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48 years old finished Unscripted and sad.

GMSI7D

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needed that! I'm 42 and was feeling it's too late!


most people don't understand the point

the point is not YOU guys and your age

the point is what is coming in society because your success is correlated to society 's behaviour.

there is not you and the world . there is you as part of a global system.

you are part of a system anyway called society. and you can't become 100 % unscripted from that system

otherwise it would mean that you are an alien above earth or a monk in the desert or an hermit in the mountain.
 
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Iammelissamoore

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Age is the biggest downer in current society.

You look at other people succeed and then compare it to yourself, X years younger than me, or X years older than me.

It's not the age that makes a person successful, it's the effort behind it.

Society makes assumptions, that you should be in college by the age of X, get married by X and have a decent career by X.

But that's for the slowlaners. Us Fastlaners have it different.

I have a friend who is 50+, is a fitness coach, has a ripped body. He got enrolled into medical school. He had it planned many years ago like that.

Once you become a huge success, then no one will bat an eye how many years you screwed up. And that huge success can take less than 2 years.

Mark Zuck, Steve Jobs, KFC founder, JK Rowling -all their success happened like that, but the buildup took them years which many don't even know yet.
most people don't understand the point

the point is not YOU guys and your age

the point is what is coming in society because your success is correlated to society 's behaviour.

there is not you and the world . there is you as part of a global system.

you are part of a system anyway called society. and you can't become 100 % unscripted from that system

otherwise it would mean that you are an alien above earth or a monk in the desert or an hermit in the mountain.
Welcome to the forum drleeds,

Initially when I was about to welcome you, I reckon you were m.i.a - lol, but as I was brought back to your post I see you were doing some good works offline - kudos to you. Great to see you are using your medical background to bring value to the market as we recognise that a lot of mainstream stuff is rewiring the brains of human beings negatively, so, it's good to see you can help them turn around.

Glad to see you've been through Unscripted and that you are polishing up with TMF also.

I know in your OP, you've stated that at 48 you're a bit sad that you came across the knowledge the books brought you, and I 100% agree with everyone who have provided sound advice to help you get ahead, that's what we're all about on this forum.

Not to focus on only the material things here, but, the beauty of building a genuine Fastlane/Unscripted life offers us the opportunity to accomplish lots in a shorter period of time - now, it doesn't equate to get rich quick, but it does help in getting ahead by overcoming hurdles, while recognising that all the challenges are facing/will face is simply a part of the life we've selected. That being said, society has embedded in us this ideal that at particular points we are supposed to do particular things; Fastlane/Unscripted is about breaking away from what society says and doing what is meaningful to us at different time frames in our lives.

There are things which people will take 10 years to figure out, that you won't have to worry about, because you've managed to make breakthroughs with the philosophies highlighted in the books, in addition to your own personal experiences; and yes, we can go through mental-masturbation about all the things we could have accomplished as much as we want, the beautiful thing is you have come across the information and YOU have decided to push forward and do something great with it.

Life is a cycle, and everyone has a journey they've set out on; society tells us that we should all be doing the same things at the same times, but that goes against the individual journey we have ahead of us. There are profound experiences we will have at different times of our lives and regardless at what age we experience it, the lesson/memory will be meaningful.

There are so many of us who've read TMF - some people successfully build a Fastlane business within 2 years of reading it the first time, some 10 years after reading it the 10th time; the bottomline is we make the choice to do it. Not everything will resonate immediately for some as it may for others.

Don't beat yourself up thinking that, "oh my gosh, 48 is 2 years short of 50;" there are people living the time of their lives and reinventing themselves at any age, that is an individual right we hold globally, and the ball is in your court to welcome it at whatever point in your journey you've received it and simply run with it all the way to the finish line.

So, to you, I say kudos on your journey, I wish you ultimate success in all you set out to do.

P.S.: Didn't exactly mean to write such a long post, but, I hope it, along with all others have shown you that regardless of your age, you've got value to contribute to this world. :)
 

GMSI7D

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, you've got value to contribute to this world. :)



i am afraid value is not what people want but rather what is necessary for them to grow

since people don't understand what i mean, i will explain

adulthood is not the final stage of a human being's growth but rather the beginning


ancient teaching say " as above so below"

---> think about children : we don't give them what they want ( candies ) but rather what they need ( healthy food) whether they like it or not

because children are not mature enough to know what is good for them so we have to force them to do the right thing

same thing with people : most people are not mature enough to have the right life


as above so below : most people are like children who need Masters to help them grow whether they like it or not



so value is not what we think


real value is becoming yourself

so you force people to think above their current way of thinking instead of staying in their comfort zone


it means that you will fight your way through life among immature people


but this is your duty anyway if you would call yourself an intelligent human being who cares for people's growth



Nietzsche_freedom.jpg
 

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I am a little sad after finishing the book. Maybe it's because the book is aimed at younger people and I am already close to 50.

I am a family doctor in Florida. About two years ago, I quit my two jobs and dropped out of traditional medicine. By traditional, I mean the typical busy clinic where you only get 5 minutes with your doctor who is stressed out because of the hours they will have to sit in front of the EMR program to document your visit.

My office is what they call a micropractice. It is not that bad at all. The only problem is that I am in an extremely competitive area, so I am not as busy as I could be if we moved elsewhere and started over. I don't have a lot of expenses, but I'm not making enough money now.

I used to complain about how hard it was to attract patients. Then, about a year ago, I started studying SEO and I started blogging. I have written a lot of posts on my main practice website. Maybe 60-70. My posts have led directly to new patient calls because certain keywords I have used correspond to specific phone queries in such a way that I know it is working.

While my practice is still not busy enough, every new patient I get says they found me in a Google search. I have decided to go into the field of SEO for medical facilities. Specifically addiction treatment programs. With my website and practice, I can help a few people that live near my office. By doing SEO work for medical addiction programs, I can help a lot of people by helping more people suffering from addiction to find quality treatment programs. Of course, I will not work with a bad facility.

I have one current customer. We are still in the early stages and he understands that it takes time to get everything going. One problem I have is improving bounce rate on my own site and improving design on all of my sites. I have been studying and practicing with my theme to get better at that.

The other thing I am doing is forcing myself to do videos of myself speaking. I am terrible on camera and in front of an audience. I hate the way I sound and speak. My mouth gets extremely dry right away. Still, I am forcing myself to do it because I was told that putting videos of myself speaking as a medical expert may reduce my bounce rate. It did go down a little bit. I really need to work on the design and use the short code tools in my theme.

So that is my big idea for now. To do marketing work to help bring people suffering with addiction together with treatment programs on a larger scale than I can do in my own small practice. I am also building a site to directly bring patients and programs together. Maybe it is sort of like MJ's Limo business but for drug addicts and treatment programs.

I don't know if this is going to work out or be any good, but at least I am getting marketing experience, at least in content marketing and SEO. I am also pretty good at programming, though it makes me sleepy now. I always thought I would build a software company and sell medical software. I did write an open source EMR program that a lot of people like. I also published a tracking app on the Apple App store that I fully wrote myself. It is a drill down interface based on Core Data.

The thing about programming is that it is hard to get myself to sit down and work on programs that much anymore. I will add small features and fix bugs, but anything too big is tiring. Maybe with marketing experience, I can revisit selling programs. I used to complain that no one bought my app, but I did no marketing at all. I thought at the time that the app store just magically brought buyers to my app.

Enough about me. Thank you for letting me in to the forum!

Listen, I'm 33 and one of my good friends is in his 70s and has already built his second private aviation business. His first one was sold to Berkshire.

Be happy you're here - physically and mentally and forget about your age.
 
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ZeroTo100

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Your post caused me to look for domain names such as drleads.com! I have a domain name obsession, even though I know it is not that important for SEO now. It looks like everything with the word lead in it is mostly taken. I did end up wasting a few dollars on two. heroinleads.com which I can forward to my medical addiction marketing site. And leadses.com. I have no idea why I thought that was a good idea. It was probably late at night.

That's not entirely true - that it's not that important for SEO. From my experience, EMD's have been proven to still be valuable for ranking. Some SEOs would argue me on building a more brandable domain but they still help.

Love DrLeads though. It's short, memorable, and brandable.

I have a question about your administrative support if you don't mind...

What would you say the biggest issue is in terms of admin support (aside from getting people in the door) and medical billing? Did you manage billing, accounting in house?

Just curious as to how the operation works.
 

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That's not entirely true - that it's not that important for SEO. From my experience, EMD's have been proven to still be valuable for ranking. Some SEOs would argue me on building a more brandable domain but they still help.

Love DrLeads though. It's short, memorable, and brandable.

I have a question about your administrative support if you don't mind...

What would you say the biggest issue is in terms of admin support (aside from getting people in the door) and medical billing? Did you manage billing, accounting in house?

Just curious as to how the operation works.

Billing is not an issue for me. I don't work with health insurance companies other than to help patients with medication prior authorizations.

I run what is known as a micropractice. I am my only employee. It keeps things simple and relatively stress free, but it does put a limit on the earning potential of the business. That is why I must work on business opportunities outside of my own medical practice.

My father had a medical practice with unlimited growth potential. He had, at the peak, 5 or 6 offices (I'm not sure which ones overlapped over time). He employed doctors and nurse practitioners to work in each office and he had office managers. It was a large practice that could have continued to expand. The problem was that he was unable to turn over management of the business fully to a competent practice manager and the health insurance companies had too much control. After he passed away, one company immediately pulled out and lead to the closing of the entire business.

I once heard a friend who owns an A/C business talking about how he has a phone book of technicians and customers. He was proud of the fact that if he were out of the picture, his wife could use this information to continue the business on her own. While this does not meet the criteria of a fast lane business, it seems like a good place to start. I imagine putting the process of how my new business works into writing in such a way that a child could follow it. This way, there is the possibility that my wife and children could pick up this manual and continue if I were not around. Or, an employed manager could follow the manual.

This reminds me of a book that was recommended by a friend that is available for free with a free audio version. It is called Work The System by Sam Carpenter. It is basically about the importance of documenting business systems to reduce chaos and save time and stress in running a business.
 

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Greetings from another doctor!

So man....I'm going to just take a moment for a quick reply.

First off:

Three Radically Important Questions You Can't Afford to Ignore

  1. Who do you want to be in six months?
  2. Who and where do you want to be in five years?
  3. Do you have the guts to undertake radical changes to your lifestyle?
    1. Income
    2. Location (possibly)
    3. Weeks and months of study, practice, learn, repeat
    4. Sleeping like you were a resident again

Dr. Leeds...after three years on this forum, I can tell you that these three questions are the only ones that you have to answer right now.

It's critical that you answer honestly. To and for yourself as well as others (family, friends, acquaintances).

To do anything less will lead to action faking, bitterness, and disappointment.

Cheers!

Dr. @Iwokeup , Emergency Medicine

I have been thinking a lot about your three questions. I keep coming back to them and I have been doing some writing for myself on the topic. Thank you.
 
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Rabelo

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Unfortunately the good doctor hasn't been back since his original post which as we all know around here, is pretty much standard for 1 and done... post some yearning declarations of change, and then go back to scripted life, never to be seen again.

Oh well, I truly hope he returns. Some great commentary here from all walks of life.
:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl: hopefully he will be back
 

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Welcome to the Forum! 48 is not too late to find this book! I'll be 46 in a week and am still fired up after reading TMF and Unscripted in the last two months. I've reduced my hours at my (thankless) Project Manager job so I have more time to work on a Fastlane endeavor. I wish I would have found the book 10 years ago, but unless my Fastlane path is a time machine there is nothing I can do about that now. :) I'm looking forward to where I'll be when I'm 48, 50, etc.. No reason to be sad, but be happy you found the book like I am. Good luck to you!
Ditto! I'm in this age bracket and I have more motivation than I had 10 years ago. I'm more focused and driven to achieve because of my age.
I don't waste time anymore. Getting up 3 hours before my J.O.B. to journal, yoga/exercise, learn and research has become MUCH easier. (Oh, and
a healthy dose of caffeine and B-12 in the afternoon help as well. Lol)

Unscripted changed something in me. Or more accurately, it gave me the blueprint. Unscripted gave me the path for my desire to flourish.

I signed up this week and let me tell ya, this a great place to be if you want to reach your full potential as an entrepreneur and achieve your own personal freedom.

Happy Process Doc!
 

MJ DeMarco

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Unfortunately the good doctor hasn't been back since his original post which as we all know around here, is pretty much standard for 1 and done... post some yearning declarations of change, and then go back to scripted life, never to be seen again.

Woo hoo! Happy to see my quick judgment shoved back into my face!

Welcome back @drleeds :)
 
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Lionhearted

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Woo hoo! Happy to see my quick judgment shoved back into my face!

Welcome back @drleeds :)
Most people in Dr. Leeds place I believe are in the toughest scripted life to break out of. They spent a fortune (time and money) on an education, obviously they have been showered with scripted dogma all their lives (parents and most certainly school) and now have the "promised" scripted outcome of a "good job" with a great income. This has to be a seriously hard circumstance to break out of. "Yes it sucks but hey the money is good." I have heard this many times from the scripted and I fear most of them will never understand the trap they have fallen for. Note also his statement where he says,"It is not that bad at all" so it sucks but it does not suck all that bad. The (TGIF) crowd where the weekend is their only reward. BTW the weekend is where they blow the majority of the money and time that could free them too. What a perfect system to keep you coming back on Monday. Dang spent all my money this weekend better go back to work on Monday to pay for it all. Rinse and repeat next weekend.
Bottom line is that you have to give it to Dr. Leeds for even having the stones to break free the scripted life he has so heavily invested it. INSPIRATIONAL Dr. All the best
 
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If I were a doctor contemplating a (sort of) career change, I'd whore myself out to a new reality or talk show. Not exactly a Fastlane concept, but it'd dump a ton of cash into your bucket and give ya some wiggle room to do something more legit.

Haha anyone else remember that TV show where all the doctors were knocking bananas? And then the hippie vegan guy tore them up on his hilarious Youtube video with USDA data on bananas?

Yeah, I wonder how much those jokers get paid for being morons on national TV, probably a lot more than they made as doctors.
 
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Mr.Brandtastic

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There are so many good entrepreneurs, innovators, entertainers, and creators who got started later in life. Including:

Harland Sanders (Colonel Sanders): 62
Rodney Dangerfield: 46
Charles Darwin: 50
Samuel Jackson: 46
Donald Fisher (of Gap clothing, had no retail experience whatsoever): 40
Ray Kroc: 52
Sam Walton: 44
Tim and Nina Zagat (Zagat reviews): 51
Jack Cover (inventor of the taser): 50
Momofuku Ando (Ramen noodles): 48
Henry Ford: 45
Stan Lee: 39

Buddy you're not to old to start a business, a brand, or a book, you're at the optimal age! Don't let the downward age curve of the internet entrepreneurs fool you, many of the most iconic names started later. Many times it takes years of the rat race for people to grow ballsy. All these people like you or I, made a choice every single day, and they chose right.
 

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I am back! I have not checked back in here because I started reading The Millionaire Fastlane . I am about 62% through it. I am enjoying it as much as Unscripted . It is definitely worth reading both books. I realize I have not even hit a lot of great material, so I will keep reading.

I am also working hard on my medical addiction marketing business. I am managing SEO content marketing for four clients. Three of the clients are me, but one is real.

I realized that I am not a designer, so I am now giving in to using a talented designer located in India. I couldn't believe how she was able to implement my directions into a mockup. I am giving her all four sites now to work on since she doesn't charge too much. My mistake with this client was to try to convince him to wait for design until his keyword ranking moved up to the point where he had actual traffic. Clients like to see fancy design even if no one else sees it.

My wife wants to sell fruit cakes online. I don't know if that will ever go anywhere, but the funny thing is that I discovered no one ever registered the domain fruitbun.com. She is fine with calling them fruitbuns. One of my kids wants to sell slime and another wants to sell artwork.

I am not working for anyone and I am not in debt, so at least I have that going for myself. I could be selling my service to other clients, but I want to get the design work done and have solid performance numbers to show for this client. It shouldn't be too long. I really love writing blog posts for my sites. The Yoast plugin is getting happier with my writing. Somehow, transition words are naturally finding there way into more of my sentences.

Another thing I am working on is building authority by putting myself out there to do interviews and guest posts. Here is an example: Physician-designed EHRs work better for doctors

I do keep thinking about getting back to programming, but it is time consuming and difficult. I feel like I can be more productive working with my SEO team and doing as much writing as possible.

Also, I want to say thank you to everyone who commented on my post. There is a lot of great motivation here and useful advice. I will be going back to take notes.

You should consider Youtube to showcase your software too. You could do a video demo, showcasing yourself and what your software does (screen capture). People are visual, auditory and tactile. Youtube covers two of those, these days people would much rather watch a video than read a blog post and it is much easier to do that on their smartphone too. Make sure to put tell people that they can find the links to your site in the video description below the video. All the best.
 
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drleeds

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Most people in Dr. Leeds place I believe are in the toughest scripted life to break out of. They spent a fortune (time and money) on an education, obviously they have been showered with scripted dogma all their lives (parents and most certainly school) and now have the "promised" scripted outcome of a "good job" with a great income. This has to be a seriously hard circumstance to break out of. "Yes it sucks but hey the money is good." I have heard this many times from the scripted and I fear most of them will never understand the trap they have fallen for. Note also his statement where he says,"It is not that bad at all" so it sucks but it does not suck all that bad. The (TGIF) crowd where the weekend is their only reward. BTW the weekend is where they blow the majority of the money and time that could free them too. What a perfect system to keep you coming back on Monday. Dang spent all my money this weekend better go back to work on Monday to pay for it all. Rinse and repeat next weekend.
Bottom line is that you have to give it to Dr. Leeds for even having the stones to break free the scripted life he has so heavily invested it. INSPIRATIONAL Dr. All the best

Thank you for this. I had to go back and reread what I wrote and think about it. Two years ago, I quit my last real job. I can now set my own hours, sleep in late, reschedule appointments and choose which patients I am comfortable seeing. I do sometimes forget what day of the week it is. I try to set my schedule so I am working every other day at most. I avoid driving on the road during the worst traffic when people are going to or coming home from jobs.

Most doctors have not made this move to drop out of assembly line medicine. They are living in a tortured state, working with broken medical records software and employers who expect them to do way too much work. More rules and restrictions are continuously piled on. I hear doctors complaining all the time about working on charts for hours after they get home.

Once, I worked at a medical clinic and I wanted to get more involved in the business side of the practice and I wanted to work with the new software they were installing. Whenever I would bring it up to my boss, he would reply, "Did you finish your charts?" At another job at a large clinic, a similar thing happened. I would get caught up seeing my appointments for the morning and I would go to sit in on meetings in the conference room to hear what the administrators were doing. After a while, one of them would look at me and say, "I think you have patients."

When I was studying programming early on, I would ask questions on various forums. Once, I mentioned that I was a doctor working on my own EMR software. One of the programmers in the group told me I should worry about seeing my patients and leave the programming to them. Some people really don't like to see doctors doing anything outside of the job they are "supposed to be doing".

In fact, there are people who don't like to see me living a relaxed lifestyle, working on outside projects and not being overburdened with patient care related work. I currently help people with addiction. I like to spend time with my patients, so I don't see a lot of them on the days I work. Someone recently told me that I need to fill every waking hour with seeing as many actual sick people as possible. He managed to attack my lifestyle and people who struggle with addiction in the same sentence.

Of course, working as a doctor is Slow Lane no matter how you look at it. I can only see one patient at a time. I could hire a doctor to see my patients. Then it would be sort of like owning a restaurant. There is still a cap on how many people I can provide service to. Doctors seeing patients in an office can only help a small number of people. Of course, building a large, successful practice can approach the monthly income of what many of us aim for in an online software-based business. The problem is that there is little hope of it exploding into something much bigger.

The thing I am finding to be most fun about my current work is the digital marketing side. I love working on SEO. I like to write blog posts. I like to work on software. I see the possibility of being able to help people far beyond my own little medical practice. My SEO work has lead to people calling and writing to me from all over the US. I have been able to provide useful information to people who would have never walked into my office because they live hundreds or thousands of miles away.

So, it's not about trying to avoid my responsibility to help people. I am finding new ways to hopefully help a lot more people.
 
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drleeds

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You should consider Youtube to showcase your software too. You could do a video demo, showcasing yourself and what your software does (screen capture). People are visual, auditory and tactile. Youtube covers two of those, these days people would much rather watch a video than read a blog post and it is much easier to do that on their smartphone too. Make sure to put tell people that they can find the links to your site in the video description below the video. All the best.

You are totally correct about this. I have had some really interesting responses to a few videos. I made some videos about how to get free medication and it lead to a lot of emails and phone calls. It's not a popular topic to write or speak about, but of course people are always looking for free stuff, so it could be something that could get a lot of subscribers. I used it to get a Google review. I talked one woman through the process of applying for patient assistance and speaking to her doctor about it. She had success and thanked me for my help and I asked for a review in return.

Other videos that have attracted a lot of views without any promotion are how-to videos on programming. I have an EMR demo video that is well over 3,000 views and an iOS demo on dismissing the keyboard that is over 1,000 views. I should always be thinking about what I am good at that matches up with what a lot of people are looking for.

Thank you for the advice. I really should make continued development of YouTube videos a priority. One thing I have done in the past is just read my blog posts and comment on them while running a screen capture program. Then I publish the video that shows me scrolling through my blog post and talking. Maybe I should do this for every post. I don't want to fill the channel with a lot of useless material, but it could be good for SEO. Probably more commentary and less straight reading is best for that.
 

I Am I Said

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Your last reply brought this to my attention. I think there's a lot of potential in the modernizing and digitizing of traditional addiction treatments, speaking as an ex-alcoholic. There have been a few attempts, for example, to create online chat groups and forums where one can go for support, usually with the, "but make sure you find a sponsor and do face-to-face meetings" message attached.

The world of addicts is polarized about what really works; but in the end, the only sustainable thing is the patient's inner conviction to get free using whatever tools are available. That seems to be difficult for medical people to discuss, but I have met one or two who are comfortable with it and it sounds like you are too.

If you have a treatment that helps, and the ability to get into our heads so we make that fundamental decision, there are a lot of us looking for help. In my case I did AA, I read Allen Carr, I read Joan Larsen, I read Steve Chandler, and I talked to alkie friends. In the end, it was simple - a friend told me to start seeing myself as a non-drinker.

Is that a bit like seeing oneself as an entrepreneur who works at XYZ rather than an XYZ who would like to start a business?

Anyways, if you can use your insights to connect with addicts and bring them into your practice and get results, I'm sure the business will grow and I'm sure there are ways to scale it too.
 

GMSI7D

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I am a little sad after finishing the book. Maybe it's because the book is aimed at younger people and I am already close to 50.

your definition of "sad" is not the same than 95 % of people on earth

you are richer than 95 % of people on earth

you have already more knowledge, possibilities in your life, and so on than 95 % of people on earth

if people in africa could grab a computer and read this forum, they would think that you are crazy too be "sad"

they would probably slap you if they could or worse.

so what does " sad " mean anyway ?

what is a life worth living ? this is not philosophy but an honest look at your life


.
 
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your definition of "sad" is not the same than 95 % of people on earth

you are richer than 95 % of people on earth

you have already more knowledge, possibilities in your life, and so on than 95 % of people on earth

if people in africa could grab a computer and read this forum, they would think that you are crazy too be "sad"

they would probably slap you if they could or worse.

so what does " sad " mean anyway ?

what is a life worth living ? this is not philosophy but an honest look at your life


.
Sad is subjective.
For your average Joe on the street, 'sad' may be wasting hours to stand in line for Szechuan sauce, game crashing on Steam, getting the lowest pay in the office and not having enough toys or vacations to display on Facebook lol.

But for us, 'sad' would be having time suckage, working at jobs where our greatest efforts go unappreciated or even exploited, not having our dreams come true and having mind-numbing debt.

It's more of 99% than 95% lol....considering the real ravages of mediocrity....

And I don't think Africans will slap you hehehe...things have gotten better even for them these days.
 

drleeds

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your definition of "sad" is not the same than 95 % of people on earth

you are richer than 95 % of people on earth

you have already more knowledge, possibilities in your life, and so on than 95 % of people on earth

if people in africa could grab a computer and read this forum, they would think that you are crazy too be "sad"

they would probably slap you if they could or worse.

so what does " sad " mean anyway ?

what is a life worth living ? this is not philosophy but an honest look at your life


.
Maybe "sad" was the wrong word. I probably should have said that I regret the time wasted over the decades of my life when I could have been more focused on progressively working towards a goal to provide me with more freedom in life rather than giving in to the advice of others.

Of course I am grateful for my quality of life. I think about that all the time. When my A/C turns on to protect us from the severe Florida humidity, I am grateful that it is not broken. When water was pouring down through my ceiling one night and I thought a pipe had burst, it turned out to be that the new Chinese faucet I installed upstairs didn't reach far enough over the sink and someone left it dripping all night, soaking the wall. No big deal. I am grateful when I can wake up late and go to work at a time of my choosing and avoid the rush hour traffic. I am grateful to not be living in a world where there is no hope of escaping disease and poverty. I was grateful recently when a hurricane hit us and we didn't lose power and there was very little damage afterwards.

Yes, I have a great life. It would be fine if I never have five to ten million dollars in the bank. Yet, I have been intensely interested in computers, programming and the internet going back to my childhood. I remember seeing the very first websites go up in the 90s. In the 80s, I was writing basic programs on an Apple II and even some machine language programs. Since 2005, I have been writing useful medical software for myself.

Because of my procrastination, laziness and lack of confidence in myself in addition to falling into the trap of being comfortable in my career, things have not gone the way I envisioned them in the beginning. So, "regret" is probably a better word to use than "sad".
 

I Am I Said

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your definition of "sad" is not the same than 95 % of people on earth

So what?

I hope that my definition of anything is different than 99.99% of people on earth. If the majority were "right", the earth would not be such a sorry place for so many people.
 
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SeePetey

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Maybe "sad" was the wrong word. I probably should have said that I regret the time wasted over the decades of my life when I could have been more focused on progressively working towards a goal to provide me with more freedom in life rather than giving in to the advice of others.

Two things come to mind when I read this.

First was a recent experience with my dad. He's almost 75, did the military thing, and then retired from the civil service about 10 years ago. He's a brilliant guy, but spent his whole life institutionalized by the slow-lane reality that was beaten into him growing up. Even after a 35 year career and a pension, he still has trouble making ends meet and recently had to ask me for money as his retired job as a Costco vendor recently cut back his hours.

The second thought was a line from a movie I just recently watched called "The Circle". The interviewer asks the interviewee what her greatest fear was, and after some thought, she replied, "Unrealized potential."

While the movie wasn't the greatest, that particular thought has resonated with me ever since. I see my father in that thought, I see the last 15 years of my life in it as well.

I'm just glad that I've been able to find something of a rough road-map that leads me off of that depressing path.
 

SeePetey

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So what?

I hope that my definition of anything is different than 99.99% of people on earth. If the majority were "right", the earth would not be such a sorry place for so many people.

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect."

-Mark Twain
 

Readerly

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Thanks for putting yourself out there, @drleeds. It's hard to be open about struggles in an open forum like this. Here's my humble effort to add some value to your entrepreneurial journey. Don't get too caught up in SEO. As MJ has written, SEO, like all marketing, is an accelerator, not an end in itself. Focus on providing real value to those in need, and the traffic will follow. It sounds like you already do that--helping addicts overcome their addictions. That's righteous work. You just need to figure out a way to liberate your time from the endeavor--and scale.

There's a non-profit called the Christopher D. Smithers Foundation, based in New York, whose mission is to help those suffering from addictions. The foundation is rolling in cash. Its founders are heirs to a century-old IBM stock fortune. They recently bought a full-page ad in the first section of the Sunday Times to complain about the state of the opioid addiction treatment industry. It's unregulated and overrun by companies looking to exploit the epidemic to make a quick buck. As I'm sure you well know, if you Google "sober house," you get a sense of the dubious qualifications of many of these treatment centers.

Here's an idea for you to consider (acknowledging full well that its value is in the execution): build a website that serves as a directory of vetted and "certified" sober houses. You could team up with the Smithers Foundation and other nonprofits with similar missions to fund it initially through grants. You'd also set up a process for evaluating and certifying treatment centers. You can use hard success metrics as part of the evaluation--which the site would publish as part of a center's profile. This directory would be a kind of lead generator for the participating treatment centers. The value for patients is that they could trust it to direct them to reputable, effective centers.

Instead of just helping out a half dozen or so treatment centers piecemeal through SEO and blogging, capture the whole market. Be the JD Powers of the addiction treatment industry.
 
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MJ DeMarco

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I can now set my own hours, sleep in late, reschedule appointments and choose which patients I am comfortable seeing.

The dentist I saw years ago did this.

I think he worked 2 days a week on his schedule.

Then the rest of the week he was off pursuing passionate endeavors...

It's a great launching point. Your skill as a doctor won't go away.
 

sparechange

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Scripted or unscripted whatever, you are a doctor that helps people with health issues, regardless of money you are doing a positive thing in the world. Yes on the forum we love to bash "slowlaners" but at the end of the day the world would not function AT ALL without people that work a job. Even the guy that cleans up garbage on the street is a valuable person.
 

sparechange

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Enjoy your life in the present moment, I don't think I need to remind you (even tho I am) lol that with good health you can kick a$$ until 80 or 90 so you have a hell of a long time left on earth, time ago I met a 90 year old that F*cking skis, Jesus Christ. Another person I know is 62 and climbs a 4000 foot mountain a few times a week
 
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rc08234

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Thank you for this. I had to go back and reread what I wrote and think about it. Two years ago, I quit my last real job. I can now set my own hours, sleep in late, reschedule appointments and choose which patients I am comfortable seeing. I do sometimes forget what day of the week it is. I try to set my schedule so I am working every other day at most. I avoid driving on the road during the worst traffic when people are going to or coming home from jobs.

Most doctors have not made this move to drop out of assembly line medicine. They are living in a tortured state, working with broken medical records software and employers who expect them to do way too much work. More rules and restrictions are continuously piled on. I hear doctors complaining all the time about working on charts for hours after they get home.

Once, I worked at a medical clinic and I wanted to get more involved in the business side of the practice and I wanted to work with the new software they were installing. Whenever I would bring it up to my boss, he would reply, "Did you finish your charts?" At another job at a large clinic, a similar thing happened. I would get caught up seeing my appointments for the morning and I would go to sit in on meetings in the conference room to hear what the administrators were doing. After a while, one of them would look at me and say, "I think you have patients."

When I was studying programming early on, I would ask questions on various forums. Once, I mentioned that I was a doctor working on my own EMR software. One of the programmers in the group told me I should worry about seeing my patients and leave the programming to them. Some people really don't like to see doctors doing anything outside of the job they are "supposed to be doing".

In fact, there are people who don't like to see me living a relaxed lifestyle, working on outside projects and not being overburdened with patient care related work. I currently help people with addiction. I like to spend time with my patients, so I don't see a lot of them on the days I work. Someone recently told me that I need to fill every waking hour with seeing as many actual sick people as possible. He managed to attack my lifestyle and people who struggle with addiction in the same sentence.

Of course, working as a doctor is Slow Lane no matter how you look at it. I can only see one patient at a time. I could hire a doctor to see my patients. Then it would be sort of like owning a restaurant. There is still a cap on how many people I can provide service to. Doctors seeing patients in an office can only help a small number of people. Of course, building a large, successful practice can approach the monthly income of what many of us aim for in an online software-based business. The problem is that there is little hope of it exploding into something much bigger.

The thing I am finding to be most fun about my current work is the digital marketing side. I love working on SEO. I like to write blog posts. I like to work on software. I see the possibility of being able to help people far beyond my own little medical practice. My SEO work has lead to people calling and writing to me from all over the US. I have been able to provide useful information to people who would have never walked into my office because they live hundreds or thousands of miles away.

So, it's not about trying to avoid my responsibility to help people. I am finding new ways to hopefully help a lot more people.


Speaking of hours, my doctor is only open 5PM to 9PM and she is always packed. Just something to think about
 

drleeds

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Thanks for putting yourself out there, @drleeds. It's hard to be open about struggles in an open forum like this. Here's my humble effort to add some value to your entrepreneurial journey. Don't get too caught up in SEO. As MJ has written, SEO, like all marketing, is an accelerator, not an end in itself. Focus on providing real value to those in need, and the traffic will follow. It sounds like you already do that--helping addicts overcome their addictions. That's righteous work. You just need to figure out a way to liberate your time from the endeavor--and scale.

There's a non-profit called the Christopher D. Smithers Foundation, based in New York, whose mission is to help those suffering from addictions. The foundation is rolling in cash. Its founders are heirs to a century-old IBM stock fortune. They recently bought a full-page ad in the first section of the Sunday Times to complain about the state of the opioid addiction treatment industry. It's unregulated and overrun by companies looking to exploit the epidemic to make a quick buck. As I'm sure you well know, if you Google "sober house," you get a sense of the dubious qualifications of many of these treatment centers.

Here's an idea for you to consider (acknowledging full well that its value is in the execution): build a website that serves as a directory of vetted and "certified" sober houses. You could team up with the Smithers Foundation and other nonprofits with similar missions to fund it initially through grants. You'd also set up a process for evaluating and certifying treatment centers. You can use hard success metrics as part of the evaluation--which the site would publish as part of a center's profile. This directory would be a kind of lead generator for the participating treatment centers. The value for patients is that they could trust it to direct them to reputable, effective centers.

Instead of just helping out a half dozen or so treatment centers piecemeal through SEO and blogging, capture the whole market. Be the JD Powers of the addiction treatment industry.

This is a great idea! I love the idea of curating the best of the best places for addiction treatment.
 

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