EP006: Secrets from the Most Successful Entrepreneurs for a Perfect Practice with Sachin Patel

Welcome to the Perfect Practice podcast where we share the most innovative strategies to help you build a successful functional medicine business, attract your ideal patients, serve your community, and get paid what you're worth. Each episode is packed with practical steps that you can take to immediately grow your influence and serve more people. Our mission is to share golden nuggets from successful practitioners, technology experts and innovators from around the world. Your host, Sachin Patel, is a functional medicine success coach, international speaker and best selling author. He's calling in all his favors to bring this information to you so you can create your perfect practice.

Hello. Hello and welcome to another episode of Perfect Practice. I'm your host, Satchin Patel and today I'm super excited because I'm going to be sharing information with you that blew my mind. This past weekend, I was just at a genius network meeting and it was my first in person meeting. I've been to the live event where there's about 400 people, but this was my first in person meeting where you're getting down and dirty with, you know, 50 to 60 other entrepreneurs who are there trying to solve their problems in their business and grow and scale and build and serve more people, most importantly. So it was really, really cool to learn from some business icons and people who are doing some really, really big things in a variety of different industries and see how we can apply those into functional medicine. So it's no secret that this event, to be part of this mastermind every year is $25,000. And it's been my obsession to get to a point in my business where making that investment was a very, very wise decision and affordable decision and it was something that was practical for me. So I'm very fortunate, I must say, to be part of this group. And, and I'm even more fortunate because I can share some of this information back with you and you don't have to travel four days to Phoenix and make the investment because I'm gonna bring back to you what applies to functional medicine. So today's talk could be worth thousands, tens of thousands, maybe even millions of dollars in the right hand. So I want you to get out a piece of paper and a pen, take some notes, jot some down, jot down some ideas. And here's the thing, what I want you to really do is, is listen to this a few times so let it sink in. And some of the stuff I'm going to tell you is not going to be applicable to you right now, but you might have to come back to it six months from now or A year from now. And it's going to be the thing that turns your business around. So let's get started. I've got lots of things to cover. I want to keep this short and sweet, so it's something that you can listen to maybe even every day if you need to. So I'm going to give you my high level nuggets. And really it's one of those things where you have to be there. So I'm not going to pretend like I can replicate the experience because. Because there's a lot of epic transformation that takes place when you're surrounded by people in that energy. And that's why we host a mastermind for our mentorship. Because when people get together, magical things happen. You know, we're social creatures and unfortunately we're kind of stuck in our online worlds. But you know, when we get together, shifts really take place. So if you're part of a mastermind, I know you know exactly what I'm talking about. If you're not, then find one. Find one close to you. Find one that really resonates with you. The resonate with you is more important than the proximity. But you know, it's also gotta be practical for you to go there as well. The in person is transformational. So with that being said, let's dive right in. For those of you that know Joe Polish, you know that he is very fixated on health. Health is one of his top priorities in his life. And I witnessed that because I had a chance to go hang out with him personally, had dinner with him privately, and, you know, I got to really pick his brain and really understand what makes this guy tick. And so functional medicine is something that he incorporates into his life. Okay, so he is an avid believer and follower of the concepts of functional medicine. So of course he's got an invested interest to help this grow because he understands the true value of it and what it can bring to the table. And if we can combine his marketing experience and genius and his network, we can really catapult functional medicine into the future very, very quickly without making as many errors as possible. So we'll still make mistakes along the way, but we can move this rocket ship really, really fast. So the one thing Joe talks about is, and one of the first exercises we did was the half versus ELF exercise. So half is H A L F. And that is hard, annoying, lame and frustrating. ELF is easy, lucrative, fun. And he's got a sheet to divide into four quarters. On the left hand side is half. On the right hand side is Elf and there's two sections. One is people, the other one is projects. Okay? So we probably all have hard, annoying, lame, and frustrating things that we do in our business that if we were to write a check to solve, we could solve these problems immediately. Dan Sullivan, I'm sorry, says that if you have enough money to solve a problem, you don't have a problem. Okay? So think about that for a second. What checks aren't you cutting? That. If you were to cut that check, it would save you a lot of time and frustration, and the job would probably actually get done better. So think of projects in your business that are hard, annoying, lame, and frustrating and figure out if you can pay someone to fix that problem. Just pay someone to fix that problem, and you can then focus on fixing the problems that you get paid to fix. Okay? That's what your business does. It solves a problem for people. But if you're busy trying to solve a problem that you're not good at solving, instead of solving other people's problems, which you are good at solving, then you're completely wasting your time. So let that sink in. But super important concept to understand now. We're all going to have hard, annoying, lame, and frustrating people in our lives. People that, you know, buck our system or don't operate under the same rules as we do, or have a consistent oppositional positioning than we do, or they're just, you know, your. Your energy fields just. Just don't jive. And sometimes it could be a situation about that person and not the person themselves. Okay? So keep that in mind too. You don't have to dislike people. It's the situations that these people might be in that might be frustrating for you. So keep that in mind as well. We're not trying to be mean here. We're just trying to be real and realistic. And so think of people, projects, circumstances. You know, if you can write a check to make these problems go away. Go away. Write a check to make these problems go away. For me, one of the things that I want to do is I want to get really good at online marketing. Well, actually, I don't want to get really good at online marketing. I want to have the benefits of really good online marketing. So I hire people who are really good at online marketing so that I can get those benefits. I can cut a check to solve that problem. You know, we were doing it ourselves because we are kind of good at it. Good enough to be dangerous. And what I mean by that is, nothing's going to break, but you're not Going to achieve the maximum level of success that you should. That's why I hired Matthew Loop to be my one on one mentor so I can maximize social media and Facebook and my online game. And then I also hired a team of people that are gonna work on our Facebook ads and do deep integration with our website and retargeting. You know, we're gonna do all these things because we have a message that we wanna get in front of millions of people. So we have to start playing and acting that way. If you really, really are dedicated to your craft, you're dedicated to practice, and you believe that what you have to offer is gonna help thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people, then it's not going to be you trying to fiddle with your it that's going to help crack that nut. You've got to write that check. Get rid of the things that are hard, annoying, lame and frustrating in your life and you're going to feel lighter, you're going to feel more amazing, you're going to feel more focused, you're going to feel more energized. Okay? Now some things are going to be difficult to get rid of. If it's your spouse, for example, then that's going to be a problem. If it's your boss, that could potentially be a problem, right? Or if, you know, whatever the, whatever the situation is, we're going to run into people that we can't get rid of, right? Sometimes our parents are a problem, sometimes our siblings are a problem. But we can choose how much time we spend with these people and how much time we allow them to spend in our minds as well, right? Just because you're not physically in proximity to somebody, that doesn't mean that if you're thinking about them, it's like you're there, right? So just keep that in mind. And then on the right hand side, you have elf. This is easy, lucrative fun. These are projects that are and people that make your life easier, more lucrative and more fun. And who doesn't want that? Who doesn't deserve that? I know everyone listening to this deserves that. You deserve to have a life that's easy, lucrative and fun. As long as you're helping and serving people, then that should scale into infinity, okay? So think of those people and honor those people. Write those people in a thank you card, a thank you email, a letter. Let these people know, hey, you make my life easier. You make my life fun. You make my life interesting. Thank you for being part of it. Watch how that transforms your business. Watch how that transforms your relationships. And then think of projects that are like that. Think of projects that are easy, lucrative, and fun and double down in those. You know, get better at those, optimize those, instead of focusing on things that you're half at or again, hard, annoying, lame, and frustrating. The other thing that we learned is from Arianna Huffington, is that the fastest way to finish a project is to dump it. Okay? Sometimes we get so invested mentally, emotionally, financially in a project and we just get to this point where we know it's not worth it anymore, but we keep pushing through because we're almost there. And we saw that meme where the guy's digging for gold and he's just like one hammer strike away and he gives up. Well, sometimes it's okay to walk away from the project, especially if it didn't take the direction that you thought it was going to or it didn't happen as quickly or as efficiently as as you thought it would. So drop the project or pass the project on to somebody else who's better, faster, and more efficient at it. So here's the other thing to realize is that when you have people in your life or when you have projects, and more so in people in this example that are elf, or if you have people in situations where the situation is a half situation, annoying or frustrating, then it's probably annoying and frustrating for that person as well. So usually when people are involved in the half equation, then it's probably annoying and frustrating for them. On the project side of things, when something's half and annoying for you, it might be elf for somebody else, somebody might be like, oh, my God, I love Facebook ads. It makes total sense to me. Why doesn't everyone else do this? I'm so happy I have a job. It's going to be elf for that person. So keep that yin and yang balance, okay? So the fastest way to finish a project is to stop it or find the right people. If it's a great idea and you think it can help a lot of people, but you just got hung up on certain details and elements of it that you could write a check for, get that project done. So that was a big takeaway for me. Now there's a speaker coach there. His name is Joel Weldon. Like, he's the grandfather that everyone should have. I'm sure you love your grandfather, but you would love Joel as your other grandfather or your third grandfather, really. So here's the cool thing about Joel. He is one of the most sought after speakers. Super positive. He's given over 3,000 paid talks. Very experienced. What he does at these presentations is there's 10 minute talks that go on and he breaks down the 10 minute talk and gives a 5 minute review of it. He's so amazing at how he does it. He's so elegant and just a really cool guy. So he said something that I thought was very, very powerful. And he shared a story that I thought was quite powerful. And that was, when your values are clear, decisions are very easy. So he shared. One of the stories he shared was Bo Jackson's story. Bo Jackson retired from professional sports not because of a hip injury or not because of the baseball strike. He retired because his son, you can imagine how much he's traveling. So his son asked his mom and dad, you know, why does daddy travel so much? Okay. Does he not like us? And his mom said, no, you know, he's got to travel. He plays all these sports. And then the son followed up. He's unsatisfied with that answer. And he says, does daddy have another family? And so when Bo Jackson heard this, he immediately quit playing sports because he realized a what his values were, which were family. And he didn't realize how much his travel was devastating his family. And he realized immediately how to make a decision. He didn't have to think about it. So people who are successful are quick at making decisions, and the reason they're quick at making decisions is because they're very clear on their values. So what are your values? Hold those true and sacred to you? Okay. It's also important that what I learned here is it's important to share your problems. Sometimes we get into a room full of people and we feel like we've got to live up to a certain standard that we can't share our problems with people. And we've got to be perfect in our business or in our practice. And we can't have any problems because what would people think of us? Well, when you're in a room like this, there's people that are making $100 million a year who have problems, okay. And sometimes you're actually able to help them solve their problems because you're going to give them a different vantage point or perspective. You know, there could be a guy driving a Ferrari, but he's going to have blind spots that somebody who's just on the street corner can give him advice on and guide him. Right? And he's going to be very grateful for that. So sometimes you don't have to have special skills. It's being at the right place at the Right time or being in a similar situation as that individual. So your experiences come in handy, your ability to communicate comes in handy. And guess what, the person that you're talking to probably has a lot of advice that they can give you if you're willing to be vulnerable with sharing what your problems are. I also realized through this process how valuable mentorship is. And just being in a group of people like this, masterminding, sharing ideas, sharing problems, sharing solutions, you know, sharing visions, sharing what's worked, what hasn't worked. It's pretty cool to be in a space like that. That was one of the highlights, is that physical proximity is quite huge and super important to the process. Another thing that we learned from Dean Jackson, who was the guy invented squeeze pages, by the way, in case you didn't know that the squeeze page is a landing page and where you enter your name or email address to move on to the next page. And so he gave us an idea about a concept called a nine word email. And the nine word email, I'm going to do a whole presentation on this and I'll probably see if I can get Dean to, to actually do the podcast with me. That would be pretty awesome. And what we're gonna do is we're gonna break down the nine word email, which is are you still looking for help with. And then you would list the concern or the condition that the person had when they came in to see you. So are you still looking for help with your thyroid condition? Are you still looking for help with your Hashimoto's or your autoimmune condition or your rheumatoid arthritis or your joint pain, whatever the case may be? And if you can question them about their pain point, okay, then that's gonna be more, that's gonna hit them harder than the diagnosis. Okay. People connect with their pain point. The diagnosis is just a label. Okay. So are you still looking for help with your energy? If they're feeling tired that day, they're looking like, oh my God, yes. And so the nine word email is a reactivation email. And it's a short personal email that you send people that actually came in looking for help. Okay. That these are people that came in looking for services and maybe the timing wasn't right. Budget, authority, need or timing weren't right. And essentially that person didn't move towards making a decision. But that doesn't mean they found a solution to their problem. So by sending them an email, it could be a sync. Are you still looking for a sync? Are you still looking for Help with your energy. Are you still looking for xyz? Whatever they came into you for? So this applies to any business. Just send them a reactivation email and any leads that you get are going to be hot leads because they already came in to see you or they already understand what you do because you got on a discovery call with them. Very, very simple reactivation strategy. I actually applied it while I was there, and I signed up a client for my mentorship. So it worked immediately, very quickly. So I know that this works. I did it and I, you know, proved Dean right and I gave him a big high five. So it was pretty cool to be able to do that. Michael Bernoff, who's a master NLP ninja, he was there and he was talking about how to take that sentence and add a double positive to it. So what you would say is, have you abandoned your search for your energy issues? And so the person is almost forced to say no. And when somebody can say no, that's actually very powerful. It puts them. It subconsciously puts them in a power position because now they're able to say no. Okay. But what they just said no to is actually saying yes to you to open up the conversation about that problem. So are you. Have you abandoned your search for addressing your digestive issues? If they say yes, that means they're not looking anymore. If they say no, I haven't abandoned my search. I'm still looking. Well, they just kind of walked right into it. So now you can open up that conversation through email, with them, or even in person. Okay. Now, one thing that you want to be careful about that you're not doing is bypassing psychology by using technology. So just because things can scale like crazy these days, it's one of the things that I've realized is that, you know, because things can scale, it doesn't mean that we should just keep scaling things. We should understand the psychology of the things that we're putting out there. Because sometimes what'll happen is people will use the ability of technology and the scalability of technology to bypass good copy, to bypass good language. Because if you send anything to enough people, people are going to buy it. But that doesn't mean it's the right way to do things, or it doesn't mean that you're maximizing the opportunity that's in front of you. So, you know, don't. Don't just use technology and scale things without understanding the psychology of what you're actually trying to get across to people. And that is so much more important than anything else. Okay, so one of the things that is a thing that Gary Halpert talks about is he talks about riding the bus once in a while. Okay? It might be once a week, might be once a month, once a year. And by riding the bus frequently or infrequently, whatever it takes for you to understand is going to result in people understanding you and you understanding them and more so you understanding them. Okay? By riding the bus, you understand who the average person is. You know, the majority of the population makes less than $15 an hour. So I think it's about 50, 50 some odd percent of people make less than $15 an hour and 25% of people make less than $10 an hour. So just remember who the majority of the population is and put yourself in their head. Your marketing, your messaging has to continue the dialogue that's going on in their head, not create a new one. If you can continue the dialogue that's going on in their head, it'll be a seamless process. Okay? It'll be like walking up a ramp versus taking stairs. So very critical that you understand the people that you're trying to actually help. That being said, the goal isn't to push a string uphill. And I really love this analogy. So just imagine somebody pushing, trying to push a string uphill and how impossible that would be versus pulling a string uphill. Think of the difference. At least the string is able to do the work that it's designed to do. But if you're trying to push a string uphill, then everybody loses. Okay? And that analogy really, really was good for me to visualize, those are the people you want to work with, people that you can pull uphill, people that you can help, you can support. But not that wet noodle or that string that you're going to try to push uphill. Know who your ideal avatar is and work with that person. One thing that Joe talks about, and I believe he got this from Dan Sullivan. Dan Sullivan, by the way, is the most quoted person in any entrepreneurial circle. He's like a. He's a legend. And he's in Toronto. So I've got to make it my mission to go meet with him. But one of the things that he talks about are super happy, fun days. And these are days where you just don't do any work. You leave your phone at home, you leave your computer at home, go off the grid. Nothing's going to happen to your business. Trust me, all the problems will still be there tomorrow. And you just basically shut off to the rest of the world. And I did this with my wife on Sunday. It wasn't a full day because we had some other stuff we need to do. We were launching our new emr and there was a lot of things that we needed to integrate. So I got to spend the whole day doing super happy, fun things, and I just loved it. That was my first super happy, fun day in as long as I can remember. You know, in terms of actually doing it for that sake, I've had super fun days, but never with that intent, primary intention. So it was really cool to. To be able. Able to do that. So I highly encourage that you look into that. Another thing they talked about is that entrepreneurs who are too tightly scheduled can't transform themselves, okay? So you've got to have white space in your life, okay? That white space is important because that's where transformation can take place, like a blank canvas. So that's meditating. That is, you know, spending time in nature by yourself, going on vacations or traveling by yourself. I get to get away quite frequently from my family. I don't enjoy any minute of it. I love being with my family. But I think that's important. That white space allows me to create. It allows me to focus. It allows me, you know, to just look at the world in a different way. Because in that white space, my space isn't being filled by other things that other people are dumping into my lap, okay? So I actually enjoy getting away. And there's actually an interesting finding, A research article that just came out, some of you may have seen it, is that men who are separated from their spouse actually have higher levels of testosterone versus men who are always together with their spouse. So for many years, I worked with my wife in the office right next to me. Okay? So give that some context. And I obviously live with her, and now I'm traveling more. And guess what? I would suspect that my testosterone has probably gone up. I don't know. I'm going to have to measure this, but I learned about that this week. So just a little fun fact to throw in there for you guys. Another thing besides transformation is growth, right? So one thing that was mentioned was that everything measured improves. Everything measured and reported improves exponentially. And this got me thinking, because if there's certain statistics that you want to improve exponentially, well, you got to get people reporting these things, okay? You've got to get people measuring these things and reporting these things to you. And there has to be a dialogue around whatever those particular numbers are. So it was great for me to be able to do that. And I'm going to be reporting back to you guys in a future podcast on how we implemented that and what the results have been. But just think about things that you're probably taking, numbers you're probably taking for granted that you could hold people accountable to, and they could report back to you. They could give ideas on how to improve those numbers so it doesn't always have to be you, you know, carrying that burden. So start measuring certain numbers. And I'm going to do this at my next team meeting. I'm going to get everyone to think of a number that they want be assigned to, and we hold them accountable to that number. They have to be able to visualize that, they have to be able to measure it, and they have to be able to report back to it as well. Now, there was a great speaker who was there, probably Joe Weldon's favorite speaker. Phenomenal. Just brilliant delivery. His name is Alex Mendozian. And Alex, me and Joe did a little interview together. I snuck in there for like 30 seconds to give a live testimonial because I was watching and I actually used a nine word email, which is something they talked about. And I got in the podcast with them, the video podcast. So I was pretty excited and stoked about that, but a little side bit there. But Alex gave a talk about living in your verb, and it was just mind blowing. So assign yourself a verb, whatever it is. You know, think about it, whatever it is. I think so. I am, for example. That would be an example of one. And so think about what that verb is, and are you living your verb? Okay. He gave us a list of about 112 different verbs that we could use. And this is something I share in my mastermind group. And it's amazing what can come of that thought. And just asking yourself constantly, am I living my verb? If you do that, I mean, things are going to be pretty life changing for you. So great talk that Alex Mendozian gave. And then Joe talks about a concept which I think is very relevant. He talks about anxiety. And what he says is where there is anxiety, he's using this as a metaphor, but we can use it literally in our functional medicine space. But where there is anxiety, there is opportunity. So think about what people are anxious about these days. Think about what drives people insane or crazy or what keeps people up at night these days. For a lot of people, it's their health. Health is the true wealth. It's really the only wealth at the end of the day. And what I realized Hanging out with people who are uber wealthy is that they didn't get there by neglecting their health. Okay. They realized at some point that health had to become one of their priorities. And Joe and I are going to be working on a project called Genius Health where we're going to be implementing functional medicine to this audience. So it's going to be pretty epic. Once we, once we deliver this information, it's going to be life changing. Life changing, to say the least. So one thing I do want to also talk about is how you address an audience when you're giving a talk. Many times I'm guilty of this, even after doing so many talks. But you will refer to people as you guys. And you know, obviously that probably offends the women in the audience, which is probably the majority of your audience, and it's not speaking directly to that individual. So when you say you guys, you, you basically created a blanket statement. But when you say you, then that hits that person right in the chest because it's them. So keep that in mind when you're giving your presentation. So, you know, these are all the, like, there's hundreds of little tidbits that I learned going to this. And I hope that some of these things that I've given you today gives you some pause, gives you a moment of reflection. I'm sure a lot of the time I was talking, you were probably nodding your head, realizing that these are things that I need to implement into my business, or this is how I need to change my thought process, or maybe I need to rethink this project that I was doing, or maybe I need to rethink the person in my office that's creating a frustration for me. I mean, whatever it is, just be totally honest with yourself. It doesn't have to be anything that I talked about today. It could be things that are going on in your business, things that are going on in your personal life because the two are very, very closely connected. And yeah, I just hope this helps. I hope this gives you some insights, some pause, moment to reflect. If you're enjoying the show, please rate us. Please share us with your friends and colleagues. I know that many of them could benefit from this information. So thank you for listening. Thanks for tuning in. Make sure you download this episode, keep it on your phone. This is a very powerful, data packed information and insightful podcast that I really want you to listen to a couple times. And you might have to listen to it again today, next week, next month, a year from now. But keep this one close because I wish I knew all these things 10 years ago myself. Thanks once again. I will talk to you soon.