Full Transcript Introduction to the superpowers and setbacks of visionaries 0:01 Welcome to the Startup Physicians podcast, where we explore how doctors 0:06 lead healthcare innovation. Please like and follow our show to join our 0:10 community of physicians contributing to meaningful change. 0:15 Have you ever looked around your environment and been certain that there 0:19 is a better way to do things? Sometimes this shows up as a spark of creativity 0:24 or a new way of looking at things. And in creative environments that's
What is a visionary and why they see solutions 0:28 welcomed, but in bureaucratic systems it's sometimes seen as disruptive. I 0:33 have always been a visionary, and if you have felt this way, you might be a 0:37 visionary, too. Today we're going to be talking about the superpowers that 0:40 visionaries have and some of our biggest setbacks. I'm giving you five things to 0:45 know about this wiring. What a visionary actually is, why rigid environments 0:50 starve you, and the two traps set by your risk tolerance. We're also going to 0:55 talk about the superpower nobody ever told you was a skill, and what to do 0:59 with all of it. I know this wiring from the inside. I helped start a company 1:03 that reached a nine-figure valuation in just 3 years, and it began as nothing 1:07 but a vision. No product, no team, not a single dollar of funding. By the end, my 1:12 hope is that you stop treating this part of yourself like a liability and start 1:17 treating it like the asset it is. Number one, most people are complainers, but 1:21 you see the fix. So, a mentor of mine once reorganized how I saw myself by
The importance of seeing problems as opportunities 1:27 saying, "Most people are not visionaries, they're complainers." So, 1:31 if you think about any sort of example where maybe you're in the workplace and 1:35 the schedule isn't working or something's going wrong, a lot of people 1:40 complain about it correctly for years. They will just keep complaining about 1:45 the same problem and talk about how it's not optimal. But a visionary really 1:50 feels a pull instead. What if we did this differently? What if we made the 1:54 whole process differently? What if it was built around the person that it's 1:59 supposed to serve? And so the deeper towel, if you're a visionary, you don't 2:03 just see the problem, you start envisioning solutions. You're imagining 2:09 and dreaming how something could be better. And you can almost live in the 2:14 future where your solution exists and describe what it feels like there. I
How environments can starve or support visionaries 2:18 actually assumed that everyone's mind worked this way. It took years of 2:23 feedback from people who I respect to learn that having a vision for 2:28 everything is a rare skill to be cultivated. And this is how you spot 2:32 another visionary. You give someone a new way to see a problem and they light 2:36 up with 10 ideas of their own. These are my people. If you've recognized yourself 2:40 already, you are one of them. I sometimes felt like this was a bad 2:45 thing. Like people were like, "Can you just stop like coming up with new ideas? 2:48 Like can we just do it the way it's supposed to be?" And in some cases, 2:52 that's true. We need to actually like follow standard procedures. But this is 2:57 how we move the world forward and I think that being a visionary also comes 3:01 with a significant amount of optimism. I would rather see a solution than a 3:04 problem. The second thing to know is that rigid environments starve you. I 3:10 Honestly, I trained in medicine and medicine runs on protocol for good 3:14 reason. When the stakes are human lives, you really want to follow a checklist. 3:19 But rigid systems of every kind with committees and bureaucracies and 3:24 processes that exist because they've always existed, they don't really have a 3:28 slot for seeing how it could all work differently or work completely 3:33 differently. In highly structured environments, I often start to feel 3:36 restricted or worse, ineffective, because the thing I do best is the thing
Risks and traps related to a visionary's risk tolerance 3:42 that the system has no place for. This startup world felt like home to me the 3:46 moment I found it because it was just wide open space to let your creativity 3:50 run loose. And the whole job is redesigning broken things around actual 3:55 human needs. If you've spent your career feeling like the disruptive one, there 4:00 are entire industries where your exact wiring is actually incredibly valuable. 4:05 Number three thing to know is that your risk tolerance sets your trap. So, the 4:11 same wiring that shows you one better future shows you a hundred constantly. I 4:17 make ideas the way other people just breathe. My task list is not really a 4:23 list. It's a backlog of just hundreds or thousands of things that I've thought of 4:28 that could turn into something. And most of it will never get done. The best 4:33 ideas rise on their own. I actually think of it like a garden. Like I think
The value of disruptive thinking in industries 4:38 of it as I've got this whole field of seeds I've planted and I've been 4:43 thinking about them in different ways and some of them are going to choke out 4:46 and some of them will actually grow into something worth cultivating. And so, the 4:51 first trap is a being a low risk tolerance visionary is when every idea 4:58 stays in your head. It's very vivid, but it's safe and it's unbuilt. And 5:02 sometimes that can just eat at you for a lifetime. Trap two is if you are a high 5:08 risk tolerance visionary, this is when you jump on every single project because 5:14 it's so colorful and wonderful in your mind and you just know it has to exist 5:19 in the world. And then you look up and you have a pile of projects and no real 5:24 execution. One honest confession for me that my team knows about me is that I 5:29 genuinely cannot see how many steps something is going to take. I get in 5:35 over my head because the vision arrives complete and the staircase to it does 5:41 not. And some of my mentors have said, "Vision is cheap and execution is 5:45 everything." Which I definitely believe that. My first company only became real 5:50 because of the operators around it. I I joke that I just spew vision all over 5:55 the place cuz I have a vision about everything. I can actually paint the 5:59 picture of the end result, and I had co-founders who were able to get that 6:04 into a product and get that into a financial model that we could pitch. So, 6:08 vision alone is not enough. But, plenty of people have visions and never act, or 6:14 they can't make anyone else see it. It's important to know your phase. So, I 6:19 actually produce a lot and and very fast in the design phase when everything is 6:25 just very imaginative, creative, and agile, I'm on fire. The minute it 6:30 crosses over into operations where you're Okay, we have a plan now. It's 6:34 all been checked off. Everyone's bought into it. Everyone can see the future. 6:38 And now we have to like hook things up and manage workflows, I lose steam. So, 6:43 I lose my spark. And I start to feel overwhelmed. I like to create things. 6:48 And that took me years to stop reading as a character flaw. So, my value lives 6:53 at the beginning, and that is a really legitimate place for value to live. The 6:58 fourth thing you need to know about being a visionary is that storytelling 7:02 is the superpower. A visionary can tell a story that makes people believe in 7:07 something that does not exist yet. The earliest stage, you have no real 7:12 product, no team, no funding. You have a vision, your reputation, your 7:18 credibility, your track record, and your ability to bring something to life. 7:22 That's the whole list. And when you think about being an early entrepreneur 7:27 and pre-selling your product, that sounds impossible to most people. How 7:31 could I possibly sell something that doesn't exist yet? But, a visionary 7:36 already knows the answer. To you, it does exist. You've lived in it. You've 7:40 spent time in your mind in this future where this thing exists and your 7:45 conviction is not a performance and and people can really tell. It does take 7:50 more than just conviction. You have to know how to network, how to find the 7:54 right people, how to be strategic about why certain people would be aligned in
Storytelling as a superpower for early-stage entrepreneurs 7:58 believing this vision and you run a real discovery process. Take the honest 8:04 feedback and and flex the pieces of your vision that aren't going to work 8:08 economically. The vision holds and the details can bend. So you can say, "Tell 8:14 me everything that's wrong with this idea." You could talk to 10 different 8:17 stakeholders of 10 different backgrounds and and get everyone's input on your 8:22 vision. In this discovery process, you're painting a picture for them. 8:26 You're not selling anything yet. You want to really get feedback and be able 8:31 to move and change your vision until it works for the right people. And so, I'll 8:37 give you a proof point. The best part of my career arc where I was really adding 8:41 the most value was in the incubation stage of my first company. We spent 8:45 months designing the model, the care, the story before there was anything 8:49 actually tangible. It was really the strength of the vision and the team 8:55 around it. We were able to actually pitch, sell and sign a contract with 9:01 nine figures with an incredible partner before we had a single employee. I just 9:08 didn't even know that was possible that you could sell a vision. The truth is, 9:13 it's very easy to raise capital once you have a contract. If you can get the 9:16 right stakeholders to believe in your vision as a founder, that is your 9:20 absolute most important skill. It's important to say that we are really good
The process of selling a vision before product exists 9:25 at building things and designing things, but you have to have operators to be 9:30 able to implement and scale. Visionaries and operators have to work really well 9:35 together and you need both. The fifth thing I'm going to tell you is you don't 9:39 have to fix your wiring. You can build around it. If you're a visionary, you 9:44 don't necessarily need to go find like an ops partner tomorrow. You do need to 9:48 realize that you shouldn't go investing in and starting 25 things without 9:53 putting an operator in place for them. But I really don't think you should 9:58 squeeze yourself into a role to do operations if what you're really good at 10:02 is designing and envisioning things. There's a great book called Who Not How. 10:07 It's all about finding the right people to slot into your vision for what you're 10:12 building because you're not going to do it with a how. There's not a technique 10:17 that's going to be the way to get to the next level. The real value of building 10:22 something is the people you put in place. It's good to know what you have 10:27 inside of yourself and how it's a strength and what elements it actually 10:31 really lends itself to what you're trying to do and and at what point this 10:36 is something that is a setback for you. And if you are hearing this and you hear 10:41 this in yourself, ask yourself, what is your risk tolerance with all the ideas
The importance of building a team around your vision 10:45 you have right now? Are they all locked in your head making you always feel kind 10:49 of like wistful for something more? Or are you jumping on all of them and maybe 10:55 your your calibration is too far in the other direction that you've wasted money 11:00 and time on things that really just need to kind of cultivate in the garden a 11:04 little bit longer. You need to stop treating the flood of ideas like a 11:09 personal failing or ADHD. Sometimes I'm like, man, my brain is all over the 11:13 place. But I have pretty good executive functioning, so I don't know if I have 11:17 ADHD. I just have a lot of ideas. Just treat this as raw materials. Cultivate 11:22 the skills that multiply it. Get really good at storytelling. Get really good at 11:26 identifying who needs to buy into your vision and why would they buy into your 11:30 vision? And create infrastructure around yourself on purpose. So, people near you 11:34 who can take your vision and make it reality. I don't want you to try and 11:39 self-improve your way into being someone else. 11:42 But, you're not going to become a different kind of person. It actually 11:45 took me several years to know what the difference was between a visionary and 11:50 an operator and to stop feeling bad about the fact that I'm not an 11:54 operations person. Here are the five things one more time. One, most people 11:57 are complainers, but you see the fix. That is optimism. That is building a 12:01 better future. Two, rigid environments make you feel restricted and 12:05 ineffective, and you're not wrong. Three, your risk tolerance can set your 12:09 traps, so learn whether your ideas are dying inside your head or if they're 12:13 scattered across 10 projects. Try and set a understanding of where you want 12:18 that calibration to be. Four, storytelling is the superpower, 12:21 especially at the earliest stage when a vision is all that you have. And then 12:26 five, the move is never that you need to fix your wiring. You need to notice it, 12:30 own it, cultivate it, and really build the infrastructure around it. The world 12:35 has plenty of people who can tell you why something won't work. It has a lot 12:41 fewer who can stand inside a future that doesn't exist yet and describe it well 12:46 enough that other people follow them there. So, if you're in that group, 12:50 you're that I deeply relate to and want to provide encouragement to you. If this 12:55 episode felt like someone is finally describing you, I'd love to stay 12:59 connected. You can go to startup physicians.com to join our email list. 13:03 You can also go to our resources tab and download some of our resources for 13:07 founders. That's where I share what I'm building, what I'm learning, and come 13:11 back for the next episode because I'm going to talk about the very first thing 13:16 every visionary wants to do with a new idea, which is to build the product. 13:20 There is a version of that story that ends with a beautiful product that 13:24 nobody buys, and I've watched too many brilliant founders live it. I'm going to 13:28 show you how to keep your creative fire and skip that ending. Until then, keep 13:32 seeing what other people can't, and it's the whole reason that you're here.
Summary of key insights and encouragement for visionaries 13:36 Thanks for listening to the Startup Physicians Podcast. This community was 13:40 built for doctors who want to contribute to the future of healthcare. 13:44 We offer support for physicians who are ready to make the next step towards 13:48 building the career they've dreamed of. Visit startupphysicians.com 13:53 to learn more. And if this episode resonated with you, 13:56 share it with another friend who needs to hear it. Let's change the future of 14:00 healthcare together.
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