Digital Social Hour - Just Sold My Business: Now What? | Shaan Patel DSH #844

Episode Date: October 30, 2024

🎉 Just sold your business and wondering what's next? You're not alone! Tune in now to the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly as we dive into the thrilling journey post-business sale. 🚀 In this ...engaging episode, Shaan Patel, a fellow Vegas entrepreneur, shares his incredible story from Shark Tank fame to finding new purpose after selling his marketing agency. Packed with valuable insights about entrepreneurship, investment strategies, and maintaining a balanced life, this conversation is one you don't want to miss! 💡 Discover how to make your money work for you and the importance of investing in yourself. Join the conversation with Sean Kelly and gain insider secrets to navigating life after a major business milestone. Don't miss out—watch now and subscribe for more eye-opening stories on the Digital Social Hour! 📺 Hit that subscribe button and stay tuned for more exclusive insights with top entrepreneurs and industry leaders! 🌟 #leadgeneration #emailmarketing #socialmediamarketing #digitalmarketing #marketing CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Intro 00:26 - Shaan's Shark Tank Experience 03:21 - Shark Tank Impact on Business Growth 04:41 - Purpose Behind This Podcast 05:49 - Exploring the Meaning of Life 09:03 - Fundamentals of Learning to Invest 11:09 - Effective Asset Allocation Strategies 12:21 - Investing in Yourself for Success 14:49 - Childhood Entrepreneurship Journey 19:32 - Achieving a Perfect SAT Score 23:15 - Navigating Pressure to Succeed in School 25:08 - Path to Becoming a Doctor 25:08 - Future Innovations in Dermatology 26:39 - AI's Influence on Industries 28:37 - Shaan's 40 lbs Weight Loss Journey 32:34 - Future Plans for Shaan 33:03 - Learning More About Prep Expert 33:11 - Connecting with Shaan on Social Media 33:21 - Overview of Shaan's Book 33:33 - Outro APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: Spencer@digitalsocialhour.com GUEST: Shaan Patel https://www.instagram.com/shaanpatel/ https://www.instagram.com/prep_expert https://prepexpert.com/ LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Just sold the marketing agency and I felt pretty lost for a few months on purpose because I had all this money Yeah, and I was literally waking up every day like damn. What do I do today? Yeah, I've heard that from other entrepreneurs that have sold their businesses that they lose their purpose, which is crazy Yeah, like it's almost like you're so as an entrepreneur. You're so invested. You're tied to your business that your meaning of life comes So is that is that kind of what you felt? business that your meaning of life comes. So is that kind of what you felt? 100%. Alright guys, got a fellow Vegas local here today, Sean Patel. How's it going my man? Doing well Sean. Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.
Starting point is 00:00:33 Absolutely man. I remember your episode on Shark Tank. Oh you do? Okay that was a while ago. I don't expect most people to remember that. A long time ago. I've watched every episode up until season probably 9 and then just got too busy. But that was a great show. Yeah. I mean, that's funny because most people have started, like stopped watching around season nine or 10. And I think that's just a function of people are watching live TV way less, like in general,
Starting point is 00:00:55 you know, everyone's going to the streamers. And I was really lucky because I was on season seven. That was like the peak of Shark Tank. Everyone was watching, everyone got together on Friday nights, especially families. And so it was like the perfect time to be on. The highest viewership I think they had that season. Yeah, you caught it at the peak. I'm sure auditioning was really tough that year.
Starting point is 00:01:13 Yeah, I think my year was like 50,000 people had applied. I think 120, 150 they taped, but only about half of those actually ended up airing. Wow. Yeah, yeah. So that's something that a lot of people don't know is that they don't actually air all of the pitches. And so you have to make sure
Starting point is 00:01:32 that you're interesting and entertaining. And that was really tricky for me because I have one of the most boring businesses in the world. I have like a test prep business. So I made sure I had like a lot of good stories from my childhood and entrepreneurship. And I think that's what sold it for me. And that actually is probably what got me to deal with Mark Cuban. Because once I started talking about my up, he, he
Starting point is 00:01:54 like rolled his eyes. The one I came in with my pitch, he's like, Oh, test prep, SAG, whatever. And I was like, Oh man, I just lost the shark I was trying to get. And it was funny because he kept listening to me less than me And at some point I told a story about my dad working really hard in the motel growing up And then he started telling me a story about his dad working on upholstery on cars So we kind of connected on a personal level even more so than the business I think that's probably more so why he invested than the actual business itself and he did like an aqua house It was really cool experience.
Starting point is 00:02:25 Wow. That's rare to get Mark on a personal level. That's usually Barbara's thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's a very cool guy. I think people think he's a hard ass on Shark Tank, but he's probably the most humble person
Starting point is 00:02:39 I know. He's a billionaire. He could be totally have the highest ego and he has none of it. Yeah. He just sold the mass for like, what, four billion? Yeah, and you won't see him walking around with like, an expensive watch or expensive car, like he's just super down to earth, like the regular guy still. If you saw him down walking down the street, you wouldn't even notice. Yeah. I still see videos of him in dance class at Lifetime. Oh, really?
Starting point is 00:03:02 Yeah, it's like him and a bunch of girls. Yeah, yeah. He's still going to the, he's still pulling up to hoop at Lifetime. Oh really? It's like him and a bunch of girls. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's still going to that. He's still pulling up to hoop at Lifetime. Yeah, and that's the life you wanna live. If we need to get to that level of wealth and fame, to be able to still go to the community gym, still walk around and not have to have a bunch of securities or pictures.
Starting point is 00:03:19 I think he does it right, man. Absolutely. And that Shark Tank episode blew up your business, right? 100%, yeah. After we aired on Shark Tank episode blew up your business, right? 100%. Yeah, after we aired on Shark Tank, we 10xed the business. We went from half a million to five million in annual revenue. Yeah, I think that weekend we did close to,
Starting point is 00:03:34 we did about a quarter million dollars in revenue just from the airing. I mean, Shark Tank was, I don't know if it is anymore, but it was the best marketing tool for any business because you basically Got to keep the attention of people for 10 or 15 minutes of time on prime time television You got in front of 10 million people for 10 or 15 minutes. I think someone did a study on like what's the marketing? Value of that and it ended up being 10 million dollars Wow Yeah
Starting point is 00:04:02 So that's how much in marketing that the businesses and the entrepreneurs that go on that show used to get, like I said, viewership's gone down recently, and I think that's probably why Mark's leaving the show too. But yeah, I mean, it was incredible. Now, obviously, the game has changed, and we're adapting with social and podcast. Podcast is where you gotta be now
Starting point is 00:04:20 for all the entrepreneurs out there. Yeah, podcasts are hot, man. On the networking side, it's been phenomenal, the people I've met. Yeah, yeah. I mean, this podcast has probably blown up your business now. Oh, yeah. It's blown up my revenues, but like the guests I have on, just learning from them. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:04:38 Like having gone billionaires. Yeah. Crazy. Yeah, that's insane. I mean, what made you start it, by the way? Just curious. I just sold a marketing agency and I felt pretty lost for a few months on purpose because I had all this money.
Starting point is 00:04:49 Yeah. And I was literally waking up every day like, damn, what do I do today? Yeah. Like it's a weird feeling like having that because I could have retired. Yeah. So having that feeling at 25 years old is weird. But, uh, Bet MGM, authorized gaming partner of the NBA has your back all season long from tip But uh, yeah. about BetMGM. Download the app today and discover why BetMGM is your basketball
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Starting point is 00:05:56 with iGaming Ontario. I just started this for fun. At first, just interviewing my friends, people I thought were cool, and it turned into me just absorbing a lot of information and taking a bunch of different turns. I mean, that's incredible. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:06:14 I've heard that from other entrepreneurs that have sold their businesses, that they lose their purpose, which is crazy. It's almost like, as an entrepreneur, you're so invested. You're tied to your business that your meaning of life comes. So is that is that kind of what you felt? 100 percent. Really? I would wake up literally like in my sleep because I'm big in crypto.
Starting point is 00:06:33 Yeah. There would be days I would wake up. My portfolio would be up like 50k, 100k and I wouldn't care. Wow. I wouldn't have any like I'd be upset honestly. Really? Yeah. It was just so like it's almost like I cracked the code of life
Starting point is 00:06:45 Like I could just print money damn so it was weird dude Yeah, you would think like you'd be like on the top of the world right yeah, like when you get there It's different, but once you have everything you need like house cars. You know kids or whatever yeah, what are you gonna? Buy like yeah, yeah, it's there's diminishing returns for sure yeah So I think there's a lot of different theories on how much you need to reach that level Some people think it's i've heard up to 60 million 10 million 25 million. I think it's different for everyone I think my goal has always been and I think anyone's goal should be this is if you can get your passive income To pay for all your expenses then you don't need to you don't need to work
Starting point is 00:07:23 You can work if you want which sounds like you know It's it's very similar to a place that probably you're in that I'm in that many people are in So like let's say your burn rate a year is I don't know half a million dollars, right? You would probably need What is that like? If you want to make 10% on 5 million per year, like you need 5 million asset. But obviously that's income coming in. There's a lot of stuff between appreciation and actually spending it and all that.
Starting point is 00:07:52 But yeah, I think the goal is, my goal is like gets to seven figures passive. If you can do that, like it's really hard to burn more than seven figures, although there are people that do that. But if you can do that, then I think you're set. But we're Asian, so we're good with our money. Yeah, exactly.
Starting point is 00:08:07 Yeah, there's some crazy stats on Indian Americans, actually. You guys make the most in America on average. That just came out. Elon Musk just tweeted that. Right? It makes sense, though. You guys save so well. Yeah, I mean, there's actually a philosophy that it's called.
Starting point is 00:08:20 It's called Dundo philosophy. So Dundo means basically you're really good with saving and spending both. So in order to be good with money, you have to be good with a lot of different aspects of it. You have to be good at first saving it, but that's just the first part. You've got to be good at spending it,
Starting point is 00:08:38 because you've got to spend less than you make. You've got to be good at earning it. You've got to be good at investing it. So I feel like many ethnicities and people in general are good at like one or two of these, but unless you get good at all four, that's when you really achieve financial freedom. Right. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:08:56 Which one would you say was the hardest for you to master? So I think growing up in, I don't know about your background, but probably like if you grow up in a pretty conservative and humble background, it's pretty easy to save. Like you get you get that in built into you, like how to save money. It is also usually like in an immigrant household, you can get pretty good at not spending too much because like your parents, you know, whoever you grew up with is pretty good about not overspending. So I think those two come pretty naturally to me. Then there's earning, I think, again, with the American Dream immigrant household
Starting point is 00:09:35 that I grew up in, that was not hard because it's just like the beautiful thing about America is generally if you work hard and you stay at a goal and whether you need to go goal and you you know whether you need to go whether you educate yourself formally or informally like you did for crypto if you work hard generally what's nice is it's one-to-one where you will get more rewards now that's not always the case not always just about work hard you have to work smart too but earning is usually not
Starting point is 00:10:01 that hard the hardest part that I think for most people, including myself, was learning how to invest. It's taken a lot of trial and error. I'm getting close to 35 now and I've been investing since, I think I bought Apple stock when I was a sophomore in college. So yeah. Wow, you still have it? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:10:20 Dude. Never sold. That's discipline. Yeah, so I mean, that was obviously my best investment. Yeah, that's incredible. But it's, I don't know, I'd have to take a look at what those first- When are you gonna sell it, ever?
Starting point is 00:10:30 You know, I don't think I'm gonna, like- Wow. Yeah, I mean, maybe at some point, but I don't think anytime soon. I still see Apple being a big player in the AI game. One thing that I've thought about for Apple is like, what's the customer lifetime value of an Apple customer? It's gotta be five figures.
Starting point is 00:10:46 Yeah, right? It's like, I mean, it might be six figures. It might be like, I just think about myself, like the number of MacBooks, the iPhones, and then if you look at a family household, like if you took a thing about customer lifetime value of Apple, and I tried to look this up on the internet, I couldn't find it, so if anyone in the comments knows,
Starting point is 00:11:02 please let us know what the customer lifetime value, but if you multiply that out times the billion customers they have like yeah the the valuation gets pretty insane yeah because i buy a phone every two three years i buy a macbook every two three years yeah air pods i lose every month i mean you've probably spent well into the five figures yeah maybe six figures dude i just had to repair my mac from water damage that was 1500 just for that yeah i mean there's nobody that integrates hardware and software better. I know people like to talk shit about Apple.
Starting point is 00:11:31 They think there's another company that's going to eat their lunch. But I just haven't seen it yet, maybe one day. But yeah, so the point was I've been investing since I was 18, 19 years old, 35. So I'm 17 years, and I'm still learning things every day. And I think you never win the game of investing. You just continue to get better at it.
Starting point is 00:11:52 And it's a lot of fun. Yeah, investing always changes too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you gotta be with it. Like what I just said might not be true in 10 years, maybe Apple will be gone, who knows? But as far as today in 2024 when we're recording this, I think it's still a good stock to hold. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:12:09 Is stocks like your biggest percent you allocate money towards? Yeah. So the reason I like public equities in stocks is, one, it's super liquid. So I know a lot of people are very into real estate. And obviously, there's a lot of benefits to that, tax depreciationation and leverage,
Starting point is 00:12:27 et cetera. But what I like about stocks is it's liquid and so any time you need liquidity, it's easy to get out. Real estate's a lot harder. Not that it's not possible and you can take out lines of credit. I totally understand that game. But everyone has different games. I just consider it a big game.
Starting point is 00:12:45 Some people play the real estate game, some people play the crypto game, some people play equities. I think it's good to be diversified across all asset classes if you can. So I have all of that. I have crypto, I have real estate, I have equities. And what I think is really important
Starting point is 00:13:00 is for people just getting started with investing is try it out yourself, because I'm the kind of person that needs to burn their hand themselves. I can't have someone tell me, oh, that's not gonna be a good idea, or don't invest in that. I'll usually just need to do it,
Starting point is 00:13:16 and be like, oh man, I lost money on that, and then I'll see the things that work, and then you just do more of the stuff that works, and less of the stuff that doesn't work. Yeah, I like Hormozi's strategy, how the best investment's always in yourself. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he has the SMP in me, right?
Starting point is 00:13:30 Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's really smart. I mean, that's true. The best investment that I've ever made has definitely been in my own skills, development, and business. So, my company, PrepExpert, the more time, energy, effort, and money that
Starting point is 00:13:45 I've put into it, generally has generated the better returns for like a test preparation profit perspective. But at the same time, what you want to do is when you do have a skill set of business and income, you want to reinvest that into other assets. Because one of the simple lessons that I think a lot of young people, especially probably watching this podcast, should learn is that your money, you can either work for money or money can work for you. And I prefer that my money works for me. So I like to make money in my sleep.
Starting point is 00:14:15 So how do you do that? You do that through earning interest, dividends, appreciation. I mean, right now, the interest rate's like 5 and 1 half percent that you can get on Treasury bills. So that's basically guaranteed money with zero risk, unless the United States folds, which that's a whole other discussion. Hopefully not all at once. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:14:35 So I mean, 5 and 1 half percent's pretty good on cash. Now, we've never seen that. Very good. Yeah. I mean, we were in a ZERP environment for a while, zero interest rate, right? And so that's pretty much gone now. And I don't think it's going to go back.
Starting point is 00:14:48 I don't think you're going to see interest rates that low again. So your money can always earn you basically 3% to 4% for a long time. So if you have money in a savings account or a checking account that's giving you 0.01%, as most of the big banks do, you're losing out on a lot of opportunity there. 100%, yeah, you could be getting 5% a year,
Starting point is 00:15:09 which is if you have 100K, that's $5,000 a year extra. Yeah, and people will complain about spending $5,000 on a vacation or something, but it's like, if you just put this away, your vacation's just been paid for. It makes total sense to just have your money work for you while you're sleeping. And I don't know, it took me a long time
Starting point is 00:15:28 to realize I should not be working so hard for money. I should have my money work hard for me. I think at one point I had like a million dollars in a checking account. It was stupid. That could have been $50,000 a year. Yeah, it was stupid. And so obviously then I started investing,
Starting point is 00:15:45 putting it in different assets and stuff like that. What's the test prep, your first company you ever started? First company I ever started was probably selling Pokemon cards. Yeah, Pokemon cards, fifth grade. Classic. Selling burn CDs, middle school. Selling Jordans on eBay. Oh, so you've been a hust grade. Yeah, selling burn CDs, middle school, selling Jordans on eBay. Oh, so you've been a hustler.
Starting point is 00:16:08 Yeah, yeah. And I think that's probably, if you look back at any great entrepreneur story, I don't know enough about your story, but you probably have the same similar stuff, right? Usually I think you have this knack for wanting to buy and sell and arbitrage stuff. You don't really realize it.
Starting point is 00:16:24 I didn't know when I was in fifth grade that I like this. But yeah, like did you do, did you? I did candy. I did, I might've did cards. Crazy bones, you remember those? Yeah, no, no. What's that? Weird things, dude.
Starting point is 00:16:36 Oh, okay. I don't even know how to describe that. RuneScape. Oh, okay. I was a merchant there. MapleStory, yeah, definitely buying and selling. Yeah, yeah, I remember. And so like Mark Cuban and I wrote a book for, MapleStory. Yeah, definitely buying and selling. When I was a kid. Yeah, I remember. And so like Mark Cuban and I wrote a book for kids
Starting point is 00:16:48 called Kids Startup. And what we wrote about is like all the businesses that you can start as a kid, including things, like I think he used to sell trash bags door to door. I talked about how I sold Pokemon cards. We give them ideas from lemonade stands to Etsy wallets and things like that. Because what you want to do is instill entrepreneurship as a kid, if you can, if you want to be a successful entrepreneur later.
Starting point is 00:17:15 You can learn it in your 20s, 30s, 40s, of course, but the earlier you get started, like any skill, you're going to develop better habits, better skills, et cetera. And so the idea behind the book was, I don't understand why, if you go to a kid and you ask them, what do you want to be when you grow up, they typically will give you like doctor, engineer, lawyer, or now they're saying YouTuber, right? But they're giving you generic professions, except for the YouTuber one.
Starting point is 00:17:43 But no one says entrepreneur so what we really wanted to do is make it cool to be an entrepreneur make it a career help people realize that this could be something that you know you could do full time and it's as you know it's probably the most financially rewarding career there is oh for sure there's a lot of sacrifice at first but i think it pays off if you stick through it. Yeah, especially when you sacrifice young. I'm so happy I worked hard in my 20s on my business, because now in my 30s, I don't work nearly as hard,
Starting point is 00:18:14 but I make way more through the business, through entrepreneurship, I've developed way more skills that I'm not scared to start a new business if my business went out of business, or if I sold my business, I think I could start something else that's successful. Because you develop so many skill sets, it's back to the Hermosy thing. I'm like, that's where you want to invest in is your skills. And if you can become great at marketing, great at selling, one thing that I think is super undervalued is just great at product development. So developing your product or service.
Starting point is 00:18:50 You know, for me, I still work a ton on our test prep curriculum, books, etc., because I just want to make it as good as possible. Because I, and I log those hours as what I call product value. And I think every entrepreneur doesn't do enough of this, which is like once they start making some sales, they start getting too much into the marketing and selling, which is of course very important. But the best marketing you can do literally is just create a killer product or service. Because what that's going to do is that's going to have your customers tell other people that this is a great product
Starting point is 00:19:24 or service. And that's word of mouth. And that generates free marketing. That's literally the Apple model, right? Like Apple doesn't have to market their products. I mean, they do, but they don't need to. Like it was literally like this iPhone is so great. You should buy an iPhone.
Starting point is 00:19:38 Right? Like that's what you want to duplicate, right? Like whatever product or service you have. A hundred percent or else you'll get too many refunds, complaints, and the business will die out. Yeah, yeah, and basically if you have great word of mouth, you have zero customer acquisition costs. Elon Musk.
Starting point is 00:19:53 Yeah, I mean for the first five years of my business at Prep Expert, we spent zero dollars on marketing and my business doubled in revenue every single year. Yeah, I mean it went from 25 to 50 to 100 to 250 to 500,000, but what that meant was it was literally students doing well in my test prep courses, telling other students that this course works, and then we just kept doubling. Then obviously we then poured gas with digital marketing and stuff like that later. But I think in the beginning, just focus on your core product service, make it really good,
Starting point is 00:20:27 make customers tell other customers because it's so good. Absolutely. You got a perfect SAT score, right? Yeah, so I got a perfect SAT score, but I'm not naturally a genius. A lot of people assume that I'm super smart or something like that. I was good at school, but I was not a super good standardized
Starting point is 00:20:44 test taker. I had a ton of test anxiety, actually, like I was good at school, but I was not like a super good standardized test taker. Got only, I had a ton of test anxiety actually, and I still have test anxiety. Wow, that's ironic. Yeah, it's ironic, because I own a test prep company. But yeah, so on the very first SAT, I barely got above average.
Starting point is 00:20:59 I don't know if you remember, it used to be out of 2400 points. Yeah, I took it when it was 2400. Oh, you did, okay, so yeah. I was the last year, I think. Yeah, so we were kind of in that same age demographic. So that's when I took it. So I raised my score from 1,760 to 2,400, so 640 points.
Starting point is 00:21:14 Yeah, spent hundreds of hours in the library studying right here at Sahara West. Wow. And was able to get a perfect score. Only 0.02% of all students get a perfect score. Holy crap. Yeah, so I think 50 million students have taken the SAT, about 10,000 perfect scores out there.
Starting point is 00:21:31 Damn. Yeah, so it's pretty difficult. And so what I did is I wanted to help other students improve their test scores the way that I did. So I developed all this course curriculum, books, and content to help students basically learn the test like I did. In the very first six-week course I ever taught here in Vegas, my students had an average score improvement of 376 points. Dude, that's a lot.
Starting point is 00:21:55 Yeah, it was equivalent to taking a student from the 50th percentile and putting them in the 90th percentile. Wow. Of course, we had parents and students who wanted more courses. And over the past 13 years now, we've helped over 100,000 students improve their SAT and ACT scores, go to top colleges, and win over $100 million in college scholarships.
Starting point is 00:22:15 Dude, that's incredible. And I feel like Vegas is a good market, because don't we have one of the worst education systems here? Yeah, that's the ironic part is people are like, wait, you're from Las Vegas? And that's like the 49th or 50th in the nation for public school education, right? But what I think, especially for entrepreneurs and families
Starting point is 00:22:33 that are thinking about moving to Vegas, is I wouldn't be so worried about that, because you're not your environment. And on top of that, I grew up going to these public schools. And I did really well in them because of two things. One, my family valued education. Two, I went to magnet programs.
Starting point is 00:22:50 So I went to math and science magnet programs, which were usually in worse areas. But that magnet program usually had a good community of good students. And then the third thing is when you're a smart student, you can really stand out when everyone else is not that smart. You could stand out in Vegas. I don't think I would have stood out in a northern California
Starting point is 00:23:14 or in New Jersey where you're from. Jersey was tough. Yeah, or Boston or somewhere that's academically minded. There's so many Asians in Jersey. So it's like you can really, really stand out if you're in an environment that lets you stand out because like I feel bad for like like kids in Jersey who are like smart but like you got to be the cream of the crop out there. There were kids getting 2300s and they couldn't get an Ivy League from my high school because I was just like kind of
Starting point is 00:23:40 normal. Yeah yeah exactly it's so I actually think that can be worse for your self-esteem and your like a bit your your own mental health in terms of like your ability to achieve when you're around so many amazing people. It can actually be like a negative thing versus when you're like the best all the time you're like oh I can do anything. No for sure for me it was tough because I'm half Asian and all the Asians crushed it in school and I never really fit in with them. Yes, you're an example of that, right?
Starting point is 00:24:08 Yeah, no, there's definitely like academic pressure both from the friends and the family. Yeah. My mom. 100%. Yeah, did your parents really pressure you to be really good at school? Yeah, yeah, I definitely think, you know, my dad was a big pressure.
Starting point is 00:24:22 So he didn't get into med school in India. He was like one point shy. Yeah, it was like crushing. So now he's a pharmacist, but it was always his dream to be a doctor. So he really pushed me to become a doctor. And so I actually did become a doctor. Yeah, so I actually went through med school.
Starting point is 00:24:41 I went through dermatology residency, but at the same time I had my like side hustle business and now the business became bigger than the main hustle of dermatology. So I still do dermatology, but I only do it online. I do teledermatology just to keep my skills up and my certifications. There's a cap on that too. On what? Dermatology.
Starting point is 00:25:02 Yeah, yeah. It's crazy. They only graduate like 600 dermatologists a year or something So like that's why dermatologists are generally well paid because like if you have only 600 people a year graduating for a population of 300 That's the whole country. Yeah That's why it's so hard to get an appointment with a different. Wait, why is it so low? Yeah I mean, I honestly think the American Academy of Derbitology keeps the supply low in order to keep the demand high and keep the compensation higher for it. Dude.
Starting point is 00:25:32 Yeah, I knew it was bad. I didn't know it was that bad. It's super bad. Holy crap. Yeah. Yeah, whenever I book an appointment, it's like three months off. Yeah, that's why.
Starting point is 00:25:40 Yeah, that makes sense. Damn. Yeah, but you made the right choice, clearly. I mean, I love entrepreneurship. Maybe in the future, what I love about entrepreneurship is combining a really good skill set with entrepreneur skills, marketing, sales. And so I don't know yet, but in the future,
Starting point is 00:25:58 I'm thinking maybe I could combine my dermatology experience with some entrepreneurial venture, whether it's AI and dermatology. There's a lot around diagnosis right now The cosmetic aspect of dermatology. So right now I'm just so focused on the test prep business But I think that could be some there's some potential there and that's what I would say to any Entrepreneur or a person who has a skill set in the audience is like if you want to be an entrepreneur Leverage your current experience if you're an engineer, do something that you really know well.
Starting point is 00:26:28 If you've studied crypto for a long time, like you have, do something there. But you have to, so my biggest tip to entrepreneurs is do what you know. So Warren Buffett says he only invests within the realms of what he knows. And that's really smart investment advice. Like once, as soon as, and I've always, I've seen this happen, like I said, I've burned my hand. Anytime I start investing in stuff, invest within the realms of what he knows. And that's really smart investment advice.
Starting point is 00:26:45 And I've always seen this happen. Like I said, I burned my hand. Anytime I start investing stuff I don't really understand. I usually end up losing money. Lose all of it. It's the same thing with entrepreneurship. Everyone's trying to jump on the AI trend right now, because that's what's hot.
Starting point is 00:26:59 I totally get it. But then go put in the 1,000 hours to learn about AI and become good at machine learning and you know Do it like no one wants to do the hard part It's like just hop on to the next thing so like become an expert first do what you know Like become really good get good skill sets and then start a business Don't do it like everyone does it the opposite they like try to start the business without fully understanding the industry or Getting the expertise necessary
Starting point is 00:27:24 That's the wrong way to do it because you're going to get burned by everyone else who's way smarter than you in that industry. Yeah, I get AI course ads every day. Yeah, yeah. And there's nothing wrong with that. You should, like what Hormozzi says, invest in yourself. Sure, take those courses, become an expert AI, then start a business.
Starting point is 00:27:41 Don't just take one course and try to start a business all of a sudden. You really got to be an expert. I went to a holistic dentist the other day in Vegas. Have you heard of these yet? No. Okay so this one's cool. It's called Four Season Dentist. Okay. And so they take photos of your teeth and honestly it took a while. It took an hour. I was getting annoyed. So I'm like why are they taking all these? All of a sudden they put the photos in AI. Tells you how many cavities you have. Really?
Starting point is 00:28:06 Tells you if you have any infections in your gums. That's pretty cool. And they show it like live in front of you. So I had seven cavities. Some of them were so small that a regular dentist couldn't even tell if they were looking at your teeth. Wow. So it was really useful.
Starting point is 00:28:19 Yeah, I mean, I think that's gonna happen in a lot of medical and healthcare. I already, I just made a short form video the other day advising students not to become a radiologist because I think radiologists are going to be the first doctors to get replaced with respect to like they're already using AI to diagnose chest x-rays, CTs. You're going to need far fewer radiologists unless you're like an interventional radiologist that does procedures. But like you said, in dentistry, they're using it now. In dermatology, they're starting to diagnose
Starting point is 00:28:48 skin rashes and lesions using AI. So I think medicine's going to change in a big way coming up here with AI. Yeah. I think they'll eventually get to the point where they could do a body scan, detect all disease through AI. Yeah. There's that company, Pre Nuvo, right? Oh, I've seen that. Yeah, I really want to do it. It's MRI, right? Yeah, I think it's like whole body. I think they don't do the heart. But I think that's generally where the population is going,
Starting point is 00:29:15 is taking control of their own health, rather than having a traditional primary care physician kind of tell you this is what to do or this not what to do. And even with a background in medicine, I would still advise people that's the best way to do it because no one's gonna care about your own health more than yourself. Right, yeah.
Starting point is 00:29:33 I definitely wanna take that one or maybe Tony Robbins has one. I saw you recently lost 40 pounds. Yeah, yeah, so that was a really cool fitness experience I went on. So shout out to RNT Fitness. It's an online training program. I work with the founder Akash. They're based out of the UK. And basically what I love about it is it's a whole, it's not just diet and training, it's also like accountability and mindset,
Starting point is 00:30:05 which is half of it, you know, like, so I dropped 60 pounds over the course of a couple of years or year or so, and it was the first time ever I had a six pack. Yeah, it was awesome. Now that's gone away since, but I'll try to get it back again, but I'm bulking now, that's kind of why.
Starting point is 00:30:26 But yeah, I really leaned up and it was an incredible experience. I mean, everyone knows what to do. It's just having the accountability to do it. It's like, you got to train, you got to eat right. If you're trying to drop weight, eat less, then you take in. If you're trying to gain weight, eat more, then you take in. And obviously, there's macros to it, too. Yeah. What was the biggest thing that helped you lose weight if you're trying to gain weight, eat more than you take in, and obviously there's macros to it too. Yeah, what was the biggest thing that helped you lose weight
Starting point is 00:30:47 if you had to pick one? Ooh, you know the biggest thing, which sounds super simple, but honestly I never did it until I started working with R&T Fitness was just getting 10,000 steps a day. Really? Yeah, which is crazy, right?
Starting point is 00:31:02 Because if you think about it, most people, especially entrepreneurs and office jobs, we're sitting around all day. So now I make an active effort just to always be walking. I try to take as many meetings as I can and have my camera off so I can walk during the meetings. I try to walk during lunch, walk after lunch, etc. But if you walk 10,000 steps a day,
Starting point is 00:31:25 there's a lot of research that shows it lowers your risk of Alzheimer's, heart disease, it lowers your body weight clearly. So if you wanna eat more, just walk more. Walking is so simple, you don't need to go to the gym, literally, and it's great to be outside, not outside right now in Vegas, but it's great to be outside and go for walks with people.
Starting point is 00:31:44 It's super simple. And you'd be surprised if you don't actively do it and you're just sitting all day doing an office job or on calls, you probably only get like 3,000, 4,000 steps a day, which it's really bad to be that sedentary. Dude, so I can relate to this so much. Really? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:32:03 So I got an MRI two months ago, right? OK. I had a guest on that's an MRI expert. So we went to the hospital. He got me an MRI. And then we were going to show the results on the episode. The results were so bad. Really?
Starting point is 00:32:14 Yeah, I had visceral fat everywhere. Oh my god. And we looked at how many steps I was walking. 3,400 a day. There you go. I said 3,000 to 4,000. So now I do like 8,000 to 9,000 at least. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you've got to get to 8,000. So now I do like eight to nine, at least. Yeah, yeah, I mean you gotta get to eight,
Starting point is 00:32:27 so I think the actual studies show seven thousand is the bare minimum for sure, but yeah, like if you can get to ten, but eight to nine is a great number to be in. I was just in Europe for a couple weeks and it's amazing how much you have to walk in Europe. We were in Italy, France, Amsterdam, et cetera. Like I was getting 15,000 steps a day.
Starting point is 00:32:46 And it makes total sense why Europeans don't have nearly as many health problems as Americans do because they're just walking everywhere. You know, like literally just to walk around Amsterdam, you just have to walk or you can bike, but like we just walked and we were getting 15,000 steps a day and it was like you could eat whatever you want you wouldn't gain weight and I'm sure our health was
Starting point is 00:33:08 but we didn't measure the health but I'm sure our health was better. Yeah that's why I like Manhattan because whenever I go there I'm walking 15-20k easy. Yeah exactly yeah and New York City is a great example of it too like you know you can go out eat drink and you probably won't gain a lot of weight because you're walking all day. So in the West Coast cities like Vegas and LA, I think you especially gotta make an active effort to get our steps in. Absolutely. Sean, what's next for you, your companies,
Starting point is 00:33:35 and where can people find you, man? Yeah, so what's next for me is we're growing. PrepExper, we're on a $1 billion scholarship mission. So what we wanna do over the next 10 years is help students win over $ billion dollars in college scholarships. It's my passion, you know, student debt is near two trillion, average cost of cost, cost of college like 200,000. And so we're really helping students. I love, my favorite part of Prep Expert is helping students get half a million, quarter
Starting point is 00:33:59 million, hundred thousand dollar scholarships. Totally life-changing. So for parents out there, students out there who want to learn more about our SATACT courses, our college consulting, they can go to prepexpert.com. And for entrepreneurs out there listening, you can connect with me on any of the socials. My name's spelled Sean Patel, S-H-A-A-N-P-A-T-E-L. And I also have a book that I think
Starting point is 00:34:22 would be great for entrepreneurs who are looking to improve their productivity, time management, and entrepreneurship. It's called Self Made Success. You can find it on Amazon. Perfect. We'll link it all below. Thanks for coming on, Sean. Sounds good.
Starting point is 00:34:34 Thanks, Sean. Yup. Thanks for watching, guys. See ya.

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