Hi, I'm Dr. Melva, your 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. Again, learn more on the 1% code podcast. Hello. 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 and franchise owner, wife, and mom of three. And I help physician entrepreneurs struggling to create additional income streams. Navigate entrepre. To scale their income.

So today's episode is titled five stars. I'm gonna try to get through this. I don't know where my voice went. I'm on vacation this week. And. It's not here. I was gonna wake up this morning and record this episode, but luck, we have to be imperfectly. Imperfect. Get it done. I hope you can work through this with me.

If it's too bad, we'll just have to replay this week. Okay. Sound good? All right. The reason I wanted to call this five star is. Well, one, I sent my kid to a five star camp for baseball, softball this week. And then another thing that came up is we live in this age of reviews and recommendations. And, you know, at the end of most PA podcasts, we say, Hey, if you enjoyed and got value, please share review and, you know, leave five stars.

And we have the, you know, online retailers where. We learn by word of mouth and how many stars you know, was left. And my question for you as an entrepreneur and high income earner, a physician that's looking to build your portfolio of income streams. How are you with the feedback? How are you in situations of constructive criticism when it comes to.

Being an entrepreneur when it comes to being a physician, when it comes to being in whatever, you know, scenario that you find yourself in, whether it's a full-time entrepreneur transitioning to an entrepreneur, or if you're currently in another career at the times, And the reason I ask this is that recently.

And again, I'm, I'm out of work this week. I've seen a lot of people that are cracking under pressure, so to speak, right. And if you listen to the previous episode, episode 53, where it was called unedited, and it was a tribute to physician suicide and the awareness. You know, it's the call to action that we need to seek out, help.

We need to be able to ask for help and identify when we're burn out and look for the support. And, you know, we're seeing just more and more of this cracking under pressure. And I think part of this is going back to that, inability to one, seek feedback, two, accept the feedback and, and this concept of constructive criticism.

So I think that we. Need to build each other up. We need to have more support and we need that muscle of pushing through. So I wanna give you an example of something that happened to me recently, actually yesterday. so again, I'm, I'm recording this one the week of actually the day before it's gonna be released.

And another reason I wanna share this with you is that it may or may not go to the editor. Typically, I get this to my podcast production team in advance, but I'm being real and transparent because part of entrepreneurship is failure. It's picking yourself up and moving along. It's being okay with not being perfect.

It's putting out your best product. That you can at the time, because even if you think you have the perfect end results, it doesn't mean it's perfect. Right? We've all done. Hopefully we've done some marketing. If you ever look at, you know, an ad that you've done on whatever platform you choose to use, the image that you think is going to convert may not always be the image that converts.

You have to wait to see what the data shows. So it's the same with your, your product. So if you're still stuck in the. Gonna be cliche here, but the analysis paralysis phase of your entrepreneur journey, I want to prove to you that this is how you get over it. Okay. You release a podcast episode. That's not edited two weeks in a row possibly.

Right? Because my last week's, the title was unedited because. You know, I was moved to say, Hey, look, we have to talk about this. Too many physicians are dying. It's time to speak. And I felt that I needed to speak. I needed to put that out and it didn't need to be edited. You need to hear what was coming from my heart, what I was being, you know, told what I was hearing, what I was seeing.

And so I put it out, unedited it, I didn't, I didn't know how long it was gonna be. I didn't know what I was gonna say. I didn't filter because that wasn't what was important. It wasn't the polished, it wasn't the pump and circumstance. It wasn't the final product. It was the message. So I want you to think about that and maybe you have to come back and listen to that, but that's, that's the message there.

Right? So what happened to me yesterday is that. And I recently shared this. If you followed any of my social media over the last, I don't know, six months or so personally, I've had some new autoimmune diseases that were diagnosed in, in my life, and it is taken a long time to really get the workup. And as a board certified radiation oncologist, I have physicians in my family and primary care and different specialties.

So I've been in the medical world for a very long time. And any of you physicians that are listening, it can be quite difficult to be both a physician and a patient and removing the hat as a physician. When the physician becomes a patient it's, it's, it's almost like this double edged sword, because even when you attempt to become a patient and you choose not to be the physician, you know, you go there and you're like, look, I want to be a patient.

I want to be treated as a patient. Explain to me this. It's almost impossible to do because. We can be intimidating as patients it's E even, even if we choose not to be right. And then when you look at the healthcare system, and again, I'm going to be unfiltered because I think it's needed. Now. It's a different level of thought leadership that we need out on the airway.

So I'm being intentional. Um, if you get offended, I'll apologize. But it again, it's not personal. I think this needs to be out there when you are on the other side of healthcare as a patient, it's disheartening that the love and the reason we went into medicine has changed so much. I'm just gonna leave that there it's disheartening.

So we are so worried about payers and insurance and shortened times and the, the workflow that a lot of the bedside manner, how patients feel the perception, things that for me, as a physician that I know happen, the feeling, the vibe reading in between the lines. Listening to, what's not being said, but felt and heard that doesn't happen.

It's not realistic for everyone in every situation. So when I had this encounter, you know, I had to check the expectations. I'm being honest. I had to check the expectations because I realized that what. I'm able to accomplish as an oncologist, working in a rural practice, having autonomy, even as an employee.

And if you, if you listen to any of my episodes or seeing any of my social media, it was an intentional choice for me after having pivotal moment in my career. When what I expected as a physician coming out of being. Well, trained board certified was shocking, had a really painful negative experience. It was a choice.

This is not how I choose to practice medicine and serve in the space that I looked for balance in my life. And I chose to practice and serve in rural communities to give back where not only were my talents valued, but that I can make a difference, a huge difference. And then also have the opportunity to.

Use the gifting in the entrepreneurial space to give back in that way and to make a difference in that way and to really go through those passions. So the ability that I've been blessed to have to spend the time with those patients that I have in these rural settings, you know, and this is a entire different podcast topic.

And there was a recent article published in Lancet that shout out to Dr. To who published that with one of my mentors, Dr. Marcus Randall, congratulations to you on your recent retirement to South Carolina, a radiation oncologist, who I met as a medical student at east Carolina university, who recently retired from university of Kentucky.

You know, they wrote about how difficult it is being a rural radiation oncologist. And apparently it's less than 2% of us. So they, they recently, you know, wrote that. But what we are afforded. The ability to do is spend more time with our patients. Now there's a entire difficulty in what I was getting to is lack of resources in a lot of things where people are like, how in the world do you do it?

That's an entire different podcast. But my point is, it was so clear to me yesterday. As a patient that what I personally am able to do, and many physicians who have created their own practices, concierge practices, rural practices, or have autonomy, and the physicians who still have control and say in what good medicine looks like and what makes a good doctor.

What they're able to do is not. Every physician and the practice of medicine is able to do, and it was sobering because as a patient, every patient deserves that opportunity. So I am both an extrovert and an introvert, and I'm also an impact and being an impact, you feel not only for yourself, but it impacts.

Other people, because I hope you know this as a high income earner. And I'm, I'm guessing that you're here at this point and you're interested in multiple income streams and, and maybe that's why you found on the 1% podcast and maybe you're at this point in your life where you're saying, Hey, there has to be more, I, I don't wanna wake up and just do the same thing every day, or I'm at this.

Point my life where I'm saying, Hey, am I spending enough time on me? How do I get more time for me? Or how do I get more time for my family? Or maybe you have a child right now that you need to spend more time with them because you see a promise that they have, and you know that you are the one to help them reach it.

Or maybe you realize that you're not the one, but you need to find someone that can help them. So what I realized and the reason that I'm making this point. Going back to being an empath is that it's not always about how it affects you. It's who else is it affecting that can't or doesn't have the ability or maybe doesn't have the courage to speak up.

So now I'm gonna go back to the reason this is called five stars. How open are we, how much ability is there to give true feedback, true constructive criticism. And when we do that in the healthcare setting, when we do that in the business world, how well is it receipt? So in the situation I was in yesterday as a patient, I had a mid-level, uh, to come see me first before the physician.

And I didn't really realize that I was giving feedback. I think I do it naturally. And typically in a loving way, I can choose to not give it in a loving way. I'm gonna be honest. Um, and I, I felt like I gave it in a loving way and, and one, I advocated for myself, which I think you all should advocate for yourself.

And I just asked, I I've had painful, uh, risk. I guess carpal tunnel bilaterally for 13 years. I wish that upon anybody. Um, as part of Sjogren's syndrome, that's now officially diagnosed and I started medicine in March and that's doing well. I've been on medicine for my eyes. So again, if anyone wants to reach out, talk about that, I've been several support groups, happy to chat with you about that.

You'd like to come on the podcast. Talk about your experience. Happy to have you as a. Um, so it's definitely a chronic and sometimes invisible autoimmune disease. So happy to talk to you and support you through that. So I asked when she came through, because the last time it was painful and I just asked if she could, you know, not press as heart because it was painful.

And that went as well, because she was sensitive to that. But again, you have to speak up and advocate for yourself. If someone is going to cause you pain. And I say this to my patients, let me know if I'm doing the exam too hard. Or I, I say, I know you just had surgery in, in my cancer patients. If I press too hard, let me know.

Or this may cause you some discomfort. Please let me know. I communicate and talk with my patients. So as a patient, When I'm the patient, I expect the same. So when you get feedback or you give feedback or you advocate, you start to think about these things. So again, five stars. The reason I thought five stars is what happens when you get two.

What happens when you get three? Are you reflecting? Are you growing? What are you doing with customer feedback? What are you doing with patient feedback? How are you handling complaint? Okay. I'm jumping around here a little bit, because I just want you to think about these questions and, and this podcast may not be the time or place for all the answers, but these are the types of questions that you wanna think about.

So fast forward, you know, I asked that and then the same mid-level who I've seen now, I believe two times, maybe in the last three to four months, when she first came in the room, she said, you know, you may not remember me. I met you last time. This is my name. And I said, oh, okay. Yes, I remember you just in case you haven't met me.

I have a, I'm a visual. Learner memory. I have a great memory. Sometimes it's a little stalk and I have to watch and not remind people that I remember exactly where they were sitting in exactly where they had on. Cause it gets a little weird. Um, I have to like filter and be like, oh, don't tell them that much because it's a little scary.

Um, I, I know exactly who she was and. I remembered everything, but I didn't say that. So I was like, oh yeah, you know, of course I remember you. And then, you know, when she was talking and she went over some things, again, I just, in, in my opinion, I thought I gave gentle constructive criticism. And the reason I'm bringing this up is because I don't think it was well, it wasn't well, Well received.

And so what I said is that when she gave me information, the second diagnosis was that I had another autoimmune disease and, and I'll share because I shared publicly. If you look at my profile, it was early rheumatoid arthritis. So background, I watched my mother watched her. Mother suffer with painful rheumatoid arthritis.

And again, as an oncologist and a compassionate person, it matters, it matters a person's personal connection and personal, emotional story. And if you don't understand, or you don't know that personal history, you don't have the context of what it, the context of what it means to them. So for me, hearing that a lab result came back and it being attached to a diagnosis.

They had significant meaning in my life from the time I was a young child and me not being in the specialty of rheumatology was an emotional time for me personally. So regardless of how well, how much emotional intelligence I have, you know, my EQ, we talk about this a lot in leadership and development, no matter how many accolades I have, no matter whether I'm a physician or, you know, a, a lawyer or an, a nurse or a mid-level or an astronaut, none of.

Titles, none of the accolades, an entrepreneur franchise owner, a mother, none of that matters. What matters is the story that we tell ourselves what matters is the perception? What matters is what we believe and what we think is real when we are the patient. So what makes a good doctor? What makes a good healthcare worker?

What makes a good bedside manner? To read the room is to have compassion is to not assume, is to listen when the person across the room for you, whether they have, or you have one minute, five minutes or 15 minutes, what they're saying to you. So when, so when I said again, I'm, I'm a patient in this situation.

So when I said, you know, yes, I remember you. And, and, and, you know, I, I, I deliver, and this is exactly what I said. I, as an oncologist, I deliver bad news often. And. I remember the last time when I saw you, I, this is what I said. And I, I thought I said it lovingly. I said, I wasn't, I wasn't ready because you gave me a lab result.

And I thought I was coming for a follow up to see how starting the medicine went. And you read the labs out loud. And I didn't know what that particular lab meant. It was CCP for anyone who is listening and is in rheumatology. And, and please don't mistake that from me being ignorant. Again, this is not my specialty.

I'm a board certified radiation oncologist as physicians. We specialized. As long as I've been practicing, I, I don't interact with that specialty as much. I don't refer. And again, I'm a patient. So if I don't feel that it's my job, I trust my physicians. I trust the doctors that I'm seeing to educate me to the level that I need to understand and advocate for myself to the level that I need to be able to understand.

Right. And I think that's what you should do as well. It's not my job to do my physician's job if that makes. So I wasn't prepared. I didn't know. So I, and I just said, you know, as, as you read out this lab level, you didn't explain what it meant and you read it out. And I asked, what does it mean? And she said, oh, well, that's, that means that you definitely, that you have rheumatoid arthritis that, you know, and she just kind of said that.

And I said, I, I wasn't ready. And it, it would've been nice if you explained what that meant and then like, what's next. So what's next. So what does that. You know, I, I didn't really know. And so then she, she said, you know, the next thing that she said, which I felt like it actually made it worse. She said, well, because I started the conversation with saying, as an oncologist, I deliver a bad, a lot of bad news and I wasn't ready when you did X, Y, Z.

Right. And so she responded and she said, was it bad? And so at that point, I think that when you are working with someone and again, this was not my staff member. So I, I backed away because I, I realized, okay, I'm not the doctor, I'm not the leader. This is not my lane. I'm I'm the patient. But at the same time, I was conflicted.

Because again, I'm gonna go back to five stars. Feedback, constructive criticism, cracking under pressure, building up someone supporting, pushing through. In my mind, it is very difficult at times, for me, as someone that wants to build someone up, push them through, support them, help them help, help, right?

Like this is why we went into this field as to help. And as a of the skill is to help. And at the end of the day, this is not about me. This is not about me as a patient. This is not about me as a physician. This is for the next person. This is for the people who aren't, as lucky as me to have found these labs early.

And the reason that I ask, or the reason that I gave feedback is that the next person that this young lady sees, I want her to remember that I asked and I, I want her to think, you know, when she said. Is it bad news and, and she didn't get a response. I want her to think about that. So what happened after that?And the reason I pulled back is because I realized that like, I wasn't, it wasn't clicking and it wasn't my job. And what I was gonna say is it's difficult for me to separate my leadership and being a physician when I'm a patient, I do it a lot. And normally. It's it's better for me just to be quiet and just pull away because when the student is ready, the teacher will show up and the student wasn't ready and it most likely wasn't my place, but I was conflicted.

So what do you do when you're conflicted? What do you do with these things? Why am I sharing this with you? And is it relevant? I don't know. Giving your feedback. Is this helping is the five star episode helping today? I don't really know, because like I said, it. A lot going on and hopefully my voice is coming through for this episode, but you get support.

You get help, you talk it out. You talk to friends, you talk to colleagues. So what, what happened yesterday? Well, this hit me because here I am, you know, my week off I'd have these dates scheduled. And normally I wouldn't recommend that when you take a week off that you take kids to doctor dentist appointments, or you have follow up appointments.

I think when you take a week off, it should really be a week off, but this was one of. Weeks where this is just kind of how it worked out. Right. And so I think when you're doing things, the way you should be. Karma is a, is a good thing. You're in a good energy spirit field you've been serving and giving things go.

Right? So a lot of my friends, colleagues, physicians like reached out and they, they checked on me and it seemed like it was just the right time. Like they just felt the vibe like, Hey, something's not right. And then I reached out. So I talked through it. I, I talked to my other physician, friends. I talked to, you know, my, my closest and best friends and they were a hundred percent understood exactly what I meant, you know, like exactly what I'm telling you.

They, they understood that, like, that's not what you should do. And they felt, Hey, we would've said the same thing and getting that reassurance, getting that validation. Especially for physicians calling your other physicians and just saying, Hey, can I run this by you? Hey, this happened today. And then even more honestly, for me to be like, Hey, why is this bothering me?

Like normally, you know, like, look I'm strong. I'm good. And why did this bother me like this today? And the, the part that I, I guess I left out is. The physician talked to me and she said that the mid-level kind of came to her and said, Hey, I don't know if Mimi was intimidating or she was upset. And she said, you know, I think, you know, when I saw the doctor that maybe you should only see her, she should be a doctor only patient, because I don't know if I upset her or something.

And what happened is this mid-level didn't take constructive criticism very well. And I said, no, she didn't, she didn't do anything to, to offend me. And I, I told the doctor what I said, and the doctor said, oh, well, That's fair. You know, she pushed your wrist too hard. She said, although normally people don't say she pushes very hard.

So, you know, she kind of was puzzled by that. And I was like, well, she pushed hard for me. Maybe she just was extra pushy that day. And you know, and then, and you know, you feel what you feel. So, I don't think you should start questioning yourself because of what people say. And then when I gave her the feedback about the news delivery, I applaud the physician because she took it to heart.

She said, look, we want to have feedback. We wanna know what she said, so we can improve. And she gave the honest truth. She said, look, we are in a specialty that is very busy. We're in high demand. And for me to be able to see all the patients we have to have. Midlevels in place. That's the bottom line. And I can respect that as a business woman.I, I don't have a problem with that. I understand that's where healthcare is. I appreciate that. She talked to me and I said, no, I have no problem. I, I appreciate seeing you. I appreciate your expertise. I have no problem with seeing your mid-level. And I also respect, and I'll say this, you know, I know this is public.

I'll say this. I respect the fact that she pushed her, her staff to say, you don't get to. You don't get to quit because you've got feedback that wasn't five stars. You don't get to quit because a patient gave you a patient, one advocated for themselves to speak up, to say, Hey, this didn't work for me. Or, Hey, when you gave me this, it didn't sound this way.

And I applaud her for that because. I think, especially in 2022, we're afraid to do that. People are afraid to speak up and say, you can't quit. You, you get to walk away. You, you can just, you know, as the franchise owners, we see kids quit, they get 50 cents more at another job and they go to the next job.

They go, you know, we see people we'll have assistant managers come in, we own a franchise. Um, we've had two, we we're down to one. I talk about in some. Previous podcast episodes. The reason why with this pandemic and return return on investments, et cetera, at different franchise models. But we'll see like an assistant manager come in and then they don't commit.

So they just, they quit. If it's not easy, do you know how the tough get tougher? Do you know how you move up in the ranks? Do you know how you learn? It's from failures and it's from not quitting. It's from pushing through is from taking that advice from someone that maybe pissed you off that maybe you didn't like, and it's getting better.

I welcome less than five stars. I welcome that I search for that. Don't like me, let me, you know, let me, let me piss you off. Let me get under your skin. I was joking with someone the other week that I'm really, really good at getting under people's skin and I'm okay. It's like this acceptance. I'm okay with you not liking me.

I'm okay with that. And I challenge you to do this too. I challenge you to get to the point in your life that it's not about you. It's not about you because when you accept that and you realize that what you're doing has a greater purpose. Not only will you achieve your goals? But you're going to move so much, further, so much faster because this drive in you, you're just gonna have this greater sense of clarity and purpose because you're not focused on this one goal.

It it's gonna be greater. And I can't really explain it more than that, but it's a different energy. It's a different vibe and people will feel it. So I applaud the physician. She did say that I, that I talk a lot and, um, that hurt my feelings a little bit. and I don't know why, but here I am talking a lot on this podcast, but you know what happens to people that talk a lot?

We get paid for speaking. Right? I get paid for speaking. we have our own shows. We have our own podcast. We bless people with talking a lot. I cannot tell you how many people, when I did this. I don't know if you ever caught me or any listeners here. And I think it was like 16, 17, 2017. I did operation flat stomach and I, I never actually made it to the flat stomach, but I think I helped some other people get there.

Shout out to those of you who got that six pack. But every day I was just getting up. I was sharing my workout routine and. I feel like I've probably taken all them down, but it was on my Dr. Melva Facebook page. And I would get all these messages for people who it was just really, really helping. I didn't even realize people were like watching.

And this was before, you know, like all the influencers were all fancy and stuff. It was just like pure, raw, like entrepreneurship. Like, oh my God, I'm gonna do this live. And I was doing it every day. Like I think I got to like day a hundred or something. I don't know. But there's value. There's value. In what you're doing, even if, to someone else it's a negative thing.

So I hope that somewhere in this five stars, you got at least one to five stars of value from this because through our stories, sharing our stories, the good, the hurtful, the joyful, the emotional. Exciting you, you know, all of those and, and, and talking about how we work through those, that is the only way that we will continue to have success and prosper.

So in the end, you know, I, I woke up this morning feeling so much better. And honestly, if, if that support network was not there for me yesterday, and I didn't have great friends, great physician colleagues, great family, great network. Checked on me and I wasn't open and willing to reach out and ask for help and talk it out and get support.

And I wasn't open to the feedback, even that the physician gave me, like, can you imagine going to a doctor's appointment for your health and then getting feedback about the feedback you just gave and then even hearing that, like you talk a lot, so you have to see a mid-level. Because the position just doesn't have time.

Like, come on now. Like you, you know how strong you have to be for that. like, I'm just telling you, cuz I know a lot of people would be like, oh my God, are you kidding me? And, and you know, I I've dealt with a lot of stuff like I'm strong, but you don't always have to be that strong. And I gave myself permission to say, Hey look, I, I don't have to be this strong.

I gave myself permission. Give yourself permission today. Give yourself permission to not be that strong. Give yourself permission. To pull over on the side of the road and take a break, give yourself permission to cry. Give yourself permission to get a box of tissues. If you need it, give yourself permission to take the day off, give yourself permission to start your podcast without an editor.

Okay. Give yourself permission to do the same one. You know, put the same one out for two weeks. Like it doesn't matter. Stop focusing on things that don't matter. And you're just going to be like so free. I can't tell you how things go into place just naturally. They just work out. So I think that's it. See, now I'm all conscious, right?

I'm like, oh my God. Am I talking a lot? anyway, I'm kidding. So I hope you got value today from the 1% code podcast. I want you to reach out to me. Let me know what topics you wanna hear. Leave feedback. I would love a five star review, no pun intended with this title until next time. Um, I want you to reach out, get support, and keep going in your journey until next time.

I'm Dr. Melva host of the 1% code podcast CEO. The next episode. Thanks for listening. And for any of my fellow physicians listening today, I have a free gift for you. Nine business ideas for busy physicians to get your hands on it. Just go to Melva free. offer.com again, that's Melva free. offer.com MELVASFREEOFFER.com if you enjoyed this episode and you like to help support the 1% code podcast, please share with others post about it on social media, leave a rating, and I would love your five star review.