E05 - The Real Reason Most of Us Procrastinate

[00:00] Hi, and welcome to the, from MD to entrepreneur podcast, the podcast that teaches you how to find a financial security outside of medicine. I'm Dr. Pranay Parikh  And I started out as a fresh attending with serial business knowledge, despite loving my job and medicine. I didn't feel like I had to financial security or control over my life today.

[00:26] I am a serial entrepreneur and practice medicine on my own terms. Listen on to learn how I've helped hundreds. 

[00:35] Hey, everyone in this podcast, I wanted to give you a brief look into my wild and crazy journey from MD to entrepreneur, a story we're not getting. What I wanted was the best thing that could have happened to me, even though it didn't feel like that way at the time when I was young, I always thought that doctors had a straight path to becoming one, always at the top of their class with a singular focus on becoming a doctor.

[00:59] And we'll kind of. At least that last part described me. Well, not nerdy. Like you see on TV these days. Oh, I play some video games. I'm such a nerd. No, I was one of those that love dinosaurs and collected rocks. I hope this story helps would be doctors don't feel like they might not fit the typical mold of a doctor.

[01:17] Let's start at the beginning, this nerdiness of mine, and a little aptitude for the sciences, maybe decent at school, looking back, this was a blessing and a curse. Well, the other students had to work hard and eventually built the right habits that carried them throughout their life. I became lazy and just collided through this changed in high school.

[01:36] When I met a girl and she was smart way smarter than I was and hardworking too. I felt smarter by being around her and her friends. I quickly learned how important it was to surround yourself with the right people. We would talk about tests and college, what we would do with our futures. I was inspired and a little embarrassed by how far behind that.

[01:56] You could only glide through life for so long till it catches up to you. I finally had to get down and work hard to keep up. It took me a while to learn the right habits. And eventually I was able to keep up with her and the rest of her friends, we went to different colleges and drifted apart as many high school couples do.

[02:13] I got a new group of friends that didn't have the drive that my high school friends did. And so neither did I, I also realize that on top of who you surround yourself with, it's just as important to have internal motivator. External motivations. Like a girl can be great at times, but a motivation or goal that's personal and inside of you can guide you into good times and bad.

[02:35] In college. I dabbled as a Marine oceanology and a molecular biochemist and briefly thought I could do either, either seemed interesting. At first pre-med was hard and I was making what I thought was good money at the. It wasn't until I got a lucky break and was let go from my job that I decided to give med school and other chats.

[02:56] The funny thing is it didn't feel like a lucky break at the time, but it gave me the time to seriously study for the MCAT and apply for medical school, which changed the trajectory of my life again and again, throughout my life times that I seem to be at my lowest also lead to some of the best opportunities.

[03:13] I applied to medical school in the Caribbean and got in. I'm thankful. They gave me a chance when GPO was decent, but not great. And my CV was all over the place. Medical school was hard as you'd expect, but even harder when you had to do it in a third world country, there were nights to power. Water would go up and I'd be studying by candle light, but I survived and mashed into residency, but at my ninth choice, it was devastating.

[03:38] Most people end up somewhere in their top. But getting into residency somewhere was better as an alternative, not becoming a doctor at all. This perspective helped me work hard while others were bummed that they had matched at that program and put in minimal effort. I worked as hard as I could early on.

[03:57] I was able to get one of the top scores on a nationwide exam. It was nice to have a wind and to remember that there really wasn't anything wrong with me. There was still a voice in the back of my head that I wasn't good enough. That voice never went. But it got a little quieter. I continue to give it my all.

[04:14] And through the grapevine, I heard that there was an opening at my dream residency program. The university of Southern California, I was eventually offered a position to transfer and was back in California for the first time in years. I've no doubt had, I felt sorry for myself and just put in the minimal effort in my program that my application would have reflected that.

[04:34] And I wouldn't have been able to transfer. The surprising thing is. At the USC program was better than any program that I had interviewed at before. And had I gotten into one of them, I wouldn't have even considered transferring. Finally, after residency, I became a full-fledged doctor, of course not without some bumps and bruises along the way.

[04:56] Unfortunately not everything was solved by transparent to USC. I had initially wanted to do further training in a fellowship. I didn't get in twice. I was told that my application didn't look like someone. I was solely interested in getting a fellowship that I was doing too much other stuff. Similar to what I was told when I was applying for medical school, I was too all over the place.

[05:18] It's funny that they say they want us to be well-rounded, but reality, just one is focused on whatever we are applying. It did stink a bit, but by now I was used to not getting what I wanted at first fellowship would have been another three years, 80 hour weeks. Now that I didn't get in, I had a ton of time to actually be well-rounded.

[05:37] I did a little real estate, taught a class at USC medical school, joined a startup and started a. All together that seemed disjointed, but eventually helped me learn, uh, my love of education eventually morphed into co-creating the online course on real estate. Co-founding a private real estate company speaking in front of thousands of doctors on entrepreneurs.

[05:57] Finally this podcast, all the while getting married and starting a family. What surprised me most was how much crossover there was between all my different interests. I had initially been drawn to internal medicine because of the breadth of knowledge involved. It spans across different organ systems and specialties.

[06:13] While working outside of medicine, I realized that many of the skills that I learned along the way outside of medicine were directly applicable inside of me. Negotiation customer service, public speaking, all are used on a daily basis on the hospital wards. This Rocky journey that got me to this very spot could be looked at as a series of failures and rejections or one of resilience and success.

[06:37] I consider myself fortunate that the past me was willing to work through all these rejections long enough to see the opportunities that they opened up along the way. Unfortunately, this took me many years to realize, and there'll be making a few podcasts on it coming up soon. Lastly, I want to leave you a quote from G Kingsley Ward “Successful people appear to be traveling along one continual successful road. What is not apparent is the perseverance. It takes following each defeat to keep you on that. No one I know of has ever experienced one success after another, without defeats failures, disappointments and frustrations galore along the way, learning to overcome these times of agony to what separates the winners from losers.”

[07:19] Thanks everyone. And see you in the next episode. I appreciate you taking the time to listen to this episode. If you have any questions on entrepreneurship, please feel free to email me at info@ frommd.com. I answer all my messages. So please don't hesitate to.