podcasting

Episode 77 - Dr. Harbir Sian On The Power Hour

How can you build your personal brand while remaining authentic? Join Dr. Harbir Sian as he takes the hot seat opposite Dr. Bethany Fishbein (CEO of the Power Practice) of the Power Hour Optometry podcast. Together, they discuss how to build a personal brand and why it is important for professionals in all industries. Dr. Harbir shares the story of how he started sharing and building a community in optometry by educating his audience about the industry. Be re-introduced to his mission and his purpose for the podcast. Tune into this episode and learn more about the voice behind the show.How can you build your personal brand while remaining authentic? Join Dr. Harbir Sian as he takes the hot seat opposite Dr. Bethany Fishbein (CEO of the Power Practice) of the Power Hour Optometry podcast. Together, they discuss how to build a personal brand and why it is important for professionals in all industries. Dr. Harbir shares the story of how he started sharing and building a community in optometry by educating his audience about the industry. Be re-introduced to his mission and his purpose for the podcast. Tune into this episode and learn more about the voice behind the show.

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Dr. Harbir Sian On The Power Hour

Thank you so much for taking the time as always to join me here to learn and grow. I am truly grateful and appreciative of all the support as the show has been growing. I have been connecting with people and learning about who is reading, what they like and when they are tuning in. All these things have been incredibly humbling. Thank you for all the support. As always, I would ask you to please continue to support. If you like the content and find value, please share it with someone. Leave a review, a comment and a like. All those amazing things that you have been doing, I truly appreciate all of that.

For this episode, I am going to share an interview that I did on another show called the Power Hour, which is one of the longest-running, most well-known optometry-related shows. It is something that I have been listening to for years. I was honored to be on the show and speak with Dr. Bethany Fishbein who is the CEO of The Power Practice, an amazing and well-known consulting firm in the US. We talked about building a brand and the value of building a brand for an optometrist and healthcare professional and how I went about building a brand for myself and our clinics.

What I wanted to share here was a reintroduction of myself to the readers of this show. By sharing this interview, you get to learn about me. For all the new readers or the people who have joined in over the last couple of years reading this show who do not know me that well, this is going to give you a chance to meet me and learn about me and how I got into optometry in the first place. I hope you love it. Please do check out the Power Hour. They put out amazing content. Stick with us here at the show. We are going to come out with amazing new interviews. I hope you enjoy this one. I will talk to you real soon.

At Power Practice, we talk a lot about helping optometrists achieve their dreams. When we ask clients or potential clients what their dreams and goals are, typically, people give us their goals for their office like, “I want to have a $3 million or $5 million practice. I want to collect this much, net this much and have this many staff.” We try to get people to think about their goals beyond the office, not only for what they want their practice to be but what they want for themselves, their contribution to their profession and the world. It is always a pleasure to talk to somebody who is making a big impact beyond the exam room.

My guest is Dr. Harbir Sian. He is an owner of 2 practices in British Columbia, 1 private practice and 1 sublease. He is a podcast host of The 20/20 Podcast, has done a TEDx Talk, author of many articles and has appearances on TV. I learned that his most important job of all is being a dad to his two daughters. You are making it happen. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk in this episode.

Bethany. thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.

To people who are thinking about creating content in some ways, often, we create our own barriers.

It’s my pleasure. I got to know about you through LinkedIn where you have a very active presence. In this episode, I want to talk about building that personal brand. Before that, I am interested to know about your path. How did you find your way initially to optometry?

How I found my way into optometry is not that exciting. People ask that question because a lot of times, we like to hear these stories that have some passion behind them. My mom’s vision was terrible. I wanted to go into this field to help people with that. Towards the end of my undergrad, I was trying to make a calculated decision about which profession would suit me best. I volunteered or shadowed a bunch of different professionals, including optometry, pharmacy and MD. Optometrists seem like the profession that aligned with my personality the best. Speaking with the optometrist, they tend to be laid back. None of them were that type A, which I am not.

One optometrist in particular, Dr. Amrit Pawa here in Vancouver, when I sat in the exam room with him, it was such a cool experience. It did not feel like the doctor-patient. It felt like two people connecting and conversing at the same time. One of them happened to be helping the other person with their vision and eyes. I felt like that interaction resonated with me. It was not a very clinical experience but more of a personal experience. That is what I like to try to emulate at work as well. When I was applying to optometry school, there is one word that sticks with me. I do not know where it came from but when I was filling out these applications, I would always write that I want to be an advocate for the profession or an ambassador for the profession.

I am not sure how I knew that when I was 21, still in undergrad and doing undergrad things. Somehow when I came out of optometry, right away, I started writing blogs, which I had never written blogs before, and emailing friends. They would send those emails to their friends because it was a fun fact about eyes. I kept that up for a couple of years and then I started making YouTube videos, Instagram and then the podcast. It snowballed and grew.

The underlying theme from all of it has been to somehow advocate for the profession, educate the public and let them know that as an optometrist, I am not simply spinning dials and giving you a pair of glasses. There is so much more to what we do on the health side of things and the education side of things. That has been the driving force behind some of the things that you listed off the top of the TEDx Talk, the podcast and everything else.

When you started doing that and you are writing these blogs, did you have a practice at that time that you were promoting?

No. At that time, I was working as an associate.

Were you doing just blogging personally or for any promotion? Is this a personal passion that you had?

TTTP 77 Dr. Harbir | Personal Brand

Personal Brand: It's just simply for the sake of education and for the betterment, hopefully, of the profession because there are a lot of forces out there that are creating friction or difficulty for our profession to move forward.

Yes. We talk about personal branding. Looking back on those years, I was personal branding before I knew what it was. I was writing these blogs simply from Harbir to the world about eyes. I look back and I do not know for sure but perhaps I thought that it was going to help me gain more patients somehow. I was doing it to educate. That was the number one driving force.

That genuine desire comes through in what you do. People are hit with so much self-promotion from all over, which is disguised as education. People can see through it. One of the things I have noticed about the articles and the TEDx Talk is you are putting information out there in such a genuine way that it builds trust. It is not something you intentionally came to because of how it started and that is who you are.

I am glad it comes off that way. If there is some other ulterior motive, I try to make it clear if I am speaking on behalf of a company or something like that. Otherwise, it is simply for the fact of education and the betterment, hopefully, of the profession. There are a lot of forces out there that are creating friction or difficulty for our profession to move forward. Some things are happening here in BC that we are not necessarily fighting but we are trying to rally the whole profession to make sure we can still stay strong in the long-term and not let these other forces diminish and devalue the profession. That is where most of the energy comes from.

When you were in school, you came to the profession thinking, “I met this optometrist. I like this optometrist. I could be him.” Where did you start to realize that the public had this misperception or would benefit from this additional education on what it is that we do as ODs?

It was right before I officially graduated. In May of 2010, there was a big thing that happened here in BC, big deregulation of eye care forced by an online company called Clearly.ca. They are a BC-based business but they are huge. They forced the government to make a change where they deregulated everything. People could go online and buy glasses or contacts without a valid prescription. Without seeing an optometrist, they could go ahead and do that.

That is the biggest thing that our industry has faced out here. It shook the whole profession and everybody was nervous and anxious. That was the impetus for me to get out there. I was trying to figure out how I could contribute at that point as a student or a very new grad. I thought that putting the word out there and educating the public was the best thing I could do. That is where it started.

You intended to go back and practice in Canada all along. You are from British Columbia and went all the way across North America and down the country to go to New England College of Optometry. Did you intend to go back and practice in BC?

Yes, 100%. There was never a doubt in my mind. I skipped residency for that fact because my singular goal is to come back to Vancouver and open my practice. I did not need anything else to get in my way. As far as moving to Boston, geographically, the closest optometry school is in Oregon, Pacific University. I was accepted there. I am a city guy and I did not realize it until that moment. I went down and was like, “This is a very nice campus but tell me where the stores, pubs, bars and nice places are.”

“The obstacle is the way.”

They are like, “You have to drive 45 minutes to Portland for all of that.” That was not my jam. In Canada, the only English-speaking school is in Waterloo, which is also a fairly small college town. It then came down to between Chicago and Boston. I loved Boston sports and everything. Something resonated with me there.

When you started with these blog posts, what content were you putting in there? Was it thought out and strategized or was it, “This is what is on my mind this time?”

It was the latter and that is how I live my life. I am not the most strategic person and a person who plans a whole lot. Although as you get older with businesses and family, you are forced to. I like to do a lot of things on a whim and off the cuff. That is what the blog was like. I would say, “Every Wednesday, I am going to release a blog.” Tuesday night I would sit down and say, “What am I going to write about?” I did not realize how much I enjoyed writing or trying to express myself through writing.

I tried to make it relatable and fun. A lot of times, I try to bring pop culture into it. There was a rap lyric from a Lil Wayne song or Snoop Dogg that said something or a hockey player got hit in the eye with a puck. I would write about these types of things and how they are relevant to eye care. I would try to make them fun like that. That resonated with a lot of people and it was fun for me too. I was not writing dry.

Did you work to build your audience or did it build organically because people were interested in what you were doing?

It was organically. I did not do any promotional stuff other than I did send these out in emails but I did not work to necessarily grow my email list. Naturally, those emails were getting forwarded from people on to other people. You could see the numbers on the blog increasing month after month. Certain blogs got a lot more attention than others but it grew naturally. I was doing it without thinking about its growth. I was doing it to put the education out there. I could have leveraged that growth more and use it for other things or actively grown it but I let it do its thing.

The podcast evolved from there. How did it happen?

TTTP 77 Dr. Harbir | Personal Brand

Personal Brand: If there's an obstacle that you perceive to block your path, don't try to go in a different way. Let's just find out what that obstacle is and figure it out.

There were a few steps in between. The blogs led to YouTube videos. I am fortunate to have good people around me who give me honest feedback or good advice in general. One of my closest friends said, “You should be doing YouTube.” This was back in 2012. YouTube had been around for a few years but had not blown up yet the way it has. I started making videos that I found fun and interesting. I started making these videos. I created an alter ego or a second character that I called Dr. Eyenstein. He did not talk but he was dressed up professor-like with glasses, a bow tie and a white coat. I had me who was doing most of the talking most of the time but he was the comedic relief in those videos.

One thing I have known for a long time is I like video and editing videos. I learned that many years ago and I have loved it. It gave me the chance to be more creative there and do these side-by-side types of editing things that were exciting for me. As anybody who does YouTube will attest to, it takes a lot of time to film and edit. As soon as we had a baby, I was like, “I cannot spend six hours creating this video. I have a business and a child.” I dropped off the YouTube video thing for a long time. It naturally led to podcasting. It was getting big. I was trying to see what other way I could create content.

One thing I would like to share with people who are thinking about creating content in some ways is often we create our barriers and reasons why we think, “I do not have the time, resources or finances to do these things.” When I was looking to create this podcast, I wanted it to look polished and professional but it was going to be just me doing all of it, filming, editing and posting. I thought that if I am also doing a video with it, I am going to need a good camera, lighting and microphones. This was pre-COVID so I tried to have as many guests in person as I could. I needed microphones for the guest as well. I put it off for a year, maybe more.

One day, this thing is nagging me. It will not leave me alone. The same as when I started my YouTube videos, I kept having this thing that was nagging me and not leaving me alone. When the YouTube videos happened, my fiancée at the time went out and bought me a nice camera for my birthday. She was like, “Here. Shut up and make these videos. You keep talking about them.” The same thing happened with the podcast. I was like, “How much do lights and microphones cost?” The lights were a fraction of the cost of what I thought they were going to be. I could buy these little clip-on mics that plug into my phone for $30. I was like, “I can afford this.”

I finally reached out to a bunch of people that I knew and said, “Would you mind coming in for a podcast?” I recorded 5 or 6 episodes first to make sure I felt like it was something I wanted to do. I then went, “I am going to do this.” A lot of times, we create these barriers and obstacles in our minds. I am into stoicism. I read a lot of this stoic philosophy type of stuff. One of the biggest ancient stoic philosophers is Marcus Aurelius, Emperor of Rome, thousands of years ago. One of his key theories or dictums is the obstacle is the way. If there is an obstacle that perceives to block your path, do not try to go differently. Let’s find out what that obstacle is, go that way and figure it out.

For me, these obstacles were imagined and not real. When I went that way, I found that I could continue down this path. It has been amazing. I love doing the podcast. It is another way for me to creatively express myself but most importantly, help amazing people and experts have a voice to continue to promote, advocate and improve our profession. That path has been winding like many paths are but it has been fun for me as well.

Talk about your podcast, The 20/20 Podcast. What is it? Who are you speaking to?

The 20/20 Podcast: Bringing Clarity to Business, Entrepreneurship and Optometry is the full title. Years ago, I launched my eyewear brand. It was an eCommerce company. Through that, I was exposed to a lot of people in different industries as I was trying to grow the brand like entertainers, athletes and business people. I was networking a lot trying to grow the company and build its awareness. I met such amazing people like these celebrities to different levels and other people. At the same time, I was speaking with students or new grads through social media about how they can build their influence and personal brand and become better at business.

Most people are pretty happy to share their stories or contribute and help others if you give them a chance. 

I thought, “On one hand, I have these amazing successful people that I am speaking to through my online business. On the other hand, I have these young people who want to grow their business and become successful. How can I bring them together?” That is where the impetus for the podcast truly came from. I reached out to those people that I had known through my eCommerce brand and said, “Would you mind sparing me an hour to talk about how you became this television personality and this super successful business person?”

One thing I have found over the years is most people are happy to share their stories or contribute and help others if they can and you give them a chance. The podcast was an opportunity for those people to share their side of the story, their struggles and successes. One common theme is that everybody has struggled. You could read an episode from a successful hockey player and you will say, “I have been through that myself. I remember being in a certain position like that myself.” Knowing how they got out of it, you’ll learn the next time you go through that same rt, how you can work your way out of it and come out better.

The goal of the podcast is to share those stories. Somebody said that it is more like a success podcast. I do not think I would use the word success but it is not your standard clinical type of conversation for the most part. Half of my guests are from eye care and the other half are from other realms. My favorite guest was Hayley Wickenheiser who is unanimous. She is the greatest women’s ice hockey player of all time.

She has got multiple Olympic gold medals and World Championships. She is one of the grittiest people I have ever spoken to or met. After her hockey career ended, she went and finished medical school. She is in the process of finishing her residency. It is crazy all of the stuff she doing but it is more about how or what her mindset was going through all of those things. I love to share that. That is the core of the podcast.

My husband is Canadian and is very determined to raise our children that way too. My son growing up, one of his favorite books is called Z is for Zamboni. It is a little alphabet of hockey. I forget if Hayley Wickenheiser is H or W but she was in there. That is how I knew her name. How did you get the TEDx Talk? How did that happen?

It is funny how you hold certain thoughts in your mind and somehow, they come to fruition. It is hard to say exactly how it happened but I have envisioned myself doing something like that for a long time. I have even gotten to the point where years back when I was doing my YouTube videos, I was like, “How can I recreate a TED Talk?” Not to say that I am doing a TED Talk but I want to recreate that entire stage and environment and make my series of talks. I was going to call them TOD Talks. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design so I was going to make it Technology, Optometry and Design.

I was like, “Where can I get the big red letters made? Who is going to film this?” I was planning this whole thing out. It became too big. I had this vision in my mind that I was going to be on that stage somehow. I thought that if I could recreate this and have optometrists come and speak on the stage, I thought that would be cool but it was too big of an endeavor for me.

TTTP 77 Dr. Harbir | Personal Brand

Personal Brand: When potential customers or patients see your videos, they can learn your personality and build that trust with you before they've ever come in and seen you in person.

Many years go by, I threw all the networking that I have done. Through the passion that I exude or express when I talk about optometry, eye care and eye health, it ended up being someone that I know happens to know the organizer of a TEDx event. That organizer happened to express that they were organizing an upcoming event and actively looking for speakers.

Our mutual friends said, “You should talk to Harbir.” That is what it came down to. I believe other things were happening in the background. I do not know how many people think about things that way about the universe and how energies work but clearly, something happened along the way that made that conversation happen. The organizer got in touch with me.

Initially, the talk was supposed to happen in 2020 and then COVID shut everything down. At that time, they said, “What would you talk about?” I spat out all these ideas of, “I love philosophy and stoicism. I could talk about the mindset and all these things and then my podcast. I have learned about these things.” They are like, “Many people talk about mindset in TED Talks. What are you bringing as an optometrist? That is what we are interested in.”

I showed them some YouTube videos that I had made. I call it Chiasma. A chiasm is a place where the two nerves come together at this junction. For me, it was this theory of bringing optometry or eye care and philosophy together. I am big into philosophy. I do these short one-and-a-half-minute segments. It is like a Jay Shetty talk, bringing in philosophy and then how that relates to our eyes, how powerful our eyes are and how much of our brain is taken up by our vision and the visual system.

I made 5 or 6 of these videos. I showed them and they said, “We want you to do this on stage because this is different. It is poetic and philosophical but you are talking about eyes. There are a very few TEDx speakers who have spoken about eyes.” That is how it all came together and it became a roughly ten-minute talk. I would love for everybody to go and check it out. There are things I could have done a little better but I am happy with the way it turned out. The message is conveyed fairly clearly that our eyes and eye health are very important. We should make it a priority in our lives.

In private practice, we get caught up in getting through the day sometimes. You’re like, “Here we are at work. This many patients are going to come in. We are going to do this and this. There is an emphasis on making money.” It was a good step out to get that 10,000-foot view on, “This is important to life, health and sight.” It was a good perspective. I would recommend everybody to check out that TED Talk video. You have done other cool appearances too. On your LinkedIn, you have got links. You are the go-to expert on TV when they are looking for someone to talk about eye stuff. Did you actively seek those out or did that manifest itself as well?

I was a bit more active in pursuing that one. I tend to deliberately put myself into uncomfortable situations so I can grow and get better at them. My family would laugh at me for saying this but I was not the most comfortable in public speaking. They know that now I am okay with it but in the past years I would say, “I would like to be comfortable with that. I want to be that guy on the stage. How would I do it?”

Trust is what brings people in. 

The only way to do it, in my mind, was to get on stage somehow and look for those opportunities. The same went for these TV appearances. I saw people on TV and thought that would be cool. I aligned not just simply to be on TV but with my goal of becoming that advocate and ambassador to be out there to want to share the important messages.

One of the key things I share with everyone or young ODs who are trying to build themselves up in the profession and build a presence is to be involved with their association, provincial, state or whatever local association. It is called BC Doctors of Optometry. It is our association. From day one, when I graduated and became an optometrist, I was a member and then got involved on committees. They started sending out emails like, “We have this opportunity. Is there anybody who would like to go on the radio or TV?” I would instantly respond as soon as I saw it and be like, “Yes.” They realized that I was interested and then comfortable enough doing it so they started to reach out to me.

We have a small group. There is a handful of us in BC that when our association needs someone in a certain region, they will reach out to us. It is cool to be that key person. It was something that feels right to me to reach out to express or advocate and be an ambassador for the profession as a whole. Being involved in the association is the number one thing I have put on the top of the list for any time I am talking to any OD.

If you are wondering how you could be out there more, that is the best thing to do. Many opportunities have come to me as an optometrist as far as public speaking because I have known someone through our association who needed something and they reached out to me for it. I would highly encourage people to do that.

These things are out there enough that have turned around and helped your practice. You started with this vision, “Maybe someday patients will want to see me because I do this,” but it was not the primary driver and it sounds like it has never been for you but how has it affected your practice that you are being this person and advocate?

It has impacted the practice for a few years but I have not looked at it and quantified it. I was not looking for it to be that for me. People are more comfortable sharing certain things. In the past, people would say, “I found you online.” They would not say anything else. I did not probe a whole lot but then people are openly saying, “I saw you on TV or Instagram.” Instagram is a big one. “I saw this video that you did so I thought I would come to you.” It is being shared.

Almost every day I go to work, there is a patient that says something like that. It has become a more common thing and it is helping the practice but I am also a little awkward when people say that to me. I am sitting in the exam room with them and they say, “I saw you on Instagram.” I feel like I have to be that Instagram person, “Which video did you see? What was I talking about?” I am trying to bring that same energy here in the eye exam. It is helping the practice grow, especially since we are doing more specialty stuff.

TTTP 77 Dr. Harbir | Personal Brand

Personal Brand: If your leading motive is to bring value to the person on the other end, that's how you bring authenticity.

We are doing a lot with dry eyes, radio-frequency, IPL, iLux and more myopia control. When I talk about those things, I know there are going to be people who see me locally who would be more interested in learning more and come to see me in person. I know that my videos are being seen across North America. I am getting messages from ODs in Texas saying, “Tell me about your radio frequency.” Patients in Toronto are saying, “I would love to get this treatment. Where can I go?” It is broadly being shared for everybody’s education but locally, people are going to come and see us because they see that I have this technology that could benefit them.

Not only do several new patients come in to see you but the thing that happens when someone has seen you speak and has come in because of that is they are coming in with a level of trust that you have to work for with somebody who truly saw you online and picked your name off a list. The patients who are coming in are primed and ready for what you are presenting because they have already heard it and liked it.

In my podcast, I am doing a series on marketing. I have a few guests coming on who specialize in personal branding or online digital marketing. That is one of the key messages that they are sharing in this series. Video is the number one way to get out online to share your personality. When potential customers or patients see these videos, they can learn your personality and build that trust with you before they have ever come in and seen you in person. That is where being online and building your brand is so important. I did a COPE-approved lecture at the beginning of 2019. The concept of personal branding was still new to a lot of people.

I did this lecture and was surprised at how many people showed up. It was personal branding and online marketing. At the end of the lecture, an older OD put his hand up and asked, “Why are you doing this lecture? What is the purpose?” Either my whole presentation fell flat or I am ahead of the curve and these guys do not know why this is important yet but I hope most people know why it is important.

I was trying to show that if you get out there, you can build this trust. Trust is what brings people in. Building trust is so hard. If you can do that before someone even sets foot in your office, that is a huge win. That is why I keep encouraging ODs to get out there. Start to do this type of thing, get on video and share.

I have heard a couple of good solid pieces of advice here. The things that I am taking are one, do it for the right reasons. Do it because you want to and you have something that you want to contribute, not going in with the intent to monetize it or, “I am going to do this to get patients.” Do it because you have something nagging you that you want to put out there. The second is, do not let perfect be the enemy of the good. If you have something, do it. It does not have to be the perfect setup. You can start and improve from there. Do things that make you uncomfortable. That is a big one.

I am hearing that personally. Video is important and I am dragging gills to the ground like, “It cannot get you there.” Also, a bit of, “Just do it.” The young ODs are coming into this profession having heard podcasts, followed ODs on Instagram and have favorites they watch on TikTok. They are coming into this thinking, “How can I be that?” Any other advice to give?

You have to think of yourself as not just the person putting out content but as the audience as well. 

In that lecture and in general, I share the three pillars of personal branding. It goes for online and offline but we are talking mainly online. Number one is to bring value. If your leading motive is to bring value to the person on the other end, that is how you bring authenticity. Value goes in a few different ways. In my opinion, education is the easiest way to bring value because we are all experts and professionals. We can talk about an eye drop, a technology that we offer or something in the eye. We can educate the public. We might think that it is mundane information but there are a lot of people out there who do not know this information.

The other ways you can bring value are comedy, humor and telling passionate stories, however you can integrate those things. The Singing Dentist does these funny songs where he makes up his words to a song and they have nothing to do with dentistry. He is so popular on YouTube. If you have a hobby or something that you are good at, that can be the value that you bring. Number one is value.

Number two is engagement. When you are online, actively engage with people. Let’s say you put up a post and someone comments, “That was funny.” You respond to that. That is the simplest way to engage. “Thank you. I am glad you enjoyed it.” It is like a Google review, make sure you respond and engage when you get a Google review. The other way to engage is to actively go out there and find people to engage with.

You have to think of yourself as not just the person putting out content but as the audience as well. Go find people who are relevant to you in the community you would like to be part of. Go comment on their stuff. Go reach out to people. In-person, that would be like going to an event and networking with people. If you are going somewhere, you are going to shake hands. “What do you do? That is interesting. I would like to learn more about it.” That is essentially doing that online. If you use hashtags, you can search #Optometry or #EyeCare and comment on relevant posts.

The last one is consistency, which means two different things. It means posting regularly but people get too caught up in that. The second type of consistency is posting on different platforms where you have the same voice. Instagram is my primary outlet but I post on LinkedIn, Facebook and other channels. TikTok, not so much but I will post the same video or post on all channels. Different people will see it but they will all hear the same voice. Consistency is important.

On that note about getting comfortable, at the end of 2018, I decided I was going to make a dedicated effort to become more comfortable online. I told my wife, “You are going to see me on Instagram way more. Do not make fun of me. Let me figure this thing out.” I decided that for 30 days, I am going to go on Instagram and do a story. On Instagram stories, they only last for 24 hours and then they are gone.

I felt like, “Good. It is not permanent. Even if I say something silly, it will not be there forever.” You can always take it down or edit it. I thought, “I am going to do 30 days of stories. This will help me be consistent and comfortable.” It was always a video. I am holding the phone, looking at it and talking about something educational or informational thing. It ended up running for over 100 days straight. My second daughter was born and then that day or the next day, I had to stop because I had other priorities.

What you see is a result of getting comfortable. I would highly encourage that if somebody is looking to get out there, start like that. Those videos are maybe 1 minute or 30 seconds. Get comfortable with looking at the camera, saying stuff to people and educating. Eventually, you can pick up your phone in public and be like, “I am here. Look what I am doing.” That was uncomfortable for me for a long time. It still is a little bit but that consistency of doing it regularly is what is going to help you get better.

It does not take long. Many people say, “I do not have the time.” If you go sit in a room somewhere, open your phone and talk to the camera, “I wanted to tell you about near-sightedness, which means you cannot see far away.” End of conversation. That is all you need to do for 30 days. You will slowly start to build the other things on top of that.

That is a good way to get started. It’s super interesting to learn about you and hear your story. This is terrific. Harbir, thank you so much for taking the time and giving time to me and my readers. Everybody out there, thank you for reading.

 

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