EP114: Creating an impact and income beyond the stethoscope with Dr. Vikram Raya, M.D.

Hey Sachin, and welcome to the Perfect Practice Podcast. It's my mission to use this podcast as a platform to help holistic, heart centered practitioners transform the world. I think we can all agree that the world needs more of what we have to offer now than ever before. And I want to take all the information and all the knowledge and experience that I've gained over the years and leverage the community and the contacts and the mentors that I've had over the years and share some of the most valuable nuggets that I've picked up over those years. I also want to bring special guests on so that they can share their valuable wisdom and knowledge with you as well. Each episode is going to be packed with valuable nuggets of information to help you grow both personally and professionally, all while moving you towards more impact and more freedom. I'm excited that you're here. I'm excited that you want to grow and learn. So let's jump right in. Hello friends, and welcome to Perfect Practice. Today I have a very special guest, somebody who has transformed his career, has transformed the lives of many practitioners around the world, and is excited to share the impact that not only is he having on the people immediately in his ecosystem, but also globally around the world. So with me Today, I have Dr. Victoria Vikram Raya. Vikram, thank you for being here today. So excited for our conversation.

Sachin, thanks for having me, man. I've been long overdue. I've been excited to get back into your ecosystem and sphere and if we can serve your audience, that's even better.

Awesome. Well, I want to start by perhaps diving a little bit deeper into your story. So you're a cardiologist who's trained in functional medicine, which is kind of a unicorn, so to speak. Right. There's not too many cardiologists who are then trained in functional medicine, who then, you know, practice functional medicine. One thing to be trained, it's another thing to then practice functional medicine. You're also speaking all over the place. I know you just came back from Italy as well, so you're experiencing the ability to travel and awesome freedom that your business now provides you with. You're also a high performance coach, a real estate expert. You're a bit of a Renaissance man, which I love because that's a term that comes up often when I'm talking to my son. I want to groom him to be a Renaissance man because he's so naturally talented in so many things. And I always have to remind him that the challenge of being a Renaissance man is that in life, many people are going to try to get you to pick one thing to do. But as a Renaissance man and as an entrepreneur, you actually have the ability to do as many things as you want as long as they align with your vision and mission of creating a better world. You founded Vitology, which is a cutting edge institute that helps reverse cardiometabolic disease and optimize vitality. So you're operating at, you know, at a very, very high level. And you developed a prominent cardiology practice, helping people with things like heart transplants and heart failure surgeries and doing preventative cardiology. And amongst those things, you're also the CEO of Viking Capital Investments and, and have built quite a real estate portfolio as well to divers your impact. Right. Everyone needs to be healthy and everyone needs a place to live and.

Exactly, exactly. And I think health and wealth are the two, number one and two categories that everyone wants to master and sometimes they struggle with. And I figured, let me, you know, figure that out and, and it's just been, it's been a journey, it's been a wild ride. And yeah, I'd love to share some of the insights I've gleaned from, from, from learning and starting these companies to your listeners.

Yeah, absolutely. So I want to take listeners back to where we first met. And when we met, you were working as a cardiologist, working in a functional medicine practice. But I think both of us silently kind of recognized that there was something more to you, that there was something that was kind of locked in this treasure chest that you needed to unlock and share with the world. So I'd love for you to share in your own words what that kind of internal dialogue was like, what that transformation has been like for you, and how your life has, you know, been different over the last couple of years.

You know, right now I feel like you're, you know, you know, you're, you're a friend, you're a colleague, you're a mentor. But really, I was in a critical stage when we met, and it was really like, I thought I wanted to go in this direction, and I was told that this is what I need to do. And my identity was transfixed around that. You know, once you put on this similar to like a superhero, you put on the cape. Right. As a physician, when you put on the stethoscope and the white coat, it is literally seared into your DNA, what you're meant to be for the rest of your life. And in fact, your name changes. You're not called Vikram Rai. You're called, you know, Dr. Raya or Vikram Rai M.D. and I mean, you have these two little initials after your name. And so it. For many people, that is their identity for the, for the remaining part of your life. And your story about your son is so touching because it's allowing yourself to by dropping the identity.

Not.

You're not dropping it, but you're saying, hey, look, I can be multiple identities. I'm not in a clean little box that you can fit me into. I'm. It's, it's. Life is messy. It's beautiful. It's, it's, it's, it's. It's synchronous chaos sometimes, you know? And so it's like as you gravitate toward multiple things in life, you go toward your passions, your callings, your skill sets, and your dharma, your duty of why you're meant to be on this earth. And so it was a discovery for me. And what you told me that one day is what I want to share with the audience. What is the golden thread that connects everything that you're doing together? I remember you saying that. I was like, ah, I've never thought about that. What is that? And then it was really, I wanted to up level everything I touched. So it was, if you're in. In real estate, my goal is, hey, look, if you're investing, I want to help you up level your wealth. If you're a physician whom I'm trying to coach, I'm like, how can I uplevel your life and your practice if, you know, you're in a health. If you're in my health practice? And I'm like, how can I up level your health? And it's like that. That was a theme. I wanted to help improve or up level these categories. And so I was like, all right. So that was. It was good. And then the second thing was when things happen to you, either they're a curse or your blessing, but it's how you look at it. It's your perspective. And so when Covid happened the pandemic, many doctors around the world were in fear. They were paralyzed. They were concerned. But the people you coach, Sachin, all over the world, they rose up and saw this as an opportunity. Some of them started practices, some of them, you know, transitioned, pivoted, and I did as well. And it was scary. It was not without trepidation or fear. But what I realized was, you know, sometimes my dreams were not my destiny. My initial dream was, I want to be a cardiologist.

Why?

Because I had seven People in my family die of heart attacks. And it was. I thought it was very pressing that I needed to learn the skill set. And. And then I was like, you know what? Just being a cardiologist is not enough because I'm missing half the problem. You go from taking from disease to just stability. I don't want to just go to stability. I want to reverse disease and optimize and biohack and human take people to anti aging and longevity. So then enter functional medicine. And I was doing that, but I was like, man, I'm being pulled. I feel like in other directions too. And one of the cool things was us saying it's okay to sometimes either put things on hold, pivot, transform and embrace these new identities. So, again, thank you for a lot of the things that you've helped in your distinctions that we've had.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for sharing. What's interesting is that, and what I'm really curious about is growing up, you had a desire to become a cardiologist because you saw family members struggling and were trying to create a solution for them. Growing up, did you also have an entrepreneurial drive? Did you also have a drive to help other people in different ways outside of, obviously, cardiac health? What were some of the early signs of that that were coming up for you? That if you think back, you might wonder, oh, I was destined to help people in these other areas as well.

Yeah, well, as some of our mentors tell us, it's either inspiration or desperation. So really, the pain of my parents, you know, they're immigrants, they came from India, they worked super hard, they came here, and they gave me and my brother a great life. But, you know, one of the common themes I've noticed among my parents was them fighting over money. And it was always causing pain in our household. And I think subconsciously that must have driven me to say, look, I want to master wealth, I want to master abundance. Not to show off, not to, you know, for the toys, but for the peace of mind that it provides. And a guy I like to listen to, Alex Ramosi, says, it's great salt. Get money so you can solve money problems. And once you solve the money problems, then then there's other problems that you can focus on, because now this is not a distraction anymore. Right, right. And so, you know, I, you know, thankfully, I've been able to achieve a certain level of success to where now, like, I'm trying to contemplate, like, other, you know, deeper meanings. And, you know, one of the things you taught me was the Five freedoms. And if I can share that with your audience again, of course, really amazing. It's, it's something I hold very dear. And recently I've transitioned that a little bit to what I call the five Peaks. So, you know, we talked about financial freedom, you know, time freedom, location freedom, vitality freedom, and this mindset freedom. And when you talked, talked about that, I was like, man, this really opens up my, my vista of what I'm looking for. Most people are like, oh, what do you want in life? They can't even tell you. Maybe there's 20% of the people who can say, okay, I want this, this and this. And they don't know why it's. Someone has told it to them or they just came up with something. But really defining exactly what you want in all categories of life is life changing. It's critical. It provides a subconscious North Star and inevitably you'll notice synchronicities happening in your life where you are being drawn toward that destination or future which you envisioned. But more than that, look, these freedoms being like an on or off switch or a binary kind of endpoint, I thought about them being as more of a gradient. Where in the financial freedom sector are you or where do you want to be? Are you just broke and just trying to get by, or have you created legacy wealth and you're trying to figure out how to solve world problems now, right? Time freedom. Are you working 80, 100 hours a week in some practice burnt out? Or now is all your money coming from all these passive income sources and now you're trying to figure out your calling, your passions, your artistry in life, location, freedom? Are you stuck in a cubicle or are you living anywhere in the world and just really loving life? And then the vitality. Are you in disease or man? People can't even notice your aging. And they're like, they can't believe when you tell them your age. And you just have this energy and this, your glint in your eyes like, you know, on fire. And then the final thing is mindset, which, which I think is one of the most important ones out of all the things we're going to talk about. And it's, it's once you get from scarcity and just this kind of reactive lifestyle to self actualization, right? And this, it's an enlightened spirit that every single major religion talks about. And it's this thing where you're just. The materialism is nice, it's good, it, it serves a purpose, but you're having this joy that cannot be Taken away. And that is. So these are the different gradients. And I think if you're a practitioner, you're starting to create your perfect practice. But now it's also time to create the perfect life. And it's not an end destination, it's a journey. And so using these as milestones and guide posts would be very helpful.

Yeah, I love that reframe because it isn't binary, right? It isn't all or none. You're not broke one day and then financially free the next. There is a gradient and I think that gives people an opportunity to honestly assess where they are on that gradient and then determine, okay, these are the areas that I need to work on. And having these freedoms and these peaks, as you call them, is super important because it allows us to say yes and it allows us to say no to the things that are going to serve us when we don't know what we want. It's easy for us to say yes to things that eventually we ended up wishing we said no to to begin with. But if we put things through this filter, right, the, the filter of these five freedoms, then we can start asking ourselves, does this move me closer? Does this, does this move the dial up in any of these categories or ideally in all of these categories? Because then it becomes a hell yes instead of just okay, I'll do becomes a much more firm decision for people. And then the nos become much more firm as well. And we can feel good about the nose because we have a scorecard to say, hey, this takes away some of these freedoms that I'm trying to build and work towards.

One of the other frameworks, Sachin, that we discussed is from your time with Joe Polish and the Genius Network. And I think it's a good framework for all your listeners to just get reminded of the elephant half. Like, right, that's on that same call that we had that literally changed my life where I realized, like, look all when I'm doing my real estate business and then this new emerging business that was happening, which was me being a leadership coach for physicians, it was easy, lucrative and fun. And then me working, like in a limited focus on, in my practice, which I'm sure has been very successful and very, very joyous, but it was creating more energy and work for me. There's more resistance there because my inner heart was singing. I wanted to be location free. But if I have a clinical practice that was physically located somewhere, how can I do that? So that disconnect, that misalignment was creating internal resistance. And I think by us realizing, hey, which one of these things is creating light, energy, liberty, freedom, that, that elf. Easy, lucrative and fun concept. It's, it's. You're in flow then. And so that's how I know I was. It was scary, trust me. I mean, like literally say, I'm not gonna make my main practice of my life, medicine, or functional medicine for that matter, was, was mind boggling to many people. My parents, you, you can imagine an Indian, my, you know, my poor Indian mom who is like so proud that her son became a cardiologist. It's like, mom, I'm actually going to do other things now. So sometimes urge to go beyond other people's expectations and pursue your true calling, if you will. And I call it a calling because it is a calling.

You know, I still remember that conversation. I remember getting off that conversation after having this discussion with you. And I'm like, am I crazy for telling him this? Because I can only imagine how much time, money, resources that you've invested, your family's invested to make what you have right in front of you even possible. And all the risks that you've taken, all the things that you did to get to where you are. And I'm here telling you, hey, let's see what's down this pathway. And it sounds like that's really calling you. It's whispering to you, come here. And the fact that you did that, because a lot of people don't have that courage, I want to honor you for that because it does take a lot of balls, excuse my French, as they say. Right? And who are you? Whose response? I'm curious now, whose response were you most not concerned about? But yeah, let's just say that. Whose response were you most concerned about?

You would think it'd be your mom and dad or maybe your wife, but they were all super supportive. They were, they're like sort of questioning, but they're supportive. It was your colleagues, actually. Think about it like it's your peer group, you know, first, when I did the first transition from cardiology to functional medicine, they're like, functional what? What medicine are you doing? What's going on? Have you lost your mind? You're, you're, you know, board certified cardiologist practicing Washington D.C. and you want to do what? They couldn't wrap up their head around it. Then when I said, hey, I want to do coaching, they're like, coaching? What is that? Is that like psychiatry? Is that therapy? What are you doing for folks? And then I said, I want to do real estate. Oh, you Want to. You know, you have a single family home. You want to fix up and do toilets. Like, what? And it's. It's the lack of knowledge, right? And so then I'm like, why am I taking advice from people whose destination I don't want to follow? And then it was really like, all right, the people who my adore. Mentor. I mean, who.

Who.

Who I want to be mentored by, or who I admire their life. What have they done? And what would they say? And. And so that's when, you know, you. You create. Like I created, like. And here's a good mental framework for your listeners. You. You want to create either an imaginary or actual sort of a. No, a council of nine, if you will. Nine people, living or dead, past, present, virtual or real, who can whisper in your ear. So this is taken from Napoleon Hill's, you know, mastermind concept, but literally doing a mind, a meditation, a creative visualization, a quietness, and literally say, hey, what would Elon Musk say? Hey, what would LeBron say? Hey, what would, you know, Mother Teresa say? Well, like, whatever those people are for you, whoever those are, and just say, you know, and you get all these different voices and things, and, you know, people think, are you talking about split personalities? No, it's just essentially this wisdom that you've sort of gleaned from all these resources. It's sitting and sort of unlocking that subconsciousness and sort of bathing in that. And then your inner guidance sort of speaks forth. And so these are some of the strategies that, you know, I've had to lean on to figure out sort of what are the next steps, because at some point, you have to stop asking from without or outside and start asking inside.

Yeah, I love that concept. And it's so available to us now, especially, right. With YouTube, with podcasts, books, audiobooks, all that stuff. We can really. You know, sometimes we hire mentors, sometimes we. We rent them out from the library. Right. Sometimes we listen to them through audiobooks or YouTube. And there's a plethora of content out there, but you've got to identify who those people are. I know I'm sure there's overlap between my list and your list, but Jim Rohn is one of those people for me. I would say that Joe Polish is one of those people for me. I'd love to hear who's on your list. If you. If you care to share. Maybe you can give us a handful of those people.

Yeah. And it changes over time, but, yeah, I mean, it's like, who am I listening to right now, but I'm going, like, ancient now. So since, you know, I spent about a month in Italy just trying to, you know, doing a bucket list item where, like, hey, is it possible for a doctor to go and live abroad and pull that off and still come back and have a home and not be foreclosed upon and, like, you know, everything still be okay and. And so Leonardo da Vinci. I'm listening to Walter Isaacson's book and, you know, and it was so special. Like, I was in Florence listening to that book while I was doing a jog up. You know, the piazza is going on the Ponte Vecchio Bridge. And so that is amazing. That's. That's a person, I think, Elon Musk, he thrills my imagination. He's a little bit, you know, eccentric, but that's part of the genius there, you know, it's. But Tony Robbins has always been a big man of mine, and I know a lot. Some of his. His greatest teachings come from his mentor, Jim Rohn. So it's nice to have that coalesce. And this newer person is Alex Hormozi. And Alex Hormozi's just been. He's just been on fire. And everything he says really resonates. And I find him to be like a younger naval Ravikant, you know, so these. These two have been really up in my brain. I really like LeBron. And more recently, I watched on Disney, they have the documentary on Giannis Antetokounmpo, who's one of the most famous players on the Milwaukee Bucks. And his story of coming from. His parents were refugees from Nigeria, went to, you know, Turkey, and then. Then they snuck across the border to Greece. And then him, like, selling souvenirs on the streets and then somehow becoming an NBA player. I mean, that's super inspiring. So these are just some of the things that some of the people that, you know, come across. And it's nice to have multidisciplinary, you know, like, you need some motivational speakers, some, you know, philanthropists, some, you know, sports. It's. It's. It's nice to have that, you know, that dynamism there.

Yeah. Such an eclectic list of very unique individuals. But there's probably a golden thread amongst them, right? That golden thread is a polymath.

A lot of these people are polymaths, you know, and it goes back to the original Renaissance man of Leonardo. So when I was a kid in social studies, my teacher talked to me about this Renaissance concept, and it always, you know, stuck to Me. And even though we've been taught as high performers, specialize, specialized, specialize, focus all your energies on one thing. And I've done that for the most part in many categories. But I feel like maybe it's sequential focuses versus sole focus, you know. And so like while I was building, people are asking, hey, how do you create one business and then create a second business? Well, as similar what you're doing, Sachin, you've done multiple things. You were a phenomenal practitioner, then that practitioner, then you're like, okay, how do I create it? Maybe a digital version of that. Then you're like, hey, how do I help other practitioners? And now you're doing things in venture, I think other investments, or you're just figuring out other ways to expand your influence and your impact. And that's what the whole concept of today's concept call is. Like, how do you increase your income and impact? So it's once you hit sort of a certain thresholds, you're allowed to then and you create systems and teams on the current business or concept, then you can go after the secondary thing. So when I was in Lake Cuomo, I saw Richard Branson's house just randomly as we're driving as floating by. And it made me think, how did he run 500 businesses? Right. Or run, you know, and it's the same concept. Once you understand the fundamental patterns of business and whether it's the business of medicine or the business of anything else you're doing, these patterns are repeatable. And so I think you've mastered that very well. And I'm learning to master my companies. And so I encourage the listeners here to figure out, hey, look, what is the end destination for their company? Is it for them to practice for the rest of their life? Great, then they should get rid of any complexity, make it as simple as possible, increase the profitability and the joy and their value and impact. If it's to scale it, then they have to figure out how they who are the bottleneck next, how they can get out of it. And they can create systems or processes or other people and then rinse and replicate the whole thing.

Yeah. Such an important thing for us to consider is that certain business concepts are universal. So whether they're in the health business, in the real estate business, and any other industry that you go to. And of course, certain aspects of a business are extremely unique to one another. I would imagine that there's probably overlap in your businesses as well, where you have practitioners that you're coaching from a high performance perspective. These People probably want financial independence and multiple streams of revenue and income, and that translates into them perhaps working with you on your real estate investment side of your business and wealth creation side of your business as well. So, you know, a lot of what your colleagues want is what you want. They just don't know how to get it right. They just maybe don't have the time or the resources because there's so. So, you know, engaged in their current practice or in their current business that you've now come along and you've solved this issue for yourself or this challenge for yourself. And now you're kind enough and willing enough to share with other people at a fraction of the time and money that it would cost them to learn it. And so you're delivering tremendous value, saving them time, saving them money, making them money and amplifying time and making work time, making time work for them as their investment portfolios continue to grow. So that's exciting, man. I love speaking to somebody who is a polymath. I've been accused of being that as well. And it can be tough for anyone who's listening, who is talented in so many different things. And sometimes these things come to you really naturally. I'll tell you this story real quick. My mom, when I was young, I used to cut hair. I still cut hair. And cutting hair, for whatever reason, came naturally to me. And one day my mom came home, there's a bunch of kids playing basketball in my front yard, there's loud music blaring out of the garage. And she comes home after a long day at work, and I'm in the garage cutting people's hair. And she goes to bed that night. And after dinner and stuff, my next morning, my dad wakes me up and he's like, you know, your mom was crying last night. I said, why? She's like, she thinks you're going to be a barber. Because I was having so much fun doing it right. And I was really good because all these people would come from our neighborhood and get their haircuts and. And it was my first business. I was only like 14, 15 years old at the time. And it was just amazing to see that we can do whatever we want. We can be whatever we want if we put our minds and hearts into it. And, you know, it's okay to be good at a whole bunch of different things. And it's okay to perhaps sprinkle those things into your personal life and eventually even turn those into a business. And, you know, you know, so I share that because many times we have different things that we're great at, we have different skills that we've acquired. And it's okay to, it's not okay to spread yourself thin, but it's okay to strategically spread your knowledge encapsulated, bottle it into systems just like you have.

Absolutely, man.

Yeah.

And I think, you know, when, if the company can continue to grow without you or the decisions are not flowing through you, then maybe. And if you're still hungry for something new, then that's when maybe it's an appropriate time. And my advice is consider doing symbiotic or like complimentary businesses at the beginning before you go completely left field. Like you're a barber and then you're running a real estate company a little bit harder versus, you know, hey, you're doing, you have a hair salon now you're doing nails. Oh, okay, I get it. I get the, I get the, I get the pattern. I get the concept there.

So, yeah, you've accomplished so much in your short career, it's amazing. You've met Dr. Oz, you've acquired almost $600 million in real estate assets. You've been named on Forbes list and the business council with them. Where do you think this drive comes from? Where do you think that your just continuous drive to grow and expand and create impact not only for yourself, but for others? Where does that come from?

I feel like we've been all given this, you know, sort of this energy, this life force, and if we can just. Our goal is to spend it completely before we die. And so if it's in the service of yourself, your family and others and, you know, whatever else you believe in, that's probably a good life. And you know, my, my confidence has never been like, like this when I was growing up. It's always quite. I was always worried, I was questioning, I was comparing myself to others and, and you know, as I worked on myself then I realized I do have a gift. I do have something to offer. And doubling down on that. And then I'm like, wait, if I have something to offer, there are probably other people who. Doubting themselves. Can I help them? And you know, everything I'm doing is a, is a social thing. Very, very few things I'm doing is where I'm working by myself, for myself. It's always. And that I think the joy I get from doing that is, you know, why I do it. Like, you know, this, this, this experience where I was on a trip with my family and I really had like, no responsibilities and at some point all my needs were Satiated. And I was like, all right, I don't need any more. More travel. I'm already done with that. I don't need any more toys. I don't need anything. I just want to go back to doing what I love. And that's when you know you've sort of hit a little bit of a level of peace. So that's what drives me is how do I continue to add value, how to income and impact and just also help elevate others? Because there's a joy in you doing well yourself. But when you can help, like I'm sure you get joy from helping all these practitioners all over the country, like crushing their practices and achieve that goal that they've always wanted. And so when I'm coaching my coaching clients, it's like I feel like time goes away and it's, I'm really focused. I don't know what's going on out anywhere. And I'm like, with them and. And then they're. When they make that like, breakthrough, man, it's money.

Yeah. It's such a great feeling. And I'm experiencing joy right now hearing you speak and share the journey that you've been on and how you're now making an even bigger impact on the lives of so many people. I see something that I want to call people's attention. Do I see a 2 comma club award behind you there? So, and the reason I bring that up is because that means you went from earning an income in a brick and mortar. Right. To being able to earn now over seven figures online. And so that's not an easy transition. Those awards aren't easy to come across. And you didn't start there. You started with a face to face brick and mortar type of service, with your medical practice and cardiology practice and functional medicine practice. And then you went online. What has that transition been like for you? Or maybe if there's any tips that you could offer somebody who is, I don't want to say stuck in the brick and mortar because that's not the right term, but who is in their brick and mortar but perhaps wants to break free from that or wants to add some additional online revenue. What are some tips that you could offer us?

One, get absolute clarity on what they want. What's the outcome like? If you're nebulous about it, then you're not going to have enough ammunition or because at that point you're still limited in your resources. So if you spread your resources too thin, you won't get traction. So it's really getting absolute clarity. You know, what is it? I actually want to. Obviously it's the specifics of, you know, the why, right? And then create that massive action plan and go after it. But more than that, it's like there's three options. Either stay fully brick and mortar, two, create a hybrid approach, or three, completely transition. It's all your end goal. If you want scalability online, obviously if you want location or geographic independence online, if you want scale, than online. So if it's really that, those goals. But if you really love putting your stethoscope or you're, you know, doing a acupressure on that person physically there, then maybe it's, you know, maybe creating the educational components online, but the actual services are in person. So I really think a lot of things are moving to online, but there's nothing that can replace that physical present. So it's, it's really what drives that person, what are their goals, and maybe what makes sense in terms of finances too. Like, so I think that would help define it. But let's say they decide they want to go online. Then what I found is, you know, I, I used a mentor who helped me try to go online. I also worked with you to help me go online. I, I also figured out how to, I, I noticed I was saying the same things over and over again. So then capturing that and digitizing that, creating a digital version of you that your, your patient or practice or your client can, can learn from, and then systems and automation. And then once we have that, then you go in for the critical pieces that you need and then you build a team to do the rest. And then once you know that you can do that, then it's really getting more clients in as possible, lead generation, if you will. And I wanted to share with your audience sort of how I think about leads.

Now.

There's six main ways to get leads. There's a linear way to get leads, and then there's a compound way. Obviously I'd recommend everyone eventually to get into the compound way. But the linear way is paid media, earned media. Paid media is obviously Facebook ads, funnels, things like that. Earned media is like organic. You're putting in content, podcast, blog posts, Facebook Lives, YouTube Lives, things like that. Your email list or your contact list, which you own, Manual, outbound, reaching out to people, right? And then affiliates. Those are the five ways to linearly scale. But if you really want to put things on fire, it's when you can get word of mouth, referrals, raving fan clients as they Call them, right? These are the people who like, man, they'll vouch for you. They're like, man, and if someone bashes you online, they'll go out and they'll defend you, right? And I know you've had those, I've had those. So it's like, that's the holy grail, right? You want all of this, but that referral base is amazing. And then last thing, if I can just add more value to your clients. Here's your three business questions. One of my mentors talked to me about of when you want to reconsider your product or service and you want to think about how can I even add more value to my clients and how do I really optimize my business? Here's the three questions. So question one is, if I charge 10x my price, what amount of value would I have to deliver to to the client to justify my price? So essentially figure out how to focus on the value of your offering, whether it's business or service. Next is, if I had to decrease my price to 1. 10 of my price, but improve the product, what could I do to help facilitate the profitability? So now you're focusing on how do I make it super profitable as well. And the last question is, if I'm only allowed to get one customer, and that customer is now going to be my advocate and they will sell or refer on their own volition, what experience do I need to create so they would do that for me. And then you're focusing on experience. So in summary, focus on value, focus on profit, and focus on the experience.

I love that. Such great questions to get you thinking and looking at your business through a slightly different lens. You know, it reminds me of a question set that Frank Kern has and what he talks about is it lists your price on the top left hand side of the page, you know, and then what you, what you try to go through is an exercise where you say, if I were to, if I could only get if every single one of my clients got a result, right? And that's the only way I got paid, what type of client would I choose, right? So I only got paid based on results. Because many times in coaching and things like that, we get paid up front and then the onus is on us and them to receive the delivery. But imagine that we only got paid upon completion or halfway through going through your program. How would you choose your client differently?

I'd be more selective on my clients, for sure.

Yeah, exactly. So why not just start there? Because then these people, people they're getting 10 times the value because they're actually going through the process and getting a huge roi. So it brings me back to that set of questions that Frank Kern asked. I love this reframing. I'm going to definitely ask myself this. We have a cohort of about 50 people that are starting next week, and that's the question we've been asking our team is like our quarter. This quarter is focused on experience, which is not acquisition. We're not focused on how do we acquire new clients right now. We're focused on how do we create the most amazing experience for these 50 people that have, you know, entrusted us with their future. And what I've discovered is that oftentimes the extra mile is just an inch. So what, we think we can deliver 10 times more value without spending 10 times more time or 10 times more money to create that value for people, if you know what their values are and the things that are going to move the needle for them and getting the outcome. So, yes, I love this. Thank you for sharing.

Yeah. What I've done in both, like in. And I use. Try to use similar ones, but the concept is the same, but I want and use different ones for the different companies. So for Limitless md, my high performance coaching for. For doctors, I said, what we want to be the Four Season. What's the Four Seasons way we can treat our clients right? And then Viking is like, what's the Ritz Carlton way? So either way, it's essentially like how they make you feel. Yes, you're paying a little bit more premium to go there, but it's more than that. There are people. You pay premium and you don't get that same experience regardless. So it's. How do you. How do they. They make you feel a certain way where it's like, man, this. I just feel so respected, taken care of, like, I feel nurtured. That's what we're trying to create. And that will help with, you know, obviously your brand, your value, your product, your reviews, your. Your raving fans. So maybe naming that whole, whatever, there's White Glove, whatever that you want to call it, but creating that, that moniker, that name, it creates that identity now for your team. So sometimes when I. When we don't hit that goal, I'm like, hey, that's. That was not. That was not Four Seasons. And now we're like, oh, okay, I get it. Yeah.

Yeah, that's such great advice. You know, certain. Certain organizations pride themselves on that. And I know the Ritz Carlson Carlton, each employee has A certain budget to with that they don't have to get any permission. They can just act on their own volition to create that unique user experience for people. So is that something that you give your, your team members permission to do as well?

We're not there at the budget part yet, but the concept is there. Yeah, I like the budget idea. I mean, you know, I think as we grow that's not a bad idea as well. So.

Yeah, yeah. And again, it doesn't have to be an expensive thing. Right. But it, and it could just be that simple lever that you pull that makes that difference. So Bikram. Thank you. This has been so enlightening. I love listening to you speak because I can tell you've read a ton of books, you've got some amazing mentors in your life. You've really explored the heights and depths of what it means to be human and unlock your potential. So this has been very inspiring to me and I'm excited to see where the next few years take you. So I'd love to wrap things up by having you share. What does the next three to five years look like for you? What's the vision that you have outlined?

I'm just excited of where we are right now. And as entrepreneur we always look thinking forward and I have three year, five year, ten year visions and it's really just scaling up what I'm doing now. And then I really want to go back to bringing the health and wellness online, but I'm excited about doing it in a different way. When I was a cardiologist, I was trying to take care of sick patients who had cardiometabolic disease in functional medicine. I wanted to help reverse them and stabilize them. But I'm climbing Mount Kilimanjar in about six weeks. I went through a, a huge body transformation program where, you know, I achieve like certain metrics and so I'm, I wear aura ring. You know, I'm a big fan of as you are of like, you know, Dave Asprey and Ben Greenfield. So I really want to talk about human optimization and like, you know, like ultimate vitality. That's where really I want to take, you know, and if I can combine the health, the wealth, you know, and the mindset in one kind of offering, one day, that would be it. So I have all these cool parallel companies, but at some point maybe coalescing them into one thing would be cool.

I love that it like a whole institute of human development. Right. Achieve like mastery in all areas that are important in life.

Right. So. But yeah. Blessed and grateful man. And thank you for all your all of your role in doing this.

It's my humble honor and pleasure to play any part in your success. So thank you for sharing and I love for you to share with our audience where people can learn more about the work that you're doing. If they're interested in connecting with you or following you, where can they reach you best?

Sure. I'm on Instagram and LinkedIn, but my website for sort of my coaching is vikramria.com that's v I k r a m r a y a dot com. And then my site for real estate and investing and creating wealth is Viking.

All right, awesome. We'll be sure to share those notes, share those links in the notes with everyone. And once again, thank you. I know you have a hard stop, so I want to honor your time because you're a busy man, but I want to once again, thank you for sharing your wisdom and knowledge with us.

Thank you, my friend. Good to see you.

Likewise. Have an amazing, amazing rest of your day.

Sam.