A Harvard Doctor Told Me 'I Want to Be Free Like You'

A conversation in an empty medical facility changed how we see business.

I was standing in a medical facility, helping my friend, a Harvard trained doctor, to prep a 40k medical fridge for a sale and pick up.

That single fridge costs more than every piece of technology I use to run my company.

He’s shutting down parts of his large medical center to rent it out, start consulting and go remote-first.

And while we were clearing out the space, I just stood there for a second. Looking around.

Rows of syringes still in packaging. Biohazard disposal units. Sterilization equipment. Labeled cabinets full of things whose name I didn’t know how to pronounce.

(I was genuinely useless. Mostly holding doors open and trying not to blow up anything important.)

All of it, every single piece, required to keep a medical business running.

I started doing math on what it actually takes to keep the doors open:

• Storage

• Compliance

• Maintenance

• Liability insurance

• Staff trained on each piece of equipment

And then I thought about my business:

• Claude premium

• Slack workspace

• Notion dashboard

• Google Drive Storage

• 20 people spread across multiple countries, none of whom need a parking spot

That contrast hit different standing in that room.

But here’s where it got interesting.

My friend looked at all of it. The equipment. The lease. The decade of infrastructure. And said:

“I’m getting rid of all of it. I don’t want any material possessions I have to take care of. I don’t want the overhead. I want to travel.”

Then he looked at me and said, “I want to be free like you.”

A Harvard trained doctor. Multiple millions in net worth. Years of prestigious med school, residency, building his practice from nothing.

Inspired my remote first philosophy.

I’m not gonna pretend I had some wise response. I think I said something like “yeah man, it’s pretty good.” (Real eloquent.)

But it stuck with me for days.

Because I spend a lot of time looking up. Comparing myself to people further ahead. Thinking about what I don’t have yet.

And here’s someone objectively further ahead in the game, by almost every traditional measure, actively trying to get to where I already am.

• No office lease

• No physical inventory

• No storage units full of regulatory compliance

• No equipment depreciation (fridge got sold for 5k)

• Just clean profit without creating stress that damages health

I spent six months traveling before coming back to the States. Not on vacation. Just me living my life, visiting friends and family. While business ran itself.

Not “work from the beach” Instagram nonsense. The actual structural advantage of building something that doesn’t require you to be physically present to keep it moving.

7 years running a 100% remote agency taught me this, but apparently I needed a doctor’s empty fridge to remind me to be grateful for it.

If you’re building remote and you ever catch yourself thinking it’s not “real” enough, not “serious” enough compared to businesses with physical footprints...

Remember that some of those people are trying to simplify their exhausting life.

I wrote the playbook for building a business with zero physical overhead: Infinite Deals. Everything you need to start your remote-first journey.

You don't need to have it all figured out. But you do need to start.