Chalk Talk Jim_Dr. Chester Zoda: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Chalk Talk Jim_Dr. Chester Zoda: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Jim Jordan:
Welcome to the Chalk Talk Jim Podcast, where we explore insights into healthcare that help uncover new opportunities for growth and success. I’m your host, Jim Jordan.

Jim Jordan:
Today, we’re thrilled to have Dr. Chester Zoda. He’s an emergency room physician who’s turned into an entrepreneur, something a little different for our podcast today. Dr. Zoda is the founder of an innovative online course platform that empowers healthcare professionals to share their knowledge and expertise with a wider audience. With his unique perspective and wealth of knowledge, we are going to dive deep into the challenges and opportunities in this rapidly evolving industry. Dr. Zoda, welcome, and thank you for joining us today. So what led you to create Digital Doctor University?

Chester Zoda:
I would say that people only change out of inspiration or desperation. For me, it was most definitely desperation. During the Roni Rona that’s been going around, I was working as an emergency doctor, 80, 100-hour workweeks, three-night shifts every single week, so I was at a pre-call, post-call, or during the call. I barely had time with my family, zero savings, and I was just, it made me realize that the entire system is completely broken. We have all these overworked, underpaid doctors trading their time for money, stuck in bureaucracy, paperwork in endless tasks, instead of actually focusing on the most important thing, which was why I entered medical school, helping other people. And so I needed to find a way out, and it took me a while, a lot of trial and error, experimenting with a lot of different opportunities, but I basically needed a way to make money online. Just like Warren Buffett says, if you don’t find a way to make money, even then, you will work until the day you die. If you don’t find a way to make money while you sleep, you will have to work until the day you die. And so that’s how eventually I stumbled upon online courses, packaging my expertise and turning it into a passive income stream for myself and my family.

Jim Jordan:
Can you give us a sense of your background and your training?

Chester Zoda:
Went to medical school and then came out, started practicing as a doctor in New York, did medical training in Hong Kong. So I spent seven years in medical school before I actually did my intern years, my residency years, and so on and so forth.

Jim Jordan:
The AMA’s produced a lot of studies in the past few years talking about the shifting life of a practicing physician. Historically, they’ve been mostly self-employed and today a majority of them are working for others. And also historically, they spent more time with the patients and today they spend more time on documentation. And since physicians in a general rule make money when they’re working with patients, less time with patients means they have to work longer hours to keep up. So your formal education and training was in the medical field. To create Digital Doctor University, it seems to me you needed a lot of financial, marketing, and some programming skills to do this. How did you learn to do this? Did you get an MBA?

Chester Zoda:
Part of the reason that we became doctors is because, I think, at least for me, I entered medical school because I liked learning, just like learning pathology, learning physiology, learning anatomy, learning how to suture up a hernia, learning how to do basic things, we learn pretty fast. Starting in passive income stream or setting up a website or how to do marketing, it took me seven years of medical school and multiple many years of training to become an ER doctor. It took me eight weeks to learn how to create 10 to 20,000 per month in passive income. So if I can figure out the doctor stuff, I can figure out the make money online passive income stuff, and I think a lot of doctors as well.

Jim Jordan:
So you practicing anymore or you just focused on your courses right now?

Chester Zoda:
Oh, I left the practice in 2020.

Jim Jordan:
So although you learned this in eight weeks, as I look at what you offer your clients and I look at their testimonies, it seems to me that you’re accelerating their learning by providing your curriculum and access to a like-minded community, and often communities can give people that little push of confidence to go ahead.

Chester Zoda:
Yeah, that’s correct, because the one thing that I’ve realized is that, like I said, people only change at inspiration or desperation. For me, I was in massive pain. There was an urgent need for me to move online so that I can provide for my family, take care of my loved ones, create a passive income stream so I’m no longer dependent on trading my hours for money. Most people, they’re comfortable, especially as doctors, especially as health experts. We’re still underpaid, but we have these golden handcuffs. It really takes a shock to the system in order to make a change, because if you change nothing, then nothing changes. Just like losing weight, just like any transformation in your life, it always helps to put yourself in the right environment and to have a coach, and that’s what we provide in Digital Doctor University. Right now, we just hired six success coaches that hold our students every step of the way from finding the right idea, packaging the expertise into a marketable online course, and then starting to generate their first 10 to 20,000 per month in the first 90 days. So there’s the environment side, but on top of that, they get surrounded by other people that are on the same journey because entrepreneurship or doing anything out of the norm could feel like a lonely road. Just like if you were to go to the gym, it’s much better to have a gym buddy. In our community, we have accountability partners and we hold their hand every step of the way through zero to generating the first 10, 20, 30,000 per month in passive income.

Jim Jordan:
What kind of services does Digital Doctor University offer and how does it help physicians generate passive income?

Chester Zoda:
We teach our health experts packaged expertise that they already have to generate passive income. The old model is trading your time for money on 1 to 1 consultations. Now, we all know that there’s only so many hours in a day and there’s only so many patients that we can see each day or each week before we eventually get overworked, underpaid, burnout. That path, just basic math, in order to break out of that system, you need a one-to-many approach, something that is scalable, that leverages the expertise that you already have, and turns it into a passive income system, or turns it into something that is no longer dependent on your time. And that’s where online courses become so powerful.

Jim Jordan:
In our pre-podcast discussion, you shared with me how big this market is and how this category is growing. Can you just share that with the audience?

Chester Zoda:
Forbes estimates that to be a $350 billion opportunity. Everything is moving online. Amazon’s replacing Walmart. Netflix is replacing Blockbuster. Traditional education systems like Harvard, they can’t keep up. Everyone is moving online into online education. If you have any children, then you’ll know for sure that a lot of them are spending their time on the computers these days to learn.

Jim Jordan:
What makes the online education industry a particularly attractive opportunity for doctors and health experts to leverage their expertise and improve humanity?

Chester Zoda:
This is such a massive under-tapped opportunity where doctors, health experts, that genuinely went through years and years of schooling, years and years of training, and has the expertise that honestly could cure life and death diseases and could really improve humanity. This is such a ripe opportunity for us to be taking.

Jim Jordan:
What specific topics do your courses cover? How do you help your clients set up their courses? Can you give some examples of the type of courses that doctors and health experts teach? And what are the three main categories of courses that Digital Doctor University offers?

Chester Zoda:
So we have doctors and health experts that are teaching courses targeting patients. Example One of them is teaching how to improve dry eyes, another would be teaching people how to breathe better. And you might be surprised at how willing people are at learning how to breathe better. You might be thinking, hey, this sounds like something that you and I already take for granted, but by positioning the expertise that you already have into an underserved market, like people with chronic sinusitis, instead of charging like $700 per course, you can now charge $7000, $8,000 per course, which is exactly what some of our students do. That’s the first category, doctors helping patients. The second category would be doctors helping doctors. How to start a practice, how to prove a surgical technique, how to do cataract surgeries, stuff like that. And doctors helping students, how to get into residency, how to get your match, Hack the Match, that’s one of the clients that we work with. How to get into your dream school, get into pre-med, things like that. So there’s three main categories doctors helping doctors, helping patients, doctors helping students.

Jim Jordan:
So some people might be wondering how a course price of $7,000 could be sold to individual patients. But I think what you’re saying is that, say, I’m a COPD specialist, I could buy this high-quality course and I could use it across my large patient base. So the patient in the end is saving more money because they’re not paying $700 for the course, but the specialist who has, say, 100 COPD patients would buy a high-quality course for $7,000, but when you divide it across 100 patients, it would actually be $70 a patient.

Chester Zoda:
Yeah, you absolutely could. I can’t give you a yes or no definitive answer, but in the end, the market decides on the price. So you might find that institutions are willing to pay 50 grand, whereas if you’re selling to the individual, then you might be charging less, 700, 1000.

Jim Jordan:
Yeah. What’s the mission of your company and how does it help experts achieve financial freedom?

Chester Zoda:
Our mission inside our company is to help a million health experts achieve financial freedom, right under financial freedom would be financial independence. They have to be in control of their own cash flow, they have to know with consistency that every single month that passes, they can make ten, 20, 30 grand per month in passive income and have control over the entire inputs and outputs of that system. That’s what we provide.

Jim Jordan:
So do most of your clients continue to practice or do they stop practicing once they scale their courses?

Chester Zoda:
That’s a great question. I would say the majority of our clients would cut back on their practice, so if they were working seven days a week, now they’re working four days, five days, they have more time with their children, take care of their loved ones. Some of them continue practicing to earn a degree, but move into more of a teaching, a more of an academic role, which is perfect because doctors love teaching. We either teach patients, we ought to teach our fellow colleagues. Imagine what it would mean to record all those seminars or those workshops and turn it into an online course and have it pound out cash flow for you every single month, and so a lot of our clients do that. But clients like me just quit completely, where I just left medicine completely in order to focus on this and serve our current clientele.

Jim Jordan:
There are online ways to deliver content such as through YouTube or Vimeo or Podio. How are your clients delivering their content?

Chester Zoda:
Yeah, so we use our own online e-learning platform and we help our clients set that up.

Jim Jordan:
What are some of the biggest challenges you’re facing as you grow your business and how do you go about finding the right people to join your team and help you achieve your mission?

Chester Zoda:
It’s always like business is all about people, it’s always about finding superstars, superstar talent. I’m very privileged to say that because of our mission, which is to help a million health experts achieve financial freedom and make health education available to everyone worldwide, we’re able to attract a lot of great talent, and that would be the main challenge. Growing this business, finding the right superstars, putting them in the right positions so that we can serve our clients to the highest level and provide them the best experience possible to move online.

Jim Jordan:
Does your team provide a service that helps the physicians make professional-grade videos?

Chester Zoda:
Yeah, so that is one of the services that we provide.

Jim Jordan:
Can you explain the importance of course content versus technology when it comes to creating a quality online course? And how does your company leverage technology to become the leading online education provider tool for independent physicians wishing to sell online education?

Chester Zoda:
That’s a good question. I would say that most people have the misconception of what is actually a quality online course. In the end, a great online course should cover just the important topics to help someone achieve the transformation that they need. So, for example, if someone has chronic sinusitis how to breathe better, that’s it. If somebody has dry eyes, how to improve that, that’s it. And so it really doesn’t matter like the camera or the technology or the software, in order to empower their students to achieve that transformation, what actually matters much more is the actual course content, the actual expertise of the expert that we’re speaking with. And that’s part of the reason why there’s a lot of children teaching courses on how to set up a Minecraft server that are making 300 to $500,000 per year. I’m not in the business to help those people, I’m in the business to help experts, my own colleagues, those that have, went through years and years of training to package it into a online course format. To answer your question, think technology is always changing, we’re constantly leveraging, we’re cutting edge. We’re the biggest company in online education. I don’t think anyone has been growing as fast as us from 0 to 8 figures in under 20 months, and we’re not stopping any time soon. And because of that, a lot of it is because we know how to leverage technology. We know which systems work, we’ve tested every single thing. Even just last year alone, we spent multiple millions in advertising in setting up a funnel that can generate inputs. So for every $1 we put in, we get $5 out, $10,000 in, $50,000 out. And because we’re on the cutting edge of all of this, we can copy and paste those exact systems onto our clients so they can achieve similar results.

Jim Jordan:
So imagine, as you scale your platform, you may run into the situation where you have two courses that may be similar. How do you envision a patient would make a selection between which course?

Chester Zoda:
If I was bleeding out of my neck right now and I need a surgeon to fix it, I don’t care whether I go to Abdul over here or whether I go to Chester over here, or whether I go to Adam over here, right? If I have a problem to be solved, then I would just go to the most immediate solution.

Jim Jordan:
And if it’s not an immediate need, what other factors do you think patients would consider?

Chester Zoda:
And of course, like just the fact that I’m Asian or just the fact that I’m an ER doctor might appeal to a different segment of the market, but in the same way, you would be appealing to a different segment of the market. Someone that has a similar story or resonates with your story much more. And what we found really powerful is that the clients that tend to do the best are those that have a strong reason why they’re doing it. So Doctor Maya is a great example, he is teaching a course, helping young doctors start their own practice, and he’s driven by a mission to cure progressive myopia in all children. That is amazing. We also have worked with people that are cutting-edge professors in their own academic departments, treating life-and-death conditions like epilepsy. So because they’re driven by a strong why people resonate with that story, people would rather learn from these people rather than going through a textbook. That is actually a good point to mention because most people lack that strong Why, they become doctors to help people, but then they numb themselves in all this paperwork and bureaucracy. They don’t actually end up doing the things that matter most, which is such a shame. But because by packaging the expertise that they have into the online world, they can help so many people, even those in underserved communities around the world.

Jim Jordan:
Let’s now talk about your client, the physicians. How do you plan on addressing the concern that as the market becomes more saturated with online courses, it’s like a pie getting sliced into more and more pieces, making it harder for the individual to make a profit?

Chester Zoda:
The online education industry is $350 billion and it’s not stopping anytime soon. 2023, that’s when they estimate it’s going to be $350 billion. Everyone is moving online. Amazon is replacing Walmart, Netflix is replacing Blockbuster, everyone is moving online. So in the same way that there’s a pie, the pie is getting bigger and bigger. I don’t mind if I get 10% of the pie right now, but in ten years I get 1% of the pie because the pie is getting itself is getting bigger. This opportunity is not slowing down. I don’t want anyone to be listening to this and think on the sidelines, Oh, if I have a hypertension course, it’s never going to hit the market because that is one of the biggest limiting beliefs that unfortunately held me back from starting my own online course.

Jim Jordan:
So to reiterate what you’re saying, it’s not a fixed-size pie getting sliced into smaller and smaller pieces. It’s an exponentially growing pie where a small slice in the future could be worth the entire value of today’s old pie. Got it.

Chester Zoda:
The pie is getting bigger and bigger. One of my mentors actually shared this story with me. Microsoft, back in the day, their mission was to put one computer on every desk in all of America. That would be 100% market penetration. But you know how many computers there are on average in the household? There’s two times. 2 to 3 times. So they not only achieve their mission, but they achieved 200, 300% market penetration. And so effectively, that’s kind of what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to empower as many health experts, not just doctors, but also dentists, chiropractors, optometrists, physiotherapists, to tap into this online education industry that’s growing at an exponential rate much faster than trading your time for money.

Jim Jordan:
If I can pause for a second and give the audience my perspective on your contribution to the healthcare system as a whole. In the US, healthcare constitutes roughly 18% of our economy and is, continues to grow, and it’s estimated that 60 to 70% of all behaviors that could reduce healthcare expense are actually outside of the acute care setting. And there’s data suggesting that 5 to 11% of all healthcare costs could be avoided with improved patient health literacy. And so for what I’m hearing, it seems that you are creating a new avenue to improve or reduce health literacy. And at the same time, the data on physician dissatisfaction continues to be alarming. And part of that is that they have less time helping patients and less time with patients means less money, and so they need to work more. And we have the issue of physician reimbursement going down and burnout rates increasing. We need to keep these intelligent professionals committed to the industry and by providing them a mechanism to make more income while also contributing to improving health literacy, you are giving them more flexibility to stay. Is this the macro view of what your company is doing? I find it very intriguing.

Chester Zoda:
Yeah, that’s a very astute way of putting it, but in the end, I’m driven by, freedom is all about choices. Most people think they don’t have a choice, but they do. They’ve chosen the path of medicine, it’s not what it’s promised us, at least for most of us, like a comfortable career, spending time with our family, taking care of our loved ones, most of us are getting overworked, underpaid, unfortunately. And at the end of the day, freedom is all about choices, and I want to empower them to create a life of financial freedom and abundance for themselves and their family.

Jim Jordan:
It’s really interesting to hear your story, and it seems like we share a similar reflection about the sacrifices we make as parents and to our jobs. I can relate to the feeling of putting in so many hours of work thinking it’s for the sake of our families, only realized later in life that we missed out on so much. And I think it’s a common theme I’ve heard among many physicians I’ve interviewed that they had to delay having children sometimes, their schedules were so busy, they missed kids’ important events growing up. I think of my father, who’s a middle school principal, and I could look up at every single sporting event that I was participating in, and I could see him in the stand at every single game. And I have to say that I missed a lot of games during the week, I made them on weekends, but it’s regretful that my children could not have the same experience, so say the same that I could about my father.

Chester Zoda:
I think made the shift when I interviewed and asked a lot of my colleagues back in medical school, back during the residency, what matters most to you? I asked them that. And they’re like family, like taking care of my loved ones, memories, experiences, but then the life that they’re living is not conducive to that. I had one specific surgical mentor that I had, and when I was under his training, he told me that he actually took pride in this almost of how hard he worked, to the point where he only sees his wife one night a week. He never sees his children, son’s baseball game, the daughter’s dance recital, he was never there. It was sad because when he passed away during the Roni Rona situation, I wasn’t there for him as well. I wasn’t there for his last moments because I was working a night shift. And these moments, whether it’s the son’s baseball game, the daughter’s dance recital, someone close to you, your last moments, you’re not going to get these back, and I thought that this is not the life that I want to live. And that’s what I mean by people only change our inspiration or desperation. For me, it was during those moments when I just felt like a cog in a machine as an ER doctor on the front lines of healthcare. What was the reason why I was doing this for? I wanted to help people. Are there better ways to help people? I personally thought so, and that’s how I stumbled upon this online course and which is now helping thousands of doctors around the world package their expertise. But at the same time, I’m bridging the gap between them moving online so that I’m having a ripple effect on the courses that they’re teaching, helping patients, helping doctors, helping students, and I take great pride in that. Because if you told me like three years ago that this is the, this is what I would be doing, I wouldn’t even think this was possible, but I was just in so much pain back then.

Jim Jordan:
It’s great to hear that you recognize the importance of adapting and shifting in today’s world. And it seems that the previous generation, the baby boomers, they were raised to take pride in their work and their objective was to provide for their families. But I think younger generations like millennials and Gen Z’s are starting to see that there’s more to life than just work. And in fact, I would say that when you get advice from baby boomers, they even advise the younger generation to prioritize their personal lives a little bit more. With that in mind, I’m curious to hear about a time when you had to quickly adapt and shift your strategy in the past three years as an entrepreneur. Adapting and shifting is a crucial part of building a successful business. I’d love to hear about some of the challenges you faced and how you overcame them.

Chester Zoda:
That’s a great question. So I would say that as humans, we’re always adapting. Just like Charles Darwin says, it’s not the strongest species that survives, it’s that which is most adaptable to change. We’re entering one of the scariest recessions right now, and there are two types of people those that are, adapt and those that die, they get extinct, they get left behind. And sure, this might be a polarizing thought, but if you look at the history, if you look at all these industries and businesses that are booming over the last few years, Amazon replacing Walmart, Netflix replacing Blockbuster, you’ll see that there’s only one end, which is to constant adaptation, constant innovation, constant improvement of yourself and your businesses and your careers. For me, there’s been multiple shifts, but I think the first one is just getting started and just taking action. Before I got started, I had so many limiting beliefs, thought that just because I was an Asian living in New York, I couldn’t make it here. I thought that, hey, because I speak with an accent, I might not be able to communicate myself. I still think, every single time I hop on a podcast like this, I still get a little bit nervous. Whether I’m able to articulate my thoughts in the most effective way possible. And then there’s always like these insecurities, Hey, will this work for me? If I had a course idea, would this actually work? Is this a scam? People used to think Amazon was a scam. People used to think the first time they entered their credit card onto the internet that it was just going down or going down somewhere else, right? But now everyone’s shopping online. And so I think a lot about the need for human adaptation, especially in today’s day and age. Technology is moving at a faster rate, more than we can actually keep up, and traditional education system is breaking down. The traditional banking system is breaking down. The traditional education system is also breaking down and that positions our Digital Doctor University right at the epicenter of education, healthcare, as well as finance. This is ripe for change. It’s a huge opportunity, like I said, valued at $350 billion. And so I think back to those moments, I think it was, if there was one specific moment where I had to adapt or die, it was that moment when, unfortunately, one of my mentors passed away and I wasn’t there. I was burnt out three-night shifts every single week, and it was at that moment that I knew there were two paths: I could continue what I was doing, but in doing so, I would continue getting the same results that I’ve always gotten; or I could adapt, I could change, and I’ll take that road every single time.

Jim Jordan:
Can you share your thoughts on the importance of investing in a mentor or a system to avoid costly mistakes in starting an online course? And how does risk tolerance play a role in wealth accumulation when making investment decisions in your business?

Chester Zoda:
I can say you can avoid a lot of the mistakes just by investing in the right mentor, someone that’s been doing this for, and can lead you. Because in the same way, if you were to figure out how to start a online course from scratch, it will probably take you months of trial and error. But for me to install the same system onto you, I can just copy and paste, drag and drop, plug and play, and that’s what we provide for our students. We get this all the time, like it would be silly to reinvent the wheel, but to learn how to do a cataract surgery, I’m not just going to poke people’s eyes and figure it out by myself, of course not. I’m going to go to a mentor who’s done this multiple times before. I’m going to study, I’m going to look at the steps that’s required, and then I’m going to practice on a dummy and then come a cataract surgery. One silly thing that I hear all the time is, hey, all the information is out there for free. Why don’t I just do this by myself? You absolutely could, you absolutely could, but in doing so, you’re taking a risk. In working with us, having us install those systems for you, there’s virtually no risk, we just copy and paste. But to answer your question, I think going back to the risk tolerance side of things, I think at different levels of wealth accumulation, you can take bigger and bolder bets. In the beginning, if you have less than 100 grand in your bank account, you’re already broke, so you might as well invest in everything in yourself. You’re already broke, you don’t have a saving problem, you have an income problem. And so put all that 100K into education, into mentors, courses, coaches, masterminds, improving your health, improving your wealth, improving your love and your relationships. I will just put all that 100 grand in because face it, you’re already broke, you’re not going to get there by saving up on a few Starbucks coffees every single day. Now, once you’re at the 100K to one mil mark, that’s when you can take much bigger bets. Let’s say have $1 million in my bank account right now. I can take 100 grand risk, I can invest 100 grand easily without even won’t even feel it. It’s just 10% right? And I know I’ll make it back, money always comes around. At a different level, if you have ten mil, now you can take one mil bets, and so on and so forth. So your risk tolerance definitely increases the more cash you have on the bank and the more wealth you accumulate along your journey.

Jim Jordan:
So what were the places you went to learn? What resources or people did you follow or learn from, mentor from, to get to where you’re at now?

Chester Zoda:
So a lot of it was, honestly, I just read a lot of books. So even during my medical school days, I was already picking up books on how I can maximize the limited amount of time that I have to study more to cram all this information in to pass my exams and eventually graduate and become a doctor. So even from just going through medical school, I learned so much from observing those that are the most successful students, how they prioritize their time, and those that are the least successful, what their attention is focused on instead. And so books like Effective Executive by Peter Drucker that is like the best productivity book I could have read at a relatively young age when I was in medical school, but actually I read quite a lot. So I read books related to philosophy, I read books related to technology, artificial intelligence, I read books that are related to wealth investing, I also read a lot of self-improvement books like things related to psychology to Mindset, because that really is the one thing that could potentially hold someone back, the limiting beliefs that they have in what they can potentially achieve in this life.

Jim Jordan:
Can you share with our audience what resources did you use to develop your knowledge and skills in productivity and personal development or self-improvement?

Chester Zoda:
I would say Mastery by Robert Greene. That book was amazing. It basically studied every single master, quote-unquote, that’s ever been dead or alive now and studied what really makes them tick. What is the path to success? What is the path to mastering your craft? I think this book can apply to anyone, but when I was reading it, it really hit me at a time in my career where a change was required. So for a lot of surgeons that would be mastering their surgical technique for a lot of doctors, that would be mastering certain aspects of their diagnosis, but it could also apply for someone that is a new parent, right? How can I master and become the best parent in the entire world? What are the steps that I must take? And that book, I would definitely recommend that for anyone that’s wanting to improve their lives because it’s just so profound listening to and hearing all these stories from some of the greatest of the greats in our history. And I want to become one of the greatest of the greats in at least my area of expertise, and the book really just hit me at the right time and was the right information at the right time.

Jim Jordan:
So the first step is to gain passive income sources and then I guess the natural next step would be to effectively manage that well. So what was the book that really opened your mind up to this topic?

Chester Zoda:
For wealth management, I, actually didn’t require books, so a lot of it was outdated and not effective in today’s day and age where everything is moving digital, a lot of it was just outdated. I went through an intelligent investor, I went through Warren Buffett’s biographies, I went through their decision-making. So those things that are timeless and universal, I focused on, because they’re timeless and they’re universal principles that I can apply in any situation of decision-making frameworks. But as far as the actual wealth accumulation strategies, things that like, invest in your S&P 500, that’s crazy. If you follow that advice now, instead of investing in yourself, especially if you have less than 100 grand, if you have 100 grand, right, you put it in the S&P 500 and you can only make, what, $8,000 in a whole year. You could invest that into online education, into the courses, coaching, training into your own business, starting a practice, you can invest all of that in yourself and your family and you could easily make much more than a 8% return on investment, you can make eight times return on investment. So yeah, I think a lot of the wealth management books are very outdated, don’t have any book recommendation on that.

Jim Jordan:
And when you think about the skill of demand generation, which I mostly think is marketing, what book would you recommend?

Chester Zoda:
A great book on marketing would be the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, that’s a great book. A lot of studies of some of the greatest companies, I really like that book. As far as operations goes, lean, Lean Thinking, I think that’s the book. Lean Thinking, once again, is a lot of business case studies. I don’t know whether this is exciting to your audience. Most people find this boring, but I’m happy to know that at least somebody knows the books I’m referring to.

Jim Jordan:
Are there any other topics that you think we should keep up to date on?

Chester Zoda:
There’s this thing called the green technologies: genetics, robotics, AI, nanotech. I think those four technologies are just ripe for the taking, especially artificial intelligence. We’re already seeing some of the effects becoming more mainstream, but really this is something that I’ve been studying ever since medical school. So the reason why this is important is because artificial intelligence could potentially match all of human consciousness. This could either be tool or it could be a weapon or it could be a major threat. So getting this right, we only get one chance. We don’t get a second chance, we don’t get a third chance just by having the wrong inputs. The wrong initial conditions could lead to a path of great success or complete failure. And so this is something that I’ve been studying for quite a bit, especially recently with advances like ChatGPT, different softwares available to market, going to your question, as far as healthcare goes, I think doctors, at least the way that we are currently practicing medicine, is going to change dramatically. It’s already changing, the tectonic plates are already shifting and that change is going to happen at an exponential rate that most people will not be able to keep up with. A lot of people will become jobless at the end of this recession. Just during COVID, there are 44,000 jobless doctors in the first year, and increasing exponentially every single year after that. So people are getting overworked, underpaid, the existing old model, the current system is not taking care of its stock. So and on top of that, there’s this emerging threat which are, AI replacing all of these healthcare professionals. And so don’t think those that leverage AI in order to achieve their goals, they’re going to be massively successful. Those that are adaptable to change and those that ignore it, they’re going to be extinct. Even inside our company, we use a lot of different AI technologies from different pieces, whether it’s marketing, whether it’s sales, whether it’s operations, because the technology is right there and it’s all up for the taking. The opportunities are right there and it just takes creative mind or it just takes spotting the right opportunities and the courage to take action in order to seize these opportunities and grow something beyond its current limitations.

Jim Jordan:
So family influences us so much. Did you come from an entrepreneurial family?

Chester Zoda:
I would say, not necessarily. I mean they’re on their own business, right? My dad’s an engineer and my mom works for my dad. They were definitely self-taught, and one of the things I learned from both of them is that they’ve always been self-taught, self-sufficient, and those are certain entrepreneurial traits that wish to embody. I would say that on top of my parents, though, even though they were business owners, they were still slaves. They had no time freedom, they had no location freedom, they had no financial freedom. A lot of people call themselves entrepreneur, but really they’re self-employed. They own a business, but they work in the business trading time for money. To be a business owner, you need to leverage systems, leverage like automations, like the automated copy-paste system that we give our clients, but also leverage potentially other people, having a common mission that unites people.

Jim Jordan:
As we come to the end of the episode, I want to emphasize the valuable insights that Dr. Zoda has shared with us. While being self-employed can be empowering, it often means still exchanging your time for money. However, creating a business that generates income even when you’re not actively working, it’s true independence. It’s about utilizing your skills, your expertise, and the resources to build something that works for you rather than the other way around. I hope you enjoyed listening to our conversation with Dr. Zoda and gained valuable insights into healthcare, content creation, and entrepreneurship. And if you found this episode informative, please leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform and share it with your friends and colleagues.

Jim Jordan:
Thanks for tuning in to the Chalk Talk Jim Podcast. For resources, show notes, and ways to get in touch, visit us at ChalkTalkJim.com.

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