"I Don't Have Time" Is A Lie: How A Doctor Built A Personal Brand In Med School | Dr. Sasha Haddad

0:00The worst case scenario is death. I've seen death, but I didn't see you die posting it. You just have to do the hardest part is press the button that says post. That's the hardest part of your entire day. Dr. Sasha Hadad, I guarantee was on your for you page during the co era. She has now grown to millions of followers and

0:18she was one of the first doctors online. She took her expertise in her industry and developed a personal brand that now has given her many different opportunities. Why do you believe so many working professionals and industry experts are so reluctant to build personal brands online? If you do not evolve and learn [music] and push yourself to grow, then you're always going to be way behind. Social media is now the way to go and you're behind. If anything, you as someone who has the ability to look beyond the horizon should understand [music] that

0:49this is an asset to my application. How are you generating these ideas for your content today? So the more that you're living your life, the more ideas you have because it comes from you, right? The most creative I've [music] been shockingly is I really don't want you to miss any of our future episodes. I'm going to ask of you to subscribe and make sure you turn the notification bell on. This will only help us do more podcasts like this, bring on even better guests so that you can learn more from it. I love all of

1:16you guys and let's get back into it. What I admire about you so much is this idea that you're pursuing this full-time professional. You know, it's hilarious. If my parents knew of you while I was growing up, it would not have been good for me. It would have been like, "Hey, you know what Sasha's doing over there in terms of being a doctor, you should be pursuing that career while being a

1:34creator." We had the same upbringing. And I promise you, if I told my parents this, which I'll tell you the story when I first made my first video. It was completely I was shunned. I was shunned. It Thank God I was already in medical school. But even before I was trying to choose a career, it's like very similar in terms of like your same thing. I came up to my dad one time. I was like maybe first year I was freshman college and I told my dad this was before I even started. Um I had an incredible opportunity

2:04for a Pantene commercial abroad. Okay. It was I had someone created content. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is like young me. This is in college. I have multiple caps in life. I tried many things. But anyway, so I get this call um I get this call for someone in Lebanon and she's like in marketing and ads and and she

2:21told me there's this Pantene commercial. We fly out to Paris and I go up to my dad. I'm like dad I think it's a great idea. He's like habibi it's a great idea until you know what you want to do. I'm like what do you mean? What do you want to do? He's like what is your two-year plan? Five. I'm like I need to think about that now. And he's like once you tell me what you want to do I support you but figure it out. I was like okay can I do the pent? like, "No, you're

2:43[laughter] not doing the 15 commercial." So, yeah. So, the options truthfully were were very like, you know, I I'm not going to say uh we had the flexibility to be whatever wanted to be. Yes, we had the support, but truthfully, if I told my dad I'm going to be a content creator, it's just going to be the Pantene commercial. I would have been assassinated yesterday. [laughter] So, we would have had Were you creating content without your

3:06parents knowing then in the beginning? Um, actually, yes, in the be. So my dad and my dad was very antisocial media until this day. Actually until this day. This day. [laughter] Until now it changed. I'll tell you when it changed. Okay. Um when I first started making social media when I was in medical school and I came up and I was like first of all my mom I was doing the twirling dresses that went viral. Like what I dress up as a doctor. Those videos did really well this pandemic time. It was fun to dress up. And my mom came upstairs and you know the the floor

3:36was all wooden. And she looked at me. She's like Sasha you're ruining the floor. stop twirling in the dress in front of the camera. Don't you have to study? And I was like, Jesus, it's my break. I'm trying to, you know, take a break here. But anyway, uh my dad told me, "No Facebook in case one day I want

3:51to become a president. God forbid." [laughter] I'm like, "I don't want to be the president." He's like, "God forbid one day you want to be a politician. You want to do something big in your life. Is anything that you post on Facebook is going to haunt you?" Which is true. Very valid. And he told me this. He was like, "Anything you post, if you're okay with driving tomorrow and it's posted on a billboard on the freeway, if you feel comfortable with the idea, that's when you know, post it." He's like, "If you feel comfortable with it, you feel like it's appropriate that you're not going to look back and regret it and it's not

4:20going to haunt you. If you're okay looking at in New York Times Square and it's there in the morning, post it." Versus, "Please don't have any Facebook profile," which was an option, too. And then I remember I had my first paycheck. It was like a baby paycheck at the time, but it was so exciting, right? Remember like the first time you did a brand? I will never forget. The first I was like free scrubs, but then after that you get your first deal. And I was telling my dad, "Dad, like what am I going to do

4:45for taxes? Like I'm in medical school." He's like, "What taxes? What did you make like $100? You don't need to do your taxes. I'm [laughter] he thinks like he doesn't even know. I didn't even know what social media was." And I remember like I gave him my first and he was like, "Let me see like this $100 that you're not even going to

5:00report. Like it's not even like money. and he didn't make anything. And he looked at the paycheck and he was like, "Yeah, when do you need help filming?" [laughter] At that moment, I think I gained my dad's respect as a real career. Truthfully, it was that moment. My mom was like, "Take the floor with you. Do whatever you want. It's fine. I'll help

5:17you. Don't worry." I was like, "Okay." I actually had a very similar experience. So, my parents did not know that I was creating content. And the idea that I would be distracted with my engineering degree while also going ahead and making content was not really an option. So, I just started creating their approval and I was creating content and it was only my dad's friends when it was performing well and sending it to my dad. He's like, "What the heck are you

5:40doing?" And I hadn't sold anything at that period of time. I actually wasn't even doing brand deals much at all in the beginning phase. But I had launched a product and it was my first product called the guide to academic success. And we grew up very poor and I mean unbelievably poor. And so while my family was in debt our entire lives, I launched this first product. It was just a PDF. And before we actually launched it, it was June 1st, and I was going live with it about 11:00

6:04a.m. Eastern. He sat me down at a local cafe shop at about 9:00 a.m. Eastern, and he said, "Son, I don't think anyone's going to buy this thing, but I love you regardless." And he was trying to be incredibly supportive, but he just didn't understand. And then my brother was more aware and more

6:20cognizant of the work that I was doing. And effectively, he saw that my website crashed because of the traffic that was there. That was the first sign to my dad of like, wait, there are actually other people out there that care about my son. And so then ultimately we we did it and the bank account that I showed him after the first week, it read $30,000. And that was the thing that again, it was just mind-blowing. And so from that moment forward, my dad was the exact same way as you. It was like, can I do anything for you? Is [laughter] is there something I can support you

6:46with? And I'm curious for you when you're actually in the midst of it, cuz I experienced this. Creating content takes work. as in especially when you're not feeling inspired to do so. But what's beautiful about the work that you've done is you were pursuing the hardest major that you possibly could in med school and you

7:03were still posting content regularly. Take me through that experience. Did you think of it from a system standpoint or how the heck did you make it through? You said something very important that content create content creation is hard and and I had moments and I and I'll tell you this. I had moments where it was mentally easier and safer for me to to work a 12-hour shift and do medicine and feel exhausted mentally from that

7:28than to sit there and force creativity. I think a lot of people don't know that when you come home and let's say you're either burnt out or you're tired or like you're struggling with your mental health or if you have a lot on your plate. Although it's a 7-second video, sometimes all you need to do is just turn on the camera, put on a light, and just maybe say nothing, just record it for 7 seconds. It's the weight of the idea that you have to force yourself to

7:54show up when you don't feel like it. To me, the the mental chore, that's work. That's work. And sometimes you would rather not do that 7 seconds because it's it's weight. It's weight, right? The most creative I've been, shockingly, is when I was in medical school. Is when the pressures were high. Now that I have more freedom of time, I feel like it worked against me. Let me tell you all, when I was in medical

8:23school, I feel like you need an escape. And you don't have much time in a day. You really don't. The the the minimum the the lowest amount of hours you have, they're already triaged for you. In what sense? You have time to call your parents. You have time to eat. you have time to go to the gym, it's already sort of like established for you what you're going to do in those short amount of hours that you barely have yourself. And if there's an event or someone's birthday, it's already canceled out, right? And so during that time, you already know that, okay, I have 5 seconds, you already thought of

8:52something on the drive and something inspires you and you don't have time to think about it. You're like, you're just going to make it and you're just going to make one thing and that's it. You don't have the the plethora of time and options because that's where it gets confusing. Also, I feel like under pressure when you're at work, and I think for me that's where I was inspired. You see so many people and you see so many cases and that's how you you you get inspired. You do something, you

9:15do a mistake and that becomes contact. It's like a self experiment. So, the more that you're living your life, the more ideas you have because it comes from you, right? I drop something and then everything, you know, if you drop your pen and everything falls from your scrubs, like, oh my god, everybody can relate. So, I'm making a video about that. I make a mistake. I accidentally open a drawer and it's a crash cart and I get scolded by a nurse because I'm a student. I had no idea that I wasn't supposed to do that. And apparently cost thousands of dollars to restock a crash cart because you pulled a surgical. It's

9:48and that's another video. And that's how my skit sort of like rolled. It was natural. Um and it was an escape and it was fun. The moment where it started becoming difficult and more of work is when I got more free time. And the more that I had to transition from the humor, from the fun, from the education, the minute that I decided that I wanted to sort of change my my look, my feel, my platform, and start to be more doctory, more influential in the sense of I want to actually educate people. I want to have more of a mature um look. I wanted to change the aesthetic. I wanted to be

10:28more lifestyle. So the minute I tried to sort of like force a transition and I wanted my audience to grow with me, it was hard and it was also dismotivating. It's hard and maybe you as a creator can know when your audience loves like one type of content and it goes viral and you decide to challenge it because you want to make content that you also like for you and doesn't do well. It's very difficult because what are you going to do next? You're probably going to make the same video that caught the interest of the audience cuz that's what they want. But you're like, man, I really

10:58want to try something new here. So when you get a lot of time and you're not as busy, that time you think you're going to feel more creative, but at least for me, I found that creativity is you can't force it. I'll be driving the minute it hits me. If I don't write it down, like it's going to escape me. If I sit, I'm going to say, you know what, I'm going to content strategize. I'm going to sit here with a pen and a paper and I'm going to write all these ideas down. I feel like it's a mental challenge and it's work. It's work to force it. But I

11:29felt like when I'm doing me and I'm living my normal life, my normal job, my friends, I'm having new experiences, I'm inspired and I write things down and eventually for that week I have ideas and that's more natural. It doesn't feel like work at that point. So yeah, I love that you're speaking to this. It's Parkinson's law into fruition. It's this idea that work expands to fill the

11:48time allotted for it. I was actually quite similar now that you're talking about in this regard. It makes me think of my biomedical engineering background and I had super impressive by the way. I just want every time you say it I'm like wow likewise you're a doctor [laughter] and there's a whole thing about between engineers and and doctors and I tell people every single day I can never do what you do that's very the math the physics every single course you took for me it's like space it's different it's a different world and it's challenging hilarious that you're saying in that regard cuz I have so much respect for

12:21doctors in the med school route as in you guys have to progress your years beyond just the undergrad or the mastershm And then you have to go and do clinicals and the ability for you to actually work with patients. I I believe what you do is significantly harder than what I think. [laughter] Well, I appreciate you saying that.

12:35Well, I appreciate you. I'm telling you. No, for anyway, continue. I don't mean to interrupt you. No, it's exactly what I think about cuz when I'm in biomedical engineering, I might have had 10 15 minutes in between my classes, my labs to actually make use of of it to to create. But you're right that it forces you to become much more efficient. And when you have more options and more time, then it works against you because you're just

12:57overthinking all the time. How are you utilizing your inspiration today then? So with all of this freedom, and I know you're still very quite busy, but how are you generating these ideas for your content today? I'll tell you this. I think the I hit a I hit a roadblock when I graduated residency because I had to finally become, you know, a physician, attending physician in the real world, right? In residency, it was different because you still have the luxury of your peers, of your attendings, of some academic involvement, and there's still activities and things that are scheduled for you. You don't necessarily have to

13:31create your own schedule. And so, there's always other people around you that are making jokes, that are being burnt out, that you're kind of bouncing ideas off. And even sometimes when you're at work, it's actually, you know, you have the support. Someone's going to hold a camera. I'm like, "Okay, I'm going to do this. Can you record me?" So, it's different. And so after I graduated, it was uh first a content creator shock because now it's like okay, now what do I do? Uh and second of all, you no longer have the support, the ideas, the experiences that are similar to what I was doing, right? So now I

14:00have to like push my growth into a different direction. And then you have to evaluate your life backward. I'm like, okay, all these years that I was doing it, I never had time to sit down and think that what type of content do I actually enjoy? What type of content do I actually want to share? What do I want to create? Because before you didn't necessarily have the luxury of time to reflect about your work, but after you graduate have I had maybe like it was the longest summer of my life which was crazy because for someone who was not in the medical field a normal summer is a

14:28normal summer but for us having more than you know your two weeks off to utilize for summer and two weeks for winter it was just odd to have three months you know 3 months for me was deathly. I was like what do I do with my life from all departments and content creation was a big one and I remember I thought that now that I have more time let me push out more content and it backfired it backfired fully on me two things uh exhaustion from a content creator perspective but also I feel like audience fatigue because now you're trying to generate ideas trial and error I'm trying to see what do you

15:01like but am I testing these videos to see what you like or am I testing these videos to see what I like and and I couldn't quite figure it out in between. I'm like, am I am I chasing the virality? So, this is what you're liking. But truthfully, I was trying to figure out what do I want to do? Do I want to do more beauty? Do I want to do more lifestyle? What type of brand deals and campaigns and events do I want to be behind? What do I want to see like what

15:26do I want to do two years down the line? Do I want to open up a practice? Do I want to open a product? What will also make me better as a person? Because I feel like at some point, like you said, it becomes a job. But for me, I had the stability of the career. I had something that I enjoyed doing. So content creation for me in the beginning as a medical student, as a resident, yes, it was great because we're abused. We had no financial stability. Being a resident is tr I hope one day it changes and that's what we're trying to advocate for. But truthfully, it was it was an

15:57incredible income, right? Especially with student debt. So fast forward now as a content creator I have I don't have the financial pressure to do content creation as as a monetization right I think I gained it as as more of a artistic perspective and view who do I want to be what type of content do I want to push for me and I feel like the right audience and the right niche will automatically evolve with me and my I realized my audience grew with me the the premed and the med student and the people that used to enjoy the funny skits the scrub feel, the sense of humor

16:31grew with me. So I I I don't necessarily feel there's like this sudden block and shift anymore. I feel it feels more natural to be myself. And this is who I am. And I called myself, you know, Once Upon a Doctor. And when I came up with the name, I actually was inspired, you know, in college by Once Upon a Time,

16:49which was the Netflix show. Yeah. And the reason why I came up with the title of Once Upon a Doctor. It's like, you know, once upon a time I was this and this and this and this. So, I'm not just a doctor. I'm a daughter. I'm a sister. I I was an artist. I used to draw. I used to model when I was in college. Um, I worked in different things outside of the medical field. So, for me, it's like once upon a time, I was many things. And that's the field I wanted to be. I wanted to be myself. And I, as Sasha, like many things, many

17:18things that still make me who I am. And I wanted to share who my life, my perspective, my journey is, and the right people will sort of enjoy it as well. If you're stuck and you don't know what to post, storytelling is the number one way to build an audience that's aligned to you. Therefore, I've designed the storytelling content challenge, and it is officially live. Immediately, you'll unlock all the foundational classes from hooks to story arcs, the psychology to understanding filming and editing in your own B-roll bank. For 21 days, I will give you a daily prompt where I'll break down exactly what to post. This is

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18:18back to the episode. One of my greatest ethos, and what I've learned creating content, and we're actually quite similar in terms of how long we've been creating content for, that evolution is imperative for any creator to have longevity. And I believe it's important that you own the fact that you are the niche and not necessarily only doing one thing because if you do then ultimately you're going to burn out from it. Either you're going to have audience fatigue or you're going to fatigue yourself. In both ways it means that you won't be successful

18:43beyond a short period of time. I agree. And so when I watch your content, what I loved about it so much is that there's so many different things happening, but it also feels like you. No, no, no. It actually is really good though because while you're doing beauty, while you're doing skincare, while you're doing fashion, while you're also still doing the doctor like content, it still feels

18:58like Sasha, like your voice is present. So, it sounds like that was intentional then. Yes, it was intentional. And for me, and you brought up something very important, feeling stuck in a niche. It's it's also very challenging because when you grow as a content creator and you have a following, you feel like you owe this. you owe you owe your audience this and you feel stuck in like these invisible shackles that you had created for yourself in a box and you feel like well I probably went viral for this type of content and if I'm making this I'm losing my virality I'm no longer the OG

19:34you know creator where my videos are hitting millions of views and and and you feel like you're disappointing the audience that really followed you and that helped you grow but you know at some point I realized if I were to stay in a box and force myself just to follow the numbers and the views and the algorithm, I will not only never grow as a creator, as a person, you're always going to be stuck in a stage of your life that doesn't serve you. And like you said, your audience is not the same

20:03audience that followed you 4 years ago. They're growing too as people. Their interests change, their hobbies change. Today, they may like chocolate. Tomorrow they may like how to build a house cuz now they're married. They're having kids. So I feel like it's natural in any career, in any job, in any field, in any department, even an art, if you do not evolve and learn and push yourself to grow, then you're always going to be way behind and the world's just going to pass by you and you're still going to be

20:31behind. I had an attending when I was in residency who opened up a practice and he used to market by knocking on like, you know, uh, nursing homes, going doortodoor. That's how he used to build a panel of patients. And then when he met me, he was like, Sasha, I need you to help me open up a Facebook account. And in that moment, you know, I was surprised not not from asking me to help with the page, but you know what I was surprised about is that in 2026, you are so behind in marketing that opening up a Facebook page is something that we would have done when we were like grade 8, you

21:07know, like that's when we started opening Facebook account. So that was my aha moment. I'm like, just like you learn how to use the floppy disc, the ESV, then you're you're just airdropping files, we've grown so much as a society. And I feel like it's the same thing with marketing and with audience strategy. It's no longer knocking doortodoor. The new way to evolve is being open to the idea of, you know what, it doesn't feel comfortable. It feels scary. It's not me, but I'm never going to know if I don't take a risk, and it's not going to feel nice. It's not going to feel comfortable. But either you stay behind

21:42the line or you have to keep up with it. And more experts in medical spaces, in engineering spaces, in law, all these what we would ultimately call the pinnacle of our society are also opening themselves up to the opportunity of social media. And I've been working with a lot of doctors, lawyers, and people that may have never thought social media was for them realize that it is the way

22:04to build your personal brand. Taboo. Yeah. It was taboo for so long. And even when I look at someone like a Dr. Mike for example, he's very popular today. But if you actually look at doctors and I'm still connected with a lot of them, it's still taboo. It's still in the back end of it very traditional. A lot of the older folks, they're not necessarily so receptive around content. And I felt that when I was in engineering where I was creating content and my professors, there was a story where I've shared it in one other podcast, but basically it was this this hybrid role where we were

22:34doing a Zoom call and someone had in the group chat put in a link to my video the night before. Okay. And they were not friendly to put it short, right? And they were actually quite judgmental because it's so different from their line of work and everyone's like, "Oh, you're trying too hard." Or these passive aggressive statements. And for me that was actually really difficult cuz it's already lonely to be a creator but to have that type of judgment especially by the people that you looked up to or the people that you thought were going to be on the same path as you. And I'm curious for you did

23:03you experience something similar while you were in school? Yes. And I was going to tell you you and I started around the time where social media what it is today it's not what it was before and we were truthfully we were the risktakers. We decided to take a leap of faith in a field in a field that was not an artistic you know flexible field to sort of experiment in something that even at the time having social media was still taboo right like someone who's spending time on Facebook and Instagram is associated with being lazy and all these things your parents are like oh get off of Facebook it's

23:34just frowned upon it's not something that was like oh good job so the idea of pursuing a platform that people associated with you know wasting your time on and especially in in a very challenging tough field. Um it was very taboo from all directions and when I started I still remember in medical school and even in residency when I first started and I'll tell you this the presentation they showed was about you know some thankfully it wasn't me but I knew was sort of like target in a sense of you know these videos and like people who were in scrubs that shared content and it was basically intro to you know

24:16residency like you should not be on Facebook and all these things where you're on the job within reason because a lot of the creators especially in our field there are some things that maybe to us feels common sense but to others may not right for example as a physician not once did I share my badge my information my patient is my patient safety comes first if I ever were to ever create content it's within walls that do not say where I am things are always protected I never involved anyone else even in terms of peers I always ask for consent it was nothing that was done

24:50that I would look back and say was inappropriate. Why? Because my my entire system was based on you know work ethic and also you have to protect your patients. That's the most important thing. But of course there are some people who are still experimenting and whether it was intentionally or not intentionally made us look in a in a very you know not welcoming look. And I remember they're like yeah don't do that. And I was like, first of all, first of all, as a creator, one, it was offensive. And two, it was very interesting because I remember I I sort of looked at my friend at the time next

25:21to me. I was like, don't worry, I wouldn't include the the hospital information, the logo, because I told them I was like, that's that's not what they can afford for my marketing. And and I literally told they're like, they can't afford my marketing. I'm not going to even share free marketing and say where I work. That's like that's that's marketing. So for me I it was a very content creator perspective. I wasn't offended because for me it's like you think that this is taboo but you and I both know that this is the future. This is the future of of communication of impact of influence. And fast forward

25:55now the same people that gave that presentation tried to reach me and get my contact information to do you know community events. And for me, exactly for me in that moment, I was like, I knew it one day when you realized it and I I really wanted them to know that even as a hospital system, for you to target your patient population, for you to expand needs, for you to advocate for your patients, to get the things that you need, social media is now the way to go and you're behind. The billboards aren't doing it anymore. Advertising on

26:26Facebook is not doing it anymore. Television ads is not doing it anymore. Unless your target population is a very specific population which again you need to know your audience. Um fast forward to now when looking back looking back I've been through a lot in medical school because I started in a very sensitive period. This was pandemic time. Pandemic time everybody lost their rotations lost any potential opportunity. You were trying to apply to residency which is your training which is what you need to to work. And so in medical school, I was

26:59also doing my application for residency. So imagine doing four years of medical school, you're going through student debt. And imagine the worst case scenario is, God forbid, you don't match. If I don't go into residency, now I'm in $400,000 of student loans and I can't even work as a doctor to pay it off. And it's a very uh abusive system.

27:17So you have to continue the next step. You cannot quit. It's very hard to quit in med medicine. When I was starting and my videos were going viral, not once did I mention to any person that I was a content creator. It was not something that was like, "Hi, this is what I do on the side." Actually, it's one of my hobbies. At the time, it was a hobby. It was nothing. Even my close family and friends, one time, I would hear my voice on video. I'm like, "Please, I don't want to hear myself. Please, please." I was not comfortable. Getting to talk on

27:47a microphone on video was so odd to me. I couldn't hear myself speak, but I remember I would be in a hospital and someone in the cafeteria, I would know my audio. I know my trending audio. I know they're watching me. It was so awkward. And then the reason why I never spoke about it, it's not because I was not proud of what I was doing. I knew that I was doing is is fun. I think it was helpful. I was providing educational information in a very [clears throat]

28:13entertaining way. And that was the key. And I don't think people understood it is for me when I made a skit, when I made something that was comical or something that was entertaining, there was always a message, but the message delivery was the entertainment of how it was delivered. Um, and then a lot of the attendings and people in the hospital, the reason why I never told people about it is because I had my work ethic and I wanted to move forward and get myself matched into a program that reflects who I am. And I didn't want to have the first bias of the taboness of saying, "Oh, she's a social

28:47media creator." They don't I wasn't taken seriously. It was frowned upon. It was so bad to be a content creator. So, I never mentioned it. And the people that found out about it was only after the fact that they worked with me. And so, they know who Sasha is. They know my bad side manners. They know my work ethic. Nothing can teach you those things. showing up an hour earlier than your shift, staying extra hours, being there for people, doing things that are not within your job qualifications because you're a good person, you're a hard worker. Um, things that any book cannot teach you. I feel like I wanted

29:21that to speak for itself. And only after you know who I really am, do I care about you bringing in the second part of the piece which I want you to know about. But I don't want you to have this taboo bias of me without even getting to know me because clearly it was frowned upon. Thankfully I will say residency when I match. Thank God I love my program because my program director, my attendings, my team were so loving and so supportive of who I am that they were proud of me. They really were and they helped me um navigate my schedule even when I got a deal for a letter of it was

29:58in Paris during my so so and I cannot say the same for any program. I know a lot of students that stopped making contact. I know a lot of students that were terrified that were scared that lost opportunities that potentially could not match or not even you know potentially get irritation because of having a social media platform. I locked out in my residency and I think even until today I think it's very taboo and I feel like it still needs to be taught about okay what is creativity and what's expression within also being professional at work too and protecting

30:29patient care. Yeah. By the way, you have done it in one of the most tasteful ways when you're doing this skit and I know this because I am in healthcare and I knew for example that you couldn't talk about your patients. You couldn't talk about even your work at all. couldn't show certain especially as the work that you're doing is on a different level of regulation. I had my own as a biomedical engineer and

30:49I knew that that was much more extreme. The skit was such a smart way of doing it. By the way, the idea of making it more entertaining but still showcasing your expertise in a way that's digestible. It's unbelievably intelligent and I always thought that you were one of the best at that experience. It's cool now that people are starting to understand it. And it's also interesting that you and I actually have very similar backgrounds. So when I was and I don't think I've ever shared this story aloud but because you did I'll tell you a

31:15little bit of how I've got Yeah. Literally. [gasps] But when I was starting content creation, so I went to Drexal University. Wow. And they had a co-op program. So basically every six months you would do an internship and I was very grateful that I got a chance to do some cool ones. But basically you would have rounds of interviews with the specific options that you could match with. I was going through interviews and there was a startup that I interviewed with and they actually told me that I'd have to take my social media down if I wanted the

31:43job. Yep. I believe it. And that was tough. I can see it. Yeah. Cuz for the very first time, I heard somebody in my space say, "It's not okay and we're not going to even tolerate it." And they were literally they sat me down at the end of the call and they were like, "If you want this position, you have to delete your social media or you have to be okay never posting on it again." And they actually told me they had to change the handle so it's not my name so they couldn't find me. Did you have any experiences like that where it was like

32:07literally people telling you that you have to give it up? Yes. Yes. Yes. That's horrible. And you know what I did and I told myself this. I was like I will not two things. I will not where I go for my for my training especially for my residency. I knew my my education spoke for itself. My my hard work, my grades, my letters of recommendation, my portfolio spoke for itself. M so for me I had the confidence knowing that I know what I bring to the

32:39table. I know my value. I know what I offer. And so for me when I was applying I was like it's fine if you choose if you choose not to accept me for what I create on the side which to me I was very proud of what I was posting. I had a lot of family dynamic. I had friends. It was it was my it was my content creation. If I wasn't proud of what I'm posting and if I thought it was inappropriate by any means, I wouldn't be posting it cuz again, would I be okay with it on a billboard? I was very proud. I think it'll be great to see it

33:11on a billboard. [laughter] So, I was like, "Yes, I'm posting this and I'm posting it tomorrow again at 10:00 a.m." But for me, I knew who I am and I was very confident and I was very fulfilled and I was like, "Listen, if my work and my personality and as Sasha, if you do not find that I'm qualified to be where you want me to be at your program, it's it's a reason. Every job interview, every it's a two-way street. It's a tango. It's a dance. A dance cannot happen without two people. If you do not think that I am fit, I do not think

33:46you're fit for me. It's a two-way street. So for me, I have this on the side and it's no longer at the side. By the time I was applying to residency, it was a big part of my life at that point. Take me as I am. And if you don't, thank you for sparing me from being in a in a program and being around people who are not open to the idea of not only accepting of who I am as a person, but also the idea to evolve with society as well. You need to evolve as a

34:13person. You cannot be so old-fashioned. You may not agree with it, but if you at least look at it and you'll realize there's nothing about it that is offensive, unless you are insecure about yourself in any way and you're projecting, I may understand. And someone asked me this. They're like, "If someone came up to you and told you, okay, delete your social media or the job. I have the job. It's my social

34:33media. It is my social media." So, so you have to convince me why I need to work for you and my social [laughter] media. You know what I mean? So, same thing when I decided to apply for work after residency, I generally didn't know how people were going to take the whole social media thing. But at that point,

34:49you know who I am. It's very obvious. This is what I do. It should not interfere with clinical because I'm not I'm not doing a clinical full-time site as a physician offering my medical services to a patient, right? But this is a job. It's full-time. It's in my contract. You don't like it, it's fine.

35:04I don't need it. I don't need your job. My social media is my full-time job. I love medicine and I do medicine because it's what I like to do. Do I need to do either or? No. I would be comfortable cuz I can depend on one. I can depend on the one. So, I can become a full-time doctor and not do social media. and I'll still feel comfortable, secure. I can do social media and also feel secure. But for me, it's like you do not get to you do not get to decide that I'm not qualified given everything I've done and everything that speaks for itself and

35:37who I am because of my social media. M if anything you you as someone who has the ability to look beyond the horizon should understand that this is an asset to my application. This is an incredible opportunity for you if you were open-minded to the idea of growth. You'd realize that this is actually such an incredible addition to my application that if anything you should utilize your

36:03opportunity to work with me. It sounds very peaceful. Sounds like you found contentment in your work and I'm very much in that case. Why do you believe so many working professionals and industry experts are so reluctant to build personal brands online? And if you could convince them, how would you do so? Couple of things. I think medicine is hard. At least I'm going to speak on my niche in terms of just being a doctor. I think being a

36:29doctor is very difficult. It's not easy. Um at this time in my life, right, I'm not married. I don't have kids, but I had friends that went through the entire medical system who are parents, who have kids, who have pets, people who generally were getting a divorce, people who broke their leg. So, life happens and life is hard and being a doctor is hard. The schedules are not easy, the burnout is high. So, on its own, it's very time consuming from all directions of your life. I have had a lot of physicians reach out to me after I graduated saying, "Hey, we need to work there." I'm like, "Ah, yeah, remember

37:06me?" Okay. Um, but no, I had a lot of physicians reach out to me saying, "Hey, I really want to start. Where do I start?" And I tell them, "You're overthinking. All it takes all it takes is a microphone that you can get from your the old wired like you don't even need the real microphones. You don't even need I even send them the Amazon one $30, even $20, doesn't matter. You don't even need a microphone. Start without a microphone. You know what you need? You don't even need light. Go to the window

37:34in the morning before you go to work. And I tell people, you're overthinking it. Just start and say one thing a day. And if you're not comfortable with even being on a microphone, just film you doing nothing. Do on a you're on a keyboard. You're putting on your stethoscope. If you're not ready to try something different, try something that's safe. Try try something then nothing. Because I feel like a lot of doctors want to and they want to create a personal brand. They don't know how to start. They overthink it cuz we're all type A and we all want to do such a perfect job. I'm like, "No, no, no, no,

38:07no, no, no, no, no. You don't have to this, this, this, this, this. You don't need a professional photographer, editor. You don't need anything. You just have to do the hardest part is press the button that says post. That's the hardest part of your entire day." But you know what I realized? I realized sometimes it's like you need a leap of faith. But I realized a lot of people took a lot of risks already that they have exhausted themselves from the adventure and the challenge that taking another leap of faith and another risk feels like they're already exhausted their battery for so long. So to them it

38:42doesn't feel like this is a new adventure, this is a new opportunity. For them it feels like this is another chance at failing. This is another chance at disappointing. This is another chore. This is another chore. It's another responsibility. And I think that's what gets a lot of physicians or people who are educated or people in tough careers to start a personal brand because they think it's a job and they think it's going to be hard. And I'm like, it's easy. It's supposed to be fun. If you approach it as something fun, guess what? When you wake up in the morning before you go to your shift,

39:15it's not hard when you just grab your coffee and you're making it to just record your coffee and walking out with your coffee. Are you excited to call your parents and say, "Hey, I'm going to work. How are you?" Instead of saying, "Hey," just record yourself saying, "Hey, I'm going to work. Have a great day." You're

39:30finishing work. You want to decompress. You had a difficult challenging case. You want someone to talk about. Great. Imagine your dad or even FaceTime your dad. And you know what? Screen record the conversation. Be like, "You know what? This is what happened today. Uh, that wasn't a lot of effort cuz you're going to do it anyway. The only difference is you needed to press a button." And it's a mental, it's just a mental click. A lot of people need to just do the click. Just do it. And guess what? Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you have one viewer. It doesn't

39:58matter if you have 10 viewers, 20,000. In the end of the day, I would much rather one person be impacted qualitywise. And that's where I am now with my with my transition. I'd rather have quality content, quality piece. When I make something, I want to feel good about it. And when I post it, I like that you loved it. And if I'm able to inspire you, impact you, help you in

40:20any way, then I feel like I'm good. Doesn't matter 20,000, 20 million, as long as I have that one person who I notice. I notice my my quality followers and my enga I I know my people. So, I would much rather have quality recognition, engagement, and and my community than than just chasing numbers that don't mean anything. All the examples that you're talking about, and I love them, they're all lived experiences. And I always tell new creators, the reason why content creation becomes hard, especially is if you're trying to be

40:54somebody that you're not. Exactly. If you're pretending to have a level of expertise that you don't physically have or you're trying to act like you have a lifestyle that you don't physically have, you're adding so much friction to the process. But if you can talk about you and your coffee and going to work, it is so much easier to produce content in

41:11that way. And that's actually a very big part to a lot of these experts that come in. They say, "Okay, June, I understand the lived experience side, but they can speak in front of 200, 300 people and talk for an hour and a half and present really great information, but they have a hard time understanding short form content. They have a hard time trying to get that information out to an audience. And basically when I work with these individuals, they'll come and give me a reel that's three and a half minutes

41:34long. And I'm like, "Ah, no. Yeah, [laughter] nobody's gonna watch this. And we got we got to go from the start. And I'm curious because you're so smart in the way that you have been able to package your expertise in those skit forms, but you've done many other formats as well. I did different formats.

41:48You're constantly doing that. How are you going to help these industry experts that are listening to this right now that have all of this knowledge? They're like, "Okay, Sasha, June, I get it. I have to talk about lived experiences but they have a really difficult time packaging to short form content. Yeah, that's a great point. I have experimented just like any other creator in the beginning. Yes, skits were a

42:06thing. Then it's like get ready with me. Then you're trying to think outside of the box. Then I try to envision point of view perspective. You're the patient. I'm the doctor. I'm always trying to find a way of changing the delivery. And you you are a king of content. You know best. There are different platforms for different type of deliveries. And I tell people, especially doctors when they're starting, I'm like, listen, if you love to talk and all you want to do is just talk and just educate. Truly educate and you feel like that's comfortable, that's easy for you, YouTube. YouTube is great for you. You can talk 5 minutes, 10

42:41minutes, 15 minutes, 13 minutes. Just get yourself a good editor so they know how to chop it and make it engaging for you because you need engagement. You need visuals. You need something. But if you really want to learn a, you just want to teach, just teach a topic. This is the crap cycle. This is how it works.

42:56Great. You can do a whiteboard marker. That's fine. Just do it on YouTube. But but I tell this all the time, especially for all the doctors, cuz we have so much information that we need to share. Each platform has is known for a different for a different thing. Reals, I agree with you. Reals, ideally for me, if I could, I would say 10 15 seconds. 30 seconds would be good if you're having like engagement. You're you're getting ready, something's happening, you have a lot of entertaining things in video, 30 seconds is solid. Anything past 30, now you're 45 seconds. Now it's like unless your story is very captivating and it's

43:31emotional and it's creating this provoking an emotion. Sure. Tik Tok for me when it started I think 7second was the the key number was 7 seconds on Tik Tok. Tik Tok tried to become YouTube and tried to become Instagram. the minute that it extended 30 seconds was good. Past one minute Tik Tok I I would never anything over one minute on Tik Tok was never made for over one minute niche. The delivery of her content if you're able to explain what you know best to a sixth grader. I feel like that's the transition which we're able to do because we deal with a lot of different patients from all

44:08different ages. You're not going to go and explain a crap cycle to a six-year-old, are you? It's the same thing. Instead of teaching the crap cycle for a 15-minute presentation, you know what you can do? You can make a 7-second video just pointing to like one enzyme missing or multiple choice one enzyme. What do you think is missing? 1 2 3 A B C D anything that sort of simplifies it. It doesn't have to be that hard. can still teach what you love, but instead of going the 15, 20 minute cycle, why not create a way where you can one include products, one include ingredients, one you can include

44:45cause effect. Easy. You're going to talk about the entire pathway from cause to effect. Why not split the middle? Say this causes this. Done. That's under seven seconds. You simplify it. I would say take the big idea and try to dumb it down to keywords. Keywords. Blood pressure, salt, overweight, lack of exercise, keywords. If you're able to get keywords in, you can be typing and you can put an overlay text. You can be looking at a friend and make a joke keyword. You can put a video of you running keyword. That's it. And I feel like it just depends on the mode of delivery. It doesn't have to take

45:25effort. It needs to take consistency and it needs to take you actually doing it. But if you love to teach and you want long format and you have all this information, you can still do it. But don't waste that 15 minutes that you did. You could have made so many from the same effort of 15 minutes. While you're doing it, while you're doing it, take those small clips and make it into seven 15-second videos. You have the you have the content. You have a 15minute

45:49segment that you just talked about it. Cut those pieces up. It takes no effort. Put a trending audio. Put a trending audio while you're holding a coffee and say this many people are being diagnosed with this. That's it. Interesting fact. Wow. I didn't know. That's crazy. The two parts that you're mentioning are motive delivery and simplification. Those are two really, really great tips for industry experts because one, you have to know which platform and what they're best for. And then you also have to realize that chunking information down and spreading across multiple posts is a much better idea than doing a 15-minute reel. I don't even know if

46:24that's possible. But ultimately, a lot of people forget that the algorithm works in this way where if someone sees one piece of your content, they're going to see the others. And these industry experts, the biggest issue around them is that they try to put everything into one piece of content thinking that if this doesn't stand alone, as in I don't have all of my knowledge in it, then it's not a good piece of content. Cuz they're from the industry background, right? where in the industry background we're trying to do these publications and papers that are so detailed and so thorough it's like no actually content's the opposite way and

46:52knowing your audience and knowing that you can explain it and I actually think it's a sign of true genius Albert Einstein said this where if you're able to take complex information explain it to something or someone much in in a much simpler way with examples analogies it shows that you really understand that process so I love the fact that you're talking about both and you're actually taking the question that I had next for you because you and I both started with Tik Tok and I believe that we had go into this idea of in we had the we had the best time when it first started. That was the best Tik Tok

47:22era for us. It was it was like the phase and I recall it even to this day. I'm curious from your perspective, how have those platforms in your in your own content creation experience evolved. I I've seen a lot of the differences today and I'm curious to hear your perspective on it and I think you probably also felt it because I think when we started for me Tik Tok was a community and it was a fun it was a fun community. I feel like the trends that were just sort of rolling were actually fun to bring people together to make. I remember the in the beginning the the audios were fire. The

47:57trends were fire. The creativity was spectacular and the key was that it was all 7 seconds by the way. And I remember when we used to get home I would say be like we're making this when we're getting home. It was like an exciting thing to do. Tik Tok was we had such an incredible maybe we had the golden era before everything changed in terms of how they evolved. I feel like Tik Tok today is not what it used to be before potentially a couple of things. I feel like

48:28it tried to be something that it wasn't. And I think that initially it was doing great for what it was and I think it wanted to grow which nothing's wrong with that because every app wants to try something new. But I feel like once it opened the door for like longer formats, I feel like well now you're just when I go home, you decide what type of content you're going to consume. I'll

48:49tell you this, I'm usually on Instagram. I'm on IG reels. My brother is a YouTube shorts person. That's his platform. He does not have a Tik Tok. My other friend does not have a Tik Tok. Another friend is like only watches Tik Tok. So your audience is also very different. I feel like the content on Tik Tok is also very similar to the content that's being posted on reals. I'm also guilty of it. The only difference is that I feel comfortable throwing quantity on Tik Tok versus Instagram to me is quality. Sometimes with Tik Tok, I feel like it's experimental, which is interesting because you really don't

49:24know anymore. You have an idea of what usually does well, but sometimes it's experimental. You have no idea what's going to do well. So for me, I utilize that as my resource. my research base, I would probably feel comfortable trying and failing and posting these random videos on Tik Tok. And if they do well, do I feel selective for my portfolio that I feel is more formal, is more elevated, is just Instagram for me. And I feel like Instagram has always been

49:49that portfolio for people. YouTube, YouTube, when I first started, I was doing long form. I really have been trying to put an effort to go back and create long form more so for educational purpose, which I think is the goal. But I think now I would say Instagram is is high yield. I think YouTube is also second up and I think Tik Tok is third up. That's at at least from my from my gathering. What about

50:16you? I've learned that in the beginning I used to just do a Tik Tok video and repost it across Instagram and YouTube shorts and they'd all perform quite similarly. Now the algorithms have definitely differentiated and you're right that Tik Tok went through this phase where it was its own standalone but as real started to blow up as YouTube shorts started to blow up you start to see all these different platforms taking each other's characteristics became a unique blend and now it's like their own separate entity they are and that means that for me when I post a Tik Tok in a real maybe 15% of the time

50:49they'll perform similarly and then the other times one will do well on Instagram one will do well on Tik Tok and I don't necessarily see that experience and I think something that's quite beautiful about that now is people shouldn't hear that and think I have to go ahead and hire a team for all the respective platforms or spend all this time studying each respective platform you I believe you should have one priority in terms of a platform you want to grow on and then ultimately you should just repost across the others because it will increase your surface area for success but keep the attention on that one

51:19platform until you've grown a community and then potentially bleed out to the rest and just to interrupt you this is what I realized too I don't know if you're a member But I had uh you know I had friends that were YouTube vloggers and that was their main platform. And I will tell you this, I think YouTube especially for long form content does so well. And I tell people in terms of all the platforms, the one that has the best community resources and opportunities and really wants you to grow for me at

51:45least in terms of the team was YouTube. YouTube did a really good job. Now in terms of fluctuating between the different platforms, I agree with you. I do not have the time and the luxury to sit there and analyze, oh, you know what, I'm gonna do this for Tik Tok and this for Instagram. Absolutely not. What I would do is I would create my content and I would post more frequently on Tik Tok. The ones that I feel like sort of are more aesthetically make sense for me in terms of what I recently posted on Instagram that was doing well relative to my last post. Because sometimes

52:16Instagram, you post a post, right? You're not always posting a video. So if it makes sense, I'm like, "Okay, I already did something that that's health nutrition wise. Let me change it up because I feel like I don't want to do two nutrition recipes back to back. It's too redundant." So that's when I sort of like pick and choose what I want to post for my schedule. But it's always been my primary platform was always Tik Tok because that's where I post all of my videos and then I see how they're doing

52:39and I'm like, "Okay, this has potential. I see what's happening there. This one I can see why it's not doing well." Instagram always shocks you though because sometimes it can blow up without expecting. But I use that and then I cross post as well and I filter through what I want to do on Instagram and

52:54YouTube. What's brilliant about you is that even in these questions and answers, I'm hearing you talk about it from the skill standpoint, but there is a psychology standpoint to everything that you do. And that's also what makes you so successful. You're always thinking about what is the perspective that I need on this endeavor in order for me to have longevity versus just all right, I'm going to do this thing. like you have this long-term approach which is quite

53:14beautiful in that regard. You're learning. [snorts] We're learning. We're both learning. We have to. We have no other option. You can't just stand still and expect the same thing that was worth working for us two years ago is going to be the same thing is going to work for us today. And if I'm going to be stubborn and say, "No, Sasha's only going to do this." Then I'm not going to get anywhere anymore. I'm

53:31just going to hit a wall. Yeah. Cuz I what I want to ask you with this final question, you're the perfect person to ask for this. Is you immediately come into this room and you're already confident. I can feel it. I can hear it. And the way that you carry yourself, the way that you carried yourself throughout this interview, I appreciate it. And a lot of people that don't want to click that post button like we talked about today are the ones not necessarily worried about more information, but they're the ones worried about the fear of visibility, the fear of judgement, and they're thinking to themselves, I don't have

53:58enough confidence. I don't have the Dr. Hadad's personality, character. I don't have her confidence. I don't have her skill level. That's like the first thought that comes into these people's minds. So, if they're listening to this and they're thinking, "All right, I want to do what they're talking about, but they don't have that confidence inside of them." What would you tell them to

54:15get them to take their first step? I'm going to be very um biased and I'm going to say this, the worst case scenario is death. The worst case scenario is death. I've seen death, but I didn't see you die posting it. Did you die? You didn't die. [laughter] So, you can post it. The reason why I feel secure, I feel confident, I feel myself, of course, is my upbringing, my family, my friends, my community, the way I was raised, the country I grew up. We've experienced true hardships, we've experienced struggles, we've seen wars, we've seen true bad case scenarios. So, for me, the worst case scenario, if you're posting

54:56it, there is no worst case scenario. The worst case scenario is truthfully the worst case scenario is god forbid you losing your health, you dying, you losing an arm, you getting bit by a shark, uh you not waking up tomorrow. So for me, if if you have the chance to wake up and you're alive and you have something that has potential for it to become anything, you don't know what's

55:16going to be. It's like a mystery box. Would you rather wake up tomorrow always thinking and looking to yourself and say, "Oh, I wonder what could have happened if I decided to post this video back when Tik Tok and Instagram was the thing in 2026." Or or are you going to say, "Man, I wish

55:35I posted it. It was just 7-second video. It was a 10-second video. If I started my page year from now, I would have been able to market my practice." It takes a lot more effort and energy to regret than to do something and be open to the idea of taking an exciting risk. And there's no risk. Because for me, risk

55:57means you're losing. There's a loss. But but in our field of social media, there is no risk. There's only a potential chance of you opening the door for yourself to create something that's amazing and spectacular and it's expressive. So, you cannot possibly lose. There is no risk. So, I would much rather open the mystery box and pursue that question mark and see what's under it than look at the already existing known, which is I'm not posting. There's nothing for me to try. We already know what's tomorrow's going to look like because you've been doing it forever and you haven't tried it. So, might as well take a chance cuz there's no true loss

56:34by taking a chance of social media. It's a mic drop. There's nothing else to be said. But seriously, I I appreciate you from a human level. I feel like you're doing it the right way. And obviously, this is just the beginning of everything that you're about. [clears throat] [laughter] Um hopefully we have you at one of our live events in the future. Even if not speaker, I'd love to even go and just support you and watch. You're

56:55incredible. Thank you again so much for your time. This was crater. Thank you for having me. Same as well from the bottom of my heart.