The End Game Podcast

Why Patience and Perseverance Pay Off

February 24, 2023 info Endgame Season 1 Episode 2
The End Game Podcast
Why Patience and Perseverance Pay Off
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Show Notes Transcript

Are you ready to learn from a successful entrepreneur on how to make patience and perseverance pay off? In this episode, Dr. Ryan interviews Dr. Chris Seitz, CEO of Guardian MD, as they discuss the journey to becoming an entrepreneur, the mindset shift needed to transition from employee physician to CEO, and the story behind Guardian MD.

Dr. Chris shares his insights on the fun of being an entrepreneur, the importance of self-care, and how social media algorithms can affect a CEO's decision-making process. He also emphasizes the importance of having the right mindset and seeking mentorship.

Tune in to this episode to learn from Dr. Chris's experience and listen as he shares his personal powerful story. If you are an aspiring entrepreneur, you won't want to miss this episode on why patience and perseverance pay off.

00:00 - Highlight
01:03 - Introduction
04:15 - What led Dr. Chris to become an Entrepreneur
08:33 - Mindset Shift: Transitioning from Employee Physician to an Entrepreneur/CEO
13:01 - Introducing Dr. Chris' company: Guardian MD
16:01 - The journey to reaching Guardian MD's goal
18:34 - The fun of being an Entrepreneur
21:12 - Self-Care: The best thing you can do for your business
24:17 - Social Media Algorithm and its effect on Dr. Chris as a CEO
25:59 - Importance of Having the Right Mindset
27:33 - The one thing that Dr. Chris didn't know that he didn't know
31:59 - Being "Interested" than "Interesting - a David Meltzer quote
33:23 - Why Being Patient Pays Off
35:20 - The Importance of Finding yourself a Mentor
38:00 - The quote that resonates with Dr. Chris: "Beware the Fury of a Patient Man," from Ryan Holiday's book - Discipline is Destiny 

Connect with Dr. Chris Seitz

Website: https://guardianmedicaldirection.com/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/GuardianTestPrep
Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4605k4Hdg5AQGUBYjuNeXd?si=ed2bc4e66e3b4c68

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Dr Chris:

Part of our journey is, is like I said, finding like you as a mentor and things like that, right? Like you have to surround yourself with the people who can challenge you and encourage you and like all those things and just, you know, like even sometimes just be there for it. Like, I feel like sometimes you and I like, we'll get on our weekly call and I'll like just talk for 30 minutes. You won't say a word and I'm like, man, thanks so much. That was great. I I, I got clear picture now. And like, it just because you're just there, right? Like you're just there to hear it and absorb it and let, and be a sounding board and let me work through it. So like, finding those people, like, it's, it's invaluable as well. And again, that's part around being curious, like find a bunch of'em, ask random people, Hey, can I like call you once a week and ask you questions about X, Y, or Z? They're probably say yes, right? I mean, like, honestly like, like get weird about it a little bit. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that, you know?

Dr Ryan:

Well, I love that one. Get weird about it. Yeah,

Dr Chris:

exactly. Exactly. That should be your slogan. Yeah, that's my motto right there.

Dr Ryan:

Welcome to the Endgame Podcast, where I bet you didn't know, what you didn't know. I'm Dr. Ryan Wakeham, successful entrepreneur and your end game coach. I am here to present to you a special guest, one that I've been working with hand in hand for a little over a year now. So I'm super excited about today's podcast. Sit back, relax, and tune in as I speak with one of our first and personally favorite guests. On the Endgame podcast please welcome Dr. Chris Seitz. Dr. Seitz, welcome to the the podcast.

Dr Chris:

Welcome. Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. And like I said, one of your favorites, I mean, it is a high honor already. I gotta live up to that now, so.

Dr Ryan:

Well, this is the second podcast, so a favorite.

Dr Chris:

Perfect. Alright.

Dr Ryan:

One out of two

Dr Chris:

All right. Humbled me right off the bat, you know, there's only two of us. Okay, fair enough, fair enough. So, no, no, but it's a pleasure. Like I said, thank you so much for for inviting me here. I'm excited to, excited to jump in.

Dr Ryan:

Yeah. I really wanted to take today to highlight you know, what, you know, what you've been working on, who you've become. I think you know, having met you a little over 12 months ago It's been incredible kind of the growth I've seen. And then both personally for you, but also professionally with guardians. So I wanted to, you know, provide an interview with a friend, but also certainly a respected colleague. And, and I couldn't think of anyone better honestly than yourself. So, like I said,

Dr Chris:

oh, I appreciate that. No, absolutely. No, thank you so much. Like I said, it's been yeah, it's been a wild ride and it's it's been an honor to have you, have you working with us hand in hand to, to do that. So, yeah, no, thank you so much.

Dr Ryan:

So I'll lay a little bit, a little bit of groundwork here. So, I met you a little over a year ago. I actually had a, kind of replied to what, what looked like a, like a locum posting for a physician. And we ended up having a conversation and I knew right away, you know, where your mindset was and what you were doing. Had. The ability to become something, you know, very big, very quickly and, and really also believing in you. You just, you struck me as someone who was, let's just say, well put together, but also you know, really a visionary and someone who didn't sacrifice quality or the respective of a physician in lieu of money or finances. And, and to me to, to straddle that middle ground. especially early in, in an entrepreneurial career you know, having that integrity early on is something that's critically important to the success of a, in the culture of a business. Absolutely. And I've seen that flourish since. And so again, just kind of laying that groundwork met you a year ago. Things have taken off dramatically since then. I'm gonna give you that opportunity to explain you know, what Guardian is and, and where it's going. but you know, maybe question one from me and then you can take this whatever direction you want, is what, what led you to kind of the, the essence of being an entrepreneur, right? You're a, you're a, a board certified ED physician. I know you've worked in, in many in emergency department across the country. But what moment in time, you know, did you decide, hey, you know, just kind of writing scripts and seeing patients in direct patient care? Isn't only for me.

Dr Chris:

Sure. Yeah. So it, and it's been super interesting. I mean, like as an entrepreneur now and, and, and, and coming into my own as that, you know what I mean? As, as a founder and a CEO of my own company now. And we can talk a little bit about that, that weird transition which it is one, but it's one of those things like, like, like it's really easy now to look back and be like, I was always an entrepreneur, right? Like, like I did have always that kind of like, more entrepreneur. I didn't know it until maybe like the last 12 months, you know what I mean? Like, it's easy to look back now and be like, oh, I can see patterns where like, you know, I used to collect everything as a kid, like I would do everything. I tried to make everything a business when I was younger. I, I wanted to have a farm really bad. I mean like, like, like weird stuff, right? Like weird stuff is just not kind of normal. But yeah, so I think there's always been like a component there for me as a physician though. I think when. I've also kind of never really taken the traditional physician path either. So in residency, so after I finished my emergency medicine residency you know, I, I, I took a normal contract like most people do for two years and. Like looking back was, there was an opportunity. We, the, the contract got bought out by like team health and then we were put on this kinda like new pay structure where you got basically pay for how productive you were. Right? It was like that RV based, like the more tests you order, the more severe the patients condition is. You got paid more, which is weird. Right. And, and you, it forced you though to kind of like learn a little bit about the business of medicine. I think that ended up being an opportunity that I didn't recognize at the time, but we, I burned out quick and, and not like really got burned out, but in the sense that I just wasn't gonna renew that contract. We were doing like six, seven patients an hour and trying to oversee residents. It was just like, nah, I can't, you know what I mean? Like, so, Very early. At that point, I was already starting to like do some telemedicine and this was, you know, a couple years before Covid and, and then I started doing travel medicine and got to see how people practice medicine all over the place. So never really had that tradition around. I was always, I was trying to kind of find and like, almost like make my own career path within it. Like, I didn't like the idea of just working shifts all the time in the ER, until I die, right. I mean, it was just like not, I just, it wasn't for me. Right? So I was, I was always dabbling the telemedicine and, and you know, playing with those platforms before they really took off, during covid as well as, again, like I said, doing the travel medicine and trying to play with different contracts and things to see what, where I, where I could fit in. And, and because I was doing that, I was licensed in a lot of different states trying to like optimize my travel stuff, which also opened up a lot of opportunity. I kept getting asked all the time. Hey, can you do this and this and this? Cuz you have all these licenses. And I think so like, I think my eyes were kind of open earlier. They're like, man, like I can, I can kind of make up a career almost in terms of like, what do I enjoy doing as a physician? What do I not? And can I pick and choose from, from, from those two buckets to figure out what what I want to do next? So I think that's kind of always been the thing. You know, the, the other easy answer here is at some point, like I said, my, I've got three children of three children and at some point they got old enough where they noticed dad being gone. And I already kind of like played with launching some businesses and we had this idea and I said, yeah, you know, maybe I'll try making the leap. Right girl, my, my twin daughter started kindergarten and I didn't wanna miss stuff and I was like, ah, we'll give it a shot. And yeah, it's been it's worked out very well for me so far, so very excited.

Dr Ryan:

No, I've, like I said, I've I've seen that growth here in that growth trajectory, even just what I've seen, and I've only seen the very tail end of it, right? There's, there's so much more that's happened before then. You mentioned a kind of a critical inflection point beyond a lot of what you just talked about, but specifically you called out that mindset shift, perhaps, is what you're alluding to going from an employed physician or you know, a direct patient care provider, not just to an entrepreneur but to a CEO, right? So there's, those are, those are different levels. It's, it's one level to run a side Etsy business out of your, you know your garage compared to the CEO of a company with, you know, I don't know how many employees now, but that is a, that is a truly different trajectory and mindset shift, at least in my opinion. So talk to me a little bit about that. You know, is that what you mean? Kind of that transition or inflection point as being a, a critical one in, in your life, and what did that feel like? What did that mean?

Dr Chris:

Yeah, yeah. No, that, that honestly, like, that has probably been the most fun and also most awkward and terrifying transition to make for a couple of reasons. And one, and like I think that I've been very blessed that. This is probably a role that like I was meant to do. Like I really, and, and like there's been a lot of like coming into it and coming into your own and, and learning and but like there was a, there was like not a, not high chance that I, that wouldn't have been a good fit. I think it's very easy for us. For people who are founders, you name yourself the CEO, right? That there's a, there's a component of that. Like you're the founder, you name yourself the CEO and like there's probably a bunch of us that shouldn't hold that role, which like, you don't know when you go into it a little bit, right? You have to learn. I think that there, there has to be a lot of humility in that, in, in recognizing like, Hey, I'm, I'm gonna learn and do my best and, and also be okay if like, like I, I today believe that I'm sitting in the right role in my. I also believe that there could be a day, I mean, I don't know when, where I have to be able to look at the business that I've created and say, Hey, Dr. Seitz no longer is the best person for that seat. And like, you know what I mean? Like that has to be a part. If I want this business to go where I want it to go, I have to remember that. You know what I mean? I have to like keep that in mind. So but that transition is it's weird because there's like so much imposter syndrome because you are in a lot of sense at the beginning, a founder who's like one of you or two of you, and you're like, I'll be CEO. You know, it's like, I mean, like what does that actually mean? Right? So like you, you, you feel like you're, you're, you're making this up as you go and maybe you are a little bit right. But now, like even being a year and a half in like, No, I very much am a CEO now. And it kinda like coming to that realization and, and recognizing what that responsibility is. And, and that's such a privilege and I, I love to serve my company in that role. But now, like I said, all of a sudden you find yourself one day, like you've got meetings every day with CEOs of much larger organizations than yours. or smaller ones, and you're like, oh, when did I, it just, it kind of all of a sudden like happens in a little bit of a way too. But it has to happen with just, again, a ton of just humility and grace to yourself to recognize it. Like, Hey, I, I don't know. I'm gonna, I'm gonna do the best I can and, and do what I think is the right thing every step of the way, the next best thing. Right? And also the humility to, I think a message I do give, like I said other, other founders and entrepreneurs is like, Hey, be okay with like, maybe recognizing that. Your role might not be CEO, too. Right? That's okay. You know what I mean? Like your role might be, you might be the best number three for your company and as a founder, that's what you need to do because you're the one that like should be coding software and stuff like that if the company's gonna grow, you know, things of that nature. So but yeah, that it's, it's been a, it's been a, a kind of a wild ride of trying to figure out, like, like I said, am am I what I'm calling myself? And then of a sudden one day like, oh no, you are. And, and, and what does that actually mean? And, and making that your own.

Dr Ryan:

And growing into that role and taking on that responsibility, especially if you haven't done that before. Or maybe, you know, I, I can speak for myself and I believe you as well, which is we weren't really taught business, right? We didn't, right. Didn't have business schooling. It's not like we took a course on how you be a founder and a CEO.

Dr Chris:

And that's one, actually, that's one of the best parts of being a CEO technically because like a COO. like sh like you think like, oh, they probably have an MBA, like a CFO, some, some has some kind of financial background, A CEO, what do they really do? You know what I mean? It's just, it's a perfect position to be in when you've never done it. Cause you're just like, oh, I don't know. I can make this. I'm just tea. I'm teasing a little bit. But, but it is, I mean, it's like, yeah, like being a physician versus being really in business in general is very different things. And then combining those two and saying like, oh, I'm, I'm a clinician, and also like trying to wrap your head around and figure out the business of healthcare is a weird paradox when you like actually get into it and you start to see all the, like, you start to like see behind that curtain and you're like, oh my gosh, I don't I'm glad I didn't know this before you, I mean, to some extent, right? It's just, it's very it's a very eye-opening, right? It's, it's an awesome, an awesome journey as well. I mean, like I, I'm always learning so much and. But yeah, it's it's weird. It's weird too.

Dr Ryan:

You mentioned COO and your COO and co-founder of Guardian. I guess we really haven't laid the groundwork for what you do, what Guardian is. And, and so I'll, I'll open it up here to talk a little bit about how you met Joe your, your co-founder and COO. And then, you know, What is Guardian? Right? Like what, what is what's the vision, what's the goal? I, I know that, but you know, let's let the, the subscribers know that too.

Dr Chris:

Absolutely. So Guardian medical direction, guardian MD is a, a digital health platform that provides essentially medical oversight for. Mainly nurses, but really any non-physician healthcare practitioner who wants to start a healthcare practice. So our platform provides the, the legal structure and the medical oversight through our network of physicians and, and providers to be able to. Provide the right compliance pieces to put those things in place to be able to run a business in healthcare. And it, it really stemmed from getting asked all the time, like, Hey, Dr. Seitz, will you be my medical director for this? Will you, will you collab? Will you be my physician collaborator over here? Or can you oversee this thing? And, and I realized at first I thought to my about being truth truthful. Like first I thought to myself was, oh, I'm gonna like just do this for myself. And just like, I can make a bunch of money doing this by myself. But when I went to look for resources, when I went to figure out like, well, how do I make sure that I'm putting forward like, like a, a high standard of care in medical oversight. There wasn't anything and there's a lot of gray and a lot of confusion. So that's where the idea kind of stemmed from a, wait, what if we did this on scale? Right? What if we figured this out for physicians and for non physicians to really like, and what this has kind of turned into now is, is creating a platform with the goal of creating a gold standard in medical oversight to define truly like what is high quality medical oversight and in the age of digital healthcare and telemedicine and, and shortages of physicians, like how do we move forward as a healthcare system in a way where we can increase access by using non-physician providers. But also keep that high standard of care and oversight structure in place to make sure we're doing what's best for the patient. So that's become kind of our vision mission is really to, you know, we, we say the, the easy catchphrase is that we wanna help 120,000 nurses start and scale their own healthcare practices. And like I said, we're, we're having lots of success in doing that and learning a lot along the way. But I met my, my co-founder, Joe Cooper prior to launching this business, we had kind of gone into business together. I was running an education company with my brother doing some like healthcare education. He was doing some marketing and technology type of stuff. really like before Guardian medical direction was even like a thought. We just really like the way we did business was just very synergistic. And it was kind of one of these things where I was like, Hey, like let's do it together. And we didn't even really know what it was gonna look like to be honest. We just knew we like, Hey, you know, we work really well together. We had the same values and the same goals in this space. And, and he brought to the table things I didn't have and I brought to the table things he didn't have. And we were like, Hey. I just wanna work with you, you know what I mean? Like, and let's do it that way. And then again, we, you know, we had, you know, a little bit of success with the businesses we were running separately. Then we kind of brought'em together and, and scaled those a little bit. And then again, like a year and a half ago, it was like, Hey, let's try this thing too. And then that became the only thing because it just, again, just kind of scaled so fast. I don't think we realized how big of a need there was for that kind of medical oversight structure. You know, built on a, a technology platform that would allow people to, to utilize it in real time and stuff.

Dr Ryan:

Yeah, again, your story is truly incredible. I mean, can you give us some numbers? What, what have you, you mentioned you wanna kind of impact 120,000 you know, where are you in that path in now?

Dr Chris:

Yeah, so, yeah. Yeah. So we're early in that, right? So we oversee about seven to 800 clinics across the country. I think there's only like two states where we don't currently have, we're able to do it in all 50 states. Like, there's not a big need right now in Wyoming, I think is one of'em. I don't know. But anyway, if you're in Wyoming, hey, we got, we got you. You know, so but yeah, we, we oversee about seven, 800 clinics. Again. We've, we launched just over a year ago. And Yeah, so it's, it's, we've our network of physicians. We have like 80 physicians on our platform now. We've launched an entire telemedicine arm on top of that to support the clinics that we oversee. It, yeah, it's been, it's been incredible. I remember when we started, this is the story I always tell, when, when Joe and I started, we came with the idea and we said, here's the thing, we're I'm gonna quit my day job. You're gonna quit your day job. He was a, he has his MBA and he was a. Kind of like a regional product project manager for GE Healthcare. So he was like, you know, I'm gonna quit. You're gonna quit. If we can get a hundred people, if we could get a hundred clinics in our first year, that would be insane. And we would know we were like onto something. And I think we closed out the, our first year we were like almost 500 clinics. I mean, we like, so it was just, and we barely scratched the sur when we would look at. How we, we really haven't even gone outbound yet to really like, bring clients inwe, once we put ourselves out there, people just came to us because again, we just super underestimated the need for this type of high quality compliant oversight in the healthcare space. And the timing's right too, in terms of like, can we see what, what ha what happened with covid and physician shortages and like, how do we increase access to care when we don't have the personnel out there? And the reality is, is that well then we, we use the people we have, which is nurses and medics and all, you know, all these other, you know, well-trained healthcare professionals who have a lot to bring to the patient care, you know, continuum type of thing. But haven't had an ability to do that. And hopefully until now, right? So that, that's kind of the goal there. Yeah.

Dr Ryan:

No, it's an incredible story In, I mean, 800 clinics and a little over a year is just, you know, that's a lot. 80 physicians. That's a lot. Yeah. Yeah. It's been

Dr Chris:

it's, it's, it's, we like broke our, we, we, we built our platform and then we launched, we broke it in the first like month and we had, and it's just like, It's fun though because we really like, have embraced that. Part of it is to recognize that the, the freedom of being an entrepreneur is not that I, I wake up and like get to make my own schedule. I still don't really get to make my own schedule. Some days I'm putting in longer hours than I was in the ER, right? But I get to choose what I struggle with every day. Right? Like, there's always a struggle. So there's you can't get away from that. I think if you're, if you're launching a business, you're an entrepreneur and you're like, ah, I just. I want freedom to be able to do whatever I want. Ah, I don't know if that's gonna work out so well for you at the beginning, but if you want the freedom to choose what you get to struggle with, then entrepreneurship's the way to go. Right? I mean, like that, like, I get to wake up in the morning and like we look at problems that way. This is a, we, it is a challenge. It's a puzzle. Like, if I can solve this, yes, there will be another one after it. But the, the fun is in, can I solve this and change this and, and make it a little bit better every day? And I think, like I said, embracing that as, as a part of. The path and the, the journey of it is, is what makes it fun. Even when you break the platform and people get upset and you know, like, like you're not doing as good of a job as you wanted to be doing. And again, like entering into that with a ton of humility as well. I think you, you can't lose. So, yeah.

Dr Ryan:

And from my perspective, watching your process and progress that's one of the, the key takeaways for me from you. I think number one, your ability to kind of roll with the punches. Cuz there will be punches, right? Like as an entrepreneur you know, I always used to jokingly say that, or I used to echo the fact that it. Or what defined an entrepreneur as someone who could basically survive their failures, right? Because there's, there will inevitably be hurdles in failures and learning opportunities, right? And you are, you've, you've shown me and what I think you do, a really great job as a leader and a CEO, is you lean into the challenges, right? And I love what you say. You know, you get to choose what you struggle with or you get to choose kind of what area of opportunity you want to focus on. Because that's not, there are a lot of CEOs and a lot of founders and a lot of entrepreneurs who don't wake up every morning with that mindset. Yeah. And for me, as you know, as a psychiatrist, my, my big thing is mindset. My big thing is how you mentally navigate your way through any scenario and I think, candidly, not even knowing it the first time we spoke. I do believe that was an area we connected on, right? Mm-hmm. your kind of, again, your ability to shift mindset very quickly and focus on the positives or know that there's gonna be hurdles and be able to mentally take that on as being an entrepreneur and a CEO.

Dr Chris:

No, and I, and I appreciate that. That means, that means a lot too, because like that is the hardest thing. And, and when, and we were talking about that stuff. I mean, I still really struggle with this whole, like some days the best thing I can do for the business is like go to the gym and journal and spend some time with my family. And that's hard. Like going from like 12 hour shift work in the emergency department where you're like, patient, patient, patient, patient, patient. Oh, I forgot to go to the bathroom. Patient, patient. You know what I mean? Like to go to a thing where, You hear all these things about like, oh, you're a founder, you're an entrepreneur. Like you're grinding every day. And like I put in a, but sometimes that's not the right call. Sometimes the right call is like, I have to take the day off, like today's Valentine's Day and my kids were in school and I took like four or five hours off this morning and we just like, Went out to breakfast and went to the, and like that is the best thing that I could have done for my business today because like I have to be able to, and, and, and it's hard though, cuz especially when you're in the CEO spot of it all. like, you almost have to build this margin in your own, you know, self, in your own mental ab ability, like, so that when the, when the next problem happens, you're in a space to make the right call. So you're not reacting to what you're in a good space. You like, you're, you're, you're good, you're comfortable, you're happy. You, you know. So when that happens, you can take a breath and say, I can see the big picture here. You're not like, you know, so stressed or so overwhelmed that you, and, and that happens a lot, right? I mean, like we put, put ourselves in these situations. It is stressful. But being able to make the right call, like is really what becomes my role as a CEO. Like, you know, one good call, you know what I mean? For like in like a two month fan could set our business up for success for the next 10 years. One bad call could have the opposite effect. You know what I mean? So, and it, and that's hard. It's, it's hard to like remind yourself and give yourself that grace to be able to do that, you know?

Dr Ryan:

Yeah. I focus, you know, a lot of what I do the work I do in the podcast, and it really does focus on mindset and you may brought up another really great point, something I, I point out a lot, which is that your mental health is directly related to your physical health. Yep. And so, you know, motion drives emotion. We, we know scientifically that if I were to sit there like a bump on a log, I will make myself depressed. So motion drives a motion you get outta your body, which you put into it, right? So physical health wellness, which you eat. How you move your body is all critically important and candidly, as part of laying the foundation of my opinion for what a great mindset needs to be. Because to your point, you have to have some amount of resilience and proactivity, right? You can't live your life in a reactionary mindset. You can't live your life you certainly can't be a successful CEO and entrepreneur if you're just constantly reacting. So you have to, you have to be both proactive, but also build that reservoir, like you said, that that resilience reservoir, so that it's not constantly water over the dam or breaking through. every time something happens or every time versus stressful event. Cause again, to your point earlier, there will always be stressful events.

Dr Chris:

Right? It actually reminds me, like this is something that I don't think founders and entrepreneurs talk about enough is, is social media algorithms. So like, so here's the thing, right? So, and hear me out, if you are an entrepreneur or a founder, everything you're looking at has to do like with like how you're gonna grow your business and what you're gonna do with your. So what ends up happening is that like those algorithms start to show you all your competitors, like all the things that you're not doing in the space. Like I, I actually got off social media completely when we launched this because I knew for, and, and like some people would say that's a bad call. Like some people would say like, Hey, you're the CEO, like you should have a social media present and like, am I missing out on. Some marketing potential there. Maybe like say we have a podcast and like, you know, I'm, we, we have someone who's starting to manage my stuff for me because I can't look at it like, I like it. It's, it's set up where like I, you see all the stuff every day and it like, again, like you have to be so protective of that mindset because that's the only, especially in the early days, especially when it's just you and one other person, or even you and the team of 10 or 15, like so much is dependent on. Each individual, cuz there's not that many of you that like, that has to be the most important thing. Right? It really like your mindset, your team, like how you are feeling. Even that day, we, we, we instigate this thing where like every meeting we do a check-in and you're not allowed to like, tell us about your work stuff. You're, you're supposed to check in and say like, Like, oh, I, I watched this cool movie last night. Or like, like, we wanna, like, that's the important stuff that like, and if you don't have anything that's a red flag to us and we're like, oh, hey. Like, you know, like, what can we, you know, let's, let's do, we do virtual reality like game nights on Wednesdays now, where we all go into VR and like play, so like games that, and it's awesome because again, like. The mindset piece is the most important, right? You can spin your wheels for 12 hours or you can put 30 minutes in of like high quality work and that 30 minutes is more important and you, but you can't do that without the right mindset. You can't do that without you being good. Right? And that's, I think that's like what, what you say all the time, like I said, with your physical health, mental health, like, and that's a hard transition, especially for physicians to make cuz that's not what we're taught. Like, we're not taught that in medical school residency. Like we put in stupid hours and it's almost like a badge of honor to like, oh, I forgot to eat or forgot to go to the bathroom and stuff like that. It's like, how are we serving our patients? Well, I it is again, so it's, it's, it's hard, especially as a physician entrepreneur to like, have gone through so much training that didn't, I don't wanna say that they like discouraged it, but didn't emphasize that, and then have to emphasize it in the role I am now for the sake of my company. Again, it's a fun thing to struggle with every day. Let's put it that way.

Dr Ryan:

No, it's it's incredibly insightful. And so again, I think one of the things that drew me to you in, in what you were doing and, and makes you, I would say, a natural leader beyond your talents as an actual leader, I think naturally you you have a following for a reason, and I, I don't think I need to call that out. So one of the things I'm also really passionate about is this idea. Kind of not knowing what you don't know or or paying the dummy tax. You know, some of my mentors have taught me that over time and certainly I've learned my own lessons there over time as well. You know, if you were to look at your career path so far, guardian or not, what would you say? Kind of what is that one thing that he didn't know you didn't know going into it or I really wish I had, had someone to help me make an original mistake here versus repeating this mistake and it was a, a really big dummy tax. Like, is there, is there something you can look at within what you've done so far?

Dr Chris:

There's so many you know.

Dr Ryan:

There's a lot.

Dr Chris:

There is a lot. And honestly, I don't know if there's one specific thing because there are things like that I actually would be considered. That I, that people would consider me a subject matter expert in now that I was not a year ago. And there are things that I'm exploring right now that I know nothing about that will be a core part of my business in another 12 months. And I just know that, and it's just, it's kind of like, I think that was the, maybe that was the thing. I wish someone would've like, just let me know early on. Like, Hey, like you don't know anything and, and that's okay. Like that's literally part of the process. It's literally how you get there. But the information is always, and it doesn't have to cost you a dime. It's just like you have to get curious, right? So you have to get curious around like, like, I'll be honest with you right now, my big thing is like insurance credentialing and payer contracts. I know nothing about that. That will probably be a core part of our business in like a year or two from now. Right. I, I just know that I, I, as a visionary, I can see that's where we're headed. So I'm just getting crazy curious. I'm asking all these weird questions, stupid questions that people would be like you, how do you not even understand that part? I'm like, I don't, so I, but I wanna learn about it. And like, just being willing to just, again, ask everybody and anyone questions and, and keep asking them until you understand it. Right. Until I really know, I understand it. And also getting, and this was, I think this is the phy I gave this, I gave a lecture on this recently. in, in this kind of space as clinicians, and like I said, as a physician, it is really hard to like realize that 90 some percent of the stuff out there. Is not science like, like we, we forget about the art of medicine as well. Like, and I think that one of the best things that ever happened to me was that I, I went from like a level one trauma center residency, which was an amazing program. And then I went and worked across the country in community hospitals and realized like, oh, that's not how everybody practices medicine, right? There's so much we don't know. And in business, even more so, like you start to get this feeling like everybody's just making this up as they go and they are a little bit, and like, that's awesome. And, and like, so like getting curious around that. Like there is not, we, I think we as doctors are like, this is the right thing, this is the wrong thing. Like this is the right call, wrong call the diagnosis, wrong diagnosis. Like it's all we, we think there's so much black and. because we have to work that way a little bit, right? Like we have to use protocols and things to like keep ourselves black and white to make decisions. But then you go into the business world and like you'll get 12 opinions and there's like 12 different ways to do it and none of'em are really wrong, but it's just like different ways to do it. So we were trying to like one example I could give, we were trying to figure out some legal stuff and uh, couldn't figure it out. And like I, I asked one attorney that we work with and another attorney that we work with, I still didn't have the answers I wanted. And I'm like, man, like do I gotta go like retain a bunch of more? Like how do I, and then I realized, you know what, all of our clients have like attorneys, I'm just gonna start asking them. So I started just like booking calls with our clients', attorneys. To help them figure stuff out so that I could learn too and get into the calls and ask a bunch of questions. So I got like, like I talked to probably like 15 attorneys, like free legal advice, right? I'm just like, like, like they're getting paid by other people. Like, and I'm just asking all these questions until, and it took, I mean, you remember this like, I mean this took me months to truly wrap my head around some of these things and like, and then that was such a key piece that allowed us to scale to the next level. I think it's that, it's that like there, there's not like one dummy thing. There's always one. Like maybe that's the actual thing. There's, there will always be one today. For me it's insurance. Tomorrow it'll be AI and healthcare. I don't know what, but like there will always be one thing that I know nothing about that I'm trying to figure out. And I think that's, that's probably, like I said, that dummy tax has to get paid every day. Right. Because you're not, your business isn't growing if, especially you as the entrepreneur founder, aren't learning. Right. I would argue that. So every day there's a dummy tax. again, going back to like, you get to choose, I get to choose what I wanna learn about today in a lot of, and that that's freedom for me, right? I get to like, I don't have to see the next patient that walks in my door. I get to decide today, I wanna learn about this, and I'm gonna go study that and figure that out and ask the right questions. So yeah, I guess that would be my answer. I think like every day there's a new one, and that's exciting.

Dr Ryan:

No, that's incredibly profound. I, I'll say that the, you know, you bring up a couple of key points that I've also been mentored on myself, which is, David Meltzer talks about being more interested than interesting. Right. So again, that, that idea of curiosity and asking questions, and I do think as physicians, that's one of the things that, although very few of us tend to become entrepreneurs, if we can stretch outside of our comfort zone of, like you said, binary black and white. Mm-hmm. science. Physicians and providers tend to be curious, right? I mean, we, we tend to be learner, we wanna be learners. Yeah. And so that's a, a trait that I do think we possess and just happen to also stretch outside of our comfort zone. But yeah. And you also mentioned, and I agree, which is there's a saying if you're, if you're not climbing, you're sliding, right? Mm-hmm. So basically, if you're not curious, if you're not learning, if you're not working towards the next thing and being proactive, someone's lapping you right? Or you're dropping off, or, you know, you, you could be a key opinion leader or a subject matter expert today, and if you do nothing for six months, you won't be anymore

Dr Chris:

Sure. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr Ryan:

And, and so yeah, it's, it's very like time and task dependent. And it does require you to constantly be a never ending lifetime learner.

Dr Chris:

And I'll add this too, because. I think we forget sometimes too, like, like yes, you won't be in six months, but you can be again. I think that, I think we loo, I think sometimes in the entrepreneurial space it is cuz we all grew up in, with like Silicon Valley and this kind of crazy like venture capital. Like I don't know if that's gonna last much longer. I think we're, I think we might look back at some point and be like, wow, what a weird thing that happened where like all these companies could just get money for nowhere and just this unicorn status thing. Like, I don't know. We'll see. But one thing I think because of that, there's this cultural. like today is so, like you have, you have to be patient. Like patience is really the theme that I've been like for myself on lately. Yes, if I, if I stop today in six months, I won't be anymore, but I could start again in six months and get there again three months later. Right. And like, and remembering that, that like, Hey, you know what? You're not missing all these boats. Right. I feel like sometimes people feel like, ah, I missed it. I missed someone else is doing it, so I can't anymore. It's like, nah, it's not necessarily true. Right? Like, you gotta be able to hold both equal. And I think that's a, a, a really important part as being a founder entrepreneur. Cause it's really easy to fall into this habit of like, you're, you start moving too fast because you're just trying to keep up with what everything else is out. And all of a sudden you're, you're, you're playing a short game, not a long game. And, and I don't know if that's really what you want, right. I dunno if that's really in the, in the big scheme of everything, what you want. So, but yeah, so I, I would only caveat that with that, just cause like, that's been something just so on my mind lately about like, that's such a mentality we have, and yet, like, and it's true. And yet you could pick it up tomorrow and start again and do it again, right. Like you, you could.

Dr Ryan:

Well, I love that Chris. You know, again, I'm just incredibly I don't wanna say proud, but you, you've just, you've come a long way. This opportunity's been amazing. You're touching and, and changing a lot of lives and really improving the business, the, you know, medical business spaces. We know it through Guardian, you and Joe, and it's been truly an honor to, to get to, to meet and know you guys.

Dr Chris:

No, thank you. And that's something, a piece too. I'll say like, like I said, part of our journey is, is like I said, finding like you as a mentor and things like that, right? Like you have to surround yourself with the people who can challenge you and encourage you and like all those things and just, you know, like even sometimes just be there for it. Like, I feel like sometimes you and I like, we'll get on our weekly call and I'll like just talk for 30 minutes. You won't say a word, and I'm like, man, thanks so much. That was great. I I, I got clear picture now. And like, it just because you're just there, right? Like you're just there to hear it and absorb it and let, and be a sounding board and let me work through it. So like, finding those people, like, it's, it's invaluable as well. And again, that's part around being curious, like find a bunch of'em, ask random people, Hey, can I like call you once a week and ask you questions about X, Y, or Z? They'd probably say yes, right? I mean, like, honestly like, like get weird about it a little bit. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that, you know?

Dr Ryan:

Well, I love that one. Get weird about it.

Dr Chris:

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Dr Ryan:

That should be your slogan.

Dr Chris:

That's, yeah, that's my motto right there.

Dr Ryan:

I guess for the, the listeners and anyone who may be picking this up or for future reference. Where would someone go if they are a nurse or nurse practitioner or they're, they're curious as an investor or, you know, where would someone go to find out more about Guardian and what you've built and where you guys are going?

Dr Chris:

Yeah, no, actually I appreciate that. So all of our social media channels are currently being pivoted to Guardian MD Education. So like I said, that's a great place to see kind of some of our social stuff. I would encourage like, Obviously, if you're listening and you're someone who listens to podcasts like we have my brother and I do the Collaborative Practice podcast, where we really sit down and, and, and just explore and get curious. Honestly, that's what we've been talking about here. Like, we do that on a podcast and we just ask, we bring in people who have, are doing really cool, what we consider to be really cool stuff in the healthcare business, technology space, and just ask and we get weird and just ask a lot of questions about it. So they can check that out. And then our website, guardianmedicaldirection.com. Obviously I said you can book a call with our, one of our account devs if you're, if you're looking for medical oversight and that type of thing. But yeah, so those are, those are the main way, main places to go to, to kind of connect with us. And again, even if you're not looking for things, but you just wanna touch base and, and hang out because we like that too. So I said just, just we, we have, we have lots of random people that we like hang out with and talk to, like on a lot of our social channels and stuff, just. That's what it's really there for. Right. It's not actually always there to bring in business. So.

Dr Ryan:

Well, I appreciate you taking the time tonight. It's been super enlightening for me even having known you through this process and give my best to Joe, actually be talking to you both tomorrow,

Dr Chris:

Yep, sounds good.

Dr Ryan:

Anyway, I'll we'll make sure to put your information in the show notes too so that listeners can access that as well. And if you don't have anything else, I'll, we'll close down the podcast.

Dr Chris:

I will throw one other thing in there only because there was one of the questions, one of the pre-questions you sent before the podcast was like, is there a motto that like something and like I thought about it a lot so I had to, I have to put it out there cause I thought about it. Yeah. So I realized that for me, like there hasn't been this one thing, this one theme. And I think it's because like I said, what we've been talking about like this getting curious and like always having something that you're trying to figure out and wrap your mind around. But lately, and I touched on it a little bit here, but like lately, This quote I read, I was reading a book on, on Discipline by Ryan Holiday. I mean, many of you probably don't, but"Discipline is Destiny" is the book. And, and the quote in there was, beware the fury of a patient, man. And I, that's just been resonating like a lot with me lately around the space of like, what I kind of touched on before, like being patient and like playing the longer game, building things that are sustainable and that make a difference. Not for the next funding round, not for, you know, to get out in a couple of years. And you still could do those things along the pro. You'll probably have better success doing those things if you, but again, like building this, this, this kind of theme in, especially in the healthcare business space around patients and grace and humility has just been something that been, been, been really hyper focused in on. So I just wanted to share that as an encouraging thing to people. Like again there's so much, so much opportunity out there and stuff like that. There's no rush either, so Yeah.

Dr Ryan:

That's awesome. Well incredibly insightful. Like I said. Your leadership skills inward and outward are, are impressive.

Dr Chris:

Well, thank you. I appreciate that. It's very encouraging.

Dr Ryan:

Super excited to see where Guardian continues to go under you and Joe's leadership and I'm excited to be part of it.

Dr Chris:

Awesome, awesome. No, and we're glad to have you for sure. So Awesome. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.

Dr Ryan:

Yeah, Chris, I appreciate it. Thanks everyone for listening to our second episode of the Endgame Podcast.. Please, like, subscribe, share the episode, check out the show notes for Guardian Medical below. I'm Dr. Ryan Wakim, successful entrepreneur and your Endgame Coach. Remember, I'm here to teach you how to exist today so you can expand tomorrow and create the ultimate endgame of your desires. Talk to you soon.