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309 Dr. Melvin Varghese - All Of Us Have a Message to Share and a People to Serve

Episode Summary

Dr. Melvin Varghese is a licensed psychologist who realized that he wanted more than the traditional career route. Not wanting to simply fit his family, health and hobbies around his career, he instead built a career around those pillars. Dr. Melvin transformed his wildly successful podcast and blog, Selling the Couch, into a podcasting course for therapists who wanted to share their big messages with the world. Today, Harry and Dr. Melvin talk about the concept of ‘enough,’ the four-day work week, and the importance of fostering creativity, especially as an entrepreneur. Dr. Melvin expounds on his online course mastermind and other exciting ventures he has in the pipeline.

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Key Takeaways

06:26 – Dr. Melvin Varghese joins the show to discuss what drew him to the field of psychology, his Indian culture and his experience moving to the United States

15:47 – The idea of ‘enough’ and fostering creative spirits

20:50 – The 4-day work week

27:17 – Selling the Couch’s origin story

31:46 – When podcasting came on Dr. Melvin’s radar and how he has grown as a host

40:43 – Helping successful therapists in private practice with their online businesses

52:34 – Dr. Melvin’s tweets and how he is flexing his writing muscle

56:43 – Something Dr. Melvin has changed his mind about recently and the most misunderstood thing about him

57:40 – Harry thanks Dr. Melvin for joining the show and lets listeners know where they can go to connect with him and learn more about Selling the Couch

Tweetable Quotes

“There’s this sense of connecting to one another. And there’s a slow pace of life where it’s more about enjoying the work as opposed to completing the work. It changes your perspective on life.” (16:33) (Dr. Melvin)

“I wanted to figure out how my daughter and I could do as many interesting things to foster creativity and have that openness of spirit, fully aware that she would eventually go into a system where that would be potentially zapped.” (20:28) (Dr. Melvin)

“Literally this was a side gig. I started interviewing successful practitioners about how they built their businesses. I started interviewing therapists about how they started creating income beyond the therapy room.” (29:04) (Dr. Melvin)

“I think the most I’ve grown [as a podcast host] is just letting my personality and my imperfections shine.” (35:58) (Dr. Melvin)

“It’s when I narrowed it down to therapists, but even ‘therapists’ was not niched enough for my course. What I actually now have niched it down to is ‘successful therapists in private practice who are moving from therapist chair to more of an online business.” (42:10) (Dr. Melvin)

“I realized that a lot of stuff is driven by quality sleep. The way I used to think about it was that sleep was something that is needed to get you refreshed for the next day. Whereas now I’ve started optimizing around sleep.” (56:48) (Dr. Melvin)