $300,000 tax bill. Right? And you're like, okay, how can I overcome this? How can I set up my business? Because I'm like, people who make a lot more than me pay a lot less than me in taxes. So. And I'm not talking about tax evasion. I'm talking about reducing your tax liability legally. So the question becomes, how can I do that? How can I overcome that? How can I pay 50% less next time? How can I pay 40% less next time? Right. How can I do that? Okay, you have a team member who leaves a critical role. You're like, okay, how can we move forward in spite of this?

Right.

How can we manage the transition period where we continue to serve our clients and our patients at the highest level while we hire for this role? How can we manage that? Forget that you're a doc and you come to. And this is not quite a business example. No, but it is. For instance, you come to work and somebody called out sick, okay? How can we have a great day even though this person called out sick? And you start boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, Right? Okay. How can I overcome this challenge? Next one. Or you can say, oh, I've done 20 discovery calls, consult calls, and nobody has said yes to my offer. How can I increase my conversion ratio to 20% or 10%, which means I would have had at least two clients, right? And you start going, maybe you recorded your calls. You go over them and you find, yeah, I was a little wimpy on the offer. Oh, yeah, I skipped finding out what they really wanted. So I was just selling them what I wanted. Like, you can start troubleshooting, okay? And then finally, how can I create the time for X? Right? There is some critical 20% activity you're supposed to be doing in your business that you're not doing. How can I create the time for it? You are not taking care of yourself. You are not sleeping because you believe I have all these things to do. I don't have time to sleep. How can I set myself up so I have eight hours to sleep every day? How can I? How can I? It is such an empowering question. Because the thing is, for 90% of the things you ask, you can do them, but your brain will not go to work till you require it to. So I want you to think about this, right? We do this with ChatGPT, okay? So we know the better prompts you put in, the better your output. It is the same with your brain. You have the highest version, like the pro, pro, Pro version of ChatGPT, and that is your brain. And if you put in better prompts, you get better output. If you tell it you're no good, you can't get this done. Imagine putting that in ChatGPT. Okay? Right? But when you start asking better questions, you start spitting out data and creativity and innovation and solutions that will rock your world. So I want you to go practice this. I want to take these five questions, I want you to go practice and start putting the right prompts in and start creating new neural pathways in your brain and start developing six packs in the area of strategy. And it'll blow your mind. What you'll be able to do with your business and the way you do one thing spills over to all the other areas of your life, which means that your life ultimately becomes better. And then you start teaching your kids this, you start teaching your team this, and what you'll see is like explosion and expansion on every, every, every side, right? And that is what I would love for you. So take this episode. Please do not keep it to yourself. Give this to the physician entrepreneurs in your life. Share this on social media. Share with me the biggest nugget you got. Tag us hashtag ontremd so I can shout you out. And I will see you, my friend, on the next episode of the OnTremd podcast. If you enjoy listening to the OnTremd podcast, you have to check out the On Trendy Business School. It's the number one business school for physicians who want to build six, seven and multiple seven figure businesses. You get the coaching, the accountability and the community you need to do the work so you can thrive. To find out if this is your best next step, book a call with my team on call. That's entre md.com call I can't wait to celebrate all the wins we can create together.