#217 How Building a Personal Brand Can Amplify Your Impact as a Physician

Hey everyone, hope you're having another great week. If you're someone who's trying to build a business or build a brand and you don't know how to do it, you don't know how to get started. In fact, it feels a lot really weird for you or strange, then you're going to really enjoy this episode with Dr. Amy Shaw. You're going to find out more about her. She's a good friend but has built a massive platform that impacts so many people all over the country and the world. And I know you're going to enjoy this, so stay tuned. Welcome to the Passive Income MD Podcast where we talk about creating your ideal life through multiple streams of income. If you enjoy hearing about this stuff, make sure to hit subscribe. Now let's get on with the show. Hey everyone. I'm now excited to talk to Dr. Amy Shaw. She's a good friend. She's doing amazing things both in medicine and building her brand. We're going to talk to her today. She's a double board certified physician in internal medicine and allergy immunology. She's considered a world leader in so many areas including nutrition, gut, brain connection, and again immunology and wellness. She's a national best selling author. She has a great book called I'm so Effing Tired. What a great title. And she's been featured in media outlets like Forbes, ABC News and Good Morning America. I'm excited to talk to her today. Amy, how are you doing?

So great to see you, Peter.

Yeah, I mean it's so great to see you again. We've been talking, you know, you've been part of the Leveraging Growth Summit before, but I feel like we need an update every so often because so many cool things are happening in your world and there's so much value that you can give to people that are part of this community. So Amy, if you don't mind starting, let us know a little bit about what you're all about today, like Amy, M.D. wellness and all that, just in a short nutshell. And then we'll go back and talk about how this was all let's go backwards.

So I have basically transitioned to a mini clinical practice in my allergy immunology kind of group practice. I've been with them for 12 years and it's kind of like a marriage, you know, private practice. I get to make my own hours. So I do Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Now I've transitioned to so that's my old self is there and then my new self is I have Another book that you probably didn't even know in the last year called I'm so Effing Hungry, which is all about that gut brain connection. And then I've started, you know, lots of new courses, consulting brand sponsors, basically building out my personal brand as someone who can leave traditional medicine and still have a educational platform, a consulting platform, a wellness platform that is sustainable. And so I finally feel, like. I always say this, I finally feel. But it's always a race, right? The ceiling becomes your floor. So in 2023, I was like, I'm finally able to have a business outside of medicine. And now 2024, I'm like, finally able to have a business that's way better than medicine. You know, it's always. You're always going to that next level. It's not easy. You know, just like medicine is not easy. In fact, medicine in some ways for me is easier because that's all we. This is so much more inspiring. And I'm able to still use my medical skills, which I think for me was very important, to use my nutrition and medical skills to still iterate and do something that really inspires me till I want to work, till I'm, you know, in my 80s and 90s, and I want something that's going to keep me engaged.

I mean, it's such a cool story. Congrats on all your success. I want to ask you, in the beginning, like, you got two board certifications, you pursued a lot of education, and you had this practice in the beginning, and now you've got this huge personal brand. You're doing all of these things. Was that always the plan from the very beginning?

No. I mean, I'm like, most of us, okay, I went to college, and I was trying so hard to get into med school, and then I was trying so hard to get into the best residency. Then I was trying so hard to get to the best fellowship. Then I was trying to get my best job. And at the end of it, Peter, at. I became a partner after two years in my practice, and I had the best bustling private practice that you could ever imagine. And I said to myself, oh, my God, I can't. I can't do this for the next 50 years, like, or 40 years. This is terrible. Like, I. And I think a lot of people can relate to that. Medicine has become something very different than what maybe we imagined or what it was and what we want it to be. And so I knew I needed to do something to make me happy in the long term. I'm not the Type of person who can just be miserable at work and then go home and have hobbies. Like for me it was, it's, it's integrated, right? So I was trying to think about how do I make this really exciting, really engaging and feel like I'm fulfilling a purpose here rather than just grinding it out making money till I can retire.

I mean, I'm sure so many people can relate to that idea. You know, people that are grinding away in medicine who want more, but a lot of people, they don't know where to start from. How did that get started for you?

I wish I could go back and tell everyone, you know, these tools that I'm telling you now because I think a lot of us get really scared to put ourselves out there. We get really scared to offer, you know, an educational course or, you know, not you. I know you do, but there's many people just feel stuck in this place of like, you want to do something creative outside of medicine, but you don't want to garner too much attention because you're worried what other people will say. You're worried you will look like a fool in front of your friends. You worry that, hey, I don't know how to do business because I've always been in medicine. So all of those things kind of stopped me in the beginning to say, okay, I'm just, you know, maybe when my kids go to college I'll just write a book. And that was like, maybe I can just have a creative outlet of writing. And that was how it all started for me. But in retrospect, I wish I had started sooner to put myself out there to create classes, courses, consoles, even wellness consoles. Like people don't necessarily need you to give them medications. You can just give them like coaching guidance. But from your eyes as a physician, can be really, really useful.

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Okay, so I went to this wellness conference when I was still working full time and had just, you know, had this idea of writing creatively for fun. And I went to this wellness conference and it was in Arizona. So I thought, oh, I live in Arizona. There's no, no sweat off my back. It's in Tucson, like two hour drive. I go there and I see the world of opportunity in wellness and health. And there are people there that are doing amazing. They have multimillion dollar brands of juices of, you know, wellness products, of consulting programs. They create invent things. And almost none of them were doctors. And it just struck me like, wait, we have the knowledge to create the best, you know, X, Y for your gut or your skin or for your eyes or for your mouth. Like, why aren't we in the world so why aren't we allowed to create something that could be helpful for people? And so that really spurred me. That was the first thing. And, and that's when I really realized, okay, there is a whole world out there that we don't even engage with and there's so much opportunity. And so that's when I got started. I wish I had done it sooner. Like, I wish now, retrospect, if I were to tell people, I would say start just make the thing that you've always wanted, wished that there was, create the product. Or whether it's a physical product or a course or a consulting idea, or maybe you teach people how to manage their nutrition better. You know, like whatever it is that you feel passionate about, just go out and do it. It doesn't have to be in the constructs of traditional medicine, in.

So did you start by creating a course? Is that right?

I think I started three things at once. I started by writing a book, I started by creating a social media platform and I started by creating a physical product. It's called. My physical product is a chai latte, a custom, you know, mix of healthy ingredients and no sugar to make a chai. And I thought it would go well with my first book because we're talking about being tired all the time and the pathways of how we can help ourselves. And I talk about you know, reducing your sugar and not having so much caffeine. So this was like a caffeine free, sugar free option just for the people who are reading the book. And then I created my book team was like, my publisher was like, you need to really go out there on social media and talk about your book and talk about what you're doing. And so that really spurred me to start to share more on social media. And I started to get better at it as I started to share more. And it almost became kind of a game for me to be like, how do I distill this information into a 30 to 1 minute, 30 second to 1 minute video and get people to change, take action and do something from it? And then from that I created my wellness courses, consoles, downloads. That whole thing happened after that.

How are you able to do all this? Because I'm assuming you were, you saw how to practice and you're doing all this business on the side. Like, how were you able to marry those things and find the time and the energy?

Well, what I did is like instead of when I had downtime in the clinic, instead of like going on, you know, espn.com or like, you know, revolve.com, whatever shopping sites, I ended up just writing or doing work. And then really during the pandemic, the first year of the pandemic, I was like, oh my God, this is my time. Like we're, I'm in an outpatient clinic that's closed and I have all the time in the world to create products, to do things, to really dive deep on my personal brand. And then I never went back. Like, I just, just cut down my hours to what it was during the first part of the pandemic, which was we basically opened it up for about 15 to 20 hours of like emergency consult patients, you know. And so I just never went back to a full time thing because I realized, wow, I have now sponsors, I didn't talk about that yet, but basically brands that work with me that say, you know what, teach, say teach a video and say, sponsored by, you know, our brand. Like for example, Lifeforce. I think, Peter Kim, you're a big, you're a big, you know, Tony Robbins fan. So Tony Robbins has this brand called Lifeforce, which is a wellness blood test company where they have, you know, they come to your door, make it really easy, they take your blood test and then they have someone analyze you. And even for us, like, it's really, really useful. And so brands like that, they're like, do your events, do your educational products. We'll sponsor it. And so we got a bunch of sponsors like that. I have some maybe four to five long term partnerships with brands who are sponsoring what I'm doing and that keeps me having the ability to hire people to do what I'm doing, to not take away time from the clinic and to build upon that.

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Okay, somebody said this so well, it's like climbing cringe mountain, right? When you don't have a lot of followers, it's cringe a mountain when you put out content because your friends are seeing it. They don't, they see you don't have a lot of followers or they see that you're, you know, just starting out and everything is cringe. Like, you know, you feel embarrassed in front of, say, your colleagues who are like, oh, what is, you know, what is she doing on the side? Which is exactly what was happening to me. People are like, oh, I see you're doing this other thing. It was, you know, it's visible when you have a public platform and when you're climbing that cringe mountain, I think I felt it all like, oh, what are you doing? Why are you doing this? Do you, you know, is this a little, little business that you're starting and all this stuff, right? But when you keep climbing and you realize what you've built, you look back at it and you're like, oh my God. Now all my, so many of my colleagues are asking, hey, how do I do what you're doing? Hey, what, you know, what did you do to get here? All of that comes back to me and I'm like, why was I so afraid to go out there? This is like, now I'm teaching people how to get here. So I think that's something that I remember all the time.

That's amazing. I mean, what were some of those other skills you mentioned? Like, as a physician, we're well positioned to do these things actually, even though we might have that fear we have to do what you're talking about. Like what were those, some of those skills, skills as a physician that allows you to be successful and build a business.

So for example, if you're building a product, right, you know your science the best, right? So if you, for example, I did nutrition undergrad and then I did internal medicine and allergy immunology. So when I'm building a drink or a food product, I know what ingredients can be non inflammatory, which ones are good for your body, which ones we should not include, which ones can be used easily. You know, I, you have that insight that a lot of people would not. And same thing with, if you're creating a consulting program around nutrition. Like, you know, the medical side of things. So, you know, what foods they should eat, how they should live their lives, like, how they should structure their mindset to actually fit the best healthy lifestyle that they can. They can. If you're making a physical product, like, for your feet and you're an orthopedic surgeon, like, you have the best knowledge for that, right? Like, I feel like we. If I'm making a drink, like, we're working on another drink product. We're working on protein product. We have the knowledge of how the body actually metabolizes food. You know, how it will affect you. What. What things not to put in it to affect the kidneys or liver. You know, we have that knowledge, and I think that positions you in a very unique way to be like, it's doctor formulated. Like, it's not easy to formulate something, but if you're there and you're saying, I want this, this, and this, and I don't want this, this, and this, there's value to that.

I mean, what. There's a lot of people out there listening to this who have, like, those ideas. They have that expertise, and they get stuck in this concept of like, but how. How do I make that thing? You talked about making your chai latte, creating that. Now you've got other products you've created. Like, how did you learn how to do that?

Yeah, that's a great. That's. You know, we live in this world now that anybody can do anything. So, for example, we had this idea for an electrolyte drink. You know what I did? I basically reached out to some manufacturers and I said, hey, I want this, this, and this in my drink. And I was wondering if you would make it in small batches and we could try it, and then if we like it, we'll hire you as our manufacturer. Easy as. I mean, we live in this world. There's no gatekeepers anymore. There's no secondary person you have to go through to get the skills. Like, yes, you can hire someone to, you know, take you through the process, but really we're at the place now where these manufacturers are like, okay, we'll do it for you. And, you know, do you want the full service package? We'll make the. We'll have you design the label. We'll have whatever it is, you can make it. You can make anything you want. Like, literally use your skills and create something, create a prototype, create like 50 of them and see how it does.

I mean, how do you spend Your time these days? I mean, things are shifting over time. But how do you dedicate, you know, portion of it, like how much you dedicate to your businesses, your brand, social media, your, your clinical practice or whatever you're doing in that area. Can you let people know, give some insight on that?

Yeah. So basically how I've structured it and I'm changing it a little bit in this year because I'm just getting much busier on the personal brand side is I schedule probably about 15 hours a week of clinic time. And if I'm not in clinic, I'm recording content for my courses or social media or brand partnerships. I started a new YouTube podcast thing. So I'm always recording either for that or for my clients. Then I'm doing calls with wellness clients, coaching clients. I coach either other physicians coach other people on their wellness. Then I do kind of group programs. I speak, I go, I'm speaking all the time. I'm doing an event on Saturday. So we're kind of busy doing an event, a wellness event. And we're creating three new products this year. So I'm always working on the back end of like, you know, label design. And now I have a team, right. So the team helps me. I have some full time people, have some part time people, have some virtual people, and they're helping me kind of coordinate all the stuff that I need to do.

Wow. I mean, one thing that you, I want to key in on, you talked about, you mentioned it several times. Your personal brand. How important do you think it is for physicians these days to create that, figure that out, how to build their own personal brands and the opportunities that it might lead to.

Yeah, I think that's exactly what I did it for. It's the opportunities that it would lead to. You don't know who's watching, who's listening, who needs a consultant for their product, who needs a chief medical officer for their business? Right. Like there's always, there's so many opportunities that I've had over the last couple of years just from being on social media and building my personal brand. So what I would recommend for people is like no matter what, if you're trying to get patients through the door or if you're trying to get more speaking opportunities, or if you're trying to get more consulting opportunities, you have to put yourself out there. We are, are given this free business card where whatever it is you're an expert on, you display it and people will come to you. Like, I get asked to speak at least once a week now. For a different event, corporate thing, or because they've seen me speak so they know you know what I mean? It's like you're giving them a little piece of what your skills are so that they can hire you for that. There's like, for example, you know, there's corporate events. Oh, I'm speaking at Women in Retail Leadership. So all the big brands, Macy's and all of the big, big companies, they have women that are in their leadership spaces. They come to this huge conference. And I'm. I spoken there before. I'm speaking there again this year. I speak at, like, Morgan Stanley, you know, all these places where a lot of people don't have access to doctors and the knowledge from a certified doctor. So I think that putting. Growing your personal brand doesn't just grow. It's not just for, like, oh, yay, I have followers. That doesn't matter, right? Like, that doesn't mean anything. It's really just so that you can do the things that you've always wanted to do. So if you love speaking, say you love speaking, and then build a personal brand on that, right? If you want more patience through the door, keep saying, hey, if you want to see me, this is how you see me. It's going to help you in every one of those categories.

That's so great. I think the important thing that I guess people are wondering right now is you talked about how your journey started with becoming a partner, and there was some itch there or some. Some need to do more. Now that you're on this side of it, how do you actually feel about your life and career and all of that?

Yeah, I think I'm super engaged. And I think I finally realized that I always wanted to keep my toes in medicine, like clinical medicine. And I think I still. I still may just do very little, but I'm increment, incrementally decreasing my time in clinical medicine because out of necessity, there's not enough hours in the day to see patients and do what I'm doing. So I'm kind of taking the slow route. And I think a lot of people in medicine might feel comfortable doing that because it's comforting to say, like, oh, today's my clinic day. I know how to do it. You can just do it and it's done. But it also keeps you in touch with what's really going on in the world. Like, I talk about, you know, all these advanced nutritional therapies, and then I go to my clinic and I'm like, oh, my God, I need to Actually focus on just the simple stuff. You know, how do you get people to eat better or whatever. And I think nutrition has had a kind of a new awakening in the, you know, media. And so I think having that medical background to your nutrition knowledge is really the thing I think that's working for me right now.

So. Cool. I know that people are going to hear this. They're going to resonate or they're going to grab onto something that you said, want to be able to connect with you, find out more about you. Where's a great place for people to do that?

Yeah, you can go to my website@amymdwellness.com.

All right, I'll leave that up for people just so they can check you out. All right, before we leave, first of all, thank you so much for this, for your time. Obviously you're extremely busy. We're not going to let you go after until you've left people with a big tip. Maybe for someone who wants to follow your footsteps, build a personal brand, whatever it is, what's a piece of advice that you have for them?

Just go for it. What do you have to lose? I think that having arbitrary markers of money or followers or, you know, things, that doesn't necessarily mean anything. You have to go out there with a purpose, like, what is your purpose for doing this? And as long as you're fulfilling your purpose, all of that other stuff will follow.

I love it. Well, it's great hearing from you. Congrats on all your success. You're doing amazing work, impacting so many people out there and also providing so much inspiration for our community. So thanks again, Amy. Really appreciate your time. Go check out your website, check out your books. I'm excited to see where you go next. Thank you so much.

Awesome. Thank you so much.

All right, talk again soon. Enjoy the show. Let me know by dropping a review in the podcast app you're listening to us in. And if you haven't already ready, make sure to hit subscribe. Join thousands of physicians who are also on this journey to creating their ideal lives through multiple streams of income. Learn more at our website, passiveincomemd. Com. Thanks again for allowing me to be a part of your journey. See you next time.