This week we are headed to the Big Apple for a story about overcoming the odds, leading with innovation, finding your why, and building your empire your way in Episode 71: The American Dream Unleashed.

We sit down with Lanna Cheuck, DO, FACS, a urologic surgeon turned aesthetic mastermind, to understand what it truly means to overcome incredible odds and turn rejection into redirection. Dr. Lanna is the child of Chinese immigrants who came to the US with $6 in their pocket and a desire to give her a better life. She was always extremely dedicated to her education and had an innate need to do very well in school- something her parents never had the chance to do, and she was always aware of their sacrifice to give her the opportunity.

She earned a coveted spot at Brown for medical school, then on to urologic surgery which is extremely competitive with very low acceptance rate. She served as Chief Resident, completed a fellowship in Urologic Surgery with a focus in robotics, and she became one of the most prolific and early pioneers of the DiVinci robot, eventually becoming the Director of Robotics at South Nassau Community Hospital in Long Island. From there, she found her a passion for sexual wellness and developed her own program for penile rehabilitation. But with all her accolades and expertise in the OR, she was still being paid less than her male colleagues.

She was working an insane number of hours with 1 baby and 1 on the way, and she was at a crossroads. When a discussion about her pay led to her eventual dismissal from her position, she turned her part-time interest in Aesthetics into a full-time success! She is theowner & CEO of Dr. Lanna Aesthetics in midtown Manhattan where she’s known for her celebrity facelift among other procedures. She opened her third location and has scaled her business not only in size but also in impact. She founded Face Med Training shortly after she started in Aesthetics – the mantra “See one. Do one. Teach one.” stuck with her, and she had a calling to teach and train others almost immediately.

Now, she’s impacting not only her own patients but also her students and their patients. She also started a large Facebook community from the get-go where her students and colleagues could collaborate, share best practices, and eventually, they came together to secure better pricing from manufacturers. She co-founded Face Med Store with Dr. Hardik Soni as a way to formalize GPO pricing and give her nearly 40K Facebook community an opportunity to buy products she’d already vetted, build better, more successful businesses, and do it all collectively. Face Med Store is now an online marketplace that connects buyers to all sorts of products, services, and supplies they need day-to-day in their aesthetic practice. Her goal is to leverage Face Med Store to do more to help bridge the gap for business owners who so often lack a blueprint or a guide on how to get started.

She’s been knocked down, but she most definitely got back up. Dr. Lanna had no big dreams to be an entrepreneur and very little interest in being the “boss” but when her why became so big and so powerful that it could no longer be ignored, she knew what she had to do. When she started Dr. LannaAesthetics, her close friends commented that she had become unleashed- free to pursue her passion and create her future by design, and she’s done a stellar job at it! And in true Dr. Lanna fashion, she freely shares her thoughts for hiring, delegating, prioritizing, and running a successful business throughout our hour together.

This episode is so, so interesting and Dr. Lanna is a proof that no matter where you come from or what happens along the way, success is within your reach if you are willing to do the hard work to make it happen!

Learn more about Dr. Lanna:

Dr. Lanna Aesthetics website: https://doctorlanna.com/

Face Med Store: https://doctorlanna.com/providers/face-med-store/