48 years old finished Unscripted and sad.

[drleeds]

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!

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Vigilante]

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!

I crashed and burned in my young 40's. Started from scratch (again). Learned how to climb again. Embraced the concepts contained within the Millionaire Fast Lane. Am on the precipice of an exit event that will put me in the position of F*ck You. I'll still work, but only because I have no intention of retiring until I am dead. I'll go do it again (and probably again after that).

I am not understanding what turning 50 has to do with anything, other than the fact that you're:
1. Too young to check in to a retirement community and play shuffleboard for the rest of your life and
2. Scarred enough from life to know how to get shit done

MJ's book is not aimed at young people. It's aimed at you. You specifically. I guarantee if he were talking to you one on one, he would tell you that he wrote this book for YOU.

 

[Longinus]

 

[lowtek]

Welcome aboard!

Dude, you'll never be as young as you are today.

Starting later in life DOES have some advantages. It's generally true that with age comes wisdom, which is an asset in business. It's also true that you have less time for your actions to compound, so to get around that you have to choose more carefully (i.e. use your wisdom!)

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Iwokeup]

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!

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

 

[gatorgus]

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!

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!

 

[MJ DeMarco]

If I were in your position, I'd definitely pursue something where you can leverage your medical background. It will help relieve the sunk cost dissonance as well as erect a formibadle barrier to entry. While many doctors might agree with Fastlane/Unscripted principles, few will do anything about it due to the sunk cost of leaving practice.

Welcome to the forum.

PS: Unscripted was NOT written for young people -- it was written for anyone who has grown tired of life's scripted template.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[cor]

Is your name actually Dr. Leeds? That's a magnificent coincidence if it is... Dr. Leeds will teach you how to get leads for your practice

No.. wait! You are Dr. LEADS

Welcome!

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[E-Sharp]

Well, this is a relatable post. I read TMF two years ago at age 50 and remember feeling at the time massively inspired, but I also had age-related doubts (I think lowtek captured what that's about: less time for actions to compound). I also have a (non-physician) healthcare practice in a saturated market.

Two years after reading TMF and finding the forum, I now have a second business which is growing, and I've developed a number of new skills and a lot of knowledge. The progress I've made and what I'm doing now is not something I would have expected 2 years ago when I picked up the book. Although this second business is in an unrelated industry (e-commerce), some of my skills and experience from my healthcare career really help the new endeavor. Also, the "failure" of my first e-commerce attempt a year ago has been helpful as well.

OP, it sounds like you have a lot of skills, knowledge and experience, and some of that is high-barrier-to-entry stuff. In other words, it sounds like you're in a great place to start and you will bring a lot to the table. Welcome to the forum!

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[jlwilliams]

46 in September here. I get what your saying about the whole "imagine what I could have accomplished..." line of thinking. Looking back at missed opportunity and fumbled play is painful. I've been rich and blown it. I'm fighting my way back and I get that feeling a lot. Our age bracket is an interesting one. Not old, but not young either.

It sounds like you are working on a good thing. You have your practice and you are beginning the process of creating a repeatable machine. Good on you, bro.

It's humbling to be at an age where we feel like we should "have it" and yet it's time to be a student. Struggling into new skills and refining old ones. Learning how the old skills fit the new world. Feeling about as confident in this new world as a kid at his first school dance and knowing it because we remember the feeling of that first dance. Lacking the false confidence that comes with youth, the bravery of not knowing how little we know.....it's like being naked in public. It's tough to explain and may not be truly grasped until you are there.


The only way is forward.


Upon re reading, I'm pretty sure I wrote that for me. It's cool. We got this.

 

[G-Man]

Rose Blumkin started Nebraska Furniture Mart at 45, sold the company at 89, got forced into retirement at 95, and then started another company right across the street from Nebraska Furniture Mart because Buffett hadn't made her sign a non-compete.

Just sayin'. You start when you start. Like everyone here. I wish I had known about this when I was 20, too, but I'll never be 20 again. After this year I'll never be 32 again, either. @lowtek is spot on.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Andy Black]

A doctor who's done marketing for himself and is considering doing marketing for other doctors? How cool.

I've quite a lot of content that might help you... check out the first radio interview in my signature, and the calls I had with @Scot and @Contrarian (link to master thread of all calls is in my signature).

 

[PedroG]

Welcome to the forum. This may make you feel a little better:

 

[loop101]

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!

Why not package your medical knowledge in to a product that can be marketed??

The fact that you are an actual doctor should be a great asset.

 

[drleeds]

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.

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.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

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.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Mr.Brandtastic]

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.

 

[mtnman]

Where in Florida? I'm in Orlando half the year... if you're close by, I can stop in one day and help you out, no charge.

From the outside looking in without more details, you're sitting on a huge opportunity to become the leader in your given sub field. Anyone who can achieve measurable results for their own business, and replicate it, is sitting on a gold mine. (either for lead gen or selling packages/services) What happens is, you speak a certain language post struggle, and you will resonate with piers and like minded business owners in a way that salesmen can never replicate. Meaning, it's not selling anymore, it's like shooting fish in a barrel... but in a good way. You become friends with clients, and it's win win across the board. Pretty cool.

First though, you must crush it for yourself. When you start a new business (offering services/education/leads/whatever for similar med practices) from a place of non neediness, it opens up a whole new world that most can't compete with. In fact, it's this intimate knowledge and experience that's lacking in the marketplace in many industries. People are starving for a leader that won't F*ck them over, and actually knows what the hell they're talking about.

I also get the sense that your demeanor could use a pick me up based on your writing. Google Brent Smith Lifestyle story creation blueprint, it'll help you change your story about how you currently feel about your position in life, age, etc... The compound effect and the war of art might also help. Pick your head up, there's an amazing opportunity before you.

 

[Ornlu The Wolf]

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.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

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

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[jpanarra]

What a fantastic welcome to the forum.. I'm used to seeing younger guys coming on and then end up disappearing after introducing themselves.. For some reason the older people that come here I've noticed usually stick with their guns a bit longer.

Looking forward to your inputs!!

 

[SeePetey]

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.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

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.

 

[Iammelissamoore]

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.

 

[drleeds]

A doctor who's done marketing for himself and is considering doing marketing for other doctors? How cool.

I've quite a lot of content that might help you... check out the first radio interview in my signature, and the calls I had with @Scot and @Contrarian (link to master thread of all calls is in my signature).

I listened to the two radio interviews today. It is good to keep in mind that a business needs customers first.

I have been focusing on SEO because AdWords blocks many of the search terms that people use to find medical practices like mine. The majority of my practice is treating opioid addiction with medication. People search by the medication names or names of the drug they are abusing. These terms are blocked as keywords because they are pharmacy terms. A rep from Google actually told me on the phone that I should register myself as a pharmacy. Bing is better about this. I applied for exceptions for certain keywords and they granted them within a few days. The problem is that Bing is not used by enough people.

I am getting a lot of calls from organic search. Most of my new patients say they found me by searching Google. I want to try AdWords again because I just came up with a way to make landing pages that are responsive to phone, tablet and desktop. It doesn't cost anything and it's easy. I basically just use a little css to hide the header and footer for the WordPress theme I already use for everything else. It is such a dumb little trick but it works. I told a friend about it and he said he didn't want to have to do any programming. It is only two simple lines to copy and paste into the quick css setting.

 

[drleeds]

Well, this is a relatable post. I read TMF two years ago at age 50 and remember feeling at the time massively inspired, but I also had age-related doubts (I think lowtek captured what that's about: less time for actions to compound). I also have a (non-physician) healthcare practice in a saturated market.

Two years after reading TMF and finding the forum, I now have a second business which is growing, and I've developed a number of new skills and a lot of knowledge. The progress I've made and what I'm doing now is not something I would have expected 2 years ago when I picked up the book. Although this second business is in an unrelated industry (e-commerce), some of my skills and experience from my healthcare career really help the new endeavor. Also, the "failure" of my first e-commerce attempt a year ago has been helpful as well.

OP, it sounds like you have a lot of skills, knowledge and experience, and some of that is high-barrier-to-entry stuff. In other words, it sounds like you're in a great place to start and you will bring a lot to the table. Welcome to the forum!

Thank you for this. One of my biggest problems is to be satisfied in knowing that I have great potential in a certain area and then not working to develop that potential. It is probably laziness and also a fear of realizing my limitations. I used to think that if I could not be the best in the world at something, it was not worth doing. I like that people are now discussing the alternative of being the best at an intersection of 2, 3 or 4 things. For example, I am a naturally talented programmer, though at near 50, I am not going to compete with a world full of talented young programmers who have all the time in the world to learn and write code. However, I may be among the best in the world at being an osteopathic physician who is focused on addiction treatment and writes my own medical practice software. Recently, the AOA media relations department made me the official osteopathic medical software expert. Opportunities such as this will hopefully help me to network and explore new ways to do business.

 

[ddzc]

A little inspiration a couple years early.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Jonathan C]

Colonel Sanders started KFC when he was 65.

 

[ZeroTo100]

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.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[ZF Lee]

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.