Unlocking Entrepreneurial Success - CIFC Episode 148

Hey guys. What's up? Matt here. Welcome to the episode of Coffee is for Closers. Today we have an old friend and old personal training client of mine called Lee Ponsky. So Lee is a man of many pursuits, but I'll let him sort of go into that. But Lee, thank you so much for being here.

Thanks for having me. I'm excited to talk to you.

Ex special forces sniper turned entrepreneur, I've scaled numerous businesses to eight figures. My name is Matt Ryder, this is my podcast and I'm telling you to put that coffee. Yeah. So we met you, you moved to Sydney for a year.

Yeah, we took my family, I'm a physician and we moved with my family, my wife and three kids in 2012, I think.

Yeah.

And we moved to Sydney just to have a different year, life short and have an amazing experience and met you. You're running one of your gym at the time. And Oxford Road. Yeah. Right across from where. Yeah, he trained our whole family, I think.

That's right. That's right. So what is it that prompted that? Like, because obviously I remember, you know, you're obviously, you're surgeon and very busy and then all of a sudden you're just like, you know what, yolo. I'm going to go to Australia for a year.

Exactly. I mean, pretty close. I actually did a TED talk on that. I came back from Australia and someone had asked me to meet with me and I thought it was about some different things that I was involved in. And they said no, we want to talk to you about like how do you take a busy pract and your busy life and involved in the community and then all of a sudden take off and move to Australia with your family. So it had a lot of, a lot to do with, you know, I'm a cancer surgeon. A lot to do with hearing from your patients and hearing a lot of their stories saying I wish I would do things differently. And I kind of came up with this idea that not everyone needs to touch the stove to know it's hot. And my one thing I kept saying is I don't, I fear regret. You never want to have regret and live life and end up being one of the best years of our life. It changed our life's perspective in many ways. My kids still have amazing from there and you and I are still talking, you know, 12 years later. And yeah, yeah, it was a life changing experience. Changed my perspective on my career and what I wanted to do.

Okay, so like what was the follow on effect from that change your perspective on your career? So you're obviously a super busy surgeon. Like, what were the. What were the flow on effects of going like, you know what, I can actually live life the way I want?

Yeah. In some ways I, you know, I was on a pretty pre prescribed path. You know, being a physician in the United States, you, you know exactly what you have to do. You have to go to medical school and then get into a residency and do fellowship training and then build a practice. And at some point you have to stop and say, what do I want to do for me and what's important and not just do what I'm supposed to be doing. And I think it took a year to kind of. We were able to kind of get off the conveyor belt and look at what was important to me. I realized that I did enjoy. I had an entrepreneurial spirit, even though in medicine you don't typically see physicians with entrepreneurial spirits. I had run a nonprofit for a number of years that I never considered entrepreneurial but later come to realize, actually I learned a lot about entrepreneurism through running a large nonprofit. But it really took off. And I was one of those things that, like, once you rip off the band aid and you start exploring entrepreneurial opportunities, it becomes addicting. And, and I tell people I don't play golf, but I do have no problem setting up and working with people to set up a new company. So.

So what are the. Like, what are the. What was the first kind of like, outside of Medwich, which we'll go into in a bit, like, what was the first kind of entrepreneurial pursuit that you went after?

Well, when we were in Australia, we were sitting on the beach noticing that everyone had tattoos. And. And I said to my kids, if you could make a dollar from one person on this. Every person on this beach, what would you do? And my one kid said, well, they all are going to need a coffin. You're going to have to bury them. I said, well, that's true. That's a good idea. And we started talking about tattoos, and my kids were changing the screen on their. The case on their iPhone, like they wanted to change them every day. And they were on Facebook or whatever, and they would be changing their picture every day. And I said, you know, it's interesting. There's just this idea of change all the time. And so we started this idea of what if we created this idea that people who want to change their tattoos and that maybe not everyone's gonna want every tattoo forever, or maybe one comes out bad and is there an opportunity to do tattoo Alterations and take a tattoo that maybe people not only just regret or don't like or they want more, you know, real estate there, no, you gotta sleeve there, Maybe you want something else. You don't have enough real left arm there. So make a long story short, we went around, my wife and I saw the tattoo studios we can find in Sydney and asking about that and they all, every one of them said, yeah, we have people coming in as well and this is where we send them. And it was usually to a dermatologist office. And we had heard a lot of the tattoo shop said a lot of their clients didn't like going to the dermatologist office because they'd often make them feel like an ass because, oh, why did you get that tattoo? Instead of creating a warm and welcoming environment, says, yeah, let's make this cool. So we came back to the US and we talked to some friends who thought it was a crazy idea and we started Ink On, Ink off and it basically became a Medispa still tattoo removal. It's been almost, almost 10 years now. And the tattoo removal portion of our business is probably the biggest portion of our business. Became our main brand.

Yeah.

To make sure that we weren't anti tattoo, we hired a high end tattoo artist to be in the studio with us. So we do take tattoo on, tattoo off and there's just a lot of people, they don't have to apologize, you know, no apologies. There's nothing like you didn't do anything wrong. You just don't like a part of your tattoo or you want to make more room or we have one big guy came in, big biker guy came in and he had this amazing tattoo on his arm. But the tattoo artist gave it was a hawk, but they, but the face they made of a dove. So they had this amazing eagle tattoo on his arm, but a face of a dove. So we laser the face. Strange.

Strange choice.

Yeah, yeah. So, yeah. So, you know, we added additional things that people wanted. We added cool sculpting and hair removal and things that people were asking about. But yeah, it was, that was our first entree into learning about. Got the bug, what it's like marketing and get out there and how do you reach customers. And yeah, it was fun.

And you're still full time surgery, still running the department.

I'm the chairman of a department of urology at University of Hospitals in Cleveland. We have a full department. I have a full practice, mostly cancer related. So I said, I don't golf, I do this and this is what I do. This Is my hobby, I guess, if you will. But find good people to surround yourself with good people who can help get things moving.

I think one of the most interesting things that I found when I was with you, when it's sort of like when I was interacting with you a lot when you were living in Sydney, because we all became quite good friends hanging out and it was. And then we went and stayed, me and Sammy, before we had kids, we came and stayed with you and probably still to this day, the most beautiful house I've ever seen in Cleveland. That is a stunning, stunning house.

Just we're waiting for to come back with the kids.

Yeah, no, we definitely will. We definitely will. Maybe not when it's minus 14, but we're trying to avoid that. But yeah, it was just the fact that like you had such an interesting outlook and I think that's probably why they asked you to do the TED talks. I think initially we, when they asked you, you'd said that like they wanted to. You thought it was going to be about urology or about some cause you were like micro. Is it microsurgery? Is that what you kind of.

I thought they were going to talk about my nonprofit medwish. That's usually what people want to hear about.

Yeah, okay.

No, it wasn't about medware. I thought it might have been about, you know, robotic surgery and prostate cancer. And they said no, no, that's. We want to hear about your year abroad. Yeah.

And that's such a funny thing because like anyone can do it. It's just, I mean, obviously if you have the means, but like just. It's not. I think it's not as difficult as people think it is in terms of.

Like taking the year off.

Yeah. Like it, like it can be done. But I think like, emotionally people are so kind of tied into what they do on a day to day basis that like the change of that is almost like it's a bigger step than the actual like logistics of doing it.

Yeah. There's no question there's a mindset you got to get past. I mean, I get literally I gave this whole TED talk of how I got past because I was definitely that straight arrow. Like, it just was not like people who, when they heard I was doing, I couldn't believe it. It was just not in my. It was not something people were expecting to hear from me. Yeah. But it definitely, once you kind of get past it and then you kind of go, you know, life is short. And my kids had an unbelievable life experience, life changing. And I It changed my life. And there I actually had watched another TED talk about doing sabbaticals.

Okay.

And there's a guy in there who says he's a designer and, and he, he, I forget his name right now, but I, I referenced him in my TED talk and he said, you know, he's always. His idea of sabbaticals is people plan for their retirement, they save money, but you have no idea what your life is going to be like or your health or the physical condition you're in. So he said, so he borrowed five years from his retirement and sprinkled them out throughout his life every seven years. And he just borrowed five years. He said, I borrowed five years from my retirement and I sprinkled him. And so every seven years he shuts his office and he goes and he does something and he does say that when he comes back he's more inspired about new ideas. He's out of a rut. He's more inspired about new ideas and new things he wants to do. He has energy. And I just love that idea of borrowing time from your retirement because I don't want to wait until I'm old and have a bad hip and I can't walk around and go do the things I want to do. So the trouble is then we were going to do another year. Seven years later we're going to go to Portugal. But then I got this job at my current job which I can't walk away from right now. So I'm preaching to the choir. I'm trying to talk to people just like me saying, yeah, you could still do it, but it's timing's right. You got to find the right time for sure. But it was, I have, one of my faculty members is going to take a year and sail across the Pacific. Oh, brilliant. Yeah. He's taking his kids out of school and they're learning, they're going to really sail in a across the Pacific.

So my sister, they're doing two years driving around Australia. So they're caravanning for two years.

Yeah.

And your kids are like 10 and 15. So yeah, it's, it's very, very cool. So like just like how does that shape like what kind of business you want to open or how you operate your business? Like do you have an ethos of kind of like this is how we operate. We tend to focus like, because like for me for the first few years I, the ethos was, I guess like a very growth minded mentality in terms of that. And now it's not now it's very much. Okay. Like, let's level, maintain. Let's focus on profit. Let's focus on like always focusing on quality of surface quality of service and customer centric. But like, how do we run this so that it achieves a specific outcome for the people who own it as well as providing good service? Like, like, what's your. What's your thought process behind like a new.

Probably the worst of all the people you've talked to of entrepreneurs. I'm probably the worst to talk to because I'm a fake entrepreneur entrepreneur because I'm not bold enough to leave my day job to do these other things. So I have a safety. But if you, even if you love.

What you do, then what? Like, who cares?

I do. I love what I do. But the. What I realized going away to Australia is that I don't have to find all of my fulfillment from my day job and my day job. I love helping people. I love doing what I'm doing. I love mentoring and teaching and operating and helping my patients. I love was a life passion. But it's not entrepreneurial. And I do have that part of me that, that opportunity to see something and say, wow, we could do this and this could be a service or a product that would help people or. Or that. And I kind of connect the dots, go, you know, this could be something where you make money. And yeah, I think it's okay as a physician to say, I want to make money. That's not a bad thing. And a lot of times medicine, it's looked at it as, well, you're there for the good of people. Well, yeah, I'm absolutely here for the good of people. I run a nonprofit. No problem. But it's also not wrong to start a business, make money. Yeah. And. And sometimes the money just becomes the success of the business. Meaning, oh, we got it, we got it. Right. And it's making money, then that's a good thing.

Yeah.

And so I'm not a good entrepreneur. That as my son who took entrepreneurship in college, they said, no, we want to be able to. Willing to live in a dumpster. And I was like, oh, I'm not willing to live in a dumpster. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not that gung ho. But. But what I, what my priorities are is, number one, it has to be an idea I truly believe in. That I think is novel. I'm not someone who just says in me, I want to take an idea. I like seeing connecting the dots that other people haven't seen. So there are a lot of Great entrepreneurs that I can do this better than other people. I'm not saying that with the things we've started. I just think this is novel and there's no one doing this. And this, I think, would help people and be a business that could make some money. I always want to work with people I enjoy working with. That's probably my biggest thing, is that it has to be. I want to have fun with it. I want to enjoy it because I'm not doing it because I need to do it, which is a lucky fortune that I have. Right. Yeah. I'm fortunate to not.

It's a way to make good decisions, to be honest.

Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Because I'm not. I'm willing to be bold enough, but I'm also not willing to work with assholes. And I want to say that on your podcast and say whatever. So, yeah, no asshole rule is a big one. I want to have fun. I'm working with. I want to enjoy it. I'm not enjoying it. I won't do it. And so that's a big one. And then, you know, one of my businesses, it's. We're focusing on scale. I'm big in a real estate business as well, and there we're looking at scale and how can we grow. And that's not really looking at creating a lifestyle company. That's really scale. You know, that's where you want to go into the, you know, is that.

Like buying like multi family properties or.

Is it building multi family apartments around the country in the US and, and that is a different perspective than, you know, smaller passion ventures. Yeah, passion ventures that become kind of lifestyle companies. You know, they can spin off money and employ a bunch of people and spin off some money so that we can do, you know, support some other things and do. That's great. But we're not looking to scale it into each of these, into $100 million company. Now if it ends up happening and we get acquired or something like that, we're just. I'm very honest with what I can do, what I can't do. My medical device company, I mean, that's, you know, looking more for an acquisition than for me to scale it to become $100 million company on my own. I don't have that skill set.

And as someone who's like, do you. Do you have like a preferred position that you take? Like, hello, hi, how are you?

Say hi.

Obviously. Do you have a preferred. Do you like to sit on the org chart? Are you someone who likes to sit outside the org chart more of a board position that provides maybe some capital and some advice.

Yeah, I always find a good what I call jockey. So before I can run it I just know my time commitment is not realistic. So I don't have the time day to day. Although I do spend a huge amount of time. Every day I'm spending, you know I have a couple hours of phone calls and emails and text messages about the different companies. Certainly a lot more in the beginning as we're getting them launched and set up. But I for me I always need to find a good jockey. I need to find someone with passion, energy, fire in the belly who has a crazy good work ethic. Ownership. I think that's probably the hardest thing for me to find is I have a high expectation of work ethic because I know I'll work harder than anyone else. Yeah. So you know someone's like oh it's five o'. Clock. I don't answer emails. Like that person's not for me.

Yeah. Yeah.

But I think integrity and work ethic is what if I find someone I don't care what their skill set is as much as integrity and work ethic because I feel like you can learn most things. So when I find someone to do that I kind of talk about, you know that book Good to Great. I always look at people and there's people I have throughout all aspects of my life and I put them on my bus. I'm like, I don't know where and when I'm going to interact with that person but I want that person on my bus.

Yeah, that's cool.

There's going to be some point in time I'm going to call on that person and they're going to be looking for a job or I'm going to be looking for that skill set.

Yeah.

And so you have those people in the back of your mind like and so when I have an idea, I start popularizing that idea until it kind of formula forms and then I need to find a jockey. I need to find that person and.

I like that, I like that method, I like that thought process of jockey. You know like we'll build the racehorse, I just need you to steer it. Yeah, we do something similar. So we're currently sort of doing a company consolidation and then opening up some sort of vertically integrated add ons but like as subsidiaries with a jockey. But like that's it's a complicated reviewing as like a top co format. It's kind of like a little bit complicated in how you have those people Interact with everyone because we provide like a, like a singular OPS finance function. And then from there like each subsidiary gets the use of the ops. So it's like business in a box. You come in like one guy came and pitched us a great idea that was very integrated into what we're doing that would just utilize our current. We have a very. Our sales training company is one of the bigger ones in the company in, in the, like, like in the country. Like we're sort of on that in terms of sales training. Cardone, Jordan Belfort type level. Um, so, but sort of less sleazy, but.

Right.

Um, but so we have a lot of sales reps that are in our, in our ecosystem. So they've come to us and I was like, okay, cool, you take a chunk, we'll put in all the ops, the infrastructure, and then you can have access to this. But you just got to be the one who drives it.

I mean that takes a lot of pressure off these folks. Right, who may not know how to put that infrastructure together, but they might be really smart and good. And you're putting them on the 20, 30 yard line. Right. I mean you're giving them a lot of opportunity. And if that person has integrity on a work ethic, you know, they should be able to kill it.

Yeah, they're going to crush it. It's an interesting game though. What's the, what's the real passion project? What's the one that you'll always prioritize over everything else?

I think my nonprofit, the one that makes me no money. Yes, my big passion project. You mentioned MedWish, which is a nonprofit that we started, I started 30 years ago. This is our 30 year anniversary. Amazing. And we collect unused medical supplies that would otherwise be thrown away. And we set up hospitals and clinics all around the world. We've sent supplies over 114 countries around the world so far. We've set up entire hospital systems, cardiac units where kids are now having heart surgery where they couldn't before. So that is one where you like look at and go, that's my legacy.

Like, yeah, that's amazing.

That's kind of leaving the place a little bit better than I found it kind of thing.

Where do people go to donate? We get a fair few listeners to this podcast, like, where do people go to donate?

Medwish.org just go to Medwish.org okay. You can learn about the organization. And yeah, it's, it's a, it's a, it's one of those things. It doesn't Piss anyone off. We don't offend anyone. We're not, we're just really. It's, you know, as soon as there is a natural disaster in the world, we're the first to be called. We had a, you know, we had a container of supplies in the Ukrainian border within two weeks of the invasion of Russia.

Right?

We, you know, there's. In Turkey. We've already sent shipments off to Turkey with the earthquake that took place there. And we often stick around when the cameras leave. We're still there helping rebuild. It took us 10 years. In 2010, there was a massive earthquake in Haiti. Ten years later, we were still helping rebuild the hospitals with sending hospital beds and dialysis machines and MRIs and outfitting the clinics and helping rebuild hospitals. And so that's probably my thing I'm most proud of. But every day it's, you know, I'll give you an example. I mean, right now we're working on this idea that I had for staffing physicians, underutilized physicians, and can we leverage the underutilized asset? Kind of like Airbnb, right? You have an overutilized asset. Can you monetize it? And so we're looking at, can we do that with physicians? Which is an interesting idea that we're kicking around and working on right now. And there seems to be a lot of interest. But I'll give you an example where I like to see opportunity. I was at, actually a funeral last this past week, and I was sitting around with a lot of cousins of my nieces and nephews. Bright kids, you know, in their 20s, early 30s. And they all have different skills, but a lot of them are kind of lost. What do I want to do? And I looked around and I said, you got a bunch of bright kids here who have passion, but they're kind of not sure whether. Let's get on a call and let's see. Let's connect the dots. So I don't even know we're setting one up in the next. Like, I don't even know where it's going to go. But I see underutilized talent and I go, we can do something. We can harness this energy and turn it into something. Let's give them some direction, let's give them some infrastructural support, and let's see what we can do with it. So that excites me. I love connecting the dots that people don't often see. That, to me, is really fun.

That's awesome, man. That's awesome. I don't want to Keep up too much, long your time. Because I know you're a busy guy and we had a decent sized chat before this, but yeah, go to MedWish.org if you're interested in sort of donating or helping out the cause. And from, from, from memory you, you take like unused or like sort of like discarded medical stuff and then from there you like for example, like if a scalpel hits the air at the wrong angle, they throw it away in the west. Right. But yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah, if.

You'Re gonna have your hernia fix.

Yeah.

You know, they might open up 10 packages of suture and they. Maybe they only use six. Well, the other, you know, four are still perfectly good. And so we say throw those away just because they're open up for mad will save those. And we'll send them to somewhere that they need them where they, you know, they're using fishing line to sew people up, which is what we did when I was in Nigeria. Or an old hospital bed that you know, just as a hospital bed. But now these current day hospitals have beds that rotate patients. Right? Yeah. So hospitals that we go to here, we expect the latest and greatest hospital beds, but the ones that just are bad are still good hospital beds that in, you know, Guatemala, they'd be thrilled to get them. So when the new hospital, when the hospital gets the new hospital beds that rotates a patient, the old ones get put into a storage facility and then they call us and say, can you get these out of our storage facility? And we can set up hospitals with just perfectly good. Or a dialysis machine. You know, the new dialysis machine may dialyze someone in three hours or the old one is four hours. Well, still works pretty good and will help.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's phenomenal, man. It's always really good catching up with you.

Congratulations to what you're doing. I just think it's awesome and I just excited to watch this continue to grow for you.

Awesome. Thanks man. Well, if you guys. Yeah, thanks for coming. This never episode of coffees for cozy. Like subscribe, email, all that kind of good stuff and we'll catch you on the next one. Put that coffee down.

Sam.