The back surgeon prescribes a dose of BRAGGing for entrepreneurs in pain; Dr Winifred Bragg

Health is one of the foremost priorities of everyone -as we say, health is wealth. And that is true with entrepreneurs - if you're not healthy, both physically and mentally, you won't be able to do the things you need to do and reach your goals. In this episode, our guest Dr. Winifred Bragg, a physician, author, and consultant, explains why it is a must to take care of your health, and how her Bragg Factor can help you make sure that you're fit and that you have a healthy mindset.

Dr Winifred also enumerates what each letter of BRAGG in the Bragg Factors stands for and explains them, how it can be implemented in health and as entrepreneurs, and why mindset is also an important factor for entrepreneurs. She also shares what 30-second Bragg is and how it could help you #getnoticed, and lastly, she shares how she gets herself noticed.

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Transcript

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Hello, and welcome to this episode of The UnNoticed Entrepreneur. Today, we're going to Virginia. Where we're going to be talking to Dr. Winifred Bragg, who is the author of four bestselling books and has a YouTube channel, which is very vibrant, talking about how to have a terrific Tuesday and more. She's going to explain to us how entrepreneurs can get noticed using their "Bragg Method." Winifred, welcome to the show. Jim, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here today. I'm excited because I've looked at some of your YouTube content and your books, and for all of us entrepreneurs out there, getting noticed is a challenge. We're also going to talk about some of the ways we can stay healthy as entrepreneurs whilst we are getting noticed. So let's dive in. Tell us about the "Bragg Factor" and your methodology for getting entrepreneurs noticed. Well, the "Bragg Factor" obviously is a corner play on my name, Bragg, B R A G G. And I tell people that the reason Bragg is a five-letter word and not a four-letter word is because that last G stands for "Gratitude." That's the first thing I want people to understand. And the Bragg factor is really five steps. The first step is B, "Behave as if," entrepreneurs need to look at who do you desire to be like, and can you find what you can do to model yourself like them? And that's why it's important sometime along the way, Jim, to maybe have an executive coach or a business coach to help you, because what I've learned in life is speed matters, and a coach can give you some tidbits to help you go from where you are to where you want to be much faster. So the first step in the Bragg fact is B, "Behave as if." The second is "Resist the urge to." You know, as entrepreneurs, sometimes things, you know, especially now when inflation and things that are going on, you get discouraged and you want to say, "Can I make it?" So we have to resist the urge to quit and complain, and say, "I can't do it." The A stands for "Accept no limitations." Barriers will happen. And sometimes we have setbacks and disappointments, but we have to learn to accept no limitations. And then G stands for "Grow your gift." Jim, what I have found in coaching entrepreneurs and business people that sometimes people have the best business idea that comes from their skills, from their hobbies, or their passions more so than something they were trained for. I had a young woman who came to see me in a workshop, and her hobby was graphic arts. She was training into marketing, but she wasn't doing well in that. And so I talked to her about, "Well, let's dive in deep about your graphic arts." So she was able to put together a business plan. And now she has a business where she does websites and use that with marketing, but was able to use her graphic arts. So I tell entrepreneurs that if things aren't going well, sometimes look back at your own purposes and your own things that you like to do. Some of the fun things that you do integrate that, and you may find out that you have a better business idea. You know, I'm trained as a physician, but I also coach people, executives, entrepreneurs, business people—and I coach them because I'm a speaker, and a speaker is not what I went to school for, I went to school as a doctor. But what do I get training in all day long? 25-30 patients all day long. One-on-one coaching. So you see how that can transcend and something you like to do can also become a profession for you. And the last important thing is I tell entrepreneurs, Jim,"Live in a state of gratitude." And that's why Bragg has five letters and not four. I love that. And yet, your own journey from being a qualified physician and a spinal, sort of, facilitator and occupational therapist. And now giving coaching is amazing. I think that's an amazing story. And let's just talk a little bit then, if we can, about this idea of focus. Because you've got Bragg, but I'm quite interested in how our physical self can impact our ability to even implement your "Bragg Methodology." How could you help people to relate? Well, everything must start with us. And sometimes, as entrepreneurs, we put ourselves at the back of the line, and we need to put ourselves at the front as it relates to our health. And because there can't be a business without a healthy you, there can't be a good thriving mission without a healthy clean mindset with you. And so I tell people it's very important to make sure you're getting the seven or eight hours of sleep. That makes a tremendous difference - getting adequate sleep. And also doing stretches. You know, I'm a spinal doctor—I teach people how to take care of their back pain without surgery as an interventional pain specialist. And one of the keys I tell people is don't sit more than an hour and a half without getting up and stretched. I learned that from my bookkeepers, my accountants, and all the patients that I saw that were salespeople, and they would come in, Jim, at the end of the month when they had to do those sales reports, "Dr. Bragg, my back is killing me." And why? Because they had been sitting at the computer. With COVID, what are we doing? We're sitting at the computer all day long, so you're causing yourself back pain. You're paying for my house and my car. And I'm telling you to get up, get up and stretch and walk around and don't sit past an hour and a half or two hours, but they keep paying for my car because they will not do that. And so that's a simple thing that entrepreneurs need to know, as you say, "Take care of yourself." If you are someone at the computer all day long and your back's hurting, the first thing, eliminate that long sitting and make sure that you're doing stretches and that you have to have a good mindset with focus so that you don't develop the imposter syndrome of what you say that you can't do and sleep and having a good morning routine. Morning routine is important. And maybe you're into meditation. Maybe you're into Tai Chi. Maybe you have exercise. Maybe you listen to music. But I start my day off with, in the morning to make sure that I do my stretches so that I don't have back pain and make sure that I get adequate sleep. And then I want to start my day off with confidence. And that means that I don't look at this cell phone early in the morning, because what does it filled with?

Distractions: 6:31

emails, people with different things that's going to distract you from your goals. So start your morning off with a good morning routine. Yeah, I think that's absolutely fantastic. And the reason I think it's really important is because under your Bragg five stages I think is brilliant. If you're not feeling physically well, it's very hard to perform, isn't it? What about if people are not well and they have a lot of pain? What's your approach to helping people to work through that then, Dr. Winifred? How do you help people to get to the right mindset when they're maybe grappling with pain on a day-to-day basis? Well, one thing that you can do using the Bragg Factor, from that standpoint, the Bragg factor can help to move you from an arena of pain to function, because it all starts off with your mindset. What is your mindset? If you get up in the morning and you say, "I'm not going to be to make this sale today," or "I'm going to have pain all day." And everything that you are thinking about, "my back hurts, my back hurts," and that's what you would feed in your mind all day, you will hurt. There's something in the brain, Jim, called the "Reticular Activating System," which is a network in the brain that filters out things much like a water filter on your kitchen sink. And so we wake up in the morning with like 90,000 thoughts. A lot of them are negative. So how do you move from an arena of saying you have opportunities rather than obstacles? The same thing with pain. If you keep saying I'm going to hurt all day and claim that—you will hurt all day. It's much like if you ever wanted a car. I remember once I wanted a green Honda. I wanted a green Honda, and everywhere I went, everybody but me had that green Honda, because that was what my mind was on. And so you can do that. And so you want to fill your brain with positive thoughts, and that's going to take people with pain from getting from an arena of focusing on pain to focusing on their function, and it's going to help them to move through that by simply trying to behave as if they are a person without pain. And a person without pain is going to be moving. You got to move. But, you know, one thing I know that from back pain or you hurt your hamstring or whatever you hurt, it's stiff and it's painful, and people don't want to move, and that's the same way we do as business people, entrepreneurs. When we have a setback, or a failure, or disappointment, or a challenge, we are much like a person with a back pain—we don't want to move. And so the first thing we have to do, Jim, is stretch. Stretch our mind, just like we stretch our muscles and stretch our backs. And when we stretch, that helps us to move past these barriers and it helps a person in pain, physical pain, to be able to move because they have to move the part that hurts and first stretch it. But that's the same thing an entrepreneur or a business person has to do stretch. And I tell people, you have two kinds of friends - you have friends who are going to stretch your idea and friends who are going to shrink your idea. When you have a good business plan or a good idea, sometimes you may share it with the wrong person. It will be like everything I tell him or her, they tell me I can't do it. What's the third step in the Bragg Factor?"Accept no limitation." First of all, you need to press the delete button in that relationship and delete them from your circle of people that you tell your ideas to because they always shrink your ideas rather than stretching them. I love that. And I love the way you've drawn the parallel between the kind of sense of incapacity within the business that you can have within your own body as well. That's fantastic advice there. Right. In terms of you, yourself, you're an entrepreneur, I love that story that you were learning how to get patients, right? And that's how you then modelled how other clinicians were getting patients, and you got better and better at it yourself. Is that right? Well, what happened when I came to Tidewater Hampton Roads, Virginia Beach, I came with a briefcase filled with payment coupons. Payment coupons are from your student loans, Jim. And I had about a hundred thousand dollars worth of student loans. And so, my goal was to have a thriving practice. So people said, "Well, you have to market." Because I didn't grow up in Virginia, I grew up in Alabama. So here I was thrown into this place where I knew no one and my Bragg worthy goal, my number one goal was to have a big practice. So I would go to these networking events and say, "Hi, I'm Dr. Bragg. Nice to meet you." And then people say, "So?" And they start back talking to their friends, and I'm like,"I'm getting nowhere fast." So I had to develop. How do I reach people so that they would want to engage me? And that's when I call and tell people: you have to learn in 30 seconds how to promote yourself. And that's when I say, "Bragg on yourselves quickly in 30 seconds—make it conversational, make it memorable, make it quick so that people want to engage you further." And this is how I was able to do that and build a practice where now I have over 20 have seen over 20,000 patients. And if I can do that using the Bragg Factor and learning how to have a 30-seconds Bragg, any entrepreneur can do it. You've got to realize I was a doctor - I didn't have marketing skills, I didn't have PR skills. But now I teach people how to go into a room, work a room, and how to do an effective 30-seconds Bragg where they're pitching their company, their products, their services, so that people want to engage you further. Winifred, I have to ask you your 30-seconds Bragg and gone. You've put out the challenge. What would be the 30-seconds Bragg that you've got for your own practice? Well, my practice is, "I'm Dr. Winifred Bragg. I'm a physician, and I teach people how to treat their orthopaedic and spinal problems without surgery. Only 5% of people with back pain need surgery, but in the United States, this happens over 600,000 times a year. When you want to know how you could get better without surgery, I'd be happy to see you. I'm Dr. Winifred Bragg." That is so great. And I love that because you've got some facts in there. You don't have opinions. You've got objectivity in there and you are raising the issue, the problem that someone's facing and presenting a solution all within the 30 seconds. That's really, really impressive. You've managed to now go beyond those 20,000 patients, and as an entrepreneur, Winifred, tell us what you've been doing, because you've really been leveraging social media, haven't you? Tell us about how you're building your personality online through social. Well, I have several YouTube stations. One, my website is called the braggfactor.com And I have a YouTube station called "The Bragg Factor." Every Tuesday I give entrepreneurs, business people, "A Tip for a Terrific Tuesday," because you know, we start off with Monday with all of these problems. And so, I feel by Tuesday, you need to know a tip that's going to help you stay focused, stay confident so that you can move forward. And I have a YouTube station on Tuesday. Now, for patients who see me from a pain standpoint as a doctor, on Friday, I have a YouTube channel that gives tips for a pain-free Friday, but that's dealing with physical pain. Tuesday is going to help you deal with your business and entrepreneurial pains by telling you how you can move forward and propel and build good habits so that you can be successful. And then I have Facebook pages that go with both my medical practice and with my consulting, coaching, speaking, practice, the Bragg Factor. Well, you're a very, very busy lady, aren't you? Well, that's an amazing number of networks. From a content production point of view, if I can, with your channel YouTube, how are you attracting subscribers? Because we all know that creating the content is, you know, not easy, but it's not the hardest part, getting the viewers is the hard part. So how are you overcoming that challenge? Well, I have a little bit of an advantage because, as a doctor in my practice, I'm seeing, you know, patients every day. And so I introduce them to the thing they want to know what I'm talking about and say they do. And then you have to ask people that, "I have these YouTube stations. It's free information. I invite you to do to go there." I have cards that I give them, and, and I invite them to tell their friends. And that works very well for me. I think that sometimes we get a little shy, we don't want to brag, quote, unquote. So we have to tell people that we have this information there. Ask them to do it, your neighbors, your people from the civic organizations, your church members, and ask them just like you ask for business,"Would you subscribe to my channel? And tell some friends to do it?" And then ask them for good feedback, what they like and what they don't like. And you've got to ask some people that you know are going to be honest with you so that they can tell you when they look at one, what they didn't like about it and see if you can make changes. And you can also get, you know, digital ads and different things of that way to also attract some viewers. Yeah, but you're right, the digital and organic reach, as you say, is much better if you are building a community rather than the broad-based advertising that reaches the anonymous people out there. Right, right. Now you've also, I think you have four books to your name. Just tell us, Winifred, how are you getting to write the books? And are you self-publishing? Or do you have a publisher? What's your strategy for that? I am self-publishing my books. And... So I've done four books. My first book is on back pain, it became a best seller when I did it on back pain. It's called "Knock-out Pain Secrets to Maintain a Healthy Back." And I give people all kinds of practical tips of how they can treat back pain without surgery. And then recently, I created a series because, as I said, I'm a speaker and a coach. I needed materials to give to people. So I created a series called "The Bragg Factor." The first book focuses on what we don't like to talk about "Goal setting." And yet we all, no matter what age we are, we don't like to sit down and put our goals to pin and pencil. And I have to tell you, it makes a big difference when you write down your goals, because then objectively you can look at them and see are you moving from where you are to where you want to be? And what's holding you back? And there are really four main questions as it relates to your goals, Jim, that we get all overwhelmed about goals. But I have it down to four goals, four questions, that if you ask yourself can help you move forward. Whether it's a personal goal, professional, or what spiritual, what it is. What is it do you really want? What do you really want? But then you've got to ask yourself, "Why do you want it?" Because it's the "Why?" that's going to sustain us. Why do we want it? And then when do you want it? It has to have a timeframe, otherwise, it's just something in the sky. And then, most importantly, what's holding you back? Is it someone in your environment that's holding you back, that friend that's shrinking your ideas, whether than stretching them as entrepreneur? What's holding you back? Are you starting your day off wrong? Not doing any meditation, not keeping yourself healthy, not staying focused. And then, the last thing is how you're going to do it? A lot of times, people want to start with, "Oh God, I can't do that because this is how I'm going to do it." No, stay focused on your "Why," because I find that if you stay focused on the "Why?", then why will propel you to get to the "How?" And that's why it's important and writing it down. And then just briefly, I have a book for college students that teaches them how to do a 30-seconds Bragg, so they could get internships and get jobs while they're in college. And when they soon graduate. And then the third one in that series focuses on business people and professionals. I give templates of how you can create your 30-second Bragg for your company regarding your mission, or you personally, how you want to introduce yourself to people. And it has assessments in it to help you to know - is it your character? Do you have a character flow? Is it something about your courage? Or are you not committed? Are you lacking confidence? It has assessments. That's how I've done in those books. Dr. Winifred, I had to ask you one final question, which is you're already being a service to all these people getting your solutions for back pain and avoiding surgery. But why would a, you know, a surgeon who's plainly very busy, dedicate themselves to teaching people how to communicate? Because Jim, for me, I have learned in my journey and seen it with other people that I've coached that communication is the key. It is the thing that can take you from where you are to where you want to be. When I look back on my life, the single most important skill that I learned is effective communication. Because even if you ask a question the right way, that's going to get you noticed in different environments, that when you can communicate confidently, you are going to have more confidence. And that's how you get better jobs, that's how you get better sales, more profits. And so my legacy now is to take the things that I've learned as a physician and a business person and to teach other entrepreneurs and business people how they can have it so that they can have a successful business. And it is communication - that is the key. And that's why you need that effective 30-seconds Bragg so that people remember you. Dr. Winifred Bragg, joining me all the way from Virginia. I am going to invoke your fifth, which is the gratitude. Thank you so much for sharing. And I love your answer to my final question. Thank you for joining me on The UnNoticed Entrepreneur show. Thank you, Jim, for having me. It's been my pleasure, and I will put Dr. Winifred Bragg's details in the show notes as always. If you've enjoyed the show, do share it with an entrepreneur. And if you have a chance to rate it on the player that would also be wonderful. It all really helps us. We're very grateful to you, my fellow unnoticed entrepreneur, for listening to this, The UnNoticed Entrepreneur show.