Hi, I'm Dr. Melva you're board certified radiation oncologist, and serial entrepreneur and investor. Welcome to the 1% code podcast. I help top income earners create multiple streams of income to support the career they love or the one they want to love. Learn more on the 1% code podcast. Hello. Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the 1% code podcast.

I'm your host, Dr. Melva board certified radiation oncologist, serial entrepreneur, investor, franchise, owner, and wife, mother of three. And I help physician entrepreneurs who are struggling to grow additional income streams, navigate entrepreneurship to scale their income today. I want to talk about. Now trending.

So if you've been awake on social media, driving in your car, you are aware of trending topics. It's everywhere and it's almost unavoidable, but how does that apply to your life in the 1% as an entrepreneur, as a career? Maybe aspiring entrepreneur as the 1%. Well, it's about being relevant, right? And this is where this comes up.

It's about being relevant. Following trends, being aware of trends. Staying ahead. You know, these are all solid business strategies that I'm sure you've read about. You've heard about maybe been confused about, so let's dig into this topic right now. Trending. What is the trend? So I want to just start with the problem with it.

Okay. So the problem that I find that a lot of careers slash entrepreneurs are newer entrepreneurs are physician. I have with this whole trend or now trending or trendier fish, things is finding what's comfortable or finding comfort in what works for you and being okay with that. So let me explain a little bit, it almost takes me back to this thought of fitting in as you know, like the smart one.

Or being in, you know, like these smart classes at a very young age, or, you know, like you think about middle school or elementary school, or like being different and trying to find your way and the different perspectives. I think that a lot of those of us who were in this group, That have had this strong career drive.

And as we transition into the entrepreneur identity, so maybe we go from, like, for me, the physician identity, their strong career focus to the entrepreneur identity, what's trending and what's working for other people may not apply to what works for me in my entrepreneurial pursuits. Does that hit home?

Does that follow for you? I think this is why we get stuck with what's trending and what makes sense as a strategy in our business, because it has to be trending and it has to be relevant for you. Okay. So for example, let's talk about the income stream real estate. I talk about real estate investing. The short term rental Airbnb is hot.

Okay. Especially for my colleagues and a lot of my coaching clients in the physician, entrepreneur world. So for me personally, and for my husband around the time that this was really hot, our personal focus was not on growing a short-term rental, Airbnb. Enterprise because one, we had been in the real estate investing market for quite some time, we already had a strategy that we'd been working on.

And our focus at the time was a couple of the franchises, moving that around our commercial business coaching and. Eventually, like now we've actually converted a rental recently into an Airbnb market and we have another property that we've kind of slated for the Airbnb world. What has to make sense is the timing in the financial opportunity when you're looking at it.

So it's not any different than any other strategy that you would take when you're looking at. A business opportunity, a profit model and what works for you. But I think the part that is hard is the distraction. So when something is trending, it's sexy, right? It's something about it that just grabs your attention and that FOMO kicks in that fear of missing out that if it's trending, it's going to give you more profit.

It's going to get you to the bottom line, to your end result faster. And in many times, yes. Probably be true. And there are stories of people that have rapid overnight success. There are also stories of people who are doing the same thing that they'd been doing forever. And. They have the same success.

Right. And I was listening to, I can't even think the context of this, but someone said something that was quite phenomenal in, maybe it was a reference to a book. And they talked about when entrepreneurs were given a choice between a five-year consistent, planned out map to. You know, multi-millions or, or whatever, in the example, versus a shorter one year roadmap that had a lot of ifs and exotic strategies.

And I'm pretty sure the moral of the story was that those who chose the standard five year hit it every time. Right. So it was kind of like the slow and steady can win the race. And I'm sure there are ton of strategies around this, and there were references and everything to the story they told, but what I got from what they were saying, Really applies to this now trending and it's, you have to find your focus, stay in your lane to be safe with what's trending.

So you have that discernment as an entrepreneur to see if what's trending now is an opportunity that you want to jump on and it makes sense. So I'm not negating trending sexy business topics. Not at all, because I've said this before, I'm a risk taker recently. I learned that I'm also a planner. I think I was in denial because I'm a risk taker.

And I like to think that I do things at the spur of the moment and with creativity. And like my secretary and mother both said, yeah, if you plan it, Dr. Melva and I was like out, so yes. So if I plan it, I like the creativity and the spur of the moment apparently, but also, you know, I think with that, you have to have a plan.

Okay. You, you have to have a plan, but you have to have that focus in strategy. And really that long-term picture to say that, okay, I will be ready, you know, as I expand in his eyes scale, and it's, it's almost like this entrepreneur manifesto, right. That, you know, being prepared for the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, because they will come.

Right. And instead of being paralyzed by fear and getting stuck that you will seek mentorship, you will have communities. So. There will be some guidance on what's relevant for you when the next trend in business comes around because they will continue to come. Right? So you're not distracted. You can stay focused.

And if it's a good fit for you, you can jump. Right. So let me give you an example of something that. It may not sound like a trend, but it was kind of trendy and sexy. So we go to the COVID pandemic. I'm recording this in April of 2022. So if you're listening to this later, hopefully we're far past the COVID pandemic.

I hope if you're listening to this much later, but one of the grants and opportunities for money for small business owners was around. Loss in revenue during the pandemic and specifically the subset of small business owners around employee wages. Okay. So recently in speaking with CPA certified public accountant with expertise in this area, we were talking and he mentioned that the trending or the sexy conversation that was put out there was around.

That requirement's for a lot of businesses to get these additional funds, having to have shown a loss in their business. And I was thinking, yes, I remember the name of this grant. I remember as a, you know, at the time as a multi franchise owner, if you haven't listened to my podcast episodes, we're multi franchise owners.

We recently. Sold a second franchise that we own. So now we're single franchise owners. Great episode, check it out. Very exciting stories. I'm sure I have more podcast episodes on that because it seems like it's still going on. We may open up a second location eventually. So we'll probably go back to multi franchise owners, but I digress.

So, so back to this, this, this subset of pockets of money, but as a franchise owner, we had a lot of training, a lot of exposure from our corporate. The major franchise. Whatever you call corporate. I just call them the corporate education to the franchisees about money that was available. Okay. Cause they want to help you so you don't just stop or quit or go into bankruptcy.

Right. It's been tough for small business owners during this pandemic. So with that, I was very familiar with what he talked about. So what was talked about was, Hey, look, if you've lost money during this pandemic, there are these grants. There are these programs where you can get. Well, talking to the CPA.

What wasn't trending was the fact that there was this almost loophole that wasn't in the news. It was, it wasn't trending. No one was really talking about it and it was. If you didn't lose money and you were in this other kind of category, and this is not financial advice, I'm not a CPA. I'm far from it.

Okay. I have a board certified radiation colleges, and I'm also not giving you medical advice on this podcast. Okay. Now that's there for all my lawyers. Okay. So anyway, long story short, there's this clause that if you're making money, it doesn't say that, but if you haven't lost money, You can still qualify for money.

And the numbers were huge. I mean, I, I think relatively speaking anywhere between like 50 and a hundred thousand dollars, don't quote me again, not legal advice, not financial advice, not medical advice. The point of this is I'm circling, struggling here a little bit, just because I'm trying not to give exact advice.

It's a little hard, it'd be easier for me just to say exactly what he told me, but I don't want to do that because I want to keep podcasting. Right. But the point is. When he told me this, I was sitting here going, and my mind was almost racing. Like, wait a second. I feel like I read all of those pages. And I was on meetings for two separate billion dollar corporations at the time, you know?

And I was, I was going back in my head and I was thinking notes and calls and I could see all of this replay. And I was thinking about the fine print and I feel like I just remember dismissing it because luckily we didn't lose money. We didn't have a loss. So I felt like we didn't qualify for any funds.

And as he was talking about our tax returns and how we could modify and, you know, we could have qualified because we were in this subset based on when we started the business, the dates that we fell into this category for possibly they call it like something with like startup business recovery. So ask your CPA about it.

My point is now trending, trending things. I want you to look for the other side, what is not trending? What are they not saying? Your ultimate goal in this is to not leave money on the table. Okay. So if you only focus on what's trending and you, you do two things, you don't apply it to what makes sense for you, and you're not comfortable in walking away or discerning or reaching out to your circle and being clear a hundred percent solid clear on what makes sense for you.

And the second is you're not asking those critical thought questions like you would do in your main job. You know, those of you are physicians like me, that higher level thinking that we do so well without analysis paralysis. If you're not doing that, What money are you leaving on the table? Like in this example, and the reason I'm sitting on this so long is that this is a lot of money.

Again, you know, based on where your revenue is and your goals. This is a lot of money that could be left on the table because you're not. Looking on, what's not trending. What are people not talking about? Like what are you going to sing on? So I want you to think about that because I think that's powerful.

What do you think about that? So, one last point on this topic about leaving money on the table. So for my physicians out there, PSLF, don't leave the money on the table. As you know, the physician, those of you who aren't listening, if you know, positioning your life, healthcare worker, paying back student loans, it's trending.They're gonna look and see if you had a chance to get any of your student loan money back. It's confusing. Overwhelming. If you need help there groups that can help you, you can call and help. I looked at the process. I figured it out. You can reach out to me, happy to direct you to resources, answer questions on that.

More than happy, because it was confusing. But again, that's true, Nate. It may apply to you. You may not understand it, figure it out. There are lots of us going through that. That's just another example of what's trending, where you may be missing out. Don't leave money on the table. That's just a small snippet.

Again, if you're listening to this outside of April of 2022, that waiver stops in October of 2022. So the point of this episode is, and I hope you get value and don't get confused is that what's now trending can be relevant and it can make a huge, like, Either positive impacts on your business, or it can be a negative impact on your business is how you approach it and how you put it into your strategy.

Right? So it can bring that leverage that you need, or it can be a distraction that you wish never happened for you. But I want you to be smart. I want you to get ahead think like the 1% and really. Put this into action. The next time that you see a trending topic and, and apply, you know, these are kind of things that I, I work with clients on, in the 1% code method.

It's how do we take what's in the news? What other people may have. Just not even dissect and how are you ready for it before it even comes out. So before news story comes out, you know, these are the questions that I'm going through. They're just already prepared. It's like an automatic wheel. That's turning in my head and I hope this helps you to do the same, not leave money on the table, ask the right questions, have your team, your board of advisors, ready to help you to analyze these things.

Don't miss what you can't see and that's it. That's it. I hope you have just as much fun as I did on this episode. I appreciate you listening. And until next time, I'm Dr. Melva, and this is the 1% code podcast. Thanks for listening. And for any of my fellow physicians listening today, I have a free gift for you.