Welcome to The Wealthy Mom MD Podcast—a podcast for women physicians who want to learn how to live a wealthy life. In this podcast, you will learn how to make money work for you, how you can have more of it, and learn the tools to empower you to live a life on purpose. Get ready to uplevel your money and your life. I'm your host, Dr. Bonnie Koo.
Hey, everyone. I'm super excited today to talk about retirement. What does retirement even mean? And what does it mean for you? You know, I used to think that that was the ultimate goal when I first got into the whole financial independence retire early movement. Iit's very sexy and very seductive. It kind of goes into this view that once we get to financial freedom and to retirement, that life will suddenly be better. I've since sort of changed my tune about retirement. And so that's what I want to talk about today.
First, I want to talk a bit about societal beliefs about retirement. We're talking about the U S obviously. There's this belief or accepted belief, I should say, that the way life works is you go to school for a long time. You get a job, and then you work for a long time, several decades. Then, you “retire” at age 65, which brings images of the golf course, traveling and hanging out with grandkids, taking river cruises. Who decided this?
It's so easy to get caught up in this early retirement movement. Because it implies that things will get better once you are there, once you've arrived. And you know, you may have heard me talk about the arrival fallacy. The fallacy is that things actually are not better when you get there. Here's the reason why. When you achieve something, things aren’t automatically better. For many of us, finishing residency and becoming an attending, we thought life was going to be suddenly better. Once that happened, it was for a little bit. Then we realized, “Oh, this is it.” That's the same thing. When you reach financial freedom, “Oh, this is it.” Because you take yourself, your brain, wherever you get to. So things actually aren't better, you just think it is.
Just like when I became debt free when I paid off the last bit of my loans. Yeah. It felt awesome. And then it was kind of anti-climatic. The goalpost just always moves, doesn't it? Of course, you know that I'm going to say that it all goes back to your mindset or how you think. Most of us think that we need to attain something like financial early retirement in order to feel something. In that order, it is have, do, be. But the order is actually reversed. It’s be, do, have or think, feel, do. This is in order to actually get to a place where you don’t need to retire to feel better. You need to feel better first. This is what I do. As a coach, I help people manage their minds. I teach them these tools because you do not need to retire to feel better. You do not need some magical amount of money to feel better, to feel secure, to have peace of mind, to feel financial freedom. I know this might sound like bad news, but it's actually awesome news.
Well, let's get back to our topic of retirement. I kind of hate this word since, like I said, it implies that life will be better when I retire. What if the goal isn't to retire, but to create a life we love now? To create a life where we “work” and that work is our contribution to the world? We travel. Now we have the time now, not later because here's the thing. Later isn't guaranteed. Yeah. I know you can't exactly live your life today like it's your last day all the time. But I think all of us can live our lives with more intention than we are already. So my challenge to you is what have you been putting off that you want to do? Maybe it's learning how to garden or spend more time with some family members that you can actually start doing now in some capacity. And the flip side--what are you doing that you really don't want to do but are tolerating? I'm not saying you should drop those things immediately, but maybe it's time to develop an exit plan.
No one can live life for you. No one can make decisions for you only you can. So here's my personal take on what retirement means for me. I'm not interested in it. I want to live a life I want now, and that will change over time as I change. At some point, I may need to “slow down” because my body won't be as young as it is now, but I will still enjoy life and likely, still want to contribute to the world in some way. Right now, this is how I spend my time. I work “full time” on Wealthy Mom MD. I see patients about an hour a day through teledermatology. I spend time with my family and virtual time with friends. If it weren't for COVID, I’d be planning and taking some trips.
I want to live the life I want right now. I am living the life I want right now. Is it perfect? No, far from it. I'm not in some perfect place and I am not financially free in the traditional sense. I don't have millions in the bank. I started taking these steps about a year ago when I made the decision to switch to locums. I didn't have a plan, but I did have a coach that believed in me when I didn't believe in myself.
So what small step can you take this week towards living your life intentionally sooner rather than later? Don't wait too long. So what am I suggesting here? I think we all need to take a step back and really think about what this whole retirement thing means for us. What are we making it mean? What are we hoping that things will be better once we get there? What do we actually want to be doing now? And not put off? What are we putting off? What are we tolerating? How can I start making some changes now? Small changes. How can I incorporate some of that retirement plan into my life now? Because like I said, tomorrow is actually never guaranteed.
I'd love to hear what small changes you're making. Email me at editor at wealthymomm dot com or post on The Wealthy Mom Physicians Facebook group. Talk to you next week.
Hey, if you're a woman physician who is ready to take control of your money, you've got to check out my program Money for Women Physicians. It's part course and part group coaching and a hundred percent guaranteed to put more money in your pocket. Go to wealthymommd.com/money to learn more.
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