Ep036: Become a High Achiever 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 and 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 and welcome to another episode of Perfect Practice. Today is a very special episode because I'm actually in Goa, India. I'm traveling with my family on a much needed and I'm hoping well deserved vacation. We're here for a wedding a and some amazing family time. My grandparents, my parents, my in laws are all here and we're just having a blast. We're actually going to head out to the beach today and have some fun. We've checked out some of the beautiful churches in Goa and I'm sitting down and sharing some of my thoughts with you today, specifically after coming back from Mindshare. So I actually belong to JJ Virgin and Carl's Mindshare, the Mastermind, which is really where some of the highest achieving or those who want to be the highest achieving in the healthcare industry get together four times a year as well as intermittent calls that we have in between those quarterly face to face meetings. So I actually went to the second meeting, the first one I had to miss cause I was speaking at an event. But this second one I went to was totally awesome. It was in Tampa, Florida. Went down there with my wife who is my accountability partner and my life partner and business partner. So it was great to step away from the office and also spend some time with her along with some of my favorite people on the planet. So there were some really interesting things that come up in these masterminds and what really makes this different than typical masterminds that I attend is that a lot of people here are playing at a different level. They're doing, you know, million, some of them even up to $10 million online. They have their own brands, they have their own companies, they have their own products. They have so many, so many things going on for them and it's amazing to be able to learn from these individuals. I learn something every time I'm connecting with these people and I'm sure that they learn something from me. So it's Great to be able to receive, but it's also super, super valuable to be able to, you know, contribute to the conversation as well. So what I love about this is not only am I, you know, paying attention to the information, but I'm also paying attention to the way JJ and Carl organize these events. And they've done many, many of these. So it's always nice to see their orchestration of these events as well. And I encourage you to do that. If you ever have any intentions of hosting your own events at some point in the future, you want to make sure that you pay attention to the logistics of running an event. Because as somebody who's put on a couple at this point, it is a lot of work. It's a lot of fun, for sure, and it's super, super rewarding. But if you don't protect your energy and if you don't protect your time, it can take a lot of both of those things. So, you know, in today's podcast, I'm gonna share some of my biggest takeaways. I've got my five biggest takeaways. Of course, there were many, many more than that. I'm also gonna honor the privacy of the individual. So I'm not going to name any names. I'm not going to give any specific examples either to protect people, but I'm going to just talk about key concepts that are really important when you're attending a mindshare or a mastermind or if you have any plans to, then hopefully this entices you to do something like that in the near future. And I highly encourage it, because some of the things that I've learned through this process is that I've had so many major, major breakthroughs and insights, and it comes from some of the strategies I'm gonna talk to you about today. So the first thing that you wanna be aware of is something called vulnerability. And this is hard to do as practitioners. Sometimes we feel like we've gotta have all of our stuff together and that we can't have problems. And that's a big challenge for us. So we don't share some of the challenges that we're facing. And we may not feel comfortable in the surroundings that we're in or the people that are in our vicinity. So it's great to go and meet people who are third parties outside of your business and make sure that you're being vulnerable. When you're vulnerable, that means, you know, sharing some of the challenges that you're facing. And these could be business challenges, these could be personal challenges. These could be family challenges that you're having because, let's face it, everything affects everything. So being vulnerable is one of the keys to getting a lot out of a mastermind. And if you go in there pretending like nothing's wrong, then guess what? Nobody can help you. And you're going to walk away without much value. So being vulnerable is super, super important. So think about those things that you know you have to not necessarily hide from your team or from your staff, but sometimes you can't fully express the things that are going on because you've got to be in a leadership position. So going to a mastermind allows you to express some of those concerns. And I'm pretty fortunate that I don't have a lot of things that are negative to say about my brand or about my team. So I don't really have to hide a lot from them. But I do get to express some of the challenges that I might be facing in terms of growing and 10xing my business, which I hope is the goal for some of you that are listening to this. So be vulnerable and never be afraid to express yourself. And one of the things that happens when you go to an event like this, some of the people that you hold in super high regard, and you'll still hold them in high regard to, but they're gonna be extremely open and vulnerable with you. And you're gonna start to realize that, wow, other people face challenges just like I do. And I'm not the only one that's dealing with some of these things that might be going on. And sometimes you might even realize that some of the people who you hold in super high regard have seemingly problems that are even much bigger than yours. So that's the first thing, is be vulnerable. Number two thing that I learned amongst the many things, as I mentioned, is what we get caught up with as entrepreneurs and where we get stuck in our vision or in not reaching our vision or accomplishing our mission is we focus too much on how. And this is pretty typical, I find even in the clients that I coach and mentor, even when I tell them something to do, they focus on how to do it instead of who's going to do it for them. So very important. One of the things that helps has helped me grow significantly and helped our company grow significantly in the last few years is focusing on who and not getting stuck up on how whatever problem you have, somebody has solved it, somebody's already done it or is doing it for somebody else. So find that person. Think about, think about a contractor when you Hire a general contractor for a renovation on your home. They're not caught up in, you know, in, in so much of how it's going to get done. They're trying to figure out who's going to do it. Who's going to figure this out for you. So who are we going to hire for the plumbing? Who are we going to hire for the electricity? Who are we going to hire for the drywalling? Who are we going to hire for the demolition? All of those who's are something that they figure out, and they're not focused so much on the how. So as functional medicine practitioners, some of your hows might be copywriting. Some of your hos might be building a video sales letter. Some of your hows might be building an automation sequence. Don't focus on how. You're gonna get stuck there and the mission will never get accomplished and you're gonna procrastinate. And procrastination is where dreams go to die. So focus, focus, focus on who. Find the right vendors. And some people will say, and I understand the scenario that some people might be in, I can't afford it. Well, if you can't afford to hire someone to do the right job, then I promise, promise you that you can't afford to wait for you to do it incorrectly and then eventually hire someone to do it. Right. I mean, it just doesn't work that way. So even someone like Russell Brunson, whose story I was just listening to, it took him five years to really figure out the how when it came to clickfunnels. And he met his partner Todd, and in six months, Todd basically built clickfunnels for him. So when you figure out the who, then things can move very, very quickly. And now he's built a $100 million company. Now the thing is, if he got stuck on the how, the vision and the mission would have died along with it. So who are you going to get to solve some of these challenges that you're facing? So if you need a copywriter, well, find a copywriter. If you need a web developer, find a web developer. And here's the other thing. It might be different people that have to help you solve these problems. One of the things that you might not realize with marketing and outreach and Facebook and strategy and all these things that you need to run a successful functional medicine business, or really any business, you're going to have to hire a team of people to do it. And it might not be one team, it might be several teams, depending on what your big vision and what your goals are. Now, if you're trying to run a little mom and pop shop, it might not be such a big deal. But if you're trying to run a multi seven figure business, then guess what, you're going to need to find the right people to help you do that. And I can guarantee you that you're not going to be able to do all of these things exceptionally well. My philosophy is that you should know enough about these strategies to or these tasks that need to get done. You should know enough about them to know that you're not getting ripped off. Okay? So that's one thing to keep in mind. Focus on who versus how and I promise things will move much faster for you. The number three thing that I learned was from David Bayer. David Bayer is, I guess, you know, a Tony Robbins type of motivational speaker, but on a different level. So he's not so much on, he's on a different level than Tony in terms of the way he thinks and the way he frames things. And I really enjoyed hearing him speak. So I've been to Tony Robbins, I've heard Tony speak about four times now. And I really like David's message because he broke it down a little bit further. He went further upstream when it came to solving challenges for entrepreneurs. One of the things that he says is that it's important to focus on mindset mastery over strategy. And where a lot of entrepreneurs get stuck is they focus on strategy and they just get stuck there because they're trying to figure out how things are going to get done and piecing things together. Now he had this nice little matrix that he had put together for us and it's basically this never ending cycle. And it starts with our beliefs. So our beliefs essentially shape our thoughts. Our thoughts then shape our feelings, our feelings then shape our actions, and our actions then create our results. And then based on the results we get, it reshapes our beliefs or reinforces rather the beliefs that we have. So what he works on is going a few layers deeper and almost going into helping people rewrite their belief pattern, their operating system, so that they can have full control over their thoughts, their feelings, their actions, and then create a corresponding result. And so if you feel like you're stuck, if you feel like you're just not getting the results that you know you should be getting based on the effort that you're putting forward or based on what you know you're capable of, then it's probably an issue with your belief system. Now if you followed any of Bruce Lipton's work, then you know that this belief system is shaped between the age of 0 and 7. Specifically between the age of 0 and 6 is when the brain is in a theta wave pattern and we're essentially a sponge. We're absorbing all the information that's coming in, but we don't have logical reasoning. And it's not until we get into an alpha wave pattern, which happens typically after about eight years old, that we can start connecting the left and right side of our brains together. So very important concept is to go back between the age of 0 and 6, or rather 2 and 6, and figure out what was going on in your life at that time, what was going on with your parents at that time, what was going on in their lives at that time, because that's probably what's shaping your belief system. And just to prove this to you, as many of us try not to become our parents, we essentially do because they're the ones that wrote our operating system. And you may have had a guardian or a grandparent that raised you, depending on your individual circumstances. But just go back to what was going on in your life between the age of 2 and 6 and see if there's something there. You know, was there something traumatic that happened? And here's the thing between this age, because you're not able to have logical reasoning, you're just absorbing information, you're seeing things happen and you're not able to have logic behind them. So you could be doing something extremely wrong or thinking extremely incorrectly, or the opposite of what you should be thinking and not even know why you're doing it. But this pattern gets deeply ingrained and it shows up in your life certainly as an adult, and it shows up certainly in the results that you're producing. So breaking out of this wheel is very critical for some of you if you're not creating the results in your life that you know you're capable of or should be capable of based on your efforts. Now, if you're listening to this podcast, you're probably a hard worker, so I don't doubt that. But. But if you're not getting the results, then there could be an issue with the belief system. So focus on that. David Bayer hosts live events. He's hosting a three day event in Orlando that's coming up here in a few months and certainly something I would like to check out. Maybe this time it won't work out for me timing wise, because I'm traveling so much, but I do plan on working with him in the future, so check out his work, I think you'll be really impressed. And again, that's David Bayer number four thing that I learned. And this comes from Nicholas Kuzmic, who was speaker there as well, and he talked about focusing on your 4%. So we've all heard of the Pareto principle, which is the 8020 rule. He takes it a step further and breaks it down to the 20% of the 20%, which is the 4%. You want to focus all of your marketing efforts, all of your strategy, all of your language, all of your copy sales letters, all that stuff, you want to focus on those 4%. And how do you identify those 4%? These are the people that have done business with you the longest. These are the people, people that have the strongest partnerships with you. These are people that have the fewest customer service issues. And of course the people that have spent the most money because they believe in you the most. That's why they're spending all this money with you. So focusing on your 4% and all of your marketing efforts is gonna be huge. Because who doesn't want long term partnerships with their customers, who doesn't want little to no customer service issues, and who doesn't want people spending money because they share the same values? And you're able to over deliver to these people. I'll do a separate podcast and probably special training on how to write ads for these individuals. But in the meantime, figure out who those people are. And how do you figure that out? Well, you can run a report from your accounting software to figure out who spent the most money with you, who's had the longest partnership and engagement with you, and also identify those people who have the least customer service issues. You probably know off the top of your hand, 4% of your customer base probably isn't a lot of people. So you should be able to identify those people fairly quickly. And what I would actually recommend is bringing those people into your company for a focus group. Buy them dinner, buy them lunch, get them in, do a focus group with them and find out what it is that makes them tick. When you learn that information about them, guess what? You're gonna be able to have some pretty amazing breakthroughs in your marketing and messaging to your outbound strategies that are going out to your customers or potential customers. And guess what? The other thing too is people appreciate being acknowledged. If you're one of the top customers, people appreciate that. So for example, I became obsessed with luggage in 2018. It was the year of luggage for me because I travel so much. And I said, you know what, let Me upgrade my travel accessories. So I became Tumi's number one customer in all of Mississauga, and I was acknowledged for that. So I went to the store and the lady looked at my account and she's like, wow, did you know you're a number one customer? And now they call me whenever they have specials. I get a couple days notice beforehand and I just felt really special. Of course, I recognize that I spent the most money there, so of course they're going to do that. But most companies don't do that. Most companies don't acknowledge their top customers and profile them. So that's one thing to keep in mind is, are you doing that for your customers? Are you going above and beyond to acknowledge them or to study them in some way so that you could get more people like them coming into your business? Now, the last thing I'll share today is how to manage your time and goal setting. So Carl, if you don't know, is a master, you know, businessman. He's just exceptional, just a super, super smart guy. And, you know, you talking to him, you may not even realize he's super, super humble, just very down to earth kind of guy. Very quiet, you know, introverted individual. I just, I just love his energy. And so he's really, really brilliant. And one of the things he talks about is, you know, and he acknowledged that Dan Sullivan gave him this information, but he talks about three different ways to spend your time. One is buffer time. And this is where you're creative. This is where the wheels are turning and you're coming up with creative ideas and concepts and, you know, maybe not strategies, but, you know, things that you want to do. Okay. And not necessarily focusing on how you're gonna do them or who is gonna do them for you, but just ideas that you're putting out there. So this is your buffer slash creative time. And then you have free time. So after this podcast, I'm going to go and, you know, go on a tour of Goa. We're going to check out some spice plantations, we're going to see how spices are made, which is going to be pretty fun. We're going to go check out some of the beautiful temples in the area. We're going to go check out some beaches. So we're going to have some fun and that's free time. So I'm going to leave my phone only to take pictures and I'm going to, you know, basically, you know, have time with my family. And in that free time, I'm going to have fun. I'm not going to be trying to come up with creative ideas or do work, because if I do that, my ideas are not going to be very creative or very focused. And guess what? My work is not going to be very focused or very good. So free time is very important for all of us. Now, the next time is focus time. And focus time is where you're focused on one to three things at the most, ideally one thing where you can knock it out and just get it done. So right now, I'm super focused on doing this podcast. So I set aside some time to do this, and I'm doing one thing at a time, and I'm going to get this podcast recorded, I'm going to upload it, and then I'm going to have some free time. And later on tonight, I'll have some buffer time. So very, very important for you to do. And buffer time also is time between things. So if you're traveling like we came back from the Mastermind, and we didn't go back to work the next day, we had a day off. So that's important to do as well, is have some buffer time in between tasks, in between things that you're doing in between focused time so that you can recuperate and regenerate as well. And in that buffer time, the white space is where creativity comes into place. So have that buffer time. That's where your ideas are going to come. Now, there is a law called Pascal's Law, and what it is is that any given task will fill the time allotted to it. And that's interesting, because if you give yourself an hour to do something, it'll take an hour. If you give yourself a month to do something, it'll take a month. So time is your most important asset, as we say. I say that your thoughts are your most important asset. So where you focus your mind is super important. But let's assume for a moment, for the conversation we're having right now, the time is your most important asset. You want to focus on a task and assign it some time. If you give it more time, it will take longer to get done. So focus, focus, focus, and things will get done much faster. Now, when you are trying to accomplish something, let's say you have a goal, which you should, then your goal has to be vivid and meaningful. You have to be able to see it, touch it, smell it in your mind's theater. It has to be vivid. It has to give you goosebumps when you think about it. It has to be something that moves you in the right direction. If it doesn't move you, guess what, you're gonna be stagnant. Things aren't gonna move for you. And it has to be meaningful. There has to be a deep sense of purpose associated with accomplishing this goal. Next thing, once you know what that goal is, is who is the resource that's gonna help you get this goal done? Who are the resources? Who are the people? What are the tools that you need to get this done? What's the software that you need? Who's the right person for the job that you're trying to accomplish? Get that done. And then the next thing is to implement. So once you've got all these things in place, you're going to then implement and start moving towards the goal. The goal is going to actually move you. It should be that powerful that it moves you. And then you're going to have some sort of way of assessing that goal. So these are KPIs. These are key performance indicators that you can measure to see is this goal being accomplished. And so if you've got a team of people that are helping you, then they've got to have KPIs. KPIs can be revenue. It could be the budget that you've got in place for the project, it could be the timeline that you've got. Are things moving in a timely manner to get the project done? And so each project is going to have different KPIs. Make sure you're measuring what you're doing. So very, very critical. Does a goal move you? Do you have the right resources, not just money, but the right people, the who that's gonna help you implement, implement, implement. And that comes with focus, time, you know, focus on one thing, knock it out, and then assess. Are we moving in the right direction? Do we have the resources to move this in the right direction? And do we have ways of measuring if it's moving in the right direction? So those are my big takeaways. I hope that helps. I hope that gives you some insights. So the five things that I covered today, one is vulnerability, be vulnerable. Number two is focus on who versus how. Number three is focus on mindset over strategy. So get to those core beliefs, those deep ingrained beliefs. If they are impacting your final outcome and results in your marketing efforts, focus on your 4% and then get very, very efficient at managing your time. So amongst the hundreds of things that I learned at this event, these were the five that I thought would be most relevant to you. I hope this helps you. I hope that listening to this podcast moves you and your practice in the right direction. Go out there. Find the right people to work with. I know that each of you has a mission that moves you. Make sure that it's moving you in the right direction and that you've got all the tools and resources that you need. Once again, this is Satchin Patel. Have an amazing, amazing day.