Speaker: 0:01

Welcome to the Heart-Led Business Show, where compassion meets commerce and leaders lead with love. Join your host, Tom Jackobs, as he delves into the insightful conversations with visionary business leaders who defy the status quo, putting humanity first and profit second. From heartfelt strategies to inspiring stories, this podcast is your compass in the world of conscious capitalism. So buckle up and let your heart guide your business journey.

Tom Jackobs: 0:36

Today we're diving into the dynamic world of Dr. Tracy Gapin, a true maestro in the realm of men's health and wellness. With a heart that beats for compassionate care and a business that thrives on nurturing Doc Tracy is here to share insights on running a heart-led enterprise. So join us as we explore the joy and journey of bringing passion to profession. So let's get started. Doc Tracy, welcome to the show.

Tracy Gapin, MD: 1:02

Thanks Tom. I'm really excited to be with you today.

Tom Jackobs: 1:04

We've been working together for, maybe six months or so and I've been wanting to get you on the show, tell your story of the transition and all that. Of course the first thing I always like to ask is, what's your definition of a heart-led business?

Tracy Gapin, MD: 1:17

Yeah, so I believe that a heart-led business is one that's based on your overarching why. What is your real purpose, what's your real mission in life? And I like to look at it really from both a business perspective and a personal perspective. And my mission for the business actually very closely aligns with my personal mission as well. And so I think that's really the key to having a sustainable business, one that really has a massive impact and one that's going to really have a higher purpose, is focusing on that big why.

Tom Jackobs: 1:45

Oh, that's awesome. And I always ask also kinda like, how long did it take you to come up with that the personal passion needs to be connected to the business passion.

Tracy Gapin, MD: 1:57

Long time. Yeah. I went through so much work on. And we'll go through the journey of building the business. And it, it didn't really click until I finally had to step back and recognize what was the underlying personal dynamics that were really driving it all. What's my big why, what's my big mission? And how that suddenly was what really propelled me forward. And it changed everything in the business and in my personal life as well. And and that moving forward, it's, I'm taking that to the next level as well.

Tom Jackobs: 2:27

That's awesome. Yeah. It feels so good when your own personal beliefs are aligned with what you do, eight hours a day, 10 hours a day, 15 hours a day sometimes. You see these people that just go to work and they're just like, Ugh. It just, it's, it makes sad. Yeah! So tell us about your backstory. You started as a urologist, but you tell us.

Tracy Gapin, MD: 2:46

So I was a board certified urologist for about 25 years. I ran a very busy practice. I was a partner in a five man group, high volume grinding. I would see as many as 50 patients a day. And then I go to the hospital and do a couple cases in the operating room on call nights and weekend. And it was a grind. For the first few years. I loved it. I was very passionate about it. And I had spent decades just getting to that point as well, going through all of the education from college and medical school and residency training. And in the beginning I loved it. I was very passionate about it. About halfway through, so this was about maybe now about 14 years ago or so, I hit a wall. I hit a wall of my own health where I was stressed out, not sleeping well. I was fat. I was about 30 pounds overweight. And I, yeah. And I didn't like who I was. I was this angry. I was becoming this angry old man already. And I, I noticed that when I would walk into the hospital, I was a different person. Like I was a true, excuse my language, a true asshole. People talk about how surgeons are assholes. I see why now? Because we're just beaten down day after day, and you sacrifice everything to be able to take care of your patients. And it finally hit me where I couldn't do it anymore. And my wife convinced me to finally go see a doctor. I had never been to a doctor. I'm 40 years old at this point, and I go to this primary care doctor Lo, what's that?

Tom Jackobs: 4:05

It's funny that a doctor wouldn't see. A doc. Hasn't seen a doctor.

Tracy Gapin, MD: 4:07

Oh no, we never see it. No. We'll take care of ourself. I'm fine. I'm fine. Leave me alone. Yeah. I don't have any stress doesn't bother me. Stress doesn't affect me. I'm fine. So I go see this doctor and my lipids were terrible. And he basically told me, just lose weight and we're probably gonna put you on a statin. That was it. That was the answer. I'm like I'm this men's health expert in air quote, for those of you listening and I'm supposed to have all the answers and I don't have the answers either, but I knew there was more to it than that. Like I knew it wasn't just, I need a statin, like statin deficiency. And so for my own selfish reasons, I started getting into epigenetics, which is really the science of lifestyle medicine and how your environment, lifestyle, can affect your genes. I went through the certification program. Holy cow. There's this whole other world of medicine that I didn't even know about that I'm really actually excited about. That got me into functional medicine, which is really learning about root cause, underlying cause of your problems. Then it got me to regenerative medicine, learning about stem cells and peptides. That got me to hormone optimization, learning how to treat hormones the right way, which I had never learned before, that got me into wearable technology and longevity medicine. Next thing I know, Tom, I found this entire world of, I call it precision medicine, the best way to describe it, of all these different modalities that when I put'em all together, it was nothing like what I had been trained in. Nothing like what this doctor had recommended for me. And I realized that I was onto something here and I finally found. My passion and purpose also, which is really the whole point of the show. And so I was able to turn my own health around and I started offering some of this stuff to my patients in my urology practice on the side. And I started building this little cash-based program. And I tell you, Tom, I was ready to quit medicine before that. I was ready to give up, move on, do something else. I didn't know what it was, but I knew that I couldn't keep doing what I was doing. I didn't love it. I lost the passion for it, but suddenly I found my purpose. And I loved it, and I enjoyed it again. So I started building this cash-based business on the side that grew and grew for a couple of years, and men were seeing great results like I did myself. And I got to the point where I'm like, I love this, and I can't imagine doing urology another day when I'd rather just spend all my time doing this. And so I did what any wise person does, and I just jump off a cliff. I figuratively, yeah. I jumped off a cliff. I left my urology practice. I gave, I had to give my partners one year notice. I gave them the notice I'm leaving, and they all thought I was crazy, complete crazy. Now they're wishing they were doing what I was doing, of course, but by the time they thought I was crazy and I started a business. I'm a doctor, but I'm honestly, I've always felt like an entrepreneur stuck in a doctor's body. Like I was selling candy out of a locker when I was in middle school. That's I just love the concept of building a business. And now I realize I could take this amazing cutting edge medicine, combine it with my entrepreneurial desires and my passion, and actually transformed lives and help men with men's health in a very different way. I built Gapin Institute. I opened my brick and mortar Gapin Institute in 2020 and and we haven't looked back and we've grown. It's been an amazing journey as we've built the business and our team. And something that I can say now, truly I could never say before, and that is I absolutely love what I'm doing.

Tom Jackobs: 7:25

That's music to my ears and i'm sure it's music to yours. As well. Yes. You wake up and you're just energized for the day. I have a friend here that obviously, oh, it's gonna be Monday soon. I'm like, no, it's gonna be Monday soon. I'm like, wow. I get to talk to people. Have fun.

Tracy Gapin, MD: 7:42

And I think that really lines up with the whole concept of a heart center business, where when it's a heart center business, you just freaking love doing it. Like it, it comes from your heart. It's real, it's authentic. You wanna do more and more. And it's not work. It's a joy. So I think that's really, that goes along with everything you're doing here with heart center business.

Tom Jackobs: 7:59

You know the old saying, you'll never if you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life.

Tracy Gapin, MD: 8:04

That's right. Yeah.

Tom Jackobs: 8:05

Now there is a caveat to that. I'm sure in your business there are certain things that you don't enjoy doing. That's just part of being an entrepreneur. For me it's books like, I don't like the accounting piece. I enjoy that piece. What areas of the business did you struggle with in terms of getting your head around doctor to entrepreneur?

Tracy Gapin, MD: 8:27

Yeah. And I've gone through a lot of business mentoring and mastermind and coaching and, I'm a strategic coach and and I've learned a lot about, about, identifying the visionary, the integrator, and staying in your lane and finding your unique ability and not straying. And what I did for many years there, Tom, was I wasted my time effort. Energy and money on the things that I should not be doing. And so I learned the hard way that I don't need to be doing spreadsheets. I don't need to be doing a lot of the CRM automation nonsense that I was doing and tagging and all this other stuff that I was doing that I thought I was being so productive. And yes I'm doing a great job and the team loves it because I'm helping them. But in reality, I was really holding the business back because I was not really focused on. My unique ability is to help drive the business forward. And so that's been a big transformation for us as I've been able to stay in my visionary lane, so to speak.

Tom Jackobs: 9:19

That's you're, you must have been just watching what I was just doing prior to us getting on the call, working on a spreadsheet.

Tracy Gapin, MD: 9:28

There you.

Tom Jackobs: 9:29

That's funny. So let's go back to the transition from the practice into the Gapin institute. You said you had to give a year's notice What type of, other than having the private cash pay practice on the side, what other preparation did you have to do either mentally or educationally?

Tracy Gapin, MD: 9:50

So I, first, I had to save money, so I had been, I knew for, eight, 10 years I was going to make this move eventually. And so I, I was, putting money aside knowing that I would need that. I secured some capital. We did a build out for the brick and mortar office and I did secure some capital at low interest rates at that time. So that was very important as well. I put together a team. The great book Who, not How it, it's Find Your who's, and so I had a great consultant who knew how to, in my situation, started medical practice where there's a lot of other legalities and and issues that had to be, licenses and OSHA requirements and sharps containers and training for the medical team and different types of liability insurance and all kinds of different things beyond just the standard business set up administrative things that you think of. And so I hired a consultant for that. I hired VAs Virtual assistants to help me with some administrative tasks at the time. I. But it was really the biggest thing for me was what's the offer? What am I gonna sell and how do I position it? And so marketing was a really big focus for us in the very beginning, and there was a lot of iteration around product market fit and what do people, what do men want? For me, men's health was my focus. And so what do men want? What do they need? What would they pay for? And what's my, my, zone of genius that I can serve them. And so there was a lot of iteration around that offer as well before I ever left my practice and started the business. Yeah. Can you

Tom Jackobs: 11:22

remember what your first offer was

Tracy Gapin, MD: 11:24

It was called the Precision Performance Medicine Program. Sounds sexy, doesn't it?

Tom Jackobs: 11:28

Wow!

Tracy Gapin, MD: 11:29

And it was 15 k. It was a 15 k year long program at the time. And and I got, I remember the first guy who signed up. I was like, oh my God, someone just gave me cash. Someone just, actually I before then, I was like, I don't know if people are gonna pay cash for this. And all the masterminds I was in, they were telling me, you gotta put high ticket and people will pay. I'm like, I don't think this is gonna work. I was doubting it and then that first guy made the payment. I'm like, holy cow, someone, I, it was like all the limiting beliefs were just shedding away. And and that was the beginning of a long journey was that first guy who, who bought in. And, I think I. He bought into me as a human being, as a person, as a doctor, with my credibility, with my au authenticity. I was who I am. I didn't try to be someone else. And it came from a place of, look, this is what I, you know me as a urologist. This was a guy, a patient in my practice. You know me as a urologist, but you also know now all the stuff that I've learned and you see me personally, how I've changed. And he's I want that. And that was, again, heart-centered business. It came from me as a person, and that's what I think really propelled us.

Tom Jackobs: 12:33

Oh, that's that. That what a great story too. And having that big first sale. Just like you said, melts away all of those limiting beliefs. And definitely I had the same experience where in my fitness business, I was selling like 10 sessions at a time. Finally hired a consultant after the six months of failing and sold a hundred session package for the first time, a$5,000 package. And I was like, oh my gosh, this somebody can what for personal training? Are you crazy? What other iterations have you had to go through then in terms of that offer and making sure that it's repeatable, it is expandable and scalable ultimately.

Tracy Gapin, MD: 13:14

Yeah, so in the beginning it was all me, and so that was a real problem. I identified that as a problem, but I didn't know how to initially address that. So it was all me, every program was through me. I was the doctor, I was the bottle washer, I was the, the dishwasher. They say I was everything. I had my nurse as my administrator. Helping me as well. I hired a marketing assistant who is still with me to this day. Those two first employees are still with me as my main leaders. You know them personally on the side. Yeah. And in the beginning it was just me learning how to serve the client first. Just create outcomes first. Because before I can start to hand this off to other people, I had to prove that it worked. I had to know that it worked, and I had to really iterate until I found what is the perfect combination. So we tried different durations of the program different bundles of what's included, what's not. And it was a constant iteration of looking at the, the cost of goods. Looking at the transformation, people say, people are buying the transformation, not buying how you get there necessarily. And so a lot of it was overcoming my limiting beliefs of what people will pay. And and every time I would lower the price, which was the wrong move, the mistakes that I made along the way, I realized I got the wrong clients. I got the people I didn't want, I got the people who, the discount shoppers. And they, those were not the clients who were really, truly bought in and I went through this one coaching program and one of the quotes that I learned from that is the transformation happens when someone enrolls in your program. Everything from there on is technically gravy. Once they commit and make that transformation, that's the big shift. It's the mindset around they're committing to doing what you're offering. And so for me that was a really big part as well. Yeah, getting clear on, on the deliverables was not so much important as that actual transformation that we provide.

Tom Jackobs: 14:58

Awesome. And how quickly did you grow? So it's, you're basically five years in, right? Right now. So that first year, second year, what was the trajectory of the business at that point?

Tracy Gapin, MD: 15:10

The first year was, was great actually because I had a book of business already. I brought in some business from my practice. I'd already built that business. And then I had, I brought in a nurse practitioner who had her own book of business as well. So the first year was great, and then we hit a plateau. Year two was actually tougher because we hit a plateau where suddenly I'm like. The patients I brought with me are not the ones that are gonna stay. It was the wrong avatar, the wrong kind of client. And and we had to start to pivot and refine our offer and refine the messaging. And I also had a partnership going that I terminated at the beginning of year three or so that was really holding us back as well, holding us back from our mission that we want to focus on. And it was year three that, that we really started to turn the corner. And we did financially we did over 3 million in year three. We did over 4 million year four. And on this year five here, we're on pace to get right around 5 million. So we've definitely turned the corner in growth over the last couple years. Yeah.

Tom Jackobs: 16:12

Yeah. That's amazing growth. Yeah. That's five X from when you first started, so

Tracy Gapin, MD: 16:17

Yeah.

Tom Jackobs: 16:18

yeah, just adding a million a year, so that's great.

Tracy Gapin, MD: 16:21

Not bad. Not bad. We've also had a lot of staff, but we've also invested so much in infrastructure, invested in systems, processes, teams, so that we can now really scale. Yeah.

Tom Jackobs: 16:32

Yeah. And so what does that scaling look like then from a functional standpoint? From like the entrepreneur standpoint.

Tracy Gapin, MD: 16:40

Yeah, great question. And I remember year one I was like, I wanna scale. I wanna scale. And I thought I was ready to scale. I was not freaking ready to scale. I wasn't even close. Yeah. It wasn't until year three or so that I started putting the systems in place, started hiring other key staff members. I hired two amazing PAs. I hired one who's no longer with us, bad hire, but the two I have now are absolutely incredible. And they allowed me to train them on the medical side and then step, step on to bigger issues. I hired functional medicine trained coaches who provide the lifestyle coaching, functional medicine part of things so that I can really step away from that as well. And so those key hires were, really critical for me to be able to scale and more importantly, building the playbook, the manuals, the SOPs for them to do their part of the program so that I knew it was now a replicatable process, a system, every client coming in had the same experience. And and that was really the key before I could ever think of scaling.

Tom Jackobs: 17:38

Yeah.

Tracy Gapin, MD: 17:39

It was like, okay, now we wanna build a bunch of Gapin Institutes. We've figured out how to do this. We've hired the right team. We have our accountability chart, we have all of our SOPs, we have the staffing. We're ready to go. Let's scale, let's go big. Then I realized that it was still dependent on me. I'm still doing the sales. I'm still bringing every client in, and without me, there'd be no sales without me speaking. There'd be no growth. And as much as I would. Tell myself as much as I lie to myself that the business was working, functioning without me completely. That wasn't true. I was still intrinsically required for the sales and the growth. And so the next phase was I had to hire a sales team. And this is where you and your team have been amazing in helping me really refine this, of building, bringing in a sales team that have a system, a script, a process of how do we deal with incoming leads and how do we convert them along this journey and get them to actually buy and that sounds so simple, but that's so freaking hard to get them through this journey and get them to commit and buy the program, and so that's been a journey for us as well. That's taken a while that we've gotten to the point now where it's really starting to get dialed in. It's never, we always the running joke in our business is we're getting there. We're getting, because we'll never get there. We're always getting there. It's the joke that you can always be better, right? You can always improve upon your process. And training the sales team has been huge for us to allow me to completely step outta the sales process. So now I'm no longer providing the medical care. I'm no longer training my team. I'm no longer doing the sales, but I was still involved in some day-to-day administrative kind of building spreadsheets and doing this and that kind of stuff. And it was only really in the last 6, 9, 12 months, going through Strategic Coach and doing, going some through some mentoring to realize that I had to completely step away from any of that stuff and focus on the 20%, which is the visionary work, and double down on that to help the business grow. And so that has what's helped us to get to the point to answer, finally answer your question of how are we gonna grow and scale? And that is not through building multiple brick and mortars. Because that's very capital intensive, very labor intensive, staff intensive. When in reality what I'm really selling is a different way of approaching men's health. A different way of approaching healthcare in general. And that's really through my peak launch program. And so at Gapin Institute our main offer is a six month peak launch program. And what what the big scale opportunity for us is to scale that brand. And now the next step is peak Launch md, where I'm now creating a license, a training, a coaching, a licensing model to get other doctors to go through the same journey that I've gone through.'cause I'll tell you, Tom, there are thousands of doctors who are in the same miserable spot that I was in 12, 15 years ago. They're stuck, they're trapped. They hate their life, they hate their job. They want to get out. They hear about this whole field of longevity and precision medicine. They have no idea how to get there. And in reality, for me to have that impact that I want to have, it's not gonna be through me building Gapin Institute. It's gonna be through training other doctors how to. Provide the same service that I've been providing. And peak Launch MD is our next big step of training other doctors to build the same business that we have.

Tom Jackobs: 20:53

That's so great. And then what a great way to multiply your knowledge and your expertise as well as through, through others. I'd like to go back to can the people in the business. The hiring process, because I, I talked to a lot of heart blood business owners that are at your level where they have staff and they're starting, or there's wanting to hire staff. How do you interviewed to make sure that they are aligned in the purpose, the heart-led alignment that you have in that interview process that lasts 30 minutes to an hour.

Tracy Gapin, MD: 21:24

Yeah. Yeah. So great question. So the hiring process is something that we've refined along the way as well. So part of it is the questions you ask in the on the application to have them really give answers of why are you applying to Gapin Institute? What is it that Gapin Institute that, that interests you? Then I really try to look at are their core values aligned with ours? And so I don't tell them our core values, but we ask them questions to really find out if they're aligned with our core values before we ever go beyond that. And we want to make sure that they're gonna fit our culture, they're gonna fit into our core values and that they really belong as part of our team of as a good fit. And I'll tell you. We've made a lot of mistakes along the way. We've made a lot of bad hires where they sounded good on paper. They're like yeah. We can train and we can, they can fit. And they were horrible. And so I've learned the hard way how the, the heart center business, the core values and culture has to come first before anything else.

Tom Jackobs: 22:17

Like the philosophy of hire slow fire fast.

Tracy Gapin, MD: 22:20

Hundred percent. I just said that an hour ago before our, before the, this podcast interview. Absolutely. I can't agree with that enough that, that the hiring decision is so critical, but we've been through, just yesterday, we were with one of our employees who was the wrong fit. And I knew for a long time, but this is me being the visionary, staying away from the hiring, firing role that my team has, that when you know they're a bad fit, get rid of them as fast as you can because they're just holding you back. And a lot of it comes from fear. Oh my God what are we gonna do without that employee? What are we gonna do? You'll be so much better. It's like addition through subtraction when you get rid of that the bad apple. And so a hundred percent agree with that statement. Yeah.

Tom Jackobs: 23:00

Yeah, just my own journey as well as same type of thing like you especially that, that mindset, and I really want the listeners to hear that again too. The mindset that the person isn't the isn't. The one that's driving the business, they aren't necessary ne necessarily, if you get rid of a bad apple, it's gonna improve, the rest of the bunch.

Tracy Gapin, MD: 23:25

That's right.

Tom Jackobs: 23:25

That's why it's I ran into that. I had a trainer that, that worked for me that was. Okay. It wasn't to a point where it was just like really kinda bad, but then it was like, why are we putting up with this? And some, they coming in late and not doing everything that he's supposed to doing.

Tracy Gapin, MD: 23:44

Yeah.

Tom Jackobs: 23:45

No, because, oh, I, if I get rid of him now I'm gonna have to get back onto the floor and start the training. You get rid of somebody like that, the universe hears it, opens up a space and the next new hire comes in, who's much better anyway, so

Tracy Gapin, MD: 24:00

Yeah. Yeah. And I've had the philosophy that you can train content. You can't train character that someone can be trained for and that doesn't hold true for everybody. I've failed there as well, or one one of my coaches, amazing human being. Amazing man. Amazing person. It the training part of it failed, and so that doesn't hold true for everybody, but in general character first, and you can train'em how to do whatever position for the most part that you're trying to get'em to do.

Tom Jackobs: 24:26

Yeah. That's why I told my staff when I put all the hiring on onto my staff and I told them you can train somebody how to make a phone call. How to do all this. You can't train personality.

Tracy Gapin, MD: 24:38

Yeah, that's right. Absolutely. Yeah.

Tom Jackobs: 24:41

Yeah.

Tracy Gapin, MD: 24:42

The other part of that I think is really important is, and we've learned this the hard way as well, is that every position in the company it don't matter who it is, what they're doing. You need to have metrics to have actually, how do you measure their productivity, their performance or efficiency? And are they actually a achieving a job the right way? And so we've worked, working with you, we've learned a lot on how do we refine that? We're continuing to improve that as we go of measuring performance of every employee to be sure that they're really providing the outcome that you want.

Tom Jackobs: 25:12

Yeah. That's great. And that, that keeps them aligned as well in feeling good about performing when they have those key performance indicators.

Tracy Gapin, MD: 25:19

Yeah.

Tom Jackobs: 25:20

Cool. Tracy was such, I can't believe that the time has flown by it's been such a great conversation and hearing your advice as well, and you kinda, your rise out of traditional medicine and into your precision medicine that you're doing now is just, it's been great to, to listen to and to witness as well. So thank you so much for being on the show, but also how can people learn more about the Gapin Institute and all the great stuff that you're doing.

Tracy Gapin, MD: 25:48

Thanks so much, and first of all, I just want to comment, you've been amazing with my team on the sales side, the sales training and everything that you do behind the scenes as well. So kudos to you and all the amazing work that you're doing as well, Tom. So just wanna honor you before I, I answer that. So yeah you can check out our website is gapininstitute.com. That's G-A-P-I-N institute.com, and I have a number of gifts for the listeners. If you go to Gapin institute.com/launch, you're gonna get a free copy a digital copy of my bestselling book, Male 2.0. You'll get a copy of our Ultimate Peptide Guide and a bunch of other great gifts there. More importantly, what you can see is when you're running a business, how do you attract leads from whenever you, you talk. And so we have this from the business side. You guys will see that not only are these great valuable pieces of content, but they now attract my audience. They opt in, and now I can continue to nurture those leads and hopefully get them, down the sales process. And use this opportunity for anyone out there running a business to see how we use this at in our sales funnel.

Tom Jackobs: 26:44

Oh, that, that's great. Awesome. And I definitely need to read your book. So grab, grab a copy of that. Awesome. And so thank you again for being on the show, taking your time outta your busy schedule. I really appreciate it and I know our listeners probably got a lot of value out of today.

Tracy Gapin, MD: 27:00

Appreciate you, Tom. Thank you.

Tom Jackobs: 27:03

And thank you listeners for tuning in and watching the show today. I really appreciate it, and I know Doc Tracy appreciates it as well. So make sure you're checking out everything that Dr. Gapin is doing, and we're gonna provide all of that down into the show notes. So just go down there, click away on the links, and they'll just make it super easy for you as well. And then if you could do me just one simple favor, and that is to give the show a rating and review. So just click on that rating review, give it five stars. Of course if we earn that and share the show with somebody that you know could use the advice shared on today's show. And until next time, lead with your heart.

Speaker 2: 27:40

You've been listening to The Heart-Led Business Show, hosted by Tom Jackobs. Join us next time for another inspiring journey into the heart of business.