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The Transparent Podcast
The Transparent Podcast
Dr. Shweta Patel: From Physician to Digital Health Entrepreneur
Dr. Shweta Patel joins The Transparent Podcast to share her insights on the medical field, the pros and cons of being a medical doctor, and her journey into entrepreneurship with Gaya Wellness. Join our conversation about starting a company, the medical field and what it takes to succeed in business!
Hi, my name is Nick Ford and I'm the host of the Transparent Podcast, where we believe in bringing transparency to the world of small business, and this week I'm joined by a guest, dr Patel. Dr Patel, I'll let you introduce yourself.
Speaker 2:Hi, yeah, thank you so much again for having me, nick. So my name is Dr Shwetha Patel. I am, by profession, an OBGYN, and I am also the founder of Gaia Wellness, which is a startup that provides virtual first healthcare to women, and we launched Gaia Wellness in the summer of 2022.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to be on the podcast. As you know, I started Transparent Staffing back in January of 2021. And our biggest niche has been in the healthcare industry, and so I'm very, very excited to talk with you about your business. And then we'd love to get a little backstory on what inspired you to go into medicine as an OB-GYN and then to start Guy Wellness.
Speaker 2:Sure, I hate to sound a little generic, but I was one of those Indian kids that was like I think I'm going to be a doctor when I grow up. And yeah, I mean, I never really deviated too far from that, and so it was just a matter of when I finally got into medical school, realizing that it was fortunately the right decision and not just something that I was kind of trained to do growing up. But no, I just I always enjoyed the biological sciences, and definitely not somebody who cared for math or engineering, definitely not somebody who cared for math or engineering. Um, and so that's sort of what led me into medicine. But what led me into the women's health side, um, ironically, it was the one thing.
Speaker 2:When I started med school, I was like I don't know what I want to do as a doctor, but I know what I don't want to do, and that is look at vaginas all day. Um, so never say never, uh, because, yeah, three years into it, um, we were supposed to be doing our rotations through all of the subspecialties so we can figure out what we want to do when we grow up and apply to the appropriate residencies, and I actually left my OBGYN rotation to the very end, thinking it was going to be one of those things that I just sort of blow off.
Speaker 2:Um you know the stuff you want to do, you do it upfront in the year so you can kind of make connections and be memorable to the people that count when it comes to applying for residencies. And so I finally, at the end of the year, got to OBGYN, thinking I'm going to either be a surgeon or I'm going to be an ER doctor, thinking I'm going to either be a surgeon or I'm going to be an ER doctor. And I got to my OB rotation and I was like, wait a second, this field has both. What the hell? And so, yeah, I I think it was like the moment was actually when I was on top of a woman on her bed with my hand between her legs trying to hold her baby's head off of its umbilical cord, and I was taking a ride down the hospital floor because we were rushing her to the OR and even though I was just a medical school, a medical student at the time, which is exactly the only person that can really do that job, because everybody else that's important has to actually do the surgery only person that can really do that job, because everybody else that's important has to actually do the surgery.
Speaker 2:And so here I am on the bed, riding with this woman to the operating room and the adrenaline rush of even being in that insignificant role was just like, oh my God, I love this. So fast forward. I was like, yeah, this is what I want to do. I get to be with women in all stages of their life as their partner in health, and I also want to do. I get to, I get to be with women in all stages of their life as their um, you know, there's their partner in health and I also get to operate and I get to have that little bit of the adrenaline junkie rush of an emergency settings.
Speaker 2:So it was fortunately a good fit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, can you, um, tell us a little bit more about you know, as far as OBGYN, I think a lot of people think about the first thing that you talked about, but there's two sides to it. So can you describe to us the difference between, uh, ob and gen, because there's the outpatient and inpatient delivery and stuff? Can you educate people who are not familiar with that?
Speaker 2:sure, absolutely and actually, um, you're so right. Uh, and there is that element like an ob-GYN is typically considered to be like the glorified stork we deliver babies. We're Dr Huxtable Maybe not the best reference, but we do the obstetrical care as an outpatient doctor and inpatient when it comes to delivering them in the hospital and doing C-sections. But then there's a whole gynecologic side of it which is taking care of a woman's health when it's regarding her reproductive side, but also things like menopause, hormonal balance surgeries, like hysterectomies, preventative screening, like breast health, and really a lot of OBGYNs have started becoming a little bit more full scale or scope. I can say I know I personally practice beyond, just like the, you know, pelvis, and so I like to be like the one-stop shop for my patients, and so I do practice regular medicine as well, as you know, like managing their cardiovascular health, managing their GI health. It's not just managing the reproductive organs but for you know, the standard OBGYN, it's gynecologic health and surgeries as well as obstetrical care.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great. I think that's super helpful, and so I really love that you are a physician-led company and own company, and so tell us a little bit more about how you got inspired for Guy Wellness and how kind of your background as a physician has led to that.
Speaker 2:Sure has led to that Sure.
Speaker 2:I think that my background as a physician- actually was probably one of the biggest obstacles in running a company Not running a healthcare company, but running a company and it's common knowledge that physicians aren't always the greatest or most well-versed when it comes to things like finances and business.
Speaker 2:We generate revenue, but we don't know how to handle it or grow it oftentimes, and so it definitely I do think that we are at a disadvantage when it comes to our training being very much just about the art and science and not the math and engineering of medicine, and so, in that regard, I do think that it was a bit of a challenge to open up my own company and to start to try and grow it and then scale. What I think is probably helpful is that I just come from an entrepreneurial spirited family and we have always been around some sort of business. Industry, and particularly real estate, has been the area that I've been involved in before, so I knew at least some of the fundamentals of you know how to survive and make more and spend less. Therefore, you shall not fail, at least.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I think that that's kind of what inspired the confidence to start at least.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, my background you know, I was, I feel, fortunate every day that I had my grandfather, who he owned and ran a company he had about 300 employees with a life insurance company, and just being able to look to him as a not only a mentor and giving me practical advice, but also just a kind of inspirational, kind of like hey, this is possible. I had a podcast with him and I told him that he was like, oh yeah, you look at me and think this guy did it. I could do it, like it's real to you.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And, uh, I, I love that you have. You know, you had that too, and I also have a passion for real estate as an aside, Um, I think that it's a great way to build long-term wealth and um having a another stream of of income and that and that kind of thing. But as far as Gaia Wellness, where are y'all at in the process now? I know you started in 2022, but kind of, what does your team consist of and what are you working on right now?
Speaker 2:Sure. So the backstory about how Gaia came about was actually being a traditional physician that like was employed by a hospital system. I think you know we got and I might be generalizing, but I do think that I speak for a lot of physicians when I say it's very easy to get comfortable with the day in and day out job and making money and not recognizing how much you are spending of your time and energy and passion really to earn that money. There's really not a good way to quantify whether it's worth it. We just chase that carrot of like oh, you've got a six figure income or a seven figure income, that's great, but the for a lot of people, a lot of physicians, the amount of time lost away from family, the time lost away from personal health, is very compromising. For me, it was more about the time that I felt like I was no longer able to give my patients. The irony that the reason I couldn't give my patients time was because I was too busy being a current day doctor, which does not really involve being a physician. It involves doing a lot of administrative BS and not really as much caretaking.
Speaker 2:So that's kind of what led to the initial seed. And then, of course, as like any good business story, covid happened, and that's where I got the extra motivation, because COVID definitely shed light on a lot of what the healthcare system can become, can we become when there is a significant financial compromise. And so we started using telemedicine in my old job because we couldn't see patients in person and women's health virtually is not really. Most people think it's like how does that work? How do you even do that? Right, so it's not a common area area, whereas other areas in medicine definitely were more adaptive to virtual health. Um, so when we did start using it and I realized that it was effective, I wanted to continue doing it, um, but was directly told to not, because it was not as financially, uh, incentivized you couldn't do the same exactly there you go, um.
Speaker 2:It wasn't worth it to corporate medicine to continue offering virtual health, even if it made more sense and was better for patients yeah and so that's when I went my separate way and started a company that would allow for me to do it on my terms, and at that time it was founder is CEO is employee, is front desk, is the you know, that's where I'm at, yeah exactly, and you know it was.
Speaker 2:It was embarrassing to be like, oh yeah, I have a company and it's like, well, I mean, the word literally means more than yourself, or you know, you're not alone, you're in company with someone.
Speaker 2:But it was, it was a, it was a one man show and it's taken some time to actually be proud of that.
Speaker 2:I think that there is a little bit of that sense of you're not there yet because you obviously don't have a working force or workforce rather. But that was three years ago and even to today I actually have no employees on W2 level. That's because it the goal is to grow the company at whatever, you know, uh, shape and form that is for its vision, um, not necessarily to make it look a certain way from the outside, and it doesn't make financial sense to hire full-time employees for a company that is still growing. So I've always maintained contractor positions and or, you know, like doing freelancers or part-time, and I've always used remote work instead of having, like a physical location for employees to come and, you know, do their office or administrative tasks. Um, and it's worked for us because, you know, I'm able to be more adaptive and lean and uh put any kind of revenue that we earn right back into the company, which is why we're still growing and bootstrapped without any single investor dollar, and we're thriving. We're growing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I don't think it's something to be not proud of at all. I think that you know the ability to as an entrepreneur, the ability to have the ability to generate revenue and be able to have someone trust you to pay you to do a service as a doctor. For me, as a recruiter, I've been mostly a solo entrepreneur, like you. Since I started, I have had a couple of full-time employees Now I currently have one full-time employee and then 1099 contractors like you've had and I don't think that that's you know.
Speaker 1:Every business looks differently and the ability to work for yourself and be able to practice medicine the way that you want to Um, everyone can see in the healthcare industry, specifically the um. There's pros and cons to everything that you know. There's pros to where you're for a big system that has everything built out and you can just go in and practice medicine and then hopefully, you have an admin team to handle the rest of it for you and all you have to do is practice medicine. On the flip side, like I just met last week with a ear, nose and throat physician who needs help with recruiting and he is he's tired of running the business. He doesn't want to own the business anymore. He wants to just be an ent. He wants someone else to deal with the insurance billing and the other stuff.
Speaker 1:So I think every business can look differently and it's good on this podcast to show people that there's not a cookie cutter mold to entrepreneurship. You can approach it from different ways and I think you're doing a good job of being able to outsource things to 1099. And then to you know use. I know we talked about AI and so when, when you're implementing new things, you know you're making the decision pretty much on your own. Right now it sounds like so how do you decide whether to bring in a new 1099 or to handle it yourself, or to bring and use ai and like that risk because, like for me, ai, there's risks involved with, like my brand or if it, is it going to get the job done correctly or might have to go fix it or so how do you, how do you approach that decision making process?
Speaker 2:um, it's actually, oh my gosh, it's such a good question. You have a lot of conversations with yourself and it's the same of is this worth my time to do myself, or could I be using my time better elsewhere and hiring somebody to do this task or do this or serve this function? And I think that there are two parts to that answer. I think and I share this from one of the books that I like, just absolutely one of my favorite books in business, the E-Myths and the E-Myth Square like. Have you heard of that book from?
Speaker 1:Michael Gerber.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I know Michael Gerber. I have not read the book.
Speaker 2:So one of the fundamental things that he mentions in the book is you know, you don't want to be stuck working in the business and not be able to work on the business and as that solopreneur you know set up that's so true Like, if you are, if you're a baker and you're busy baking the pies, how are you going to also run the business of the pie shop, which is, you know, involves so much more All?
Speaker 1:the job.
Speaker 2:Right, and so you have to pick and choose what will be done directly by you versus what's going to be delegated elsewhere, and I think that, as a as a solopreneur founder, all tasks should be learned by you, and then you've kind of earned the right to pass it off to someone else. Pass it off to someone else. I think that and I've learned that the hard way so many times, because you know, when you're finally like in the thick of it, you're just like I need somebody to handle this. I don't have the time when I've given that task away without knowing really what's entailed in the task. I have then not been able to identify, even if the task was done correctly.
Speaker 2:Like I've just given it to somebody else to handle and I have to kind of take their word that it was done the way I would have wanted to have done it if I knew how to do it myself. And so though not feasible for everything obviously right Like you're not going to learn how to build a house completely if you want to build a house, but it's important to know at least the steps entailed. So I think that, when it comes to having a small company that's operating very tightly with human resources and financial resources. It's important to know what you need from other people, and I think the only way you really can have a good grasp on it is to try and learn it first yourself, and then don't try to execute it. Just know it enough.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean that was one of the when I worked for larger businesses. One of the frustrating things was having a leader over me that was telling me how to do my job. That had never done my job, and then they're telling me how to do it. I'm like, dude, like I'm doing this. I'm doing really well, I understand how I'm in the weeds of the business, I know how to do it and you're telling me a strategy that literally has nothing to do with what we're doing and you haven't done this before, and so the doing it first and then being able to outsource it is really important.
Speaker 1:And another thing uh, I had another guest on this podcast that talked about when to outsource things, and so one of the things he said is like look at how much you want to make per year as an entrepreneur.
Speaker 1:Like, let's say, you want to make $300,000 a year. Calculate out what that is hourly, so divide that by 2,080 hours. So if you want to make $300,000 a year, that's $144 an hour. Look at the tasks that you need to get done each day and could you pay someone less than what you would pay yourself to do that task so that you can focus on the tasks that will be driver, new generating and then you just got to make sure you trust the person who you bring on, whether and that's another thing too that's good for people who are looking to go into entrepreneurship to know like I have a marketing person who owns her own fractional marketing company. She's a really talented director of marketing and I can outsource like building my logo or building my website or putting together a one pager. That might take me hours to do myself, but she's an expert. She can get it done in less than an hour and I could pay her her hourly rate and then go focus on my business.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So it's a good. It's a good way to reframe that and look at it.
Speaker 2:No absolutely 100%, that's, and um, I've used that definitely, especially in my personal life. It's a good way to reframe that organized, but is it the I am literally missing out on like a $200 per hour rate, spending it cleaning, um, when I can hire someone that can do it for like $50 an hour? Um, and so it's a great like litmus test to to sort of clearly remember where you could be probably spending your time best or better, um, and especially when, like you have access to things like Upwork and Fiverr and, and you know, fractional companies that are offering really kind of like a full team support, but almost at an hourly, you know structure, so that you're not taking on the financial burden of a full time team Exactly.
Speaker 1:You don't have to hire a lot of fractional man.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, because you're getting executive level support at that point, um without paying the executive employee um you know wage or um salary you have to commit to someone full-time. Like you can use it project-based or right and you can also see that I mean again it again. It's kind of like dating right, like you're finding people that you have a better likelihood of being able to get sort of turned over if they're not a good fit than if you were to hire someone 100%, yep.
Speaker 2:The other thing and you kind of mentioned it, but, like the other thing is AI for sure. Thing is AI for sure. I am now, almost like by habit, looking for an AI alternative solution before I take on any task, because it is incredible how much you can leverage AI to do so many things that would have otherwise taken money to do, even because so many of the AI tools that we have access to are really free to start with, and then you can upgrade to a paid subscription or whatnot. But, like, so much of what you need can get done using AI and for free. And so I first and foremost look to see if there is an option for me to use, and I think that that's because it does take a little bit of a skill in how you prompt AI to do what you want it to do, and that element of it does kind of play into whether it's going to be worth it or not, because if you produce, if you have AI help you with producing social media content, but it doesn't align with your brand, then there's no point you even if you got it for free, that is, that content has zero value.
Speaker 2:Um, but going back into like learning, uh, things that you want to otherwise outsource. You can hire someone who's really good with AI to then leverage AI to, you know, reduce how much work you have. You can also learn some of the fundamentals of interacting with AI to get what you want better, and so I've resorted to doing that, where I literally took classes and courses and did webinars on using ChatGPT and working with things like open source playgrounds, where you can create, uh, specialized chatbots and um and again, by the way, I'm remember me, I'm the same ob-gyn who, like, delivers babies and two years ago, if you'd asked me what ai was, I literally did not know what chat gpt was two years ago me either, and uh, I can't imagine uh life right now without using it at this point, you're using it more than I am.
Speaker 1:I don't know, I use it. I definitely use ChatGPT, but trusting it with certain things, that's a scaling challenge for me. How do I scale? I've hired a full-time employee. Matt is on my team now. He's doing a phenomenal job.
Speaker 1:I couldn't ask for him to have taken have taken off running faster. He just started in november, but you know, we've been friends for 10 years and he's been hearing about transparent staffing this entire time and been excited about it. So he's almost been like a consultant uh, just bystander that's now been able to just come in and run. But like scaling like me and matt's trying to scale now uh, ai is just talked about by everyone right now and there's so many different tools that a lot of them are tied to chat gpt on the back end. But knowing what to implement like what is what is worth my time, my money to put in, and so that's what I'm going through right now is like how to scale. Do I hire someone, do I wait and maybe implement AI, or do I just keep handling that myself? So what challenges are you having with that? I know it sounds like. I'd love to hear more about how you are like practically using AI, like what you're using it for.
Speaker 2:God, I sometimes joke that I'm in a relationship with chat. I don't even call them GPT anymore. More about how you are like practically using ai, like what you're using it for. God, I sometimes uh, joke that I'm in a relationship with chat. I don't even call him gbt anymore, it's just chat. We're that, we're that steady. Um, so how am I?
Speaker 1:using ai. How am I exclusive? You have an exclusive partnership with yeah, yeah, he's, I don't and also, by the way, my chat's a male, I don't.
Speaker 2:And also, by the way, my chats is male. I don't know if you notice, I don't know if he knows that, but yeah, no, so one ChatGPT so that I can get that level of specificity and brand voice out. And it's actually not as difficult as it may sound, but it's kind of like when you buy a fancy new toy and then you're using it for two percent of what its capabilities are, because the rest of it feels just too complex and, um, almost overwhelming, and I think a lot of people feel that way about ai.
Speaker 2:It's like, oh, yeah, yeah, I can do everything ai is supposed to be able to like even fold my laundry and stuff, you know but, um, right now all you're really doing is kind of interacting with it Like it's a Google search on steroids, and that's definitely not milking it for what it's good for, um, and so, uh, I use AI for or I use like at least, um, I use chat GPT for content generation. For content generation, I am also using AI, like OpenAI, as a sort of playground to build agents, and what an agent is is like the agent is actually. So, for instance, chat GPT is kind of just like a screen with a brain. It has no hands. It can't do tasks. It can tell you how tasks are done, it can describe them, it can create a roadmap for you, but it can't do them. It can also create social media content for you, but it can't generate the actual, like art graphic, right.
Speaker 2:So in order to give an AI platform the ability to actually do tasks, you have to build that agent.
Speaker 2:The agent is the one that has the brain, like ChatGPT, but also has tools that it can then use to create content or create digital products or perform tasks within the digital world.
Speaker 2:And that means, instead of just saying, hey, chazgpt, write me an email that is going to promote this new product that I'm doing.
Speaker 2:It will actually generate the email content, but then also able to it's able to put it into an email in your email box as a draft and then also send it out to all of your contacts. That is the difference between an AI agent versus the just plain old chat, and the way we're leveraging that capability in Gaia is that we're using AI to actually help patients figure out what kinds of services they need, and then also the next step from that would be helping them book the actual service, and then from that next step would be segmenting that patient into the right kinds of nurturing journeys afterwards so that they are constantly given the opportunity to come back into the fold of our funnels and find other products or services that they might find beneficial to improve their health. So it's almost like taking a CRM and chat GPT and a virtual assistant and having them have like a technical orgy, and now suddenly you've got this new thing that can do all of the things those three things did independently.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean you're using it a lot more effectively than I am.
Speaker 1:I can tell you that I I have used chat GPT, but moving to the agent level or paying a company to that has built, because there's companies that are offering that they've already built agent, they can have it go. They can use ChatGPT on the back end to go do tasks for you, and that is where my hesitation is. I haven't taken that leap yet. But we do use it to help with job post writing and to look at we have used it for some content generation. I think that the people who learn how to prompt it and use it effectively and there's a big fear of replacement that's going to eliminate jobs and there are probably some jobs that will eliminate more like just mundane task-type jobs. But I think for most people the biggest impact it's going to have is it's another tool in the tool belt. It's going to be the people who are able to use it effectively and can utilize it as a tool and make their job more efficient is really where it's going to have a big impact.
Speaker 2:Agreed and I think for every job that it might create obsolution, for it's going to then create six new jobs that require human interaction, then create six new jobs that require human interaction. And so, like the, the fear is there and I think that's probably because there's some really good movies that show that kind of doomsday happening, and so you know.
Speaker 2:But then there's also yeah right, but I'm like, oh, there's also really good movies that show like zombie apocalypses and we're not worried about that as badly. So you know we can. We can probably give it the benefit of the doubt that AI is probably not going to kick us off the planet and take over. But with that said, it's yeah well. So, especially for your listeners who are, you know, kind of perhaps in the same position where you're at, you can actually hire someone to create a very fundamental AI agent that can then be like actually helpful in reducing your tasks, not just like the intelligence part of creating content, but like actually implementing, so that you have less work to do and that you have less people to hire to do that work. You can have something like that made, and under $100. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I think that, just like kind of going on Fiverr and finding the right team or the right gig, is worth the investment because it can definitely alleviate um hiring somebody as a part-time or even on an hourly rate to do that task for you. Ongoing.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, switching gears a little bit. Um, as far as like, in business, we're talking about entrepreneurs, and now we're both entrepreneurs and I love listening to motivational speakers, to people who kind of like get you fired up to, like want to go tackle the project or, you know, inspire you to go start a business. And some of those people that I've listened to are like you know. There's one, his name is Earl Nightingale, and he's like a Tony Robbins of another era. And there's another one, art Williams, and he has this speech about just going out and doing it like the people who succeed are the ones who, like you know, go work and have the work ethic and keep moving and persevering towards, you know, that goal. And, uh, another one I listened to recently.
Speaker 1:I'm a big tennis fan and I play tennis myself and I love my. To me, the goat of tennis is Roger Federer. He's just like class act. He's just he had all the tools in the tool belt and also was just respectful and like kind of the ideal to look, oh yeah, he was like that ideal to look to for kids, like he just was a class act.
Speaker 1:But he, he gave this commencement speech and he was talking about, um, what percent of points he won and what percent of matches he won. And Roger Federer only won 54% of the points that he played in, but he won 80% of the matches that he played in. And he talked about the, the. The importance was to learn from the points that he he lost, but not let them drag him down, and to move forward, and then that what really mattered was winning the right points. And so what do you think, when you look at like other entrepreneurs and when you're kind of self-reflecting on how to be successful, what do you think separates the people who because a lot of businesses don't, unfortunately, work out, they end up failing, but what do you think kind of lends itself to succeeding, versus the people who you know get dragged down by defeat or, you know, let the failures drag them down and don't succeed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, if I'm being honest, like this has been something that I recently sort of changed my outlook on um, because I definitely very competitive growing up and you know if, if there was a top score or a number one place, like nothing would count unless it was that right, like achieving that, not second or last right, yeah, exactly, um, and so for me, that has been such a shift because now the way I see it is, in order to truly have that, what it takes to to stay the long haul is to not look at it as success and failure, but to look at it as just performance, and to constantly just perform better than you did before, and even if that means that you are. If you did not have a good outcome, then now you just have a new benchmark of what you need to do better for. It's not a failure, it's just another position from where to start again. And rather than because, especially for someone like me who, like, is constantly looking for what's next, what's next If I actually get to what's next, what's next? Like, if I actually get to what's next the very top, I'd probably be so depressed I'd probably want to kill myself. So, like it's, like I would want to never really look for the end goal, because then what's what's left right? The joy is in the actual challenge and the day-to-day of accomplishing and and, if not accomplishing, then learning what was it that did not work?
Speaker 2:And then reiterating, and I think that that has probably been what's most. What has been most helpful to me with Gaia is that in the past, in other past business endeavors, if it had not succeeded by a certain timeframe, I would lose interest or I would become kind of jaded that it wasn't going to happen and that would within and of itself lead to almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy of the not wanting to put any more energy into a concept or a business plan. And with that it's always just been kind of like no, it's stopping or considering failure isn't an option. It's just reiterate, pivot, recalculate your route, whatever it is, it's just not going to be that this is where the buck stops rolling. And so not seeing things as like when I get to this point, I'll be successful, and also not seeing things as if I ever get here, then I failed, and just instead focusing on like what's the immediate next step and have we done better than we've been doing before?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't know if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that and I think one of the things that, for me, that is the most successful. People have goals, they're working towards something. They I think that having that motivation to work toward a goal and it's kind of the I have to and then you can. There's a. There's a bad part of that where, like, if you don't hit that goal, then you're defeated and it's like, okay, well then I can. There's a bad part of that where, like, if you don't hit that goal, then you're defeated and it's like, okay, well then I failed, but there's a. I like the phrase of like, shoot for the moon and you'll end up among the stars. Like, if you have that high goal, it's not a failure. You didn't hit, you still ended up higher than you would have if you hadn't worked toward anything. Would have if you hadn't worked toward anything. And, uh, I love you talking about that of like, being able to pivot and being able to like, not just look at it as a success or failure, comparing yourself to other people. Um, I love this. Uh, I think it was an oscar speech that matthew mcconaughey gave oh, I love that man he, I mean all right all
Speaker 2:right, I know from his failure to launch days. He's just turned like, not turned into, but he's revealed himself to be such an introspective and very enlightened man.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, and he gives. You have to listen to the speech he gives, but he talks about how someone asked him who he looks up to. And he talks about that he looks up to God and that that's who he works toward. But that someone asked him when he was 15, like, have you reached success yet? And they asked him, like, who's your hero? And he said he had to think about that. And then, when he was 25, he had said that he looked up to himself in 10 years and so he's talking about how he's competing with himself, he's working toward being who he's going to be in 10 years and that's who he looks up to. And so I think, as an entrepreneur, that's super important. Like, look back at where you were a year ago and look back and think like, wow, look, how far I've come. And like competing with yourself and having goals for yourself. Not like if me and you looked at Google and we're like, oh man, I'm not a billion-dollar company yet I haven't made it.
Speaker 2:I don't have a wiki page yet.
Speaker 1:That's not what success is and being able to work for yourself is such an empowering thing. To be able to compete with yourself and keep working toward goals, like for me. I think the things I really look at are having goals, working toward them, knowing what success looks like for you, and not getting caught up on the failures and fall forward when you do fail, learn something from it and move forward quickly.
Speaker 1:Be like a duck and let it run off your back and keep going forward so you like a swan class it on the surface, but you're, you know exactly. Yeah, exactly, that's funny. That's a good one too, Um, and so you know as far as how your time's most value is spent in the business. We've talked a good amount about that. That's an evolving thing, right, Would you say?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I think that it has to be, because when something needs to get done and you're a solopreneur with part-time or 1099 members on your team, it doesn't, it's not like your job, just is what you do, like you're it for your company, and so at the end of the day, you have to kind of take off one hat and put out another and make sure that something gets done so that you're, you continue to be around.
Speaker 2:You know like that's. And I think one of the important takeaways as a small business is, hey, you just still being there is a huge accomplishment, because so many businesses just straight out of the gates are, you know, quick to then fail and shut down and so take some and shut down and so take some. You know, uh, accomplishment or pride in that that you are still there, you're still creating something, you're still working towards something. You didn't just stop and disappear into the cemetery of several thousands of small businesses that tried to become big. Yeah, um, and yeah that you got to do whatever you have to do to stay there still.
Speaker 1:I think, yeah, perseverance and tenacity are big. There's another quote that I really like that's we're all standing in our own acre of diamonds and so many people stop digging right before they hit the diamond because they give up right when they're. You see that there's a picture that I can see in my head of like a diamond, like a guy with a pickaxe and he's digging a tunnel and he's like dug so far and he's like just right before he's about to hit the diamond, exactly yeah so it's just keep, keep working toward it.
Speaker 1:Well, so you know, as far as people who are listening to this podcast that are thinking about I call, call it entrepreneurs they're there, they want to get into entrepreneurship and haven't done it yet. What kind of closing you know wisdom would you share with them to kind of inspire them?
Speaker 2:Sure. So you know. Do you know how bamboo trees grow?
Speaker 1:Act like I don't. I don't know if I do.
Speaker 2:So I mean, I don't even, I don't even remember the whole uh analogy perfectly, but the the way bamboo grows is that for the first several years of planting it, it's growing downwards into the ground, um, and expanding its roots, and, uh, really, most of its resources go towards the development of that foundation, and then so you don't see anything on the outside you're just like this thing is obviously not growing, you suck at it.
Speaker 2:You're a horrible, you know gardener just give up on it and then when it finally does take off like you can't make bamboo stop growing for your life. It grows so quickly once it does. And so that is so much like small business and startups. So much of your time and energy and money will go into the development of the foundation. That will not show for anything in any kind of KPI that is measurable to the outside world and sometimes not most times not even to you, because we're our harshest critic, right so that. But you have to remember that it's the necessary, you know buy-in to your own success and once you get there, then things will take off like the way you see it in everybody else and what you see on social media of people that are succeeding, and it's like you're going to get there. It's just not going to be exponential in the first phases of development. So don't give up because you're you know all the energy you're putting is not for nothing.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, and I love that I love that analogy, the.
Speaker 1:I love that analogy of bamboo. There's some like it's. It's the same thing with like construction, like you'll. There's so much work that goes into a project to build like a building. That's foundational, yeah, because you have to have the solid foundation before the building and then the building goes up in like a week right, exactly like you're driving and you're like what, when do they put a house on this street?
Speaker 2:and suddenly, because the part that is visible to others is usually not the most time consuming, and you know, but the part that's not visible to others is, ironically, usually the most critical to be done correctly. And that's part of being an entrepreneur, right Like you have to have that grit to stick it out while you're not seeing the results of your labor for a very long time.
Speaker 1:That's great. Well, what? What closing? What should we know about Gaia Wellness? What should we know about Dr Patel?
Speaker 2:For Gaia Wellness, I would love for your audience to check out our platform, gaiawellnessorg. G-a-y-a wellness and I. You know, our vision is to transform how women are taken care of and transform the experience into an empowering one, and so I would just love for everyone to scope it out, spread the word that virtual healthcare is available for women soon, at any time and from anywhere. And as far as about me, I am just like everybody that is probably listening. I'm a doctor who did not know how to do any coding or build websites or know anything about Zapier, and I do now, and I think that that's the growth that is required to have your company grow and survive and then thrive, and so if I can do it, you better believe you guys can do it. So stick it out, put in the effort and you'll get there.
Speaker 1:I love that. Yeah, and I just on my side, reiterate you don't have to have it all figured out at the beginning. You are going to figure it out along the way and just keep persevering and working toward. You know that mission you have.
Speaker 2:Cheers to that.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time today, dr Patel. I appreciate it and uh, we'll leave a link to uh guy wellnessorg here in the comments, and thank you again for your time.