Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast, where academic clinicians learn the skills
to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor.
As clinicians, we spend a decade or more as trainees learning to take care of patients.
When we finally start our careers, we want to build research programs, but then we find
that our years of clinical training did not adequately prepare us to lead our research
program.
Through no fault of our own, we struggle to find mentors, and when we can't, we quit.
However, clinicians hold the keys to the greatest research breakthroughs.
For this reason, the Clinician Researcher podcast exists to give academic clinicians
the tools to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor.
Now introducing your host, Toyosi Onwuemene.
Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast.
I'm your host, Toyosi Onwuemene, and what an absolute privilege to be on the show today
talking to you.
Thank you for tuning in.
I am especially excited about today's guest because she's kind of an unusual guest on
our show.
So Dr. Una, I'm going to say, I'm going to introduce her a little bit before I lie hard
to introduce herself, is a business doctor.
She's a business woman.
And so she is not just a pediatrician.
She is a practice owner.
She's a coach.
She owns multiple businesses.
And so then the question is, what is she doing on our show?
And one of the things that I asked her to come and talk today about is about visibility
and why it matters for our academic careers.
And so without further ado, I'm going to say, Dr. Una, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for having me.
I've been excited.
I've been waiting for this all day.
And so eye-opening too.
So Dr. Una, would you introduce yourself by way of your physician practice and now what
you do as a business person?
Yeah.
So my name is Dr. Una.
I am a pediatrician by training.
And like Dr. Chayosi said, I'm a serial entrepreneur.
So my first business was my private practice, which I opened because I was totally ignorant
of all things business.
I did not realize the things I would have to do to pull it off.
So I got out there and my philosophy was I'll hang the shingle and they would come.
So I hung the shingle and they did not come.
So I had to learn the things we're going to talk about today as far as visibility goes.
I had to learn them through the school of hard knocks.
And after I started my private practice, I had a doc that worked for me every Friday.
So I had a long weekend every weekend.
Business was good.
Life was good.
I had time to be with the family.
But then I started leaning into this and realizing the fundamental changes that happen in the
health care space.
And I knew that if all we knew how to do is doctor, if we're just, you know, like we have
one dimension and we're going to have a lot of problems, it occurred to me that we have
to learn other things.
We have to retool ourselves.
We have to adapt for where we find ourselves.
That's really when I started embracing speaking, consulting, writing, you know, all these other
things.
And it really set the stage for me to have a career that I truly love.
And you helped me build a life that I love.
And so as I started on that journey, I was like, you know, no need to do it alone.
I launched EntreeMD and then started helping doctors do the same thing.
Like whether you work a job or you own a private practice or your culture or your research
or it doesn't matter.
Like you have to own your brand.
You have to own your business.
Like every doctor is a business really.
Like you have a business.
You may not be leveraging it, but you have one and just own that and figure out how to
make it work for you where you're able to have the impact you want.
You're able to create the financial freedom you want.
And then you have time for what truly matters to you.
So you know, we launched the podcast, we were writing books, we have the EntreeMD Business
School.
We have events and it's all about serving physicians.
Our goal is to help a hundred thousand physicians figure this out and completely change the
narrative for physicians everywhere.
So thank you, Dr. Una.
I have followed your work for at least a year and a half now.
And I will say that it really is life changing.
And I didn't think when I started as an academic physician that it had any relevance to me,
honestly.
It was more like a curiosity, but now I really see a lot of the relationships.
And that's what I want us to talk about today.
I want to start with the fact that as an academic physician, entrepreneurship is just totally
not on our radar, at least for most of us just starting out.
I want you to speak to in what way is an academic career similar to entrepreneurship?
Yeah.
So in the EntreeMD model to start with, we think every physician is an entrepreneur.
And I'll explain what I mean by that.
Now, even if you're in academic medicine, there is one thing that opens doors for you.
There is one thing that gets people to collaborate with you.
There is one thing that gets you the right opportunities in front of you.
There's one thing that you can use as leverage to open even more doors, and it's your brand.
Right?
Like sometimes when we think about brand, we think about the influencer on Instagram.
But really it is your reputation.
It's how you're perceived.
And perception is reality.
Dr. Toise, I'm sure you know people who are super smart, but they can't put themselves
out there.
They cannot position themselves.
They cannot talk about what they do in such a way that people are attracted to them to
help them, to open doors to them and all of that.
And even though they're super smart and even though they're probably the best person for
the job, they don't get it because they're not perceived that way.
Right?
So when you think about you as a researcher, there is something you have, and that is your
personal brand.
And if you can understand that that brand is an asset, and if you can understand how
to position it as if you're looking for somebody like this, this is where you go.
If you can understand how to leverage it, how to monetize it and all of that, it will
change the trajectory of your career completely.
But what we have a lot of times, because we don't recognize that as a brand or as a business,
or you know, what we do is we just let it go by default.
And default, what do you get?
Weeds, right?
Like you don't plan a, you don't get a piece of ground and clear it up and then you see
like a beautiful garden and it's weeds.
But imagine, because many physicians, many clinical researchers, they would have a dream.
These are the kind of things, these are the kind of research things I want to be involved
in.
These are the kind of people I want to work with.
This is the kind of money I want to make.
This is the kind of time I want to have for the things that matter to me, family, all
of those things.
Like you already have that, but your brand is the vehicle to get you there.
Your brand is the vehicle to get you there, is the brand, is the vehicle to do all of
those things.
So we can either have a brand by default, or we can have a carefully curated brand,
and that's what opens the door for everything else, right?
So now that's really powerful.
And I want to thank you for saying that.
When you talk about the whole concept of brand, I think when we, if we're early career faculty,
we can look to the doc in our institution who has $300 million in NIH funding and we're
like, yep, definitely a brand.
But what we don't realize is that we're building from the very beginning.
And we may not have that brand recognition, but we're creating brand recognition.
And so to some extent, it's like, how can you be intentional about creating brand recognition
and not wait to create it or for it to magically appear after maybe 20, 30 years in the academy?
Yeah.
And like, you know, Dr. Toyosi, if you think about it, right, I am sure you know, physicians
who are a clinician or researchers who want to have access to really great opportunities,
but if they got an opportunity to speak, they would say no.
They had opportunities to have a podcast, they would say no.
If they had an opportunity to go network where the decision makers are, they would say no.
You know why?
Because they don't realize that these are all components that make their brand more
visible, that position them as the expert, that will open doors that really you can say
this person has $300 million in grants and you have no million in grants.
But if you have all these things going for you, you've positioned yourself as someone
who needs to be taken seriously, somebody who is somebody to watch, somebody to follow
and all of that.
Like you may not have the millions to your name yet, but you can set the stage where
you still cannot be ignored.
So you're doing this podcast, for instance, and this is the deal, you know, whether you
recognize it or not.
Once you come and you're helping other physicians see what is possible, helping other clinical
researchers see what is possible, you're sharing your story, you're doing all that, you position
yourself as the expert.
Like you have, there's nothing you can do about it, your brand is elevated, period.
And then when someone says, oh, I want someone to speak over here, you're like, well, she's
welcome before, she has a podcast, she's talked to all these people, she has a large network,
that's who we want, right?
And so it is like what a brand can do for you, it's possible that somebody could give
you a million dollars and it will not do that for you.
A carefully curated brand can change the trajectory of your career and things that would take
other people 30 years, 40 years to accomplish, you can accomplish in five.
I couldn't want that, you know?
It's pretty powerful.
And in fact, from what you're saying, it's the whole idea of building brand.
And so that's where visibility comes in.
So you put on a really great masterclass over a couple of days every year, really talking
about the visibility formula.
And recently you published a book about the visibility formula, which is so awesome and
congratulations.
Thank you.
And so that's what I want to talk about today is visibility.
Because I think from our academic researcher perspective, it's like put your head down,
get the work done, get the grants funded and visibility will come, right?
That's kind of what we're taught.
But you're saying think differently.
You're saying don't put your head down for 20 years.
Bring your head up and think about visibility.
So let's talk about it.
What is this visibility business and why is it relevant to academic researchers?
Yeah.
And before I even get to the details of it, you brought up something that is really important,
especially as physicians that we understand this.
Now put your head down.
Yeah, you're going to put your head down, but oh my goodness, bring it up, you know
what I mean?
Like bring it up too.
And this is the reason why, you know, sometimes people say, well, this is not fair, but life
is not fair.
But life has rules.
There are rules to this game.
And if you can understand the rules, you can play it to win.
For instance, I can write a book and I put my head down and do the work and get the book
written, right?
But the only way for that book to be a best selling book is for me to also bring my head
up and sell the book.
If I won't sell the book, it will be a best written book.
People don't even care about that enough to give it its own category.
There is no category for best written book, right?
And so in the same way, we want to do the research, we want to do all that, and that's
good and we should.
We still need to bring your head up to do other things.
And that's what we're going to talk about, right?
That's what the whole visibility formula is about.
So when we look at this, the reason I wrote the book is because, you know, I started off
my journey as an entrepreneur.
You say this many times as a super shy, socially awkward, introverted, introvert.
I would not do any of the things I'm doing now.
But I did learn that, you know, like, this is not a personality type.
These are skills, okay?
And we can all learn the skills.
And I figured if, I mean, like, there's a million physicians and we are brilliant and
we have the best stories and we have so much expertise, if we could just add this on top
of what we already have, it will be completely unstoppable, right?
And it's like, how can I just create a book that someone can walk through and just follow
what the book says and then find themselves in a completely different place, right?
Because this is what you do to attract the grants you want.
It's what you do to attract the team you want.
It's what you do to attract, you know, like a solid network.
And my favorite thing is to attract what we call the unknown.
And sure, Dr. Toghese, after you started working on visibility yourself, there are opportunities
that you never actually looked for.
You never made it to your vision board.
But it falls on your lap and you're like, that's kind of nice.
I would like that, right?
And then because that's what visibility does.
And so the starting point of visibility is really identifying who are the people that
my work helps, okay?
Who are the people that my work helps?
And to be clear, if you are a researcher and, you know, like you have an end goal, so maybe
you're doing some research that's going to help patients, but they're not the decision
maker.
Do you see what I mean?
Like, so maybe it's whoever, you know, like for the bodies that grant the grants, right?
Like, that's who your client is.
Because they're the people who say yes, those are people that give you the opportunity to
do the research or provide the funding and all of those things.
So you want to be really clear, like who is the person I'm talking to?
So Dr. Toghese, let me give you an example that, you know, like with private practice,
for instance, right?
Somebody may go, I'm an OBGY, I'm a pediatrician, okay?
I may go to an OBGYN and I'm telling them about all the amazing things that I do for
pediatric patients, okay?
Well, they care, but not as much as you think, right?
Because what they want, the pain they're having is I have all these babies that was looking
for pediatricians.
When they come to me, they say, oh, this pediatrician will see them for another two months.
So they're looking for someone who will see their patients right away.
And they sense them somewhere and they're just like, oh my goodness, that person is
awful, not like you.
You have great bedside manner.
You know, they're looking for someone who has great bedside manner.
This is what I mean, like because you have to understand who the client is.
In this case, the client is not the patient, the client is the OBGYN.
You see what I'm saying?
And so what is the pain they have?
How do I solve their problem, right?
You're riding grass on Dr. Toghese, you tell me who the client is in this place.
It might be your department because they want all this funding for their institution.
They want their institution to look good at all of that stuff.
You need to understand who that client is.
And so when you're talking, you're talking directly to their pain.
You understand the problem that they're looking for you to solve and you position yourself
as a person who solves that problem.
That is the starting point of all things visibility because nothing works until you understand
that.
Right, Dr. Toghese?
So tell me, how are we doing?
No, that's perfect.
You know, the story that keeps coming to mind each time you share is actually the story
of someone who I know who is well respected in our field.
He sometimes gets calls from NIH saying, hey, we have a pot of money and we're looking for
someone who's going to do this.
Are you interested?
And that's interesting because right here we are, especially in the early career, we're
like submitting grant after grant after grant after grant.
And some people are getting called to apply.
But that's because he's known.
Yes, yes, he's known.
And we might think, well, you know, 30 years later, of course he's known, but it's that
he keeps showing up.
And for that reason, he's known to be someone who has expertise in that area.
Now, is he the only one?
No.
It's easier enough to call the person you know to say, hey, you should apply than to
look for the person you don't know.
So absolutely applicable.
There you go.
Right.
And I'm going to come back to that story because now in his time, it would have taken 30 years,
but please let's understand this.
We live in different times and things are happening faster where AI is doing all the
things that it's doing and we must recognize that everything can happen faster.
So I hope nobody's waiting 30 years to have that.
Right.
And we might work for some time, but we don't have to look for 30 years.
Okay.
I'll tell you some of those things.
Okay.
So the first thing is, who's my ideal client?
It might be NIH.
It might be your department.
Whatever.
But you want to be clear.
Who is that?
Because that's who you talk to.
That's who you position for and all of that.
So that's number one.
Then after that, whoever that person is, right, they exist and they exist in communities.
You have to go find them.
And if you're listening to this and you're an introvert, just know that I live this life
for you.
I live this life to show you that even as introverts, we can rock speaking, we can rock
networking, we can rock all of those things.
You have to find where they are.
Are they at conferences?
Are they, you know, like are there certain associations they are part of?
Like where are they?
Because you want to go there and put yourself in front of them.
Okay.
So we have this, I'll hand this thing over, they will come.
They are not coming.
We go to them.
And so now when you go to conferences, you don't just show up and hear the content.
Like that is just 30% of going up to a conference.
Like it's just 30%.
There's another 30% that is literally going to make connections.
So Dr. Toyosi, the doctor you were talking about, who has the NIH calling him.
Now that's somebody you want to know.
Because guess who could introduce you to the NIH?
He can.
Do you see what I'm saying?
So we want to go where the ideal clients, the decision makers play and we want to go
there and go hand with them.
Right?
And it gives us opportunities to get our own grants.
It gives us opportunities to get in touch with people who can expose us to the opportunity
to get our own grant.
Like people who can shortcut our journey, they all gathered somewhere.
So I, like one of the regrets, and you know I don't do regrets.
Like if I could regret something, one of them would be, you know, when I was a resident,
I didn't know any of these things.
Imagine being in a hospital where you have like hundreds of people who are in training
who are going to be all over the world.
You have all these attendees, you have all these movers and shakers, program directors,
all of that.
And I was too shy to talk to any of them.
I was too shy to build relationships and all of that.
Can you imagine like, you know, 14, 15 years later, if I had built relationships with these
people and kept the best 20%, like the most relevant 20% is what I need.
Can you imagine what my life would look like if I had all those networks?
Like, so we have all these opportunities.
We should not be shy.
We should not say, oh, they know so much better than me.
There was a time they only knew what you knew.
And we should not feel like, oh, I don't know anything.
You're a whole physician.
You're an expert.
Okay?
Like you're an expert.
It costs you hundreds of thousands of dollars and at least a decade of your life to get
to where you are.
You are the expert.
Right?
And if you're thinking, oh, these older guys and older girls, they have all this stuff together,
but you're the future.
They're on their way out.
You're the future.
Like, see yourself like that.
Right?
But if we can put ourselves out there, we open so many doors.
Favor can't be shown if it's not seen.
People work with people they know, like, and trust.
It's just the way it is.
So that's the second thing.
Right?
Like we need to extrovert into, right?
In business terms, we'll say extrovert into the marketplace, but you want to extrovert
into your field so people can know.
I know it'll take a minute.
I know it'll take a number of attempts, but how many times did we learn the crap cycle
before we got it?
You know?
Okay.
But then after that, you know, you want to also give people an opportunity to experience
what you do and what you stand for and you're a genius.
Right?
So there's a lot of people that would be speaking, that would be whatever writing you do, that
would be whatever papers you've already done, but you want to create this body of work.
And so really, I want to challenge everybody listening after today, when you have an opportunity
to speak, let your default be closer to yes.
Except you're at a stage where you've done so much speaking that now, you know, you're
filtering, but if you're early stage and you haven't, like, make your default yes and then
now see, okay, strategically, should I pass on this one?
You know what I mean?
And just start so people can experience you.
Right?
That you've gone out, now they know you, so they can experience you.
And then, you know, the fourth thing I'll just throw out there is just this concept
of asking.
You know what I mean?
Like, it's kind of like the guy who has dated a girl, who has been dating her for five years
has never popped a question.
Like the girl can't say yes to a question you didn't ask.
You know what I mean?
So do all the things, but get it.
I think for physicians, especially this is pretty hard, but ask for what you want.
Ask for the connection.
Ask for the opportunity to write or co-write.
Ask for the grant.
Ask, like, ask, ask.
You will hear a lot of no's, but you hear enough yeses that will turn your world right
side up.
Right?
So build everything, build the visibility, but oh my goodness, ask a lot.
A whole lot.
That's really powerful.
And thank you for sharing that.
One of the things that makes me think about is people are waiting for their mentors to
drop opportunities in their lives.
So it's like, if I have a great mentor, if they have a speaking gig that they're not
able to do, and they're just going to pass it on to me, people are waiting for that.
What I'm hearing you say is that you, that's great, but there's more.
And so it brings me to the question of social media, even as a strategy for academic researchers.
And can you speak to that?
Because I think many academics are like, no, social media, thank you very much.
But I mean, from the visibility formula, I mean, that's definitely clearly a strategy
that especially people who are younger can use.
Can you speak to that?
I love social media.
Love it.
And I say I love it because, I mean, like, a huge, I mean, like two billion people are
on Facebook every month.
Two billion.
Where else do you see two billion people gathered?
Now let me start by saying this because a lot of times people are like, I'm a private
person, I'm a professional, and all of those kinds of things.
If you go to my social media, you'll find out that I'm a private person and I'm a professional.
Right?
Like, you don't have to have your life, like your whole life on social media.
You would barely find anything about my family, barely find anything about my kids.
My business persona is on Facebook or social media.
But my personal life, I'm a very private person, so my personal life is personal.
So you can have, you can dominate social media as a clinical researcher and the other parts
of you are just not there.
You see what I mean?
Like, you don't have to put all, you don't have to do that.
This is not reality TV.
You don't have to do that.
But you're curating a brand because guess what?
When you're speaking, you best believe that people pull out their phones and they Google
it.
You best believe that that's what's happening.
Now do you want them to see random stuff that Google put together or do you want to control
the narrative?
If you want to control the narrative, you're going to curate your online reputation.
If you don't, whatever Google puts together, that's who you are.
And you're not going to be there by the person to say, no, that's not who I really am.
Like, go here, you'll see this.
That's not the way that works.
So you can be on social media as a very private professional person.
You don't have to do the reality TV thing.
You don't have to dance.
You don't have to do any of that.
What you do want to curate what people find when they book for you.
And a brand that is just like all over the place is not ideal.
But a brand that's completely absent is almost even worse.
And Dr. Toyosi, has this happened to you where you went to Google somebody and there's nothing?
Like borderline irritated?
Like, how far do I have to go to find this person?
So for instance, whatever it is that you talk about, post about that.
Just take what you do indoors and bring it outside so when people look for you, they
can find you.
They can binge on you.
We live in a binge economy.
Think Netflix.
OK?
So Dr. Toyosi, you know, like when I watch shows, if it's a show that has a season or
two seasons, I don't watch it because I don't have time.
Like I need this story to last for a bit.
OK?
So if you didn't have enough, if you didn't have enough to let it go for three, four,
five seasons, I don't want to watch it.
In the same way, when people look for you, they want to be able to binge on you.
And with every post, they are knowing, liking and trusting you more.
Do you see what I'm saying?
So whatever it is that you talk about, come there, talk about.
So I'll give you an example with myself.
I was going to try one research.
I was like, hmm, let me try one with me.
But what I do is I help doctors build profitable businesses.
That's what I do.
And so if you look on my page, you'll see me talk about, you know, like, you know, I'll
talk about podcasting.
I'll talk about how to build teams.
I'll talk about the mindset drama that doctors face as entrepreneurs.
I'll talk about the mess that is going on in the health care space and all of those
things.
That's what I talk about.
And so people are literally creating wins just from reading my posts.
So what do you think?
They know, like, trust me.
They're like, if she can do all this stuff for free, like, what would it be like to work
with her?
You see what I'm saying?
So the same way, talk about what you do.
Imagine that people were looking at your social media to decide if they'll invite you to speak.
Imagine that people are looking at your social media to decide if they're going to let you
collaborate with them.
Imagine that a mentor is looking for someone to pass on his best stuff.
And he's like, you know, let me see what's really up with this person.
He Googles you.
Like, do you want to control what he sees or not?
So I love social media.
It has a lot of issues, but, you know, there's no such thing as a one-sided piece of paper.
Everything has advantages and disadvantages.
You choose, you know.
So I use the social media has changed my life.
I've gotten so many speaking gigs from it.
I've gotten so many investment opportunities from it.
I've gotten team members from it.
So much.
And as you know, the Entremont Business School is built on social media.
It's amazing.
Yeah.
No, it's really powerful.
I mean, I just, to an example for myself, someone said, well, I didn't know you talked
about clinicians leading research.
Can you come talk at my institution?
And that's something you can put on your CV as a visiting professor.
And so that opportunity came from social media.
So definitely being visible is very helpful.
Yeah.
And then, you know, like, I'm glad that you do that.
Sometimes people say, well, I don't want to talk about myself a lot.
And they think people know them.
I'm going to say this in the most loving way I know how.
Nobody knows you.
Like nobody, nobody knows you.
Like there's so many people right now that are looking for somebody just like you.
They don't know you exist.
They don't know.
You know, Dr. Toyosi, you know, like, so my podcast, the Entremont Podcast, at this time
probably had about 500,000 downloads, right, which puts it in the top percent, like global
podcasts.
And so somebody did a post in a Facebook group that had 11,000 women physicians.
And they said, what's your favorite podcast to listen to?
Okay.
So I see the post and I'm like, they're going to be talking about Entremont, they're going
to be doing all the things.
I saw the first 20 comments, not a mention.
Next 20 comments, not a mention.
The third set of 20 comments, not a mention.
I think it was like the 72nd comment or whatever.
They're like, oh yeah, also listen to Entremont.
You see what I'm saying?
Like there are a million physicians and I have $500,000.
So I'm thinking like people really know me.
You see what I'm saying?
Like they know me, they know what my brand is all about and all that.
And I always knew like you want to make that assumption people don't because there's so
many, they don't.
Like it takes an extraordinary amount of effort to put yourself out there so so many people
know about you.
And I was just like, that day was such a reminder.
Like put yourself out there.
People don't know.
Check it out.
Coca-Cola is still advertising.
Apple is still advertising.
Amazon makes sure every single bus stand that they use has Amazon all over it.
Why?
Because they're still advertising.
So if they're still advertising, like Instagram advertises, they spend millions of dollars
on ads.
So if these humongous companies understand that they must put themselves in front of
new people, who are we?
Like nobody knows you.
Right?
So that's why I was saying, oh, I didn't know you speak.
Okay, come speak over here.
The question is, who are the other people who don't know you speak?
And who could tell you come speak over here?
You see what I'm saying?
Like that's a powerful thing you brought up.
We need to put ourselves out there.
And our lives will be so different.
So different.
Absolutely.
And I think you spoke to something earlier that resonates with me where it's like, what
about if you feel like you don't have much to say?
It's like, well, I just started.
I only have two manuscripts.
Like what am I going to say?
What would you say to that person?
Okay.
So as physicians, we are content creating machines.
And I hope everyone listening will never forget this.
So let's come to primary care for a second and then we'll come back to research.
If I saw 20 patients a day, right?
That means I did 20 interviews.
What are you doing now?
You're doing an interview.
I did 20 of them.
20 interviews.
Okay.
And then I wrote a note, right?
So that's 20 blog posts.
I wait to think about it.
20 interviews, 20 blog posts every day, five days a week, all year long.
We create content for fun.
We can never run out of content ever.
Okay.
So think about research, right?
Think about the opposing thoughts, right?
That you have to look at.
Think about the myths people believe you have to overcome.
Think about the outcomes people thought, okay, this is where this will take us, but it took
us somewhere else.
Think about the process of research.
Think about how to get funded.
Think about how to leverage collaborations to get your opportunities faster.
Think about the commonest mistakes people make early career as researchers that cost
them years.
Think about the person you saw that excelled that you observed.
These are the strategies they used to get there.
Like, how are you going to run out of content?
You can never run out of content.
It is not possible for you to...
Even if all you did is these are the things people believe and you do your own commentary,
you can...
Which is...
And mind you, we're thinking this all the time.
They say, but I think.
We're doing this all day, every day.
You cannot run out of content.
So the starting point is stopping and realizing, I am a content creation machine.
I'm a whole physician.
Like, have you seen the size of our textbooks?
I'm a whole content creation machine.
I do this all day, every day, twice on Sunday for fun.
Right?
And once we can lean into that, we start thinking about what we're thinking about.
You start thinking about what we're doing.
We start thinking about...
Because think about getting funded, Dr. Toyosi.
Like, when you think about it, you're like, that's just something I do.
I'm amazing.
I just do that.
But there's a whole process to it.
And each step can be seven videos.
Because you can talk about the mistakes.
You can talk about the right way to do it.
You can answer the questions people have about it.
You can talk about the mindset trauma around it.
Like each step, seven videos each.
Like when will you be done with that?
You see what I mean?
And so I think we just need to pedal back and realize we have so much content.
We have so much expertise.
We have the best stories.
We have arguably the best education.
We can't run out of content.
And then there's misinformation.
Like, just dispelling misinformation.
You cannot run out of it.
You see what I'm saying?
Like, it is impossible to run out of content.
The On Trendy Podcast has 415 episodes in four and a half years.
Right?
And I got a lot of content left.
You see what I'm saying?
Yeah.
Yeah, you know, you never think about it like that.
The fact that we're always generating content.
And yes, we are.
In a day of seeing patients, even in just talking to trainees or mentees that we work
with, we are always generating content.
And so yeah, that's a powerful way to look at it.
Thank you.
Thank you for that perspective.
Yeah, I love it.
Our doctors were amazing.
I love physicians.
Yeah, we're pretty amazing.
I'm biased a little bit.
So, you know, we're coming to the end of the podcast and I want to make sure that we leave
space for something that's important about visibility that we haven't touched on, but
that's really important to our audience.
Yeah.
So I think if I could leave everybody with one thing, it's this.
You know, a lot of times when we think about visibility, we think I don't want to put myself
out there.
I don't want to seem like I'm promoting myself and all of those things.
And visibility has very little to do with you.
Visibility is all about the problems that you solve in the world and being the kind
of person who's willing to do what it takes to put yourself in front of the people who
have the problem so you can fix it.
That's it.
That's why.
I mean, so I'm going to use myself and I'm going to come to research.
There are doctors who are trying to build brands and they don't know what to do.
And they have a lot of mindset trauma and they're like, oh, you know, I'm an introvert.
I'm shy.
I don't want to be seen like I'm promoting myself and all of those kind of things.
And if they learn the principles and they're able to act on them, they could completely
change the narrative.
So we've had physicians who are primarily building brands, like they're employed physicians
building brands.
And they've been able to set themselves up where we had a doc who took 12 weeks off.
Dr. Toysi, you know her.
She took 12 weeks off.
12 weeks off to travel.
And she ended up making more than she's ever made ever.
Why?
Because she learned how to build a brand.
She learned how to leverage.
She learned how to ask.
She learned all the things.
And so when you think about it, it means that I can take somebody from I'm shy.
I can't put myself out there.
I can't tell all these people they have it together.
I don't have it together.
I can take somebody from that to a person who's now confident, who's built a brand,
who understands how to monetize the brand, who understands how to create opportunities,
who understands how to network like a boss.
And so not only have they built their dream career, they've built their dream life.
Now with visibility, my job is to keep my eye on somebody has this pain, but life could
look like this.
Am I willing to put myself out there loud enough, consistently enough, and long enough
until that person finds me?
Because when they work with me, on the other side is dream career and dream life.
It has nothing to do with me.
And in the same way, think about the value of the research that a researcher would do.
Think about the fact that NIH is like, we got this money we need to spend.
We're just looking for people who can get the job done.
And you can get the job done.
And then you're not going to put yourself out there so they know you can get the job
done.
This has nothing to do with you.
This is about I've identified my person, my ideal client.
I see their pain.
I see what life could look like on the other side of me doing what I do.
And I'm willing to put myself out there loud enough, consistently enough, long enough for
them to find me.
So that all that good that my career can do, I can do it.
And I can create a legacy.
And I can build my dream life while I'm at it.
So visibility is not about you.
If you can focus on the people you're called to serve, it'll be so much easier for you
to put yourself out there.
It's not about you.
It's not about you at all.
It's about the change you can bring in the world.
And Dr. Toys, I know you said one thing, but I'll give you two.
And the second one, you know it because you've heard me say it a million times.
One of these days, we're going to leave the planet.
We're not going to live forever.
Okay.
Now that's a little morbid.
So I like to use my 90th birthday instead, right?
But someday you're going to be 90 and you're not going to have the strength or the time
to come back and do the things you have an opportunity to do now.
And I have, you know, when I was younger, I remember taking a test or two where I had
valid excuses why I couldn't study.
Right?
I don't know if this has happened to your doctor.
You're like, I'm busy this that that that.
But the second you walk in to go take the test, you're like, girl, you should have studied.
Like you had time to study.
Like who's fooling who?
You could have studied.
Right?
Now that's not bad when you're taking a test and you're young, but I don't want to be there
at 90 because I can't go back and fix it.
I don't want to get to 90 and say, you know, you were saying you were scared.
You're an introvert, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
That didn't really matter.
You could have actually done it.
I don't want to think that I want to get a 90 and I want to celebrate.
I'm like, guys, I did it all.
I dared every fear.
I took every opportunity that I felt was mine.
I believed in what I'm called to do, what my career is supposed to do enough to get
it done.
And I did it.
Whatever is my time, I'm out of here.
Like that's the that's the way I want to be at 90.
I do not want to regret the things that I didn't do because I was so scared or maybe
it wasn't a common path or any.
I don't want to regret any of that.
And so I want to bring you along for that ride.
Like ask yourself at 90 me saying, oh, I can't speak.
Oh, they're all better than me.
And all of those kind of things like will that hold water?
Would you be proud?
You didn't do the things you really wanted to do because of that.
Like if the answer is no, like, come on, you want to celebrate at 90.
Right.
So tell you today like, come on, we need to make 90 year old me proud.
That's what we got to do.
Right.
So, so yeah.
So don't hear this and not do anything like here to make a change.
It would change your life, change everything.
That's pretty powerful.
I mean, it's true as as as academic investigators, we want impact.
We absolutely do.
And if we think about it as this is not about me or people knowing about me, but an opportunity
for the work I do to have impact, it changes the way we think about it.
Absolutely.
That's really good.
So Dr. Una, I wish that we could keep going.
This is such an awesome conversation.
I wonder from my audience who's like, wow, where do I get to hear more about Dr. Una?
Where can I find her?
Where can people find you?
Well, so to inspire people to look at social media, let's get connected on LinkedIn.
Okay.
So, so look for me there so that we can we can inspire each other.
So Dr. Una Chukwude there.
But really, I have a newsletter that goes out every Thursday and it's some of my best
stuff where I help people make like it's like one mindset hack they can do right away.
One boss move you can do right away.
And truthfully, if you follow that and you're doing that every week, you'll be surprised
where you find yourself.
You know, one of my superpowers is taking complex principles and making them simple
and breaking them into simple action steps.
So really, if you follow them a year later, you go like, oh, that's what Dr. Una meant
when she said if you do this, this will change your life.
Like and I'm okay with that.
Right.
But you just keep getting better by default.
So you can sign up for it.
It's free.
It's ontreamd.com forward slash newsletter.
And then every Thursday, I'll be in your inbox coaching you on how to, you know, build that
brand and show up like that entrepreneur, as we say, and really start embracing these
business principles and brand building principles that will change everything for you.
So that's ontreamd.com forward slash newsletter.
Awesome.
Thank you so much.
And your book, tell us about how we can get a hold of your book.
Yeah.
So on Amazon, it is called the visibility formula.
And we have a number of books, so what we call the ontreamd business school library,
but the visibility format is an easy read, easy read, but you can take it, you can apply
it.
You can go back, read it again, apply it, it'll change everything for you.
And we have the ontreamd method, which also goes into brand building and how to think
about entrepreneurship as a physician in this time.
Right.
Like, you know, when I graduated from residency, Dr. Toyosi, there are barely any urgent cares.
Like that was not a thing.
You know, like I never thought CVS would be my competition.
Walmart will start a click.
Like it was just a completely different time.
And so the times that we're in now require a training that we never got in medical school
or residency or any of that.
And the ontreamd method kind of walks you through that.
Right.
So where the way medicine needs to be in 2024, the way physicians need to be in 2024 to thrive.
So both of those you can get on Amazon.
Wow.
Thank you for sharing.
And as you're talking about that, it's true.
Our landscape is different from the landscape our mentors had 20, 30, 40 years ago.
We really need help.
And so thank you for writing those books that are going to be helpful no matter what your
industry, whether you're an academic physician or you're a clinician, scientist or you're
a clinician, those books are going to be certainly helpful.
I've read them and they're excellent.
So thank you for writing them.
Thank you.
Well, thank you for being on the show.
It's been such a pleasure to have you.
And to our audience, please, this has been a great episode and I want to share with,
I want you to find one person who needs to hear about this.
You know, a colleague who's like shy, who says no social media, that person needs to
listen.
So please forward it on to them.
Dr. Una, thank you for being here.
Thank you so much for having me.
This was absolutely great.
Thank you.
All right, everyone.
We'll see you next time.
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Clinician Researcher Podcast, where academic
clinicians learn the skills to build their own research program, whether or not they
have a mentor.
If you found the information in this episode to be helpful, don't keep it all to yourself.
Someone else needs to hear it.
So take a minute right now and share it.
As you share this episode, you become part of our mission to help launch a new generation
of clinician researchers who make transformative discoveries that change the way we do healthcare.
Thank you.