Justin Trosclair 0:03
Episode 65 learn a book from the author and 15 minutes. I’m your host Dr. Justin trust Claire and today we’re Dr. Alex Merced perspective.

Join 2017 podcast Awards Nominated host Dr. Justin Foursquare as he gets a rare to see him look into the specialties, all types of doctors and guess plus marketing, travel tips, struggles, goals and relationship advice.

Unknown 0:27
Let’s hear a doctor’s perspective.

Justin Trosclair 0:31
Welcome back to the show. Did you get fooled yesterday, it was April Fool’s Day. Well, here’s something that’s not joking. Japan at least where I went Osaka is amazing. Got to see Peach Blossom that the soccer castle went to a park where I was supposed to see cherry blossoms, but it was too early. But had these kids running around in a park like doing a race track on a bicycle. But then there was no pedals and kids crash and all this kind of stuff. I put it on Instagram and on Facebook for a little while. It was so cute. So funny. You know the food is so good there. The first day to subway was kicking my booty. So the next day or hotel offered one of those portable Wi Fi spots. That one of those back in Colorado anyway, so I knew it was coming familiar with it saved my life. The second day kind of figured it out, especially trying to get to everywhere is where I needed to go. It was great. So all that to say it’s a great place it needs to be on your bucket list. Definitely check it out in the late March to April timeframe.

But anyway, our guest today is Dr. Alex mer, he’s PhD he actually has a desire to have a book subscription service costs less than Netflix. And he’s doing it it’s called mentor box. He also

I think what I’m going to do is save the spoiler I’m not going to spoil it for you know the end of the episode want to talk about relationships, there’s a reason why he has an amazing piece of advice. And the reason that’s the part I’m gonna let you have to listen to the episode for so a doctor’s perspective now slash Six, five for the show notes. Let’s go hashtag behind the curtain.

Live from China, oh, we we got a guest today, we got a past engineer NASA scientists, this guy has created over 30 products sold over a billion in sales, if that’s not impressive enough. And he also created this new thing called the mentor box. So he’s the CEO, he’s the co founder. His name is Dr. Alex mirror, PhD. Welcome to the show.

Unknown 2:29
Thanks for having me just say,

Justin Trosclair 2:31
Well, I always like to start off. How did you transition from being an engineer to entrepreneur and having this love for books, spoiler mentor boxes about books, everybody. So give us the heads up

and the little background on you?

Unknown 2:45
Yeah, so I actually have been a book reader all my life, that was the way so I went through years of education as probably a lot of your audience have also gone through years of formal education. But, you know, end to end the day when it came to real life and starting my own businesses, it turned out that the school system did not prepare me for it at all, like I didn’t know anything, anything that really would have helped me with actual life like things like leadership like initiative, like how to motivate myself how to inspire others how to negotiate a deal, how to generate, you know, a culture of positive reinforcement, how to help coach people, like all these things I had to learn on my own. And, you know, I’m not on my own, really, because nobody can learn all these things on their own. But I had to go and hunt for the information. And the way I did it was by reading a lot of books. So I’ve been reading books, pretty much all my life. And that’s been my primary learning method. So that’s how I got started. And,

Unknown 3:56
you know, I, I built couple of businesses before mentor box. The reason I started mentor box is because I you know, I got to a point in my life where I was like, okay, so I have made businesses that have been successful. But none of them have been, I mean, all of them. I’ve been passionate about the business. But the impact that education, like practical education can have on this world is like comparable to nothing else. Maybe medicine is are the same level. But to me, is world that you can also argue that it’s the way you can push them

Unknown 4:38
forward. And I didn’t see really any good solutions out there. I mean, books are one way to, to get people to learn, but a lot of people don’t read books. So I said, Well, let me create an alternative to books. And that’s how we came up with mental blocks.

Justin Trosclair 4:59
I can give a crash course on what mentor boxes from what I’ve I’ve I’ve learned the definitely correct me if I’m wrong. I listened to one of the podcast episodes and and it sounds like you get Arianna Huffington or or Sodini. And you get there, you get the actual author, you record, maybe a 10 to 20 minute, maybe a summary of the book from the author themselves. And then you create workbooks and things that actually allow you to take what was written an integrated into your life. And then there’s your brain by doing the workbook.

Unknown 5:33
Exactly. So it’s like basically we turn it’s in what the easy way to describe it is Netflix. For books, we turn books into video, audio and workflows, visual auditory kinesthetic learning, and is for people who don’t have time to read a lot of books and books are great, but there are now better solutions, video and audio and kinesthetic learning it you know, these are better tools that we can leverage. And what we do is that return books will we pick books that we really like we fly and authors and we create we have the authors teach the books in a video and we also create an audio summary of the book. And then at the end of it, and during the video we give people exercises because a lot of times people read books, but they forget the main points of the book or they don’t know exactly how to apply to themselves so we create these workbooks are kinda like structure of journals. So you you know, the author teaches the lesson one main idea from the book out with them we have you pause the video will fill out the exercise that that way the information six in becomes personalized and applicable to your life.

Justin Trosclair 6:45
Well like that, because I can’t tell you how many times or read a book, it goes on the shelf. And you’re like, Man that I’m not in school,

I’m not really going to sit down and write a five page summary is just

too much work. But that sounds like an amazing idea right there. It is,

Unknown 6:59
is available online forums. I mean, if you’re a physical box member, you get the physical box. But for online members, you can do it online. It’s super simple. And even if you do you don’t do any of it just watching the video and then listening to audio summary of the book gives you all the main ideas and it’s not some it’s not like we bring some random contractor to do to do these books. We fly the authors this subject matter the subject matter experts to do the job right.

Justin Trosclair 7:31
What would you say right now, your top download your top, whether it’s a book or the workbook, I’m assuming it’d be the same but who are some of the top three?

Unknown 7:40
I want to say top three is probably pre suasion, Robert Cialdini, I want to say

Unknown 7:50
soft for happy by mo gal that. So happiness sales. And I don’t know, what is the third position, but those are my top two most popular one. Yeah.

Justin Trosclair 8:01
Are you noticing that there’s a fad right now in like self help books, better time management, the next best boss CEO type of stuff that we should kind of

Unknown 8:12
stay away from or i think i think the way you should treat information is that you should have as diverse as possible have a pipeline. And that’s what we actually tried to provide. And I don’t I don’t say that we cover I that’s why I don’t refer to our our product as a self help product. Because self help. And my I think of it as mindset mindset is part of the equation, but it’s not everything. We actually cover things like sales, we cover things like marketing, recover things like social media, how to build effective social media, or we cover things like negotiation, we have brought into world experts like Natalie Reynolds, who negotiated Brexit, for example. And we brought her into teach negotiation tactics, we brought in an FBI hostage negotiator to teach negotiation. So you this is not self help. These are practical skills that people can actually start using today.

Justin Trosclair 9:15
And what are we looking for? As far as an investment? It didn’t look like it was much?

Unknown 9:20
seven bucks a month? Yeah, yeah, we have a deal going on. Actually, what I wanted to do, and eventually I got here, eventually was more expensive is initially was more expensive, because I had a smaller user base, and I had to cover the costs. But now that our user base has grown, my goal has always been to be cheaper than Netflix. So we are cheaper than Netflix. Honestly, they’re not a our monthly fee is less than the cover price of one of the books or one audio book that we covered. So I that is my goal to make it affordable. I since day one when I started. I imagine a world where people just like Netflix is for entertainment, they turn fiction and novels into Visual videos that we thought that Netflix is great, trust me. But that’s entertainment value. I wanted to create the same thing around the concept of, you know, self learning at through books. And that that was the idea since day one that I eventually got to beat the price of that.

Justin Trosclair 10:28
What Why would we use is audible. And you can just hear the author or somebody else read the book to get the whole thing and is it because if it’s a time thing like that’s going to still take you hours of driving and commuting where this you could still listen to it in your earphones and on your commute just it’s only 20 minutes that the big selling point?

Unknown 10:47
Yeah, actually, most of the audio version of most of our books, book nuggets are 1015 minutes at the video lessons. There are two reasons for that one, I’m not saying don’t do audible or don’t read books we we are trying to augment not take away. But one, audible is long. So you have to you’re basically listening to somebody read the book, a lot of times deciding whether to offer. Here, what I’m doing is that I’m having this subject matter author teach a book, meaning it’s not like word by word. What was written read it to you. It is teach domain books. And a lot of times authors give examples what they’re teaching, it’s like lecture, they give examples. Sometimes we do like segments that are interview format, we probe and ask more questions. Sometimes authors actually realized or learn things after writing the book that’s not in the book. And they cover it while they’re teaching the book. So it’s more of a lecture than reading a book word by word, it is shorter. The second thing that I always tell people is, you know, reading is one way of learning. Audio is another way of learning vision all is another way of learning these different ways of learning almost exercise, they exercise different parts of your brain. So you kind of want to hit the same point from different areas, at our video lessons or audio lessons are kinesthetic learning to our workbooks, they all serve different things actually kind of triangulate, to and show you how exactly you can take a point that apply to your life. It’s an it’s, I mean, like I said, it’s cheaper than audio, audio, books, events.

Unknown 12:32
And he’s like the entire library

Justin Trosclair 12:33
will you know as a doctor is that the audience can attest to when you’re learning say like anatomy, you’re looking at the pictures and you got flashcards. And then yes, when you got to start learning physiology of the liver and the kidney and all the pathology also you like okay, let me talk to somebody about the whole process.

Unknown 12:51
Now you exact verbalize that you’re seeing pictures, you’re memorizing them flashcards. It takes all of these to make it through any professional school PhD engineer, no, no different really. Hundred percent, it’s actually it’s as if audio book reading is as if somebody just, you know, read the the physiology book to you, you would not become a physician by just sending to you know, what I mean is like, it takes a lot. And that’s happens in everything. If you want to be the best leader in the world, let’s say, you know, leadership is one of the areas that we cover, as soft skills are even harder to master. So because they take years of practice, actually, just like I mean, I’m not saying being becoming a physician is not hard. But becoming a physician is a skill, it’s like, you know, leadership is it takes decades sometimes to be really good to become a really good leader. And you need to hit it from dip very different areas. And you need to constantly nurture that skill, what Cal Newport calls deep practice, right? So you want deliberate practice, so you want to deliberately practice it. And we provide the tools for you to do that. Exactly. Just like that, we actually are going to start adding flashcards to our physical box membership as well, for that reason. Nice.

Justin Trosclair 14:11
You know, you, you made a comment. And this is the question we always ask you different kind of guests than yourself. But there’s a lot of doctors that struggle you they’re smart, but they’re not business smart. And leadership is definitely a skill that they can need to develop, you’re well versed, you got any like one tip that a doctor could turn in on Monday to just better his leadership skill with his staff and make them more productive and more congealed office.

Unknown 14:37
Yeah, so I think the number one thing that a doctor should learn is to

Unknown 14:43
and honestly, every every practitioner, the number one tool, life skill that benefits people like the most is a ability to market and sell understanding the concept of marketing. And, you know, especially in specialized practices like law, or medicine, people go to school for years, and they specialize in a particular skill, but then they are not taught how to sell that skill. So you know, the ability to sell to the ability to market your service is a huge deter, it’s actually also has positive reinforcement. So the more like, the more successful you are at it, you know, you also become a better doctor, you see what I mean? So it’s like a positive cycle. So marketing by far, and then also there are things like leadership because nobody wins alone, you always have a team, there are things like influencing people will how to you basically the best way to think about it, is you look at anybody in history who was able to change the course of history did so never single handedly on their own, they did it by influencing others and creating a movement. So then then the my question to you is we’re in medical school, they thought that it was never was that ever thought you. So So the best way to take and some some high, you know, in any profession, you know, I was I was an engineer, and I’ve seen this myself, there are people that are naturally good at it, or and there are people who go and study it, and they kind of rise to the top. So there are physicians who become more influential. These are people that give the keynote speech speeches in conferences, for example, right? So they had to learn it. And they had to master that art on their own. Now, what about the rest of physicians out there? How, what are the tools that you’re using today? To become better at that, and especially for introverts, which is always harder for introverts to become good at these things? You know, what are the tools that you’re using? What are the systems that you’re using to become better at it?

Justin Trosclair 17:00
You mentioned marketing, I like to ask the doctors on the show and ask you kind of know part of the answer. Mentor box itself? What are one or two ways that you’re actually trying to market and get your name out there? That seems to be working?

Unknown 17:16
Yeah, so I, this is 2018. And the number one way to market any product or service is via videos on the internet. So literally, I was we had we had, we have this VIP service at mentor box where we work with a smaller group of members in a closer setting on their business problems. And we had a vet hospital owner, who we did, we were doing a case study for him. And my number one marketing tip to him was generate a ton of videos, especially if you feel somewhat comfortable on video, and you’re doing it via podcast, which is also great. But videos are even more effective. Get on the phone, use your camera, use your iPhone, today’s iPhone cameras are really good at always be in front of a talk to your phone, meaning the camera on your phone recorded and put it online, on YouTube, on Facebook, on Instagram, and actively market yourself. And I tell you why I keep saying it. Because we live in a world where everybody is asking for attention. We have professional, you know media outlets online and on TV, cable news. They’re all seeking people’s attention. So for you to be noticed for you your skill set your business to be noticed. You need to kind of learn how to become it’s not just I’m good at my practice, therefore I’m being I’m going to be automatically notice the world doesn’t work that you need to it doesn’t work. So fortunately, or unfortunately, you know, that’s that’s the case right now. So you need to learn how to market and the way to do it right now is to get in front of camera, your phone’s camera, talk to it, day to day life during interactions, you know, tips for people and just put it on online. And the more you get in front of camera, the more you get noticed, really this wall and

Justin Trosclair 19:24
I’ve noticed that there’s a lot of people they’re taking your advice right now. There’s so many 30 minutes shows and an hour show and there’s more video than I can possibly consume, especially with my poor internet. Is there is it is there a link that you would more suggest? Like a two minute five minutes?

Unknown 19:40
Yes, no to I mean, one or two minutes all the way to six months I actually read this read this study somewhere that on average attention span is obviously different. You’re a doctor so you know this attention span is different up.

Justin Trosclair 19:57
And that’s unusual.

Unknown 19:58
So I do one or two minutes easy. Our videos and then six length, sometimes eight minutes sometimes to off sometimes school, but that’s like the range.

Justin Trosclair 20:07
Okay. Connection fizzled out on that one. So you were saying I wonder two minute teaser. Six minutes is a is a pretty common number. But if it’s really entertaining or engaging, you could go up to eight or 12.

Unknown 20:18
Yes, yeah. And if even if you do longer, like right now basically what is happening with the new, you and me is you and me We want our voice is switching. So we’re going back and forth. Every time that we switch word voice, it kind of resets your brain a little bit. But if I spoke myself for 12 minutes monotonic, Lee, no interaction, it would be pretty boring. You see what I mean? Because you and I are going back and forth. This video can be longer. But if you if one person is talking, don’t talk for more than six minutes.

Justin Trosclair 20:53
I just recorded a sales video for my own book. My goodness, you know it, you can go for about six to eight minutes and you’re watching you’re trying to edit it you’re like, I don’t know, maybe I need to redo this one. I think I’m born myself right now.

Unknown 21:06
Yeah, I tell you, I tell you what you can do, by the way to improve that. If you have a longer video, break it up. So basically switch the topic or put a little slide card in the middle, like every five, six minutes, with a little background music and prompt the topic and graphics animation in it. And then start again. And you know, and at the beginning of each segment, go with an energetic voice. So basically segment one, animation card segment two is like Welcome back, dada, dada. And then segment three is like Welcome to the third episode data data. So it’s like, it’s that’s how the brain kind of like comes. wakes up.

Justin Trosclair 21:51
Agreed? Agreed. I hope everybody took notes. Because everybody’s talking video, we just got some really good pointers from Dr. Alex right here.

Look at it, I’m not 100% sure how much time we have with you. I’m assuming it’s only a few more minutes. We like to do a little bit of a personal side. Hopefully you got the the notes from your assistant. Yeah, you’re a busy guy, how in the world, you take more vacation or feel like you’ve gotten a break, and you’re not just working all the time.

Unknown 22:16
So I came up with that. So I saw a for the first, I’m 39 right now, for the first I want to say until my 30s until I was 30 years old. Now 30s. I tried to I tried to be a to do to create a work life balance in the sense that I tried to modulate, I try to have me time and then work done. And then when I was 30, I decided that if I I need to create a life or I need to create a job that I really liked doing to the point where I can mix it with my personal life and I don’t even feel it. So I know that it’s not possible for everybody. But to me, the whole question of how do you take vacation or notification out to me work on vacation and everything is the same? It’s just I mean, different physical location.

Unknown 23:07
So I’m basically continuously working and continuously having fun at the same time. You know, my wife says that to me, she’s like, Can you can you like, let go the computer for a while. It’s like, Oh, yeah, I’m just, I’m just

Justin Trosclair 23:18
working. I’m having fun. I’m enjoying this is not really

like, I know, I need to go walk. So I’m gonna go walk now and get my 10,000 steps. But it’s not a drag. It’s it’s, it’s fun.

Unknown 23:30
It’s exactly what I’m talking about. Yeah,

Justin Trosclair 23:32
a lot of people these days are very structured, they have a morning or a lunch routine.

Unknown 23:36
Do you have one of the right? i? It’s interesting. So sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. So I use structures and habits when I need to. So if I feel like my productivity is not there, like I did I change I create a routine or change my routine to make it productive. But if if what I’m doing without the structure is working that I give them like for example, to give you an example, like I don’t I skip breakfast, I kind of like I do a little bit of intermittent fasting by not eating breakfast until afternoon. And I just drink coffee in the morning. And interestingly, interestingly enough, the first part of the day where I’m kind of fasting is depart more my brain is really sharp and alert. So So I tried to jam a lot of important like, I like creativity stuff first thing in the morning. And then and then you know, I get into work and you know, meetings and the stuff like that emails and stuff like that. And then food and afternoon is all about dealing with day to day stuff. And then again at night, I’m back to creativity and high level thinking. So right before bed, and after I wake up are really my strategic thinking time. And from noon until let’s say six 7pm is day to day stuff. For me. That’s how that’s roughly what I do. Very good. So last

Justin Trosclair 25:02
last two questions when we’re talking significant others and people that we love in our life and our family. Is there a way to keep the love alive and feel connected?

Unknown 25:14
You know, I started a large dating site, right? This third largest online dating site in the world, Zeus,

Justin Trosclair 25:19
it was you okay, I didn’t

introduce because like you said the same guy. There’s a lot of your name out there.

Unknown 25:24
Yeah. I so that I,

Unknown 25:25
I created the top grossing online dating app in the world in 2014. And to Zeus.

Unknown 25:35
It is still the third largest in terms of new online dating company in the worst I’ve, I’ve been because of many relationships and marriages and baby, let me put it this way.

Unknown 25:46
So the answer, I think, is, and this is a little bit controversial, but the answer is the role mass over time. And that’s, I mean, when you can observe it in our numbers, I see members finding relationships, leaving our site and coming back, it’s kind of like a lot of relationships and marriages are romance driven. And romance as a factor over time decay is it’s like becomes less and less of a factor. And because of that a lot of relationships and marriages break up and come back. So the way I think about it is the best relationships, or marriages are the ones were romance is one factor, but it is not the only factor. So so that is the union, their family, their relationship, their marriage stands on its legs, even bill romance is never going to be as a strong and passionate as they as they want. So there’s a another reason. And the other reason, the other reason can be simply, you know, partnership, like, you know, we like thought partners are always last longer, you know, for this same reason that I have friends that I’ve been friends with for many years is because they are my friends, they literally help stimulate my mind. They help me think through problems. And I and I reciprocate. And if you can create that dynamic in your life, you know that that takes you much longer distance that romance would, in my opinion. Absolutely. Hey, audience at all surprised?

Justin Trosclair 27:26
I didn’t let him introduce that for the show. But I’m glad it was him. He.

Well, Wrapping things up here. How can people get in contact with mentor box? What’s the deal? What’s the websites?

Unknown 27:38
Yeah, so box.com. One word, we have a deal going on right now. For our online membership, cheaper than Netflix. It is, like cheaper than a single book is almost it I mean, there and there’s also free trial. So you try for free. And then if you like it after a few days is set dollars a month.

Unknown 28:02
Simple. There’s also an app in the App Store. But website is probably the easiest way mental box calm. And I can tell you that, you know, if, if nothing else, if you follow me on social media, I interview a lot of authors and thinkers and put their videos on my Instagram, for example. Do you know just so that people understand who are these people and a lot of times is interesting. I’ve been a book reader myself for a lot for a long time. But I couldn’t put a face to the name a lot of times you read a book but you don’t know the author. I’m trying to change that. In addition to everything else that we’re doing, I’m trying to make authors more three dimensional and bring them to the real world. I talked about their life stories I talked about you know, why they wrote the book and all that and also do free book giveaway

Unknown 28:56
on my Instagram, so you can follow me at Dr. Alex dr. D OC. Try the whole thing. Alex, on Instagram. That’s the main way to keep in touch with me. Dr. Alex,

Justin Trosclair 29:08
thank you so much for bringing it today and going hashtag behind the curtain with us.

Unknown 29:13
Haha. Alright, thank you for having

Justin Trosclair 29:18
Hope you enjoyed this week’s episode. want to make you aware of a couple of things a doctor’s perspective. net, we got a few things to talk about. We’ve got some free handouts for nerve pain, numbness in the arms and legs and also a 12 exercises if you experiencing back pain and once your core stronger experience and neck and shoulder tightness and pain. These are free to download. Okay, it’s under Resources. Also under the Resources tab is my new book, Neil is acupuncture self treatment God for 40 common conditions stop the hurting with no needles or meds, your roadmap to self treat your condition painlessly. We’re talking things like anxiety, insomnia, neck pain, back pain, possibly some knee issues, stomach issues, tired arm and leg pain, even little bit of sciences to take all those types of things. This book really is for those they’re busy, they don’t have time to drive to an office, spend an hour and go back to work. Alright, so allow this book allows you to do it from the from your house, it’s also the person that maybe doesn’t have an acupuncturist within like a 90 minute drive just to go see one. So that’s pretty inconvenient. It’s also for the person who is afraid of needles. So there’s alternatives to that method that we show you in the book. And lastly, for the person who’s like, I really can’t afford as much care as I need. So this is a way invest in a book. And now you’re able to do it at your house with pictures with words and even videos, things that I’ve learned from working in China, Western references, Eastern references and practical experience. So check it out. I think you’re gonna like it. The first book today’s choices tomorrow’s health, again, is version 2.0. We got everything from what is chiropractic, what is pain, some exercises and stretches lots of lessons learned from my time in China, like portion control. Is it okay to feel hunger secret recipe tech, and I love talking about it. I haven’t got a whole section on finances like budgeting creating a budget how to scale back if you overspend, which is a huge problem for most people. So I’ll cover that it’s got some really good reviews. So hopefully you will take a look at that you can get it as a PDF for free Are you can pay for it in different areas. Lastly, of course, we’ve got some chiropractic tongue in cheek t shirts about being a mixer, you do rehab, you do adjustments, you think adjustments, really a powerful thing. But you also believe that you need to do muscle work and those types of things, which is pretty cool shirts, mixers, and under the Resources tab as well. Well, as always, wherever you listen to the show, if you rank it five stars, that would be awesome. And of course on the top right of the website, there’s all the social media icons, pick your flavor, follow me interact, and I interact back You got any suggestions? Email me Have a good week.

We just went hashtag behind the curtain and this episode has come to an end. I hope you got the right dose for your optimal life. Please spread the word about this podcast by telling to friends, share it on social media and visit the show notes on a doctor’s perspective. net to see all the references from today’s guests. sincere thank you in advance. You’ve been listening to Dr. Justin trust Claire giving you a doctor’s perspective.

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