EW 018 – How To Live A Fantastic Life with the Famous Dr. Allen Lycka

Gordon Sheppard (00:01.468)
Dr. Lycka, welcome to the show.

Dr Allen Lycka (00:04.622)
it's such a pleasure to be here. I love being on shows like this and thank you for inviting me.

Gordon Sheppard (00:11.622)
Well, it's really good to have you here because of all the great energy that you always bring to all the work that you've done. I'm gonna say for your entire life, but catching up with what you're doing these days to influence so many people in a positive way, we're really lucky to have you here today too. But a lot of people may not have met you or heard about you. So if you had to introduce yourself at a party, what would you say?

Dr Allen Lycka (00:32.664)
You know, I'm a retired cosmetic dermatologist. I saw maybe 20,000 people over the years. When people know me, they used to say, you're more famous than cars cost less than Witasco. And for those who don't know, that was a famous jingle that went on out here in the Edmonton area. And it went on for about 20 years. So any time I'm rewarded with that, I say, wow, that's pretty famous, isn't it?

And you know, it's been a joy. I loved being a dermatologist. But you know, after 30 years in the saddle, 24-7, I didn't like it anymore. I mean, it wasn't as much fun as it was before. When I was working, I was seeing 60 to 70 patients a day. And that really wears on you over time. You know? And so at the end, I said, no, I just can't do this anymore.

And so I moved on and I wrote an international bestselling book called The Secrets to Living a Fantastic Life. And I was going to go around the world speaking, but you know, the world had a different idea. A little thing called the pandemic hit us in 2020. You might have heard about it, but the world literally stopped for two years. I remember one picture sent to me where every major street in the world

had nobody on it at noon when it hit. So literally the world was like the Armageddon, the zombies had hit. So I said, well, maybe I can pivot. You know, when I was a cosmetic doctor, I used to do a podcast called Cosmetic Surgery Today. And I grew tired of it and let it wane. So I just said, maybe I can do a podcast.

Can't go to the world, but maybe the world can come to me So I said okay what I'm going to do is Start a podcast so I went to the people that helped me before and we started a podcast well It was called the secrets to living a fantastic it was called how to live a fantastic life My book was the secrets to living a fantastic life, and it became popular and then a friend of mine

Dr Allen Lycka (02:55.764)
Stephen O'Connor said, you know, this is good. Let's syndicate it. Let's put it on a radio station. So he was working with AM 24-7 at that time. And so we had several million listeners a month. And then Stephen decided he's going to grow bigger. So he made a relationship with Apple. And Apple put me on all their platforms everywhere. So what happened then?

is I got seven million listeners a month. And so, you know, over the years I've been doing this show, I've had over a hundred million listeners. So not bad for a little boy from Calgary who barely got through high school and had to crawl into university, got accepted by the skin of my teeth into medical school.

got accepted by the skin of my teeth into dermatology, and now influenced over 100 million people. But that's not all. Back in 2003, I had a dropped right foot and a weak right arm. And I went to see a neurologist. And he said, Dr. Lycka, get your affairs in order. You have six months to live. You have ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease.

And I said, is there a way to prove this diagnosis? And he said, yeah, sure. An autopsy. And I said, I'm not going to die to prove you wrong. So I went out, slammed the door, went through the phases of Kubler-Ross, anger, denial, bargaining, depression, just like everybody goes through when they go through major trauma. I was angry at the world. I could bite the head off nails.

bargaining, God please don't let this happen. I'll do anything if you don't let this happen. Denial. There's nothing wrong with me, but I had a weak right foot and then my right hand became non-usable. Now that's a problem when you're a right-handed surgeon. But you know what I did? I became a left-handed surgeon. You know if you repeat something 10,000 times you're an expert, right? Well I did everything with my left hand that my right hand could do.

Dr Allen Lycka (05:16.182)
So I became a left-handed surgeon. And then, you know, I went through depression. Bad depression. Have you ever been depressed?

Gordon Sheppard (05:25.287)
I'm sure without sort of diagnosis, but no doubt I felt sort of those depths at certain moments in my life at different times. But it sounds like you actually were in it and knew that it was happening.

Dr Allen Lycka (05:34.944)
Well, it's the black days. That's when you can't eat. That's when you can't sleep. You stare at the ceiling all day. You can't get out of bed. Why should you? You're gonna die anyhow. So I went to my wife and said, dear, I feel like killing myself. She said, don't be so stupid. I said, dear, I really don't see any light at the end of the tunnel. She said, you know, you're smart. You'll figure it out. I said, how? I've seen every doctor I know.

She said, there are doctors you haven't seen yet. You know, back in 2003, something new was invented. You might have heard about it. It's called the internet. Ever hear of that? Yeah, right. Well, you know, you used to put a phone on a cradle, and it used to go, re-e-e-e, re-e-e-e, re-e-e-e, for 15 minutes. And if you got to the other side, you were able to communicate. But you had to communicate with DOS, or some primitive language, because...

Computers had no memory back then so you really had to have a nerd to help you and the internet was much like now full of garbage cans and full of great resources but With friends I found a doctor in Colorado Springs by the name of David Martz who was going through exactly what I was going through and you know, he Was dying he was on his deathbed so quickly

Two weeks of his diagnosis, he was dying. But David was loved by so many people. Doctors from around the world were coming up and saying goodbye to David. And a Dr. Harvey came up from Texas, and he looked at David and said, I don't think you have ALS. David whispered, because that's all he could do. He said, what do I have? The doctor said, chronic Lyme's disease. You're an outdoorsy person. You've been bitten by a tick, and it's mimicking ALS. David said,

What do I do? The doctor said, nothing. I'll start you on treatment, and if I'm right, you'll get better. And two weeks later, he was like Lazarus, arising from the dead. So I knew I had to phone David, and I did. And we talked for hours, and he said, can you come down and see me? I said, when? He said, right now. I said, David, it's Thanksgiving in Canada. My wife's invited 50 people over. She'll kill me.

Dr Allen Lycka (07:59.266)
He said, aren't there any planes in Canada?

With that challenge, I went to my wife, my hat in my hand, and said, dear, I'm not going to be here for Thanksgiving. She said, where are you going? We have 50 people coming over. I said, dear, there's a doctor in Colorado Springs that claims he can help me. She said, what are you waiting for? I'll pack your bags for you. Come on. I'll drive you to the airport. So I got on a flight from Edmonton to Denver. It was an amazing flight, two and a half hours long. Then I got on a rinky-dink puddle jumper.

from Edmonton to Colorado Springs. You ever been on a rinky-dink puddle jumper? Well, it's quite a treat, and we'll use that mildly, because that plane would go flying and would drop 200 feet without warning, and then it would go back up and drop 300 feet without warning. It was like the drop of doom at Disney World over and over and over again. It was a 15-minute flight, and everybody was green, but...

Gordon Sheppard (08:39.695)
I have, yes.

Dr Allen Lycka (09:02.936)
time they got up and I crawled off that plane and there was David on the tarmac to meet me. You see they hadn't put in all the precautions that they have now. I was well-known doctor, he was a well-known doctor, there's no terrorism here. So he said, Dr. Lycka you don't look so good. I said I don't feel so good. Well he said this is just an example of what you're feeling and we talked for hours and he said some magic words.

He said, I think history is repeating itself. And so he started me on treatment and here I am almost 30 years later, not surviving, but thriving. I am doing amazing things every day. And every day I'm grateful because the alternatives were there. Every day I wake up and say, wow, I have another day. I can do amazing things in this world.

I have another day I can really make a difference. So that is some of my victories. I mean, I've had so many victories. It's crazy. I've had so many.

Gordon Sheppard (10:12.283)
That is just remarkable. It's so fun to hear the inspiration and how we could jump in at any one of those big moments. We hear the peaks and valleys, successful practice. And isn't that it? And then there you've gone through all these moments and it gets you to where you are today, which is sounds like you're thriving. You got ways to get to people. And the piece I was curious about now, just sort of having heard, you know, obviously about you and how compelling.

Dr Allen Lycka (10:23.886)
But isn't that what life is about?

Gordon Sheppard (10:40.935)
Thank you so much for being a wonderful storyteller. How compelling your story is to get you to this moment in time. I always like to ask at this moment for this podcast, you if you had to pick one of your biggest wins, and I know that, like you said, you've got a lot. If you had to pick one of your biggest wins, what would it be and how would you describe it?

Dr Allen Lycka (10:56.92)
Well, I think my syndicated radio show is a pretty amazing one with seven million listeners a month. You know, that's as big as Oprah. That's as big as Dr. Oz. That's as big as the main. It actually has a lot more listeners than NBC or ABC. You know, it really is one of the big time successes out there. Just think I've had a hundred million listeners since 2019.

Gordon Sheppard (11:24.859)
that, like you said, especially in this day and age, is unprecedented in terms of what's happening, right?

Dr Allen Lycka (11:28.726)
Well, and also the thing is my message is happiness. My message is peace. My message is positivity. My message is passion. My message is possibilities. My message is everything this world needs in this day and age that we're direly lacking. My message is there to empower people.

to get to the next level.

Gordon Sheppard (11:59.912)
And you've got the methodology, you've put down the things in your book to help people directly with that if they wanna read. They can listen to the podcast. And I wanna get into the podcast for a second and use what I call the anatomy of a win.

Dr Allen Lycka (12:10.798)
So first of all, let me say it's a syndicated radio show first. So it goes across multiple channels all at the same time. And then it lives as a podcast on all Apple platforms. So it has two kicks at the cat, so to speak. It goes across my network, and I've heard Monday through Friday, Monday through Saturday, and that's where I get the seven million listeners. The rest comes on over 200 platforms

where it lives on. So we probably have 30, 40 million listeners every month, and we can't even count the rest because they're on platforms I can't even count.

Gordon Sheppard (12:52.037)
And it's so nice to have your message of positivity reach so far to so many people. And this is obviously why you got more people coming all the time.

Dr Allen Lycka (12:57.762)
Well, and also the amazing things is I'm heard in 17 languages, including Swahili. So if you speak Swahili out there, you can hear it on the Brushwood Media app in Swahili too.

Gordon Sheppard (13:11.525)
Incredible. And so in behind that win of having this great syndicated show, you're having positive effect on so many people. I always like to get into what I call the anatomy of a win, which is to say, what is the strategy, work plan, people, operations and results behind the win? So what was the strategy behind doing this syndicated show?

Dr Allen Lycka (13:28.322)
Well, you know, first of all, was bad luck. I mean, I was going to go around the world speaking. The world was not available. The world, you couldn't go anywhere. Every stage in the world literally dried up. I had over 200 events planned that evaporated overnight. So that meant I had to pivot. I had to shift.

I had to develop another means to get my message out there. And that meant the only reasonable way for that to happen was to use the power of the internet to get them to come to me. I couldn't go to them. So literally I had to get my message out through this medium. And fortunately, the pandemic gave us means to do it. They gave this show called Riverside. They gave us Zoom.

They gave us all these tools that were very primitive until the pandemic came out. And everybody had to go online. So they developed these techniques and tools to get the message out there very well.

Gordon Sheppard (14:41.477)
Incredible. And so there's your pivot in COVID, the strategy, got to get my message out, and you started. Every strategy needs a work plan. There's a beginning and sort of a journey along the way. What are some of the highlights? Like what month and year did you start? And what are some of the highlights along the way?

Dr Allen Lycka (14:55.298)
Well, you I started in early 2020 because that's when I was going to go speaking. My book was published in early 2020 and nothing was happening. And, know, I'm I was too young to retire. know, people say, why aren't you retired? And I said, I am retired. I do what I want to do rather than what I have to do. So I said, now's the time to make this happen. And this is what I did. So what's the work plan?

Well, first of all, I knew how to do a podcast. I knew how to do it. So literally, I recorded it on Zoom, sent it to my people, and they just put it out there. So literally, and then my partner, Stephen O'Connor, knew AMFM 24-7. So he put it on AMFM 27. And then he made a relationship with Apple. And then

Apple took it further. So that's when I got the name famous dr. L because they said well you're famous Let's tell everybody you're famous because you are famous. You're as famous as dr. Oz. You're as famous as Oprah You're famous tell everybody you're famous like famous amos cookies. Tell them you're famous. They don't know it

Gordon Sheppard (16:15.729)
So you let people know and that's what happened on the work plan along the way. Every win also needs people along the way. You mentioned this fella Stephen that you mentioned. Who are the people that are involved in getting you this win?

Dr Allen Lycka (16:24.034)
Steven O'Connor, that's, well, you know, I have one halftime staff member, Tammy, who was my assistant in the office. She was my office manager. When I shut down my office, she was unemployed. And I said, well, why don't you join me in this new venture? And she came and we had to train her in a lot of the things we do. But guess what? Good quality people are trainable.

So hire people that are quality and train them for function. And that's what happened. And so I trained her. And then Steven helped me with getting a lot of my other stuff. I don't know any technical garbage. I don't know how to do it. I don't know how to clip a thing. I don't know how to do it. But guess what? I know people who do.

Gordon Sheppard (17:16.837)
And that's the people side of things. So we've heard about the strategy and the work plan and the people. Operationally, you need operational components to pull things off. Like you said, the tools were in place, Riverside, Zoom, some of these tools. You had to sort of get, I'm gonna say.

Dr Allen Lycka (17:31.35)
So this gets recorded in Zoom. get my girl Tammy to, sorry I shouldn't call her a girl, I get my assistant to take it off and she literally sends it off. She looks at it, makes sure it's of good quality and then Steven looks at it. For every half hour of recording he does two hours of editing to make sure it's perfect, okay? Because it's got to have Apple quality sound.

It can't be just garbage sound. So then we put an intro on it and an outro on it and we literally try to let people be edutained. We educate them and entertain them.

Gordon Sheppard (18:14.545)
Fantastic. So we've heard about the strategy, the work plan, the people, the operational side. Finally, there's results and results are always qualitative and quantitative. Quantitatively, you've been able to let us know that there's a hundred million people. There's like multiple millions of people per month. I mean, those are big numbers and turns out it's going. Any other sort of qualitative and quantitative number highlights that you point out when we talk about results?

Dr Allen Lycka (18:34.53)
when people reach out to me and say, you I used to be your patient. I'm amazed at the quality you're having. I'm amazed at what you're doing. And also we are offering other things to people like on my website, everybody that goes on my show list are offered to go to my Golden Pearls and to get a Golden Pearl to their mailbox each and every week. So I offer them to come into my

my inner circle. Like right now I'm having a takeoff party tomorrow and that takeoff party is for a challenge I'm doing that will transform people's days and lives in 17 days. So I'm going to ask you a question. If I can change your life in 10 minutes a day and one hour a week, would you do it?

Gordon Sheppard (19:29.979)
Yes? Not even, no hesitation.

Dr Allen Lycka (19:32.61)
Well, that's what I'm Guaranteed it'll change your life and change the way you look at things.

Gordon Sheppard (19:35.077)
No kidding.

Gordon Sheppard (19:40.433)
Can you preview that for me? Give me, I'm intrigued now. what, in 10 minutes you're giving a thought, a suggestion.

Dr Allen Lycka (19:45.12)
Well, what we're doing is every day we get them something to do. And they do that one thing. And then once a week, they report back to us how it's working.

Gordon Sheppard (19:54.8)
and so simple, implementable, they can get things done. In the meantime, you've got the book and the podcast and the millions and millions of people. Is there a favorite story from a listener you've impacted or from someone who's read your book that you like to share?

Dr Allen Lycka (20:07.662)
There's just so many. It's almost mind-boggling. We had a lady recently on my show who walked the Appalachian Trail in. Now, if nobody knows the Appalachian Trail, it's a horrendous walk. Now, she did it to raise funds for her husband that has Parkinson's disease. So she was motivated. So we got her on my show.

and she was able to share this with the world. I had another person on who was a retired lawyer. He had to retire because he had severe Parkinson's disease. Now, he still is a public speaker. He goes around the world speaking. But when he sits in a chair for a couple hours, he's so frozen he can't get out of the chair himself. It takes two people to do it.

So I asked him, why does he do this? And he said, well, every one of those people who lift me out of the chair find it's a great thing for them, not for me. OK? So the answer, he does this to help them along.

Gordon Sheppard (21:26.203)
You are in positive conversations. You're putting out positive vibes in the world. For the senior leaders that listen to this show, what sort of recommendation would you have? Because imagine those people that are back, you know what it's like to be in your business. For those people that are in the business, what recommendations would you give?

Dr Allen Lycka (21:39.734)
Well, the answer is this. answer is this. Well, first thing I'd like to say is this. If you need help in your business or your life, check me out. Dr. EllenLyka.com. D-R-A-L-L-E-N. Lyka, L-Y-C-K-A.com. I'm a professional speaker. I come into your business. I help you get to a new level. I also have another site, Dr. D-R-A-L Speaks.

DrAlSpeaks.com. Check me out. I would love to talk to you. You get 15 minutes of my valuable time. Now I'm going to ask you a question. If in 15 minutes I can solve your most valuable problem, wouldn't that be worthwhile?

Gordon Sheppard (22:27.674)
No hesitation.

Dr Allen Lycka (22:29.4)
Okay, so I tell everybody, look, I can only do so many of these calls, but if you get there first, you're first in line.

Gordon Sheppard (22:41.839)
I love it. again, you're spreading the joy around the world. You're writing books about it. You're speaking. How many, how?

Dr Allen Lycka (22:46.582)
And I'm going to teach all your listeners to be an author in one week. Okay? Now, I've written one book recently called Unshakeable Leadership Quotes. Okay? My motto is unshakeable because I'm unshakeable. So I talk about unshakeable happiness, unshakeable leadership, unshakeable courage. So I said, okay, who are these gurus

Gordon Sheppard (22:52.956)
Let's go.

Dr Allen Lycka (23:16.162)
that know about leadership. So I asked ChatGPT to give me 150 quotes of the leaders in the world. Okay? great. I said put one on each page. I got one of my friends who's a Gero to write an intro for this book. He'll have it within a week. Okay? We now have a book with an intro. I'll write the...

the last chapter in it, and I'll offer them to come inside my family, be part of it. I've got a cover developed. I've got the book developed. I went out to Fiverr and got somebody to do it for $300. So within one week, I have a book that I could use. Now, what am I going to do with this book? Well, Zig Ziglar, everybody's heard of him, haven't they?

When he used to go on a plane, he used to give people a book with a coffee card in it. And he used to say, do you like coffee? So he'd pass this to the flight attendants. He'd give two for the pilots. He'd give one for every flight attendant on the flight. And a $5 coffee card. Now in Canada, we have Tim Horton, so I got a bunch of those. But in the States, I might need to get some Starbucks at $5 each. But guess what? Everybody will.

knows your name then from this free book you're passing up.

Gordon Sheppard (24:45.223)
So you've just helped me figure out how to be an author in one week and how to promote my book. What a valuable lesson.

Dr Allen Lycka (24:50.674)
Exactly.

Gordon Sheppard (24:52.635)
Dr. Lycka, we've been so lucky to have you on here. I so appreciated learning about your backstory and how remarkable to be what? Deeply depressed and coming back. Near death's door and coming back. Reaching out, never giving up in a sense. Sounds like you got 20 or 30 more years in the tank. Is that fair?

Dr Allen Lycka (25:10.572)
You know, my body feels like a 90 year old some days, so I hope so. But the answer is every day I'm given, I live to the fullest. And I challenge everybody out there to live each and every day to the fullest. If you only live one day a week to the fullest, you're cheating yourself. You literally are destroying what you should be doing.

You need to live seven days a week to the fullest. Live it to the max. Live it. And always remember, life begins at the edge of your comfort zone. Always remember you need to be challenging yourself. Always remember that you need to be doing the things that push yourself. I always tried to do 5,000 steps every day, come rain, shine.

If I'm not taking those steps, I try to get 20 laps in at the swimming pool. I love going to the swimming pool and swimming. Yesterday I did 20 laps in about 3,500 steps. So I cheated a bit on the steps, but I got it in another way. And you know, this is what you got to do. If you're not working your body, moving your body, you are not helping your body. You're not helping your cardiovascular fitness.

Gordon Sheppard (26:32.519)
That is just, I can hear that we could be here for a few more hours and I would be totally, the way that I feel now, it would just grow and grow and grow exponentially. What a wonderful influence you're having in so many different ways. Those are great messages, not only for leaders, but for anybody that's gonna be listening to this. Dr. Lycka, thank you so much for being on the show.

Dr Allen Lycka (26:51.912)
It has been my indeed pleasure. Thank you for having me, my friend.