Episode #54 – An Unashamed Entrepreneur, Helping Other Medical Startups Achieve Success – with…

Podcast Introduction and Mission 0:00

Welcome to the Startup Support Surgery podcast, where we light the entrepreneurial spark in medics and healthcare professionals. Join me, Dr. Jo Watkins, GP, business coach and co-founder of The How People, on a journey to discover where your medical know-how meets the business world. This will help you find some clarity on how to balance work, passions and family so that you can gain more freedom and control over your life but also continue to help people, which is actually why most of us went into medicine to start with.

Embarking on this entrepreneurial adventure is not easy. It is a roller coaster of emotions, but it's hugely rewarding and exciting in the process. Drawing in on my 20 years of blending medicine and business as a GP, I am here to share experiences, insights and lessons. Expect lively chats, expert interviews and real life stories from medics who have taken their own path. Let's break free from traditional healthcare norms and explore more innovative ways of making a real difference to people's health and wellbeing, along with paving the way for a brighter future for us as healthcare professionals.

Oh, don't miss my free PDF called From Stethoscope to Startup, which is an 11-page guide in the show notes full of practical help and advice. This is your roadmap to kick-starting your journey with us. Enjoy the Show. Today on the podcast, I am interviewing Dr Matthew Wickham.

Matthew Wickham's Background and Career Path 1:35

Matthew helps clinicians diversify their income through private practice because he's done it himself, as we will hear. After 17 years in medicine and entrepreneurship, Matthew has built a profitable property portfolio, set up and run a successful private clinic, and has navigated every hurdle healthcare professionals face when stepping outside of the NHS system. As a co-founder of Doc Support with his great friend Dave Hindmarsh, they both share the strategies, mindset and practical tools that clinicians need to start private clinics, diversify their careers and scale sustainable income streams.

And your fact of the day, Matthew, is that Scotland's the longest place you've ever lived anywhere. Is that right? That is indeed, yes. I'm not Scottish. You don't sound Scottish and I know you're at Liverpool University because that's a like ever-binding thing within every Liverpool medic. What took you to Scotland? I got a training number. As simple as that, I wanted to do ENT training. And back in the day, yeah, got generic training, number up in Glasgow and stayed and did higher surgical training up here.

It was just purely for work. But I didn't mind because I grew up with my parents in military. So we moved around from as long as I can remember. going and seeing somewhere new and, you know, even though I didn't know it, literally knew nobody when I got here. Didn't bother me at all. Just, yeah, that's where you're going. That's what you gonna do. Fine. Make a decision. Get on with it. Go. But we lived in Hong Kong and all around the world when i was a kid. So going to Glasgow wasn't that far. Amazing.

Okay. So full, full on military upbringing. Did you, were you in the military yourself as well? No. Cause Dave was your, your co-founder. Yeah. Dave Hindmarsh. We'll come to that in a minute. OK. Brilliant. You are here today. we are going to talk about as much as we can possibly fit in because I know that there's going be so much value that you can give our listeners. But why don't you just tell me a little bit about who you are, what you do in your own words. Like doc support obviously is something that I really want to get into so that you can support anybody that's there.

Tell me about what your do. You're in an ENT surgery now, so you're still doing that as well. So tell us about a week in the life of Matthew Wickham. I think you're actually right. I'm in my own clinic. This is my private clinic, the Glasgow Air Clinic. But I'd think the best way of saying is I am actually an entrepreneur, Joe. And I've not even afraid of it anymore. have some sort of connection to each other in some ways, or I've learned how to deal with that, but they're all entrepreneurial really.

And it kind of stems from that. I went through the sort university, get into training, do this next step, apply for this bit of training and very much with a surgical hat on and then sort got halfway down that track and realized that I probably was going to be quite an unhappy consultant. which should have raised the flag. I'm an entrepreneur. And I've just not a very good employee. So I went off and I built a property business while I was a reg. I got a bit bored of that, if I'm being honest. So as all entrepreneurs do, you do something, You get it going and the excitement runs out.

so I then went and did something else. And then eventually I found out myself in GP training during COVID and yeah, realized that I could do things with a CCT and GP more than I couldn't without one. I am a qualified GP, but I don't work in the NHS very much. maybe 40 sessions a year so I can appraise and revalidate as an NHS doctor.

Entrepreneurial Mindset in Medicine 5:40

But I work predominantly privately in a GP with ENT capacity. And I have my own business and I've subsequently got two other businesses off the back of that. So I doc support you mentioned with Dave Hindmarsh. We now sort of help other people who are looking to do startups with healthcare businesses, really. I'm not talking about AI or anything fancy. Just talking generally about nuts and bolts of seeing patients and having some autonomy, which is what I would say I quite like. And I started off by doing just a little bit.

As NHS work went down and private work up, I just found a balance that I think probably will resonate well with you. You have two small children and I do drop off some pickups. So I work between 10 and three most days, bar a Tuesday, but yeah, yeah I basically have have my control of my life and my time. Weirdly, I now work harder than ever have. But I don't really feel like I'm working in that regard because it's kind of stuff that I like to do. Be it join a podcast or be it create some content on YouTube with Dave or at the moment we're expanding Med Assistant, my other private medical business.

So there are things that you can do that keep things going and you That's really the reason I can do all these things is that I'm not looking after my property portfolio. It kind of is being looked after by somebody else all the time. In fact, I had a text message off one of them, a state agency earlier on today, and they were like, we found this problem. We know how to fix it. Are you happy to just do it? Yes. That is all I do. So you can be capable of doing more than just one day's work. I know that sounds strange.

No, and I think what you've described in a very short period of time is a decade at least of hard work, decision-making. Like you say, being able to wear all of those hats and throw yourself into all these projects that entrepreneurial spirit would never have survived much longer in the confines of where you were going by the sounds of things. Can I just take you right back to medical school-y time? Like, did you have this, would you think it was in you then, or do you it something that was sort of sparked off by your maybe more rigid training?

Or do think that it's just always been there? It's a good question and it's one that a lot of people debate. I know there are lots of other people who write about these kinds of things. To some degree it was always there, I just didn't really know what to do with it because I was kind of busy doing university studies and all that came with that. I think I benefited from the Liverpool course at the time I did it, which was very much PBL, because it gave you a little bit of freedom to go away and think for yourself and try and do things.

And one of the things I would say to anybody who is entrepreneurial in any capacity or even thinking about it is it's quite fun to fail. Actually, if you get used to the idea that you can fail and it''s okay to you find out a hell of a lot more and you'll get where you're trying to get to a little faster. I mean, there's stuff I've done that, you know, no way in heck I would have planned to do it, but it failed and it fell fast and we learned and moved on. And you can speed that up. Yeah. getting okay with getting it wrong.

I think that's quite hard as a doctor to say that. We're supposed to be right. You know, we're suppose to helpful. And yet, yeah, here I am standing saying... Yeah, We don't want to get it too wrong, do we, as medics? We have to kind of toe the line and make sure that everybody's safe and well. But I Ithink medicine actually and medical training and certainly GP training almost lends itself to that entrepreneurial spirit, because you're constantly doing something different. You know, you change every three weeks, You're moving on to a different subject, like no day is the same.

I think it almost kind of feeds into that slightly, doesn't it? And certainly, I Think general practice, your average day in general, practice I, think you've got to be really, really adaptable and, capable and organized and all of these things that you need when you are out there in the world of business as well. So there's lots of transferable skill sets on there.

Building Private Practice and Business Models 10:20

Oh, massively. I mean, as well as just being okay with not knowing and referring it on to the specialist, that just that little sort of thought process, you know, just because you don't necessarily know the answer doesn't mean you didn't know how to go and find the answers or where to direct someone to. And a lot of businesses, a I'm not the best person for this. Go and speak to that person or, yeah, I need to employ somebody to actually do that job for me because I mean, let's be honest, not an accountant.

I have an account and I understand communicate with them, but I don't necessarily know what they know. So you would, same for a cardiology specialist or a neurology specialist. any GP ever pretends to know exactly what they do, but you know to ask them. And you're in your own clinic at the moment and I've just was speaking to a client of mine who's at that sort of stage where she's got her own clinics, she has got a steady stream of clients coming in, got to sort of grips with that first couple of years of working out how it works.

And she's, everything she was saying to me today was like, you actually need somebody else to be involved now, and you talked about the fact your property portfolio is essentially managed by other people now. How do you know when you're in a clinical situation, if you are running a private clinic, that you need help? And how does that feel sort out sourcing or getting other on board to help you? It's a very individual thing. Not everybody needs it. You know, if you're happy with what you are doing and it's doing its thing and its giving you the life you want to live and all of the satisfaction of doing what your doing because it is quite nice to be able to spend half an hour with a patient.

I do not feel rushed in my private work in any way, shape or form. So yeah, if that's what you want and you don't need to make it any bigger, you can utilize automated systems and there's a lot of technology now that mean you necessarily need employee somebody. For example, I don' employ a secretary, but I do have AI transcription, for example. So you might not necessarily It depends where you're looking at going with your clinic, I guess. If you are looking to expand to the point where actually you just own and run a clinic and maybe step back from actually seeing patients, then that might be something where definitely going to have to employ the clinicians.

And there's possibly a varying amount of, you know, from one man band to completely top level and everything in between. what's right for one person is not necessarily the right thing for everyone else, because you're going to have responsibilities if you go up levels, which you may not really want. No, exactly. It's working out what you want ultimately, isn't it? Because I think when you've got, when your on this, you know, it is a bit of a treadmill and it can kind of run away with you a little bit, can't you?

You can grow something that becomes a big of monster. And actually, do you really wants to employ 12 people Be responsible for other people's mortgages, have these huge overheads. So, so thinking about the kind of business that you want to actually run it ultimately as you start, I think is really important because you've, you mentioned automation and you got obviously the, the wonders of AI. If you understand how to use it and use properly, it can really, really help you. But you also got things like you can have a.

You know, VA is helping you for 10 hours a week or, you know. Instead of actually having that responsibility of employment, there are lots of other ways of doing it on there. And the, the opportunities are endless. But thinking about building that business that aligns with the life that you want to live and time you wanna spend with your children, does that correspond with what you're currently doing? And I think from when I built my bendy legs business, my granola business essentially, I was just ignoring everyone that was saying to me, you know, what is the exit strategy?

How are you gonna distribute this? how are gonna manage if you get this into supermarkets? I wasn't hearing it. And therefore I got to a point where I'm like, oh shit, whats this. that I've built. So, have you got your eye on big growth in terms of your private business or what sort of growth you want? Yeah. I now deliberately set out to build something which has an exit point. So you're almost selling it before you've even built it, which is a sort of streamlined way of doing something. It also gets rid of wasting time doing ideas that aren't going to work.

One of the things from a private clinic point of view is I can personally, I have a nice living and a lifestyle, but the business only works when I work, so it's pretty difficult to sell that business. because nobody's really going to just buy my time. So it's thinking about things like that. Whereas my property business completely runs without me. I could sell that tomorrow and it has a value. You can set up any business you like. One of the other businesses I've got is DocSport and is trying to get digital products and consulting and different ways of doing things.

That's a different way of setting up a business to sell things online, as you know. So you have assets in a digital space, physical assets, and you can have bricks and mortar business assets. You can look at those entirely differently and try and work out how you get from start to the end point you're looking for. Maybe the end point is, well, for me, my clinical private practice business is to grow and expand and over time I can choose. I'd like to just have the choice. About whether or not I come in and see patients.

But it's nice to have a choice and I don't think many people can honestly sit down and say they have choice about whether they need to see the next patient. It would be really interesting to You know, we live in a situation at the moment where, you know the NHS is full to bursting, but it feels like you've created this almost this unique avenue for yourself with your GP training and your surgical training, combining it all into this place that is of massive need. You know, patients come in now into general practice and they want choices.

They don't want to sit on a waiting list for two years. they also don t want just to go down to the private hospital and sit down on that potential waiting lists. The want the other alternatives and you are an alternative in human form and there are alternatives popping up all the time, aren't there? We're both, I'm working with and your working some fantastic clinicians that are out there in the digital space and in their own clinics doing brilliant things. And that's, you know, I mean, from a work satisfaction point of view, it's awesome, isn't it?

Scaling, Automation, and AI Tools 17:25

And it is, and I have the time to enjoy it. I sympathize and do understand where colleagues in the NHS, I talk to Dave about this all the times, he's obviously in NHS. It's having the type, like genuinely having time take a breath, actually look at it and read about it, learn about, trial things, practice things. You know, unless constrained with no NHS red tape, so I can trial stuff and if it doesn't work, it can quickly change tack. You can't necessarily always do that in the NHS and that's fine.

It's for good reason. But yeah, no, I like the fact that I have the ability of time. You know, a busy day for me is eight patients a day. Amazing. I mean, it's night and day compared to... It is. it is another world, isn't it? But let's talk about like realistic difficulties about having, you've got like, we've said you got four businesses, young children. What are the negatives? What the difficulties? Are there any, or is it just that you are nailing this work-life balance thing? Yeah. It's not easy.

I'd be crazy not to say it's easy, I've been doing it for over 10 years. So the reality is that a lot of the things that I do are now easier to do because I can have support to it. And anybody who's trying to one thing on their own, in addition to what their full-time employment is, that side hustle thing is hard. You can use some little tricks to try and speed things up. Even just little hacks like LinkedIn, I have been on LinkedIn for years. Like most doctors, I've not necessarily been active on Linkedin.

But for the last, say, 10 months, i've been adding connections every day. If you add 10, 20 connections every day, suddenly you have quite a LinkedIn presence. So even if you just do a little bit, it's that 1% improvement kind of idea. And those kinds of things can make a big difference. You just don't know when you're going to see it. Um, and I guess anybody like yourself, um, who's been doing any sort of non medical things for long enough, you, kind can see that there was incremental jumps happen.

you. Just have to keep plugging away at it so. Yeah, having a bit of resilience and sort of persistence showing up every day, I don't think I do anything fancy. I really don' I just turn up and keep going. And I'm not afraid to get it wrong. Okay, that didn't work. What next? You know, how can I make this better? That's all it is. Most of it, is that. It's just that people only see the end result. They don''t see years of Bits where, you know, your other half says, what are you doing at 10 o'clock at night answering emails?

Why are, why are writing that document? why you're doing this? Sometimes I don't even know the answer. I just do. But you just have to keep doing it. Yeah. And it's been like consistency, persistency, but it is different from coming in at the end of the day. My other half is a consultant anaesthetist. When he's not at work, he is at home. He comes in the door and he doesn't do any work at his home and present. you know i'm much better than i was but certainly five years ago i would be you, know sitting up till whatever time at night um working because i love what i do and i have to really really be disciplined with myself to stop and he doesn't you.

Know he. Doesn't understand that as most of my friends who would medical GPs and they finished, you know, they come home and now starting to check blood results and working from home. And the boundaries have blurred a lot more than they were when I was a partner. I think that's happening as a norm now. But the work never stops, does it? And it's incredible and enjoyable and we're incredibly privileged to be able to do what we do, but it isn't always there. There's always an email to answer or a LinkedIn post to or, uh, accounts to go through.

Or there's something, isn t there? You never get to the end of it. There is, and the vast majority of it, I don't mind doing. So I didn't think of as work. And I think that's partly because I enjoy it and it's that entrepreneurial kind of. Itch. so I actually mind it. In fact, if anything, hunt it out. I'm very bad at sitting and doing nothing. I'd be terrible at that. I just don't know what to do with that, so I'm always going to be thinking about something or doing something. what we need to do next or this, that or the other.

So you can find time. I think you find find even in a busy life to to all these things. It's not impossible, but it's about being a bit more sort of rigid about what you do and you obviously now restrict yourself and that rigidity of what do to some degree. Well, to some degree, I try and sit with the kids, you know, try not to do things when I could be spending time with children, but I'm the same. I don't watch films, and I can't sit and watch box sets. So I am not a massive reader, like I've got a very busy brain and much prefer to be designing a sort of sales page or writing an email sequence that I would watching EastEnders.

And that's just, you know, that just me and that is the way I am. But I'm trying to be much more mindful of how I spend my time in the evenings. I definitely better than I was. When it doesn't feel like work, it's very difficult to discipline yourself, isn't it? It is. But I do like some of the AI stuff. Stuff that automates my emails. I think that's invaluable stuff now. That didn't exist years ago and what a game changer. It pre-writes the answer. As if it was me. My mind is blown every time I see it.

This is great. Just click send. And it's changing week by week, isn't it? It's keeping up to date and people are sometimes a bit frightened about it. And this, you know, I think this sort of simplified concept that every, people saying clicking, write me a LinkedIn post about an Apple and then, some generic reply. Then you post that on your LinkedIn. You know we're talking. a high level, a much higher level than that here. AI is here to support us, to help us to keep our costs down, help use our time efficiently and effectively.

How do you learn and keep up to date? Are you in various groups or would you just do your own learning? No, I love messing around and getting it wrong and looking like an absolute fool. I find that that is as much as you... I mean, you could spend time reading and learning and talking about it, but the irony is it's happening so fast now that by the time you've done that, In a weird way, a month can go by and you're already out of date. So even the AI products that you can use now for just daily life, I'm not even talking about anything to do with necessarily business or even medicine.

DocSupport and Private Clinic Mentoring 24:55

Most of them are very, very low cost, you know, less than a hundred pounds. And you get a year's worth of access because they know in a years time it's going to be out-of-date. Like this, in four months, it's probably going to be out of date. So I had a call with a contact of mine who was basically saying, can I just show you something? And literally went, call this number, as I was talking like this. I called it and I have a conversation with an AI receptionist. And I don't think I would have known, if you hadn't told me, I wouldn't have had any idea that I'm talking to a computer.

it's frighteningly realistic. So to do businessy activities, yeah. At the minute, you need to know how to prompt it. That's probably the thing I've learned most. And that's a skill in itself. It's an absolute skill because what you put in is what get out. You only get better at doing it by learning or asking someone who already knows how to do it and paying them their time, which is very helpful. VA's that do that for me. It's great. Okay. So let's just think about your, the doc support side of things, particularly because we've, I've spoken to Dave, he've had him on here for a few times.

I know you're, you are supporting sort of lots of different medics with different things. But what's the concept of doc's support and who could potentially benefit from your health? So the nice thing about Dave and I is, is that we're similar, but different. So he's obviously got the NHS side of things and does his trainer, train a hat on and has all the trainee stuff. I probably more in the sort of private healthcare sort, of business creation set up, or maybe even doing some property investing and things like that.

Cause. that stuff that not everybody knows enough about and certainly wasn't taught in any shape or form throughout our education. So most of it is I do one-to-ones with people or they can have a mentoring session with me. the minute I've just set up something on the website for a taste today because I think that's something that could really be quite helpful and it condenses a lot of learning into one day rather than saying you know this has to happen slowly slowly you can just kind of say come and see how it looks you, can physically see the space I mean you are in my room right now but I can have a reduced clinic of three patients in the day and we can chat about all of the things.

The reason I want to bring some patients is because I actually ask patients to pay and that is a skill in itself. It's something you've never had to do as an NHS doctor. Yeah, just, uh, as a way of kind of just saying, like, this is a, way, of doing something, which is different. And if you want to learn about it, and it's great because I'm not competing against anybody. If you're in the central belt of Scotland, you can come have a chat with me and heck, I might even have some space you could actually rent off, You know, we can work together.

Um, cause I know it was difficult to start. and if your down in south of England, well, i'm, not, competing, against you. You, know I mean, a physical doctor in a physically space. I, am not doing online consultations. So people can come and spend the day with you and learn, basically, see you in action, sit there, soak it all up. Yeah. I think there's only so much you can learn over the book or over a screen. And the reality is that there are lots of different moving parts in setting up a private clinic.

You don't have to look very far if you're working in the NHS. Just look around you when you are in your daily office. and a bit more. So it's not difficult, but it is quite hard to know how to do that. Some of the things and the processes and how you actually set up as a healthcare business is tricky. There's a lot of costs to doing it. If you're applying for CQC registration, if you apply for HS in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is different as well. You know, it takes time. It takes money.

You've got to sign a lease. Even if you're doing it online, you've gotta have these things and that's thousands of pounds. So if it's not for you, then you have to pay a lot of money to find out basically in a long period of time, whereas... That's interesting because I think, you know, obviously the CQC thing comes up again and again, and essentially there is no way around that. If you're going to operate as a doctor and whether you'll doing lifestyle medicine or, if you are selling your skills as doctor, You need C Q C.

Yeah, the equivalent in whichever country. Yes, The CQC or equivalent. I think, and it doesn't matter if you're online or in person. The only sort of sidestep you can do with that is to have practicing privileges in somebody's space that they've already got. which is a great place to start, right? It's like working for somebody else, you're learning all those skills. You can go in and do the practice and work under somebody's CQC. And there's also an online option for those in the lifestyle medicine space.

There's a healthy clinics, which are set up by Ed Lynch, the wellbeing doctor, and he's offering a C Q C option under their umbrella on online so and I think what you've touched on there is this concept of somebody sitting in with you and and i really passionately believe that this is a very important step that people miss out i think you need to decide whether this for you i don't think coming into but coming in to business from a place of feeling burnt out or thinking the grass is greener are both recipes for disaster.

Because the grassroots is not green, it's just different grass. And burnout is probably as common in the entrepreneurial business world as it is in medicine. So you've got to be kind of healed and ready to take this forward. But you also really want to make sure that this is what you're you really want to do. So my sort of 30 day clarity program, your in-person day, these are kind of quick, quick ways to, you know, it's like a bypass, isn't it? Like forget all that stuff. Like just work out if this is for you.

And if it is, then do you, know what? You're going to have to put your heart and soul into it and just get cracking. If it not for, go get a different job. Does that sound harsh? It sounds like informed consent to some degree. I don't think it's harsh at all. Genuinely, I think that if you're interested in this kind of idea that you are talking about in terms of creating something or doing something outside of standard NHS practice, get some, get, some idea about it, gets some education on it. You know, you don't have to spend a lot of time.

you can if you want, but you, don t have too.

Networking, Advice, and Closing Thoughts 31:55

And there are quicker ways of answering that scratching that itch, getting the answer and the information and asking people, like just literally talking to people who've done it and find out what they think. I've yet to meet anyone who's not been helpful, really genuinely helpful. Um, I presume that's the same for most people. and I'm assuming it's same thing for you Joe, Most people tell you that's a really good idea or no, that is a bad idea, I've tried it, it didn't work. And they'll tell why.

You can still ignore them, you can take their advice and do differently. Ask. Absolutely, have the conversation, build the relationships. Again, I think that's the, um, the unsung hero of business is actually, it's a game of people. Like if you're good with people, you enjoy other people you'll curious about what other do. Um, that key, uh, this is not about sitting behind a computer doing all the admin. It's about getting out there and. meeting people and connecting with people. And I think with you and I, there's subtle differences between the type of support we give.

I'm very clear now, I know when I speak to somebody that they are not needing me, they're needing you. The first time that happened was with Tina Skin. Lovely Tina. We like Tina, big fan of Tina! If anyone listening to this podcast who has anybody that struggles with acne, Tina skin is absolutely epic. It's soon to be rebranded, I believe. Oh, that's very exciting. But there are, you know, there's always somebody. So if it's not me and it is not Matthew, find somebody else that you can pick up the phone to send a direct message to and ask for some support and some help.

Brilliant. So we are just going to sort of wrap things up because, you know, this has been a really valuable conversation. We could probably talk forever, but I know you've got a patient coming in. Have you got any sort any tips? I mean, we've covered quite a lot already, But is there anything else you would like to say to your early entrepreneurial self? Maybe that Matthew that's qualifying for medical school or somebody else that is out there feeling these feels? Is there any thing you'd like say that you haven't said already?

I think networking is probably the point we haven't really sort of emphasized enough, I would say to anybody, literally anybody network, because it's only going one way in the world, and it is going to be about who we know, A lot of the knowledge is going to be taken over, I suspect, by computers. So who you know is gonna be very, very important and who can help you. And you'll find that you can get where you're going faster and more effectively with a little help from somebody else. You might not need a lot.

chances are you're going to get, uh, if you've got somebody helping you on the way. So, um, I mean that in-person networking, maybe when you were at medical school, when a junior doctor doing all those different rotations or, you know, as a, a senior clinician, probably have a fairly good network, but online networking is the next step. Yeah. I would definitely, definitely say we're both fans of LinkedIn, from what I can see, Joe. So I would always recommend that for any professional. But yeah, networking is probably the biggest thing.

Yeah. And I think online is great, but I do think in person is, you know, if you can just spend half an hour, take, go to these events, meet interesting people, be happy to kind of move around. You've got to be, You know you don't want to get stuck in the corner talking to somebody like you would at a wedding or something. you've gotta get out there and talk to people. Lisa Bean on her podcast says she only ever puts like a centimeter of coffee in her cup so that she can always go and fill her coffee up and then afterwards follow up with people get their names get there linkedin send them a message the following week if you're gonna spend you know 400 quid going to london to attend a conference make it worthwhile make those those meetings matter and keep in touch with people and, you know, make the effort to thank somebody for their time or, it's just, I think I thought networking was really contrived and a bit like when I was a doctor, this whole, somebody said to me once, oh, are you really good at networking?

And I like, Oh my God, what an awful thing to be good up. But I just really love people. And actually most patients don't get out of the room without me knowing what they do and you know what their family unit is like and we're just curious individuals right and that's what it's about. We were handing stickers out at the last RCGP conference we actually gave out stickers with the Docsport logo on and Yeah, no, genuinely. You can, you can be in creative and, and it doesn't have to be this stiff conversation.

Yeah. Absolutely. So maybe if you're listening to this, maybe go to your LinkedIn profile, make a few connections, send somebody a direct message. If you enjoy, You know, a particular YouTube video that you've watched, or if enjoy a podcast, reach out and tell somebody. if You've learned something today, Reach out to Matthew or I, just send us a message, that's how it works. so being brave. being curious and building your relationships, I think those are what we've come to from the end of this conversation.

But you have been brilliant. I've loved it. Thank you very much for your time. How do people get in touch with you? You've mentioned DocSupport, you're on LinkedIn. If somebody wants one of these days with, how do they get into it? It's on our website. We can put the link in the show notes for you. Not a problem at all. Yes, happy to speak to anybody. Contact me. I hope this episode has sparked some new ideas or challenged your thinking. Transitioning from medicine to business is not easy. It's about adapting our skills while embracing the unknowns of entrepreneurship.

it can be nerve wracking, but remember you are not alone on this journey. Please feel free to reach out to me via direct message on LinkedIn or Instagram or just shoot me an email at joe at bendylegs.com. for support. And don't forget to grab the free PDF from the show notes from stethoscope to start up, which is your go to guide and resource for diving into entrepreneurship. Many thanks for tuning in. I will see you next time. Thanks for spending your precious time with me. This has been a Monkey Pants Productions Podcast.