Don’t wait, this episode is for you. 
Physicians and thought leaders need to stay humble to stay current Thought leaders need to be constantly learning and reading to grow How to scale your expertise and thought leadership Find a way to change your vocabulary so people can receive from you Thought leaders need to be vulnerable so they can build trust 
00:00-07:40 | Learn the difference between what you do and who you are 07:40-11:00 | Thought leaders need to be consistently learning 11:00-15:27 | How you can scale your expertise into content for your audience 15:27-21:15 | A video podcast can help you increase your influence with your expertise 21:15-25:08 | When you start a video podcast you open opportunities for new business 25:08-30:19 | How you can adjust your language to reach more people 30:19-35:07 | Use the power of story to quickly build trust and reach your audience 35:07-00:00 | How can physicians find their purpose again? 
“I decided that for myself, doctor is what I do, it's not who I am.” - Richard Harris “You need to question things early and not just take what some doctor says as the only way because there may be another way—and there may be another way that's better for you.” - Richard Harris “There is a sense of clout among industry leaders when there should be a lot of humility that comes with that, because you're going to be responsible for directing people in specific directions.” - Kap Chatfield “You need to be confident in your abilities but curious enough to want to learn more.” - Richard Harris “Physicians don't heal people, you heal yourself.” - Richard Harris “So most of the time we keep our habits until something happens to make us change our habits.” - Richard Harris “Health is the accumulation of your behaviors, your mindset, and how you interact with your environment.” - Richard Harris “Each person deserves the truth, each person deserves a chance to rise up and reach a standard of greatness—and I believe if you hold people to greatness that each and every person can achieve greatness.” - Richard Harris “You have to be vulnerable. You have to share your story.” - Richard Harris “To me, it not about making money, it’s about making an impact.” - Richard Harris- Rveal’s website: rveal.media
- Rveal’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rvealmedia/
- Rveal’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC69p14R2ccMdyUbbmdlWCEw
Full Transcription:
Kap Chatfield 00:20
Hey guys, welcome back to B2b Podcasting. Normally, you see us talk about a lot of different things regarding b2b sales and marketing and people within those industries. But one thing that we're really passionate about with this show particularly, is helping people not just in tech and SAS and marketing and sales, but people and b2b in general understand the power of leveraging the show marketing model in order to develop thought leadership and to distribute at scale for the sake of generating and driving business. So today, our guest is actually a really unique guest. He comes from a different industry entirely. His name is Richard Harris. He actually told me not to refer to him as Dr. Richard Harris, and he'll explain why in a little bit. But he is a medical doctor down in, in Houston, Texas. He's, I asked him his job title, he said, he's a physicianpreneur. And he's also the host of the Strive For Great Health Podcast, Richard or Dr. Richard, so great to have you on the show today. Thanks for coming on.
Richard Harris 01:18
Thank you for having me, Kap. It's always great to talk to fellow podcasters. And I always love these conversations, because I walk away with so much knowledge and just hope and peace, talking to other people who love podcasting and love business. These are two of my favorite things.
Kap Chatfield 01:36
We'll be talking about a lot of that in just a moment. But before we get into like kind of a nitty gritty tactical as far as business and podcasting and serial content creation, which I would call you a serial content creator on top of all of those titles. First, explain to us why you didn't want us to refer to you right out the gate as Dr. Richard Harris, but just Richard.
Richard Harris 01:58
Yeah, it's because Doctor is what I do, it's not who I am. And this realization came to me very early in my career, because I saw these older physicians, and they're 70, somewhere even 80. One of them, one of them was even 90. And I'm like, why are you still working at 90 years old? And he told me, "this is all I know". Oh, and I said, whoa, whoa, that caused me to reevaluate my position and my standing because I wanted that doctor title so bad. And then it was staring me right in the face. And I said, Well, I don't want to be one of these guys still working at 70, 80 years old, you know, 16 hours a day seeing patients because that's my identity. That's all I know. And so that's when I decided to myself, Doctor is a job. It's not who I am. And I think a lot of doctors run into problems because they can't disassociate the job from their identity. Because it's the only job you can get. Well, your nickname is your job. what's up doc? Right? No one's like, Hey, what's up lawyer? What's up are, you know, mechanic? You know that, that doesn't happen. So a lot of people get stuck in that, and I never wanted to be stuck or pigeon holed into a certain identity. And that's why I tell people hey, don't call me Doctor. I'm Richard. You know that, you know, me as Richard, I just have a skill set that allows me to take care of people.
Kap Chatfield 03:26
Man, you know what that's I want to go deeper into that, wasn't even intending to go there this episode. But there's a lot we can unpack there. So I don't know if you know this, but some of the people who follow me and listen to the podcast know that my faith is really a big part of my life. I know that even in your LinkedIn bio, it seems like it is too. Its you say "child of God" in your LinkedIn bio, before all the things that you do. And one thing that for me, I'm actually an assistant pastor at my church. And, you know, people actually kind of struggle with like, should I call your pastor Kap? Or should I call you Kap? And I'm like, please just call me Kap. Because as soon as you put the title in front of my name, like we're no longer peers, there's like this thing of like, I'm in a different category from you. And I just don't, I don't like the way that feels or sounds and there's nothing wrong with saying pastor this or doctor this or, or putting a professional title in front of somebody's name. But for me personally, it was a it sounds like, it's it was a lot like your scenario of just hey, I want I want us to be able to have an even relationship. I don't want you to necessarily put me on a pedestal. Would you say that there's anything tied to that too, with what that decision?
Richard Harris 04:33
Yeah, absolutely. You know, but usually I start these things by thanking Jesus Christ for allowing me to speak to your listeners and be here today. So thank you for reminding me of my faith first and foremost. But there is something there and I think it's because I don't think that any of us are special. And I know that's gonna rub people the wrong way. There's 7 billion people on this planet. None of us are special. None of us, right? If anybody can do it, you can do it. The only difference is the people who do it say I can. And they ask themselves empowering questions like, "how am I going to make this work? What do I need to do to get there? Who can help me? Maybe, who do I need to talk to?" And the people who don't say they can't, and then they reinforced that with, I'll never be good enough. Why would I ever think I could do that? You know, you will go towards whatever you put your mind towards. So if you figured that you can, you'll go towards it. If you figure you can't, you'll go towards that. But I just want people to know that I'm just a regular guy, and I'm not any different than anybody else. I'm not special. I'm not this Super Doctor, you know? People have called me a hero before, I hate that term. Like, it doesn't feel right to me. I'm just doing what God called me to do. And it's only by His grace that I'm here. It's nothing special with me. There's nothing inherently good in me. I'm just following where He's leading me to. And that's why I don't like the title it because a lot of people really show deference to doctors. And I think that's gotten us into a lot of trouble. Because this is a whole nother conversation for a whole nother story. But a lot of doctors don't read literature anymore. And so they're practicing things that are outdated, or they're not talking about lifestyle medicine, or it's pill this and surgery that and those are the only options. And so people because of the title will take what this person says as gospel, and not question it and not look for a second opinion. Or say, wait, is this really right for me? And I'll throw a quick story in here. My mom had bariatric surgery at 50 years old. And I told her, do not do this, you are too old to do this, you will have serious complications. And she was sitting on the table and she said that she felt like something told her not to do it. And she told the doctors, I don't want to do this. And they said, "No, you're fine". And they put her out. And she spent the next three months in the hospital and almost died three times. And ever since then she's had almost 20 years of problems. Right? And so this is a example of you need to question things, you need to question things early and not just take what some doctor says as the only way because there may be another way. And there may be another way that's better for you. And when you see people as equals, then you begin to question and in a good way, critique what they say. But if you think they're always above you, you'll never critique, you'll never question you'll never ask the things of yourself that you need to, to make sure you've got the best option for yourself.
Kap Chatfield 07:40
That is powerful. I think one thing in general that that any person listening to this show, who's in a position where they are recognized as the expert in their space, not just medical. But we, this show is really for thought leaders in various industries. To help them as we mentioned, like really document that expertise, develop it. You've even mentioned earlier, before on the pre show call how much time it takes for you to prepare for an episode, which we'll talk about shortly, once we get to that part of the of the episode. But there's a lot of people who would say that they are thought leaders and maybe not even just call themselves that they've been recognized as that. And with that title. And with that sense of, of a clout, if you will, there should be a lot of humility that comes with that, because you're going to be responsible for directing people in specific directions in your case, and your industry. And I respect a lot your, your your sense of, you know, I'm not a hero or whatever, I understand where you're coming from. But I will say your industry, in your industry, the stakes are just really high. I mean, you're dealing with individual's health, it can be a life or death decision for your mom's example. It was not necessarily a life or death, but certainly quality of life that happened to her. So and I think it's important for thought leaders in various industries, to like, look at that as almost like the bar for "Hey, this is how seriously we should take our work". And this is also how seriously, you know, we shouldn't, no, no one's immune to trends changing, right? As far as like you're saying, reading the literature and all of that. We all need to do our homework. And we all need to recognize that that what we say people are going to take seriously. And you know, we also at the end of the day, we need to recognize we haven't arrived. We're still learning. We're still growing, and we need to continue to be students.
Richard Harris 09:30
Yeah, absolutely. It's one of Adam Grants, books I can't remember if it's Think Again, or Give and Take, but he talks about how as an expert, you need to be confident in your abilities but curious enough to want to learn more. Because if you're just confident in your abilities without being curious, that's what leads to agency problems. That's what leads to experts not rethinking not questioning, dogmatic advice. And that's when we get into problems. You know he documents exactly what happened with the Challenger, right? That culture where the rethinking was not permitted. Where it was just oh, you know, we're so smart, we're so brilliant that you know, we can't make any mistakes. Right? Right. And that always leads to issues. So we have to, as experts, be humble, stay curious and always be learning and not be afraid to say you're wrong. I'm the first person to say I was wrong. And I've been wrong about a lot of stuff. And we see that in medicine all the time. Things change quickly. They always say that, you know, when you finish residency by the time you finish residency what you learned in medical school is already obsolete. And that's pretty much true for what I've learned in medical school, a lot of that is completely obsolete. You know, fats bad, no wait now fats good. Salt's bad, Oh, wait now salts is good. You know, red meats bad, no red meats good. You know? All of these things. And, and so we have to be able to question our assumptions and be comfortable being wrong.
Kap Chatfield 11:00
Man, I love it, bro. I think that's I'm so glad that we're talking about this. It's such a unique angle compared to other things that we've talked about on other another other episodes of the show. I want to go into this title that we've talked about in your intro, "physicianpreneur". Explain that for us.
Richard Harris 11:20
Yeah, this is something that I wish I had realized a lot earlier. When you're in medical school, they teach you that as a physician, you have to be at the bedside. And I didn't question it. What did we just talk about? Wuestioning assumptions. And then I got out of residency residency, and I said, "Do I really have to be at the bedside to be a physician? Like, why did I become a physician?" I started to ask myself, and I said, I became a physician because I wanted to help people. Well, if I'm only at the bedside, that's a limited amount of people I can actually help. How can I get what I'm doing at the bedside and make it scalable? And that's when you start to think like an entrepreneur, right? And so now, I was like, Okay, I need to be able to take what I'm doing here and scale it. How do I do that? And one of the first things I came upon was the podcast. One, another thing that followed after the podcast was online courses, and then it was speaking. And so now I've taken a lot of what I'm doing at the bedside and scaled it up. And then I said, Okay, adults are very prickly. Set in their ways. It's very hard to change an adult's mind unless they're willing to change. I always tell my patients, I can't save you, you can save yourself, I can just show you how to do it. But it's on you. Right? Physicians don't heal people, you heal yourself. It's my job to diagnose you, it's my job to give you resources, it's not my job to heal you. That's between you and God. Right? But I said, I don't want to just get to adults, when they have a disease. Let's get to kids, because most of the time, our habits set it started when we're kids. And that really only changes if something acts on us, you know, inertia, right? Physics, object in motion stays in motion. Object in rest stays in rest unless acted upon by an equal and opposite force. So most of the time, we'll keep our habits until something happens to make us change our habits. And I said, Well, let me work with kids so they develop the right habits. I call it a healthy mindset. And I sat down with a couple people, we wrote a curriculum, none of us have a background in education. And before COVID, we're in 63 schools, and Houston and HISD. Where we saw one cohort of our students go from a GPA of 69 to a GPA of 85. In one month. Whoa, with our mentorship, or our curriculum, our social emotional learning. We were teaching kids basically all the stuff that we wish we had learned in high school. Financial literacy, about nutrition, about mindset about knowing yourself about how to deal with trauma, about how to deal with your emotions, and anger, about cooperation and leadership. And that was all in our curriculum. And so I love that. And then I said, Well, wait a minute, there's some other ways I can help people. What about putting my money where my mouth is? Because I don't care about making money. I'm not out there to make a whole bunch of money. That's not my goal. If I wanted to do that, you know, I've got an MBA, I be trading options like all my friends, right? It's not about making money. I want to make money making an impact. Because if you make an impact, the money will come. And I said, Okay, well, I'm blessed. I have a good income. Let me start investing my income in things that are going to make a difference. And so we started doing that. We started investing in minority owned and women owned companies and sustainable agriculture and things like that. And so every step of the way, I'm just staying to that core mission of how can I better help people? And that is why I use the term physicianpreneur. Because to me, a physician is someone who helps somebody. And we think of it with health. But it could be something else. It could be mindset, it could be through relationships, it could be a lot of different things. I use the term very loosely. And then I threw in the fact that I am a business owner on top of that, and I combined my love for business, my love for medicine. And this is the avenue that I walk in now.
Kap Chatfield 15:27
Man, you're you're like a renaissance man. I didn't realize you had an MBA on top of that. That's legit. And it's so cool that you're using vision and your skill set. And you know, things maybe you're like, Dude, I wish we learn this in school and what you didn't have, and you're using that to benefit other people. And I think, man, that's, it's so cool how dynamic you are. And I love, one of the things that we could go down a lot of different routes with this episode, but to stay on topic for what is gonna be most valuable to our audience. I feel like one thing that you said was, how do I scale this? How do I scale? Really, you have a wealth of knowledge, right? You're you're a deep well have some knowledge that is really helpful to get people from living a life of dis-ease, to a life to a life of health and striving, right? And so here you are, you're doing podcasts, you're doing courses, you're doing speaking engagements, you're clearly you found a way to like to reach more people and to provide this information. I'd love to actually kind of go deep into that tactic, because you got the show, the Strive For Great Health Podcast, even in the title, let's just talk about the title real quick. For you as a, as a doctor, why do you think this show or this this topic was so needed in your space?
Richard Harris 16:48
Yeah, I think it was because people didn't realize that health isn't passive. Health is active. It's like rent, and you have to pay rent every month, right? It, with your health, though rent is due every single day. Because health is accumulation of your behaviors of your mindset, how you interact with your environment. And there's just a fundamental misunderstanding of what is actually healthy. Even we use the term healthy incorrectly. I was on a plane with a guy, and he is overweight, central obesity, diabetic. And he goes, you know, besides being fat and be diabetic, I'm pretty healthy. And I was like, wait, what? You have a serious medical condition and then you're claiming that you're healthy. Like, that's like saying, I'm bankrupt and broke but I'm worth $10 million. Wait, wait a minute, that's what? That doesn't, that doesn't add up, right? And so I wanted people to realize that health is an active process, not a passive process. And that, it's a lot easier to be healthy than we think. Because I'm a busy guy, my wife hates it, but I love being busy. And if I want people to know, like we talked about earlier that I'm not special. If I can do all these 50 million different things, and maintain my health, it must mean that I've gotten a system that allows me to do so without taking too much time or thought. And that's why I started the podcast was to show people that there is a way for you to be healthy and still be busy, to be healthy and it not be a sacrifice. To be healthy and not cost a lot of money. And the other reason was, I want people to be informed health consumers. Most people know more about their cell phone, you know, cell phone, right here than they do their cars. I mean, then they do their bodies. Right? And how can you make decisions about your body, if you don't have knowledge about how your body works? If I wanted to drive from Houston to Boston, I'm not going to get in a car and just drive and hope I get there. I'm gonna plan it out. I'm gonna look at a map, I'm gonna get directions. If I get lost, I'm gonna ask a professional or someone who knows the way, right? But most people are making decisions about their bodies without any foundation whatsoever. And I wanted the podcast to be that foundation.
Kap Chatfield 19:10
So why did you decide that the podcast model would be the best model for you to scale your thought leadership and get it in front of these people? Because clearly what you saw was like, hey, there's a we're in a we're in a public health crisis right now. People need to know how to take care of themselves, especially regarding everything going on with COVID even. So why did you feel like the podcast was the best vehicle to distribute that?
Richard Harris 19:36
Yeah, so when I was starting to break away from conventional medicine, I got very disillusioned with the medical model. And I was looking to make my own footprint and be the physician that I wanted to be. And I love speaking and I felt like I had something to say. I felt like I had a message that needed to get out there. And at the time, it was podcasting or blogging. And I've written stuff, I hate writing. I just hate it. It takes me a while, I really have to focus all my energy on it. And I just don't like it. I'll do it. I don't like it. Speaking is my favorite thing to do. Whenever I'm on the stage, like before I go on the stage, my wife will be there and I'm just sitting there like bobbing my head, like I'm in the zone, like I'm so hyped and energetic. I said, Okay, well, I love speaking, podcasting is pretty similar to that. And that's when I decided to start a pod. I had no idea how to do a podcast, you know, hosting, monetization, equipment. None of that. I just said, oh, there's a podcast studio in this local office over here. Let me just go there and record and see what happens. And it was kind of funny, because of course, like most things, I was terrible at it at first. Horrible podcast, editing, horrible podcast, etiquette, horrible equipment, you know, and over time, like anything else, I got better and refined it. But I really love the vehicle for multiple reasons. And what it's done for me. It really was the gateway for me being a physician, to me being a physicianpreneur with starting the podcast.
Kap Chatfield 21:15
Hmm. Okay, now, elaborate on that part, specifically. So you touched on how, from a personal standpoint it's like an easier, more fluid communication method, based off of just how you're wired. You're, you know, you're feeling more confident, just speaking on stage and stuff like that. But why was it you made a really powerful statement right there, why was it the gateway for you to become a physicianpreneur?
Richard Harris 21:39
Because at the time, I didn't realize I started a business. I had started a business, I didn't even realize it. So it allowed me to do a lot of things. I didn't know anything at the time about marketing or brand equity or anything like that. And I didn't realize that now all of a sudden, I was a subject matter expert and a thought leader. And I had this platform that people were consuming the content. And when I first started, I thought no one would listen. And then now when I was doing it, every week, I hit top 50 on iTunes in medicine. So it blew my mind that people were actually listening to this podcast, and people all over the world were listening. And what it really did was, it allowed me to pursue my other interests. And I structured my podcast a little differently. I never wanted to directly monetize my podcast, because I thought that the information I was giving should be free. And because of that agency problem earlier, I, I really structured my career so I don't have an agency problem. It's like the first thing I think of whenever I do something. Whenever I do something and put something out there, I really want it to be the best for another person and not the best for me. Now, even the supplements I sell all of that the pricing on them, everything, it's best for someone else, it's not best for me. And that was a big thing for me. But what it did was all of a sudden, I had people on LinkedIn reaching out to me, Hey, what's your opinion on this? You know, we'll pay you to have a conversation with us. I was like, okay. Or want to come speak over here? And I was like, Okay, I'll do that. And then the wheels started turning, I was like, wait a minute. Because I started a podcast, I now have a functioning consulting business. When I didn't even plan on starting a consulting business, I was like, I'm gonna go draft up the LLC, because I'm actually doing consulting. And I'd never even thought about it. So that was a gateway into the consulting. It's a gateway into the speaking. And then I found the opportunity of, in my consulting, one of the things I do is content creation. So I take my old content, and I license it out to people. So I don't even have to do anything. I'm just like, here, here's a Google drive of my content. You pay me X amount a month for access to it. And you get access to all my content, all the stuff on the YouTube channel, and all my transcripts. So I'm not doing anything outside of what I was doing, you know, a year and a half ago. But then I realized that for my space, there's not a lot of people who can create content in a way that people can understand. And so I realized that my brand had a lot of value in that regard. And so all of these things were accidental. I wish I could say that I planned this out, like this roadmap. I did not plan this out whatsoever. It just things that fell in my lap and then when I saw an opportunity, I jumped on it and it's still evolving. But this is kind of the lane that I've gone into with with my podcast, and I will never directly monetize it, it will always be free. I will always indirectly monetize it through b2b. No consumer will ever pay anything for my podcast. In fact, actually I asked them to donate to charity. So I say if you want to support the podcast, please donate to your favorite charity.
Kap Chatfield 25:08
Dude, I love it. I like you, man. I love your style. You're just you're just flipping the game upside down in every way. It's so cool dude. And major props for being able to, to monetize it in some way for b2b, but I think you're so right. And the information you're giving away is so valuable for especially from a b2c perspective. So it's let them have the content. But what's so cool is by doing that, it's like an abundance mindset by giving that away for free. You cut you have a consultant, a cold it consultancy, and you never even plan on doing that. But you create you had that opportunity come to you because you've been putting out this thought leadership. So it's, it's really cool man. I want there's one thing that you said that I want to go in a little bit deeper. Because you said that part of your brand and this is probably why your your show, like really kind of climbed the escalator on the podcast charts on Apple podcasts. But you said that your brand is easy to understand. You're talking about things that people have gone to school for a really long time for. There's a reason why I didn't go to med school, I'm thankful for guys like you who did, because I could not go to school for that long to talk about that stuff and learn about that stuff. But you did and you're translating this information in a way that's actually really consumable for your audience. In fact, if you guys haven't heard of this guy and haven't seen his podcast, listen to the stinger or the intro, you'll notice that like he's got this really hype hip hop beat in the background. It's not what you would expect from like some sort of medical or health sort of content. It's it's really engaging. It's got this like, very cultural sort of, what's the word? Is that culturally tone deaf? I guess you could say, you know how to speak your audience's language. And so I want to ask you the question, how do you how do you make thought leadership content that's easy for people to understand?
Richard Harris 27:03
This is something that's a key principle in business. And it's not something I learned until I got in business, right? But now when I make a podcast, I'm thinking from the lens of my consumer. I'm thinking from the audience. I'm thinking from what's important to them? This was my mom listening, if this was my sister listening, if this is my father in law, listening, what content, what information would they want to know about this condition? And then it's like, okay, I respect people. Remember, we talked about being humble, being on the same level. I'm going to hold you accountable to the science, I'm not going to dumb the science down. Because I believe that each person is intelligent. Each person deserves the truth, each person deserves a chance to rise up and, and reach a standard of greatness. And I believe if you hold people to greatness that each and every person can achieve greatness. Again, none of us are special. So each and every person can achieve greatness. And so I really didn't want to dumb it down or water it down. I wanted it to be high level, I wanted people to understand the science, but then make it relatable. So I use a lot of analogies, I use a lot of real world examples. And I'll try to make it so that it's something that you can apply in the same day. So my podcast usually has a flow where I start with the science, I start with what you can see based upon the science or what is the real world correlation for an individual, whose body, right? It's all good if the science is here, what does that mean for me? And then I moved into how can you take actionable steps today, if you think that this is something that may be affecting you? And I think that flow is what makes people really engage with the podcast, because they feel like they're learning something, they feel like they're discovering about themselves, and then they can get and start doing things immediately. And I think a lot of doctors will talk in doctor speak, you know? I understand a pretty fair amount of Latin because a lot of our terms are in Latin, right? And so a lot of doctors will still use these high level medical terms when they're explaining the things. But it's kind of a switch that I've developed in my brain that I can flip between the medical and then the regular lay speak and explain the medical and regular lay speak and I think that's so important for for people to be understand that, hey, listen, I'm still an expert. I still have the knowledge. I can talk the talk up here, but I'm going to make sure that I come to where you are. But then I'm bringing you up to where I am. Where most people will just talk down to people, but they didn't they don't bring them up. But I'm gonna make sure that you come up to where I am. And I even tell people on the podcast, I'm like, "Listen, don't just trust what I say. Here is my clinical study database". I give everyone access to it. I was like, here, just read it. You can see where I'm pulling the information from. So now you have the same information that I have. There's no information gap, there's no hidden agenda, you have everything that I have access to.
Kap Chatfield 30:19
Man. I'm impressed. I'm impressed. I'm thinking about speaking of thinking about your audience, you made that comment about what does your audience care about? I'm thinking about audience members, who are in very specialized fields. And they might have been experiencing this exact problem with their marketing and with their storytelling, about their brand and their thought leadership. But they there's, they live at this, like, you know, where the air is thin 30,000 feet high on the mountain of thought leadership. And they are just so out of touch with how the common person speaks. And, and, and there's like this, there's this element of not even being cognizant of your own expertise and your own language and how it's so different from how other people talk. And one thing that I've noticed, even in this show, as we've been communicating with each other, is that story flows out of you. You're using a lot of different stories, you're using testimonials, you shared the story about your mom, you use the story about how you're helping some of these underserved children in the community. And you're using stories about, you know, how how your business is developing through this podcast, and the power of story is so helpful in order to kind of connect these dots. You talked about using analogies even. The question I want you to be thinking about, as you know, to really serve that b2b thought leader, executive, maybe they're in that place where they're like, I don't know how to communicate this vision, this expertise in a way that is that's easily it's easy to be received. How do you, how would you encourage that person to leverage the power of story to be able to make those connections easier?
Richard Harris 32:05
This is something that we go back to when we were teaching the teachers. Again, another story, I had a teacher literally asked me, How do I connect with a student? And I was trying not to look floored on my face. But I'm sure I looked floored. And I told them, You have to be vulnerable. You have to share your story. And I'm a health expert, but I've had health issues. A lot of health experts won't talk about their own health issues, I freely talk about mine. You know, I've had chronic back pain, I've had insomnia, I've had irritable bowel since I was a little kid, I have asthma, I have horrible allergies, I'm blind as a bat, and all of these things. So if you're struggling with something, I want to say, "Hey, I'm right there with you. I've maybe struggled with something different. But I've struggled. And this is what I found that's helped me, maybe it can help you". But I always tell people start with your stories, lead with your life. If you want to be an expert, who reaches people, show them how what you are an expert in has impacted you or someone close enough to you that your emotion resonates through it. And I think that's one of the things that has really helped me is whenever I'm speaking or I tell a story, they're all very personal for me. And I think that honesty, and that credibility flows out. And people eat, they can feel like they can trust you and that you're being real with them and you're leveling with them. And I think that's the part that we lose is that sometimes we're embarrassed or ashamed or we feel guilty about what we've been through.Sshare it, share everything, because you never know who is going to be helped by what you've been through. And you may prevent them from going through what you went through. And that is a very powerful feeling of preventing someone from going through pain and anguish.
Kap Chatfield 34:05
That's beautiful. I'm really hopeful that what you're doing is not just going to help b2b leaders in general, particularly through what we're talking about on this episode. But I really believe that what you're in what you are in the midst of right now. You have like a mantle, a calling. And I don't say this lightly. I don't say this in a cheesy way. But I really believe that you have a unique opportunity with what you're doing, Richard, to help other medical thought leaders, particularly kind of bring trust back to this this really important segment of society that quite honestly, over these past couple of years has been bruised and a lot of people don't know who to believe or who to trust. And it's unfortunate that it's come to that but I think through your humility, your transparency, your showing up consistently. I love how your content, it's not just residual impact, but it's also residual relationship. You're building relationship with an audience through what you're doing. And so, as we kind of close out this episode, I'd love for you to just speak maybe to your own colleagues, your own peers. And, and I'm sure it'll speak to us in like a sort of a, what's the word in a collateral sort of way, but speaking to your own peers and colleagues, what's your encouragement to them about leveraging the power of consistent storytelling, not necessarily the method of a podcast, but the, the decision, to give away expertise, for free to be able to benefit people and to really help people strive for great health in their life?
Richard Harris 35:45
Yeah, I would tell physicians, first and foremost, find yourself again. Because a lot of us get lost in the profession. And remember who you are, remember why you did what you did. And never lose sight of that. The second thing is be honest with your patients. Be vulnerable with them, share your stories. They're not coming to you just as a physician, they're coming to you as a person too. And look at it like if your mom or your sister was going to a physician, what type of physician would you want them to go to? And be that type of physician. The third thing is never stop learning. We tend to have very big egos in my profession, unfortunately. And we think that we know all and that we can save everyone. You can't save everyone. You can't even help everyone. In fact, you can't help someone who's not willing to help themselves. And that was one of the first things that I had to realize. But you can show them ways, you can show empathy, you can show compassion, you can give them resources. You're not going to fix everything in your office, even if you want to. But just remember that someone has a whole life outside of that, outside of that little 15 minutes they get with you. And try to help them when they're out of the office and not just in the office. And these are some of the things that I learned and really were game changers for me and I would encourage other physicians and not just physicians, I say physicians, I mean, providers. If you see patients, if you take care of people's health, this this goes for you. NP'S, PAs, pharmacists, chiropractors, dentists, all of the health care providers and health care professionals. We're all in the same boat together. We are all colleagues. And and I love you guys, and I appreciate everything you guys do for your patients.
Kap Chatfield 37:40
Richard, this was awesome, man. Thank you so much for the generosity of your time, your humility. I love, I love your brand, you're building. I wish you all the best as you become a more successful physicianpreneur. And I just want to leave everybody with just this last thing if you can share, how can how can people find your show? How can they get in touch with you and your content?
Richard Harris 38:02
Yeah, absolutely. Strive For Great Health podcast, everywhere you consume your podcast. My YouTube channel has additional videos on other content. And then my website is the GH wellness.com My Health and Wellness Business is Great Health and Wellness. And so that's where our online courses and our supplements store and all that stuff is. And on social media, pretty much every single social media @ Dr. Harris, MD, feel free to reach out to me. I try to respond in a timely manner to everyone who reaches out. I'm hoping I don't get too big so I can still do that. Right? Not lose that personal touch. Right? That's the most important part to me.
Kap Chatfield 38:39
I love it. Well, Richard, can't thank you enough again for being on but hope to have you again, maybe in maybe 12 months we'll see how your your business is booming. And we'll have you on for a second show.
Richard Harris 38:49
Oh, I think I will have some very interesting stuff for you in 12 months, Kap.
Kap Chatfield 38:53
Cool. All right. Thanks so much.
Richard Harris 38:56
Thank you
