Investing In Yourself

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The difference between people who invest in themselves... and people who just whine.

Believe me when I say this; there's an endless list of doctors who "say" they want to make more money, improve their website rankings, revise their staff training or improve their customer service... but never actually DO ANYTHING to get there?

Here's a simple litmus test: If you say you want something but haven't done any systematic work to achieve your goal in the last 14 days, you're deluding yourself. Really.

If you want to get something done your choice is actually very simple; (1) start taking action or (2) acknowledge that your goal really isn't that important to you, and give up.

Of course both of these options are perfectly viable choices. There's nothing wrong with making a coherent decision to give up on something that you decide is actually not that important or that the opportunity cost is too high. For example, I used to kill myself to try and answer my phone or return phone calls immediately (or within an hour) — that was my goal. After a while,  I was just unable to keep up with that schedule and it became more of a distraction. So I gave up on it. If someone calls me now it will almost certainly go to voice mail and I'll get back when I can. It's a huge weight off of my shoulders and removes a constant distraction. (In fact, my voice mail says to leave a message only 'if it's important". That one change makes everyone who calls me self-censor and has cut my vm messages by 90%. But I digress...)

The point? Give up on whatever you're not going to

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Break Your Ideas In Half

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This video isn't about medical spas or even medicine, but it's right on target with it's message about cutting all of your ideas in half and getting the basics of your business running well.

Jason Fried is the founder and CEO of a company called 37 Signals that makes business software for things like project management and customer relationships. They've had a lot of success and have a large following among techies.

Freelance MD - The Cure For The Common Physician?

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Freelance MD is a new physician-only community for doctors that are looking outside of clinical practice.

We've started a new sister-site of sorts to Medial Spa MD... Freelance MD.

Freelance MD is an active community of physicians that gives you greater control of your medical practice, income, and lifestyle, even if you’re clueless about where to begin and you’re already working 80 hour weeks.

Freelance will cover a host of topics that don't really fit that well into Medical Spa MD like nonclinical medical careers, consulting for industry, wealth management and real estate investing for physicians.

Here's what one of the other founders, Greg Bledsoe MD, posted about Freelance MD and why we started it.

Now that our new community is up and running, I'm already being asked, "What is Freelance MD?"

Great question.

Freelance MD is a physician community site that was borne out of necessity. Physicians today are looking for ways to expand their careers and there is a dearth of honest, practical information for them to access.

I should know.

I am an Emergency Medicine physician who has practiced clinical medicine since I graduated from my residency in 2002. My career has had many twists and turns, but five years ago I set out on a personal journey. My quest was to build a career that was enjoyable, flexible, fun, and still covered my financial obligations. The question was, where do I start? How do I design a career like this? Were there others in medicine who were attempting to do the same thing and if so, where could I find these individuals and how could I learn from them?

I spent countless hours on the internet looking for answers. I spoke to colleagues, went to conferences, read books, interviewed friends in other careers, and still came up lacking. After months of searching, what I found was that there was no hub for physicians like me, no real place to begin. I was overwhelmed, not only because of my narrow medical training, but also because I didn't even know what questions I should be asking. I was concerned about purchasing products I did not need, or signing on for services that didn't work. I needed direction and a mentor, but when I looked around I didn't find anything but murkiness.

Over the course of the past five years I have spent literally thousands of hours developing the idea that has resulted in our Medical Fusion Conference and now Freelance MD .

The idea is to provide physicians with cutting edge information on everything they need to broaden their careers and make their lives more manageable. Our hope is that Freelance MD can become a resource for physicians looking for answers on anything from entrepreneurship to clinical practice management to investments to nonclinical careers and everything in between. 

In order for us to provide the best information, we had to assemble the best team to speak on the subjects about which physicians were interested in learning. Take a moment and review the bios of our authors. This group is an incredibly talented bunch who are passionate about teaching their skills to interested medical professionals.  We've assembled this group from word of mouth recommendations from trusted friends and colleagues, and we're excited about what they'll be teaching all of us on Freelance MD. What's even better is that even more authors are coming on board in the near future to add even more depth to Freelance MD.

In short, if you're a physician like me who is eager to expand their career, or simply a curious person who loves to continue learning, FreelanceMD is the community website for you. Our goal is to provide teaching and mentoring-- physician to physician-- to those who want to continue growing.  

So take a moment and check us out. Comment on our posts and recommend us to a friend. Together as physicians, we'll lock arms and begin moving forward together. It's going to be a lot of fun, and we'd really enjoy including you on the journey.