Are you kind of at this crossroad in your life, where you had to make a decision?
Were you going to go full into your practice and really be one on one and locked in, or were you going to start to explore leveraging your time, and really creating a second income stream, and sharing your gifts with the world?
Listen in and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.
PREFER TO READ? HERE’S THE TRANSCRIPT OF MY INTERVIEW WITH LAM TU
Sylvie: Welcome everybody, it's Sylvie McCracken from SylvieMcCracken.com, today I have one of my incredible clients, Lam Tu, Dr. Lam Tu who is a dentist, and is here with us today. Thank you, Lam, for being here.
Lam: Well, thank you for having me, Sylvie. It's a pleasure.
Sylvie: Yeah, it's great, great having you, and so Lam, tell us a little bit about what you're up to, what you do in your day to day practice right now, and let's start there.
Lam: So I've been a practicing dentist for the last 8 years coming from the University of Minnesota, and been in private practice for 7 years, and working with 3 other doctors who are owners, and I am an associate. I work 5 days a week currently, seeing patients each and every day, and just been treating the day to day dental piece, looking in mouths, looking in caves, and trying to find cavities.
Sylvie: That's awesome, and okay, cool, and what spurred you, what brought you to us, what did you see that resonated with you when you found our ad and our webinar?
Lam: So it was amazing, amazing timing. I had been really thinking about a few pieces in my life, I had been approached by my practice to even purchase into the practice, and I had to really come up with a thought process of, do I really want to entertain buying into a practice and committing myself to a practice, when, in my internal heart, it was that I've been passionate about photography, and traveling the world, and really asking myself, “Is this what I really want?” “Do I really want to stay in this practice and commit myself to at least 7 to 10 years at minimum, to purchase into this practice, or do I want to really pursue my dreams and passions?” And I really had to ask myself that, and that was where, Sylvie, your advert and your webinar, it really spoke to me. You asked me, “is this what you truly wanted in life? Do you want to have security in your life, and being able to have a passive income stream that could allow you to do other things?” And what it came down to is I wanted more time freedom and location freedom, and when you're a dentist, those are really contrasting types of pieces in your life that aren't allowed when you buy into a practice, and so, you made me really question that, and when I joined in and I talked to Chad, one of your coworkers, he really spelled it out and asked the right questions for me to really understand, “hey, this is an intersection in my life that I should really be looking at closely”, and I haven't looked back ever since joining you, Sylvie, in your program.
Sylvie: That's amazing, and so yeah, so you were kind of at this crux in the road a little bit, where you had to kind of make a decision. Were you going to go full into this practice and really be one on one and locked in, or were you going to start to explore leveraging your time, and really creating a second income stream, and sharing your gifts with the world, and so that's a hell of a place to be, so that's amazing. It just seems like sometimes the universe makes things happen at the exact right time, where 2 months before, 2 months after, it would have been a completely different thing, so that's incredible. Well, so you joined us, and you were certainly busy. You had a trip planned during the time that you were in the program with us, and all kinds of other stuff. So share what is the first or most impactful thing that you learned during your time in the program?
Lam: It was absolutely the mindset. Your mindset work is don't brush it off, don't push it off. Last year, I had explored meditation, and when I got onto my first call with Lottie, and she talked about meditation and mind work, I had already been on board in the last year. But to say at least, I thought that type of stuff, meditation, was hocus pocus. Swear to God, I would not have cared for it over a year ago. And I think that piece where I had started meditating last year, it had already set me up in a good place before joining with you, Sylvie, but you only made it more concrete in knowing that that's where my mind had to be, and trusting my instincts, and trusting that this is going to work out, and you're going to figure it out, and I love your quote about “everything is figure-outable”. And it stuck to me.
Sylvie: That was online, that one I have to give credit to Marie Forleo for that one. But yeah, that's a good one, for sure.
Lam: And now, it's with me, and so you're passing on the knowledges that you've had, and you're imparting all this wisdom onto your users and your clients and your students, and to me it's been just mind-opening and a self-exploration. I would have never thought that that was what I was entering into at this point, in something so simple as a tutorial on writing e-books.
Sylvie: Yeah.
Lam: You don't really think that that's what you're getting yourself into, and I had been in with other mentors beforehand who have taught me a little bit about the mindset, but the biggest piece was trusting, really, yourself in this, and not doubting yourself at any point in time, and you're going to stumble, and you're going to fall, and making sure that you knew that that was part of the process. It's been so helpful, now that, when I feel like I'm not where I need to be, that I know that that's just how it is right now, and that the future is all predicated on what you're going to do now, and what actionable steps you're going to take to be able to change that.
Sylvie: Yeah, I love that, and it's so true because a lot of people really, of course, we're a marketing program, and we help you narrow down your topic and make sure it's going to sell and have a fantastic title and all of that, but of course, along the way, there's a lot of personal growth required to put yourself out there and make this happen and really put your life's work, in a way, for a lot of people, into a product and really put it out there. So going back to the eBook side of it and the project itself what did you accomplish, 8 weeks is not that long, and it flies by, but what did you accomplish as far as your eBook? How far did you get in the 8 weeks together?
Lam: So I made it to writing about 30, 35% of my eBook.
Sylvie: That's amazing.
Lam: in the 8 weeks here.
Sylvie: That's actually amazing, considering your schedule.
Lam: Yeah, if your prospect, looking into this, it's not the expectation to write the entire eBook, and I still feel absolutely at 110% that this is going to get done in about a month to 2 months' time afterwards, so the expectation shouldn't be that you're gonna finish an eBook. If you do, oh my gosh, like bonus points.
Sylvie: And we've had a handful of people finish completely during the 8 weeks, but for the most part it takes a little bit longer than that. But more importantly, than the actual writing, what about the rest of it? In terms of the marketing piece in terms of your title, cover, and all of that good stuff?
Lam: That's been huge, the help and the insight that you've brought, Sylvie, and your team has brought to figuring out okay first, it's all about outlining, and creating just a map of how you're gonna step through this, so that you're not gonna get lost, and then the second part is coming up with the title, and making sure that's solid and that fits into how your outline has created kind of a story for you. After titling, getting that reinforced is then working on your cover, and I have a beautiful cover at the end of this.
Sylvie: You really do.
Lam: And it's absolutely gorgeous, I could not have done this without your support and your team's support, and I never have dreamt about ever writing a book until this moment, and it's been because I had so much negative pieces in my life where in high school, I was always told that I was a bad writer, or teachers in my English classes always gave me bad marks, but as I learned more and more about my writing style, and just kind of getting into my niche, it's actually that it was just, we had differences in our personalities and in our writing, and just understanding that that was not, my writing wasn't the issue, it was all in my mind. That really became,
Sylvie: That's incredible, Lam. I mean, I just feel like that your story is so typical in a way, because I don't know, most people, we get emails all the time saying, I'm not a writer or whatever, and we've kind of created these stories or been fed these stories along the way, and really we have something incredible to share and I like to say, if you can write an email, you can write an eBook and share it with the world, right, so that's incredible. So you've made such incredible progress during our 8 weeks together, and just like you said, a huge part so far of the wins, especially since your eBook isn't done yet, hasn't launched into the world, you don't even have a website yet, but it's coming very soon, so that's amazing, but in terms of this personal growth and this mindset growth that you've done during the 8 weeks together, where else in your life have you seen that show up? Can you give us an example of just somewhere in your life where that's presented itself or where it's been helpful for you?
Lam: Yeah, it's been huge in just my relationships with my family and with friends, perspective, dates and all that jazz, so the confidence,
Sylvie: I love it, we're an accidental dating program! I love it.
Lam: The confidence that you do build in yourself is huge, and you find that the mindset of being that, okay, I'm not gonna let anybody else affect who I am, and my happiness, or my sadness, or whatever I'm feeling, that you don't blame others for what you're feeling, that you take 100% of who you are, and what you are, and what you're feeling that day, day in and day out, and that you own that, and not anybody else is going to, either gonna take it away or give you that, but you're gonna make each day your own, is what I've really taken away personally, and so Mother's Day was just this last weekend, and I wrote my mom and my sisters a letter just to say how appreciative I am of them, and not because I wanted to make them cry or anything like that, but it absolutely had an effect like that, but you know they don't have that same mindset of, I'm just trying to give you something positive in your life, and trying to have that effect, I think kinda got off track there, but it's just, yeah, you're exuding, you can exude positivity in this life, and share it with others, or you can do the other direction. You can be negative about this, and you're gonna have that effect if you think positive, you're gonna be positive, if you're gonna be negative, you're gonna be negative, so.
Sylvie: Yeah, and that's what I wanna highlight to people because like you said, I mean, it's a domino effect, and so it's impossible for this to be compartmentalized into one part of your life, I mean, chances are, you do one thing, that's how you do everything, and so I want to reflect that back to you Lam, because the way you showed up in the program really was in a, okay, in a state of how can I make this work, not you know, just basically looking at how can we make it work in getting the support, you reached out for support, you were resourceful both with your time, with finding and making the time to make it happen, and also with using us as resources like you said, you know we have an incredible team that's there for you, and so you really have to kind of do that reaching out and asking for help and sending in your stuff for feedback and then implementing the feedback which is incredible, so you really showed up every step of the way like that, and I have no doubt that you're gonna take that on as you continue with this project, and as you launch, really, your online business for the very first time, you don't even have one blog post up which is amazing and so exciting.
Lam: No you're absolutely right, it's super exciting, I'm super excited about it, and there is plenty of excuse-making that we can make and I think that comes back down to a deep philosophy of my own life, is that I try not to make excuses, I always try to look at myself before I look at anybody else or others, and I think people really look up to that, and if you are joining in this program, that's where I think we really need to begin, is look at ourselves first, because nobody's gonna write this book for you, nobody else is going to do that, I mean you can hire as much as you want, but at the end of the day they're still gonna look at you, and they're gonna say hey, what direction do you want me to go, and so you have to still be the leader and you still have to be the person that drives things forward.
Sylvie: Yeah, I love it, I love it. So you ended up with an incredible title, which I remember the title and the subtitle you're going to have to help me with, the title is “Never Dread the Dentist Again”, and subtitle?
Lam: Subtitle is ultimate guide to worry free dental appointments.
Sylvie: I'm pretty sure that everyone needs that. Everyone with teeth needs that book, so that's incredible, and I can't wait for it to be live, do you have a date yet, where we're gonna publish?
Lam: So, I have a date in mind, July 1st, 2018, this is, yeah.
Sylvie: We're gonna hold you to it. You've said it publicly now, so,
Lam: Yeah, it has to be it.
Sylvie: This recorded, it's not too late, so that's fantastic, I can't wait to see that, and I would love for you to share whatever it is, last nugget that you want to share in terms of anyone that's sitting on the fence thinking, can I really do this, I don't really have a website, I don't really, I've never written a book before, is this something that I can do? What would you say to that person?
Lam: Well I'll tell you when I came across your advert and webinar and watched it, and Chad and I spoke, and he told me the price, and at first, you're going to swallow and be like, oh my gosh, like can I afford this right now? And the biggest question that popped in through my mind right at that exact moment, I blinked once, and the question came up, and I asked myself, if I said no, would I regret this moment in my life? And the answer came back to me quicker than anything, is it said yeah, if I said no at this point, I would regret not taking the chance and trying this out, and doing something about trying to make a secondary income, a passive secondary income stream for myself and for my life and the passions that I want to pursue outside of dentistry so, it was an easy call, and I'm still here, I survived, and I just paid it off. I was able to pay off the program, and you know, you always figure it out, and you will always find a way. You think at first that's a lot, but it's not in the big scheme of things, you're gonna get it all back in tropes is what I already feel like, and what I already know in my mind, that my book is gonna do well, and
Sylvie: That's amazing.
Lam: And it's gonna pay for itself.
Sylvie: That's amazing, well thank you for sharing that Lam, but we're gonna have to bring you back in 6 months and a year from now as well to really get the update as well on how you're doing because I can't wait to see the whole progression now that you're gonna be in the alumni group if you're not in there already because I know you're graduating today pretty much,
Lam: Yes.
Sylvie: Yeah, so that's super, super exciting, so thank you for sharing that with people and really highlighting just how much of it was you really rolling up your sleeves and taking ownership and really taking every step of the way and really doing the work because of course it really did require you to show up that way, and you really did it, so that is fantastic, thank you so much Lam, and for everyone that is watching, we're gonna update this video with Lam's URL with his website as soon as it's live underneath this video so you can check it out and check out his eBook, and in the meantime if you're thinking you'd like to create your own eBook and your own passive income stream, book a call with my team and we'll see if we can help you out, the link will be below this video, it is SylvieMcCracken.com/call, and our team is sitting there waiting for you to book a call with them, and really gonna just check if this is something that is for you, this is something that we can help you with right now, and all of that jazz so link is below the video, SylvieMcCracken.com/call, and I'll see you guys really really soon, bye for now.
