Unlocking Success: The Power of Understanding Your WHY from Dr. Gary Sanchez

decide what it is you want to do with your life , if you're struggling to find your purpose and your why , dr Gary Sanchez . So , gary , let me ask you then , your definition of success . How do you define it ?

And when you're doing that right , and then when you're doing that , that's success to me , because you'll have unlimited energy , you'll have passion for what you're doing . That that's success to me , because you'll have unlimited energy , you'll have passion for what you're doing . And the money is , you know , is great , but the feeling of success is even better .

I picked a major that I was good at . I went to dental school because my dad was a dentist . I had no idea how to figure that out , and so I just kind of chose what seemed like the right way to go . And then what happens to a lot of us , brad , is we get invested into it . Right , get out of dental school .

Now I've got eight years of college , get out of dental school , and you start accumulating things , right , houses , cars , spouses , kids , all that kind of stuff and then you're stuck If it's not what you were supposed to be doing .

Well , you got to hang in there , buddy , because you've got a lot of responsibility and a lot of overhead , and I think that happens to an awful lot of us . I know it happened to me and that's when . So , when I got out of dental school , brad .

The advice that I was given by the business gurus of that day was build a great product and people will come , and I'm sure right .

I always ask my kids you know , what do you want to try first , like not , what do you want to do for your life , what do you want to try first ? And and that philosophy , because I said you're going to probably try five or six different careers , five or six different jobs in the beginning and get through that . How did you go ? Like how did you break ?

I spent 20 years going to the best institutes , studying with the best mentors , building a beautiful practice , buying all the technology , training , a well-trained team . And when I said , you know , we had a great product . Most dentists take 20 hours of CE a year . I was taking 250 . Take 20 hours of CE a year . I was taking 250 .

We had half day staff meetings every week for years to develop our processes and systems and policies so that we could deliver on what we said we would deliver . We did have a great product , but people got used to it and that was just the way it was . Go to Gary , that's just the way they do things .

They didn't realize what they were getting because they stayed with us , but they weren't telling others about us like I thought they would . You know we do a great job . Go tell everybody . Well , they didn't do it and we didn't have the maybe , the confidence or whatever it was to ask them to do it , to ask for the referrals .

Dr Patty Lund wrote a book called Building the Happiness-Centered Business and part of the condition I had to sign a contract when I became his customer that I would refer to people of equal or greater value than myself to him every year that I was a customer in his dental practice .

When you talk about that pain of jumping across , did you have a formula for success , or did you have a this is how success happens type thing , or did you just make the cut ?

That's how I did so many different things in my life is I found someone else who's already doing it , and I did that in dentistry as well .

But what I didn't do was that when it came to marketing , and so , since my practice blended in with everybody else who did what I did , I was so frustrated , brad , that I was either going to quit or I was going to find a better way . And so I went out and hired a coach .

I hired a guy by the name of John Asraff I'm sure you probably know him and through John , I learned how to use the internet . I learned how to do websites and drip campaigns and SEO , so I could tell everybody all about me how wonderful I am . But the only problem was what am I gonna say ?

What am I gonna say that makes me stand out from everybody else ? What am I gonna say that doesn't make me sound desperate or like I actually need new patients , and so , since I didn't know , I just stayed quiet . Until one day I heard him interview Simon Sinek , who wrote the book Start With why , and that's when I heard about this concept of why , right ?

And so , man , I watched that TED Talk 10 , 20 times . I read his book multiple times . That's what I'm missing . I have a great what , but I don't know my why . So I became obsessed with that . I got to find my why . I got to find my why . I got to find it . So I called Simon and I said hey , simon , I need you to help me discover my why .

So he and I spent about eight months together going back through my life , looking for clues , trying to figure it out . And when I finally figured out my why , which is to find a better way and share it , that's when my life started to make sense to me . I have a lot of patents and products and inventions that are better ways of doing things .

So in my practice , brad , we stopped talking about what we do crowns , bridges , fillings , all that fun stuff everybody loves . We started talking about why we do what we do what we believe right . We believe that life is better when you have great teeth . In fact , you can't have a good life with bad teeth . Life is better when you have great teeth .

In fact , you can't have a good life with bad teeth . And everything's revolved around great teeth , better life . And that's when my practice took off . That's when we stood out from everybody else and that's when the right people started coming to us , those that believed what we believe .

And as my practice took off , that's when I started getting calls from other dentists saying , hey , can you help me do what you did ? So I went back and figured out what Simon was trying to do and I made it better .

So , instead of taking six or eight or 10 months to help someone discover their why , I could sit down with you , brad , and , in about an hour , help you figure out your why and then build your messaging , marketing and branding right there in the spot .

And so I started doing this for anybody that would let me , and I did it for thousands of people for free . I found a better way and I wanted to share it , so I helped anyone who would let me . So if you're in my chair , brad , getting your teeth numb , you're going to get your why discovered .

You're sitting next to me on an airplane , you're going to get your why discovered . And I started to notice patterns and trends and similarities , right , and that's when I figured out that there's only nine different whys and that one of them is your why , one of them is your how and one of them is your what .

And that led to developing the software and the YOS discovery . And I know I'm probably jumping way ahead , but the question you asked me was how do you go from dentistry to developing software , building the Y Institute ? How does that happen ?

Right , because there's probably people listening right now that are at that same stage of like , hey , is this really what I should be doing with my life ? Like , like , is this the right path ? And so here's what happened to me . I felt , brad , like I had solved one of life's mysteries . Forever people have been saying what's my why ? What's my why ?

I can't figure out my why . They've been told by guru after guru , right Simon Sinek , tony Robbins , michael Hyatt . You go on and on and on . Hey , you got to know your why . You got to know your why , but no way to actually do it . And I figured out how to do it . Every time it was accurate .

I had done more why discoveries , brad , than anybody in the world and I was only about 70% accurate . 30% of the time I got it wrong . So if everything in your life , your messaging , marketing , branding , your passion , your purpose , your direction is all based on your why , pretty important to get it right . And so my software .

The first thing I built was the Y discovery . We got it right every time . And then , when we added the how and the what , the YOS discovery same thing . It's super accurate . But what actually happened ? One day it was about four and a half years ago I went to this event in Santa Fe called Zazobra . It's kind of like a Burning man thing

, but it's like a one night burn , this big puppet thing , and it's supposed to . You know , it's kind of a big event and I was there for a buddy's 45th birthday party , so we definitely ate and drank a little bit too much , woke up the next day with a headache , so I was like man , took a couple Advil , went back to bed no big deal , I didn't think .

But one of the Advil didn't dissolve and it lodged in my GI tract and it burnt a hole right where I had an artery and I started bleeding internally and I didn't know it , and so I just wasn't feeling good and I drove all the way back from Santa Fe to Albuquerque , which is where I live , and I even went to the gym to try to work it off , and I just

kept feeling worse and worse and when I got home I just started throwing up blood and blood started coming out everywhere a lot of it a busy weekend , so I had to wait 11 hours in the ER just throwing up blood , and by the time they finally admitted me , my blood pressure was 60 over 30 and I'd lost half of my blood , and so I wasn't in a private room

because it was so busy that weekend . So I get up to use the restroom , and as soon as I locked the door behind me , everything went black . I just passed out and I hit my head on the sink and I ended up passed out in the bathroom .

And luckily I woke up , because if I hadn't woke up I don't think anybody would have found me or checked on me and I pushed the door open and then I passed out again . And then the next thing I know , I wake up in this bed and they've cut all my clothes off . There's people running around . I got the two pads on .

They had to revive me off to surgery to try to get to that bleed , and they couldn't get to it when it was located . They couldn't cauterize it , so they just waited . They decided to do a CAT scan to see if I had stopped bleeding .

So when they pumped all that dye into my arm , something went wrong and they blew out my arm and it started filling up with blood clots . And so then they do an ultrasound to figure out where the blood clots are . And it started filling up with blood clots .

And so then they do an ultrasound to figure out where the blood clots are , and they're growing towards my lungs . And the doctor walks in and says you know , Gary , we got a problem here . He said those blood clots , if they get into your lungs you're going to die .

But if we try to stop the blood clots we can't get to the bleed , so you're going to die . And I said well , what are we going to do ? He said I don't know . And right then my phone rang and it was a buddy of mine who was a cardiologist at the hospital . He said hey , gary , I didn't know , even though you were in here .

I see what's going on and I don't like what they're going to do , so I'm going to take over . So I was in the ICU for nine days . A lot of crazy stuff . Have you ever been in the ICU as a patient ? A lot of crazy stuff happens to you in there .

And when I got out , what finally happened was I had to go to bed one evening with an IV of heparin blood thinner to stop the blood clots and hope I didn't bleed . And since I didn't bleed , they were able to treat me with blood thinners and I could finally get through it and get out .

And when I finally got back to my practice a couple of weeks later , one of my patients in his mid 80s took me aside and he said hey , gary , you know you got a second chance on life here . He said when you get to be my age and you look back on your time here on Earth , are you going to be glad that you stayed a dentist ?

Are you going to wish you'd taken this why thing to the world ? I said I'm going to wish that I'd taken this why thing to the world . And he said well then , you know what you need to do . And that's when I just walked away .

I mean , my practice was doing great , I was only working three days a week , 40 weekends every week , making a ton of money , and I walked away because it's not what I should have been doing with my life . So what I'm doing now is so in alignment with my why and my how and my what , that I have unlimited passion for it .

So , brad , the question you know when you discover who you are , does that necessarily make your life easier ?

I don't want people to have to almost die or get fired or do something to go chase their thing , and that's why I wanted you on here today .

Now I want to go back and have a little bit of fun just for a second , get out of the deep , dark moments of Gary , almost dying to the fun time when I took YOS and I had you come to Nashville and chat to hundreds of my customers and you laid me bare up on the screen .

You're like , okay , let me tell you Brad's why , his how , let me tell you his what . And it was just like everyone was laughing and having fun with it . But let's go back first to the why , how and what , and let's explain those three phases first .

And they'll pick up their phone and they'll show me pictures of their kids . Oh , my kids are my why . Or my new business is my why . My new book , that's my why . Now , what they're talking about is very important , but that's a short-term motivation for doing things the way they're doing it .

When their kids grow up or their business moves on , they lose their why . What we're talking about is something even more profound why you do what you do everywhere you go . And for those of you listening , brad has my same why . So that's why , when we look at each other , we're probably thinking the same thing .

His why is also to find a better way and share it . Like before the podcast , you were telling me a whole bunch of new , better ways that you've come up with on how to do what you're doing , and so he's always in search of a better way . He's rarely satisfied .

He's always looking to improve things , always wanting to push things forward , always looking for something that's better . Does that feel right ?

Let's just make it so that you can actually do it Right . It doesn't , it doesn't help anyone to come up with a better way if they can't do it Right . So you simplify things to just you know a couple of steps , and then what you bring is your deliverable .

So what people can count on from Brad is a way to contribute , add value , have an impact on the lives of others .

So Brad will use his time , his money , his energy , his connections , his resources to push other people forward , because he wants to be that pebble that causes the ripple effect that goes on and on and on in their lives , because if they do better , brad's done better . Does that feel right ?

But the whole modeling thing my first ever model I taught in business is the five ways to multiply your profits , and every single recipe that I look at has been modeled . And that comes back to my knowledge . But also when Buckminster Fuller said you either create a model or an artifact . And that comes to the third thing .

Then how do I have everyone else help me do this sort of thing ? So my coaches around the world I want them to be better . My business owner clients I want them to be better so they can make their staff better . It's like give them the tools so they be better , and it just makes life easier .

But when we do that and when we talk about that , it goes into and it brings me to the nine different areas and that matrix of the nine really is kind of cool , because I love sharing the matrix with people and say , okay , guess what is yours type thing , before they even do the the whole thing .

But let let's get into the the how aspect of it , because I think finding your why actually let me ask you a question about finding your why um , I've all I've .

A friend of mine came to me one time and we were talking about purpose , which is like another word for your why sort of thing , and he said to me Brad , you know what , luckily in life , I was given my purpose . You know he had a son born with uh on the high on the spectrum , nonverbal . And he said you know , I got given mine .

Some people have to find theirs , some people have to create theirs , some people have to , you know , decide theirs , but I was given mine sort of thing . Is it something that changes over time ? Is it something that , like , if I did your test this year , am I going to find it different in 10 years time ? Do you think ?

And they're like you wouldn't believe what a pain that kid was and so what ? But what you said was really important . So there's your why and there's your purpose . But what you said was really important , so there's your why and there's your purpose . So you have one why , but you have many different purposes .

You have a purpose as a parent , a purpose as a spouse , a purpose with your coaches , with your new AI product , everything that you're doing .

You're always in search of a better way , but you have a lot of different areas and purposes that you apply it Right , and so that's how I look at it , as you have one why , but multiple places that you apply it , which is your purpose in that area .

But when you add your how , how , you bring your why to life . Now you get to see yourself in two dimensions and things become clearer . But even clearer is when you know your why , how and what and you get to see all three .

You see yourself in three dimensions and something I don't know if I've shared this with you or not the YOS discovery , which is the tool that we developed to find your why , how and what , actually goes all nine levels deep . So you'll see your top three are your why , how and what . Those are the things that bring you energy .

You'd love to do that all day long and you'd do it for free if you could . The middle three of the nine are kind of energy neutral Still important to you , but not as important . But the bottom three are the things that zap your energy , that take energy from you . In fact , number nine . A lot of coaches call it divine nine .

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link . Well , that number nine is like your weakest link and if you spend a little bit of time on that number nine , it brings everything else up . It's the easiest way to see improvement in everything is focusing a little bit of time on that last one . So there's a lot of depth .

We could go into this , but knowing your why is step one . Adding your how and your what brings more . You know more depth to it . And your YOS we call that your Y operating system . That's where your messaging comes from . That's why somebody would choose you .

If you're looking for a better way , if you want it brought to you in a simple way where you can actually do it so that you can have a bigger impact , well , brad Sugars is the one for you , right ? That's why someone would choose you .

And that then becomes the messaging for your website If the better able you are to articulate what you believe , the more you will attract those people that believe what you believe . So you could .

Here's a little tip or a little trick for everybody listening If you know your simple YOS , you can copy it , paste it into chat GPT , copy your current messaging , paste it in there and say create my homepage messaging based on my why , how and what . That is authentic to me and will resonate with my ideal client . It's fascinating what it will bring for you .

It'll just create it right there for you so that it feels right . It's not a message that some marketing team came up with . It's what's authentic to you and that's when you're comfortable saying it and talking about it and living it and being it Because it's real .

They choose it because they want to give back , they choose it because they want to see others succeed and and all of those sorts of things . I want to touch on something , though , that you mentioned there of improving number nine . Now I've I've often been taught and this is where I want to see the dichotomy of this one .

I've been taught things like you know , if it's your weakness , just put it aside , focus on your strengths , like the Marcus Buckingham books and all that sort of stuff . But you're saying we should actually take a look at that number nine and improve upon that . Tell me , help me understand that .

But when we had our YCON event , which is where all of our coaches get together , one of the coaches presented on the Divine Nine and I thought , man , I'd never even thought of that . And when she said what she did in her own life was focus more on number nine , that's when her number nine was actually trust , creating relationships based upon trust .

She didn't care if people trusted her , she wasn't focused on trust . I'll figure out their problem , but I don't care if they trust me . And it was causing a lot of problems in her own relationships , and it was her husband who actually pointed it out .

He said you know what , if you focused just a little bit on making sure that I trust you , imagine what that would do for everything else in our relationships . I know you don't , it's not important to you , but it is important to the people around you .

And so then we started to look at that and say , ok , let's take a look at what your number nine is , and I could probably bring yours up and we could figure out what your nine is .

Let's go and we'll figure it out as we go . We'll find a better way , we'll pivot if we need to , yeah .

But yeah you , yeah you , I could see how , if I spent more time and energy , that makes a lot of sense . If I spend a little bit of time and energy on that . I go back to a golfing analogy .

Like you know , uh , tiger woods best driver on the on the golf course , if he spends , you know , 10 hours working on his driving it , it's going to get one 2% better . But if he spends 10 hours fixing his chipping game , then he'll save one or two strokes every round because that's where he loses the most . Yeah , got it .

Right , we all got a lot of weaknesses . We all got a lot of strengths , but if you know what that one is , that's a little bit different . And really , what would ? If you spent a little bit more time making things clearer for other people , how much more effective could they be in helping you be more effective ? That's really what it boils down to .

Well , hey there , and thanks for listening .

If you support us , we're going to support your success and help you achieve big success together . I want to finish out with talking about marketing and because you know your original journey was finding your why from a marketing perspective . I don't think a lot of people are very clear on the fact of just how important who you are and why you do .

What you do translates into your marketing . Could you give us a perspective on that , because I think it's vital that people understand that part .

So the sentence is I'm looking for someone who's looking for , so I'm looking for someone who's looking for , and we're going to put Brad's why , how and what there and that's going to tell us who his ideal client is . So I'll do it for you .

I'm looking for someone who's looking for a better way , and then I'm looking for someone who's looking for a simple solution , and I'm looking for someone who's looking to have a bigger impact , to make a bigger contribution , and that would be Brad's ideal client .

And if he could , those people are going to love working with him , love the systems you've created , love the whole Action Coach platform , because it's a better , simple way to have a bigger impact . Right , and so then , if we take your why , how and what and use that as the basis for your messaging , it will attract those people that believe what you believe .

So in your case , it would be . I believe that success happens when we find a better way and we're able to share it . Now , how I do that is by making things simple and easy to use , and ultimately , what I bring is a way to contribute , add value and have an impact on the lives of others .

And that's the basis of your messaging , and we can take that and then add all the other components of what you're doing to it to create the right message that will attract those people to you . And there's such a big difference between having any client and the right client , right , and so that's how you do it .

Most people don't know who here's a , here's a line that we talk about a lot . Most people don't know what they want because they don't know who they are . If you can help them figure out who they are , it becomes infinitely easier to help them figure out what they want , and so let's just use that towards marketing .

You know , most people don't know how to talk about themselves . They don't have the words to say it , so they don't know . So kind of thinking sort of I might maybe know my why Not very valuable . You know it when you can say it . If you can't say it , you don't know it , then you can't use it .

And that was the challenge I ran into with working with Simon . We kind of sort of got to what we thought was maybe my , why Not very valuable , not very valuable , right , but when I knew it , damn , that's it . That's when it becomes useful .

So the two most common words I hear every day when people go through and discover their yos is spot on , spot on , spot on .

I hear it every day , and so then when you have those words , then you can use it , then it becomes powerful , then it becomes the basis for everything you're doing your messaging , your marketing , your branding , your ideal client , your passion , your purpose , your direction . All of that becomes very easy to do when you know it .

Until you know it , it's just you rely on hope , and I sure hope I say the right thing , I sure hope I can tell people who I am . I show up , I say enough things that something resonates , versus knowing spot on exactly who you are , how to tell the world and how to attract the right people to you . That's the secret right there .

But when you're clear on who you are and you think about it often , you can get on the right path . Know who you are , know what you should be doing , and then you live it . That's when you'll find your success Big success podcast .