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The Hoeflinger Podcast
Welcome to the The Hoeflinger Podcast, where Dr. Brian Hoeflinger and Kevin Hoeflinger delve into riveting discussions about life as a neurosurgeon, the world of medicine, healthy living, fitness, and anything else that piques their curiosity. Dr. Brian Hoeflinger, MD, brings his extensive 24 years of experience as a full-time neurosurgeon to educate and inform. Get ready for engaging conversations that will broaden your understanding of the medical realm and beyond!
The Hoeflinger Podcast
#16: Goal Setting & Our 2024 Goals
In this episode, Dr. Hoeflinger and Kevin discuss the importance of setting goals and share their goals for 2024!
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Hey everybody, it's New Year's Day, um 2024, we're into the new year and, uh, as always, man, we're looking to set some goals for this year, as you probably are too. So, kevin and I thought we would talk a little bit about goals, our own goals, maybe some goals in general for people to look forward to, and and we're going to do um, kind of different goals, personal goals. We're going to do kind of business goals.
Speaker 2:Yeah, social media goals, yeah, social media goals, so, um, so yeah.
Speaker 1:So we're going to talk about today, and I think it's. We've got a lot of exciting things coming up that we want to do, both professionally and personally, so we're going to dive right into it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think one thing that's important too is, you know, we're all thinking about things. It's a new year, it's a good time to a fresh start. It's really, I think it's very important and helpful to look over the last year and kind of reflect on the past year what went well, what didn't go so well, um, and then use that to propel you with all your new year's resolutions and 2024 goals to help you achieve those things, cause the whole point of always doing this stuff is to motivate you. And also, we're just trying to. I mean, aren't we constantly all trying to strive to be better people? Um, but I think one big thing that we've noticed and so I think with the podcast and not like the social media channels, the stuff we're doing is, um, the reach it has, especially with stuff like alcohol awareness or drunk driving awareness and trying to prevent people driving drunk, the comments that in messages we receive.
Speaker 1:I mean even like last night. So last time it was New Year's Eve but we had put out a couple posts and did pretty well. But I guess several messages about one guy messaged, private message me and said that, um, all my friends, I made him take an Uber last night. Another person said that, um, I took an Uber because of the post and your son Brian. Another person said that I chose not to drink last night because of your post on your son Brian. So definitely people out there listening and that's just the few messages we got. But you know, for every message you get, there's probably a lot of people out there who don't message you, who actually, who did something, your reaction to your post. So you know, that's it's been a, it's been a big platform for us. Um, you know, we got lucky enough to have national coverage. Tiktok came to our house and box media and produced a commercial that they've been putting out for the past week on a national basis. Yeah, and it's it's more about, you know, drinking responsibly and things like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Um, but I think it's just. The thing is like we started like what a year and a half ago with everything doing the social media and just kind of started seeing what would happen. And then now it's it's gotten way bigger and it's something that we're working on and the goal is to be more consistent with the stuff we do. And you know, it constantly takes people might not think, but it takes a lot of time like brainstorming ideas. I've been spending a lot of time editing, putting stuff on, so I mean that's something, well, but, but also think about it, like for anybody watching right now and think about it.
Speaker 1:So a year and a half ago, we just started with our first TikTok. And that's all we did for a while was just TikTok, I mean you know we're up almost a half a million followers on TikTok and almost a half a million followers on Facebook and we've got a couple hundred thousand on Instagram, and so that all happened in a year and a half. Really just a year for the other platforms. And so for anybody out there. I mean, it seems daunting, like you know, how can I ever get that many numbers?
Speaker 2:You've got so many people following you, but we had zero a year and a half ago, so you gotta start somewhere.
Speaker 1:So you know, maybe that's a goal for some of you is to maybe just try to do some stuff on social media. And you gotta be persistent. Right, you're not gonna hit it, you know mega right away, I don't think, but you gotta stay persistent. We've stayed very persistent and gradually it's growing and that's what we're excited about for the future.
Speaker 2:I think what's important too is the passion and purpose. I mean different people do social media for different reasons. I mean for us. I would say it's spreading. You know Ryan's story, you know saving people and then showing people about neurosurgery which isn't nearly as many people on there as you.
Speaker 1:I think, if you like, in seeing those comments and messages, that keeps you motivated to doing it, even though sometimes, like you'll have, kids, or not even kids, but some of the young adults who will say you know, I'm really interested in medicine now because you know, your posts have inspired me or intrigued me, and so now they have changed their thought about what they want to do in the future, which is pretty cool. I mean, you can influence how people might do with their lives, really, yeah, so some of our goals, joint goals on that is.
Speaker 2:You know we're trying. Definitely one thing I want to do is try to publish one podcast a week. So I want to do 52 podcasts and then start making and, you know, putting more, getting that out more and something we're very soon here. I know people comment on it, but we are going to get some nicer mics and try to figure out a better maybe a studio setup or figuring something out so we can have taking it more seriously of having a nice setting and investing in some equipment and stuff or nicer equipment, because at first we to get started. Sometimes and you can use us some people comment on that like the quality of some stuff, but sometimes it's better to just get started and start somewhere and then you can slowly it wants you to show you can do it, you can invest in some nicer stuff instead of just getting a bunch of stuff up front.
Speaker 1:But still about what we're putting out more than I think how great it sounds, right, I mean.
Speaker 2:Well, I know I'm just saying some people will say that sometimes. But so with that, with the podcast Andrews, with short form, one thing, that's hard, but we're trying to take it more seriously, of getting more consistently stuff out. But like you always say, not maybe it can't be frivolous.
Speaker 1:So it takes more and more time to come up with fresh ideas, I think, and Cause once you have to start dreaming stuff up, I think you lose the point of what you're doing, right? If you have to just dream up stuff just to put out, then I think we've lost our purpose. So I don't want to get to that point. I'd rather put out less and have good content that people can use than just put frivolous stuff out just to do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and one like kind of more lofty, like our other goal is that I would say for 2024, I don't know if you've thought. I think is with that TikTok rush going on and everything with you know, job driving, like doing something with matter legislation on a higher scale, if you could eventually we were talking about interlocking missions, this stuff like that that actually could really curb stuff would be really cool. If we could eventually get a partnership or do something meaningful with someone like that, I think that'd be awesome. But that's just the power of social media where we just started putting stuff out and definitely lofty goals.
Speaker 1:But you know, obviously you have to have goals, right. If you don't have goals, then what are you aiming for? So we're trying to set some goals. What are some of our goals for this year? We talked about For social media, so we want to grow. We're at like 500,000 now, so we-.
Speaker 2:I think we're at like across all the platforms where like 1.1 million followers or something, 2 million, seems like a nice whole round number. But that's just like. Those are just numbers. That's what I'm saying. I think what, like I was trying to reverse engineer that that's where the goal of like if I think, if we publish good quality content consistently and take it more and more serious where we don't, where we set consistent time, you know, like we've talked about just think of it more, like not just like a little thing we do on the side, which we've kind of thought more and we've slowly gotten more, spent more time on it. But I think I mean that's just a cool thing because it is cool to see, especially when you spend a lot of time. It is cool when you see that it works if you try different hooks of like how can you get something like talking about alcohol education? How can you make that interesting? It's kind of cool when it clicks and you can get people to still watch stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the podcast have been a little hard. I mean, we don't give as much traction on the podcast as we've gotten at other things, but you know, we just have to keep plugging away at it and come up with some good topics for people that would be interesting. So so, social media goals. So what are our goals? We talked about we want to try to do a podcast a week. Yeah, then we want to start talking about maybe a newsletter, possibly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so. One thing I mean we both write too and I think we've only really done video. It's kind of hard to do both at once, but once until you're more established, I think, because I think like newsletter same with the podcast, newsletter and then like some maybe long-form video. I think it's there there are people who are more, like care more about what you're saying, like you can kind of get more in depth where you don't have to try to like hook people right away like tick-tock. You have to each videos fresh, like if you put something out and it's not just gonna go to your followers so it might gain, it might go nowhere in terms of the algorithms, you have to kind you have to be making each tick-tock standalone and have a good hook and everything. I think you can go in more depth and Really go deep on stuff that might bore some people that aren't interested in.
Speaker 1:So I think our goal is maybe a lot of people's goal Is to get more dedicated followers, like, instead of just hit being hit or miss, find people that really want to follow us. I'd like our content, so when we put something out, that they'll actually get it and they're interested because they want to get it Right. Yeah so that's what we're looking for is to build a more dedicated Following base.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure, and I think, in that just all coming, I think, spending more and more time on it, um, and then they do want to talk about some of our personal goals. I can start us off, but Because those are all and we have different other goals With that, because I think that's what we spent a lot of our time doing together. But I think too, if we're talking about that, I think, just the idea of like inspiring people, um, when we were doing like some health and fitness I know that's one of your personal goals, I have a couple fitness goals online but, like, I think, just showing people, like you know, it never has to be crazy what you do. You just have to kind of start and do something. And we're not, we're a little scattered sometimes with how we do stuff, and I think that's what, just kind of getting better, especially on longer form. I think you have to have more concise of what you're talking about. But, um, a couple. So a couple of my goals for this year Um, I Want to run a sub five-minute mile, so that's, that'd be a PR for me.
Speaker 2:I think my current best mile is like 540. I want to complete a hundred mile run, like race. I want. I want to Try a new activity every week or every once per month. I want to try at least one new activity or place or something like that. Keep, keep trying new things, not get too stuck in routine, and I can't think of the fourth one right now. I was gonna say but what are some of yours?
Speaker 1:So you talked about looking back on yours.
Speaker 2:So I think I remember so in 2017, I did an.
Speaker 1:Ironman and I've just gone downhill from there. So I really let exercise go away. With moving to a new job and a new house and all the people we've had in our life right now I really let the ball slip. So I don't do a lot of exercise on all sides. I've committed to walking every day, and the last it's only been five days, but I mean I walked on the treadmill a day. So my goal is this simple I just wanna try to walk every day.
Speaker 1:We have this Nordic track treadmill that we got for Christmas and so it has the program on it. So I've been walking in the Swiss Alp Channel. There's a guide that and it's pretty cool because it, you know, it inclines for you. So when he goes up the hill the thing elevates to go up the hill and if you're going downhill it de-elevates, so it's like you're it's, it's like you're out there. I mean I really enjoy it and so far, you know it's been, it's been great. So I think I'm gonna like that.
Speaker 1:There's all kinds of different things I can. I can climb the base camp in Nepal, the Mount Everest, or I can go into Germany or somewhere in the national parks out here. So I'm looking forward to that. So I'm gonna keep it simple. I mean, for the winter I'm just gonna use the treadmill, try to walk every day. I committed to that, and no excuses. When I get home or before I go to bed, I'm gonna at least do 20 to 30 minutes and then eventually in the spring, and I'm gonna try to maybe start running again a little bit. And I don't know.
Speaker 2:We did a what do we do? 5k? No, no, we did a triathlon the summer.
Speaker 1:Oh, the Olympic triathlon, yeah we did an Olympic triathlon, so I have done a little bit. So I know I can still do it. I just have to get back into it. So that's that's. That's something that I let slip, so that's one of my goals moving forward.
Speaker 1:And then, what was one of my best things last year? I think that we're gonna? It's social media. I mean I really enjoy it. It's different than what I do as a neurosurgeon. It's just keeps your mind, your mind, moving along in different, in different ways. So I really enjoy it.
Speaker 1:It is a lot of work, I mean, you know, sometimes we have to sit down and think about what we wanna do. So that's just something that I'm looking forward to working on this year. And then the third thing my friend and I I've always loved the piano and we have a piano and I just took lessons when we first got it, you know, 15 years ago, and stopped. So I'm gonna start taking piano lessons again and learn how to play the piano. And then my friend, bill, my best friend he's gonna play it. He's already signed up for lessons for guitar because he has a guitar. That's something he wanted to do. And then, once we get good enough, we're gonna actually put out some social media of us me playing the piano and him playing the guitar together and do some stuff like that.
Speaker 2:So I'm looking forward to that, because that'll be a fun thing.
Speaker 1:I think one thing that I don't do enough of is this fun stuff, because I'm serious all the time and my work's serious and I don't. I don't. I don't do fun lighthearted stuff and certainly I don't sing on TikTok yet or anything like that. So I'm just hoping that this year maybe I can do some fun things and maybe maybe we can do some funner things on social media and the podcast too, you know.
Speaker 2:Well, I think, and that's why when some people like if I think we're always gonna do all the things that like are in topics and things that are interest us, or like on social media, like at first to just start with medicine, started the branch out, and then you know, some people are like, oh, like where's the medicus? But I'm like it's we? You kind of get to the side that you want to do. It's just like in life, and I think that that's an important point though in life is, sometimes we start doing all these things and do the things we need to do and then we just forget about doing the things we like to do. Like that's something I would try to, like playing indoor soccer or other things, like that's a form of exercise but that's fun to do. But it's easy to let those ones slip and just kind of Well, we also want to.
Speaker 1:I'd love to have, like we were just talking about somewhere, I'd love to do a little education. As a neurosurgeon, you know, I'd like to teach people about the body and the brain and the spine. Really I'd like to get little kids or teenagers interested in medicine and science and the brain advice. So we were thinking if we could do some social media geared around that. Maybe you know like Miss Rachel teaches little tiny kids. Maybe you know me as a neurosurgeon and Kevin could teach people who are you know grades, teenagers and maybe the parents will see the social media and show their kids it.
Speaker 1:It's just something different to do to reach a different audience.
Speaker 2:I think like educating people on stuff like that and also just like getting people, just like when STEM, they're trying to get younger people interested in the sciences and stuff, like trying to get people interested in that, like seeing like all this can be cool, and I mean that's something we're working on right now, too. We're trying to come up with like some clothing. We wanted to work on designing some stuff that people wear around. That's like so like a brain, labeling the different parts of the brain and trying to have it be cool, like some colors and how it's describing them. So people, because stuff like that, where it's like medicine is like medicine, can be cool and being doing that Like I don't know.
Speaker 1:I mean something you would like to wear. But yes, educational, we would teach you what the lobes of the brain do on the sweatshirt. You know it'd be cool.
Speaker 2:So I was not thinking about more. We were thinking about stuff like that because I think that would be really cool, just like teaching the you know teenagers and younger like stuff If you, because you got to find you got to meet them where they're at. So you got to figure, find another way. Like we were trying to think you have to do it more with like kind of graphics and stuff a lot, because kids are used to that, with how they learn stuff. You can't just speak directly at them and the same thing. I think that's where sometimes in school or teaching, that that kind of boards some people, so, especially on social media, you have to find it'll be a cool thing to see because you can get one of those, you can get to the right audience. I mean I think that's instead of I mean they're seeing them all this other stuff on social media. Why not see some educational stuff?
Speaker 1:So we're definitely a work in progress. You know we're just we don't. We didn't know where we were going when we started out. I don't think we know exactly where we're going yet, but you just have to try different things, just like all of you out there Try different things in life, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. But you're never going to find out unless you try right. And then there's opportunities that just land themselves in your lap and that's called luck a little bit, but it comes from hard work too.
Speaker 2:You know you're just increasing. There's this great mental like framework. You're just increasing your luck area. The more you work hard and you do things, you just increase the probability that you'll have luck, which is a great way of putting it. You're just you have to get yourself set the environment as much as possible so you can get lucky, and usually a lucky break does eventually come.
Speaker 2:But I mean, like the TikTok document, I mean that definitely increases a lot of exposure and that was just because I mean I bet people watch your videos, they can tell your passion about what you're talking about and not just saying it. But I think, yeah, that's. I mean we definitely are more, have more of a vision than we did a year and a half or even a year ago or a year and a half ago. But I think that's where you slowly keep trying to focus in and work harder, and that's why I think it's really good, like with podcast or writing, you're putting it in stone, where you can then look back a year later and say, oh, wow, like actually a lot did change, like how do we do? And then you can course correct to like try to figure out how to work, for it to work better.
Speaker 1:And I also think I do whatever I ask. I mean if anybody out there has confidence in our podcast. You know obviously there's a selected few people who watch our podcast. So you know any input from you about what you like about the podcast, what you think could be better, would be helpful for us, because we really don't know. You know we just get on here and then well.
Speaker 2:but you know, we really appreciate all the people who do watch and the people who leave kind comments and or even constructive feedback of ways we can improve. We appreciate all that. We'd love to hear in comment on any of the social media platforms at Dr Hefflinger, whether you're 2024 Bulls or what do you like about the podcast or what do you want us to do more of. Also, there's a link in the show notes of where you can leave a message on the link tree. But yeah, we'd love to hear your 2024 goals and something. I think too, that another thing that we're trying to do is we wanted to test it out at the first 10 to 15 episodes. One thing we're going to try to figure out logistically and the schedule lies is trying to get more guests people we know talking with them and just talking about the different ideas that you suggest to us.
Speaker 1:I've talked to a lot of good guests that we can have on who said, yes, we just haven't arranged it. Everybody says, yes, I'd love to do it with you, but then you're going to set something up and we haven't done it yet.
Speaker 2:We have a lot of excitement, people, I think one thing I would just have to commit to is that, since we moved, it's hard to be like someone okay, come on, we can't really do it. We don't have a spot to do it. If it's another professional person you don't want to just be like, okay, come shoot in the living room Versus. That's where we need to start figuring out just maybe an office space.
Speaker 1:Because we have the dogs and cats running around and people talking all the time. You can't tell everybody to stay away for an hour.
Speaker 2:But one thing I did notice on YouTube, the YouTube video, the podcast and on all the other podcast platforms, the episode that was the most downloads. Do you know?
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:It's the one with our entire family about grief and navigating grief with family. That's something, too, where we just kind of take that for granted, what we've went through. Obviously, we know with Brian we do all that, but I think that's one side, that when we did that, when we first started that episode, that's something that's pretty unique to us. A lot of people don't talk about grief and everything involved with that, so I think that's something we could definitely talk and do more. I just kind of popped in my head because I've been thinking about that the other night.
Speaker 1:I think people wonder when you're going through grief, you feel like you're the only one, and when you hear it from somebody else like I had a lady come into the office not too long ago and she had said that she just lost her son, like four months ago, and she'd watched the TikTok of mine she said it really hit home and then I told her to watch my I mean to read my book because I said you can see that I probably had all the same feelings that you have right now, four months into this, and I put it all in a book.
Speaker 1:So I think she's going to read it, but it's just about connecting with people, right, because you can only connect with people who understand what you're going through, and so there's so many people that go through grief. It's nice to know that other people have been through it, to hear what they have to say. I think it helps you get through it in a way.
Speaker 2:I mean grief comes in so many shapes, sizes it doesn't have to be death or anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, whatever you want to call that for yourself, but I think it's important because I think a lot of times, especially in society, we always put out the best versions of ourselves and everything else. You know it's definitely shifting, but, like it's almost, some things are seen as a weakness and whatnot. But I mean everyone in the experience, we're all way more alike than we are different. So I think it's just that humanity of trying to connect with people and letting people know it is all going to be okay, Because when you get messages or you see different stories, some people can go through grief and they come out the other side and they actually, in spite of the grief, they rise to new heights. And then other people it can stay with them and it can be a crippling for the rest of their life. They never overcome it. So it's just and it's hard to know, but I think the biggest thing that I would say about it is just that other people are feeling you think you're the only, like you said. You think it really does feel like you're the only person that could possibly feel these terrible things that other people do. So yeah, that's another goal, Because I think there's so many people on social.
Speaker 2:This is what I was thinking about. There's so many people on social media doing different and out just in the world doing different things. You kind of find the things that you have to find the alignment of what you're passionate about and what your purpose is, and where there's not as many, there's not people doing that Like when we first started TikTok, there wasn't a ton of neurosurgeons. There's not nearly as many people talking about drunk driving, where I used to say, making videos, dancing, entertaining people in that way, which that has its thing. There's tons of people that are doing that or educating people about money and stuff like that, and then same with grief.
Speaker 2:I just think those are areas where we can uniquely add value, of connecting with the bright people. But yeah, so those are our 2024 goals and what we're looking forward to. We hope everyone has a great 2024. And, like we said, please, we'd love to hear from you guys and interact On top. There's a lot of people that listens to the podcast than some other bigger social media, so I think it's people we could respond back to more. It'd be interesting to hear from you guys and we definitely look at those of podcast suggestions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the most important thing would be what do people want to hear in a podcast? So we'd be happy to do podcasts on suggestions if people give us some good suggestions.
Speaker 2:Well, because, yeah, if we also have more questions, we get like we did one. We can just then do a viewer Q&A, which I think people really like that, the people that ask you questions. It's hard that people we've done some live videos before people ask those, but then it's just gone and a lot of people have the same questions. So if you have a question, a lot of people probably are wondering it in that regard. But, yeah, have a great day guys. Have a great day. Bye.
