From Doctor to Business Coach: The Simple Steps That Changed Everything

So I'd created an amazing product, an amazing brand with great potential. Amazon wanted to stock it. I was stocking it all over the country. Brilliant product. Everyone wanted more of it.

I can't imagine how hard must have been running the granola business. It must have been like trying to push a rock up a hill. It would just be fueled by your passion, your energy.

I think it was passion energy because when I was leaving the partnership, which was a really difficult decision, one of the partners that was retiring basically came into my room and said, you're making a massive mistake. Like, you're a great doctor, you're a great partner. This is the best partnership you could possibly have. And go and make breakfast cereal. Like, what the hell are you doing.

From doctor to breakfast cereal maker.

And essentially I did medicine because somebody told me I couldn't. So I went to my chemistry teacher, said to him, I'm going to do medicine. And he kind of fell about laughing and said, that's never going to happen. You're never going to be a doctor. I think retrospectively there was a little bit of belligerent, but actually it's only now, again with that reflection, that it all makes sense for me now.

Great to have you here. Dr. Joe Watkins, you are a wonder woman. I'll say you. I've had two people on my podcast who, who referenced you last year. Oh, yeah, I work with Joe. I think one of them was this radiology doctor who have become a health coach. Yeah. Dr. Ruth Machine. And then Claire also was on my podcast very earlier on, I think last year, referenced here. So I thought, yeah, I know you've got four children.

Yeah.

And at the same time you homeschool them.

At the moment, the 18 year old is doing the A level equivalent at home, but she's very much self, you know, she's around, but she's. And the other three are currently in school, but one of them was homeschooled till he was 10 and then homeschooled the three boys for four years together. So they're all kind of different. And that's a reflection of what we've. What we've kind of come across in terms of what works for them and the education system as well. So it's kind of been a process. Yeah.

Wow.

I can't wait to get into that. And while you were doing all that, you somehow managed to sort of build a business supporting doctors building businesses. I know you've had a previous business. Your email. Anyone who has emailed you, we know because you have Joe at Bendy legs. I'm like, what's bendy legs? Now it's like fly. Is that monkey pants production? Where did these names come from? Yeah. So just for anyone joining us, if you join us at this point, I'm with Dr. Joe Watkins. She has been described as a human catalyst for medics, entrepreneurs. So doctors, healthcare professionals who want to start their business, they want to go from zero to one and don't know where to go. She guides women medics as well to be to build flexible, purposeful online businesses that fit around family life. And she's the host of the startup Support Surgery podcast, so SaaS and the BSD newsletter. So Dr. Jo is actually a real doctor. She's a JP, she's actually trained and I always say is not like Dr. Dre. He's a real doctor who's gone to med school, is a qualified GP and has built a life for herself, basically, and now coaches doctors along those lines. So welcome, Joe. What did I miss?

Oh, Andy, it's so good to be here. It feels like. It feels like a long time coming. I kind of feel like my husband needs to be sitting next to me because none of this would be possible if we weren't a team.

Absolutely.

And, you know, I think it's. It's amazing to just sort of take moments like this to kind of reflect on where I was five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago. It is a. It's the cringy word. Nobody likes it. But anything outside of the nhs, anything outside of what we have been kind of put on the conveyor belt to do, is a process and a journey of learning. And you just have to get out there and just start. And I think that's now what I feel like I'm a flagship for is actually starting. And I've kept my the Bendy Legs name in my email. I'm not letting that go because that was the first time I really stepped outside of medicine and did something on my own. And now, you know, 15 years later, I'm holding other people's hands and helping them with that journey too.

7.

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Amazing, Amazing. Now, basically, I can feel a bit of that nostalgia when you say I want to hold on to that old account because it reminds me of where I've come from. But let's for someone who doesn't know, because I think we've talked quite a bit before the podcast, back and forth, chatting about things, being in doctor Preneurs and other stuff together. So just walk us through your journey through. Did you. Were you always thinking, I'm gonna be a doctor and then midway, I'm going to be a GP and then become a business coach and do all this amazing things? So how, how did you figure it out?

Oh, of course I had no idea what, how this was going to end up. But I, I was, I had a very traditional schooling. My parents, my dad was a doctor, my mom was a nurse. Everyone around me, medical, the whole, it was just medicine was my world. But yeah, I wasn't, I wasn't an A grade student. I was very middle of the road. And back then you could be middle of the road, but you could be just a nice person. And essentially I did medicine because somebody told me I couldn't. So I went to my chemistry teacher, I said to him, I'm going to do medicine. And he kind of fell about laughing and said, that's never going to happen. You're never going to be a doctor, be a scientist. And I thought, well, actually you, I think retrospectively there was a little bit of belligerent, you know, don't tell me I can't do something. And that has continue. There's a pattern there, right? So bit of proving somebody wrong in there, but actually it's only now, again with that reflection that I, that it all makes sense for me now because I'm now doing. I wouldn't be able to do what I am doing now so organically and so sort of authentically if I wasn't a doctor. And I have had the most incredible opportunities. Life, travel, friends, learning. I mean, I do think being a doctor is the most, the biggest privilege, you know, as a gp, somebody opens the door and if they had the, if we had all the time in the world, what an incredible privilege to have that person sharing their innermost secrets, their innermost worries with you and being able to help them. And that's really why I went into general practice. I played a bit with pediatrics, I traveled an awful lot after My house, job. So I spent a couple of years out in Australia and traveling and I just thought that general practice kind of wrapped it all together. I love people. I, I, at the time I was like, I like being in charge of my own destiny and my own time. I like people, I'm, I like kids, I like a bit of everything. I'm a bit of an all rounder. So it kind of made sense to do general practice. And, and it was also, I think at that point, entering into my late 20s, early 30s, it was what I should do. And I remember this little voice saying, well, I'm. And I wasn't very excited by it. Like I didn't, I didn't, you know, and I thought to myself, well, maybe that's just work. You're not supposed to be excited about work. You're supposed to just get up and do it and get paid and.

Yeah.

And have a nice time. So I kind of just went along with what I was supposed to do and what everyone else was doing and I had, we, I did my GP training up in Manchester with a load of our friends from university. So we had a great time and it was really social and you know, my, everything was, was I enjoyed life, right. Therefore I enjoyed medicine as well. Dave and I met up in Nottingham. We were both working up in Nottingham and I was, we were both like early 30s and we, and we very quickly decided that we were going to get married and you know, go off traveling together and we were down to the coast to have a family. He'd lived and worked down in South Wales before. I'm from North Wales so it made perfect sense. Let's move down to the coast and like start our life. And at that time, you know, I was very much. The biological clock was ticking and you know, I was a locum. Yeah, I loved being a locum. I absolutely loved managing my own diary.

Because of the flexibility 100, like the.

Flexibility not fighting people for holidays. I actually really loved it. But again, there was this should and this should voice saying I should want to be a partner, I should want something. And at that point I was locoming in the most amazing practice with some of my now lifelong friends. But I couldn't, I had an amazing opportunity to, to become a, do a maternity locum or a sick leave locum for them. And they offered me a two day a week partnership.

Wow, okay.

I was like, well, they offered it to me assuming that I was going to bite their hands off. So it was quite a kind of proposal where I was like oh, gosh, I'm not sure I do want to do that. Why not? And so I think inside me there's always. I've always wanted to do something else, but I haven't had the opportunity or the creative outlet to think about what that might be. So I went into the partnership with my great friends who I still love, and it was as good as any partnership could possibly be. Yeah, a few niggles, like a few kind of times I booked my holiday and then someone else needed it and a few kind of like. And I was like, I don't like this fighting what I want, you know, I like my independence. I like managing my own diary, anyway, that, you know, a couple of years, a couple of kids later, so I had my two first kids as I was a partner, I was a GP trainer, I did all the, I'd revamped the practice website. I'd done as much, you know, entrepreneurially, I'd done as much as I could. And that was actually the one of the partners said to me, you're quite entrepreneurial, aren't you? And I, I didn't really even know what that meant, having not really had an entrepreneurial role model in my life or anything.

Yeah.

And then that summer was when we went on one of our trips to Canada and I discovered her granola recipe, which was this breakfast cereal. Like granola is a normal thing now.

Yeah, well, this was, There was a granular. I think there was a revolution at some point and it became like the healthy stuff. Just like at some point people were having a Yuhuaska retreats and all that kind of stuff.

Well, I was in, I was a bit early to market. This was 15 years ago.

Wow.

Nobody was really eating it in the cafes or anything in this country, but it was big in Australia, big in Canada, big in New Zealand. So anyway, I came back and I started making it and my husband, who is to blame for quite a lot of these moments, sell this in the local cafes. And that was the beginning. And I just thought, you know what? I'm just going to do it. And I did it properly, rough and ready. I had, you know, I did it. I, I, I created a recipe. I, Yeah, I let lots of people try it. I then just went to a market, literally, with a big box of it and some paper bags to get people to try it, to see whether they liked it. I didn't put, I didn't invest loads of money into brand or anything like that. The shiny stuff. Yeah, I just got on with it. Have I got a Product that is a. Is a product market fit. Does this solve, you know, does this solve a problem? There are so many sugary, horrible granolas out there. This is better. Do people want it? And I started from there and that basically was a kind of three year, massive learning curve. I had no idea what I was doing, what a brand was, no idea to market or sell stuff. And it was just the most incredible learning by doing. And I'm fan of learning by doing. Medics love learning, but they love learning behind closed doors.

Yeah.

In silos, not telling anyone anything. You've got to get out there and make sure that you've actually got something that people want before you spend lots of time and money on it. And that was the granola. So three years later, I was. Oh, you don't want to know. I mean, you talk about Mad Woman like that was crazy. Pregnant. Pregnant with number three, two kids with dog. 30 kilos of granola out of the kitchen every day and packing it, sending it, like, markets shops online. Oh, it's meant absolutely crazy.

I can't imagine.

And too crazy because actually what I'd created was a business that only I ran. I didn't outsource. I had somebody helping me make it, but I didn't outsource anything. None of the marketing, none of the. I did it all myself.

Yeah.

And I got to a point where I just didn't know which hat to take off. I was so. And it was really hard doing something on your own. I did have a baker that wanted to maybe share equipment so I could do it in the afternoon, but I had to make big decisions and I need investment. And I had. I had no money. I wasn't paying myself, I was just putting the money back into the business.

Yeah.

And I needed basically about a quarter of a million pounds worth of investment and I needed a factory employing about 12 people. And that's when I thought, what have I done? I've created a business that. And I know, I now know I'd created a business that wasn't aligned with any of my values at all. But I didn't know what my values.

Were because I'd never stopped, never thought about it.

Yeah. So I'd created an amazing product, an amazing brand with great potential. Amazon wanted to stock it. I was stocking it all over the country. Brilliant product. Everyone wanted more of it, but no, you know, no, no strategy. And how I was going to produce it, how I was going to distribute it, how I was going to grow it, nothing. And that was a real Learning curve. Because I realized then I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to take that risk. I didn't want anyone else to take that risk in me.

Yeah.

And that was a bit of a scary moment because I thought, gosh, I've done three years of working really bloody hard at this and I now don't want to do this anymore. And people still to this day say to me, oh, do you still make granola?

Yeah, yeah, that's it. We're going to jump into all of that. It felt like a mirror holding up a mirror and looking. Because I've had a similar journey. Mine was maybe early 20s. And you're thinking, well, you just started this stuff organically because he had market product, market fit, but there was no overall strategy or direction. And that's one of the ways what you're doing now is helpful. Because most times if you had a mentor or a coach or someone who could say, I just think, how stupid was it that I had a business and I shut it down because I got too busy and I went for national paramilitary service, maybe there was a system in place that couldn't have happened. So in your case, you were the business. Yeah, you were the system. You had a production, you were making the marketing decisions. And obviously, I'm sure, you know, now we've seen, like granola bars or even some type of food stuff is a branding business rather than a production business, because the branding is what people see before they make a buying decision. So that's quite a journey. It seems like you did the courageous thing most entrepreneurs don't do. You realized that this is not the pathway you wanted to go in. It could make you a bit of money, but you didn't go ahead and do what some people have seen do. As an investor, I tend to talk to people who have businesses and different ideas, and some people just go ahead and take on that investment and try to push everything through. What does happen is that by the time you've brought in people on board, it becomes more complex, more complicated. You've got people on your cap table who've invested quite a bit of money in your business and maybe some of them might even want to call the shots. And if you then decide to call it quid, then you just have that, that on your. On your. In the records. But what you've done is that you've actually learned for three years you've gone to mba. Three years. Mba, yeah. Real world mba. So I don't think any of it was a waste I think it actually empowered you with what skills you have now. What do you think?

Oh, absolutely. I couldn't do. And, and that's one business. There's actually a couple of other stories in between. But that, but that one learning.

Yeah.

There's no way I could put. Do what I'm doing now without that learning. And I am all about simplicity now. I'm all about stripping it back. Keeping your, keeping your business really simple, not needing to have investment and all of that like you say, that weight on your shoulders of other people. And I think we could, I think I could have got investment for Bendy Legs and it's a great product and a great brand and with the how people that I then went into that we'll talk about in a minute. But that again I think because, because there was. Me and Polly were behind it. People do invest in the, the humans behind the business. Right. And I think we could have gone out there and got investment but we didn't want that over us. And I'm not. Okay. And actually as a mum and as somebody that travels and as somebody that lives differently, I work around the kids, around school holidays, school hours. I don't want to be answering to anybody. I don't want to have somebody with lots of money invested in my business who can make decisions. I want to make decisions myself. And actually creating a lean business with you at the helm with outsourcing to people that can help you on a project based business with different things. You know, that is fantastic way of building a business, building a personal brand and helping people in a different way. And at the end of the day that's what most medics I come across are very frustrated that they can't, they can no longer help people in the way that they want to. Yeah, they want to continue doing good work. I don't ever meet, I haven't met any doctor who's. Well, I have a couple and I haven't helped any that I help. Who is it? It's about the money. It's not about the money. How they can fulfillment people in a more efficient, effective and better way. And, and that's the kind of person that I want to support. Because what generally happens is that first year, as you will know again and again, that first year is full of ups and downs and roadblocks and kind of like, oh shit, what am I doing? Why am I doing this? And you need a mentor by your side to support you. And I only wish that I had had the equivalent of me or somebody that was a Bit ahead of me because I think I would have. What would it have saved me? Maybe it would have saved me time. Maybe I don't wish, because actually I wouldn't have done the learning, but I've done the learning for so long now.

Yeah.

In lots of different areas that I feel I can kind of condense that for people so they can say, right, this is what it's about, this is what I need to do. And sometimes it's not for you, because I don't think entrepreneurship's for everybody. And that's, you know, okay to say this is not for me, but I'm really, really glad I gave it a go.

Wow, that's impressive. Basically, is that level of self reflection because we do all this. Like I've had to do an appraisal yesterday and I had to count to make sure I go up to the 40 sessions in a year and all that. So as medics, we do appraisals and we reflect on our practice. But sometimes when we start thinking about entrepreneurship, we, for that reflection think, what are my values? Where do I want to go? What do I really want to do? And you've mentioned something really quite important. Lifestyle business. That's what you've described here versus performance business. So if you take an investment of a quarter of a million, you are in a different territory. You're now in a performance business. You're chasing goals, sort of like is the kind of game, I think at 22, 21. But I'm not saying people can do it. But when you've got a family, children, a dog and a practice, then you have to make that critical distinction to say, do I want to continue as a lifestyle business, that the business serves you even though you're serving people, but basically I know it's lifted to the business. Or do you want to go for a performance business that maybe you can get like in the future, 100 million valuation, 1 billion valuation, and. And that's what happens. But some people just prod on. And the other thing you mentioned was sort of like saving people time. I know you had to learn, go through the whole learning process by yourself. But as I get older, so I'm now In my late 30s, I just look back to my 20s when I was launching stuff and doing things and getting product marketing. I just wonder how much would it have saved me if I just had someone who is just clearly saying, oh yeah, you're doing right, but you need to start hiring now, you know, thinking about stuff like that, having a clear approach rather than Being the business. So your, in your journey so far from the granola bars, what was the business, what was the name?

Bendy Legs Granola. So it was a bar, it was a, like a cereal, like a box of Bendy of granola. But it could have been a bar. That could have been one of the ways we took it.

So let's, let's get into that just a little bit. How was your distribution? How are you selling it?

I was selling it through online businesses. So online directly to me. So they directly from me. I was selling it to delis and farm shops. So I was distributing via a courier. So they're like 30 bags. And I'd box it up and it would leave the front door. So it was all coming through the house. And then I would do markets and food festivals. So I'd load up the van with hundreds of bags of it that I'd prepared here. So I prepared it in the kitchen, bagged it in the area above the garage. We had a whole packing area and then all of the, all of the ingredients would come in the back, package up and then it would be go from courier from the front door.

Right. How was that fitting in with your medical career? Because it sounds like you're really like.

So full of mental. I mean it was at the time the medical career bit was okay because I, because I left my practice and I went into the minor injury unit and I was working eight or two twice a week in the minor injury unit. So I was bringing in some money. This is again something I talk very much to my clients about. If you are in, if you are working and you're wanting to start a business, don't jump ship too soon because it takes a while for your money to come reliably through your business. And I think most entrepreneurs would say, you know, it takes a good three to five years for a reliable income to come in. So don't leave the day job, which I didn't do. I had two days a week working, but it was more the kids, it was actually more putting tea on the table at six evening because I had to do all this in the evening. It was crazy. It was crazy. And obviously it had to be wiped down. Industrial unit, dog out, no kids. We basically ate baked beans and pasta on the stove because I couldn't use the oven for anything that wasn't granola. So it wasn't, it wasn't great and it really didn't fit with children. And I think, you know, you talked about a lifestyle business and I think I didn't know that distinction. So at that time I had a three year old and a one year old and when I started the granola and by the end of it I was pregnant with another one and there was one person that said to me, and it wasn't a business mentor, it was somebody I sat next to at my dad's 70th birthday. So one of his wise friends and I was starting this granola business and he was like, look, Joey, I love it. I love the branding. I. It's amazing. This was right at the beginning. I love the branding, I love the product.

Yeah.

He said, nobody makes decent money out of a product if they're making it themselves, so you need to not make this product at all. And I was, at that point I was loving the whole, like wearing it.

Yeah.

Like, like buying into my whole thing. And I remember thinking, oh well, you know, that's not going to happen. I'm going to make it myself and then I'll. But that was the best bit of advice.

Yeah.

I ignored and I, and I went to a food festival down at Harrods about three days, three days later. And I met this woman who was like beautiful, like well turned out. Yeah, incredible with her beautiful brownies, beautifully branded. And I said to her, where do you make them? And she kind of looked at me and she was like, I want to make them. What are you talking about? Why would I make them? And I was like, oh, right. Okay. So, yeah, I realized I did not have a lifestyle business. I had a. I had a, like, I had, I was kind of.

You had a job?

Yeah, I had a job that nobody else could do. But I like the concept of a life first business. That's what I call it now. First I, I build my life around. I build my business around my life. So I try not to take any calls after 3 o'. Clock. So I'm with the kids, able to run them around. You know, I, I actually give myself a bit of time in the morning before I start my live calls. I don't do anything in the holidays. This is the first day I've worked in the Easter holidays. My son's sitting on the TV next door and I feel very bad about it, but it's fine. They're okay. They need to see that their mum and dad both work.

Yep.

So yeah, it's about building, building your life, building your business around your life and about. I think the big thing that we, the big shift we've had is after we decided to go traveling for a year. So after the granola closed, basically just mothballed it and I kept the brand and I've just stopped. We then had a period of kind of calm where I was just walking, working two days a week in miu. But I was thinking what's the next thing? What's the next thing? And that's when we decided to go traveling. So we took four kids traveling for a year and that's when the whole homeschool thing started. Does that 10, 8, 4 and 2.

Oh my God.

Yeah. And that was the best year of our lives. Like hands down. But it opened up all sorts of cans of worms like you know, education, what that looks like. The fact that all kids are different, they all have different needs.

Yeah.

The fact that actually people work differently. So it's when I first was introduced to personal development and coaching and I kind of self coached myself. I didn't have. And then I still needed a mentor, but I didn't. Yeah but I heard about, you know, people working online, digital nomads, people working around travel and I thought, oh hello, this is, this is more like it. And this was the values piece. Right. Still haven't done my values. Still don't know what they are.

I can't believe we are just discovering this after running the granular business. I can't imagine how hard it must have been because people tend to go from personal development to business. So that tends to be the pathway at least for people like I know then to start from personal development and then they're inspired and then that way they have a way of getting business CPD developing. Just like self coached in a lot of stuff.

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So I can't imagine how hard must have been running the granola business. It must have been like trying to push a rock up a hill. It will just be foiled by your passion, your energy, and tendering towards burnout. Basically.

Yeah, I think it was passion, energy, and also, again, this, like, proving people wrong thing. And this is. This is because my. When I was leaving the partnership, which was a really difficult decision, one of the partners that was retiring basically came into my room and said, you're making a massive mistake. Like, this is really bad. Like, you're a great doctor, You're a great partner. This is the best partnership you could possibly have. And go and make breakfast cereal. Like, what the hell are you doing?

From doctor to breakfast cereal maker? That's about. Not even explore. How does it. How did you feel? Like, it didn't seem like you have any issues around that identity, because I've had a Ellis code that recently on my podcast, and she went from doctor to barista, and she's really enjoying the job. So in your role, going from doctor to making breakfast cereal, by the way, Kellogg's, I'm sure you might know this. Kellogg's used to be a surgeon.

Oh, really?

The chap. Yeah. Okay. Breakfast. Serious stuff. This is the kind of things that you might be interested in when you were working on the. Kellogg. The guy that started Kellogg, I think he was a surgeon before he started. So there have been other doctors. I've gone to do breakfast cereals. Take that, retiring partner.

Interesting. I think what I learned from that process was the, The. The. The value. The value add of doctor in your world. So I would be standing in a market selling granola. Selling my granola or looking at people or chatting to people or whatever, and people would come by and, you know, they don't look you in the eye, they don't communicate properly with you. They just taste something and walk off. And, God, there's just. There's just no need to be so rude. And on a couple of. I would end up in a conversation with somebody about, like, the sugar content or the health benefits of it, because it was actually a really. It was. I used only organic ingredients, Welsh apple juice, tiny bit of maple syrup. The. The content of it was really good. And a couple of people were like, oh, I can't eat this. I'm diabetic. So I said, well, actually, you can, like. And let's have a conversation about that because I'm. I'm actually a gp. And they were like, oh. And then people would start talking to me totally differently. It's basically like if you're. If you're a GP or a doctor Then I will be nice to you if you're just somebody selling stuff in a shop. I can treat you like and that real eye opener and that's like the general public sometimes. Yeah, that was interesting. So I have no problem. I quite like being undercover. Dr. Actually. Yeah, quite like that whole hiding it and actually you'll notice my website, I don't have doctor in front of Joe Watkins. And when I first, when I came out of this personal branding, traveling, I don't know what you call it but just this sort of came out, came out of this saying, right, okay, I know what I want now, I know what my values are, I know what I'm about, I know what I need to start building. I wanted to lose the doctor. I just wanted it to go away. I didn't want to be identified as a doctor. And I remember a couple of business coaches that I worked with ad hoc at that time. Particularly when we, I just start, I started a business with a friend of mine which was all about helping and supporting teenage girls.

Yeah.

Going from primary to secondary school. And a lot of that work was support, like not therapy but support, guidance. Guidance. We talked about friendship, social media, helping, you know, with all sorts of stuff. And everybody I spoke to about the business was saying, Joey, you're a, you're a doctor. Like that needs to be front of mind in your, on your website, everywhere. Like that's what's going to get people to, you know, invest their time and their children into your business. And I just didn't want it. I was, I almost felt this friction. I was like, oh, I just don't want to be a doctor anymore. I want it to go away.

Yeah.

And it was horrible actually. And I don't feel like that anymore because I have grown into those shoes. But I did for a period of time just want it to go away. And at the same period, that was the same period of time that I was trying desperately to leave. Just, I just thought I was done. It was, it wasn't what I wanted to do, it wasn't my identity, it wasn't what I loved. It didn't light me up and I wanted it to go away.

Wow. So it seems like neither of us are therapies but it seems like we're delving into an area that many doctors feel fight with in terms of conflict of identity. I mean there was a four year period where I didn't practice clinical medicine and you know, and also sort of like my lifestyle now, I might go like 2, 3 months, 4 months and not do a clinical medicine. And then I might have a period I need to make up to get my 40 sessions. And during the years when I didn't do clinical medicine, I was like, yeah, you didn't want to be a doctor, you wanted to be an entrepreneur because you felt that people might think, why building a software business, you're a doctor. Or why doing business coaching, you're a doctor. And so there's that conflict of identity where there's that one side where you think, oh yeah, you're getting aware of your doctor privileges now, like when you were selling in the market stalls and people like, oh, you're a doctor, you aren't aware of the doctor privileges and now you're suddenly aware of it. And then that the other side where you think people might think, oh, is that all you did with your medical degree? And my friend whom I've been on her podcast, Abena, said nobody asked doctors ask lawyers. I think she did a post recently about nobody asked lawyers why are they doing something else? So why do, why do doctors take it? So that's one thing a lot of times doctors, there's that big identity that comes with it. You think, oh, why are you writing about finances? Just like me writing about finances, personal finance, which is an area that I've been in 20 years, I have a deep domain knowledge. But, but, but someone might say why, why don't you write about health or health tech? And I don't wake up in the morning thinking about health tech, except it's an opportunity for an investment or advisory role. So just like you, it seems like the how people or something like that, when you were going to do it, it sounded more like a passion project that could actually be a business. The kind of stuff like money wise doctor where you are okay if you make money or not. I mean eventually make money because you do it, you enjoy it, people find out and they pay you any how project. Could you tell me a little bit more about it? How did that come about and what was it all about? Did it make any money or was it just like sort of like charity initiative?

Yeah, that came about at the end of this period of time traveling. So I ended up with three distinct business ideas. Having spent all of this time doing self coaching, working out my icky guy, working out my values, where my passions lay, where the problems were, what I could do, what I couldn't do, and I very much wanted to run a business with somebody else. I felt very much like I'd maybe, maybe I hadn't made wise Decisions because it was on my own. So I very much wanted to be a co founder in a, in a, in a project next or in a business next. And I had three distinct ideas. One was to support medics who wanted to go out there and do things differently. That was one idea. The second one was to offer some sort of like mentor matching for older teenage girls into the older teenagers into their early 20s, match them with mentors. Other idea was to support 10 and 11 year old girls going from primary to secondary who are dropping sport, losing their confidence, using their own social media, whatever. I have these three ideas and basically what I did was look at them and think, right, if all of these three things were to work out and were to pay me money and were to end up being something that I did, which one of them would have the biggest impact right now?

Right.

And actually I had an 11 year old girl and I was really concerned with what I, and I still am concerned with what I was seeing in general practice with low level anxiety dropping in self esteem and that sort of like ingrained behaviors happening to young teenagers.

Yeah.

Where I felt most passionate about at the time. And I, and I, I felt the, I felt like I had the, I had the audience, I had the 11 year old girl. I thought actually we can make this work. And the business partner that I really wanted to work with is a very good, very good old friend of mine who's 10 years younger and she's just really cool, really on it. And I knew the girls would love her. So I came back with that idea, went to Polly and I said I don't know what this is going to look like but you know, are you up for it? Let's, let's try and do something together. And we decided to launch as a limited company rather than a charity or a CIC because there were various reasons for that, some of which I don't really want to go into at this point, but there were lots of reasons around why a limited company seemed like the right idea. Yeah, I think that's an interesting discussion because I think what that does limited companies reduce or limit the kind of grants that you can go for if you're running a community based business.

Yes.

And really before COVID that's what it was. We ran a project for 16 girls. It was a little bit like a cool version of Brownies that we did. Fire building, surfing, communication skills, yoga on the beach. We made like, we just had a great time with 60 and we did a residential, we had an amazing time and that's when we thought, right, okay, let's try and make this more of a, like a franchise business. So grow something really good in Swansea and then let's take it to Bristol, to Bath, to London. So what we did, we did a talks night with inspirational role models. We had like 60 girls, we had four speakers, we did like Ted talks for teens, that sort of thing. Awesome. It was like, that was one of the best nights ever. I just love that night.

Yeah.

And our plan then, then we booked. We booked out a venue in Bristol, bath, London, in January 2020. So within. Yeah, within eight weeks of doing that, we had to ditch everything. So all of our, like, our next summer project was done. All of our live stuff was done. You know, basically we just had to stop and we had about a week where we were like, oh, okay. And you're kind of dealing with the pandemic's throwing at you. And then I think it was, it was. I sent Polly a voice note on one of my walks and I was like, you know this Zoom thing that everyone's on about? Bring the speakers into Zoom. Why don't we just do a whole load of like, inspirational talks for girls on Zoom? So we did that over Covid. We raised about 1800 quid for charity. We had loads of amazing speakers and we were basically somewhere that teenagers, you know, young girl, girls between 10 and 16, they were at home doing nothing. They logged on, heard for inspirational role models, and it was brilliant. And we had this. A little bit of traction and we still had a pandemic. Right. So we were still in lockdown, we were still struggling, and so we had to adapt. And I think entrepreneurship is about pivoting and adapting to the need.

And adapting. Yep.

So we had to adapt to the needs. And what was needed right then, Right there is very different than what is needed in real life, because what everybody was doing was not having the connection and the community. So we created a community. Every Thursday at 7 o', clock, we had a group of girls. We had 50, 35 girls that. That were new to us, that paid in people that were already in our world. So we had a group of 50 girls between 10.

Wow.

Membership every Thursday through Covid. And it was just phenomenal. And, you know, we did everything. We did cookery, we had role models in, we did finger knitting, we did all sorts of different craft. We sometimes just chatted and they would. They were. There was no judgment, there was no fitting in. It didn't matter how old they were, they supported each other.

Yeah.

You know, some of the old ones are now at university and they reflect on that time and they're like, God, that, that just was life saving in Covid for us to have that community.

Yeah.

But you come out the other side of a pandemic and you've got to adapt. And I think we, we didn't recognize that need, like 10 year olds and a 16 year old. They're totally different humans, different needs. Yeah. And that's into schools. And we, you know, it was brilliant. But, you know, you asked whether it was a passion project. We started out as a limited company for good reasons.

Okay.

It was, it was probably a CIC or a charitable business. We paid, we had people helping us, we covered all our costs. We didn't pay ourselves any money over the course of the three years, but we covered all of our running costs of the business and we had a little team of people that worked with us to create it. And again, like, that learning was just incredible. And we ran, we ended up partnering with the Prince's Trust. They approached us.

Wow.

They wanted to run our courses in schools. And that's where we've kind of paused it because we got to a point two years ago where Polly was my business partners working for a charity. Tom was homeschooled all of that time. So he was 10 and he was about to go to school.

So who's done?

Tom is my number three.

Yeah. Okay, cool.

The other two were in school at this point and Tom was 10, so he was looking at going into year six.

Yeah.

And it was May time. So it's two years ago. And I'd had several doctors contact me and say, can you help coach me? Can you mentor me? How do you do this, how do you do that? You know, when you're getting the same emails all the time. And I, I'd done some coaching for one or two people, I'd really enjoyed it and I'd invested in, you know, a coaching qualification and I'd done lots of learning and I was loving doing that. And one of them, Neris Freighter, who's gone on to do great things, she said to me, joey, there's a real need for this. Like, people need to have you, you're relatable, you've got all this experience, please will you go and do this for other people? And. And she really gave me the kick. And so I had a chat with my, my business partner Polly, and I said, look, I'm getting asked to do this and I don't. When Tom goes to school, I'm going to have More time, what shall I do? And she said well why don't you go and do that like go help a leather and coach and mentor other doctors and see if you can make that work. And then we decided that we paused the how people because I see this as coming back to life again at some point but as a, as a community based project, as a project as something that I can invest in. Once you know it's like putting your oxygen mask on first, isn't it? I can't run a business of any money. So that's the plan and one day it will. But I've now got a nine year old girl and I just wish that she had the how people in her life. But I don't want to run it, I want someone else to run it.

Who knows? Who knows. Distance have a way of coming back 360s and it like sort of me back in med school teaching my consultants how to invest. I never thought that maybe like 20 years later they'll be talking about the same thing. But these things tend to come by because human needs are still there. If you look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs it seems like you are moving up the, the, the pyramid. You started with food granular bars and then you went up to fulfillment and then you gained up to significance because for a lot of doctors run the business. Sometimes it's not just for food or to make money. Many doctors run businesses where they're making less than they would if they are working lycomes but they're looking at significance and fulfillment future. And also I tend to say the amount of freedom you have is directly related to the amount of money you're happy to leave on the table. Because all this while you're running the how people you're doing all this stuff. You could have gone into a literally as a doctor or gone to GP surgery, worked as a lycome, get paid good money but it probably would not move you up that master's hierarchy of needs in terms of your fulfillment and what you enjoy doing. It seems like you've been through some sort of business and coaching training that is non structured. You've had some formal ones but running these businesses, doing this stuff it get it giving you all those tools to deal with people, manage a community pivot, deal with you know, like I said, being an entrepreneur like dealing with fires daily. Every now and then something pops up here, you're putting off something pops up here. Then you get someone that becomes a firefighter in that department that you put okay, you Focus on that department now, I don't want to hear about it. If you come to me and ask me, oh, there's a problem in that department, I say, yeah, what are you gonna do about it? So that's. That's sort of like the journey, right? So I think we've gone through two. But now let's look at what you're doing now. You are currently helping your business coach for doctors, and I think you clearly defined your. Now, you've known your values, you figured out what you want to do and, you know, those you're able to help most.

Who are the.

Who are those people?

The people I'm most able to help, I think, are people like me five years ago, 10 years ago. I wish that I'd had that sort of person in my life. Somebody that had kids, somebody that understood the juggle and somebody that. That really got it. Those are the people I think I help the most. But really, I can help anybody who is wanting to start out as a personal brand or a business, because what I do is I strip away. I'm not looking for tech innovation, you know, I'm not looking for businesses that are wanting all of this investment. And actually I'm seeing a lot of people out there that think they need all of this investment. And what I need is an app and what I need is a health tech. And I'm like, no, no, no, what you need is just to strip all of that back. And let's go right back to the beginning. What are you doing this for? Why are you doing this? What is this about? What do you want your life to look like? And sometimes they say to me, well, I want to have more time with my children, I want to have the holidays off. And I'm like, well, you don't want a massive business with huge amounts of investment and 15 members of staff, then that's not work. So I think, you know, it's. It's personal brands, it's life first businesses. It's not all of my. Not all of my clients have children, but a good proportion of them do because that's an added challenge when it comes to business. But, you know, a lot of my initial clients are just starting out. Maybe they've done the lifestyle medicine diploma, they've done coaching training or menopause training or something outside of, you know, a traditional NHS role, and they're trying to implement it in the NHS and they're not having the time or they haven't got the space to do it. That tends to be this, the Format. And people then say, well, I'd like to start my own business.

Yep.

And. And I basically break that down. I'm, you know, I've got. I've got plenty of free stuff available. I've got my, you know, 30 episodes of my podcast that I sign people to. People are always welcome to email me. I've got a free Facebook page. I've got free, free stuff you can find on my website. But essentially what you really need is somebody to hold your hand through those steps. A program that I created with my. The first cohort came in about 18 months ago.

Oh, okay.

Names you'd recognize, like, you know, Olga Morton, Rosie Khan, Sarah Lou Wiley, Joe Hartley that, you know, they're out there now up posting regularly. They all came first to me 18 months ago. And I built this program with 16 doctors at the beginning. And. And I've probably had about 50 in over the course of the 18 months.

Wow.

And you work through from, you know, literally, like, clarity as to, you know, who you're helping, how you're helping them, why you're doing this, what your values are, what, you know, what work do you need to do? I see a lot of medicine, particularly coaches who have six months coach training, unearth all sorts of stuff that they maybe need to go away and deal with and then rush into helping someone else. I've had to, you know, I've had to do some big, big hard thinking, particularly about this proving myself thing. You know, doctors really either recovering perfectionists, trying to prove a point, you know, worried about what people think about them needing everything to be perfect. We've got these traits in us which have been modeled and shown. Like, we've. We don't fail. Like, you don't get things wrong. I remember I was the mute child on the. The mute child, the mute medical student on the side of the bed. I was petrified and looking stupid. And I. And I just did. I just wanted to run away and hide. Whereas now I'm the first person to ask a question, you know, of setting or send an email or send a. Send a LinkedIn. So. So I take people through that confidence piece. You know, have you got the time, the money, you know, have you got the people around you that you need? Have you got the basics in place? Or you start thinking about apps and, you know, basics. Right. Then we do, you know, I talk about market research, how you go out there and do that. Where do people say, well, where do I find these people? I'm like, right, well, that's next, you know, that's the next module. How to get testimonials and how to grow your email list and how to grow an audience and what offers to put together. So it's basically a sort of journey through to your first three to five paying clients. That's the plan.

That is. That is amazing. That's an area that there's a big gap in. Right. Because most times people find people shouting at them on YouTube or Facebook saying I can help you scale business from, you know, from 1 million to 10 million, 100 million. And people are thinking, well, I don't even know whether I have a business. So understand like words like product, market, fit, they sound like buzzwords that come from Silicon Valley, but basically means does someone really need this stuff? Can we find out without spending too much money? Just like me and you, the way we operate, basically, if you wanted to offer a product or a service, we don't even build it first. We throw up a landing page or call our audience or even if you don't have an audience, you do it for one or two people. See, get some testimonials. So it's basically tiny ways of testing. But you know, most people maybe because they've come from medical establishment where you walk in and things are set up like there's a proper running theater, there's a proper running clinic, you don't have to build up everything from scratch. So maybe do you think that might be a hang up to Dr. Lauer training? I mean I just, I'll be interested. Because you've had 50 doctors now pass through your entrepreneurial training. What are sort of the hindrances? We'll come to the positive, the hindrances you see in terms of medical training because you mentioned something, being afraid to get it wrong. Meanwhile, entrepreneurship tends to be the number of shots you take on goal would increase your chances. Being an investor is different. Being an investor is like you can miss all the pitches, you don't have to swing, but when you get a good one, you swing big. Yeah. So from your experience so far, what are the some of the traits you see in Dr. That I think might actually be a huge hindrance or some of the biggest complaints or issues you have at the beginning.

I think the biggest difficulty that I see is that permission to continue or that whole. Yet you are ready to make this next move? Because I think we just get so used to, to somebody signing us off, somebody saying yes, you can take the next step. Yes, you've got the NEST exam. Yes, you're ready, you've got all the qualifications and you've, you've done all the, you know, you've done your 10 smears or you've done this, that you're ready. So it's that permission to just have a go. Permission to get out there, get scrappy, not be perfect. That's what people struggle with. They, they want to, they hide and we all love. I think what happens is you go from medicine, medicine and then you discover things like Canva and you're like, oh, I can spend hours presentation, and it's like, it's fine. I've spent five hours doing an Instagram, you know, and it's like we sit there in our, in our little world creating and worrying that it's not good enough and nobody's coming along saying, you know what, that's 70% good enough. That's enough to get out as. Think of something 70% ready, get it out in the world. I just read a book and it's definitely not perfect, but it's 70 there. And I'm just gonna get the first run out there and I'm just gonna give it to, you know, the next few talks I do, I'm gonna take it with me and see how it goes. Because otherwise I'm gonna sit on it for another year and another year. So I think that, you know, perfection, perfectionism, lack of, you know, not having the permission to do it and worrying about showing up. We all worry about showing up on social media. Everybody got has this block. It's like, well, I don't like social media. I was like, well, no one really likes social media. Like, no one wakes up in the morning going, I'm gonna post on Instagram. But you've kind of, you know, if you want to grow a business, nobody's going to do it for you. So I'm very much, I'm, I'm much more of a, I, I, I really help people organically grow business. And I'm. And I would say that those first three to five paying clients do not come from social media. So you can do this without social media to start with, but you have to be proactive. You have to get out there, you have to send messages, you have to ask people stuff. You have to be brave. And I think that courage of, like, what do you mean? And I'm like, you have to send a message. And sometimes I write the WhatsApp message. And I'm like, look, you need to send this to every single person in your WhatsApp app.

And they're like, this is really handsome. Really handsome, serious.

I'm like, yeah, I'm serious. And then, and then, and then think about posting on social media, growing your, growing your brand awareness, all of that stuff. But that comes secondary to actually the, the braveness of like you say, testing and doing something as quickly as possible. Quick landing page. Who am I looking for? Let's find 10 of them, let's get in a room, let's talk to them about the problems they're facing. Does anyone actually need this? And I think the how people is a really good example of something that actually I really needed it because I was homeschooling two kids, we were selling it to people whose children went to school. So when the pandemic stopped, most people actually, I mean, you know, this is, I don't mean this to sound the way it is, but most of us, and I do it now as well, we hand over our education to schools, hoping that it gets done right. Yeah, don't really think too much about it. Sometimes we just hope that the kids are happy. Yeah, but I was, you know, I'm quite passionate about the education system and what they should be learning and I was probably trying to sell something to people that didn't really think that that was much of a problem and probably we should have focused more on the homeschool market. So I think quick, you know, quick testing experiments, showing up when you're 70, ready and being really bloody brave.

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Being really bloody Brave. Now, let's talk a little bit about that. I think, I think with doctors, really, most people worry about, oh, people from my secondary school see me and they'll think, oh, you've been a doctor, now you're just on social media telling everybody about your business. Or they're worried about their colleagues, they're worried about judgment and the big one. Some people think that just being on social media might, their patients will see them and GMC will take away their license. So that's where being brave comes in. Yeah. So in your program, sort of like what, what, what do you say to doctors about that, about Shayna? Because in 2025, you've got to show up. You got to show up.

Yeah.

And you're a flaming example for this. Right? You. We don't show up at Ferraris. That would be. If I had a red one packed out there now, then that would be a full blown midlife crisis. But, but you show up the way you are. I, I think I remember you saying, oh, I was supposed to have a zoom meeting. It didn't work out. I had to, like, maybe it didn't come on. Right. And you had to run to the next house at some point. You mentioned to get it all set, you've had to do stuff like, oh, you were traveling with your daughter, going on the train. It's nothing flashy. But you showing up as a human being, as a real person now, this is my day to day. And it's not all sales because that's. You're selling without being, how do I say? They're selling without the slog. Yes, you're selling without them. You know, basically, if we don't do.

This, we are going to be in big trouble. And I, and I need to take a bit of my own advice here. But I think now in this world of AI and content creation, it is more important than ever to show up because we can't see, you know, we need that human connection and we need to know who we are getting help from. And people don't want to read reams of content. They want to see you realize you're human. They've got to like you to be able to work with you. Like if people want, want to. If people come into my world and they expect me to be all glossy and nice and not swear at them and kick them up the butt. And, you know, I don't generally, I put a bit of makeup on for you today, Andy, but generally I've got my hair everywhere. You know, I'm not that Glossy like California beach babe. Business coach. To relate to the person that is helping you. So visibility is, is part of this and if you can't get your head around it, then maybe you might want to consider that this isn't for you because I don't think there's any way of avoiding it. Nobody, like I say, nobody likes doing this particularly but you, when you are being yourself, there's no friction, there's no difficulty. It's actually just showing up as you are, warts and all, and being an honest, authentic version of yourself. And that, that is more important than ever. It's really busy. It's so much busier online than it was a year ago, you know, three, four years ago. Totally different kettle of fish. So I think we have to. And do you know what? Nobody cares. Like your colleagues don't care. The GMC certainly doesn't care. But also I think this is where, this is where it's important to know who you're helping. So because, you know, I'm quite specific about who I have on my email list, I want doctors who are doing things differently or who want to run a personal brand or a side hustle. So what I love most of all is next week I'm going away for a few days with my best friends from university. Vast majority of them have no idea what I'm doing and that's totally okay because they're not my ideal clients.

Yep, they know I should be.

Yeah, they are not. So why should they know my every move and what you know? It's people that follow me and they're interested in what I have to offer that will be part of my day to day like following on LinkedIn etc. But my, some of my closest friends have no idea what I'm doing and I'm really proud of that because it means I'm not just collecting email addresses and followers because it's just vanity metrics. Right. Two million followers, 2,000. You know, you go, you just know one by one by one by one until you find somebody who says, you know what? This is exactly, exactly what I need. And I think it's just, it's more important to repel people not right for your business. And then you will attract people that you can actually help.

It's interesting you say that there are quite a bit, a few nuggets in that like money wise Dr. People always say we've got a lot of lawyers and accountants and engineers who follow our stuff and people always say, oh, can other people who are not doctors use it now? I've had two people reach out to me from the US to say, is there something for people in the US? And I've had like 17 people from Canada. But the 10,000 people in the UK we help are doctors based in the UK. There might be three or four physiotherapists, one nurse and all that. But the people that they expect your email, they know, they like the trust. Hopefully they are quite a niche. So other than in the past when people did marketing or branding by maybe just throwing a bomb or scattered up, just straight out, all over there is on tv, you don't know who sees it nowadays it's a bit more personalized, isn't it? It's a bit more like sniper approach. This is who I'm looking for. If you're that person, they gravitate to you. And that's the whole point of showing up because you need to show up for people to even know that you've got this thing to offer. So that's a really huge part. And I think like what you said is starting, people need to start. And you don't need a big, big moves in the first place, just committed. If you show up every day, you put up some posts, share what you're doing, share your learnings, share who you've helped, you'll be surprised how much it gravitates because a lot of times people say, oh, I've got like 60,000 people on my email list, but their open rate is 20% or 30%. Yeah. If I was an acquirer and I wanted to acquire that business, business, I wanted to invest in that business. The, the terms. First of all, you look at the open rate before you start looking at what's the engagement.

Yeah.

Because a lot of time people think about numbers, which is good. But it's just the typical problem people make. Like they go for revenue, they're saying, oh, I've generated like a million pounds revenue. But revenue, like they say, is just vanity.

Yeah.

And profit is sanity and cash is king. Right, so your program now, is that like a yes program or is that like.

Yeah, I've got to let. Before, before I say I just want. I totally agree with you and I think what we, what people need to, what people need to remember is that if they're at the beginning of their business, they've got an email list of 0 and a following of 0. What they need is traction. So that specificity gives them traction. In a busy workplace, you now are at a very different position. You could sell something different quite easily. Because you've got a brand, you've got people that know like and trust you, you've got testimonials, you've got people that you've worked with. And I think what we're doing is, is medics are going out there and they're seeing people like, you know, I said something the other day about like, Tony Robbins could sell a line of, a line of underwear now if he wanted to. Mel Robbins could sell sunglasses because, you know, reading glasses, classes, because that's, they are different. You are not either of those people. You're starting out. So traction is important. But I always say to people, if someone, I'm helping a photographer now I'm helping a dentist, I have had a journalist. So if they come to me, then they can have the same information. But I go out there and help medics. So my program, I've got two parts to it now. I've got a clarity starter kit which is the initial part of the program, the first three modules, one to one and WhatsApp group support. And I run that in June, October and February. And that basically gives you an opportunity to come in for me to help you refine your niche, to work out what this looks like and work out whether you're ready to carry on with it. If you're ready to carry on, then you get the second part of the program with a bit more support from me. And then if we've got you up and running and you've got your first three to five paying clients and you're running like Ruth is or like Joe Hartley or Olga or all of those guys, then you would come into an ongoing membership where I have a master class. I run a sort of connect session and I do a Q A hot seat. So I, so I have coaching, group coaching, contact with me, contact content that you can absorb yourself. And the most important thing is community. But every single one of those doctors, if I'd said to them, what you need is a community of other doctors just like you, they'd be like, no, I don't.

Yeah, that's a funny bit. But you know, because you're behind the scenes and you've seen again and again the same thing we're seeing. The money wise doctor mastermind. You see that? Oh yeah, you provide the value because you are the curator and you do everything. But you see a massive amount of value coming from, oh, I didn't even know. Oh, I didn't know he had that in him. Oh, I didn't realize. I. We see in our mastermind People sharing spreadsheet and notion templates. And you know, I, you see doctors who knew after absolutely zero about their finances and suddenly they are telling people, no, you can't do this. Oh, if you do that, you end up paying more to HMRC and having that community bids. If you try to say, oh, you have a community, most people don't value it. But it turns out sometimes to see to be the big thing, because there's a big thing.

But like you say, nobody, nobody feels like they want it, but it's got to be right. And I've, and I've done a few iterations of this. When I first started, it was a, it, it was a evergreen group program and people would join every month. What I've realized about doctors is they are a competitive bunch. And what happens is that people start feeling like, oh, somebody's come in and they're behind me and now they're ahead of me. And somebody like Ruth, you know Ruth, Ruth is Ruth Machen is hashtag no job, no kids. That's what she always says to me because she's retired from her job as a radiologist. And she says to people in my community, she's like, I can move quickly because I have more time than you do. So don't compare yourself to people who are trying to fit this in around a full time job with three children. Not gonna have enough time. So you're running your own race. Just concentrate on what you're doing and not what else is doing. But you've got to have people who get what you're about in your world. You have to. And that LinkedIn is just fabulous. Like it's just a wonderful place of incredible, incredible doctors, incredible medics out there doing like you and you know, Richard and the community that we're in together, just brilliant people. So just get your hands dirty and get involved. But you know, anyone that wants to find out more, you know, you find me wherever you can find me. But whoever you look out to, whether it's me or someone else, you just need someone to help you over those really difficult hurdles at the beginning. And then you can fly. And I love nothing more than watching my, watching my clients fly because they're going out there and the, the ripple effect, the impact they're having, it just. I'm like a proud mother hen.

Fly with Joe. Check that domain and block it out since you like the names. I've actually got like 60 something domains, like just packs and I've collected over the last 2020. They're like a Heirloom, maybe a honey.

Everyone always worries about their domain. I'm like, you should see how many I've bought over the years.

Yeah, nobody cares. Eventually I use some of it and sometimes I get sell it. Someone offers me ChatGPT, Dr. AI. I bought, I bought that like three years ago when I thought, well, this could be something. Yeah. Wow, it's been a lot. I feel like we just crashed the surface here.

Lovely to talk to you.

Yeah. I'm sure many people listening might want to find out a bit more like, what's Joe all about? And you know, people who are engaged. You have 30 podcasts now, you said. Yeah, yeah. So maybe my ones go that, that's, that's, that's quite a few that, that helps you to do your 9 11, 911 4. So people can find you have enough content to consume to know what you're about and then they can find you on LinkedIn. They can find you on my podcast, your podcast and wherever else.

Yes.

And go ahead. So where's the main place you like people to look out for you?

I think you can find me@joewatkins.com and that's got links to everything. But I think if you're interested, then please just immerse yourself in the podcast. If you're not sure where to start, just send me an email and I will signpost you, depending on what you need. That's what I'm really loving about the podcast is being able to. Able to say, this is what you know, want to know about. Listen to this one and this one. So LinkedIn is where I generally am from a social media point of view. You can direct message me, but if you're interested in learning more, I think the biggest thing is to know that as somebody starting out, you've got to back yourself and invest in yourself. None of this is cheap, none of this is easy. But you know, if you want to start out, you, you will. It's worth spending a bit of money having me or somebody else to support you, to work out. Is this what you want to do? What does it actually look like? And then you're going to be flying. But that investment in yourself first is something that people struggle with. So just reach out for me, to me for a chat anytime.

Wow. Well, we'll have the links on the screen, but I didn't think we should miss that point, that invest in yourself. It's funny that people should spend tens of thousands of pounds and go to med school or train to whatever they want to be and they Want to become an entrepreneur or they want to sort out. It's crazy. Some people save 25, 30, 40, 50k just from having a one to one session. I think it's so cheap for you if you pay a few hundred pounds here and there. It's the same with you. If someone pays a bit of money to invest in themselves, in their training, to learn how not to make costly mistakes in business, As I said, as I'm approaching my 40s, I'm beginning now to value more and more. In my 20s, when I was 21, I could be scrappy startup, founder, run around, get things done. But now you value your time, so you don't want to make mistake. I'm sometimes happy to offer someone five figures or even more, just if they've been where I want to go and I want them to show me what the journey is like, what pitfalls. I don't even think about it. So be ready to back yourself, invest in yourself. And of course, if you're not yet there, Joe Watkins Dot com. There's a lot of free resources, free stuff. Go have a look and look forJoe on LinkedIn. Send her a message. She's always very, very relatable and easy to reach. So have you got any last things you want to say before you go off? Enjoy the sunshine in wheels?

Oh, well, no, absolutely. Just, you know, completely echo everything that, everything that you've said and it's not. It's not easy. And don't expect, like you say, we invest all of this time and money into our medical training and we have to expect bumps along the way, but don't let it hold you back. And if you get to a point where you're really feeling that friction, like I've explained, go back to your. Why, like, what is this about? Why are you doing it? You can't. It's not about running away from medicine or making, you know, solving your burnout, like, go deeper than that. And if you need to have some support, some therapy, some coaching for yourself, then do that, because you've got to thrive as an entrepreneur. You can't come into it on the background of feeling burnt out and frustrated, because it's not going to be. It's not going to be an easy option, but it's so fun. And I have met the most incredible people and I feel alive doing what I'm doing now. I really do. And one day I hope that this will enable, enable us to leave the NHS completely. But at the moment, I'm still doing my gp, like, maybe three days a month. Dave's working three quarter time. We spend three months traveling every year. We've got a really great light work life balance. And I actually go to work now and I enjoy being a GP now and five years ago I wouldn't, I would have like, I wanted to run a mile. So it's a, it's an evolution. Be brave and just go there and just do it.

Be brave, go out there, just do it. I can imagine you're sort of like looking forward to the day. Go to the clinical jobs now. It's like very fulfilling that you're chatting with the 90 year old and you.

Know, but it's on our terms, right? And that difference.

Yeah.

And you know, financially we still need it, but it's all on our terms. So how do you make medic medicine work for you? You know, how can you change your working week? How can you change your commitments? It's all possible.

Freedom, fun, flexibility and finance. Dr. Joe Watkins, thank you for joining us on the Money Wise Doctor podcast. I suspect, let's see, we might be having you back or be talking a bit more, but it's been lovely having you and we'll put your links on the screen and people can reach out to you. Thank you for joining us. Sa.