The Business Of Coaching With Physician, Lawyer And Executive Coach Dr. Adam Harrison

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, everybody. Welcome back to the Entre MD podcast. I am excited. And you go like Dr. Una. You always are. And I am, and I'm excited that you're listening. And I'm super excited because I have an amazing guest here. He's amazing for a number of reasons. One, he's from the uk, so you get to hear the most beautiful accent ever. And it's going to be fun. And he's, he's a part of the Entre MD Business school, so we make him talk on purpose just so we can hear him, you know, we can hear it. It's just beautiful. And he's a doctor, he's a lawyer, he's an executive coach, he does executive leadership coach. He does all the things. So this is going to be an amazing conversation. So welcome to the show, Dr. Adam Harrison.

Thank you so much for having me. This is, this is kind of surreal for me in a really, really good way. I started listening to your podcast about a year ago, and I can't believe that 12 months later I'm a guest on the podcast. That's just crazy to me. I'm struggling to comprehend that at the moment. Yeah, it's a bit like discovering a new musical band or group or something that you start following and they start off, you know, quite small and then they get huge. And 12 months after you discover them, they invite you on stage at a concert to jam with them. That's kind of how I'm feeling at the moment. This is. Yeah. Amazing. Amazing.

Oh, w. Wow. I love it. That is so cool, though. That is really cool. And I. And I think I remember you saying you heard my interview on Dr. Me first with Dr. Aaron Wiseman.

Yes.

Yep. Was that. Was that who it was? And then you came over. Well, I'm glad. I'm glad you're here.

I'm really glad to be here.

Glad you're here.

Thanks so much.

So tell the listeners a little bit about you. Doctor, lawyer, coach, whole nine yards.

It's not as exciting as it sounds. I've been a doctor since 2000. So coming up to my 21st year and I went into surgery and then went into family medicine and had a real interest in medical law and medico. Legal issues and medical ethics and stuff. So I started exploring that and decided to go to law school. So I qualified as a barrister, which is like a legal counsel advocate in the states, person that does all the courtroom stuff. And that was 2013. But we just had our first child then, so it wasn't really good time to go off and be a very junior lawyer with a pittance of an income and all of that long hours for not much reward. So, yeah, I just decided to carry on in medicine but try and use my law qualifications to do some other things. And I put myself out there as a medical legal advisor to some local organizations and then it sort of inadvertently turned into a medical leadership career which was brilliant. And then as a part of that role, I was coached and just thought, you know, this is the best thing since sliced bread. It was not a kind of cheesy exaggeration to say it was life changing. I discovered what my values were like in. In actual words, rather than just a feeling in my heart as to what was guiding me in life, you know, and that was really transformational. And I just thought, I think I can have more of an impact in this world coaching people than being their doctor. So this is where I am now, working with doctors. I'm now, as you say, one of your students at the Entre MD Business School. EBS, we call it. I'm a physician entrepreneur. Never thought I'd be an entrepreneur. What doctor does when they go to med school. So it's amazing. It's such a great journey I'm on. And for me, if this is the pinnacle, that's it. I can retire now. Happy?

Oh, wow. I love it. I love it now. It's interesting that you said that coaching is the, you know, best thing since sliced bread. And it inspired you to embrace coaching, not just being coached, but to coach others. And you're like, wow, I can help people with this more than I can as a doctor. So what kind of transformation happened when you first experienced coaching? Like, the transformation that made you say, man, I want to do this?

I had some leadership coaching in the leadership role that I was in, and my coach was wonderful. Shout out to Dr. Fiona Day, who's a doctor and coach in the UK. And, yeah, she just went through all the sort of standard coaching stuff with me, but it was the value stuff, I think that really was life changing for me. And it just made me realize that sort of sitting in clinic, just kind of tinkering around the edges of people's medical lives was not satisfying for me and I wanted to do more. And, you know, I'm currently as, you know, sort of developing expertise in helping doctors who've been bullied or who've, you know, worked in toxic environments with toxic leaders. You know, they've been put down, they've been shamed, they've been made to feel a role. I had in Australia last year, where I was tutoring indigenous medical students, and one of them was bullied by one of her attendings on the ward in front of everyone. And this was her first ever clinical placement. And when she turned to me for advice, it was like a, you know, a lightning bolt hit me. It made me relive the emotions of all the bullying that I'd been subjected to over the years. And I just thought, I have to do my bit to help. And if not me, then who? That's where we are.

All right, so you found a problem and you're like, yeah, I guess I'll go fix it. Why not? I love it. So with the work that you do, because, you know, bullying in the workplace is a real thing. Toxic workplaces, that's a real thing. So tell me about some of the results you've had working with clients. So they were. They were bullied and they worked with you, what were the outcomes they experienced?

So in thinking about this, so I don't have any quantitative data as yet, but, you know, I've had a lot of excellent verbal feedback about from the clients, sort of saying they feel much more empowered to be able to call out bullying because we've helped, we've worked on their confidence, we've turned around some people with imposter syndrome, made people feel more comfortable in saying no and not tolerating bad behavior, being more comfortable with conflict, because a lot of doctors are very bad at conflict because we're people pleasers, as you know, so we sort of shy away from that. And people on the precipice of being burnt out because of bullying, or maybe bullying is just one of the extra factors on top of everything else that's going on, you know, including the pandemic, which has created this whole extra layer of stress and unhappiness. You know, it's perhaps made a little bit of a difference towards, towards that as well. And if there's some doctors who have perhaps wanted to change career as a result of the treatment they've received at work, then I've been able to help them with that. So lots of positive outcomes, good verbal feedback, good testimonials and recommendations on LinkedIn, my social media platform of choice. And yeah, eventually when I get enough of a cohort, I be able to look at it in more detail. But I'm doing other general coaching as well at the same time. And also organizations are starting to reach out to me. So I've got a gig coaching a pediatrician in the UK and doing a half day workshop with all of his colleagues around the issues so they can spot it. Yeah, so these, these things are coming out of the woodwork. But I mean, you know, once the floodgates open, once people kind of realize there's someone out there doing this, hopefully I'll be the go to.

Sounds like you will be. So I have a fun question for you. In the US in general, entrepreneurship is embraced more than it is in the uk. I think that's a general statement, but I think I can, I can say that now. Physicians and entrepreneurship, not quite a thing, right. Like a lot of physicians who are entrepreneurs before, this time, you know, felt weird, you know, like you're a doctor, what are you doing? How much weirder is it in the uk?

It's probably even weirder because I'm in, I'm in New Zealand at the moment, so I'm kind of looking at the, you know, the market in the UK and seeing what's going on. And I mean, there are some pretty thriving Facebook groups for alternative careers for doctors. It's kind of hard to see where they're originating from. You know, some, some terminology gives it away, so, you know, Talking about gps rather than family doctors and things like this, you know, but there's, yeah, there's, there's, I think there's more and more interest in it. I think it's, it's a bit like with coaching really, doctors are just starting to, in the uk, just starting to discover that they can do other things. So it's, you know, we're probably 10 years behind the States at a complete random guess. But yeah, we'll, we'll get there. You just. People like me spread the word about the business school and can help more people.

Absolutely. And you know, you're not 10 years behind and you know, they may be, but you're, you're not, you're the fourth month. I love it. Now somebody's listening and they're going like, yeah, I've been bullied in the workplace. Wow. What are one, one or two tips you can give someone who's being bullied or who has a toxic workplace, who's being shamed at work, like right now, they happen to be listening.

Yeah.

What would you tell me?

Okay, so I think the first, the first thing is that, I mean, if you've sort of confirmed that it is actual bullying rather than you've had a particularly sensitive day and your boss has had a particularly a grumpy day kind of thing, you know, because there's that, that mismatch that can sometimes explain these one off things. But first thing is it's just so, so common. You're not alone. You know, over, over 80% of doctors in a survey by the British Medical association reported bullying. So isn't, isn't it?

Wow, that strange thing.

You walk, you. Yeah, yeah. Walking down the corridor in a hospital and out of every 10 of your medical colleagues you walk past, eight of them have experienced something similar to you. And if only everyone was able to feel they could speak up about it, there'd be some amazingly helpful conversations that could go on between you and your colleagues. But yeah, so you're definitely not alone. It's not your fault. Please don't ever think that it's your fault. It's not your issue, it's the other person's issue. And there is support out there, but it takes a lot of courage to even admit it to yourself because it's associated with being weak, isn't it? And then there's the sort of potential, if it's getting you down, there's mental health ramifications and stuff like that. And it's, you know, if you report it, do you have to then Go to your medical board and declare, you know, all of that kind of stuff. But there are techniques out there, coaching techniques, to help with some of the consequences of bullying, like imposter syndrome, low confidence, problems with conflict, assertiveness, being able to make yourself more influential and more persuasive. And these are all coachable things. And as someone who's been through it and I'm willing to speak up on behalf of people and be the voice, then hopefully people will come to me because they know that I get it. Lots of coaches can do what I'm doing, but you have to own it. And a lot of coaches are not prepared to do that.

And you own it. And I'm so happy. I didn't realize it was 80%. So that means you're. You're taking care of an epidemic. That's what you're out to. You know what I mean? That's what you're out to fix. And I know because we've had these conversations in the business school, that it's not just from the perspective of the doctors who are being bullied, but you also work on an organizational level, so that's amazing that you're doing that. And for everybody listening, when we go to medical school, everything is a little cookie cutter. Not in a bad way. You guys know I love the medical training system, right? Like, it produced us and can there be changes? Yes, but it produced us. So we have this cookie cutter thing, right? Go to high school, go to premed, go to med, med school, do your residency, get a job, work, retire, right? And that's kind of the sequence. Well, when you come into entrepreneurship, you can really look at a problem that is a problem you're so passionate about and that you don't Forget about. Like Dr. Adam here, he talks about toxic workplaces every single time you touch him, this is what comes out is his thing. It's his thing. So what is your thing? You heard what he said. You have to own it. Many people can do what I do, but they don't own it. Right. You have to own it. So what is that thing? What is that thing? Just make your decision to own it. This is so good. I love what you do. I do. All right, so you did all these things and then you found coaching, and then you started doing that, and then you found the podcast and then you came to the business school. So what was the reason behind you and guys, I have no idea what he's going to say. What was the reason for joining the business school?

So I only actually finished My coach training in early September. But as I said, I've been listening to your podcast since April last year. And you know what, it's like a coach school. You learn how to become a coach, but you don't learn how to become a business person, not an entrepreneur. You know, to be fair, my institution had a stab at it. They gave us a couple of modules that was just written content on marketing yourself and going through the nuts and bolts of setting up your business. But I thrive much more on that kind of face to face teaching, you know, being in a group and you know, kind of being a bit spoon fed, you know, I'm not, not so great at the old self directed learning, you know, sitting down with a 60 page thing about how to approach the government to set up your business and stuff. It was just not doing it for me. So that stage I was actively looking for some business coaching. And loads of these people come up in your feed on Facebook, don't they? It's interminable and I kind of had a conversation with one of them. But I think it was around the October you were talking about the new intake of the business school. And then at some point, some weeks later, you did me a big favor. You basically said this is the introductory rate and you've got like 24 hours or whatever to commit. And that's what I needed. I respond well to deadlines. So I was like, oh crikey, okay, need to make a decision here. And it was the best decision I've ever made. So because of your guidance remotely, you know, you didn't know me, you didn't know me from Adam and bad pun very much intended. But you helped me so much already and I just thought, you know, Dr. Una is a physician, she just gets me. She has a beautiful way of putting things. You know, it's just a joy just to listen to your podcast, listen to your, you know, your melodic tomes and it's just, yeah, I just thought, well, if I could have her coaching me, then that would be amazing. And it has turned out to be amazing. And it's you leading all of us and a lot of us are coaches within the group as well and we're coaching each other and it's just the most amazing environment. I could wax lyrical about EBS if you want me to. I'm quite happy to, honestly. There's so much it has to offer. I mean, your great leadership and your style is somewhere between the carrot and the stick. You know, you're challenging, but not too challenging, which is good. You know, perhaps I need to be nudged a bit more, but there are little reminders. Yeah, You've done your YouTube videos yet. Have you done your TikTok yet? Come on. But it's what we need and we have each other to have, like, 75 other accountability partners in the group. And apart from the amazing sort of wisdom from yourself, the collaboration opportunities and the networking opportunities are just mind blowing. I mean, not only am I doing have I received paid work through contacts at the business school, I've also loads of other collaborations that have led to things. So a clubhouse room I do with Stephanie and Rashmi. You know, Amelia heard me speaking on that and offered me some coaching work because of that. And I would never have heard of the Leverage and Growth Summit if I hadn't been in the ebs. And I've made so many contacts through that. And something may come of one of those contacts. But, yeah, you just have to put yourself out there, be speculative, be opportunistic, embrace it. I mean, I could have thought it's an American group, it's not for me, but there's nothing like it in the uk. So you are a pioneer. It's amazing.

As are you. As are you. Yeah. That is so good. Thank you for sharing that. That's really cool. And you've been a rock star about putting yourself out there. So let's do this right. For a lot of coaches, when I talk with them, I'm like, coaching is like your medical degree. Like, when you're done with it, you still have this whole business piece to figure out, you know what I mean? Like, you have the coaching certification, doesn't mean you're going to be a successful coach. You still have to put yourself out there, you still have to let people find. You still have to tell people what you do, you still have to clarify your message, you have to do all these things. So what would you say to the person who's out there, who's a coach but doesn't have clients, doesn't have enough clients and they're not really putting themselves out there?

Yeah.

Right.

What would you tell them?

Yeah, that's the key thing, isn't it? As you say, you might have the best product in the world, but if nobody knows about it, is completely useless.

Really.

And, yeah, a medical school, I think there's a hidden agenda. You're not encouraged to explore other avenues, are you? It's like, this is the conveyor belt, let's churn out a doctor because we need them on the front line to help with Patients, basically. So anything else, like leadership or entrepreneur teaching is just a distraction from that. So I think for me, I've been a very avid LinkedIn networker for probably about 10 years now, but I think it's. I've seen sort of exponential growth in my networking in the last year or so, and I love it. I love networking. You know, who doesn't. As a doctor, who doesn't love talking to people and finding out their story and sharing your story?

The introverts don't. The introverts are like, that's good for you. We're fine not talking to people. Like, we're totally cool.

That is true. That's true. But I guess you start off online and you don't have to be that bold straight away, and then you kind of get some promising nibbles from people, and those are the people that you take it to the next level and you say, oh, can we arrange a call? Can we arrange a zoom? Or something like that. And you're putting that time getting to know people, and it really does pay dividends. So it's. It's about networking and just being very speculative and just creating opportunities for yourself. I approach so many organizations and just say, this is me. How can I help you? This is what I do. 95% of the time, you don't get a reply, but if you get 5% of replies, then that might lead to something and just seize every opportunity. I'm not quite there with the saying yes to everything yet, but I say yes to a lot of stuff you do.

How many podcasts have you been on? I don't think you even know.

Yeah, you know, that's true.

You don't know, right?

20.

Yeah. You don't know.

Yeah, but I love talking, so, you know.

Yeah, but this is. This is strategic talking, right? Because it's in a way to get the word out there about what you do, about what your mission is. People who you can collaborate with, people you can work with directly, people who can open other doors for you. They find you when you speak that way. So. So that's a. That's amazing. Because you're. You're. Because I'm like. You're like, oh, clubhouse. I'm like, okay. Oh, I'm on this podcast. Okay. All of a sudden, for some reason, these people are just reaching out to me. I'm like, how in the world do you think this is all of a sudden? Like, for some weird reason, you are triggering all of this. It's so good to see you're right. So good. So what would you say? So this is 2021, right smack in the middle of a pandemic and we are in the fourth month, almost at the end of the fourth month of the year. What has this year been like for you as an entrepreneur?

It's been an amazing journey already. I mean, the year started in quarantine in New Zealand on 2 January, and it occurred to me that I had three podcast interviews in the two weeks of quarantine and some of them are only just coming out. So. Yeah, and since then, I mean, I guess we've become more settled into the business school because I think December was the first full month of my cohort, so I'd only had a full month then and now we've had many more months and great sessions together every week. We've had some fantastic group sessions and we've been exposed to so many brilliant speakers like Jessica yesterday. I mean, gosh, that was wild.

That was better than I thought.

Yeah. I mean, to anyone that thinks it costs a lot of money to join the business school or something like that, it's just ridiculous amounts of value for money. Because the people that you're bringing to speak with us are leaders in what they do, whether it's social media stuff or other kinds of marketing. They are just phenomenal people that you're bringing to us. So thank you for that. But yeah, so we have you. As if you're not an asset enough. We have the group, the shared wisdom of the tribe. And I say tribe and I really mean it. When I moved to Australia, my tribe was basically disenchanted. Family, doctors. Some of the Facebook groups I belong to were just so negative, so full of negativity and people are sniping at each other. And now, I mean, there's nothing negative about the ebs, it's all positive. And I have my tribe. I'm not a kind of semi retired clinician now. I am a physician entrepreneur. That's what I am. And you're the head of my tribe and it's really amazing. So I've achieved quite a lot in terms of picking up clients and some organizational work and stuff in the last four months. And I can only see more of that happening over the next eight months.

The snowball.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And when I get my social media, I mean, I'm not even, as you know, I'm not really actively marketing myself. A lot of this is just organic. This is word of mouth. I still haven't sorted out my website. I have a clubhouse club with an amazing orthopedic surgeon in Seattle called Darren Davidson. We have a clubhouse club called High Performing Physician, and Stephen and Rashmi and I are doing our club's first room later on today. So that's really, really exciting. But, yeah, I mean, I do get, you know, opportunities come along and you have to seize them. It's a bit like. Amelia contacted me a few days ago and said, do you want to do a teaching session on the coaching program? And I was like, okay, Well, I have YouTube videos to do for Dr. Oona, but I'm sure she won't mind if I distract myself with this.

I won't mind if you distract yourself with that, I promise.

So, you know, you just grab these opportunities when they come along and you. You don't know where they're going to take you. So, yeah, I love that this year is looking good.

And, you know, I like that you say, oh, I'm not really putting myself out there. I don't have a website. But the thing is, you're doing a lot of speaking, right? So you're doing the clubhouse, you're doing the YouTube, hint, hint. You're doing the. You're doing the podcast, you're doing all of that. So you're constantly talking about what it is that you do. And so it is organic, but you are triggering it. You know what I mean? And for everyone listening, I had a mentor who was doing 7 million in revenue every year. She was on the Inc 5000, and she did not have a website. And I'm not saying that to say, don't have a website. I mean, I have a website, so clearly I believe in it, but sometimes that's not the thing that makes the big difference. You're doing what matters, and I love it. It's so good. All right, so people are like, where can we find Adam? Where do we. Where do they go to find you?

So LinkedIn. Love LinkedIn. I'm just Dr. Adam Harrison on LinkedIn. I have a Facebook page called Coaching Mentoring Doctors. It's like at. Coaching. Mentoring Doctors. One word. Clubhouse, Club, High performing physician. My. My clubhouse username is R. Adam Harrison. Just Dr. Adam Harrison. My email address is doctor.adamharrisonmail.com and I'm on Twitter as medical leadership coach. And I think that's it for now. I have a YouTube channel soon, won't I?

Yeah, you will. You will. By the end of this week, you will.

Yeah.

Okay, so inside joke, but this is what it is. In the business school, we are doing a challenge this month called the Speak to Grow Challenge. And everybody is launching or revamping their YouTube channels, and we'll have 10 videos on it at the end of the month. And there are different kinds of videos and all of that stuff. And. And, you know, because I know the fastest way to grow any business is speaking, and I believe every physician should have a platform. This is the age of misinformation, and it is our job to go up there and present the right information. We can't keep complaining. Like, we can't complain about Dr. Google when we can be on Google, but we won't be, right. Like, Dr. Google is there, but we can go talk. There's a million of us. If we all talked, we can drown out Dr. Google. Right? So anyway, so that was the. That's the whole insight thing, and that's why he's saying he'll have a YouTube channel, won't he? Thank you so much for coming on. This is so valuable. And I want to really say that I appreciate what you do for the physician community because if every one of us tackled a problem that we always noticed and we were passionate about seeing it being resolved, then the medical, the experience for us as doctors will be so much better. And setting the example for coaches. You've learned coaching, you are certified, and now it's time to put yourself out there. Now it's time to get a business education so you can make this work. So I'm happy for all of your successes and. And I can't wait for all the other stuff we celebrate because, you know, you're taking so many actions that at some point you're going to create this giant snowball, and it's just going to keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger. I'm so happy for you. So good.

Thank you so much. Thank you.

Yeah. So for everybody listening, go follow Dr. Adam Harrison, and if you're on clubhouse, go to his clubhouse club and hang out with him. And if you are you experienced, you know, bullying in the workplace and all that, follow his work. This is not just a business for him. This is his mission. So this episode, I want you to share it with another doctor in your life. You never know who gets inspired by this. You never know who makes a huge change in their life for the better because of it. So share the episode and I will see you on the next episode of the On Trendy podcast. Hey, if you love listening to the EntreMD podcast, I want to invite you.

To join Entre MD OnDemand.

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 forward/ondemand and I love to have you join us.

See you on the inside.