Podcast
165: Surround Yourself with Success featuring the Power Group
Who you surround yourself with is immensely important. Aligning with folks with similar goals and values encourages learning and growth. Proximity is power, and when we gather with like-minded individuals we are fueled to move forward in our lives and businesses with confidence.
This week we assembled a discussion with the Power Group: Peter Kim, MD, Sunny Smith, MD, Kenji Asakura, MD, Letizia Alto, MD, and myself. We are all entrepreneurs who encourage MDs to find financial freedom.
Join our round table as we speak about cross-pollination, how we all came to meet, and how we inspire each other regularly to take action. Learn about the essential elements of a peer mastermind, the importance of sharing information, and some methods for self-discovery. By supporting each other we grow in all directions. Tune in and start connecting today.
Secure your spot at my Women’s Money & Wellness Conference at Miraval Resort before they're all gone!
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
- Why mindset work is central to financial freedom.
- How to leverage experiences and personal investments.
- How to get the most out of peer masterminds.
- Some methods to meet your peers.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
- Learn more about Live Wealthy, an exclusive coaching program designed for successful women who want to be confident... and be rich.
- Follow me on Instagram
- Sunny Smith, MD: Website | Free Guide | Facebook Group | Podcast
- Peter Kim, MD: Website | Blog | Podcast | Facebook | Conferences
- Kenji Asakura, MD, and Letizia Alto, MD: Website | Podcast | Courses | Semi-Retired Physicians | Semi-Retired Professionals
- Tony Robbins
- The 10x Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure by Grant Cardone
- 10x is Easier Than 2x: How World-Class Entrepreneurs Achieve More by Doing Less by Dan Sullivan with Benjamin Hardy
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 up-level your money and your life. I’m your host, Dr. Bonnie Koo.
Hey everyone, you are in for such a treat for this episode. It is an episode that I recorded with three of my really close entrepreneur friends, they’re all physicians, and who are now entrepreneurs. And originally it was recorded for Leti and Kenji’s podcast. But I asked her if we could get the audio to have on my podcast because it really, really highlights the importance of who you surround yourself with.
Now, I’ve talked about me being in masterminds before and I’m always sharing all the conferences that I go to, and so this conversation really, really highlights how valuable they are, not just from a business perspective but also from a life quality perspective and how just one conversation can really change literally everything.
And so there’s a saying that I think Tony Robbins said, which is proximity is power. You may have also heard the phrase about you are the average net worth of the people around you. And even putting money aside, who you surround yourself with is so important because they affect your beliefs, right? And so if you’re always around people who are complaining, you’re going to have a very different perspective on life.
Now, at the time that I’m recording this particular intro, because this episode was recorded almost a month ago with my crew, registration for the 2024 Live Wealthy Conference, AKA Money and Wellness Conference for Women Physicians, is open for registration. Now, at the time of this recording it is more than half sold out and we have very limited spots left.
It’s going to be relatively intimate because I chose a location that can only accommodate so many people. It’s at the luxurious Miraval Resort and Spa in Tucson, Arizona, which is about two hours away from Phoenix. And in case you’re not familiar, it is an all-inclusive resort. So your hotel fee includes all meals, all non-alcoholic drinks, all snacks and access to lots of activities like yoga and meditation and hiking, et cetera.
There are some paid activities and of course there is a spa. And one thing that you may not know about Miraval is that your nightly rate, besides including all the things I just mentioned, also includes a spa credit, about $175 a day. So what that means is you’re basically being forced to actually relax, meaning you are going to have to take a massage or a facial or pay extra to have a premium experience with the activities.
And so that’s one of the reasons why I chose this location, because I really want you to not just go there for learning and your personal growth and development and all the conversations you’re going to have that I know will be so valuable and you’re going to make new connections, meet new friends while being in an environment that really is committed to your wellness. That’s one of Miraval’s core values or mission, whatever you want to call it. It is designed for wellness.
And the people you’re going to hear about on this podcast, I’ve had them all on the podcast before as individuals. So Peter, Leti and Sunny are speakers at the conference. We’re going to cover not just money topics, but also topics that are really critical for your life happiness. Literally like how to have amazing relationships.
Relationships are probably the most important thing in our lives in terms of how it affects the quality and happiness of our lives. You may be familiar with the Harvard Happiness Study, and so it showed that the number one indicator of “being happy” with your life is having high quality relationships. So that’s just one example.
So we’re going to link in the show notes how to learn more about the conference, but the easiest way is to go to wealthymommd.com, that’s my main website. And you’re going to see a link way up top, a banner that will take you to the conference website.
And so if you’re thinking about going I really, really, encourage you to register because, like I said, at the time of this recording it is almost sold out and it’s just going to be closer to that by the time this episode comes out.
All right, here’s my conversation with my crew.
Leti: So welcome to another episode of The Doctors Building Wealth Podcast. Today, Kenji and I have such a treat for you. We have some of our best friends here and also business owners. And they’ve been with us since the beginning of Semi-Retired MD and have made such a difference in our lives and guiding us through this process of building this business.
So we have Dr. Bonnie Koo, Dr. Sunny Smith and Dr. Peter Kim. Hi guys, maybe we’ll start with Peter, can you introduce yourself to everybody and tell them a little bit about who you are?
Peter: Sure. Hey, everyone out there listening, this is Peter Kim. I am the founder and creator of a brand called Passive Income MD. This is, again, I’m an anesthesiologist by training. I live in Southern California and I love talking about multiple streams of income.
Sunny: My name is Dr. Sunny Smith, I’m a family physician by training. And I am the founder and CEO of a company called Empowering Women Physicians, and we are arguably the largest or most comprehensive collaborative coaching program for women physicians. And we have the most impactful or effective physician wellness data that exists. So it’s an incredibly meaningful line of work to support other physicians in this business.
Bonnie: Hi, everyone, I’m Bonnie Koo. I’m a dermatologist by training and my business is called Wealthy Mom MD and my coaching programs basically help predominantly women physicians to work on their money and really help them start living the life they want now versus waiting for the money to come in before they can do that.
Leti: Hi, everyone, I’m Leti and this is Kenji. And we’re both hospitalist physicians by training and we run Semi-Retired MD and we train physicians how to create a source of income by using rental real estate, both long term rentals and short term rentals to be able to build lives they love.
Okay, guys, I wanted to start out with our origin stories. So I don’t know if there’s anyone who wants to start and kind of tell your version of what happened, and then we can go around and add in the things that we remember about the experience.
Peter: What are we talking about origin stories, like of our lives, of our businesses, how we met?
Kenji: Getting together. Origin of us getting together.
Leti: Yeah, exactly.
Peter: Okay, all right.
Leti: How did it happen for you, Peter?
Peter: How did it happen for me? Well, like I said, I had heard of Bonnie before. I think one by one, I think I’ll just – What I remember, I’ll tell you of how I met each person here. Leti and Kenji, I think I remember an email that came in one day from, it might have been Kenji or Leti, I don’t remember, just wanting to connect with me online.
At that time, I was a few years into Passive Income MD and I remember somebody – I should bring that email up, that would be cool. I bet you there’s somewhere I could search that. And it talks about how you guys are interested in investing in real estate or you’d been investing in real estate, you wanted to share your story or something to that effect and wanted to connect.
And so I remember thinking that, you know, you guys were living in Hawaii at the time. Somehow the conversation came up that you guys were in Hawaii, I was going to be in Hawaii in a month or two, or whatever it was. And I said, we should get together. And we did. Somehow we made it happen, I don’t know. I was on vacation with my family, and usually on those vacations it’s kind of hectic and crazy.
But you guys, we all happened to be on the same island of Hawaii. And you guys joined me and my wife. It was the four of us and we just had acai bowls. You guys brought me some acai bowls, I still remember that, sitting there at Turtle Bay up on the north shore. And we just talked about life, about business, about real estate, all of these things, and about what you guys were hoping to build at that time. And I got really excited by it.
And again, one thing led to another and you guys said, hey, we’re coming to LA ultimately, again, the conversation was probably longer, but we’re coming to LA in a couple of months for a Tony Robbins event and you should come with us. And I remember thinking, absolutely not. That’s not something I’m interested in at all.
Something happened a couple of days before and I said, you know what? I should do this. And I showed up at this event, hung out with you guys, and I don’t know how Bonnie, how did you hear that we were coming to this event? At least I was going, I don’t know how you heard that. But you were like, “I have this other friend that’s going, she’s my coach.”
Bonnie: Sunny, right?
Peter: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think you were like, “This is my coach,” or something like that, I remember. “Her name is Sunny Smith, you should try to meet up with her.” And so I still remember, I was like, “Yeah, yeah, we should connect.” And you connected us through that. That’s where I met Sunny. I had met you already, Bonnie, because we had been to some events together, I think in the financial blogging world. And then we took a picture together. You remember that, guys?
Bonnie: Yeah.
Leti: We’ll have to put it up. We’ll have to put it up for this video.
Peter: Yeah, we acted all silly and crazy in front of this Firewalker sign. And I felt like that’s when, Bonnie, you weren’t there in person but you were there in spirit because we talked about you a lot. All good things. But it was all of us together and that’s kind of where everything started.
I mean, maybe you guys can add some color to that, because my memory is not always the best. So what do you guys remember?
Leti: Well, I remember actually meeting Bonnie first, because Bonnie reached out to me and asked if we would be willing to do a guest post for her and we were talking about real estate. And so that’s how that whole relationship with Bonnie started when we were still in Hawaii.
And then for you, Peter, Kenji was online and he was like, “I think this guy, Peter, he’s just really cool. I can just sense his vibe. He’s not like a lot of the other ones. He’s just very, very approachable. Maybe I’m going to reach out to him.” And so you reached out to Peter, right?
Kenji: That’s right. Yeah, I emailed him. And, like you said, you could probably pull up that email. And yeah, and then it just so happened we just met up a couple of months later, is what I remember as well. So yeah, your recollection is pretty good. That’s pretty much what I remember as well. Not much more than that.
Leti: Yeah. And I think Sunny, yeah, we met at UPW through Bonnie just connecting us all. I think Bonnie wrote to Peter to find Sunny, and Peter was like, “Hey, we’ve got to go find this person, Sunny.”
And, Peter, we invited you. So I just wanted to kind of bring that up, it’s like we invited you to a random conference and you said yes. And I think that you see a lot of themes of just saying yes, how it can bring up so many cool opportunities in relationships. So maybe, Sunny?
Peter: Yeah. And, Sunny, I think you said yes, as well, right? But your story getting there was kind of a big deal. There was a lot going on for you.
Sunny: Yeah. So I mean, I entered into the circle in that I was doing physician wellness coaching, right? And Bonnie had reached out and I was her coach at the time. And I had gone to an Orange County Women in Medicine event. I mean, it was a normal CME type event. And the initial people who were there that were on the stage said, “What’s your advice for women physicians who want to get ahead?”
And the first person, they were all leaders, the first person was like, “Get a coach.” And I was like, “What?” I’m sitting in the audience, like a new coach, how are these women physicians saying get a coach? I feel like such an outsider because nobody was talking about coaching, I thought, at that time. And then the second person said get a coach. And then the third person was like, get a coach. I was like, what the hell is happening?
And then someone from the audience got up and said, “How would I find a coach?” And so I went up to the mic and I was like, “I’m a coach.” And so anyway, this is how I ended up at the Tony Robbins event, because then someone who was in the audience came up to me and she said, “You’re a coach, do you follow Tony Robbins? You have to go to his stuff. He has this event coming up, it’ll change your life. It changed my life. It saved my marriage. It’s life changing, you have to go.”
And I was like, “I don’t know.” I mean, I’d known of one set of coaching skills and tools and they were incredibly effective for me and my clients. But I was like, “I don’t know about that.” I just had suspicion. And so notice the story is like Peter was like, “I don’t know. No, that’s not for me.” Right? Like that thought at first, that’s not for me. That’s not who I am. I’m a traditional physician, right? I was an academic physician.
And so in particular because it was match day, it was like literally match day. Exactly match day. And so since I was a formal medical student advisor and an academic community director, it was my job to be at match day and to stand with my students when they opened their envelopes, celebrate with their families, the news comes, all this stuff.
And so this woman kept texting me and texting me and texting me telling me I had to go. And I was like, “Who is this crazy stranger? And why does she keep telling me I have to go to some big event in Los Angeles?” I lived in San Diego. So then Peter Kim texts me and says, “Hey, I hear you know Bonnie,” and he texted me a picture of himself. And he said, “I’m here in Los Angeles. This is what I look like. Come and meet me.”
And I was like, “Well, okay.” So that was the day before match day. So I drove up there, we sort of met each other, like said hellos. There was a Firewalker event that turned out went on until like two o’clock in the morning and the whole time all I’m thinking while people are chanting is, what the hell is happening here? Have I gotten into a cult? What is this? It feels insane the first time.
And I was like, I need to get back to match day. I can’t just stay here and chant and wait to walk on fire. So I left and it was the middle of the night when I was driving home. I went to match day, I had to decide if I was going to go back. I took pictures with my students.
That was March 2019, so this ended up being the crew that sort of moving forward were COVID residents and all of this stuff. But I had to decide whether I would go back or not. And there were some people still scrambling that day. And so in the end, I got another text message from you guys and I was like, “All right. I mean, what’s the difference? Nobody’s really working today anyway after match day.”
So I went back and I remember taking calls about scrambling people from the LA Convention Center and then going in and being back in the cult. But the truth is, and I didn’t think we had that much in common, honestly. I was very skeptical. I was like, these are physician finance people, I run a free clinic. I’m the opposite of finance.
And then we went to lunch, Kenji and Leti, and we sat together and I saw, oh, you’re approaching physician finance through a different lens, through financial freedom. You get to choose how you spend your life. And that is what matters.
That’s what we were all trying to get at was, like how Bonnie said she teaches women physicians to live the lives they want now and not wait till they hit financial independence number. And Peter also, you know, passive income so that people could do what they want and not wait for a certain time. And you also taught people to leverage that. And I thought I would never do any of that finance stuff. I would never do real estate, I would never.
And then I just think we all saw we had a lot more in common than I think any of us ever would have anticipated. And it was a very transformational weekend. I think we all left changed and all left connected to each other in a very unique way. And Bonnie was the ultimate connector for all of us.
Leti: Right, and so I really want to highlight that. Bonnie, you’re the person who went and found each of us separately.
Sunny: Yes.
Leti: So how did you do that? So if people want to know like, how do you bring together groups, how did you go and find each of us?
Bonnie: That’s a good question. I want to say a little bit about how Sunny said she was skeptical because I did like a personal development conference when I was like 23. And I heard about it through a friend and I thought she was crazy. So it’s like you hear a similar theme. I was like, she’s nuts. It was right after 911, I was living in New York City.
And the reason why I ended up doing it was not because I thought what she said was sound. It was because I was studying for the MCAT. She said, you’re going to get a higher score if you do this.
Leti: I’m in, I’m in.
Bonnie: I was like, sign me up.
Leti: I want to do dermatology, I’m going to need all the help I could get.
Bonnie: So it’s just funny how that’s what got me in. And I say that because when I saw that Sunny was offering coaching in a Facebook group, I didn’t have to be sold on coaching. I already knew what it was. And I also knew that it wasn’t cheap if you wanted your own coach.
So when she was offering free coaching, I was like, holy cow. Basically, I was like, yes, I’m going to do this. I can’t believe it’s free. Because I remember wanting to hire someone when I was in my 20s and it was just cost prohibitive for me at the time. So that’s how Sunny and I met.
And then I think I met Peter before because we were in the financial blogging world. I think we met in person at the first White Coat Investor. And you were just coming out, because I knew who you were enough to meet you versus like, I don’t know who Passive Income MD was, right?
Peter: Yeah, can we clarify that? Okay, just clarify a little bit.
Kenji: You revealed your identity.
Peter: I was anonymous on the blog and I was revealing my identity on it.
Sunny: And I want to say, Peter, just for a second I want to put in, because again, I ran a free clinic. And so the fact that you were so humble that you wanted to help other physicians and were anonymously helping other physicians as Passive Income MD, and it wasn’t about your ego. It wasn’t about you.
And only after a long period of time of helping people you went through that transformation, and deciding to put your name out there and deciding to come forward with who you were. That actually meant a lot to me. It was endearing. It told me something about your character.
And so I think when people are looking for other people and how do you know who’s a good character, it’s what you do when people don’t know who you are and people aren’t watching that tells a lot about you and your values. And so I knew kind of right away that this was going to be a safe space to be in. So go ahead, Bonnie, with your story.
Bonnie: Yeah, and then we met again at another conference, Fin Con, and I forget what year that was. And that’s actually when we had a conversation that I mention all the time to people, I think it was around the time when I was like, do I keep doing this blog? It was kind of fun. It was making a few thousand dollars, that was cute, right?
And then I was like, should I do this business? And I was working with Sunny at the time. And that’s when you said go big or go home. And you didn’t say in a mean way or provocative, you were just like make a decision, go big or go home. And it was just very matter of fact the way you said it and I was like I don’t know. And then that’s when I decided with Sunny to pursue it.
And then with Leti and Kenji, I do remember you writing me a guest post. So the question is how did I – I must have heard about your blog somehow, I don’t remember. What I do remember is being on my bed in Philadelphia and us having our first phone conversation. I forget what year, but I remember where I was, which is kind of random, right?
Leti: I do too. I remember I was sitting at the table talking to Bonnie:
Sunny: Oh my gosh.
Leti: Yeah, talking to Bonnie because she was such a big name. She was Miss Bonnie and I was so excited to get to talk to her. It was really pivotal for me. I mean, it was a big deal.
Bonnie: Yeah, I think this was before, yeah, before you had courses and stuff. The blog was just a blog. I don’t know what your origin story is in terms of how your blog started. So, I think I met all of you around the same time. And yeah, I do remember telling you all like, “Oh, Sunny will be there.” And I think I remember saying, she’s really tall. That might help find her, because obviously, there’s thousands of people at this conference, right?
Sunny: Yeah, that was 2018 when we all met you. And then in 2019 we met each other.
Peter: Yeah, somehow we all ended up on a text thread together at that time. I think that’s how.
Sunny: After this event, then we decided that.
Peter: Was it after the event?
Sunny: Yeah, well, I mean, we decided to call ourselves the power group, if we’re being transparent. I don’t know where that came from. I have no idea.
Bonnie: I think it was me.
Sunny: See, there you go. There’s always a ringleader.
Bonnie: Well, you can name a group chat and I thought at least we should just have a name.
Sunny: Yeah. If you notice, Bonnie was the ringleader the whole time, of everything. She met us all individually, she put together the text thread, she gave it a name that she remembers, right?
Leti: Yeah, and I want to point out also how each of us, just by saying something along the journey has totally transformed what the other person did. Because Peter transformed what Bonnie did. But Bonnie was the person who brought courses to us and said, “Hey, you should do a course. I’m doing a course.” Right?
And so that totally changed what we were doing because we had met Sunny, we thought we were going to do a coaching program. And then Bonnie said a course, and we changed.
Sunny: And I’m the one who taught Bonnie how to do courses because I had become a coach and then I had also, one of my coach friends had said, “Hey, have you heard of James Wedmore? He has this program called Business By Design.” I went and did that. And so I was like, hey, he has this program called Monetize Before You Make it. I asked him, “Can I share it with my client, Bonnie, because I think she could make a course and teach women physicians this?”
And so like the interweave, interweb or like cross pollination of people who have similar interests, it’s like this is what I’m doing. What are you doing? How can we make this better? How can we all help each other out, right? And even though you’re all in the financial space, none of you were like, well, someone might sign up for Bonnie’s course and not mine, or Peter’s and not mine, right? There was none of that.
In fact, I have to say if we put together a list of people who’ve been in all of our programs, that list would not be small. Right?
Bonnie: Yeah, there’s definitely like a Venn diagram where they all overlap.
Sunny: Yes. But I think that’s one thing that’s beautiful, is none of us feel significant competition with the other people. We’re always truly trying to help the other people and know that there’s not a fixed pie.
Bonnie: Yes.
Peter: And people should know that we get together and actually are pretty transparent about our businesses. We share a lot of the challenges, struggles with our businesses particularly, obviously our successes. But we’re all like, every time we meet, we’re trying to share what’s working well and some of the challenges we have. And the cool thing is we all are getting our information not actually from the same place.
Like you guys have done Keith Cunningham, you guys have done all this, like you guys are going to your own masterminds. And everybody’s doing their own masterminds. Some of the things we do together, but a lot of things we’re doing is we’re all pursuing our own education on our own, and then we’re bringing it back to everyone else and kind of condensing it down and giving the best stuff, which I think has been a really fun part. Everybody is contributing to everybody’s education and helping each other. So I know I’ve learned a lot from you guys.
Sunny: I mean Peter even, because I’m a little disorganized, and so Peter even told me who his CEO was, or his COO, his fractional COO and we shared a COO for like six months.
Peter: How did that turn out?
Sunny: I mean she got so much organization and structure in my business, she really did. I mean, I went from a one woman show with one VA to a company with that woman. And I learned about culture and fit, and she wasn’t the right culture fit for me. But I learned a lot because, like when you’re saying we help each other, we really, really help each other. And we really do go into very different spaces.
We all invest significantly in personal development and coaching and business support, and with very different spaces. And whether we want value alignment, or whether we’re looking for a certain goal or result, and then we really do try and help each other and teach each other.
Leti: Yeah, I was thinking about what allows this group to be such a really great group, and part of it is the growth. Growth mindset and also the mindset work that we’re all doing. And so if we can talk about some specific examples where somebody went and learned something or grew and was able to help you with your business.
Bonnie: Well, I think Sunny was the one who introduced the idea of doing a course. That would have never entered my mind. And you were the one who said you can sell it before you make it. And I was like, that’s crazy. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have a plan, right? You’ve got to know what to sell. You can’t just be like, “I’m doing something, buy it.” Right?
So I remember I planned it all out. So that was definitely facilitated by you. And I guess Leti and Kenji were like, “Oh, we should do a course too.” I don’t remember exactly that conversation, but I think we would just talk about what we’re doing, what we’re up to. And if it sounded interesting like, oh, tell me more about that. What are you doing? How did you learn how to do this?
In the beginning we were all like beginners and online business, and I felt like we were all sponges. I feel like we are still sponges. The difference is that now we just have a lot more knowledge and experience under our belts. But like I did the sales page copywriting course just recently, and then I’m working with the same coach for email copy. And so I’ll definitely share what I’ve been learning. She’s so good.
And so, yeah, we’re always taking some sort of, we’re always in some kind of business, whether it’s a coaching program or to learn a specific skill, like copy, and then we could always bring that to the group.
Kenji: Yeah, I was wondering where the membership site came from, because I think at least a couple of us have done membership sites. And that’s had a significant impact on our business.
Leti: It was Bonnie:
Kenji: Was it Bonnie again? Okay.
Leti: It was Stu McLaren, Bonnie discovered Stu McLaren.
Peter: Bonnie is usually the one that goes out there first, like meets all the right resources, tries it out, tells us all about it. And then many of us, then we’ll try it. I feel like Bonnie is the first one, always.
Sunny: Well, and then when she does, literally, and then she becomes everyone’s case study, right? She became like Amy Porterfield’s case study, Stu McLaren’s case study. I met Stu, who teaches about memberships, at James’s event. That one that I had told Bonnie about.
But again, like a lot of people hear about things, but I think what’s remarkable and exceptional about everyone in this group is we don’t just hear about things, we enroll in things and attend things and listen to things with the intent to take action.
And so whether she goes in with the intention or not, she’s like, I’m going to be everyone’s star student. I’m going to be a testimonial, because I’m going to apply this work. Otherwise, why did I enroll in the program? You know, if you don’t want the result, don’t enroll in the program, don’t waste the thousands of dollars. And so I just think that that’s a characteristic, right? That it’s no accident. And it’s replicable. And I think the same with each one of the people here.
Bonnie: That’s what I was going to say. We all take action on things that we’ve learned. We’re not just sitting around. I think I learned from you, Peter, like I saw you give a talk. And I say it over and over again, a lot of us think knowledge equals power, but it’s knowledge plus action equals power. I use that line all the time because it’s so true, right?
Peter: I made that up, guys. I made that up.
Sunny: You made that up?
Leti: That’s Tony Robbins.
Peter: I made that up, I just want to let you know.
Bonnie: No, but it’s so true.
Sunny: Sorry, I was just going to say that I think another thing that I got from Peter that’s a saying is like, what if it’s the third time that it works out? He said that in real estate to one of my clients, he was also one of your clients as well. But it’s knowing knowledge plus action equals power, and then knowing it’s probably going to be the third time that you actually get it right.
It gets you out of the perfectionism and trying to get it right the first time because it’s like you have to experiment the first time and the second time to have enough experience under your belt to get it right the third time.
Leti: Yeah, I’ve got to say Peter is, in my opinion, like an incredible salesperson. Like when I watch his webinars, I’m watching and I’m like, “Oh, my God, I’ve got to learn from Peter. I’ve got to learn from Peter. I want to be like Peter when I grow up.” Right? So each of us have built skills in certain areas that we can model off of each other. And it’s just so great to be able to learn from watching you guys kick ass in your businesses too, like the actual practice of it.
Sunny: I think it’s that we actually care, though. Because if you think of Peter, when you say he’s a good salesperson, I don’t even think of Peter as a good salesperson per se. What I say is he cares about people. He’s everyone’s best friend. He genuinely likes them. You know, like I genuinely like Peter, and all of you do as well. So there’s that.
It’s not transactional, it’s relational. And having a real relationship with people really matters because they’ll forget what you say and did, but they’ll never forget how you made them feel. That’s Maya Angelou, right?
Bonnie: Well a good example of that is I was just at my 15 year med school reunion, which kind of blew my mind, like it’s been 15 years? And I was telling them, we were all just talking about money because they were asking me what I was doing and we were talking about real estate.
And I mentioned your name, I told them about the conference. And then my friend Jessica, who I introduced to you when she took your syndication course, she’s like, “Oh my God, I love Peter. I’ve got to go. I’ve got to meet him. I can’t wait to hang out with him.” And I feel like people say that a lot about you.
Sunny: Mm-hmm.
Peter: By the way, Bonnie came over to my house recently and I brought her to a little picnic. We were having a little picnic outside for the neighborhood people. And then I was introducing her and then somebody was like, “Wait a minute, you’re Bonnie Koo? I’ve read your book. I’ve done this.” And it’s amazing to see the influence. I didn’t even, again, I never talked about Bonnie to my neighbor who happens to be a physician.
But it’s just really cool to see the impact that all of you have made. All your names come up when I talk to people in the space, whether they’re in real estate or not. Just kind of influencing, you know, the influence that you’ve had on them has been amazing.
And I will say, all of you have had an influence on me, obviously, in so many different ways. But one of the biggest ways is definitely how much you guys are all willing to invest in yourselves. Like the whole education aspect, learning more, masterminds, coaches. You’re not just telling people and creating these things for other people, you’re doing it yourself, too.
And so the amount of like, you stretch my mind to like what’s, I’d say what’s possible in that sense, what is reasonable, I guess. Being in my world I’m like, “Oh, I don’t want to pay that much,” because I’m more worried about the cost versus the benefit, right? The cost versus the return on investment. And what you guys have really taught me is that it’s not about how much you spend on it, it’s what you get out of it in terms of value.
And now I’m able to see these things in terms of that light. It’s not like, oh, how much I’m going to spend, you know? It’s more like, what am I going to get out of this? And so now, obviously, I mean, we’re all spending significant amounts of money on our own education, masterminds, coaching, all of it, but it’s created amazing returns for all of us. And I think we can all probably say the return on investment has been not small, but humongous, right?
And so that wouldn’t have been possible if I hadn’t seen each of you kind of invest in yourselves. And that’s allowed me to do that, for sure.
Sunny: And when I was doing this, at first, I was the literal only physician I knew doing this, right? Like my initial coach training was $18,000. And everyone thought I was completely insane. And then once I got around people who really, again, invested in themselves, in this work, and whether it’s a training, a certificate, a program, a course.
And then I had just decided from the get go, like, from the jump I had heard, because I’d read Grant Cardone’s book, 10x. I just decided, I’m like, I get 10x out of everything. And my first offer to Bonnie was I guarantee you’ll 10x your money. So pay me this and I guarantee 10x your money or I’ll give it back.
And so I just had that thought for myself, and I still have it, and I know it seems extreme. And there’s another book coming out soon that’s called 10x is easier than 2x by Benjamin Hardy, the guy who wrote The Gap and The Gain, a good book for everybody to read. But really, even if you knew, if you decided ahead of time you were going to 2x or 3x or 5x, there isn’t –Peter’s Passive Income MD, I mean, I gave him hundreds of thousands of dollars for syndications. I’m not expecting 2x or 3x or 5x or 10x, right?
So I do think it’s been helpful to see other physicians doing this too. And again, not at all to be self-serving or salesy, my life, as you all know I’m going through a really hard time right now. My life is so much better. My mind is so much better. My ability to cope is so much better. My perspective is so much better by purposely surrounding myself with people who think that our life experience matters.
Because let me tell you, physicians are not accustomed to thinking that their experience of this life matters. They just sacrifice themselves and sacrifice themselves and sacrifice themselves. And it’s like, what if all these rules were made up? And what if you didn’t have to play by their rules? What rules would you play by?
And so I think the people who immerse themselves in mindset work start to realize we really can make up our own rules. And we can still work as physicians or we can work part time or we can do all these other things. But we really do get to play by our terms.
Kenji: Wow, that’s one of the best things, is that we get free coaching from Sunny.
Sunny: I mean, you’re already doing this, but I’m just saying when you talk about ROI there is a literal, you can look at my whatever, social security statements or whatever, there is a literal ROI. But what’s more important, and you guys know that I’m speaking my absolute truth here, because money solves problems that money can solve.
And then you’re left with the real work, which is like, what is this life really about? And what is your experience of this life? So let’s get everybody who’s listening, because you guys are financial people, so let’s all get them to the point where they know they have enough money that money is not a worry anymore. And then again, what are you really doing with this life? It’s a profound place to be and reflect on.
Leti: It is, it is. So let’s talk about going forward. I think we’ve talked a lot about the past and what made us such a good fit for each other in terms of mindset and how we’ve been kind of going so far. Going forward what kind of things would you like to see changed or added about what we’re doing now? Just for people to be able to model like, okay, I see how they got together, I see how it’s worked so far. What do you want for the future?
Bonnie: Are you talking about in the context of our group specifically or our businesses?
Leti: Mm-hmm.
Bonnie: Okay. Well, one thing I realized is peer masterminds, I think there’s pros and cons, right? It’s really easy for a peer mastermind to just kind of be like, well, I’m not paying for it, it doesn’t matter. And I think our group has been different because I’ve been in peer masterminds or attempted where there’s just no buy-in, whereas ours kind of came organically.
I think really, purposefully meeting up, like I think we all ended up meeting each other because we kind of go to the same conferences, but when was the last time we were all together? I can’t remember. It’s been a while, like, all together.
Sunny: Peter’s conference, I think.
Peter: My conference, yeah.
Sunny: Yeah.
Peter: Afterwards, my backyard, yeah. It’s been a while. It’s been a while.
Sunny: Yeah.
Bonnie: Yeah. So I think purposely doing something, maybe not just attaching to a conference, but we’ve talked about maybe planning a vacation/work thing together, right? So we can all bring our families because it’s hard to always separate from our families. So we’ve talked about Disney cruises or Greece, like I don’t remember. But I think it’s just executing it.
And I think, like Leti was in charge of getting this podcast together. So I think what it takes, and this is just for anything, is like someone’s got to kind of decide to organize something, to kind of be I guess the ringleader, right? So one of us will have to be like, “Okay, let’s look at your calendars. Let’s figure out a time to go.” I think, Peter, you said you’re going on a Disney Cruise next year. So we were like, “What date is that? Maybe we could go.”
Peter: Can we vote on that person right now? I vote Bonnie. Make it organized. We need one person, is that what you’re saying, Bonnie?
Sunny: She volunteered.
Bonnie: I’m happy to, but I think it would be really nice for us to purposefully meet in person. I think we’re pretty good about meeting periodically. I know, Leti, you’re really good about organizing that, like, hey, let’s meet up. And there’s no specific cadence. And I think that’s also nice, we’re not like, oh, we’ve got to meet on the third Wednesday of every month. It’s kind of like whenever it feels like it’s been a while we’ll kind of end up doing a Zoom call.
But yeah, I think that’s one thing I would love, is to actually meet in person where we’re not like, you know, Peter’s not running a conference, right? Because that’s obviously a huge use of his brain time and he’s got to focus on that. So whether we just stay a few extra days and maybe go to your STR in, where is it, by Coachella?
Peter: Oh, Indio? Yeah. Right, or one of their STRs or everybody has something somewhere.
Bonnie: Puerto Rico.
Sunny: We’re having a thing in Puerto Rico soon you can all come to.
Leti: As soon as I buy our Italian villa.
Sunny: Yeah.
Bonnie: Oh, yeah, yeah,
Peter: There you go.
Sunny: I think what I would say about that is that it’s my experience that Leti is the instigator for our meetups generally, and she kind of has to hunt us down. Like it’s not easy. We’re not all like, “Hey, sure, yeah, we’ll do that.” It’s like, how about this day? How about this day? How about this day? How about this day? And everybody is going somewhere all the time. We all have conferences and things we’re going to, so it’s not an easy job for you.
I’ve noticed it’s most common when, for instance, you or one of us has a significant issue. Like as Peter was saying, we really come together with like, oh, the stuff is going to hit the fan right now. We’re in it, we’re deep in it. We need some people who are physicians, who are entrepreneurs, who get what it’s like to run a sizable business and when stuff hits the fan, because it’s like the team or this or that. And so Leti, I find, is very good and persistent about getting us together.
Bonnie: Even for this, right? She was like, “Are we meeting? Are we still on?”
Sunny: And then what I think we could do better is honestly, I think we should just schedule it instead of waiting for every single time like our COO quits or whatever terrible crisis is going down. And maybe even, we could take turns, like this month you lead, next month I lead, next month, right? We could actually do that.
And then also I think the in-persons with intention to have a period of it that is mastermind I and then there will be periods where – Because even in my real, not real, but in my paid masterminds there’s the content, you know, say you’re at a thing from nine to three or whatever, nine to five and that is super important. You’re there with your notebook and all that stuff. But a lot of the learning comes from sitting by the pool and having a drink at the bar.
And so I think we could, for ourselves, do both of those things. We could have some actual content and we’re also really good at the drink at the bar. And it doesn’t have to be alcohol, right? I was at Leti’s house yesterday and it was her two year olds birthday and we had cake, then also went to the pool.
Leti: And the reason we’re in Puerto Rico is because you.
Sunny: Exactly. Exactly and you just came to visit, right? So it’s like you really do become the average of the five people. You know, before I met you guys, I had my five people and we’re basically the same person. We’re underserved medicine, family medicine, faculty members that teach. That’s who we are and we’d been best friends for 25 years. And they’re still my people, but they don’t really understand the kinds of things I have to talk about right now, right? It’s a very different world.
And so having you as some of my five people, I think, again, that just spending time with people intentionally, the things that Peter happens to talk about or that you happen to talk about because it’s part of your life, it’s not like you’re trying to teach me all the time. It’s just this is your life. And so yeah, I think structure plus the unstructured time are things that we could take turns doing. And I look forward to doing that. It’s going to be super fun.
Leti: Peter?
Peter: Yeah, I mean, I think we need to be intentional about meeting up. That’s really what it is. I think we’re all busy and I think everyone, probably everyone in their lives, they’ve realized that without setting something, especially way up in advance, it just doesn’t happen. I mean, I think like Bonnie is talking about she’s got a conference coming up. And if she doesn’t put that date down pretty soon, all of our schedules will be filled up already. I mean, it’s just the way it happens. Life happens, right? Say the date, right?
Kenji: What’s that date?
Bonnie: March 3 through 6 2024.
Kenji: There you go, good job. We’re there.
Bonnie: Yeah, I was like, “Are you guys free this date?” And not everyone knows our schedule that far in advance, but we knew for sure you didn’t have certain big things that you know you had responsibilities for. So yeah, that was also part of it, too. It’s like, okay, finding a date that would work for all of us. And I’m really hoping that you guys can all make it. So yeah, I think that, so we should probably talk offline about September.
Peter: I think it’s funny how Sunny –
Sunny: I was just going to say I’m the opposite. Yeah, Peter will be like, “I have a conference going on. It starts on Saturday, Sunny. Can you come? Are you going to come?” And I’ll be like, “Yeah.” I’m just last minute because my life has had a lot of unforeseeable events and so I needed flexibility in my life. So when Bonnie was like, March, I’m like, you could create a whole human between now and March of next year. There’s no way to actually know what’s going to happen during that time frame, but sure.
Peter: Just put it on the website, just do it. Bonnie put her name on the website, put her picture. I saw my name and picture on the website.
Bonnie: I know, Kenji, I don’t have your headshot. I’m just going to put your picture up there, Sunny.
Kenji: I’ll get it to you.
Sunny: Yeah, I’ll give you a headshot.
Bonnie: Which I wrote subject to change.
Sunny: Yeah, but it’s at Miraval, I mean, who’s not going to want to go to Miraval?
Leti: Yeah, exactly.
Sunny: Yeah.
Peter: But I’ve learned this, and I think my wife sort of reminded me of this too, is that if you don’t set even time with her, like a potential, it’s just like you’ve got to fit in the cracks, maybe. But other things keep filling it first. And so I think for us, we’ve talked about it for a while, I think you’re right, Bonnie. I think we got to just set these dates intentionally and block that off. And then that way, we can say no to other things.
Bonnie: Well, Miraval would be a great way to extend because you’re at a spa resort and it’s all inclusive. It’s like the perfect backdrop, so maybe we could talk about just adding a few extra days. Yeah, it’s probably better to do it after, right? I think so.
Sunny: Yeah. Yeah, I was actually just thinking that. We have a mastermind that was conflicting with Peter’s PIMD Con and I was like, “Oh, we’ve got to rearrange the mastermind because we’re going to PIMD Con.” So it just gives you a sense of like, we make sure that we’re at each other’s important events to support each other.
You guys were our affiliates for the first course sale. We didn’t have a huge list. You guys made all the difference in the growth, and just knowing how much of a difference you guys have made in our growth, our trajectory, just the loyalty of being there this whole time, it means so much to us. And to all of us, I think, to have this relationship where we all started from the beginning.
And we’ve all grown and grown some really remarkable businesses over time through each other helping each other, which is really, really phenomenal and beautiful. So thank you guys so much for your time. This was so amazing. Can each of you maybe tell everyone how they can get a hold of you and find you and learn more about you?
Bonnie: All right, so people can find me at Wealthy Mom MD. And so those are all my handles, Instagram, my website, my podcast, so that makes it super easy.
Sunny: People can find me at empoweringwomenphysicians.com. And they can get free resources and guides and things. Like things that I actually do with my clients, they can download them there. I would say most people, though, know me from my Facebook group, and so that is for women physicians. You have to be a woman identifying physician to get in there. And then I have a podcast of the same name, Empowering Women Physicians.
Peter: Yeah, you can find me at Passive Income MD. I blog and podcast by pretty much the same name. We have some Facebook groups. And of course, there’s the conferences that we do, PIMD Con and Leverage and Growth Summit, so look out for those. And yeah, that’s it.
Leti: And that’s where you’ll see all of us, for sure, too. You can find us at semiretiredmd.com. And we do courses, masterminds and you can find our public Facebook groups as well, Semi-Retired Physicians and Semi-Retired Professionals.
Thank you guys so much for your time. This was so much fun. And I can’t wait to get texting to you guys later today about other things and all the things we’ve been going through. It’s just really an incredible thing to have all of you in our lives. So thank you.
Peter: All right, thanks. Bye guys.
Bonnie: Thank you.
Sunny: Thank you.
I hope you loved our conversation. And I also hope you got a sense of how important these types of connections are. And they literally start from an email or seeing someone in person and how those connections over time can really affect the trajectory of your life.
Like I said before, proximity is power, the people you surround yourself with really matter. They make a profound difference in your life. And that’s one of the reasons I’ve created the Live Wealthy Conference in March 2024, because it’s hard to even capture in words the magic of being in-person, especially with other women physicians.
I think we can all agree that there is something special about being with other female physicians, we get it. So once again, go to my website, wealthymommd.com to learn more about the conference and to register. It’s March 3 to 6 at the Miraval resort in Arizona and I really hope to see you there. We’ll talk to you next week.
Hey there, thanks so much for tuning in. If you loved what you heard, be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. And if you’re listening to this on Apple Podcasts, I’d love for you to leave a review. Reviews tell Apple that this podcast is, well, awesome. And it will help women find this podcast so that they too can live a wealthy life. And finally, you can learn more about me and what I do at wealthymommd.com. See you next week.
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164: How to Live By Your Values with Trudi Lebrón
How important is it to define and examine our values? What do the terms diversity, equity, and inclusion really mean as they relate to your work? And how can we live by those values to ultimately create a better world?
This week, I’m speaking to founder and CEO of the Institute for Equity-Centered Coaching, Trudi Lebrón. Among many other accolades, Trudi is also an entrepreneur, coach, author, and speaker whose work sits at the intersection of anti-racism and anti-oppressive liberation, education, and strategy, helping leaders and coaches increase the impact of their efforts through an equity-centered lens.
Join us on this episode as Trudi walks us through the importance of aligning your values with diversity, equity, and inclusion, and how opting out of doing so ensures the system stays rigged. We’re exploring the key to sustainable change, and Trudi is sharing her insights on creating a practice that is a safe space for everyone.
The waitlist for Live Wealthy, the Money and Wellness Conference for Women Physicians is open! Tickets are selling fast so click here to book your spot!
Learn more about Live Wealthy, an exclusive coaching program designed for successful women who want to be confident.... and be rich.
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
- How Trudi came to do the work she does now.
- What equity and privilege mean, and how equity is achieved.
- Trudi’s definition of toxic capitalism, and why it’s important to distinguish.
- Why shame is not a useful emotion for driving change.
- What happens when you’re not prepared to hold space for how identity, culture, and ethnicity factor into a person’s life.
- Trudi’s tips for creating a practice that is a safe space.
- How everything can be looked at through the lens of an equity-centered practice to determine whether we’re doing our best.
- The key to sustainable change.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
- Follow me on Instagram
- Trudi Lebrón: Instagram | LinkedIn | Podcast
- The Antiracist Business Book by Trudi Lebrón
- Kara Loewentheil
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 up-level your money and your life. I’m your host, Dr. Bonnie Koo.
Hey everyone. I am super excited about my guest today. I have Trudi Lebrón, I’m guessing most of you probably don’t know who she is, and so she will obviously introduce herself. But let me just tell you how I know her.
So, I first heard of her through the coaching world. As you know, of course, I’m a life and money coach and I was trained at The Life Coach School. And I first heard about her because her book was about to come out. Now, her book is called The Antiracist Business Book.
And even though it has the word business in it, this book is not just for business owners, and we’re going to talk more about why. Because all of us work in a business or we own a business, we basically are always surrounded by businesses and most of us work in some capacity, right?
And so I really wanted to have her come on to just talk about, honestly, just define a bunch of terms that we’ve all been hearing a lot since the murder of George Floyd in 2020. And I have been learning a lot as well, as I’m sure many of you as well, and so I wanted her on to define some terms and give you context and really educated you and me about what we can do.
And also how important it is to really examine our values. And if your values are aligned with diversity, equity, inclusion, then you're going to want to find out how you can live those values and ultimately create a better world, right?
And we don’t talk too much about its intersection with money, although we do. And there is a quote that I love saying over and over again, and I don’t have the quote in front of me but it’s from one of my coaches, Kara Loewentheil, and it goes something like this, when women are hesitant to make money and create wealth, they usually do not understand that by opting out of the game they are insuring it continues to be rigged against them.
Now, we can just change the words and put this into the context of diversity, equity, and inclusion. It’s not enough to be educated about it, it’s not enough to even think to yourself that you want to learn, that you want to see more of it in the world if you're not going to actually take on the values and show it for real, right?
And one thing I really wanted to highlight that Trudi and I talk about is that systems are created by people. And that is such a simple concept, but again, that’s something I learned actually from Kara as well. And when she said this, it just really struck me, right? Because a lot of us feel like we can’t change the system and there’s different systems and the system that I’m exposed to a lot is, obviously, health care and medicine because I spend a lot of time with women physicians.
And so we do talk about that, so I’m not going to talk too much about that right now in terms of what we can do and how feeling helpless and feeling like our actions won’t make a difference is actually one of the ways the system continues to stay the way it is.
But before I turn the reins over to our conversation, at the time of this recording the 2024 Money and Wellness Conference for Women Physicians, also called the Live Wealthy Conference for 2024 is basically half sold out, okay? And we might be adding more spots, but that won’t happen until I sign another contract, right? And so what I want to say is if you’ve been thinking about going, if you're interested, register right now.
Go to my website, wealthymommd.com, and you’ll see a link up top directing you to the conference website where you can learn more about it and you can save your spot. I am having the most amazing speakers, we’re going to have an amazing breadth of topics. Obviously there’s going to be a lot of money topics, you're going to learn about real estate, you're going to learn about entrepreneurship and some basic personal finance principles as well.
But, as you know, money is useless unless you are happy otherwise, right? Probably the biggest complaints I hear from physicians besides being told what to do, and that’s a system thing, right, is charting. And so we’re going to address that. You're going to have a lesson or two on charting because it is possible to chart a lot less.
I've heard all the excuses. I'm not a charting coach, but I'm bringing in an amazing charting coach that's going to help you do that. Of course you're also going to learn how to negotiate so that you can actually get paid what you should get paid, which will obviously directly impact your finances. And that's just a sampling of the topics that we will go over.
And not to mention that the conference is taking place at a luxury spa resort that I know many of you probably wouldn't go to on your own. And I picked this location on purpose because basically it's going to be forced rest and relaxation, okay? Now, forced is a strong word, but you get what I'm saying.
We are so busy. We as women, especially women physicians, are pretty terrible at doing things for ourselves, relaxing, et cetera because there are so many things that demand our time and attention, right? Work, if you're married, if you have children, so many other things that are constantly competing for our time and attention. And the way we are socialized as women is that we take care of everything and everybody first, and maybe if there's something a little leftover, then we can do something for ourselves.
And so I purposely picked a location like this. It's at Miraval, it's in Arizona, it's in Tucson which is about two hours from Phoenix, because I want you to experience what it's like to live a wealthy life, okay? So go to wealthymommd.com and you'll see a link to learn more about the conference, all the details, et cetera, and definitely save your spot.
At the time of this recording VIP spots are already sold out. Again, we might be adding more, we're just waiting to honestly hear back from Miraval about capacity issues, obviously. Okay, so let's go on and here's my conversation with Trudi.
Bonnie: All right, Trudi, welcome.
Trudi: Hey Bonnie, thanks for having me.
Bonnie: Yeah, I've been so excited to have you on because I know my listeners are going to learn so much and be, honestly, so grateful that you're here to talk about all the things.
So why don't you introduce yourself, since I'm just thinking most of my audience may not know who you are and they definitely need to.
Trudi: So I am a coach and an entrepreneur and writer and podcaster, many things. I'm the founder of the Institute for Equity Centered Coaching. And through that body of work we do a number of things including certify coaches and leaders in equity centered coaching and equity centered leadership.
Which is an approach to those skills that centers equity, that looks at how we can use the skills of coaching and leadership to create more justice, liberation, opportunity, disruption of practices that have tended to be rooted in toxic capitalism and things like that. And we'll get into what all that means.
I wrote a book called The Antiracist Business Book. And I do executive coaching and business strategy for people who want to run companies that have this kind of quality to them that is about using their business as a tool for change and also making sure that their business isn't part of the problem, right? That their businesses aren't perpetuating some of the challenges that we face that continue to create more marginalization and oppression.
Bonnie: Yeah, I mean, just even hearing this, I kind of knew already what you do but just hearing you talk about it, so impressive and such important work, right? Well, I think we need to define a lot of the terms you just said because I'm sure people are like, I don't know what that all means, but I should know.
Trudi: Yeah let’s do it.
Bonnie: So let's kind of go through them one by one. Let's start with some basic things like defining equity.
Trudi: Understanding equity is often helpful to put it next to equality, which is a term that people are very familiar with. So if we think of equal as everyone getting the same thing, equity is that everybody gets what they need to get to the same place, which is often different, right? Which means that people often need different types of things to have the support in order to accomplish their goals.
Bonnie: Yeah, let's give some specific examples just so people truly understand. Like I think I know what it means, but I'm always learning layers. So just to take me for example, I'm a Korean American and I think I grew up in a lower middle class family. But still, I also understand that there was privilege involved, right? And I want to define privilege as well because I think people don't quite understand what that means, right?
And so I moved here when I was two years old, so I came from South Korea. And I would say my parents had pretty humble beginnings, but obviously I had a roof over my head, I never was worried about food, they were able to send me to a private school. I still took out a crap ton of loans, but even the ability to apply, like with all the things I'm learning, I'm just sort of looking back at some of the advantages I had, even though it's easy for me to think that I didn’t, right?
Trudi: Yeah, so privilege in that context is like anything that we have that advantages us in some way, right? A lot of people talk about privileges as things that are unearned, but that's not necessarily true. There are some qualities or some parts of privilege that are unearned, for example, if you're a man, right, or if you're a white man, or if you currently reside in the country that you are born in, that's a privilege, right? You didn't earn that, it just happened to be the case, right?
Whereas other privileges are earned, you got a degree. That was something that you had to put in work for, right? So privileges are advantages that we have. And I really encourage people to think about privilege as a neutral thing. How people use their privilege, we can kind of put up against different moral and ethical standards, right? But privilege on its own, it's just a fact of identity and role.
Bonnie: Yeah, I think it's really important to just put that out there because I think it can have a negative connotation, like entitlement almost, right?
Trudi: Yeah, and a lot of that is because of the broader conversation about white privilege and how people use privileges to disadvantage other people, and how people make decisions that protect privileged identities. All of those are problems that we need to fix.
But just the identity on its own, there's nothing inherently bad or wrong about it. That's an important thing to let kind of sink in because if people are feeling – There has been a lot of effort in creating shame around privilege, which is certainly not useful.
Bonnie: Yeah, we both know that shame is not a useful emotion to drive change.
Trudi: Absolutely not.
Bonnie: On either side, right?
Trudi: Yeah, absolutely.
Bonnie: Okay, so we defined privilege and equity. Was there anything else you wanted to say about equity?
Trudi: So I will say in the context of equity, just to give a more specific example, so equal would be let's say you have two students who need to take the GED test, for example. Let's say there are two students that need to take the GED test and they need to learn the content, right? Like they need to learn how to pass the test, which means they need to learn all the math involved, how to take the test and all that.
But if one student doesn't speak English or can't read English, there is an extra thing that needs to happen, right? That test needs to be in another language so that they can get access to that diploma, right? So equity means not just that we train everybody to know how to do the math, but that we’re giving it to them in a way that, you know, in this example, they can pass that test.
It's not enough for us to just say, oh, well, they learned how to do it, or we teach them how to do it. If they can’t have access to that information, because there's a language barrier, that's not equitable, we need to do more. So equity is always about assessing to see that we have done all that we can in ways that are within reasonable accommodations to help people get the support that they need to achieve the goals that they have in their life.
Bonnie: Yeah, and as you were saying that I'm thinking of all the tests that are available, like the GED or the SATs, and they keep changing, I think the names are the same, but the numbers don't make sense any more since I took it, or even the MCAT, right?
Trudi: Yeah.
Bonnie: So would an example of privilege be, obviously, taking a test prep course?
Trudi: Yeah.
Bonnie: Having the ability to do that, which is where money comes in too, right?
Trudi: Right. Or that that test prep is available to you in a language that you speak.
Bonnie: Yeah. Yeah, and I had access to that for SATs and for MCAT. So just thinking about all the advantages and privileges for that. As you were saying that, I was thinking about accessibility. And so is that the same as equity?
Trudi: So accessibility is a component of equity. We achieve equity by making things accessible.
Bonnie: Yeah, one thing I've seen since I do a lot of Zoom calls, and I'm sure you do, is Zoom added that function where it can do live transcripts.
Trudi: Yeah.
Bonnie: Yeah, so I thought that was a great feature.
Okay, so toxic capitalism because I think a lot of people don't know what that means and it's kind of used a lot. It's kind of like the popular term to throw around. So let's talk about that a little.
Trudi: Is it? Oh, good. Because when I wrote about it, there weren't very many people using that exact terminology. So the term toxic capitalism, the way that I define toxic capitalism is to speak to the elements of capitalism that perpetuate oppression and marginalization of people.
And the reason that I think that it's important to distinguish that difference is because as a business strategist, especially someone who came, you know, I came out of the nonprofit industry years ago.
But I've worked with a lot of people who come out of justice oriented and like human service oriented fields, like education, social work, and various types of nonprofits. Or people who grew up not having access to a lot of money who have real trouble charging the amount of money that's going to allow them to have a sustainable business, feeling competent about making investments in themselves or their business, right? There's all this money stuff that goes along with that.
And a lot of that is because of this feeling for people that they don't want to have anything to do with business at all. They're just like, I don't want to have anything to do with it. People with lots of money are bad. I don't want to be one of those people. And there's a lot of these associations.
And so what you get is often people who are like, I'm anti-capitalist, right? I'm anti-capitalist. But there are elements of capitalism that are about ownership, right? The ability for a mom to open a daycare center in her home, it is because we have an economic system, right?
And even if all she's doing is generating enough money to run her business and take care of herself and her kids and her family, and not necessarily making millions and millions of dollars, the reason that she can do that is because we live in a country where someone can decide to set up a business and set up their rates and just do that. And there are places where that is not possible. And we need to understand that that is the case.
But what we have a lot of and what we have a lot of big examples of is big corporations, like the Amazons of the world, who consolidate all this wealth. The reason they're able to do that is because they basically exploit the labor of the folks in their organizations who are closest to the ground. So the Amazon delivery drivers, and the administrative assistants, and the warehouse workers are not making enough money.
Even if they work full-time they're not making enough money to take care of themselves, to buy a home, even a starter home and take care of their family. But meanwhile, we have executives profiting millions and millions and millions of dollars where we have other people who aren't making enough and don't have healthcare benefits.
And so it is the capitalist system also that allows for those things to happen. And so understanding that those aren't requirements of capitalism, those are requirements of the policies that we have here in the United States that can be changed. We don't have to also throw away a system that can create a lot of opportunity for people and a lot of freedom for people.
So when I say toxic capitalism, I'm talking about that exploitation of labor that is so common with people who are consolidating wealth.
Bonnie: Yeah, and I think most listeners, unless you ignore the news, and sometimes I do because the news is like just focusing on really horrible things.
Trudi: Yeah.
Bonnie: There’s only so much my nervous system can take.
Trudi: Same.
Bonnie: I actually followed an Instagram account, and maybe you've heard of it, it's like good news only.
Trudi: Yeah, we all need a little bit of that, for sure.
Bonnie: Yeah, you kind of hear how humans are actually good.
Trudi: Yes.
Bonnie: And so what I'm saying is, there's been quite a bit of press about how Amazon does, like the working conditions of Amazon. And I've had a few friends and they're higher up who work. And this is a very small sample size, but they all hate working there. They're making good money, right?
Trudi: Yeah, because of the environment. The cost of being in those environments is quite high. Like the cost of your time and your energy and your family and the psychological and emotional stress. And, again, that's not an inherent requirement of capitalism. That is a function of our policies and our practices that can be changed.
Bonnie: Yeah, let's have you talk more about sort of a brief bio of Trudi and how you got to do this work.
Trudi: Yeah. So my work sits at this very interesting intersection of anti-racism and anti-oppressive liberation, education and strategy, and coaching and business. And the reason that I got there is because I came into this career through the nonprofit world. And I got into the nonprofit world because I was one of those people who grew up in an under-resourced community in Connecticut. I grew up in Hartford, Connecticut and I live right outside there now.
I was a teen mom, I had my first son when I was 15 years old. I had my second son when I was 16. I was on various social service supports early in my life, you know, food stamps and housing subsidies and all that kind of stuff. And also being a bi-racial person, woman, my father is an Afro Latino from Puerto Rico, my mom is a white woman.
And so my life experience, like I grew up seeing how people were discriminated against and really understanding. I had a very high-end race consciousness as a young person because in the 80s there weren't a lot of mixed families in Connecticut, right? And so questions like, is that your dad, really? And how is that your family? And are you really Puerto Rican?
When you grow up with that, it gives you a sense of not belonging anywhere, right? And so when I got older and went to college and went into my career I was constantly navigating additional challenges of being a young mom and all this. And the reason that I was able to be successful is because I had coaches. And not that these people would call themselves coaches, they were teachers, social workers, program directors, camp counselors in some cases, professors.
The ones that made big differences were interacting with me in a way of a mentor or a coach. And when I continued into my graduate program, education, I really started to look at those factors. Like look at what are the kinds of things that support someone who went through some of the things that I had gone through in my life that support success? Or what are the risk factors that kind of deviate people from having the kinds of outcomes that I was having?
So I got this really interesting intersection of education while I was working in nonprofits and studying psychology and human behavior and transformation. And I also had this real practical need to make money because I had kids. And so I was always side hustling. I mean, from the time I was 19, I was always like side hustling. I was a teaching artist. I would do trainings. I would facilitate field trips for kids, and teach art in the park in the summer. You name it, I was doing it.
And that leads a lot of people to podcasts and listening to podcasts on building businesses and entrepreneurship. And I saw that the world of online business and coaching were these really innovative spaces where there were lots of opportunities for transformation. But that it was seriously lacking a context for social change, social justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion. And those were things that I had been doing professionally for years.
So when I decided that it was time to leave the nonprofit world and run my business full-time, I decided that that was the niche I was going to go into. I was going to fill the gap in the kind of coaching and online business space and really introduce the conversation of diversity, equity and inclusion.
And so I've been doing that specifically in this space since at least 2017, 2018, before it was popular.
Bonnie: Before it was popular.
Trudi: Before it was cool. And I've been doing diversity, equity and inclusion work for over 20 years, like in schools and nonprofits. But in the coaching space and the online business space, it's a newer conversation in the field.
Bonnie: Yeah, let's talk about that a little bit. What's changed? I think you're right. I think some people are like, “Oh, this is like a new thing now.” What have you seen change from when you were doing it before to when the conversation started happening? Was that 2020?
Trudi: Yeah, so there was a big shift in 2020, for sure. So pre 2020 any work that had to do with diversity, equity and inclusion as it intersected, again, with coaching or online business, like this kind of intersectional space, it really had to be kind of hidden in other language. So it was like, make an impact and social impact business and those kinds of things. Increase diversity.
People understood that, but they definitely were not thinking about how whiteness is showing up in your coaching practice or how you're perpetuating supremacist values in your business. Those things were not, and those are conversations that are happening now.
So just I think pre 2020 it was a lot of hidden language, gentle language, introducing people, slowly trying to convince people to pay attention. Whereas after the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent mistakes that many people, especially people with big platforms, were making around the movement for Black lives, people were like, “Oh, we actually need to pay attention.”
And so now people, for the most part, understand that this is something that they should be thinking about or that they need to have some awareness of. But we still haven't gotten to the point where people understand how to integrate it into their business.
Bonnie: Yes. And that's really your specialty.
Trudi: Yeah.
Bonnie: And I love how you said that, right? Like there's an awareness and people are educating themselves. They're being educated, but it's like, okay, what do you do with this knowledge practically in their lives, right? Because we have been talking about online entrepreneurship and coaching, because that's the world that you and I know, that's how you and I met. And so let's sort of integrate that with my typical listener.
So my typical listener, actually, I've never done a survey, but most of them are female physicians as far as I know. And so they're either employees of a private practice, they could be part of a large organization, they could be owning their practice. And I'm sure there are some non-physicians who are business owners as well.
So I guess what I'm trying to say is, and this is where I pass it back to you, Trudi. I hate the word tips, but what are some things that they can start thinking about and doing to integrate it into their life and their work? I think also, and maybe you know this too, is there has been a lot more awareness in the physician community about explicit bias. We've known for a while how Black people and other marginalized groups get crappy care, right?
Trudi: Yeah.
Bonnie: In general they're ignored. And Serena Williams highlighted that with her, was it her – Yeah, she had a pulmonary embolism, or at least a blood clot. I don't know the specific details. And so that's being highlighted a lot more in the press, and I'm guessing it's because of everything from 2020.
Trudi: Yeah.
Bonnie: And so I'm not even sure what the question is, Trudi, here.
Trudi: No, I get it. I think I got it.
Bonnie: Okay, yeah.
Trudi: Yeah, so here's what I want everyone to understand. If you're doing any kind of work that has to do with improving the life outcomes of people, we might be talking about health outcomes, we might be talking about overall subjective well-being, right? We might be talking about professional achievement.
If you're doing anything that has to do with improving the life outcomes of a person's life and you don't have a context for how identity and culture and ethnicity factors into a person's life, you are missing big things, right? We know that two of the biggest indicators, the data points, that predict life outcomes are race and zip code.
That is true when we're talking about health. It's true when we're talking about education. It's true when we're talking even about relationships and just quality of life, right? Race and zip code are major predictors in life outcomes.
Bonnie: I'm just going to pause you for a second.
Trudi: Yeah.
Bonnie: I think people have awareness about race, but maybe not zip code. Because that's a new thing for me that I learned. I knew there were different outcomes for different races, but zip code.
Trudi: Yeah, and zip code because location is one of the ways that we segregated people, right? So segregation became illegal and instead, people just found clever ways to segregate communities based on where they could live. They wrote the racism into the housing codes, right?
If anyone can just Google redlining and kind of see the map, and you'll see where the red lines are, are where some of the major cities are where Black and brown folks still live today. And they tend to be impacted more severely by environmental hazards and food deserts and access to green space, right? So those two things are linked. But race on its own is a high predictor, but when you combine race and zip code, you get scarily accurate predictions.
And so again, knowing that, right, if we're doing any life transformation work, including coaching, including life coaching, and if we're not prepared to hold space for conversations about identity or culture and values, and even culture like the food that people eat. Like if we're not prepared to hold space for those conversations and navigate them, the risk of missing important elements is quite high, and also to give bad advice, right?
Advice that is counter cultural or dismissive or gaslighting. And that causes people to distrust their providers or their coaches, right? People want to go into a space where they can show up as who they are and be fully seen.
Bonnie: Yeah, and feel safe, right?
Trudi: Yeah, and feel safe.
Bonnie: Not just from a physical safety perspective, but an emotional safety perspective. And as you were talking, we do know as physicians there are certain groups that don't trust the medical system, and for good reason.
Trudi: For good reason, yeah. But there are things that physicians can do to make their spaces safe, right? To message to their clients, their communities, their future clients that you do business differently, right? If that’s true, right? You can create a practice that has a really clear mission, vision, values, core beliefs that are active in the marketing of your practice that speak to culture and inclusivity, right?
You can make sure that you are trained in cultural responsiveness, that your team is trained in principles of trauma informed practice and trauma informed care. There are things that you can do, even in just how you decorate your office that are signs to people about how inclusive or not your space is, right?
So yeah, there's all kinds of things that can be, like literally everything can be looked at through a lens of equity centered practice to determine are we doing our best here?
Bonnie: Can you give some specific examples? Because I'm sure people hearing this are like, I want to do this, I have no idea what it would actually look like. So, obviously, we're not going to cover everything, but maybe just a few specific examples.
I think like just training staff, because I'm in all these physician Facebook groups and someone was just talking about how I think their mom or some relative was going to see the doctor and their English isn't very good. And how the office staff just basically said we can't see you because you don't speak English, or it was something like that.
Trudi: Yeah, so make sure that you have access that is set up. So in that case, the language line, right? There are services that are specifically – For years now. I remember being 20 years ago, taking my kid to the doctor, my older kids to the doctor, and being asked if I need interpreters, right? And there was just a phone line that could be picked up and someone prepared to interpret it in many languages, right?
So thinking about do you need to be hooked up with that kind of service based on who you're serving? Or do you need to hire staff who can do that, right? And that is part of their job, you're not just hiring someone, an administrative assistant and they speak Spanish, and now they're the interpreter for the whole office. But that you're hiring someone and that the interpretation is embedded as part of their job and they're compensated for that, right? Those kinds of things.
Also bathrooms, right? So if you're providing gender affirming care and you still have male and female bathrooms, that's not inclusive, right? There could be things that are just as simple as that. Signage, that signage is available in fonts that people can read and in sizes that are easy to see, right?
Everything can be looked at to say like, is this part of the process easy for people to access? Are there barriers? Are there barriers that we can remove? Where can we do better?
Bonnie: Yeah. So what are some common objections or barriers to this getting implemented? Like I can think of some, but because this is what you do, you probably see it across more things.
One thing that comes to mind, just to give you an example from a physician perspective, is medicine has a lot of problems, and I'm sure you're aware of some of them. We are the only profession, as far as I know, where it's okay to cut our payments.
We have like reverse inflation. If you work for a traditional corporation, they usually give you, not all of them, but an inflation based raise. Like getting a raise at some point, right? But I don't know if you know this, but physicians literally get demotions.
Trudi: Yeah, cut. Yeah.
Bonnie: Yeah, like in terms of what you get reimbursed for a skin biopsy, I'm a dermatologist. It literally goes down every year, and so physicians are “forced” to see more patients to literally just make the same amount.
Trudi: Yeah.
Bonnie: And even making the same amount is a demotion, right? Because there's inflation and inflation has been crazy lately. And so I could just see like, I really want to do this, and I'm going to make less money if I make these accommodations.
I think it's actually illegal not to have an interpreter in terms of seeing a patient.
Trudi: Yeah.
Bonnie: And I'm sure certain doctors attract, like for example there was a Korean dermatologist where I live because I live in a highly Koreanized area. And all the Koreans go to him, I think it's a him, because they feel more comfortable seeing someone who looks like them.
Trudi: Yeah.
Bonnie: So, anyway, that's kind of a side point. But I feel like that's an objection that people probably wouldn't feel comfortable saying, but I know it's out there. I think there's two sides, right? Like spending money on the things that you mentioned.
Trudi: Yep.
Bonnie: And then also having accommodations, taking more time, which unfortunately the way we're paid as doctors if you take insurance, right? Not every doctor takes insurance and the ones who don’t have the ability to spend more time with their patients.
Trudi: Yeah. So that's a business model problem, right? So what I want to highlight is that we can't solve interpersonal problems at a business model level, right? The business model of medicine is inherently a problem, which is what you're talking about.
Bonnie: Yeah.
Trudi: And so if I were working with someone who had that challenge, I would say, okay, well, how do we have to shift your business model, right? That doesn't become a conversation of whether or not you're providing culturally responsive care, because if it's a value of yours, then it's a non-negotiable. It just becomes about like, okay, how do we roll this out?
You don't have to roll everything out at once, right? But what is the decision that you can make just next to be more inclusive, to be more equitable? It doesn't have to be a big overhaul. Big overhauls tend not to last.
Bonnie: And I think that’s an important point, Trudi, because it's like that all or none thinking.
Trudi: Yeah.
Bonnie: Like, oh my God, I can't do it all. And so they don't do anything, right?
Trudi: Right. Yeah, no, I think that's a big flaw in thinking, for sure, that all or nothing. Certainly incremental change is actually more sustainable. And that's why every conversation I have with people starts with like, well, what are your values? Because if your values are about inclusivity, then doing it isn't a question. Whether or not you do it is no longer a question.
How much can you do? How soon? In what way? And then what are the adjustments on the business model side to get in alignment, right? It's a math equation, right, and a social problem equation. We can't look at these things as though they're impossible. There are solutions to be found. But kind of just saying, “Well, this is just how the system is,” is actually just supporting it.
Bonnie: Yes, I think that’s the whole physician culture. One of my physician coach friends is like the term, we have a learned helplessness about not being able to change the system. Put aside diversity, equity, inclusion, just like the culture and system of medicine and how it's going downhill.
So there's a section of doctors who are like, I just need to figure out a way to exit medicine because I can't deal with this. I'm burned out and I'm tired of non-doctors telling me how to practice. All these laws are being passed, as I’m sure you're aware. You know, Florida, cough, cough.
Trudi: Oh, my gosh, I don’t know what’s going on over there.
Bonnie: I don't know if you heard, they just changed the abortion ban to six weeks. Like women don't even know they're pregnant at six weeks and you don't even need to see an OB/GYN. I remember when I got pregnant, my OB/GYN friend, and again I have access to so much unofficial care because I know so many physicians. And she's like, oh, you don't have to come in yet, but if you feel more comfortable, you can come in at whatever weeks, I don't remember. He's six now, so I don't remember that long ago.
So, I guess, and this is for me too, it’s like how does an individual person – Because I think it's so easy for an individual person to feel like, well, I can't make a difference, I'm only one person.
Trudi: Yeah, it's lots of one persons that makes changes, right? So we need the individual to act, otherwise we never get to collective change. I have been seeing some interesting things that are happening with doctors who are experimenting with membership models, for example. Or going off insurance altogether and looking at tiered pricing or sliding scale, right?
There’s probably 100 things that are possible, but it's about just kind of looking at, again, where am I right now? And what is the one thing I can do? And maybe the one thing for now is making sure you have a gender neutral bathroom. That just one of your bathrooms in the building says, “bathroom for everyone,” right? Or maybe it's the signage or whatever.
Again, it's what's the one thing? If you're feeling like you can't take it all out, it's like what's the one thing? And bigger than that, what do your values require of you?
Bonnie: Spending time just sitting down and being like, what are my values? Because I think it's easy to just not even think about that. And when you said about it takes a lot of people doing one thing or something like that, Kara Loewentheil has been my coach for some time. And I learn from her, and this sentence really struck me, it's like systems are created by people.
Trudi: Right.
Bonnie: Because I think it's easy to think a system is just out there and it's like an organism that you have no control over. It's like no, no, no, they’re created by people. And so the way to change the system is for each person to do something.
Trudi: Right. They're created by the system and they're supported and perpetuated, right? All these things, the systemic issues are people, right? They are people making decisions, people making policies, and then people enacting those policies, right? So, even the way in which we implement a policy or have a conversation, there's a lot that can happen just in the implementation of a policy or the execution of a policy that can have an impact.
Bonnie: And just to tie this into money, so the clients I work with, a lot of times they’ll say things like, well, I want to do this, but I can't because of money. Or they're afraid to even speak up because they're afraid of losing their job, right? And this is whether you're a doctor or not, right, because that does happen.
Trudi: Yeah.
Bonnie: And so part of what I try to really help my clients with, is to help them take back their agency, number one. But also know that no matter what money wise, that they'll be okay and they can figure it out. Because I think a lot of people, it's easy to think like, well, if I lose his job, what am I going to do? And they all think they're going to be homeless, right?
Trudi: Right, that's everybody’s bottom line.
Bonnie: I’m not laughing at them, but it's like that's just where our brain goes.
Trudi: Yeah, it is.
Bonnie: And it's like, so far none of my clients have become homeless, and neither have I. I still have my fears around money, I think it's a normal human fear, right? Because it is something that we need for our survival. And so lots of things to think about. And I'm just thinking about even me, it's easy to get overwhelmed. And I think the message here is just pick one thing. What are your values? So maybe we just start there.
Trudi: Start there. Yeah, that's actually a chapter in my book, it's called start with your values, right? That becomes a foundation. If you start with your values and get really clear on naming them and defining them, this very simple question of what do my values require of me?
Bonnie: And I'm just realizing, but no one knows that, because I'm an online business, right?
Trudi: Yes.
Bonnie: So it’s like, do I put it on my website? I'm just thinking, how do I make it – Because also, when I think of my clients, yeah, they're doctors, but obviously we're a diverse group of people, we're not just one race. And even though they're doctors and there's a certain level of respect and achievement associated, they're not going to feel safe just because I'm a doctor, I guess is the best way to put it.
Trudi: Right. Yeah, yeah. So my recommendation around values, we actually have a really robust values practice in our company and that we kind of work through with all our clients. And once you get those, once you have those values in place, they become basically like a little board of directors for your business and that every decision is about alignment back to those values, right? That everything is always, you're always kind of thinking about those things.
And so when you do that, that means that the emails that you write start to sound different. The content you create starts to sound different. You're gathering an audience around a value set, instead of around a person or a personality, or a niche.
That is what creates a culture, right, a community, particularly in a coaching community. It's really easy to feel confident that if you have an in-person event, or a group mastermind, or a group call that you've organized, if you've organized people around a value set, that everyone's going to show up and feel really connected and on board.
Versus you just have random people from all over the place because of aggressive marketing, and now you're not sure who's showing up on that call, or what they value or what they believe in. And you don't know if it's going to be a safe space for everyone.
Like my position in equity centered practice and anti-racist business specifically, your values and your core beliefs become like the foundation of all of the work that you do.
Bonnie: Yeah, and like a filter for who you want in your audience. And I'm going to ask you a quick question once we go offline here, but I've created a conference, it's going to be next year. And it's the first Money and Wellness Conference for Women Physicians. You don't have to be a physician to attend, but it's really geared towards that.
And I was just thinking while you were talking, like how do I make it clear that these are my values? Because if their values don't align, then it's not for them.
Trudi: Yeah, 100%. Yeah, you want the marketing, especially if you're gathering people in-person, anytime you’re doing in-person work and anytime you're intentionally gathering a diversity of people, like diverse in identity, ethnicity, you want to have really clear values in place and community agreements and expectations for how people show up. So that people know that you're, again, that you're including them and that you're thinking of them and that you have a container and a culture built for when people show up.
What the expectations are for how they kind of bring their own energy and then how they relate to each other. That also becomes how you think through who is going to come and speak, right? Everything is embodying those values.
Bonnie: Yeah. Okay, well, I'm so grateful that you're here. And this may have been the first time someone's really spent time thinking about them, because the conversations are being had, but not everyone has continued exposure and doing the work, right? Because it's easy to be like, “Well, I'm busy and I know I need to do this, but not right now,” type of thing.
Actually, I do want to highlight your book because I think it's really easy for people, especially when the title is How to – What was it again?
Trudi: It's called The Antiracist Business Book.
Bonnie: Yeah. No, I have it, I just was like, is it how to have an anti-racist, I couldn’t remember the exact title. So I could hear people thinking, “Well, I don't have a business, so that book isn’t for me.” So I'm sure that's not true.
Trudi: Yeah, it's not true. So that book is, that's why it's not called how to build an antiracist business. It's just The Antiracist Business Book. It's both an examination of the culture we have around business. And a lot of people have shared that in reading the book, it's put language to a lot of the things that they were feeling and maybe didn't understand why or didn't have language to express.
And then the other half of the book are invitations and possible ways to create teams and businesses and lead. Even if you're not the business owner, but how to be a leader that is creating spaces that are equitable, that are inclusive, that are anti-oppressive, and that are disrupting the culture of continued marginalization and supremacy that we unfortunately still have.
Bonnie: Yeah, so obviously we’ll link the book, and you could just Google it as well. So anything else you want to say before we close?
Trudi: Yeah, I think that I just want to really put kind of an exclamation point on this idea that diversity, equity and inclusion isn't a separate thing that you either have time to do or not. But the most effective way to think about it is that it becomes the way that you do everything. That’s why we talk about an equity centered practice. If you have an equity centered practice, it just becomes the way that you are in all of your work. And then it never has to be something you either have time for or not.
Bonnie: Or something you have to spend time thinking about, or it's like a separate thing on the checklist of running your life.
Trudi: Right, it’s not that. It's just part of how you live and how you work and operate.
Bonnie: Yeah, because all of us have kind of a moral compass that we follow. And we're not thinking like, oh, is this morally with my values? It just becomes who we are, we don't even think about it. So I think that's what it is. Okay, how do people find you?
Trudi: Yeah, the best way to be in touch is to follow me on Instagram, @TrudiLebron. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn, we're also over there.
And because none of us trust the algorithms anymore, especially for people who talk about equity, diversity and inclusion because there's just a suppression of that kind of content, if you go to my Instagram we suggest that you go to my link tree and just get on my email list. If you are interested in learning more about these things, it's the best way to stay in touch and stay updated.
Bonnie: Yeah. All right, one quick thing since you mentioned the algorithm. So I know the algorithm kind of suppress certain topics, and this is one of them it sounds like.
Trudi: Yeah, it is. Yeah, it's wild. What we see more and more of is that people who are content creators primarily, that their central part of their job is creating content, they are doing just fine because in lots of ways they are essentially working for the social media companies. Those social media companies need content creators to be pushing out content. So those folks are privileged by the algorithm. They get pushed out, you see their stuff.
But for the vast majority of others who are not content creators, especially if you don't have the kind of budget to be playing a big ads game, your audience is not seeing your content in the ways that they once did. So we are, especially around content that is this kind of important, if people are really interested in continuing to learn and stay in touch, we are saying get on the email list of the educators that you trust.
Whether it's me or someone else, if you want to learn from someone, get on their email list or their text message service so that you can be informed. Because you can't trust Meta to deliver your content to you. Your mail is not being delivered to you.
Bonnie: Yeah. Okay, thanks for that. Some people might not even be aware that that's a thing. So thank you, thank you, thank you.
Trudi: And I do want to add too, that for all the physicians and people who are building businesses, get good at email. Don't trust social media.
Bonnie: Oh, yeah.
Trudi: Even if it feels like it's not specific to the kind of work that you do, definitely get good at writing your emails.
Bonnie: It’s the only thing you own, too.
Trudi: Exactly.
Bonnie: Because you don’t own your Instagram followers, you can get shut down and all that jazz.
Trudi: Exactly, even if it's just a once a month newsletter, just build a practice around it.
Bonnie: Thank you so much, Trudi.
Trudi: Yeah, you're so welcome. Thanks for having me.
Bonnie: Yeah.
Hey there, thanks so much for tuning in. If you loved what you heard, be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. And if you’re listening to this on Apple Podcasts, I’d love for you to leave a review. Reviews tell Apple that this podcast is, well, awesome. And it will help women find this podcast so that they too can live a wealthy life. And finally, you can learn more about me and what I do at wealthymommd.com. See you next week.
Get started on your journey to wealth by getting the best selling book: Defining Wealth for Women.
For media or speaking inquiries please click here.
For all other inquiries please click here.
163: Scarcity and Sufficiency
From time to time, we all grapple with the nagging feeling of not having enough. But what is that feeling exactly? To me, it’s a combination of anxiety and fear swirling around in my brain and body. It’s universally human to feel like you don’t have enough, so it’s time to have a conversation about scarcity and sufficiency.
One particular aspect where scarcity often takes hold is our perception of money. Our brains are actually designed for scarcity by default. However, we have the power to disrupt this pattern and foster a mindset of sufficiency instead.
Tune in this week to discover how to move out of scarcity and into sufficiency. I’m discussing why scarcity, especially around money, is a commonly occurring feeling, how to instead see that you aren’t necessarily in danger, and what you can do to move into a real sense of sufficiency.
The waitlist for Live Wealthy, the Money and Wellness Conference for Women Physicians is open! Pre-sale tickets for current clients are selling fast, so click here to book your spot on the general release waitlist.
Learn more about Live Wealthy, an exclusive coaching program designed for successful women who want to be confident.... and be rich.
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
- Why our brains are naturally geared toward scarcity.
- How to see where your brain is going to thoughts of not having enough money.
- The difference between abundance and sufficiency, and why abundance is a difficult place to get to.
- What sufficiency feels like.
- How to start interrupting feelings of scarcity and move into sufficiency instead.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
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 up-level your money and your life. I’m your host, Dr. Bonnie Koo.
Hey everyone, welcome to episode 163. I hope you’re having an amazing day. And at the time of this recording, we just opened registration for the first Money and Wellness Conference For Women Physicians. Right now only current members of Live Wealthy or current or past private clients of mine have first access to it and spots are going.
And so by the time this episode comes out, I think registration will be open for waitlist only. And so I hope you’re on the waitlist if you are hoping to get a spot. It’s possible that the conference may sell out before it gets to the general public, we shall see.
All right, so today I have an episode on scarcity and sufficiency. And this is such an important topic because I think all of us struggle with feeling that not enoughness. I actually was thinking about this, what is that feeling exactly of not enoughness? To me, it’s like a combination of anxiety and fear sort of all mixed together. Basically some negative feelings just swirling around in your brain and your body.
So we talk a lot about the term money scarcity. And what that simply means is when you keep thinking that you don’t have enough money. And this goes for everything else, like time scarcity, not enough time, which many of you have that belief in your brain. And I’m not going to go over time today, we actually have a great episode where I have my friend who’s also a time coach on with Vikki Louise, and so we’ll be sure to link that in the show notes in case you missed that episode.
So one thing I found with my clients is, first of all, it’s pretty universally human to feel like you don’t have enough of anything. And one thing I really like to teach my clients is that our brains are actually designed for scarcity by default. But it’s our job, it’s up to us to do something about that, to interrupt it, okay? And so when you think about our brains, it’s wired for survival.
And so one of the things that has to do is basically sort of always scanning the environment, all the things, looking for what is wrong, what might be detrimental to our survival. And so it’s basically designed to look for what’s missing, okay?
And because money is pretty critical to our survival, that’s definitely one of the things that it’s examining all the time. And so it’s natural for the brain to just always feel and think that there might not be enough money. And logically all of my clients, including myself, will say, “Okay, I know logically, there is enough money right now, today, next week,” right?
You’re not in danger of not paying your bills. You’re not in danger of not paying your rent or mortgage. You have a home, you have a roof over your head, you’re eating et cetera. Now, I know this might sound silly for me to even just go through these line items, but just notice if your brain often still goes to the not enough money song.
Now, one thing that’s often contrasted with scarcity is the term abundance, which is kind of like the opposite. Meaning believing that there’s way, way, way more things, money available. Like oh my God, there’s so much money, there’s so much money available, et cetera, like feeling abundant. And I really had a hard time with this concept and I still kind of do. And I will say that I actually don’t think that’s the goal in terms of where you want to land. At least not the first stop, okay?
Because when you’re feeling money, scarcity, talking about money abundance just sounds impossible and unbelievable. So the first stop, and honestly in my opinion this is even a great goal versus trying to get to abundance is the feeling of sufficiency. So instead of feeling like I don’t have enough money, to go from that to I have enough money. Feeling sufficient, okay?
And so, the best way to access sufficiency, like I said, our brains are designed for scarcity and it’s our job to redirect it to interrupt that sort of normal pathway our brains are naturally going to go to. So you have to practice sufficiency. And so if your brain has been so, so used to only looking at what you don’t have, then you definitely need to practice this sufficiency exercise like every day, even multiple times a day depending on sort of where you’re at, okay?
And here’s another thing I want to say, you are allowed to feel sufficient now. No matter what your net worth is, no matter how much money is in the account, it doesn’t matter. You are allowed to think and feel sufficient. And that’s truly our agency as human beings, is that no matter what the circumstance, we always have agency over how we think and feel.
Now, of course, certain circumstances, certain money circumstances make certain thoughts and feelings easier. And that doesn’t mean it’s not available to you if you have circumstances that might be “harder” to think and feel sufficient.
Now, I want to talk a bit about what sufficiency means to kind of paint a picture. When I think of feeling sufficient, it’s feeling complete versus incomplete. It’s also being present to what you do have. It’s feeling a deep appreciation for what you do have. You may even want to call this gratitude, like feeling really grateful. Personally, the word appreciate and appreciation just resonates with me a bit more.
And here’s another thing I want to say about the emotion of feeling sufficient. Now, when you’re feeling scarcity I think of it as what I call a loud emotion. And what I mean by that is, I’m guessing all of you listening right now knows what it feels like when you’re feeling the not enough emotion, right, scarcity. Like I said, for me, it’s a mixture of feeling anxious and fear sort of all wrapped up together and it’s a very loud emotion.
Now, here’s an aside about emotions. I like to think of emotions as your internal notification system, okay. And so whatever emotions you’re feeling, it’s like a notification to be curious about why you’re feeling that way. Okay? And so the notifications can be loud or they can be quiet, and they can be in between. And so scarcity, to me, is sort of on the louder side. Things like feeling angry, loud notification, right? You know when you’re feeling angry, you’re not like, “Am I angry? I’m not sure.” No, you know when you’re angry right?
Now, feeling sufficient is sort of a softer notification, a softer emotion. What I mean by that is you may have to really, I would say, sink in and sort of have this quietness. You might have to just really spend some time with your eyes closed to really access, huh, what does feeling sufficient actually feel like in my body? Because it’s not going to be loud and slamming on the door as if you’re angry, okay?
Now, here’s the thing with emotions, we all feel them in our body a little differently, but there’s some generalities that are similar, right? Like people can pretty much agree that when you’re feeling anxious or nervous your heart might be beating faster, right? That’s pretty universal.
Now, when I access feeling sufficient, it is definitely pretty subtle sensations in my body. And I would say for the most part it’s more of the absence of certain sensations. The absence of the sensations that I associate with anxiety, right? I don’t have that flutter in my chest. I don’t have that churning of my stomach, which I tend to feel when I’m really anxious and maybe with a little sprinkle of fear thrown in, right?
To me, feeling sufficient is like my body just feels light, my shoulders are relaxed and it’s just kind of a very light, warm sensation, almost like a hug. Again, for me, it’s a pretty low volume emotion. And I have to really take time to sink into that feeling of sufficiency.
And so I want to offer some thoughts to access the feeling of sufficiency. And so I would do this with your eyes closed. Now, if you’re driving, don’t do this. But here’s a thought that really helps me. I already have everything that I really need. And this sentence alone, when I say it, it just reminds me to look for what I do have. And it sort of reminds me, oh, I do have everything I need. And it actually helps me or encourages me to notice what I do have.
Because I want you to notice that a lot of things you have right now were things that you wanted in the past, right? Like me being a physician, I wanted to be a physician before I went to medical school, and now I have it. Just noticing and appreciating that and how amazing it is that I was able to achieve that.
Now, I really recommend that you do this practice daily. It generally just takes a minute or two in the morning. And if you are having trouble accessing it, even if it’s just for a few seconds, hold that feeling of sufficiency in your body as long as you can. Maybe it’s 15 seconds initially, maybe it’s 30 seconds initially. And you want to do this multiple times a day.
And here’s why this is important, now remember what I said, feeling scarcity is kind of our human default. It’s up to us to interrupt it, okay? But every time you’re practicing sufficiency, you are literally retraining your brain and your nervous system when you do this. When you are in deep scarcity, your nervous system is basically hijacked.
And when this happens, it’s almost like the nervous system is a much quicker response than your brain, your thoughts and then your feelings in your body. And so first, we need to sort of calm down the nervous system, and then you’ll have way more access to the thoughts and feelings to create sufficiency.
Another way to say that is we have to really train your nervous system for safety. And so like I said, this is a practice. You’re probably going to have to do this for the rest of your life. And I don’t mean to say that this is going to be a chore. But at some point, it’s going to become way more natural to feel sufficient than to default to scarcity.
And the reason why I’m doing a whole episode on this is that feeling sufficient is so, so important. Not because it feels way better in your body than feeling scarcity, but it truly is the key to creating and enjoying the money that you want. You cannot create a lot of money coming from scarcity.
Think about it, when you are scared of losing money, when you’re feeling so nervous about losing money or when you just keep thinking you don’t have enough, you tend to hold onto money. Conversely, you end up also maybe spending it all as well. And so you’re just unlikely to actually invest your money and have it grow. And so that’s what I wanted to cover today.
And, as a reminder, you have access to feeling sufficient today, right now, no matter what is happening with the numbers in your bank account, your income, your investments, okay? All right, bye. I’ll speak to you next week.
Hey there, thanks so much for tuning in. If you loved what you heard, be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. And if you’re listening to this on Apple Podcasts, I’d love for you to leave a review. Reviews tell Apple that this podcast is, well, awesome. And it will help women find this podcast so that they too can live a wealthy life. And finally, you can learn more about me and what I do at wealthymommd.com. See you next week.
Get started on your journey to wealth by getting the best selling book: Defining Wealth for Women.
For media or speaking inquiries please click here.
For all other inquiries please click here.
162: You Need a CFO with Emily Sandberg
Joining me this week is Emily Sandberg, my esteemed CFO and bookkeeper. Emily is a certified life coach with a specialization in online business, bringing a unique blend of financial expertise and mindset coaching to the table. Regardless of whether you're a business owner or not, the principles of money discussed in this episode will be beneficial.
We dive into the fascinating topic of money's influence on our sense of self-worth. Emily sheds light on a common fear among her clients, which revolves around investing their hard-earned money. It's time for us to gain clarity and confront these elusive thoughts that hinder us from maximizing our financial and emotional wealth.
Join Emily and I as we explore the crucial role of a coach in examining our mindset when it comes to money. Emily shares valuable insights on identifying unhelpful money mindsets, how we inadvertently use our lack of funds against ourselves, the true nature of financial security, and her proven methods for guiding clients out of these detrimental mindsets, enabling them to create genuine wealth.
Learn more about Live Wealthy, an exclusive coaching program designed for successful women who want to be confident.... and be rich.
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
- How Emily became a fractional CFO and bookkeeper.
- The personal finance principles Emily introduced to her first client’s business, and how she turned that business around.
- What the job of a CFO is and how it goes deeper than the job of a bookkeeper.
- How Emily has helped me specifically with my finances in my business.
- The fear Emily notices her clients having around investing their money.
- How we subconsciously use money as a measure of self-worth, and how to uncouple your self-worth from your net worth.
- Why more money isn’t what makes you feel more secure.
- Emily’s tips for looking at your money and your spending differently.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
- Follow me on Instagram
- Emily Sandberg
- YNAB
- Kara Loewentheil
- 161: Keeping Your Money and Documents Organized in Case of Emergency
- Brooke Castillo
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 up-level your money and your life. I’m your host, Dr. Bonnie Koo.
Hey, everyone you are in for a treat with this episode. So I have my CFO/bookkeeper on the show. Now, some of you might be wondering, why do you have that person on since this isn’t, generally speaking, a business type podcast?
But I know many of you listening do have a business, whether you’re a coach, whether you’re a practice owner, et cetera, you’re going to find this valuable. And even if you’re not a business owner, you will find it valuable as well because the principles of money are the same whether it’s business and personal finances.
I’m also going to share some of the things I’ve struggled with in my personal finances and my business finances and why it’s so, so important to have, honestly, a coach to look at your mind because even though I’m a coach, my brain is still a mess, especially when it comes to money. I think that’s also why I love coaching on money because I think in general we usually do a business or maybe even go into medicine for a specific specialty because of the experiences that we had.
And so I decided to have Emily on to talk about some of those things that I’ve struggled with, but also to talk about, I think, a really important topic that I don’t think I’ve spent enough time on, which is how so many of us use money as a measure of our self-worth.
And we might not be consciously thinking about that, but I want you to tell yourself the truth. Do you feel less than when someone else has more money, at least when you think someone else does? And it could be something like, oh, they send their kid to that private school and I wish I could send mine. It could be a little sneaky that way. All right, so have a listen. I know you’re going to find so much value out of it, and here we go.
Bonnie: All right, Emily, welcome to the podcast.
Emily: Thank you. I’m excited to be here.
Bonnie: Yeah. So why don’t you introduce yourself for those who don’t know you?
Emily: So I’m Emily Sandberg and I work as a bookkeeper and fractional CFO mostly for life coaches, but online businesses, people who run memberships, sell courses, and I’m a certified life coach. So I get to work with both the money side of things, the numbers side of things, as well as the brain and the mind side of things.
Bonnie: Yeah, so needed. So we’ll definitely talk about how we started working together and all the things that you’ve helped me with. But I think what’s interesting about you is sort of how you fell into this. Because I don’t think you were an accounting major, were you? Or maybe you were.
Emily: No, I have a degree in math, but not accounting.
Bonnie: Okay, so it’s numbers related.
Emily: Yeah. Yes, I fell into this because I had a neighbor who was an orthodontist who found out his bookkeeper was stealing from him. And he was like, “Who do I know that I trust, that is smart, that could come in and do this work?” And he knew that I was available as well, my youngest child was starting kindergarten. And so he said, “Hey, do you want to come learn to be a bookkeeper?” And I said, “Sure, I’ve never thought about that before.”
So I worked in his office a few hours a week, learned how to do bookkeeping and noticed that things weren’t great. Like the CPA called me at one point and was like, “What’s happening over there? This is not good. Turn this around.” And I was like, “What do you think I’m going to do? I just learned to be a bookkeeper.”
But I took personal finance principles that I had learned recently, because we had been through our own financial – I wouldn’t call it a crisis, but it was certainly an uncomfortable period in my home life. And I took those principles and helped him, the orthodontist, apply them to his business. And we turned it around pretty quickly. It was really fun to watch.
Pretty soon he needed somebody full time because the business had grown so much, and I didn’t want to work that much. So I hired my replacement and quit working. And then my brother was doing the same kind of work online, he invited me to come work with him. Our clients were life coaches. So that’s when I was certified as a life coach, just because I wanted to be able to speak the language of my clients. And here we are.
Bonnie: Here we are. I remembered the story but I forgot some parts of it. So I think what people might be interested is hearing, some of you who might be listening I know are physicians who own their practice and then you might be a coach or just some sort of entrepreneur
And so I talk to a lot of people who don’t quite know the difference between a bookkeeper and what a CFO can do. Because obviously, correct me if I’m wrong, a bookkeeper just keeps track of the numbers but doesn’t make recommendations or help with strategy. They’re just making sure the books are balanced so that they can present a P&L to the CPA, right?
Emily: Their job is to simply record the transactions and make sure it’s accurate, yeah.
Bonnie: Yeah.
Emily: And then as a CFO, I spend more time helping the client analyze their financials, what’s actually going on here? How can we be more profitable? Well first understanding why the books are the way they are, why the numbers are this way. And then how can we improve them? How do we want to improve them? What goals does the business owner have? And then working toward those with a basis in the data.
Bonnie: So I think what you just said about the bookkeeper stealing money, that’s, unfortunately, a relatively common story with physicians and dentists because most of us don’t want to deal with the business, right? And so I know a lot of people don’t even look at the numbers, they just assume everything’s fine because everything’s fine in terms of patients are coming, they’re getting paid, et cetera.
Emily: Right.
Bonnie: But I also know so many of them can optimize their finances. One of my friends, she’s a pediatrician. And when she started her first job, she joined a practice and I think she became a partner, that means fractional ownership of the practice. And I think she was kind of entrepreneurial numbers minded, so when she looked at the numbers, it was kind of the same thing, it was a mess.
And they were making money, but there was just so much more potential. And so she turned it around, and I forget the number, the multiple, but she increased the profits by a big multiple. So, obviously, the other partner was really happy.
Emily: I bet.
Bonnie: But it was a significant amount. She told me, I don’t remember off the top of my head, but it was a significant salary increase for everybody. So it’s just the power of understanding your numbers. And we’re talking about businesses, and not everyone listening has a business but, Emily, I wanted to share with you I’ve been using YNAB for my personal finances for a long time.
And for those listening that are like, “What the heck is this?” It’s Y-N-A-B, You Need A Budget, and it’s the budgeting program that I’ve been recommending since I’ve used it, since 2015. And it’s what I have my clients inside my paid program use as well.
So Emily’s, obviously my bookkeeper/CFO, if that wasn’t clear. And they use YNAB as well, which we can talk about in a second because it’s not really designed for business, I actually kind of stopped really – Well, I shouldn’t say using it. I would look at my numbers in YNAB, but you know how if you’re overspending and not paying attention, the budget is not accurate, right?
Emily: Right.
Bonnie: And I wasn’t paying attention to that. I was just making sure the numbers lined up. I know, right? Like I’m telling on myself here.
Emily: Oh, I’ve been there. I’ve been there.
Bonnie: I think it’s a great example that I’m a human being and I’m not going to do things perfectly, right? Because I think a lot of my clients beat themselves up because they’re not handling their money perfectly. And it’s like it doesn’t matter who you are, it’s so easy to kind of stop paying attention. Anyway, the reason why I decided to pay attention is because we have some money goals financially.
So what I love about YNAB for personal finances, is like it’s the same thing as looking at your business numbers, right? You can clearly see where the money is going. And that’s one of the first things that people in my program, like you have to know where the money’s going, unless you don’t have financial goals and don’t care, right?
Emily: Right.
Bonnie: But they’re working with me because they want to get a better handle on things, right? And so it’s like when you see everything and everything you’re spending, then you can make decisions about like do I want to keep spending this way? You can’t really make decisions if you don’t understand the numbers. So that’s for both personal and business as well.
And so you can really kind of pull some levers in the budget like, okay, well, I really would love to, I don’t know, let’s just say have a few thousand dollars a month to save up for investing, right? So it’s like, how do we make that possible, right?
You could move money around, you can lower expenses, or maybe you’ll notice that there’s this category that you really don’t want to spend money on now that you clearly see that it’s a decent amount of money. You’re like, I don’t really want to do that anymore. Or you could figure out how to make more money, which is something a lot of people don’t think about in terms of, maybe not business owners, but I don’t want to say people with regular jobs, but you kind of know what I mean?
Emily: Yeah.
Bonnie: It’s like we never really consider that, okay, you can cut expenses, but we could also figure out how to make more money. And if you’re able to do both, then obviously a lot more synergy.
Emily: Yeah.
Bonnie: So that said, I think the punchline here is you’ve got to look at your numbers, you’ve got to understand them so that you can make better decisions about your cash.
I want to talk about what are the most common things that you see your clients struggle with? While you’re thinking about that, since you were saying how most of your clients are life coaches, I’m thinking some of the people listening might be like, “Well, why do they need a money coach if they’re already coaches?”
Emily: Yeah.
Bonnie: Or maybe this is for any type of coaching, right? Because I still get coached, I’m sure you do. I actually just hired a parent coach. So it’s not money related, but I want to mention that because even though I’m a coach and I know how to coach myself, my brain is still a mess. That’s the best way to say it, right?
Emily: My husband and I just had this conversation. He is a golf pro and he teaches lessons. And he just went and took a high-end golf lesson for himself. And he came home, he’s like, “I can’t believe all the things this other coach could see in me.” And I was like, “Yeah, and that coach I just hired,” because I did just hire a new coach. I was like, “Yeah, I can’t believe all the things she sees in me. I’m a coach, I should know these things.”
And yet we’re both like, “Yeah, we’re going to let go of the ‘I shoulds’ and just go with this is amazing. I love having someone else’s eyes on my life, another little perspective that can help me see what’s happening.”
My clients are generally life coaches, and even if they’re really good with money, they have a great money mindset, they don’t always have, just like you said, you weren’t necessarily watching YNAB or using it to its full potential. You were just kind of letting things slide. For whatever reason, you didn’t place as much attention as you might have or you wanted on your money.
And that’s okay, but when you have someone there sitting next to you, or across from you on Zoom or whatever, talking you through it, asking you different questions than you would ask yourself, it allows for huge aha moments, breakthroughs, understandings of what’s actually happening. And also, that other person ideally helps take away the shame that all of us feel around money simply because of the culture we’ve grown up in.
Bonnie: Yeah. So I should probably mention that this is something where we meet once a month. And so there is someone who does the books, like makes sure all the transactions are et cetera, et cetera. And then when I meet with you or Dawn, it’s to review the numbers too and there might be some transactions that we want to make sure are labeled correctly.
The main things I discuss with her or you is kind of just looking ahead, like how much money do I need to bring in? What are my expenses? Just, this is my goal, are we on track? And just like all different ways of looking at the numbers. And then it’s kind of fun, she kind of moves some numbers around based on different scenarios. And so it’s kind of like planning for a worst case scenario kind of.
Like when I was talking to you about the conference that I’m planning, I remember you asked me like how many people need to sign up to break even? And I was like, “Oh, I didn’t even think about that,” for example.
Emily: A lot of times I go to the worst case because I find that one of the things that’s pretty consistent across my clients is there’s some fear around money. There’s fear around investing or spending a big amount on, say, advertising or a new program or whatever it is. There’s fear, like what if this doesn’t work out? What then?
A lot of my clients, I’ll notice they go straight from being fine, and they actually are fine. Their money is fine or even great, and they’re like, “Yeah, but I could be homeless in six weeks if X, Y, or Z happened.” It’s nowhere true. But that’s the nature of our brains, to go to the worst case scenario.
And so I take my clients there. I’m like, “Okay, let’s actually walk through what it looks like in six weeks if all these things go wrong.” And I’ve never been able to find a client homeless at the end of whatever time that they thought it was going to be.
Bonnie: Well that’s good, right? You have a good track record, Emily.
Emily: Yeah.
Bonnie: My clients have a similar thing. I think it’s like they don’t really believe they’re going to be homeless, but that’s the level of fear. But then when I actually ask them like, well, what would actually happen if this actually happened? They’d be like, I guess I could move in with my parents, it’s not ideal. But I’m like, oh, so you’re not going to be homeless?
Emily: Yeah. Yeah, the brain just wants to go. Somehow we think, as humans, our brain has developed in a way that we think going to that worst case scenario and telling ourselves that’s what’s going to happen will somehow motivate us to get out of it, right? Or to make sure it doesn’t happen.
And a lot of times there’s that fear. We don’t look at it, but that fear is there and it affects us. We’re not as creative generally, when we’re afraid. I think we just don’t make as good decisions.
Bonnie: We don’t do anything.
Emily: Or yeah, we sit there frozen, exactly.
Bonnie: Yeah, which makes it more likely to go towards that homeless stage.
Emily: Yeah, exactly. And we avoid our numbers then. When we’re afraid of them, we avoid them. That’s uncomfortable.
Bonnie: Yeah.
Emily: And pretty much everyone experiences that at some point.
Bonnie: Yeah. So definitely one thing I wanted to talk about, at least in my experience, I don’t think people are consciously thinking, “I have less money than XYZ, and therefore I feel less than.” Actually that’s not true, and I wonder if it’s a business thing, but maybe it’s also personal finances. So when I think about personal finances, because people don’t really know what kind of money other people have.
But it’s so funny, my stepson who’s in high school, I don’t know, he was talking about some person in his high school. And they’re like, “Oh, he’s really rich.” I’m like, “Well, how do you know?” He’s like, “Well, they have a really nice house and a car.” I’m like, “That just means they have a really nice house and a car.” He’s like, “No, no, no, but they’re rich.” I’m like, “Do you know how much money they have?” He’s like, “No.”
Emily: Yeah, or how much debt they have.
Bonnie: Oh yeah, exactly. Yeah, it’s more like, I mean, you don’t know, right?
Emily: No, you don’t.
Bonnie: Yeah, because those outside things just show that they’ve spent money on it. And then when I think about business I definitely – And I think I still have it, so I definitely need, like maybe Dawn has to coach on this next time. But I definitely felt, and I think I still do to an extent, I think it’s just a lot less now, like a lot of my coach friends, entrepreneur friends make, some of them, significantly more than my business does. And I do feel, I don’t even know what it is. Is it insecure?
I almost feel like they shouldn’t be friends with me or something like that. I can’t quite articulate it, but I think I do feel smaller than them. Like I’m not as equal as if that’s even a thing in friendships. It’s like all these layers. I’ve examined this, I’m like, that’s interesting, as if there’s like hierarchy of friendships, or et cetera. And then I think there’s a part of me that’s like, well, they don’t really want to be friends with me if they really knew how much my business – It’s fascinating, right?
Emily: It is, we have come, you know, money is such an easy way to measure something, right? Because it’s linear, I mean, it’s very much discrete. We can count how many dollars we have. Or we can see the balance in the accounts or whatever it is.
So I think as a way of shortcutting how do we quantify something, or how do we tell the worth of a person, maybe? We’ve started ordering ourselves, giving ourselves this hierarchy of who makes more money. And then when we can’t see how much they actually make because not very many people are walking around showing their W2s or their balance sheet –
Bonnie: They’re not?
Emily: So we look at the things they have; their houses, their cars, their clothing, the purse, whatever.
Bonnie: Sending their kids to private school.
Emily: Exactly. Exactly. And then we put ourselves in a pecking order there. And generally we’re looking for, we’re not generally looking for where we’re above, although sometimes it feels good. But we’re looking for who’s above us. And I don’t measure up to them because of some financial thing that we actually have in our head because we don’t know how much money they actually have or how much they actually make.
I find this especially in the online business world, because that’s where I spend my time. I don’t know if this happens as much outside of online business. But yeah, people are constantly telling us how much they make. Oh, I had a six figure launch, or I made seven figures.
Bonnie: Right, so we know.
Emily: Yeah, so we think we know.
Bonnie: We know the top line anyway.
Emily: We know the top line. We don’t necessarily know the bottom line. And quite frankly, none of us are asking that question. But really does it even matter? Do I need to compare myself with another business in order to know if I like my business or if I’m happy with the way it’s going?
Bonnie: It comes down to comparison, basically. And if you make less money, then you feel worse about yourself. And the flip side, right, if you make more money, but that’s a crappy way to feel better, right?
Emily: And yet I think we use it a lot of times, at least subconsciously. We may not be aware that’s what we’re doing, but absolutely.
Bonnie: Yeah. So how can we help the listeners? Because I think everyone listening has probably experienced, how can we help them, and help me at the same time, uncouple this hierarchy? I kind of wish I had a nifty name for it. But yeah, how can we uncouple ourselves, basically it’s like our self-worth from our net worth?
First of all, I think it’s just hearing they’re unrelated because even that sentence can be powerful, I think. They’re not related. They’re totally separate things, right? Do you have any idea of why we’ve collapsed the two by the way?
Emily: I think there’s a desire to put ourselves in a hierarchy because it feels safe to know where we are. And I think also, like I said, money is a simple way to count, it’s quantifiable. And so it’s a lot easier to quantify someone’s worth using money rather than using actual human worth, which is not quantifiable.
Bonnie: Yeah. And then what also came to mind as you were saying that is like money is used as status in our society.
Emily: Oh, absolutely.
Bonnie: Right?
Emily: Yeah.
Bonnie: And so, obviously, there are certain privileges that are afforded when you have more money. So multifactorial, basically, right?
Emily: Yes.
Bonnie: So tell me some of the things how you’ve helped your clients on uncoupling that. I mean, I’m guessing it’s like a constant reminder.
Emily: It’s a constant reminder. One of the things I get to do in my job is I see behind the curtain or inside the books of hundreds of businesses, I’ve looked at their books before.
Bonnie: Can you tell us the range of income just so –
Emily: Sure.
Bonnie: Approximately.
Emily: Anywhere from $100,000 a year up to 6 or 7 million a year. That’s kind of where I spend my – I don’t spend too much time at the bottom end of that range, they just don’t come to me, they don’t need my services at that level. I typically work with people once they start hitting about 250 a year, between 250 and 500,000 a year.
Bonnie: Yeah.
Emily: So I see behind the curtain of those businesses. And what I see time and again is wonderful people working hard to put out this business, to put out their product into the world. And sometimes the money is great and sometimes it’s not.
And I will hear, I hear from – I know now to listen for these things as I hear people talk about their six-figure launches, whether they’re my clients or not. I’ll know because of other cues that I hear like, “Oh, that was a six figure launch, but how much did you spend in ads to get it there?” Or that kind of thing.
You may have a person, like your son came home and said, “Well, they have this really nice house.” Well, what’s the mortgage on that house? And really, I don’t care, except I don’t care anymore because I know that you can have a beautiful home with a mortgage, you can have a beautiful home without a mortgage. You can also have a less, maybe a less expensive home, you can be as happy in the less expensive home as you are in the expensive home.
And the reason I know that is because I have watched –
Bonnie: No one believes you, just so you know.
Emily: I know.
Bonnie: They’re like, “No, I will feel better if I have the bigger, beautiful home with the custom made kitchen.
Emily: Okay, well let’s actually go there because my clients’ goal is always to make a million dollars, right?
Bonnie: Yes, yes.
Emily: They want to hit that seven-figure mark. And then when they get there there’s that initial euphoria of, “Oh my gosh, I made it.” And a lot of times we’re emailing back and forth for a few weeks like, “Am I there yet? Did I hit it yet? I just made another sale, is it yet? Is it yet?” So then I get to, you know, it’s really fun to send that email and say, “Hey, you hit a million dollars today, congratulations.”
But they get there and there is that euphoria. But then it’s like, they still have a business. They still have problems. They still have employees who need help or whatever. They still have problems that need to be solved.
Bonnie: The business doesn’t get magically easier on autopilot, is that what you’re saying?
Emily: It is not rainbows and daisies at 1, 2, 3, 4 or $5 million. I can tell you that.
Bonnie: There’s more, well I shouldn’t say more. There’s different problems as you make more money.
Emily: Different problems, yeah.
Bonnie: You have more expenses, right? You have high payroll and all that stuff.
Emily: Exactly. And so I know that in these more expensive homes, or if you drive a more expensive car, or you wear more expensive clothes, or you go on more luxurious vacations, you still are that person. You still have family and friends, relationships that you need to maintain or take care of just the same way you did when you weren’t taking those vacations or living in that house or driving that car. It’s still a human life.
Now, I’m not going to say for a minute that there aren’t things that are easier when you have more money. Absolutely. Absolutely, it is a privilege. There’s a lot of good that comes with it. But don’t expect that it’s all rainbows and daisies just because you now make more money or have a nicer home or a nicer car.
Bonnie: Yeah, well, I think most of my listeners know that on some level, because we all thought once we finished residency and started making, you know, because during residency you’re making between 40 and 50k. And then when you graduate, depending on your specialty, you could be like 200 to 500 plus, right?
Emily: Yeah.
Bonnie: I think we all think life will be magical and live happily ever after. I thought once I got into dermatology residency, which is like the hardest residency to get into just because of the number of people applying and the number of spots. I remember thinking, “If I could just get in, my life will be perfect.” It didn’t happen.
Emily: You got in.
Bonnie: Yes, and it was fantastic, initially of course.
Emily: Yeah, there’s a level of money and there was a study done several years ago that was like at $70,000, everything up to $70,000 as you increase from $0 a year to $70,000 a year, that will significantly increase your happiness. But beyond that, we don’t find people are happier. Now, I suspect with inflation, that number has come up a little.
Bonnie: And maybe higher in New York City, yeah.
Emily: Yeah, definitely. But you just don’t find significantly higher levels of happiness. Ease, convenience, yes. But happiness, not necessarily. And I’ve seen it happen. I’ve seen it happen as you hit milestones. If it wasn’t there before, it’s not there at the new level, until once you pass that 70,000 or whatever it would be currently.
Bonnie: Yeah. Let’s use myself as a case study for some of the money blocks that I’ve had in business. Because it’s like I think of having a business, and this is even just putting the money part aside, it’s like it brings up all of your unresolved issues very fast in business, right? Because you have to deal with things and, yeah, it’s very challenging. Buckle up, right?
Emily: Right.
Bonnie: It’s a roller coaster of emotions. So since we’re both in the life coaching world, as you said, seven figures is like a big milestone. But I think the initial milestone is that everyone wants to make their first 100k.
Emily: Yeah.
Bonnie: Which was interesting to me, because I think also as a physician having been already a high income earner, 100k was like that’s not enough for sure.
Emily: Right, yeah.
Bonnie: It was like a given that that would at least happen. But I also know that’s a celebrated milestone. And so I’m trying to think, I think when I hit 200 I definitely had some euphoria. And then it’s like you just get hedonic adaptation. Like you just get used to it, right?
Emily: Mm-hmm.
Bonnie: And then I think the most I have made in a 12 month period is about $500,000. And it’s like on one hand I know so many coaches would be, like they would love to be there. But then my brain is like, “Not enough.”
Emily: Right, yeah.
Bonnie: And then I realized, unfortunately, there’s no number that’s going to make me feel like enough. And all my clients think a certain amount of money, a certain amount of whatever, money in the bank or investments will suddenly make them feel secure. I mean, I still believe that on some level. I think we all do. I think until you get to that number, first of all, it’s like, what is that number, right?
So let’s just say for me, it’s $5 million in investments. So then when I get there, that’s the true test. But we also know as coaches you’ll be happy, you made your goal for sure. You’ll be thrilled and certain things will change. You’ll be like, oh, now I can, I’ll just give the example of I can really cut back at work significantly. So those things will be fantastic. But my brain will probably go back to I don’t have enough money. I’m pretty sure of it.
Emily: Yeah, if you could take yourself back to when you hit that $200,000 mark and there was some euphoria, it was exciting.
Bonnie: Of course.
Emily: Can you remember what you might have been thinking about hitting $500,000 when you were a $200,000 business owner?
Bonnie: What do you mean? Like when I was making 200, what I thought I would think at 500?
Emily: Yes, yep.
Bonnie: It probably just was some form of “it’ll be better,” right? When I was making 200 I wasn’t quite entrenched into the life coach world that you and I are in. I think I got certified around then because I already had a business before I got certified. I don’t think I knew that there was these certain milestones that people are really wanting, like 100k, 1 million. Does that make sense?
Emily: Yes, yes.
Bonnie: So I don’t think I was thinking about far ahead, to be honest.
Emily: Then let’s take it right now and say, what do you think you’ll be thinking when you hit $5 million in investments?
Bonnie: 5 million in investments? Well, we could talk about even 1 million as a coaching business, right? Because I haven’t done that yet.
Emily: Yeah.
Bonnie: There’s a part of me that’s like ultimately, it’s just bragging rights.
Emily: Okay.
Bonnie: When I think about it, not that that’s why I want it, but when I really think about it, that’s kind of all there is.
Emily: And what will you be able to brag about? And we know you won’t actually do this, but what will the sentences be that are going through your head that are like, “Well, I make a million dollars,” so now you know, what?
Bonnie: I’ll get some award from my coaching school.
Emily: Yep.
Bonnie: Because that is a milestone in terms of an award. It’s like even just talking about it I’m like, “Okay, now what?”
Emily: Right.
Bonnie: Well, you know what actually came to mind? Because I have thought about this, it’s going to feel really awesome and then I’m going to realize that I still have to keep making money in my business.
Emily: Yeah.
Bonnie: Right? It’s not like the business stops and I don’t have to do anything anymore. You still have to do it again.
Emily: Yeah, that’s one thing I see.
Bonnie: No matter what money you’re making, right?
Emily: I see really consistently with people who do hit that million dollar mark. They’re like, “Oh, I still have to show up to work. I still have to market.” And then their revenue can drop, and often it does.
Bonnie: I know someone who hit a million and then the next year made less.
Emily: Yeah, it feels terrible.
Bonnie: Yeah, they felt terrible about it. Yeah.
Emily: Yeah. One of the ways I like to kind of counter that very natural human part of us, I mean that is absolutely 100% just human. And I love that about us. I think it’s fun to look at our humanity that way. But one of the ways I like to counter it is to talk about what is your actual goal? What is the thing you actually want to feel?
And very often then we can get to what I think making a million dollars will make me feel. It will make me feel like I’ve arrived. It will make me feel like I’m worthy. It will make me feel like I can now be friends with these people who I already know are making a million dollars.
Bonnie: Yes, I think that’s a big part of it.
Emily: Yeah. I will have proved that I figured it out, that I’m smart enough, that I’m whatever that thing is. Then once we get there, we think that will happen. And it does, and yet it’s not any more convincing that now that I’ve made a million dollars I’m better than what I thought when I made 500,000 or 750,000 because we also had those thoughts at that point.
But then we got to 750 and we were like, oh yeah, now I’ll know when I’m a million dollars. I will know then for sure that I’m okay, or that I’m going to make it, or that everything’s going to be all right. Then we get to a million where you’re like, no. No one’s here guaranteeing that for me. In fact, I still have to show up to work. I still have to sell. I still have to make money. I still have to watch my budget. I still have to make the mortgage payment, whatever it is.
We can transfer that to personal life as well. And so that’s part of that disappointing piece. If we can get rid of that, then I’ll know that I’m whatever thing it is I’m trying to be. And we can pull it back down to where I am personally and say, but do I already know that? Do I already know that I’m worthy right now? Do I already know that I’m okay right now?
Because look, I’ve already made this much money. Or I already got through medical school, I got through residency, I established a practice, I’m already here. Can I take a minute to recognize that this is something I wanted and I achieved it? And there are other things I want that I’m going to go achieve as well. But not in order to prove who I am, but really just because this is life, this is experience. And having experience is fun. It can also be challenging, but it’s why we’re here.
Bonnie: Yeah, to evolve and grow. Because I think doctors get bored after like three to five years in practice. Not because medicine is boring, but when you’re in training it’s like you’re learning, you’re learning, you’re learning, you’re evolving. And then it’s really easy to be stagnant at some point as you’re practicing, maybe unless you’re in academics and you’re seeing all the complicated cases.
I think it’s a human desire to keep evolving at some level. That doesn’t mean that you’re trying to make more money or you’re trying to rise up the corporate ladder.
Emily: I agree, absolutely.
Bonnie: Yeah. So let’s talk about some of the things that I’ve had to work on with you. So you had mentioned how people make a million dollars and they make less. And so that happened to me one year, I made 500,000. And then I made less the following year, and I spent like the whole year feeling terrible about it and feeling shame.
Yeah, I think it was, my thoughts were, “This shouldn’t be happening.” It’s like, well, what was I thinking was going to happen, that it was going to be a linear upward trajectory? So Kara Loewentheil was my coach for most of that. Well, part of the year. Maybe the year after. Yeah, the year after. And when I told her about how terrible I was feeling, she’s like, “Business is supposed to be up and down.”
Emily: Yes.
Bonnie: And it makes sense when you really think about it. It’s like you know this, but then when it’s you, we think for some reason it should just be this upward rocket trajectory.
Emily: And a lot of times, I mean, you did achieve very linear growth for a while there. And you saw that in medical school, and coming up through grade school, high school, all of that you consistently achieved, right? There wasn’t really a time where you really fell. And that’s kind of how our culture goes.
Bonnie: Yeah.
Emily: We consistently see ourselves growing and improving and reaching goals. And then we get into business and business doesn’t go that way. You could have a good month, you can have a good quarter, but it can be followed, and may likely be followed, by a not as good month, or a not as good quarter, or not as good a year.
Bonnie: Or negative, yeah negative profit.
Emily: Yeah. But your reaction to it is very human. I had, yeah, two years ago I went through a quarter where I was negative profit. I was like, “Wait, this doesn’t happen to me.” I was horrified that it had happened, but then also like me, like what if my clients found out this happened?
Bonnie: Oh my God, I feel that way, too.
Emily: Yeah.
Bonnie: Especially since we’re both in the money business, right?
Emily: Yes. I went through a lot of shame, thought I needed to really punish myself for this, feel terrible about it. And then I was like, wait, how would I coach myself through this? I would not allow myself to do anything that I’m doing right now.
I mean, for a minute you can feel bad, for sure. But then it was like, oh no, just get back in your numbers. Engage in your numbers. Why did it happen? How did it happen? What do I want to learn from this? What can I take away from it?
Bonnie: That’s basically what I did recently with my personal YNAB.
Emily: Yeah.
Bonnie: Yeah. It’s like I’ve done everything that you’re mentioning, right? Well, this is like everyone, right? It’s like when you’re afraid to look at the numbers, just this fear just builds up and your money suffers because you’re not doing anything about it. And you’re probably –
I’m definitely an over spender. We just ordered a bunch of stuff and Matt is like, “What is all this?” It comes in waves. Like I’ll stop spending and then do a flurry of purchases and all these boxes arrive, right? So I can’t really hide that from him because I guess he sees the boxes. But it wasn’t a minute, unfortunately it was a little longer than a minute.
But then once I was like, “I’m going to figure this out. I’m smart, I understand numbers.” And once I went into YNAB I understood exactly what’s happening, then I could make a plan to reach my goals. But you can’t do that when you’re feeling terrible. Because when you’re feeling terrible, you’re not going to do anything.
Emily: Right.
Bonnie: It’s really the path, right?
Emily: Yeah.
Bonnie: A lot of my clients, I think, what they tell me is they don’t even want to look at their numbers. Some of them don’t even know what they make.
Emily: Right.
Bonnie: Yeah, even if they’re a W2 earner, mainly because their partner will take care of the finances, right?
Emily: Yeah.
Bonnie: And they’re so afraid to look at the numbers because I think on some level they know that it’s not great. Or maybe they know that their expenses are more than their income. And so they’re just avoiding, avoiding, avoiding until their credit cards are all maxed out and then they have to really do something, right? But we don’t, obviously you and I don’t want our clients to get to that point.
Emily: No, it feels like a deeper hole to get out of. But if you are in that situation, you can still get out of it. Especially as doctors where you do have such high earning potential.
But I really think the important part of that is that willingness to show up and engage with the numbers. You feeling smart is huge. That’s a huge foundational piece. You know how to look at numbers or you have some competency around numbers. It feels really good.
For people who don’t have that, although I would guess in your education as a doctor you have to deal with numbers.
Bonnie: Yeah. Yeah, well, this is kind of an aside, my clientele, they’re obviously super smart.
Emily: Yeah.
Bonnie: But some of them are like there’s different levels of, well I shouldn’t say it. But different specialties deal with numbers differently. So nephrology, the kidney doctors, like anesthesiologists, like there’s just a lot of numbers that they have to interpret all the time. And so it’s a little ironic, and I don’t mean this in a bad way, that they feel so afraid of learning money and looking at their numbers when it’s definitely not a learning or educational problem to look at numbers, right? It’s not about that at all.
And I think one of the great things about my program is because it is a group session, pretty much everyone feels the same way about their numbers. And I think that everyone thinks they’re the only one.
Emily: Right.
Bonnie: And so when they realize that everyone is freaked out and doesn’t know what they’re doing, I’m generalizing here, not everyone’s on that boat, their shoulders just relax. They’re like, “I’m not the only one.”
Emily: Yes.
Bonnie: And I think it’s just so important to normalize it. And also I really try to be transparent about my finances because I think it’s really easy for my clients to look at me or any of the other people in the money space and think we handle our money perfectly. And that is not true.
Emily: Yeah, and I see that too, with myself and with my clients. We’re humans and our humanity is part of what makes us beautiful and interesting. And as we increase our experience, we increase in wisdom generally.
Bonnie: Generally, yeah.
Emily: Generally. But how important it is, and I’m assuming you see this the way I do, to have someone by your side, almost holding your hand saying, “Here, let me help you with this. This is not as bad as you think.” Or “You are not the only one in this boat.” And to have that person there with you, as you’re confronting the numbers is so useful.
Also to remember kind of those foundational or identity pieces of I am smart enough. I figured out a lot of things in my life. Whether you’re a doctor or not, I’ve made it to this point. I’ve been smart enough to get here. I can figure this out.
Bonnie: Yeah, I think that sentence, even if I have to say it to a client like, this is figureoutable. That’s basically it, you can figure this out.
Emily: Yeah, absolutely. I have a degree in math, but I use fourth grade math in my job. It is addition, subtraction, a little bit of percentages. It’s not hard math, it is the things we learned in elementary school.
Bonnie: Yeah, there’s no algebra or calculus or quadratic equations or.
Emily: Quadratic equations are also in algebra.
Bonnie: I mean, I was a biochem major, so I did have to do it, it was like advanced chemistry and there was some crazy math. I don’t even remember what it’s called. I’ve obviously blocked it out of my mind. The math no one else uses except for a few people.
Emily: You figured all that out. Of course you can figure out your money. It’s just going to take a little bit of sustained effort and a willingness to engage with the numbers.
Bonnie: But it’s worth it, right?
Emily: Absolutely. It feels so much better when you’re doing it than when you’re not.
Bonnie: The fear gets so big sometimes that like that’s when your brain, it’s like you might not be thinking this consciously, but the fear is at the level of I’m going to be homeless tomorrow.
Emily: Yeah.
Bonnie: It’s not logical fear, but I feel like it just gets worse and worse the longer you avoid it. Or you’re just so, like you avoid it for so long, it’s like there’s this story I heard, it’s like you just shoved it under a rug and then you close the door and turn the lights off.
Emily: Yes. Totally, you avoid it at all costs.
Bonnie: Yeah.
Emily: For me it’s not homelessness. For me it’s like this black cloud that I just feel that I am refusing to look at. As soon as I turn and look at it, the blackness dissipates. And it might not be great news, but getting rid of that blackness, it’s heavy. It’s very, you know, it causes me to kind of run in fear or try to escape it, try to hide from it. But just turning and looking at it just helps dissipate it, it takes some of its power away almost immediately.
Bonnie: Yeah. All right, I feel like we’ve talked about some really great stuff. Is there anything that we didn’t talk about that you think would be useful?
Emily: The power of time. The power of that sustained effort. Taking care of your money is not generally a one and done thing, unless what we’re doing is creating a system that takes care of it, right? It doesn’t mean it’s going to be set it and forget it forever. But you probably talk about automatic deposits, automatic investing, that kind of thing. Those are great, but there’s never a time when I stop paying attention to my money.
Bonnie: Yeah, I think people are really bummed out when they hear that.
Emily: Once you get the system set up, it doesn’t have to take a ton of time. But it does have to be sustained over your lifetime. You’re always going to have to look at it.
Bonnie: The podcast that came out before this one, assuming the schedule is on time, was about doing that, like one time organizing everything. I talk about a money dashboard. It does take an effort and I know a lot of my clients, it’s like this big hump. But once they get over it, a lot of them actually, they might not enjoy the actual but they enjoy knowing what their numbers are and knowing that it’s going to work out and that they’re moving towards their goal.
So yeah, and then once you do take a look, the maintenance is so much, just like YNAB. So many people, I don’t know if you hear this too, they find it very complicated to set up. And there’s a learning curve, right?
Emily: Yeah.
Bonnie: And so I have to help a lot of them be like just do it. And I even have, I don’t know if you know this, Emily, I actually have YNAB tutorials. I actually hired a YNAB coach that goes in line with how I teach how to create budgets and spending plans. There’s even worksheets. But they have to do it.
But I always tell them, once it’s set up, maintaining it is relatively easy. It doesn’t take a lot of time. But yeah, that initial setup and then understanding, I think the credit cards get people a little mixed up because of the way they handle credit cards. I think what you’re saying is just the importance of spending time on it and it’s not a one-time thing.
I heard Brooke say, I don’t know if you remember, was it two years ago when she started weight training?
Emily: Mm-hmm.
Bonnie: And I heard her say like, nobody told me that once I got to my goal whatever, muscle goal, I’d have to still keep working out.
Emily: Right.
Bonnie: It’s like getting a six pack, what, I’ve got to still keep doing crunches?
Emily: Yeah, but it gets easier, don’t you think? It’s like remember when you were learning to drive? And you would come up to an intersection, do you remember that fear? Like, okay, I’m going to have to push the brake. Oh, the light is green. And what if I’m going to turn left at an intersection?
Bonnie: The left is hard in the beginning, right?
Emily: Into the intersection, how far do I go into the intersection? I’ve got to have my blinker on, my foot is on the brake. But I’m going to have to turn which requires a little bit of gentleness or the right acceleration on the gas pedal. In order to make all of that happen there was so much thinking going on. I remember I had to turn the radio off in order to learn to do those kinds of things.
Now it’s second nature. I drive into an intersection, I can turn left no problem, even if I’m driving a stick shift. So it will take a lot of thought and effort right now to set it up. But then you’re going to be able to get it more on autopilot. But you’re not going to ever quit putting your foot on the gas and the brake. You’re not going to quit that, it just doesn’t take as much thought or as much effort as it used to.
Bonnie: I really hate changing lanes on the highways. I still do. I still get a little scared that I’m not going to see something. It’s like a little fear, but it’s always there.
Anyway, all right, well thanks so much for being here. I don’t think I’ve had that conversation about how we tie our worth to how much money we have and that we feel less than if we think someone else has more money. So I think that’s an important topic.
Emily: It is.
Bonnie: So thank you. Thanks for being here.
Emily: Thank you so much, I love being here.
Hey there, thanks so much for tuning in. If you loved what you heard, be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. And if you’re listening to this on Apple Podcasts, I’d love for you to leave a review. Reviews tell Apple that this podcast is, well, awesome. And it will help women find this podcast so that they too can live a wealthy life. And finally, you can learn more about me and what I do at wealthymommd.com. See you next week.
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161: Keeping Your Money and Documents Organized in Case of Emergency
When it comes to our money, we aren’t always good at being organized. If you have money and important documents in different places, both physical and digital, it's time to make a change. I’m showing you what a money dashboard is, and how to keep your important documents organized in case of an emergency.
Having some kind of system where you can see all of your money at a glance and find information easily is a great way to stay organized. If you want to bring this kind of organization to your wealth-building journey, this episode is for you.
Tune in this week to discover how to stay organized when it comes to your money and your important documents. I’m sharing some practical strategies for staying on top of your money, how to stay secure when managing your money online, and my tips for organizing all of your important documents in case you have an emergency.
I’m pleased to announce the 2024 Money Conference for Women Physicians. This is the first conference of its kind specifically for women physicians. It’s happening from March 3rd to 6th 2024. So, to get all the details and join the waitlist, click here!
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
- What I use to keep track of my money, investments, and retirement accounts.
- How to keep yourself safe when managing your finances online.
- Why having everything organized isn’t just for your own benefit.
- How to keep your finances and documents organized in case of an emergency.
- My strategy for having everything in order and easily accessible.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
- Learn more about Live Wealthy, an exclusive coaching program designed for successful women who want to be confident.... and be rich.
- Follow me on Instagram
- 58: Why You Need an Assistant
- 150: How to Use Style to Create Your Luxe Life with Judith Gaton
- Brooke Castillo
- Notion
- 1Password
- Rakuten: 1Password
- Authy
- Dropbox
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 up-level your money and your life. I’m your host, Dr. Bonnie Koo.
Hey, everyone. So I recorded episode 161 a while ago and so I wanted to give you all an update regarding this topic. Now, I have since completely moved to 1Password, and that is the password manager that I now recommend and here are some key reasons.
Number one, it has way better security than LastPass and it has some extra security measures like an extra key password thingy. I know, it’s like a super technical explanation, but basically it’s more secure from LastPass because it has a dual master key passcode.
Okay, the second thing is I think the user interface is way friendlier. And one thing that I really love about it is sometimes I use my Google account to log in to a website and it’s kind of annoying because in LastPass, at least I couldn’t find the functionality, I would just have to have it remind me when I saw the login and password that, oh, I need to use my Google account. But with 1Password, it actually folds it in really well and makes it really seamless.
I also love the way it organizes information, you can create different sorts of categories when you share it. And so I bought the family plan, it’s very reasonable. Also, at least right now at the time of this recording, you can get like 27X bonus points when you buy through Rakuten, R-A-K-U-T-E-N, and that’s a way to get extra American Express points in case you’re not in the know.
With that said, if you haven’t heard, I just announced the 2024 Money Conference For Women Physicians, the first one ever because there isn’t one right now specifically for women. And so if you want to get all the details and join the waitlist, which you definitely should because we do expect this conference to sell out pretty quickly, you want to go to wealthymommd.com/conference to get all the details.
The dates are March 3-6, 2024, at the Miraval Resort and Spa in Tucson, Arizona. And this is an all-inclusive, high-end luxury spa resort, you’re going to love it. Okay, here’s episode 161.
Hey, everyone. So I just returned a few days ago from a long weekend in Miami. I was there with one of my mentor coaches, Brooke Castillo. It was a conference/retreat called Work Hard Play Hard.
So in the morning, about three or four hours in the morning we talked business, she kind of taught us stuff. And then in the evening it was play hard and we had a beach party and then we had a party on a yacht. And so that was super fun. It’s always so fun to be in person with my coach friends and to kind of see what’s up with people and in their business.
So today I want to talk a bit about organizing your money and your important documents. And this is something I teach inside my paid program, Live Wealthy. And actually, in about a week I’m actually doing a guest workshop for my good friend Judith Gaton.
And I actually did a podcast with her not too long ago. She’s a style coach, and so I’m doing a 30 minute workshop for her clients about organizing the important documents. She told me that every quarter they have kind of a decluttering type thing, I’m assuming it’s about clothes, but also with different topics. And so I thought I should also do a podcast on this and I also created some worksheets and Google docs for her that I’m going to make available inside my program.
And so, what I have found is that we are not good about organizing our important documents, physical and digital. And so I want to talk about how I do it, and I will say I’m not perfect at it but because I’m giving this lecture and I’m updating the material inside my program I’m going to just make sure things are up to date.
So I want to talk about two things. One is having what I call a money dashboard, and then the other one is about organizing important documents, and they might relate to your money stuff. And so what I mean by money dashboard is by having some kind of system, and I’m going to tell you what I use, where you can sort of see all of your money things at a glance and know how to find the information easily.
So I’m obsessed with this program called Notion and I use it for my life dashboard and for my business as well. And everyone I’ve told about it, they love it too. But if you don’t want to learn a new program you can use a Google doc, you can use a Google sheet, you might want to use them in conjunction. But to make it simple I’d probably just create a Google doc.
And what I have on this money dashboard is at a glance all the accounts we have and where and who owns it, and that’s kind of in a table format. And then everything is linked. So, for example, my Roth IRA is at Vanguard and so I have a link directly to Vanguard from that document that I can click.
And then actually this is really important, organizing your passwords. I cannot overemphasize how important it is for you to have a password manager. Now, I use LastPass, they had some kind of security breach recently so some people are telling me that I should move it but I’m kind of entrenched in all things LastPass. I use it for my personal life and my business.
Two reasons, one is so that you have secure passwords. If you are listening and you have kind of the same password for everything – When I was younger I used to have this thing where I called a low security password and a high security password so I didn’t have to remember more than two passwords. Please do not do this because then it’s really easy to access your accounts if someone gets one of the passwords, right?
And so with LastPass it helps you generate secure passwords that are crazy and you can’t memorize. And that can be annoying, but the password manager has it all saved. Now, you might be thinking, well, what if I lose it all? First of all you can use it on your desktop and you can actually use it on your phone as well. And it’s encrypted with a master password that should be hard to guess and you have to memorize it because if you forget it, I don’t know, I think it’s really, really hard to get access to all the things.
Another thing since we’re talking about security is that for my really important accounts, so that’s financial or things like my Facebook profile or Instagram account, I’m sure you all know someone who has had their Facebook account hacked. I use two factor authentication.
What that means is you have to log in with your password and then you have to authenticate another way. So there’s multiple ways to do that second authentication, sometimes it’s sending you a text message to your cell phone. And you can use what I use is an authenticator app, and it’s an app where you get a code generated and it’s specific to the product.
So I use a program called Authy, A-U-T-H-Y, but I do know that Google has one and other programs also have an authenticator. So it doesn’t really matter what you use, it’s just Authy is just what I happen to use. And so I have that set up for almost all accounts that allow it, like Amazon, Dropbox, et cetera.
So, side note, but organizing your passwords, don’t put it in a sheet somewhere, don’t write it down. I mean, I guess you could write it down, but then you have to know where it is, right?
Okay, so that’s what I mean by a money dashboard. So I have everything listed by owner, it says where it is, I’ll have like a little column for any notes I want to make. And that’s basically what it has. And if I own things like rental properties and syndications, which I do, that will also be listed there as well, as well as contact information because for syndications there’s a contact, right? Like who you invested with and maybe a phone number or an email.
Now, this is helpful not just for you, but also when you pass. Now, we all know that we’re going to die sometime, right? And so you want things organized so that your loved ones, your spouse, can find the information easily because they’re going to need that information, okay?
And so I want to talk about how to organize that, where to organize that, et cetera. I’m going to tell you what I do and I do recommend Dropbox. You could do Google Drive as well, I just find Dropbox a little bit easier to use and also to organize. I find that it has a lot more features and so everything is in Dropbox.
Now, basically, I create a folder and I name it whatever, ours is something called Koo-Wolf legacy drawer, and it has sort of all the important things in there. So the question is, well, what important documents need to be there? Now there are broad categories and I have a Google Doc that I’ve created for my clients, but things like copies of your driver’s license, copies of your passports, life insurance policies, birth certificates, et cetera.
Now, some of these are going to be physical, like a birth certificate or a marriage certificate, but you also want to have digital copies, so you want those scanned. So you’re going to have to have a physical way to organize things as well. I think a binder with those plastic insert sheets is best so that, obviously, they’re protected. But you could use a file folder as well, I just like the way a binder is organized and you can put sort of divider tabs as well.
So you’re going to need some physical copies, things like the car title, all that kind of stuff. And people always ask, where should you store those physical things? And so you can put it in a safe or you can also put it in a bank deposit box or something like that. You do not want to put the original copies of your will inside your deposit box because if someone needs it and they’re not authorized to access it, well, then they can’t access it, right?
I think eventually they might be able to, but it might take a really long time. So you just want to be careful about that or have a few backup people. You can authorize a few other people and they can have the key to it. But I think that might be a little risky. Everything I’ve read has said not to put your original will in that sort of place. Now, our will is actually with our lawyer. I think he basically has some kind of safe deposit box in his office, so that’s where ours happen to be.
So you want to have a folder and have all these things sort of organized. I have folders for each of those individual things, so I’ll have something called insurances and things like that, copies of our wills, anything that’s super important. If you’re divorced, you want to have your divorce decree in there, parenting agreement, all that kind of stuff.
So another thing that you’re going to need in this folder digitally, and you can have it physically as well, is something called a letter of instruction or in case of an emergency. Now they’re kind of similar things, they kind of list all the important things they need to know some contacts, you know, who takes care of my website, who’s my bookkeeper, et cetera, with all the contact information and also the types of accounts I have with my business.
I’m actually looking at it now and it’s a little outdated because I have credit cards I need to upload. And then a list of immediate and important contacts who should be notified. So it has my mom, my brother, Matt’s son, et cetera. And it also tells you where the locations of the important documents are.
So the will – Oh, I forgot to mention social security cards, those should not be in your wallet if you didn’t know, because it’s a pain in the butt if you lose it. I mean, it’s easy to get. I actually lost mine so I had to go to the Social Security office, but still that’s something you want to avoid if possible.
It’s going to have things like burial instructions, and where the life insurance policies are and phone number and email of the insurance agent so they can file the claims. And it’s going to give them also specific instructions like literally a checklist of do this when I die. Like make 10 or 20 copies of the death certificate and this is what you’re going to need to do.
And I think this is one of the best things you can do for your loved ones because their minds are going to be all messed up when you die and having something like, do this, then do this is going to be so helpful for them and also save them all the time of locating all these documents.
Most people do not have things organized. And so I’m sure we all know someone whose parent has passed and what a pain in the butt it was to locate all the accounts because you’re going to have to close them and you’re going to need a death certificate in order to prove that they’re dead so that you can close them or assume control if they were left to you.
So I like Dropbox for storing all of my scanned documents. Now, obviously, you need to make sure that important people have access to this so they can actually find it. So that’s important too, right? You need to designate who’s going to have access to this Dropbox.
Now, once you spend time organizing this, then it’s really easy going forward. Then you just update PRN. So one thing I love to do is I have Dropbox on my phone. And then I have a folder designated, I call it shit box, so basically it’s a junk drawer because most of us aren’t going to want to file things immediately, right?
And so I recommend having sort of a, I don’t know, a box, or an area where if you get important documents that need to be scanned, you put it in there. And you’re going to get important documents through the mail, like a PDF, like a receipt, like medical receipts if you keep track of those. I do because we have an HSA account and so if you want to get reimbursed, you’re going to need a copy if you get audited, right?
And so all that stuff is on Dropbox, but here’s two things I recommend. Number one is to have this junk drawer folder, like a catch all, this is digital and also physical. And then what I love about my phone is I can use the Dropbox app and they have a scan function where basically I take a picture and it turns it into a PDF and I save it to this junk drawer folder.
And then I can periodically, and I pick the cadence, it could be monthly, it could be quarterly, I clear it out all at once. Now, this is basically a type of batching. Batching is a great way to save time and basically you’re doing similar tasks repeatedly, versus doing it piecemeal where you’re not going to want to do it, right?
And so you decide. If you’re someone who gets a lot of these documents, then you might want to do it monthly. If you don’t, then maybe quarterly you just clean it all out. Now, I have an episode where I talked about why you should hire a virtual assistant. So this is something they can do. And people ask well, do you trust them? Obviously, this is not something you would task with them immediately, but as you build trust and et cetera, then you can give them access to do this.
And I had my prior assistant do this for me on about a monthly basis. And, obviously, I instructed her on how to move things around. So we would have a folder like by year, and I also had a spreadsheet where she would update with all of our medical receipts so I could see it at once so in case I do want to get reimbursed, I don’t have to sift through receipts, I can see right away, like, oh, this was a big line item, maybe I want to get reimbursed for this. So just to make things easier.
But again, it’s like a one-time setup and then you can spend every month or every quarter filing away your things. And so I do this for my personal money. But you also want to do this for your business stuff as well. And, obviously, things like tax documents, that goes without saying. I just try to upload things right away by tax year.
Now, another feature I love about Dropbox is there is email automation. So what that means is you can actually, Dropbox will generate an email and you can forward emails that have an attachment that you want filed in Dropbox and it puts it in a folder, it’s not the junk drawer, it has its own folder, but it’s whatever folder they create for you. But that’s also a great way to save you from having to download it and upload it to Dropbox.
I’m all about automating whatever you can automate. And so I just discovered this recently and it has been a game changer. And so, obviously, in addition to the junk drawer folder, I also check this folder as well and then move things to the places it needs to go.
So, again, I know this is something that probably most of you are like, “Oh, I know I need to do this, but I don’t want to.” And some of you don’t have an estate plan. I’m surprised how many people don’t have this taken care of.
And if you have children, it’s even way more important and even more important if you are a blended family. Meaning that, for example, if you have children from a prior relationship or marriage and then you get remarried, your spouse is most likely going to get everything unless you designate it otherwise.
Now, a lot of things bypass probate, like you can directly name a beneficiary to your retirement accounts and things like that. But a lot of things don’t. And so you really want to be prudent and make sure that things are going to who you want them to go to.
I remember my old personal trainer, he was in this long legal battle because his dad got remarried and everything basically by default got left to his new wife. And he wasn’t even trying to get money, they were just really sentimental, personal items from how he grew up. And for some reason she would not give it to them. So it was a bit of a hostile situation. But that’s just an example of something you really want to avoid.
So, anyway, I hope I have, maybe motivated isn’t the word, but maybe sort of at least instilled the importance of organizing all your things. It’s a one-time thing. And so here’s what I recommend. First, you have to determine how and where you’re going to organize it, right? Are you going to do Dropbox? Are you going to do Google Drive? Where are you going to put your physical things? Is it something that you want to keep in a safe? Do you have a safe? Do I need to buy one, et cetera?
That’s sort of step one. And then step two is, you’re probably going to have to scan a bunch of documents. You’re probably going to have to find a bunch of documents, so you want to set aside time to do that. And you might want to do it in categories, like okay, let me do my estate planning stuff today, I’ll do my insurance today, just to break it up. Or you could just say, I’m going to spend two hours doing this.
Now, this is going to be a pain in the ass. I don’t want to pretend like this is going to be fun, and roses and all that stuff. But it’s worth doing, not just for yourself so you can find stuff, because you’re going to have to find stuff while you’re alive. But also for when you pass so that whoever’s going to take care of your stuff, and usually it’s a spouse or maybe one of your children, so they can find everything super easily.
The last thing you want them to deal with is having to rummage through your home, and they probably don’t even have access to any of your accounts. It’s going to be so hard for them to do this. And so I cannot overemphasize how important this is.
And then once you set it up, like I said, going forward it’s going to be pretty easy to upload new documents. That’s why I love Dropbox, because you can scan things with your phone. So I’ll get medical receipts and instead of having to scan it on my actual printer, I just take a picture, they have a scan mode and then it uploads directly to that holding folder or junk drawer. And then like once a month I’ll clear it out.
So that is something that makes my future organization super easy. So that’s what I recommend. That’s what I do and that’s what I teach inside my program. And so I hope this has been helpful and if you want to get organized and get the template that I’ve created, then you definitely want to join my program, Live Wealthy. You can learn more about it on my website, wealthymommd.com.
All right, I hope you have a great day and be sure to schedule this in your calendar, okay? All right. Bye.
Hey there, thanks so much for tuning in. If you loved what you heard, be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. And if you’re listening to this on Apple Podcasts, I’d love for you to leave a review. Reviews tell Apple that this podcast is, well, awesome. And it will help women find this podcast so that they too can live a wealthy life. And finally, you can learn more about me and what I do at wealthymommd.com. See you next week.
Get started on your journey to wealth by getting the best selling book: Defining Wealth for Women.
For media or speaking inquiries please click here.
For all other inquiries please click here.
160: The Mindset Required for Optimizing Credit Card Points with Devon Gimbel
My guest this week is Devon Gimbel. Devon is a physician and a coach, and she teaches other high-income earners how to maximize and redeem credit card points. She was on the show a year ago and, the last time she was here, we talked about the technical side of maximizing your credit card points.
This time around, we’re talking more about the mindset side of maximizing your credit card points, and identifying what stops people from even getting started. I struggled with this myself when I first started dabbling in rewards travel, so this episode should inspire and motivate you to really get started for yourself because the luxury experiences that are available to us as high-income earners and entrepreneurs really make doing this work worthwhile.
Tune in this week to discover how to start traveling in luxury for less. We’re discussing what’s possible through credit card points, what stops people from getting started with points travel, why it can seem like points don’t hold that much value, and how to take advantage of the potentially enormous value of your rewards credit card points.
Learn more about Live Wealthy, an exclusive coaching program designed for successful women who want to be confident.... and be rich.
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
- What stops people from getting started on their credit card points journey, myself included.
- How people redeem credit card points for way less than their potential value.
- Why many people don’t understand the potential value of credit card points.
- All of the potential trips I missed out on before I fully understood how to maximize my points.
- What I have planned and how much I’ve managed to save on travel for this year alone.
- Why some people in the medical profession are sitting on an untapped goldmine of credit card points.
- How to start leveraging credit card points to increase your travel budget without sacrificing other savings and investments.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
- Follow me on Instagram
- Devon Gimbel: Website | Podcast
- Point Me to First Class- Facebook Group for Women Physicians
- Point Me to First Class – Facebook Group for Professionals, Business Owners, and Entrepreneurs
- 84: How to Maximize Your Credit Card Points with Devon Gimbel
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 up-level your money and your life. I’m your host, Dr. Bonnie Koo.
Hey, everyone. Today I have my good friend, Devon Gimbel. Now, she has been on the podcast before but I realized it had been almost a year. And we have been friends for a long time. She’s also a physician and a coach, and she recently pivoted, I guess a year ago actually, to teaching other high income earners how to maximize and redeem credit card points.
Now, we talked about a lot of stuff on the last episode a year ago. But today we kind of talk more about the mindset and what blocks people from even getting started. Now, I had all of these so I spoke to them a lot on this episode. But I’m really hoping to inspire and motivate you to really get started because it makes so much more higher class luxury travel possible without really significantly impacting your travel budget, or even by decreasing it.
So I hope you get a lot out of it. And Devon does mention she started a podcast. So by the time this episode comes out, her podcast will be out and so we’ll link all of that in the show notes. And so here’s Devon.
Bonnie: All right, Devon, welcome back.
Devon: Thanks for having me. I’m so excited.
Bonnie: I know, a lot has happened since we had you on. I actually don’t remember the exact date, but I feel like it was a year ago. And so, obviously, a lot has changed between both of us. And so I thought it would be really fun to have you back. And also there might be newer listeners who haven’t had a chance to go listen to that. And I don’t remember what we talked about, to be honest, anyway.
But what I thought we could talk about today is, as you know, I pretty much talk to everyone about points because, number one, I think it’s really fun. But number two, everyone you and I know love to travel. And I think a lot of us also have a significant travel budget. And we’re okay with that because it gives us so much joy. And they can get trips at least partially, if not wholly, subsidized, which would free up a lot more cash so that they can buy and grow assets, right?
Devon: Absolutely.
Bonnie: Yeah, so I thought what we could talk about, using my journey as an example, is when I do talk to people and they’re not really – I think people know what points are. And most people have at least one points earning card, although usually they’re crappy ones, in my opinion. But they don’t really use them. Or if they do, they’re doing the portal, which we both know is a no-no, which is what I used to do.
And they don’t say it’s too complicated, but that’s basically what they’re saying. And I was that way too. Do you remember when I was not into points, I forget exactly what you would say. Do you remember?
Devon: So this is what I remember of your journey. So just to put it in context from what I remember, you can jump in and tell me where I’m hallucinating or just forgetting about important parts of the story. But you and I have been friends for a while. And I have been knee deep into the whole points travel world for many years now. It’s been almost nine years for me.
And you and I used to talk and I know how much you love traveling. And so, to me, it was this very sort of natural fit. For anyone who loves to travel, I think especially people who are physicians or who are professionally employed or business owners who tend to have higher than average expenses, to me, it’s just such a no brainer to leverage those expenses to earn credit card points.
And I remember being so surprised when you and I would have conversations. I mean, and this was as short as two years ago, right? So we’re not talking about a decade ago. So you and I would have conversations where you would talk about your love of travel or wanting to go to Paris or going somewhere else, Hawaii. And I think I just took it for granted that, oh, you must love the points travel thing too.
And I remember you were kind of not poo-pooing it, but I remember you were not being as enthusiastically crazy about it as I was and I couldn’t understand that at the time. So it’s like, wait a minute. Especially you because you’re obviously brilliant.
You’re obviously very, very knowledgeable about personal finance. And to me credit cards and using points to travel is very complimentary to the personal finance world. And so I did not fundamentally understand why you were not already an expert at this thing.
And I think this is such a great sort of case study because I think you are so representative of so many people who are in a position to really benefit from this whole world of leveraging your expenses to earn credit card points. And then turning that into a significant amount of value in terms of the travel you can get from it, and yet not doing it.
And I think there’s a couple of reasons why people who are in a position to really benefit from this hobby, don’t get into it. And I do think, like you said, one of those reasons is this idea that it’s just going to be too complicated or too hard.
And I’m curious if you remember two years ago, back when I would be spouting off about, oh, you’ve got to be traveling, or you’ve got to be doing this with credit cards, and you weren’t yet maybe convinced. Do you happen to remember what was that barrier for you?
Bonnie: Yeah. So I’m to the point where I – You just said something funny. You’re like, I get confused when people are not into it. I’m like, I don’t understand, you’re confused. That’s how I feel now, now that I’ve come to the other side.
I’m not really sure. I think I did feel like it was complicated. And what I mean by complicated, is not complicated to learn. But I think in my mind I thought I had to keep track of a lot of stuff, and that would be annoying. And I don’t think I quite understood how much value you could get from points.
It’s like, yeah, I think everyone knows travel points exist and you can use them. But I didn’t realize how much I could extract and extract from each. Now that I know the points calculations, it’s kind of fun to do that. But I think all of that kind of just equaled really not knowing what was possible, right?
It’s like, yeah, I knew people did that. I knew people booked travel. My brother is actually into points. And I remember, actually, we never talked about it. And once I got into it and realized he was, I was like, why didn’t you tell me? I could have gotten Hyatt globalist last year then. I’m globalist this year.
But he’s always been into Hyatt and Chase, and he was able to get globalist light, which in case people are like, what does that mean? It’s just that Hyatt lets people reach globalist, their highest tier, with a lot less nights.
Devon: Yeah, and I think you touched on a really important point there because one of the conversations that I do remember our having, specifically back in 2020 early 2021, was obviously we were all experiencing a global pandemic, which had enormous consequences in so many areas of our lives. But certainly one huge one was in terms of our mobility, right?
I mean, certainly for 2020 and a lot of 2021 we were not going anywhere. Everybody very much, for great reasons of course, was staying very local. And I remember you and I were kind of talking offhand at some point, I think, during 2020. And you were telling me about how many Chase points you had and how you had cashed them all out. Like you had cashed them all out.
Bonnie: Oh my God, I totally remember this.
Devon: Yeah, for gift cards or some sort of cash equivalent. And I remember, again, because this is before you and I, I think, really sort of dove into this world about this point about understanding the value you can get from them.
And I remember you saying that you cashed them out, which on one hand made a ton of sense, right? Because if you’re thinking along the lines of, oh, the value of these points is to leverage them for travel. And we are literally in an unprecedented period of global history where nobody is traveling. And we have no idea how long it’s going to be or what travel is going to look like when we come out on the other side of this.
Then, yes, this form of currency, all of a sudden, seems like well I can’t use this in the traditional way to travel. So why not get something for it in the form of gift cards or whatever you ended up doing. But I still remember at that moment realizing, oh, wait a minute, she doesn’t understand the potential value of this.
Bonnie: You were horrified. Let’s just be honest.
Devon: I was, yes. Again, because I think this is such an important part of this whole conversation around credit card points and travel, is this key area that I think one of the big barriers for people who could potentially get so much out of this hobby. The reason they don’t is this specific point, is not understanding the full picture of their potential value.
I think when most people have points because, like you said, a lot of people are walking around actually with one or maybe two points earning cards in their wallet already. So they are earning points. But their understanding of the way that they can use those points tends to be very limited compared to the potential.
And when that is your view of using points, either through your credit card account itself to offset a statement charge or to redeem it for an Amazon gift card or a department store gift card. Then it really doesn’t seem like points hold a ton of value.
But that is missing what I think is the absolute enormous opportunity of points, which I think you now have a lot more experience with. Which is that you can actually triple, quadruple, quintuple or more the value of those points if you really learn how to leverage them.
And that’s the piece where I think people do tend to, either they don’t know about it or when they start hearing about it, that’s the part where they’re thinking, oh, this sounds really hard. Or this sounds like it’s going to take so much time to master this, that it’s not actually worth it for me.
And one of the things that I had been really impressed by watching you, because I’ve been doing this for a long time now. So in a sense, I almost don’t remember what it felt like for me when I first got into points and was learning. But I’ve had the benefit of watching you go really from, we were just talking about it pre-recording, basically from zero or like 1.5 to 100 in a very, very short period of time.
And I’m really curious to hear from you, what do you think it was that had you going from literally in 2020 saying these points don’t really seem to have a ton of value, I’m actually just going to cash them all out. To now where you are.
Bonnie: I almost forgot that, Devon. Thanks for reminding me of all the potential trips I lost.
Devon: I know, I’m sorry I keep bringing this up. But let’s talk about that because I know, because you and I text back and forth, I know that you have already booked thousands, tens of thousands of dollars worth of travel using your points at the end of last year for your travel this year. And that is a huge difference, right?
That’s a huge jump to go from getting a couple hundred dollars worth in value from points to starting now to get multiple thousands of dollars’ worth of points. And so that is what I think is so valuable to hear from your story, that you are not someone where you are now 10 years into this hobby and now really mastering it.
I mean, you literally went from a couple of baby steps to like professional athlete in the world of points in a very short period of time. And at least my impression of your experience is that that did not come from your having spent like 10 hours a day studying this stuff for a year and a half.
You seemed to make very quick strides very easily. And so I think you’re actually the perfect person to kind of speak to this point about what do you think realistically it actually takes to be able to get a ton of value out of your points in a very short period of time when you are starting from scratch in terms of really kind of your understanding about how this whole entire hobby works.
Bonnie: Yeah, I know that one of the first things I learned was to transfer points to transfer partners. And I knew that option existed. It’s not like I was like, what is this thing? I knew it existed but, again, didn’t really realize why that was so much better.
I don’t remember exactly. So you remember you helped me book a Christmas vacation for like, what year was it? It was for 2021, right? I went to the Bahamas. And it was actually pretty late in the year, like October-ish. And so I just assumed it would be impossible to find a Christmas trip. And you found it for me.
I remember thinking like, oh my God, how does she do that? Because I didn’t say I want to go to the Bahamas, right? You must have known which spots maybe that I would like. And so I remember, and I have a screenshot somewhere, of what the cash prize would have been. And it was something insane. I don’t know if it’s $10,000 insane, but it was pretty high. Christmas week, right? Plus it was a little bit late in the year.
And so that was my first experience using points and – Was it my first? Yeah. My memory is not that great, especially that far back. But yeah, I think I got really excited and I started just looking into it and also just reading all these posts, probably from you, about how much value you can get from Hyatt Hotels.
And then I guess at some point I decided that I want to go for Hyatt globalist, the top tier. And the benefits are amazing. When you reach globalist status, you can actually make points reservations without having the actual points, like they’ll reserve it for you. You have to have the points, but I think only a week or two before. So I just made two for two possible spring breaks, I don’t know which one I’m going to use.
And then actually while you were talking I was like, oh crap, I know I’m going to be somewhere where it’ll be a Hyatt and so I better reserve that now, because especially since the category is increasing. So if you don’t know what I’m talking about, don’t worry about it. But I think that’s how it started. I really got into the Hyatt thing.
And I travel a decent amount so it made sense. And I don’t stay at Hyatt like, I’m not like my way or the highway but for Hyatt. I’m not that hardcore, but if there’s a Hyatt super nearby and it’s a nice one, I just make a game time decision, right? I’m not like married to it.
For example, I was just at a conference, well they paid for my room so that’s one thing. It was at a Marriott. But sometimes there’s no Hyatts or there’s nothing close enough and I’m not going to go out of my way. But I was able to do a decent amount of Hyatt stays, and so obviously you get a multiplier with that. So it made sense for me to open up Hyatt cards.
Now, I opened up a lot of credit cards last year, which is obviously all your fault. And actually, I got to a point where I feel like I don’t want anymore because it is getting, it’s not confusing but I have to think for a second before I know which card to pull out.
But they’re labeled. I had them labeled for Matt. He never was not on board, but now he makes sure. Actually the other day, because I look at the numbers, like I have a budgeting program. And I saw he charged groceries to the wrong card. Because we can get 5x for groceries now. And I was like, what’s going on here? He said he forgot his wallet and that card was the only one on his iPhone for Apple Pay. So then I’m like, okay, we need to load all the cards onto your iPhone.
Anyway, so I think it must have been from your free Facebook group, I think I just started learning. And also I collect Chase and American Express, so I collect both. But I mainly fly united and I’ve been prioritizing, staying at Hyatt. So I think I just took the parts that I knew would apply to me and then got really good at that, if that makes sense.
Because since my friends know I’m into points, they’ll ask me like, oh, I want to book something to Egypt. And I was like, I have no idea. Because I haven’t done it yet, right? That’s one of the reasons why I joined your course. I’m like, I want to learn more about international stuff. And I booked that flight to Paris. But also, that was a pretty easy thing to learn.
But I’m one of those people that once I get into something I go down the rabbit hole. And what I say is, you know, I don’t play video games, I don’t play things like Candy Crush. And to me, this is like my version of a video game. But I actually get something out of it versus just like useless dopamine hits, right?
Devon: Yeah, I completely agree with you. And I think one of the things about your story that I think is really important to highlight is that, because I run into this conversation with people all the time, as well.
When they kind of first start learning about this concept of, wow, I can put my expenses that I am paying for anyway, things I’m buying anyway, the things that it just costs me to run my life anyway, I can actually strategically put those expenses on credit cards to earn points. And then I can use those points for really amazing travel experiences.
I think a very common kind of first reaction or first barrier that I see people encounter a lot is this idea that well, because the people who they see kind of really leveraging this hobby might happen to have what they consider to be a lot of credit cards. Whether that’s five credit cards, or 10 credit cards, or more. Or they see people who have some experience in this hobby, they think, oh, wait a minute, in order for me to be successful I have to do it the same exact way.
And I think that that’s a huge barrier. When people say this seems like it’s going to be very complicated are hard, I think oftentimes what they mean is, oh, I believe that in order for me to be able to benefit from this hobby any sort of measurable amount, what it’s going to require is that I’m going to have to all of a sudden go from having zero or one credit card to having 15 and being an expert at everything before I can get any benefit from it.
And I think that that is a huge fallacy. That you can actually start relatively small and relatively slow with really one or two great points earning cards, and get very comfortable using those cards. And using that one type of points. You can get a lot of value out of that.
So one of the things I really try to help people understand is that it’s just like medical school, none of us showed up on the first day of medical school and thought, oh well, I don’t have the skills, knowledge or expertise of an attending who’s been out for 10 years. Therefore, I should just give up on this whole medicine thing, right? We had this anticipation or this expectation that, yes, there is a point in my future when I’m going to have these tremendous skills. I’m probably not going to get them overnight. But that didn’t stop us.
And learning about credit card points. And really using them to travel I can guarantee you is 1,000 times easier than medical training and in some cases, a lot more fun too. And so I just want to dispel that myth that you have to go from zero to being a complete expert before this is something you can get a ton of value out of, right?
Just in one year alone, you have learned a lot. And you also didn’t start out with 10 credit cards right away. You started with one great solid points currency. You really learned where some of the opportunities in that one points currency were and you are really experiencing the benefits of that without, again, having to become an expert overnight in all of the different parts immediately.
Bonnie: Yeah, another objection I hear which made me think, is that you have to be making a ton of money, or if you don’t have a business, or if you get these credit cards you’re going to spend even more, like that sort of thing. And, obviously, the more you spend, the more points you can accumulate. But knowing the multipliers, right, it’s not just getting 1x for each purchase. Like I mentioned, we can get 5x and Matt just got 1x for that purchase.
Things like that, right? And I finally got the card, I don’t know what took me so long, the card that gives you at least a minimum of 1.5x for every Chase point. So that’s like a no brainer just to get that extra half point. And it adds up over time.
So, yeah, I added up how much travel I planned this year and I told you, but I’ll share here. $45,000.
Devon: Yeah.
Bonnie: Which is insane.
Devon: That is not a little amount, right? Again, and I think this is so important because what you said at the beginning is so true, that a lot of us do have travel budgets, right? We may have a travel budget of 5,000, 10,000, whatever dollars per year that we already know we want to spend so that we can travel for ourselves, or we can do family travel, whatever the case may be.
I think what’s really amazing to me about points is that this can really fundamentally change the opportunities that are available for you for travel, even when you do already have a travel budget. I think about some of the trips that I’ve taken myself on solo, because I love solo travel, as well as basically now every trip that I book for my family.
These are trips that, honestly, if I was only paying out of pocket cash for trips, they would be prohibitively expensive for us. We would not be taking these trips. And that, to me, is such a huge opportunity because, again, we do have a travel budget. I don’t have a $100,000 travel budget for my family. But we are getting close to that in value from our points on a yearly basis.
And that, I think, is the opportunity that so many people don’t realize is available to them. Especially this is why I love hearing your story so much is that, again, you are not 7, 8, 9 years into this hobby where you’ve really, really started learning some of the tiny minutiae about it. You are really benefiting from just the very sort of easy, straightforward ways to just get into this hobby to begin with, and showing how much opportunity there is even in some of that low hanging fruit.
And I’m really curious to hear from you because I love the fact that you’ve already booked like $40,000 worth of travel. I would really like to hear from you like, what do you think it is that points have made possible for you compared to even just two years ago, three years ago. When, again, you are a very well-traveled person. You were traveling anyway, you were budgeting for travel.
But what do you feel like is the biggest difference for you now that you have really kind of begun, in my eyes, to optimize this value that you can get from your points?
Bonnie: Yeah, well, one thing I want to say just in case people are like, “Well, what do you mean $45,000?” Because I think I also had the same confusion. And so what I want to say is whenever I make a points booking, and I’m sure you do too, you look at the cash price and you look at how many points. And there is a simple calculation just to see, mainly it’s just showing you how much value you’re extracting.
Even if it’s not a great redemption, I might still book it. Like you and I talked about the flights for this Christmas, they were stupidly, insanely expensive and the redemption was like 1.5 cents a point. Is that the value of Chase points by itself, 1.5 cents?
Devon: Yeah, if you have the Chase Sapphire reserve card, that’s kind of the minimum value that you’re able to get from them. Though, obviously, as you know, you can get a lot more. But that’s kind of the floor in terms of how much value you can get.
Bonnie: Okay, that’s what I thought, yeah.
Devon: Yeah.
Bonnie: And so it’s basically I just make a decision. Because it was either use points or pay 1700 per flight for a four hour flight. And I was like, I’m not paying that times three people. I could, but it just didn’t make sense. And I have a lot of points, so it was a no-brainer. So, yeah, just in case people are like, well, how do you know how much money you’re getting out of looking at that?
I think what it’s done for me is, okay, so I’m going to France, so piecing it trip by trip. I’m flying business class, Air France, which is a great airline. And so I probably wouldn’t have flown business class. Although now that I’m kind of spoiled, I was already flying first class for certain flights just out of my pocket for business. And it sucks because once you fly first class, it’s really hard to go back to economy. Not to sound like an entitled person, but it’s hard.
And I’ve never flown business class international, so I’m really excited. Lie flat, the food is supposedly amazing on Air France, so that’s one thing. And then I booked all of my nights on points. And they’re at Hyatts and there happens to be, thankfully, a lot of Hyatts there. And I’m staying at a really nice one that was definitely a lot more points than I would have liked to spend, but it’s a luxury hotel in Paris.
So I can put all of my budget towards eating at Michelin three star restaurants. So that’s what that’s going to enable because my eating budget would have been a lot more limited. And so it’s kind of crazy to me. Obviously there were fees involved, like maybe it was four or 500 bucks for the flight, but there were no fees for the hotel.
So basically, it’s kind of crazy, I’m just going to have to pay for ground transportation. And now I have a lot more money to just spend. Maybe I’ll go to Chanel or something now. So that’s that trip.
And then in April we’re going to Disneyland. Now, there are some Hyatts near Disney. Again, this is where I decide am I going to stay at Hyatt just because it’s cheaper and I could use it on points? And I opted to stay on site because I just think that’s the way to do Disney. But we are moving to a hotel afterwards and I was able to book a suite.
And so I would never proactively book a suite and pay for it. So I forget how much I saved, but it’s a really nice suite so I’m super excited. I don’t think, yeah, my family, we have never actually stayed in a hotel suite. So that’s going to be exciting. I know once Matt experiences this, it’s kind of the same thing with first class. It’s like, what? We’re not in a suite? What’s going on here?
And then the Christmas trip that I booked, I would have never even looked at staying there because it’s too expensive. And everything’s expensive during Christmas, but I think this hotel is still expensive off-season, right? It’s a hotel that I just wouldn’t have even looked at.
And so that hotel, I remember you and I exchanged texts, was like $18,000 for the cash price for seven nights. And even off-season it still would have been like at least 10k, maybe even more. So that was amazing.
So I think to sort of summarize your question, the answer to your question, it’s allowed me to travel at a much higher class than I would have normally done for myself, and stay at places that I wouldn’t have stayed before. I wouldn’t even consider it because of the cost. This place is more expensive than the Four Seasons, you know?
Devon: Yeah, absolutely. And I think I’ve had a really similar experience to that. I have had now, because I have been doing this for a number of years, like I said, I have had access to so many experiences that just cost wise, never, never would have been available to me before.
And I think one of the things that I think is really important to touch on here, because I know so much of your mission is equipping and empowering women especially to be really aware of their finances. And to know how to make decisions that really serve them and their goals when it comes to their money and really the life that they want to create for themselves.
And you and I have talked about this a lot before, that the idea, I think, that both of us hold of wealth is, yes, certainly that has to do with just numbers, right? You know, how many assets do you have? What is your net worth? What are you building? What are you creating for your family? But I think wealth is so much broader too than just the number in your bank account.
I think that we can live lives that are very wealthy in experience. And I know for a lot of us, travel is a huge component of that. And I think back to when I was first kind of learning about this. I was just kind of out of my period of training, I was like one or two years into being an attending. And things a lot of people have the experience of even though as an attending you maybe are making finally a little bit more money than you ever were as a student or as a resident. But a lot of us also had very significant expenses.
And I think part of us being very financially educated and wanting to be responsible with our money is making the decisions about what are my financial priorities and where does my money go first? Whether that’s paying down debt, or investing, or saving for retirement.
And I think a lot of people have the experience that even if travel is a fundamentally really important value for them, that a lot of us are not going to sacrifice other financial priorities for travel, right? I think a lot of us are still going to prioritize, if push comes to shove, putting money in the retirement account and then seeing what’s left over for us to travel with.
And I think especially for those of us who are sitting in this position where we really do have a significant amount of expenses that we can leverage into credit card points for travel. This, to me, has been an avenue where it’s allowed me so much to not have to make those decisions of retirement or travel, right? Contributing to my kid’s 529 plans or travel. Some financial priority or travel.
With points it has allowed me, like you said, you take the budget you already had for travel and it’s just expanded that so dramatically. When you’re able to use points to really significantly defray the cost of flights or hotel stays or both, then that travel budget that you already had available to you, you get to do more with that, again, that just feeds into that just wealth of experiences that you can have in your life. And I really think that’s not to be discounted or understated in any way.
Bonnie: Yeah. So for people who love travel, including me, yeah, it significantly increases the quality of your life and gives you a lot more joy.
It’s funny because I actually find that, I don’t want to say a lot because I don’t really know the percentage. But quite a few of my clients actually prioritize travel over financial goals. And they know they’re doing that but they’re like, but travel gives me so much joy. But now with leveraging points, they don’t have to do that, right? They can have their cake and eat it too.
Because the way I’ve been talking about my travel and yours is like we already have, I think, a decent travel budget, the both of us. And I’ve been doing it to supplement or 100% subsidize the trips I just mentioned. But other people may choose to just use it for doing the travel they’re already doing and just significantly decrease that budget so they can move the money towards other things.
And so I think it works both ways, just depending on what they want to work on. Versus like I have to travel less so I can work on my finances, because I think nobody wants to do that.
Devon: Yeah, no, I mean, that feels terrible, right? And I think especially for physicians or other professionals who have had that experience of, you know, as a group I think we’re pretty darn good at delayed gratification. I think we are a group that has a lot of experience having a goal in mind and really working hard for that goal for many, many, many years before it’s realized.
And so I don’t think we are a group of people who need more practice with delayed gratification when it comes to travel. I don’t think that, like you said, if this is an experience that really adds to our life and brings us a lot of joy, the last thing that I want to see people do is say, well, because you know of these other things that are priorities or because it took me so long compared to my peers to really be able to be in a position where I am making a decent income. Now the travel is the thing that’s going to be delayed indefinitely, right?
And I hear so many people talk about travel as the thing that’s kind of their light at the end of the tunnel in terms of retirement. Like, well, once I’m retired, then I’m really going to be able to explore. Or then I’m going to give myself this gift of this thing I’ve always been wanting to do.
And I think that if we can find ways, again, where people don’t have to make those choices, where it’s not either or, it’s not travel or be able to put money towards financial goals. And it’s also not save and meet your financial goals or travel. If we’re able to find methods where we can access all of those things that matter to us, I think that’s a really, really powerful way to enjoy your life the entire time you’re living it, right?
Because, again, I don’t think that at this point in our lives we need to put ourselves through even more exercises of having to wait decades to get one of the things that is really enriching for us.
Bonnie: Yeah, obviously, you know I’m all on board. So I’m already thinking like, where can I go in the fall? Because there’s this like black hole of no travel between my Paris trip in the summer through Christmas. Although I know there’ll be at least one or two business trips somewhere in September. So I guess I’ll be okay.
But that’s for me, for my business, but also just thinking about my family because Jack’s at an age where we love taking him to beach resorts. And I like those too. I think I used to be like, oh, I’m only doing this because he’s young. But I’m like, I like these too and that’s fine. Because I think it’s easy to be like, I should want to take, I don’t know, more cultural trips or things like that. And there are, obviously, I’m going to Paris for that, like, there’s no beach resort there.
But I think I really was like, oh, I really like this and so does Jack. And so let’s just do this until he’s like, I want to see some more things. And we’ll still do the resorts stuff too, though. So I am looking into Hawaii. I don’t have a Hawaii trip planned. As you know, I love Hawaii. So I’m getting a little antsy that we don’t have a trip planned. So I don’t know if it’ll happen. I mean, obviously, I can make it happen. It’s just when are we going to go right?
Actually, the summer camp I enrolled Jack in, it ends in mid-August, so there’s a gap of a few weeks. And I was like, what are we going to do? Because I don’t want to stay home with him all day. But I think I did look preliminarily at Hawaii. I think it won’t be as bad because I only looked at the one in Kauai. But it’s not a proper time to travel so close to Labor Day, so I might still be able to find a deal. So anyway, I’ve got to do some investigation, obviously.
So what else do you see as a barrier for peeps?
Devon: I think one of the barriers, and you kind of alluded to this earlier, I think one barrier in the very beginning is just not being aware. Like not being aware of the potential that this hobby has in terms of how easy it is to actually earn a lot of points quickly. And then the flip side of when you know a couple of key things, like you were saying, how can you extract a ton of value out of these points?
Because I think one of kind of the fallacies in thinking when it comes to points is, well, I’m going to have to save points for like 10 years before I have enough points to do anything really worthwhile. And, again, at that point, a lot of us aren’t going to want to put effort into something that it’s going to take 10 years for us to be able to really benefit from.
And so I think just that beginning awareness of just realizing this is actually a thing. It’s actually possible to use points to travel and get a ton of value out of it, like you said, in your own experiences. We’re not talking just like $30 here or $50 here in terms of savings. But then really kind of having this misunderstanding or just not awareness in the beginning about how easy it actually is. That it doesn’t take years and years and years to get a lot of value out of this hobby.
And so I think when you kind of start understanding just the basics of how this works. But also that, again, it’s not going to take you years upon years upon years to really be able to derive a lot of benefit from this, then I think that it makes people begin to see, oh, okay, this is actually a lot more interesting to me now. If I can actually turn this into a real trip for my family next year, or a real experience for myself in the next six months, then I think it becomes so much more tangible to a lot of people.
And so I really try to dispel this myth that it’s going to take you forever to be able to earn any amount of worthwhile points to do anything great with. I mean, you can, again, without going super crazy, very simply with one or two cards. If you’re really strategic about the spending that you have and making sure that you are putting that on credit cards, you can easily earn enough points for a great trip in a couple of months. With the level of spending that many professional people have, it’s a lot easier than you might initially think it’s going to be.
Bonnie: Yeah, especially, I was just thinking about people who own their own practices. Businesses in general, but physician practices, like they’re charging so, so much. Yeah, and I think some of the folks we know that are taking really, really nice trips, I mean, it just depends on their spending level, right, but it can be really significant.
So yeah, when I meet a practice owner I’m like, what are you doing?
Devon: Yeah, I agree. I mean, I’m a huge proponent of anyone who owns a business really understanding how they can leverage their business expenses. But certainly within the medical world, if you are a practice owner, you are sitting on an untapped goldmine. I mean, I think that’s true across the board.
And you don’t even have to have a practice that traditionally, certainly in certain specialties, are going to have extraordinarily high expenses. If you’re having to buy a lot of equipment, or if you have to buy a ton of materials, resources. I know pediatricians who are ordering vaccines every single month at an exorbitant rate, which they have to do. You don’t even have to be in that situation to benefit tremendously from being a practice owner.
And I think I really saw that firsthand because, as you know, my husband is a self-employed psychiatrist. And so in the realm of physician practices, psychiatry has relatively low overhead when we’re comparing it to something like a pediatrician, a dermatologist, or a surgeon.
And even from seeing how many expenses you incur as a solo self-employed psychiatrist, that was really the key for me when my husband opened up his practice about eight years ago. Where I saw, wait a minute, all of these expenses that are required for him to start up his practice and run his practice. All of these expenses are untapped resources.
And so I agree with you. Anytime I meet a medical practice owner, I say if you are not really leveraging your business expenses and turning them into credit card points, of course if you love to travel. If you’re someone who has no interest in travel, I would not advocate for that.
Bonnie: I don’t understand. Are there people who don’t like to travel?
Devon: If you’re someone loves travel and you have the opportunity –
Bonnie: Give them to me.
Devon: I think it is just like I said, you’re sitting on this untapped mountain of resources. It’s just really unbelievable.
Bonnie: Yeah. No, totally. So I think we’ve kind of covered everything. So, obviously, you just started a podcast. Can you tell us about that? What the name is and all that good stuff?
Devon: Yeah, absolutely. So my business is called Point Me To First Class. This is where I help physicians, entrepreneurs, business owners, and employed professionals really do this thing of learning how to earn a lot of points easily and turn them into amazing travel experiences for them and their family.
And the podcast is going to be covering all of the key topics that everyone needs to know about earning and using points and hearing stories about how other people are using their points for travel. And so for anybody who does want to learn more about what is this world of points before they fully jump into it. Or if you already have your toe in the pool and you’re ready to kind of wade in a little bit deeper, then come and check out the podcast called Point Me To First Class.
Bonnie: All right, and then what about your free Facebook group?
Devon: Yes. So for, again, those of you who want to be part of a community where you’re with other people who kind of have a similar level of expenses as you and you want to learn how they’re really leveraging their expenses in different ways that you can easily earn a lot of points, you’re more than welcome to join one of our free Facebook communities. We have two of them.
One of them is called Point Me to First Class for Women Physicians. It’s fairly self-explanatory. If you are a female identifying physician, you’re welcome to join us in there.
And anybody else who wants to talk about points, meet other people who are in this world of earning and using points for travel, you can join us in our other Facebook group, which is called Point Me To First Class For Professionals, Business Owners and Entrepreneurs.
Bonnie: Awesome. Yeah, everyone join either of those groups and definitely tune into her podcast. And I don’t know why anyone would not want to travel. I’m so confused.
I mean, sometimes someone’s partner or spouse might not be as into it, but usually one person’s really into it. And I have found that even if they really aren’t, when they start to see the value of it, because I’m sure you know a lot of couples sometimes where they – What do we say P1, P2, player one, player two? P2 is often not that invested or is kind of like rolling their eyes until they benefit or until they see P1 flying business class and they’re in coach.
Devon: Yes, I agree entirely. And I think, of the people that I’ve met, again, we’re surrounded by a lot of medical professionals. I think so many of us just inherently have a deep curiosity. I think that’s why a lot of us went into medicine or into the respective fields that we’re in, is because we have a deep interest and curiosity about people.
And so I think it is very natural for a lot of us to carry that curiosity over into travel, right? It doesn’t just end with what are the things that we study or what are the things that we practice within our professions or our businesses. And so I do think there are so many people out there who do love to travel.
And the barrier that they’ve experienced to travel is either having enough money to be able to fund the trips that they want to be able to fund and being able to work around their schedules. And so being able to remove one of those barriers by understanding how can you really make the money that you do have for traveling stretch so much farther with your points, is just going to enable so many more people to have so many more of those really incredible travel experiences.
Bonnie: Yeah. So before we close, this is my recommendation, but I’m curious if you have another recommendation. Maybe for someone who is maybe not eager to jump into points redemption, but my thinking is they should at least get the right card so that they’re at least accumulating points, and then they could figure out how to use them later, right?
Devon: Yeah.
Bonnie: I feel like that makes sense because if you’re already spending the money, you might as well get points and maybe do some simple 3x, 5x multipliers that are pretty easy to get, actually.
Devon: Yeah, I completely agree.
Bonnie: And then label the cards.
Devon: There are so many really fantastic points earning cards on the market. So it’s so easy to find, again, just one solid card that’s a really good fit for you in terms of the areas that you tend to spend money on and matching yourself up with a card that, like Bonnie is saying, is going to give you elevated points return for those areas that you tend to spend money on.
So you don’t need to go crazy and open up five or 10 random cards all at the same time. You can start with just one really solid points earning card. Get used to earning your points on that. Start to see how easy it is to accrue those points and learn this step by step. You don’t have to be an expert at the beginning and you don’t have to be an expert in order to even get started.
Bonnie: Yeah, so that’s kind of what I wanted to highlight, is for those listening that are like, okay, I want to get started and it still seems confusing. Join Devon’s Facebook group, figure out or just leverage the group knowledge about what card would be best for you first. Because, I mean, I think for the most part I tell people to start with the Chase family, but I think people have to determine who they tend to fly with and which hotels and stuff like that.
But yeah, I think starting with getting the “right” cards and getting those sign on bonuses and just start accumulating points. And then they could kind of figure out booking stuff later.
Well, thank you so much for being here again. And get traveling.
Devon: Thank you so much for having me. It is always such a pleasure to be here with you and to talk about credit card points and travel. And I just wish lots and lots of happy traveling experiences to everybody listening to this podcast.
Bonnie: All right, take care everyone.
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159: Expert Witness Work for Physicians with Dr. Gretchen Green
When I talk to physicians who are looking for other ways to make money while using their doctor brain, the first thing that comes to my mind is doing Expert Witness work. Providing this service is an amazing way to earn extra income from home while you’re still clinically active. If you’ve ever wondered how you can use your expertise as a doctor to supplement your income, this episode is for you.
I’m joined by my fellow physician and coach Gretchen Green. Gretchen is a Radiologist and an Expert Witness. The idea of taking a pay cut stops physicians from exploring other options, and that’s why Gretchen is here to share her journey so you can see the options that are available to you as a physician.
Tune in this week to discover how being an Expert Witness creates additional income while doing good work in the world. We’re having a conversation that will open your mind to the other possible ways to earn money aside from your career as a physician.
Learn more about Live Wealthy, an exclusive coaching program designed for successful women who want to be confident.... and be rich.
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
- Why Expert Witness work is a great way to earn extra income while you’re still clinically active.
- How working as an Expert Witness will open your mind to other possibilities beyond your medical career.
- Why Expert Witness work is a big passion of Gretchen’s since facing her own malpractice case.
- The story of how Gretchen started her business around helping other physicians who want to get into Expert Witness work.
- Why there are tons of ways to use your doctor brain besides seeing patients.
- The common misperceptions that prevent doctors from becoming an Expert Witness.
- What kind of person would be a good fit for becoming an Expert Witness.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
- Follow me on Instagram
- Gretchen Green: Website | Email
- Expert Witness Startup School
- Peter Kim
- The Leverage & Growth Summit for Physicians
- Atomic Habits by James Clear
- The Gap and the Gain by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy
- The Life Coach School Podcast
- Brené Brown
- Sunny Smith MD
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 up-level your money and your life. I’m your host, Dr. Bonnie Koo.
Hey, everyone, I hope you're having a wonderful day. And I'm super excited about today's episode. So I have a fellow physician and fellow coach, and she also attended my retreat in Hawaii. And the reason why I wanted to have Gretchen on is because she is an expert witness, and now she teaches doctors how to do the same thing.
When I talk to doctors who are looking to make money in another way and want to use their doctor brain, the first thing that comes to my mind is to do expert witness work. And one of the reasons why I think it's such a great way to supplement your income and do it from your home, because what I see is a lot of women, and men although I mainly work with women, is that they want to work less clinically.
And they don't necessarily want a decrease in income that usually comes with that. And so I think expert witness work is a great way to stay clinically active because it does require you to be clinically active in order to do it. And as you'll see, or rather listen to my conversation with Gretchen, we talk about how getting into this work is not just a way to create additional income, to do good for other doctors. It's also a pathway to opening your mind as to what else could be possible for you.
Now, when I recorded this episode it was just right after this annual virtual summit called the Leverage and Growth Summit happened. My friend Dr. Peter Kim has been doing this for quite a few years now. And what the summit is, I think it's like a three or four day thing where he interviews several doctors who are doing things outside the box.
So he has one day where they're having doctors who are big time real estate investors come on. He has all sorts of people. I was one of the people, so was Gretchen. And we have a chef that was on, actually he was my med school classmate. So really a way for doctors who may not be in this world to sort of see that there are other things you can do besides doctoring.
Now, a lot of the people at the summit also were doctors who are still doing doctor related things. And here's what I came to realize, is that when you think of our training we have this vision of doctoring as looking like one type of thing. Wearing a white coat, seeing patients, doing surgeries depending on your specialty. And I just want to really make sure that you understand that there are so many, so many ways that you can use your doctor brain.
Your brain is so valuable as is, and so many of us just don't know what else you can do with this doctor's brain. And so I just love how accessible expert witness work is. I would probably do it too if I was still clinical, you can't do it after you haven't seen patients in a while.
So here's what I was thinking, too. I think so many of us are looking for a break. And when I say a break, I don't mean like leaving medicine, but we want a break because we've been working so hard. Maybe you're burnt out, maybe you have young kids and you really, really, really want to cut down.
And actually two things came to mind. I know one objection is money. But also I was talking to a friend yesterday and so many of us, it hasn't even occurred to us that we could take a break, that we could work less. And I've said this time and time over again how important it is for us to rest, to have the time to think. You cannot think when you're stressed out about work, when you're not sleeping enough, especially if you have a family and young kids et cetera.
And so number one, you're allowed to take a break. Number two, you can work less. And none of this has to be permanent. When I hear people talk about why they can't do this, I think they think of it as a permanent decrease of income. It's definitely not permanent. You can always go back to work full-time.
But not only that, when you have that freed up time you're going to, A, be really able to assess your life. Like do I really want to be here? What do you want to do? What do you want to stop doing? And when you take that time to do that, I think you'll realize for most of us that maybe what you're doing now isn't what you want to do. Or maybe it is but you really want to do this and you haven't done that in years.
And so I'm kind of digressing here. But basically, I think doing something like expert witness work or going per diem or switching to locums for a while to kind of figure things out, I think those are such really easy and accessible ways to do that. And you don't have to wait forever, working forever in order to take that break.
So anyway, I'm excited for you to listen to our conversation to not just talk about expert witness work, but also just talking about journeys. Her journey in particular and why she's so passionate about just speaking about what she does to other physicians.
Bonnie: Hey, Gretchen, welcome.
Gretchen: Hey, thanks for having me.
Bonnie: Yeah, I was thinking, for some reason I thought I had you on the podcast. I don't think you have, right?
Gretchen: No, not the podcast.
Bonnie: Okay. Yeah, I had you on other things. Okay, so for my listeners who don't know you, why don't you introduce yourself?
Gretchen: Sure. Well, first off, I'm a loyal listener of your podcast. I love all the topics. I'm Gretchen Green. I'm a radiologist in North Carolina. I've been in private practice since I graduated fellowship. And I have a side business in doing expert witness work, which I started in 2016. And now I teach physicians how to launch and build their own expert witness practices, and also radiologists to manage their medical malpractice risk reading thermography.
Bonnie: Both so needed because – Well, we can talk about the litigation part later. Tell us how this even happened. How did you even get into expert witness work?
Gretchen: I really knew nothing about it until I was sued as a defendant in a radiology case for a breast ultrasound. This happened early in my career after I'd been in practice for just a couple of years. And it was a really trying experience. But I really dedicated myself to my own defense, and both my attorney and I believed strongly in my position. And I then understood the role of an expert witness who would review the case and support the findings that corresponded to my side.
So when we went through that case, and eventually resolved it, my defense attorney said, when it was all done, I should become an expert witness because I had such a good inside knowledge of how it worked and how important it was for either side to be able to educate lawyers and potentially a jury at trial about the radiology issues in a case.
Bonnie: What an opportunity for him to recommend that. Okay, so then what happened? Tell us the whole story, basically.
Gretchen: It was an important confidence booster, I think, during a time when I really felt at some of my lowest point. Where I felt that my professional credentials had been really put into question and really shook my confidence in my ability to do this job for a long-time career.
So the confidence that I got from him saying that I should do it was what helped me when a call came out of the blue from an attorney's office asking me to review an OB ultrasound medical malpractice case. That was why I said yes. And I very quickly realized the medicine was the easy part. That I knew all the medicine that I needed to review the case and give an opinion.
But I knew nothing of the mechanics of charging. How much to charge. How much to bill. How to write a bill. I had just never had that experience as a lifetime medicine career person. And so I then dove in, learned all the basics about how to grow and build an expert witness practice. And then put that into use starting in about 2016, 2017.
And then I've reviewed almost 200 cases now. I've gone to trial, and now I get to see my students have that same success.
Bonnie: Yeah, so one of the things I love about what you're doing and teaching other physicians is, the way we're trained in residency is we're kind of told – Or even just beforehand, I think our vision of being a doctor is like, okay, we go to medical school, we finish residency, and then we be a doctor. And being a doctor is just seeing patients.
Sure there is private practice, depending on your specialty, but that's kind of what we're told. And as you and I both know, there are so many ways to use your doctor brain besides just seeing patients. And I think expert witness work is, I'm thinking, easy, but an accessible thing that physicians can start doing to have other sources of income besides direct patient care.
And so when I’ve brought it up, and I'm sure you know more than I do, I'd like to talk about not excuses, but maybe objections people have to even getting started. But I have found that a lot of people don't even know that this is a thing. They might know it's a thing, but it's never occurred to them that maybe they could do it as well.
Gretchen: I don't think people have a clear expectation for what the role is in a case. I think that most people's objection comes potentially from the fear of testifying against another doctor. They truly feel that it's an adversarial interaction, whether it's the lawyer asking them questions in deposition or whether they're giving an opinion and throwing somebody under the bus. And the role is much different.
The role of an expert witness is to educate, to evaluate the facts and circumstances of a case, to read the documents involved, medical records, lab tests if appropriate. And then to say whether or not you think the right thing was done by the person who's in your specialty. And that's an opinion about care, but it's not a personal judgment.
And I think people have a misperception that they don't know anything about the legal field, they don't know how to speak the language. They feel it's legalese, it's literally a different language, sometimes it's Greek or Latin. And they just don't even know where to start with the words, much less how to integrate the medicine.
But all of that can be learned, it's a lot easier than learning the medicine that goes into it. And actually, the interactions with lawyers are some of my most satisfying. It's truly a good interaction to be able to talk about a case, to give information, support it with literature, and then to bring that knowledge back to my practice.
I think my colleagues in my practice really see me as a resource for the group. They see that if they ask me a question, they know that I'll be able to support the answer, whether it's literature, experience, or accommodation. And so that really, ultimately drives better patient care. That's the best possible outcome from any of this.
Bonnie: Yeah. Can you actually talk a little bit about expert witnessing on the other side where, as what you said, a lot of doctors are afraid. They don't want to testify against a doctor. So let's talk about that. And have you been on that side as well?
Gretchen: So I have been retained by both plaintiff and defense attorneys. That's what has been recommended to me and what I recommend to others, because it really gives you a better appreciation of the angles of a case.
So again, it's not pro or con doctor. It's just about the medicine and what happened in the case. And I've had it happen both ways where I've been retained by a plaintiff's attorney and I have found no fault, that nobody did something wrong. And in that case, that medical malpractice case may never have even been filed.
So there are plenty of doctors out there who are unaware that a potential case never came to light because an expert review found that they didn't do anything wrong. It's not like you get a report afterwards saying, “You were almost investigated, and yet you were found to not have done anything wrong. So good for you.” No one gets that feedback.
And the contrary is true, too. There have been times when I have been retained by the defense that I have found that there was something, unfortunately, that could have been done better or should have been done differently according to criteria or practice standards. And that's been useful for that attorney to help nuance the defense, help decide how to manage a case and try to get the best outcome for their client.
So you really can put your skills to work in all these different angles, but in ways that most of us just don't think of based on what we see on TV and Law and Order.
Bonnie: I don't know if you know this, Gretchen, but I was sued. The case was dropped. So I don't know, does that mean I can talk about it? I don't quite know how the laws go with this stuff. I wasn't that concerned, and it's interesting because I can only imagine what it's like if it was like a report, which is kind of like probably what happened to you, is like a report that you actually dictated was the problem.
Whereas for me, as a dermatologist, it had nothing to do with the skin. So it was an injury to an unrelated organ, but they kind of sued everyone on the case and I happened to see them as an outpatient and prescribed them medication that they thought may have possibly been related to the injury, but it wasn't.
And even though I knew that, like this is like a really big stretch for them to have, I mean, I wasn't the primary, whatever, person. But yeah, it was a lot of anxiety. So I'm sure you could relate. And it's hard being a doctor, Gretchen.
Gretchen: It sure is. Sometimes it's hard when it goes well. And it's hard when it doesn't go as we hope.
Bonnie: Yeah. So this is a little bit of an aside but I just wonder, and actually, you probably would be able to answer this question. It's like, okay, there is a standard of care, although in dermatology there actually isn't for a lot of things. But it's like, the doctor is also human. So what's your sort of take on that?
That's something I find, not hard for me to reconcile, but it's almost as if the public expects perfection and that we’ll always follow the textbook things. But there is an art of medicine, then there are the standard of care algorithms for certain things. And then the doctors are human after all. So what if, I mean, just from your experience as an expert witness, I'm just curious what your thoughts might be about that.
Gretchen: Yes. And this is something where there's a style sometimes to practice, and there is some leeway. I've learned to try to ask some critical questions when I'm evaluating a case. And I feel like I get stuck. And I've come to recognize that feeling of I don't know what was right in this case.
And so then, number one, I always sleep on it. I'll review a case, I have a particular order that I do it. I always review them blinded so that I look at the images first with no clinical history, which is very different from the real world where I'd have the advantage of at least some history. I do it blinded and only later do I then read the reports.
And so sometimes after doing that, I'll go back to the images and re-review them based on how the call was made originally. And then sometimes I do get stuck. And I ask myself, okay, what will help me answer the question of is it more likely than not that this person acted appropriately given their community standard of care in this particular topic?
Sometimes that means I need to think. Sometimes it means I need to look up some articles, or white papers or consensus statements. And sometimes I need to review the medical records again. Sometimes I need additional information that isn't there.
This is something that experts are very valuable to attorneys, is we can look at things and recognize what information is lacking? Or what might they get for information that will help clarify a case? And so doing that critical thinking helps me decide. And, ultimately, the inability to decide was it the right or wrong thing, you know, 51%, or greater is typically the standard of was something done, should it have been done differently? That may mean that no one did something wrong.
And so sometimes I go through this process, and then I come to the conclusion, if I can't decide and I know I've done all my work, that means that there wasn't a clear better option to take. So that sometimes is the answer. That's very different from how we normally think in medicine. We normally think, well I have to decide, it's one or the other.
Bonnie: Right, it’s very black and white thinking, right?
Gretchen: Exactly. And so when you get some of that nuance you can realize sometimes, I don't know is the actual answer in a case, phrased in the right way.
Bonnie: Yeah. Phrased appropriately, yeah. Okay, so who do you think should consider expert witness work?
Gretchen: It's great for people who love to critically think about cases, who find the detective work to be fascinating and a really good mental exercise. And then who likes the process of feeling like you solve a mystery and then explain it to someone, you know, the retaining attorney.
So as for specialties, any specialty basically that involves patient care has some malpractice risk.
Bonnie: Right, because that's a common question. Because I think a lot of doctors feel like, oh, it's not, you know, like family medicine, I think, a lot of them are like, well, it doesn't really apply to me.
Gretchen: Right. There is a misconception that only the subspecialties who get sued a lot, like neurosurgery, OB, that they're the only ones who need to be experts. But in fact, it's a little bit the opposite if you're just going by the numbers because there are so many more family medicine docs, internists, and now hospitalists.
That really creates a greater pool of potential exposure because they see a lot more patients. And so that can cause more cases to potentially get into the system. And so attorneys are looking for matches. They're looking for kind of a twin to the people who are involved in the case, that's the expert out there looking to match. And so we really need everybody throughout the country in all specialties to be willing to review these cases.
And maybe that's part, if we called it reviewing maybe that would make people feel better about it. I think that word, “expert” really stands in the way when people think, “Well, if I don't know how to do it yet, how can I be the expert?” You are the expert because you're the physician doing the work.
Bonnie: Yeah, no, totally. So I'm sure one of the first questions, I'm just trying to think because I do talk to a lot of my clients about this because one of the things, obviously, I help them do is to create other streams of income. And a lot of them will invest in real estate, but I think this is something they could supplement really well.
Especially if they want to start working part time. But real estate doesn't grow to millions overnight, obviously, right? But I'm sure you meet so many women physicians who just want to work a little bit less so they'll have some more free time, but they would still like to supplement their income while they're sort of figuring out what to do.
And so in my opinion, and tell me if it doesn't match yours, it seems like a great way to supplement the income, use your doctor brain without having to go to a shift and see however many patients that you're supposed to see. Because this is basically working from home until you take – Well working from home. I think a lot of people also think, I'm just realizing this, Gretchen, they think that this means they have to go to the courtroom all the time, right? You probably hear that a lot.
Gretchen: I do. And it's interesting, since 2016, almost 200 cases now, one has gone to an in-person trial. And now because of the pandemic and even lawyers finally adopting some digital technology, even depositions are virtual. This work is now 99 plus percent on your own time, whatever hours you care to do it. So it's never been more flexible.
And there are two potential big opportunities with doing it. First is the mechanics of how you can make money. It's true, it is work and it makes money. So for your time as a physician, I don't know of another side gig that is better compensated just for the time that you spend doing the work, which ranges typically from 500 to $900 an hour.
So you can work three to four hours a week and make $100,000 in “side gig,” I'm using air quotes, income doing this work. But even more so, and you mentioned real estate, once you have a mindset that you are the creator of a business, you become unstoppable in ways that you will never anticipate before.
The world of possibility opens up to you because you start stacking these talents that you acquire by doing this work. And I don't think a lot of people notice it happening, but real estate is something that I got into because I honestly needed someplace to invest the money. I just wanted to diversify not only my sources of income, but also where I put the money to work for me.
And so real estate had a lot of tax advantages and others for diversification, so that's what I did. But I realized not only that I have the means to do it, I had the mindset as a business creator to make businesses in real estate as well. And then it was an even shorter leap to get into digital course creation and to expand from there with marketing.
There's literally no stopping you once you make that breakthrough to becoming an owner and an operator of a new business. And there's no telling the dividends that it pays down the road. It's really just opened possibilities.
Bonnie: Yeah, no, I think you said that really beautifully. Because I think it's really easy, you know, we just had the Leverage and Growth Summit that just closed down. And for people listening who have no idea what we're talking about, it was a virtual summit with interviews with physicians who are doing things outside the box. I feel like you were in it, right?
Gretchen: Yes, I was again. Yeah, we were both at the summit.
Bonnie: Yeah, awesome. Yeah, so I think it's really easy for participants who might be their first exposure to doctors doing these things. And it's really easy to be like, how do they get there? It seems like a big gap. But I just love how you said it just starts with one thing. And once you do something that's not just seeing patients, being a W2, whatever, it's like this world opens up, right?
Literally the world opens up, your mind opens up, and then it's like you start meeting people who are doing these things. And you just start getting ideas. And like you said, the skills start stacking, as you said. And then the new beliefs and all the stuff that you and I are really into right now starts, the world just starts opening up and then – Yeah, because someone might look at you, Gretchen, and be like, “Holy cow, how'd you go from being sued to becoming an expert witness, to creating a course, to XYZ?” Right?
And it snowballs at some point, right? It's so easy to get ideas once you start doing things. And yeah, because one of my favorite things to do, Gretchen, and maybe you feel the same, is when you meet someone who is earlier in the path and they literally have no idea that this was available to them. I think it's the best, right?
And I think the Leverage and Growth Summit, I'm sure you did, we got to interact with physicians where this was their first exposure and their minds were blown and they're just like, holy cow and I can't believe it. They didn't even consider, and I was at that point, too, where I was like, “What? People do things besides seeing patients as a doctor?”
So I just love that you said that because I think it's easy to just talk about, oh, expert witnesses work XYZ, but also just explaining how it can just fit in with all the things that could come afterwards.
Gretchen: And I think it feels like a big leap for people.
Bonnie: Yes.
Gretchen: I got a lot of feedback from the summit, and I was looking at the numbers. This summit has doubled every year, it is not an accident that over 8,000 people registered for this summit, because physicians are really, I think, looking for ways to take back the feeling of control. I think we – I hope one of these days we'll be at the low point of feeling of control over our careers and how we dictate how medicine is run.
Everything we can do to improve that mindset and that sense of ownership and control is going to benefit medicine, and put us back in the driver's seat. And the two uniform concepts that I heard from everybody's talk, and I've said the same, is you get started by starting. You take one step and then you keep taking steps.
And that's what adds up over time to these, what look like from an outside, are these huge leaps, right? Because like you said –
Bonnie: Overnight success or whatever.
Gretchen: Right. Like, oh, and it's easy for you. A natural. There's nothing natural about going from being sued to being an expert witness. It feels, in some ways, the most unnatural thing to do because why would you go back into the lion's den, so to speak? There's a lot of things you can think about.
But the book Atomic Habits is one of my absolute favorites. And it truly describes that process of doing consistent small actions every day to make massive results and building up your stamina and your patience that success will come. And it's not instantaneous, but it comes in leaps that you can take over time.
That's the key, I think, to business building. So that's just one of the books that I love the best.
Bonnie: Yeah, no, it's a book – I have it, I don't think I've read the whole thing. His name is James, right?
Gretchen: Yeah, James Clear. He has a great blog post also. It's very quick.
Bonnie: 1-2-3 email?
Gretchen: Yes.
Bonnie: Yeah, I get those. Yeah. I don’t always read them, but I see them in my inbox. Is it every day or every week? It's every week, right?
Gretchen: It's pretty frequent. But yeah, it's like cliff notes, very succinct. I love it.
Bonnie: Yeah. So I know we're veering off, but I love where we're going here. I really like what you just said about taking one step and then one step. So we're recording this on Thursday, and every Thursday I pretty much listen to The Life Coach School Podcast. That's probably the only one that I'm following consistently, at least for now. I'm sure I'll find another podcast that I get obsessed with.
But today's episode actually was about, I forget the title, but she was talking about how people tell her that she makes success look easy. And she was talking about that. She's like, “Well, it is simple, but it's not easy.” And then she says that she's going to try to make an effort to talk more about the hard.
So I think kind of like the summit is easy for someone to look at and they make it look so easy, or they're a special unicorn. And because they're comparing about – You know that book, The Gap and The Gain?
Gretchen: Yes.
Bonnie: They're comparing themselves to where someone else is. And so I do try to share all the failures and just talk about “the early beginnings,” and things like that because I do think it's easy to kind of glamorize business or even coaching, right? Like, becoming a coach, it's easy to make money. It is easy in other ways, and Brooke did a really great job going through what's hard about it, right?
And so you and I both know what's hard is all the negative emotions, feeling like a failure, feeling shame when you get a hate email. I've gotten my share of hate emails over the years. Or making a mistake in public, because you do become a public figure when you're in business, depending on the business you have. That's why taking one step at a time is important. That's the long-winded way.
Gretchen: It's amazing the feedback and the value or not that we give to it. Because I had to face – Let me backup for a second. The feedback that I've routinely gotten from my students that they felt is most valuable is that I'm not afraid to talk about my experience having been sued.
And now having gone through a divorce, I can tell you how I put my skills to work in that and faced those fears of things that are very emotional. And yet kept my composure and continued through a process on a daily basis that's very difficult and challenging. And we are not very public about those challenges. We're not public about failures.
Facebook is very public about the pretty pictures of vacations, but the true value comes from sharing that this is a human experience, that we're just doing this every day just like everybody else who is at any other point in this process. I know I've heard you talk about it, and it's been helpful for me for those days when you feel like, “I just want to pull the plug on this.” Like it's a hard day or you're trying to wrestle with something new and you think, “What if I just quit? Could I just quit? I’ll just pull the plug.”
And every day is a decision to not do that and it becomes a habit. And that's the key, is you say, “Yes, I can acknowledge that I can feel that way. But I'm going to keep going because I'm going to keep deciding to keep moving forward.” For me, that motto is onwards and upwards. And sometimes I just need to pause, but I'm never going to stop moving forward in the things that I do, acknowledging that I'm always going to keep thinking those thoughts.
And I've had, it's been very interesting the thoughts that I had going into the digital course creation thinking lawyers will use this against me in cases in which I'm retained as an expert. And I had people say, “Don't do this. Don't go make a course about being an expert. They'll crucify you and they'll hold it against you. And it's going to come up in every deposition.”
And I thought to myself, “Well, then I will handle it. Then I will decide in advance how I will answer questions, just as I do with every other question that I'm asked.” And it has happened. I've gone into the arena, like Brene Brown says, and I have had lawyers cross examine me about my courses.
And now I took it a step further with this course where I teach radiologists the patterns that I've seen in breast imaging, in reading mammograms in breast cancer expert witness cases. I decided I've seen too many of these patterns, there's like four of them and they're all the same.
And if people just knew these patterns, we could potentially improve people's confidence and reduce cases ever being filed for this. So there's a potential to do the greater good, but I have had to face those fears and demons myself, thinking, am I giving people the tools to undo me? But that's where the knowledge is. They can't undo me. They can't take me down. It's because I know that the good that I'm doing for the world is so much greater and the better impact for everybody, ultimately patients. It's worth a few tough questions.
Bonnie: Now I'm going to try to do a better – Well I shouldn’t say a better job. But I do try to share the good and the bad and the ugly, I guess is what I'm trying to say. I mean Match Day was just a week ago. And every match week every year – I kind of forget when it is, but I see all the posts on match day and I'm like, “Oh yeah, I didn't match till the third time.” And I share my story because I think match day a lot of people don't match.
And I actually heard that emergency medicine had a gazillion unfilled spots, but then someone said they also increased the spots significantly. But just seeing how match day unfolds or match week, I should say, unfolds every year has been interesting for me to watch. But especially as a dermatologist I think it's important for me to post that I didn't get in, because it's really common.
And I do think that's one of my strengths, is I didn't give up. Because people were like, well, why don't – Actually you know what they all said? I should become a radiologist is what they said. Because they’re like, it's high paying. I was like, well, first of all, I don't understand anatomy. That was not my forte. I was like, “No, that’s a no.”
But I just thought it was interesting how everyone kept saying do something else, do this, or become a hospitalist. And then at one point I was like, “Oh my God, at this point I'm going to be like 38 when I finish residency.” And then literally I was like, “Well, I'm going to be 38 anyway, I might as well be 38 practicing the specialty that I want and not some other field.” Because I think, honestly, they just didn't want to see me fail, I guess.
Or even Sunny, my first coach, as you know her too. I think she told me it was extremely rare for someone to apply three times for a specialty, for derm, especially. She says people usually just give up after the first time, usually.
Gretchen: That's what we're told. We're told, well, if it didn't work, then just try something else. But the secret to success is not quitting. Sometimes it's just keeping going even though it seems like you're not getting anywhere.
And the analogy James Clear makes in his book, Atomic Habits, is that you're heating the room and the temperature is going up by one degree. But you're starting at zero, you have an ice cube on the table and you're looking at the ice cube and you're saying, well the temperature of the room is rising, but the ice cube is not melting. Look at it, it's just sitting there. It's not melting.
Okay, now we're at 16. Now we're at 17 degrees. And you're like it's not working, it's clearly not working. But what you're doing is you're depositing energy into that room. Literal caloric energy, increasing the temperature of the room until you get to 32 degrees.
And then at 32, that is the temperature at which the ice will begin to melt. But you didn't feel that there was progress leading up to then. But really, you're putting in place those habits and those systems and a mindset that means you are a person who keeps going until you get those results.
Bonnie: I love that ice cube analogy, yeah. I mean it was devastating every time I didn't get in. I racked up a lot of credit cards buying expensive shoes, like retail therapy. Yeah, actually, the first time I didn't match – No, the second time because the first time I was still in med school so I didn't have any income.
But the second time I was an intern. The red bottom shoes, two pairs of Christian Louboutin, which I still have but they don't fit my feet anymore because after you have a baby your feet change. At least my feet did.
Gretchen: Oh yeah.
Bonnie: Okay, anything else you want to say about either expert witness work or kind of tying back to what we were talking about how your mind opens up? Yeah, just like any advice you have for physicians listening who, I guess are just looking for either it's something or more something else, but there's something we're like – I think you know what I'm saying.
Gretchen: Yes. And I think this is something that we talked about your retreat in Hawaii and other things that you've taught. One of the most valuable ways to think about this is what happens if you don't do it? What are the actions that you might be taking or not taking in going a different direction?
Like you said, you can go work extra shifts. These are all choices. If you're making choices about other time in your life that you can spend for work or play or other things, you do have to decide what you're going to do. And you can decide, as I did early in my career, I'm going to work weekends.
I decided, okay, I moved into a house. I started a new partnership track job and I decided, okay, I can't put a standard 9 by 13 pan in this oven, so I’ve got to buy a new oven. Okay, well, I’ve got to work a weekend. You can trade time for money. And then there comes a point where you start to feel like you have less time, I think as you get older. And you can make a decision whether you want to earn it in a denser fashion, at a higher rate.
It would be great if doctors, if we could just fix it and doctors would make what doctors are worth, like NBA players. Imagine how healthy could everybody be if doctors made what NBA players do and we valued our collective health. But we're not there yet.
And so what happens if you don't? You can work shifts. You can enact a strict budget. You can spend a lot less. You can live differently. Then you're deciding what will you maybe regret later? And so that's kind of where I am now, is I'm willing to put in the effort now because I like the alternative less.
And what I’ve found is that the gains and the reward is so much greater than I ever thought. The sense of accomplishment, this feeling something that I've built that has done service and good in the world. I mean, my feeling when I went to trial, people think trial is scary, they're going to destroy you. No, the trial was like back when I used to sing opera. I just use fewer notes, right?
But I had been rehearsing. I had practiced. I was totally polished and ready to go. I had my PowerPoint with my radiology pictures. And when the jury kind of finally walked into the room, I felt like jumping up and clapping. Like it’s an actual jury. I was so excited because everything I had done had led to that point and I couldn't wait to tell them how a CT scan works. And how did it work in this case? And what does that mean in this finding? And that was the culmination that really, instead of being a scary experience, it was just so rewarding.
I knew every skill I'd ever worked hard to get, I put to work that day. Emotionally, psychologically, knowledge wise, even the tech. And I just sat there, and even when I had to project something off my laptop I thought, “Oh, I know what that alt f5 button does. I know that's the one that puts it on the computer screen up above.” And it worked like magic.
Even things like that, I just spent that whole day just celebrating all that work that led to that time. And that's the magic. And all of us can do that.
Bonnie: Yeah, actually, I really love what you said about how having that sense of accomplishment, fulfillment and knowing that you made a difference, I think that's what a lot of us are craving. Because at some point we stopped feeling accomplished, especially with all the pressures of being a physician. And so I think we're looking for that sense of fulfillment, feeling accomplished, and also truly feel like we're making a difference. With the confines of insurance, et cetera it's so difficult now. So I love it.
I mean you and I, we're speaking to the choir here about this stuff. Okay, is there anything else you want to say before we close?
Gretchen: I'm not sure how much of your listener audience is women, but I don't think that there is a better way, at least this is one way of doing it, that the concept of learning to improve your position is so important for women too.
I think a sense of agency that you are in the driver's seat of what happens to you, that you're not a victim of circumstance, and that you have that power to make positive change and direction in your life, you can be open to how these opportunities unfold.
For me, also, it's been employing my children doing marketing work. They stuff envelopes, literally, for me that I send to lawyers in mailings. And so the lessons that they've learned, I've been able to pass on to them. There are just so many other benefits.
Now, they have Roth IRAs and they know something about investing money and working to get money. And these are really important concepts that it becomes an opportunity to teach, not only to yourself as you're energizing your own career by learning about the medicine and learning this process, but also benefits others.
Bonnie: Yeah, no, totally. Jack's five, so technically I could pay him for modeling because he has been on stuff. But I've just decided at this point it's probably not worth the paperwork to pay him like 500 bucks a year. But at some point he will be doing probably my social media or something, right? Because the kids learn that stuff really early these days.
Gretchen: Yeah, it’s amazing.
Bonnie: Okay, well, thank you so much for being here and for doing what you do. Gretchen.
Gretchen: Thank you for having me. It's really a pleasure.
Bonnie: Oh, and how do people find you? I forgot to ask.
Gretchen: My best email to reach me is admin@theexpertresource.com. And if you want to see my courses, it's https://www.theexpertresource.com.
Bonnie: Awesome. Yeah, we'll be sure to link it in the show notes. Okay, everyone, talk to you next week.
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158: Active Real Estate Investment with Letizia Alto
I’m back with another real estate discussion. This time, I’m joined by Letizia Alto, and she’s here to discuss active real estate. She’s a hospitalist by training, but decided she didn’t want to do the week-on week-off lifestyle for the rest of her working life. She became an expert in the field of real estate and she’s super passionate about helping high-income earners and physicians start their real estate journeys.
Pretty much all of my clients invest in real estate at some point. It’s a powerful vehicle for building wealth, and you can do it way faster than if you were just investing in the stock market. So, if you’ve been thinking about starting to get involved with active real estate investing, this episode is for you.
Tune in this week to get the full story when it comes to active real estate investment. Letizia is sharing the financial and tax strategies that can help you maximize your wealth, comparing your long-term versus short-term rental options, and discussing how to make the decisions that will serve you best as a physician.
Learn more about Live Wealthy, an exclusive coaching program designed for successful women who want to be confident.... and be rich.
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
- The amazing tax loophole Letizia discovered through direct real estate investment.
- Why real estate investment isn’t as complicated as you might think.
- What stops people from diving into active real estate investment.
- How Letizia and her husband Kenji achieved financial freedom in just three years, and the typical range her clients achieve their financial goals in.
- Stories from Letizia’s clients of building their wealth through active real estate investment.
- The benefits of investing in short-term versus long-term rentals.
- How to get started on your active real estate investment journey and make the best decisions for you.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
- Follow me on Instagram
- Semi Retired MD: Website | Blog | Podcast
- Letizia’s courses: Zero to Freedom | Accelerating Wealth
- 8: Building Wealth Through Direct Real Estate with Letizia Alto
- 119: Build Your Real Estate Empire with Letizia Alto
- 157: Passive Real Estate Investment for Physicians with Peter Kim M.D.
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 up-level your money and your life. I’m your host, Dr. Bonnie Koo.
Hey, everyone, I’m so excited for my guest today. We have my good friend, Letizia Alto on the podcast. We talk about active real estate. I had her on the podcast when I first started this podcast, so it’s been a few years. Anyway, I know you’re going to enjoy the conversation I’m having with her. She is such an expert, she is so passionate about high-income earners and physicians to invest in real estate.
And I will say that pretty much all of my clients invest in real estate at some point. I actually, just thinking out loud here, I don’t think any of them have not invested in real estate at some point. And so you’re going to hear, just as you’ve been hearing the last few episodes, why it’s such a powerful vehicle to build wealth and you can do it in so much less time than if you were just investing in the stock market.
All right, here’s our conversation.
Bonnie: Welcome back, Leti.
Leti: Thanks for having me, Bonnie. I’m really excited to be here.
Bonnie: Yeah, we’ve had you on a few times, but I feel like things change for you every year, you’re always doing new things. So I kind of wanted to have you back as an update. Plus, there’s plenty of people who haven’t listened to those episodes. So why don’t you introduce yourself to people who don’t know you?
Leti: Hey everyone, I’m Leti. I am a hospitalist by training, family medicine trained. And in 2015 just realized that I didn’t want to do the week on, week off lifestyle for the next 30, 40 years and so started to invest in real estate. Started to buy my own rental properties that made money every single month, so that’s called cash flowing rentals.
And my husband and I discovered this amazing loophole with a real estate professional that allowed us also to shelter all of our income from taxes. And so what we did was we built a source of income using real estate and then sheltered our income from taxes for seven years using rental properties and really grew our wealth.
And then in 2018 started Semi-Retired MD to train other doctors how to do it. And we have grown that business into a big course business where we help doctors learn how to invest in long-term rentals, short-term rentals, and to build that source of income that really frees them to work in medicine on their terms and be able to build lives they love with travel and spending time with their family, all the things that we really all want.
Bonnie: Yeah, so I had Peter on the show recently and he kind of said something, I’m probably not going to say it as well as he did. He defined the word investing in a way that it’s like it makes sense, but it was in a way that clicked differently. So it was something about when you invest the money, do you want the money to come back to you right away or in 30 years?
And so traditional stock market investing is like you’re investing to have money for whatever, 20, 30, 40 years. And if you’re not investing at all, you’re just using the money you make to fund today. And so basically, he chose real estate because you start getting paid right away. And it’s so funny, he even says, “I don’t particularly like investing in real estate, but I like what it does for me.” Right?
Leti: Yeah, real estate, I think, is a really great vehicle because you already have a lot of the skills that you need and there are already a lot of the team players in place. So it’s not like starting a business like Wealthy Mom MD, right, that takes a lot of energy and effort. You’ve got to educate the customers, you’ve got to hire the team.
Real estate is so easy, it’s plug and play because it’s existed forever. And so not only do you start getting paid very quickly, you also don’t have that many skills that you have to learn and are able to do it well.
Bonnie: Yeah. So I’m just going to stop you right there because I bet people listening are like, “What do you mean plug and play?” Because I think most people when they hear real estate, and I was that person too, I was like, “Oh, that sounds really complicated.” I just ran away when you would talk about it to me. I don’t know if you remember that. But I like that your mindset is it is.
But it makes sense, right? It’s not like some, it’s not like crypto that’s been around for only a few years where people don’t quite understand it. I have crypto, but I still don’t understand it. But in terms of a tried and true method to build wealth, and you do have to learn things but it’s not like you’re having to invent it from the ground up.
Leti: That’s right. And I mean, I think most people have probably bought a house once, and it’s literally like buying a property, a house, which is a business that already exists. And all you have to do is put the tenant in place and now they’re paying you. That’s boiled down, it’s so simple.
Bonnie: So what do you think is in the way of people investing in real estate? Obviously, I know what my, I think the big one is, it seems complicated and hard and I don’t want to be a landlord, I don’t want to deal with tenants, right? Those are the popular ones. What have you heard?
Leti: I think most of the time it’s time. People just feel like they are already working all the time in their day job, they’ve got kids, they’ve got so many responsibilities, and just feel like adding another thing on is just too much. And I can tell you that one of the things that we felt when we first started was like, “Oh my gosh, we’re already working more than full-time and just have so much going on. Do we really want to add something else to our plate?”
But for us we had this vision of getting to financial freedom, and we were able to do that in three years. But I will say sometimes it takes a few more years than that, but it’s not like an, oh, I’ll get there in 15 or 20 years plan. It’s a plan to get there much faster if you use the fast fire system, which is what we did. And I can explain what that means, but if you’re investing in properties that make you money every single month, you can get there much faster.
And so its short-term pain for long-term gain is kind of how we looked at it. And we said let’s focus, let’s not get a primary residence because we wanted every dollar we had to go to making us money. So we didn’t even buy a primary residence from 2015 until 2022 because we took every dollar we had and we put it into real estate. And it was just like, okay, let’s put the short-term time, energy, effort and our money into this and we’ll be in such a different place. We’ll have that financial freedom so much faster because of it. And it was worth it for us, it was our priority.
And so when we had that financial freedom at three years, and I was pregnant, and I remember my work saying, how many weeks do you want off? And I said, “Hey, I want 16 weeks off.” And I didn’t have to worry about the finances. That was huge, right? Because it didn’t matter, I didn’t need my job anymore. I could do whatever I wanted for my time off, and that was worth a little bit of extra work up front.
Bonnie: Two things that you basically said that I really want to highlight. So the first thing is when you say people don’t have time. People say that about my program, too. But it’s like that’s the reason why they need to invest in real estate and take my program, is because they don’t have time because they’re working so hard for money.
So it’s like, temporary, I mean, it doesn’t have to be painful, as you know. Like temporary extra work for a return that comes back so quick, versus otherwise you’re going to be on this hamster wheel and wait 30 years for the magic of compound interest to work. So that’s number one.
The second thing is you said financial freedom in three years. Now, what would you say is the typical range that you see among your clients? Do some people actually – Because I think you guys are super awesome, and so I’m just curious, is that the typical timeframe? It’s definitely not 20 or 30 years, and I think even highlighting that is really important.
Leti: Yeah, so we’ve been running this program since 2019, and so it’s really been about three years or four years now that we’ve been running it. I would say the really devoted people who take this on and go all out, they oftentimes will do it in two to three years, financial freedom.
Bonnie: Well let’s define that, what do you mean? Like what are they reaching?
Leti: Yeah, what does it mean? Well, I think it means different things for different people. For us, once we had over six figures in cash flow coming in reliably, we were like, “Oh, we are financially free.” Because we didn’t have that many expenses and we were willing to, say, go do geographic arbitrage where we went somewhere with a cheap cost of living and lived on six figures for the rest of our lives. It was cool.
But some people really want to replace their incomes, right? And so on the extreme, you have people who are like, “Hey, I want to replace my $400,000 or $500,000 income a year.” And we’ve seen people do that in two to three years. Then you have the people who are like, “Hey, I just want to get to six figures.” And I think that’s most of the population. They’re just like, “If I can get to six figures, that takes so much pressure off of me, even if I can just work half-time.”
And so the people who are very devoted to it, I see them doing it in 2, 3, 4 years. Now, obviously, there’s a range on how much income people have upfront to be able to put into it. So if they have some cash sitting around, that’s much easier to do.
Bonnie: Right.
Leti: But boy, you can be scrappy, and we have people house hacking right out of fellowship. House hacking is where you buy a property and you live in one unit. I think one of the people we have is a family medicine doc, just first year out of residency bought a duplex and then basically house hacked. So she lives on one side and she fixed up the other side, she’s renting that out. And then she was also renting Airbnb one of her extra bedrooms, right?
So that’s the other extreme. And she may not get to financial freedom in two years, but boy, she’s increased her net worth quite substantially by buying a property and rehabbing it and making it worth more money. And then basically saving all this money in her taxes and then also by living with very low rent, if not rent free.
And that’s money, if she puts it back into real estate – And this was something we were very devoted to doing, is every dollar that came in from real estate in terms of tax savings or cash flow, we put right back into real estate. And that just makes you grow. That’s the compounding piece, you grow so much faster. So initially, it may start kind of slowly, but over time, you know, second, third, fourth, fifth year, it’s so much faster.
Bonnie: Yeah, because I can hear some people saying, “Well, I don’t want to live in a duplex.” Because basically that sounds like they’re downgrading, but it can be very short lived. And it’s like okay, even a few years might sound long, but it’s like what’s the alternative, right?
Leti: Well, and I will tell you, we house hacked when we had a 12 month old right on the border of Seattle, and it’s called Shoreline. There were squatters in our house when we were rehabbing it and there was a lady walking around with a shopping cart stealing pipes. I saw her in the morning.
So it wasn’t the nicest neighborhood ever, but that property, we bought it for $430,000. And that was a huge rehab project, we took it down to the studs, we redid everything. It ended up being about 200,000 to rehab it. We lived there about maybe eight months total, and then we went traveling at that point and ended up cash flowing almost 25,000 a year and kept it and sold it for 870 cash.
So a 430,000 plus 200 in rehab takes us to 630. And we sold it two years later for 870 in cash. So we made almost, no over 200,000 there. And then we cash flowed 25,000 a year.
Bonnie: I was going to say that doesn’t even include the cash flow.
Leti: Yeah, and that doesn’t even include the tax savings, that doesn’t include the renters paying down our – It’s just crazy, it adds up so quickly.
Bonnie: You’re convincing me again, just so you know.
Leti: So it’s just you make these short-term sacrifices for this long-term gain, and they don’t have to be negative sacrifices. It was fun. It was an adventure.
Bonnie: And it wasn’t that long.
Leti: No, it wasn’t. And it’s a story we’ll be telling when we’re 80, you know, remember the time that the squatters broke in to steal their underwear out of the dryer? That’s great, we have a story.
Bonnie: We have a story. It’s so funny though, I’m like, I don’t know if we should be telling our stories because I think it could deter people. But looking back at the scheme of things, it’s not a lot for the return, right?
Leti: No, you have to have the right mindset about it, too. You have to know that there are going to be challenges and you have to be okay and know that those challenges are strengthening you and making you a more resourceful person and that you’re going to find a way to get through them. And if you go in with that kind of mindset, and when we started it was really like, we’re going to make this work. We’re going to find a way. We’re going to get financial freedom.
Our plan was actually to replace our clinical incomes in seven years. And we really did that. And it was just that was our focus, let’s replace our clinical incomes in seven years. Every dollar needs to go to this because that’s what we’re going to do. And so we had the attitude that no matter what happened, we were going to be able to go through it. And we’ve had some crazy stories, but that’s okay.
Bonnie: Okay, cool. All right. So I know that Kenji, your husband, was doing real estate before you guys got married. And so you guys started long-term rentals, you said 2015, if I remember correctly. And now you also do short-term rentals. You didn’t switch because you still have the long-term rental, but tell me why you decided to add it on.
Leti: Yeah, so I love long-term rentals because of the risk, they’re very low risk. And they’re very low work, especially if you have a property manager, so you’re not going to get those calls in the middle of the night. But short-term rentals can bring in a lot more money than long-term rentals. And that’s just because they are a little bit more risky and a little bit more work. And so when you have that scenario, oftentimes you get greater returns.
And so if you buy short-term rentals right, and again, you can buy the wrong property and it cannot make you any money. But if you buy them right, what we oftentimes see is people in our community getting 20%, or sometimes even 30% cash on cash return. So that means for the money that they’re putting in, they get, let’s say they get 20% cash on cash return, that means at the end of five years, they’ve completely gotten all their money back, right?
And then it’s just exponential, like anything that comes in after that. It’s just icing on the cake because they’ve already made back their money. And that’s just the cash flow, right? That’s not the tax savings. That’s not the renters paying down their mortgage.
That’s not the money they made on day one if they bought it right and they made money on day one. And that’s not forced appreciation. If they took the property and they made some improvements and then now it’s worth more money, that’s called forced appreciation. And so you’re not even counting that.
So you can see all those pieces really add up to making you a lot of money. And so short-term rentals are really great for the returns. And short-term rentals are really great if you like hospitality, if you like to design, if you like to host, or if you’d like to be able to stay in a nice kind of vacation area yourself and you want to own that type of property.
Why we added our first short-term rental was Kenji had done short term rentals back in 2006 in Colorado and other places. But back then I think they were called furnished rentals, he always says, and there was no Airbnb and stuff. So they were a little bit more difficult back then.
But why we added our first one together was it was COVID and I just really wanted a place to kind of escape outside of Seattle and was looking for a place on the water and found this little cabin like an hour outside of Seattle in the forest next to some mountains right on this river, just with this gorgeous view.
There wasn’t a lot of data on Airbnb and VRBO on what it was going to bring in because there weren’t a lot of other properties around that area. And we took a little bit of a risk, but also knew that we’d have the backup plan if we had to, we could make it a primary residence. And then the returns were just really great.
Bonnie: Yeah, and wanting to stay there versus, I don’t know, a hotel, right? Because it was safer in terms of – Yeah, I’m sure you have the data, Airbnbs I’m sure spiked dramatically during the pandemic.
Leti: It did, yeah. And I would say that where it’s going to be in a year or two, you definitely have to pressure test and you have to say like, if things decrease with this recession with vacation areas, am I going to be able to still do well with my property? You definitely want to think about that. Because what we experienced in 2021 especially was just a huge boom.
Now, we bought a short term rental and a place that there’s year-round people, so it’s not just a one season rental because our place is right next to a mountain climbing place and a skiing place and a rafting area. So there are people hiking, there are people rafting, there are people rock climbing in the summer. And then there are people in the winter skiing. So that was a really great scenario. So we made sure that we had year-round guests
Bonnie: That makes sense.
Leti: Yeah, be very, very thoughtful about those types of things, about guests and what type of guests you cater to and making sure that they’re around a lot.
Bonnie: So tell me, how should someone think about whether they want to start with a long-term versus a short-term? And then I also want to ask you, is it a different type of person who does one versus the other?
Leti: We get the long-term versus short-term question all the time, because people are looking at them both and saying, “Well, where should I even start?” There’s upsides and downsides of both.
What we oftentimes see people make the decision based on is they take into account taxes, in part. Short-term rentals have a really much easier tax loophole. We call it the short-term rental tax loophole. Basically, it’s a much lower bar to be able to use the losses from your short-term rental to shelter your income from your job.
So being able to take mostly its depreciation loss. So the government sees the property as losing value every single year as the building is kind of disintegrating in their mind. So they’re allowing you to write off a portion of the building. And the other place you get losses is from a rehab. So if you take a property and you improve it, and you put some money into improving it, a lot of it is a loss, an immediate loss.
And so you can create these losses that aren’t real losses, meaning that you’re still making money, you’re still walking away with cash flow, but it looks like you’re losing money on your taxes. And so people are able, with short-term rentals, to take those losses, and shelter active income. So shelter their W2 income and pay less in taxes, if not even no taxes.
And what our people use is usually 100 hours and more than anyone else, and so they’ll go buy one short-term rental and in a calendar year they’ll do 100 hours of work on that short-term rental. And more than anyone else, meaning more than a property manager, more than a cleaner, and then that will allow them to shelter income.
So that’s one of the drivers for people to use short-term rentals over long-term rentals. Because for long-term rentals to access that very similar tax benefit you really have to do real estate more than anything else, so doing real estate more than being a doctor.
So when you have people who are working full-time as doctors and they’re happy working full-time and they don’t want to cut back, oftentimes they’ll choose the short-term rental route. I think the other time is sometimes people just want to have a vacation rental or they want those higher returns, and so they’re going to target the short-term rental first.
And then they know that they’re taking on a little bit more work. And some people love that work. Some people love hosting, and they love designing, and they love having a secondary home. And that makes it worth it for them too.
I would say in our community, most people within a couple years have short-term rentals and long-term rentals. And some even start adding mid-term rentals. So they’ll take their short-term rentals and they’ll have a short-term rental one year and they’ll harvest the tax savings. And the next year, they turn it into a mid-term rental, which is less work.
Bonnie: What’s that?
Leti: So that’s a three to six months stay. It’s counted as a long-term rental for tax purposes, but it’s less work than a short term rental and you still make more money, because it’s a furnished rental, than you would with a long-term rental.
Bonnie: Got it.
Leti: So people tend to diversify in our community within a couple of years because they love the benefits of long-term rentals with lower risk, lower work, and then the ability to scale and go buy 100 units. But they love these short-term rentals too, for those tax benefits, and then for personal use and for the higher cash on cash return.
So although you may look at it as one versus the other, it’s not actually that. You’re going to end up buying probably both, it’s just which are you going to start with this year, right?
Bonnie: Yeah.
Leti: And then you start to learn the tax strategies and you can mix and match and shelter taxes the second year with one versus another and combine them. There’s a whole bunch of strategies that you can do. So that’s my answer for that one. It’s not a matter of which, it’s a matter of when, right?
Bonnie: Yeah, like which one do you do first? Not which one are you going to commit to forever?
Leti: Yeah.
Bonnie: I just realized and obviously, this is obvious to us but it might not be obvious to the people listening, it’s like, okay, so when you invest in active real estate, so short-term and long-term, you get cash flow or you get paid quickly versus waiting 30 years, right? So it’s like an income-producing asset from day one, versus compound interest which takes forever. And you’re kind of capped at 10% unless you’re some high-risk trader person, right, which most people listening are never going to do that.
And being able to write off W2 income, because that’s like the biggest thing because you really don’t have that many write offs available as a W2. You don’t really have any except for maxing out your pre-tax retirement accounts, basically. That’s really your only option.
So you know that that’s why it’s so powerful. It’s like, okay, you’re getting paid now versus 30 years and your sheltering income. And just to be clear for those listening, you’re going to pay a lot less taxes. And obviously in our tax bracket it’s a lot of money, it’s significant, right? It could be six figures. It’s like you’re making 100k more, just to give an example if they’re saving 100k taxes.
And then, as you said, if they put that back into real estate, that’s just going to grow even faster. Basically, what you’re saying is you’d be stupid not to do this.
Leti: I mean, this is what we came up with. It was the fastest, easiest way to get to financial freedom in years, not decades. That’s what we realized. And that was just the monthly income coming in reliably.
And I think that the last piece is autonomy because as doctors we’ve lost a lot of autonomy in the last 10, 20 years in medicine. Real estate can really reinvigorate people. We see this really happen with couples who are investing together, but also just individuals that get reinvigorated because they feel like they now have agency in their lives again.
They realize they have control over where they’re going to be in three or five or 10 years. They’re going to buy these rentals, they’re going to create this source of income. They can work in medicine if they want, they cannot choose to, they can travel all the time. They can do whatever the heck they want.
And real estate is the vehicle, but it’s not actually about the real estate in the end. It’s about living a life you really love and building that life and knowing it’s possible to live that life because a lot of us forget that we have that choice. We think we are stuck, but we’re not.
Bonnie: I’m getting re-convinced right now.
Leti: Yay! Well, you know, Bonnie, I’m going to drop it here because I have a book coming out called Life on Your Terms. And it’s a story and I did it this way so people could see the vision of – I did this story of the doctor that goes the traditional route and just works harder to save more in the 401k and spends, versus going down this path of real estate and how easy it is to do.
When you just decide you want that financial freedom and nothing’s going to stop you, you can get it done. And doctors are incredible people, which is why we’re so lucky to work with them because when they decide and they get a few tools, then they just go get things done. Just like how we got through med school, it’s the same thing. It’s amazing.
Bonnie: Totally. All right, so let’s talk more about short-term rentals and how you help doctors because, obviously, you’re in the course business now. You have a very well established, well received program on long-term rentals, and so tell us about the short-term rental program.
Leti: So we have a short-term rental course, it’s called Accelerating Wealth Short-Term Rental Blueprint, and we released it first in 2021. So it’s actually been around for a couple years now. And it covers very different things than Zero To Freedom does.
So Zero To Freedom is all about taking you knowing nothing about real estate through buying your first rental property. And it covers a lot of the basics you need to know how to buy good deals. But Accelerating Wealth talks specifically about short-term rentals and how you take a short-term rental, how you pick it, how you buy it, and then how you maximize it and run it to make the largest amount of profit.
And so it’s treating your short-term rental as a business and how you run the business. And there’s a lot of technology that goes into it, a lot of risk mitigation that you really want to think about with short-term rentals.
And so for the people who really want to do short-term rentals, oftentimes we see them go through Zero To Freedom and then do Accelerating Wealth, almost like a graduate course. I think another way to put it is Zero To Freedom teaches you to drive, but Accelerating Wealth teaches you to ride a motorcycle.
We do see some percentage of people who say, “You know what? I really want a vacation rental, I’m going to start with Accelerating Wealth.” And then they realize, I want to build a portfolio that sets me up for a lifetime of generational wealth, and then they go to Zero To Freedom next.
So we see all ways that people approach it. But Accelerating Wealth is just focused on short-term rentals and making them run profitably.
Bonnie: So I think a lot of people do want a vacation home. And so would you say if you’re thinking of doing that, then you should definitely also make it a short-term rental unless you don’t want randos staying in your place? But it’s something to, it almost might push someone over the edge of buying a vacation home because some people are like, well it’s a big extra expense, or blah, blah, blah. But the short-term rental aspect would mitigate that dramatically, like pay for it.
Leti: Yeah.
Bonnie: Pay for your vacation home and more.
Leti: It’s huge, I mean just our little cabin, we have a property manager for that, that we pay 30% to. If we didn’t have a property manager, we’d be cash flowing over 70,000 a year. So you can imagine a little tiny vacation rental that you stay a couple weeks a year, but it’s making you all this money.
And if you want to move into it, I think we see a lot of people who are like, “Oh, this is going to be my retirement home, but I’m going to make it a short-term rental for the next five to 10 years and I’m going to write off all these expenses and I’m going to make all this cash flow and it’s going to set me free. But it’s ultimately going to be a house I move into.”
I think we see a fair amount of people who do that for vacation homes themselves, or for the future. But really they’re like, why not make this cash flow now that gives me options? And then we see people go all out and buy five, eight, ten short-term rentals, we have people like that in our community too. And then they’re getting financial freedom in just a few years.
Bonnie: Yeah, I definitely see people who catch the bug and they just go nuts. I’ve definitely seen that with my clients, too.
Is there anything that we haven’t covered about short-term rentals that you think people should know?
Leti: I think that when you look at buying a short-term rental, just make sure you’re buying an asset, not a liability. A liability takes money out of your pocket. A liability costs you money to support and you don’t want to be in a situation where you have to work harder at your day job to support a liability you’ve purchased.
So make sure you’re buying an asset. Make sure that you buy something that makes you money and that you really understand how to do the numbers ahead of time because it’s very possible to predict how a property is going to perform with data ahead of time if you know what you’re doing.
Bonnie: Yeah, because I’m sure you’ve seen people who are like, “Okay, I’ll invest in real estate,” but really have no idea how to do it. And they then buy a place that had no chance almost, right?
Leti: Yes, we’ve seen that. And that’s what Kenji did, actually, back in the day. He bought a bunch of properties that didn’t really cash flow. And then when the recession comes, if you have properties that don’t cash flow and you’re not in a great position, you have to work to support your properties, and that’s the opposite of what Fast Fire is.
Fast Fire is about buying properties that make you money every single month, so that you have freedom. And the properties make you money, not you supporting them.
Bonnie: This is not 100% related to short-term rental, but what I see, and you probably see this too, is people think they know about real estate investing because they couldn’t sell their primary home and so kind of became an accidental landlord and had such a horrible time with that because usually your primary home isn’t, at least for the doctor homes, they’re not really meant to cash flow. And then they think, “Oh, well, it doesn’t work and it’s too risky.” And so I see people go down that route as well.
But okay, I think we covered a good amount of material, like not even so much long-term versus short-term, but how they’re different in that. And I feel the same way. It’s not which one, it’s which one are you going to start first? And then you’ll probably end up doing both. Kind of like how Peter Kim started with syndications, but now he has all three, right? He’s got syndications, long-term and short-term.
I started in syndications and then we have long-term now. And so I still don’t have a desire to do a short-term rental at this point, but that doesn’t mean I won’t in the future. I’m just a little slow to warm up to real estate, but that’s okay.
All right, cool. How can people find out more about you?
Leti: We run Semi-Retired MD, and I’m sure that you can put a link below for the Accelerating Wealth course and Zero To Freedom, and that’s how you can find us. Just we’re around a lot of doctor summits and things like that as well, always happy to get to meet people.
Bonnie: I know you enjoyed that episode, like I said in the beginning, I am so re-inspired to look at my real estate portfolio and to probably add some properties to this.
Now, as we mentioned on the show, Leti and her husband Kenji, they do real estate courses for physicians and high-income earners. And many of my clients have studied with them and they only get rave reviews because they are so, like I said, such high-energy, they really know what they’re doing and they really, really simplify a topic that so many of us think is so complicated.
So, as we discussed, they are going to be opening up their program, Accelerating Wealth, which is to teach you how to get into short-term rentals. Now, if you join the waitlist at wealthymommd.com/aw, AW is for Accelerating Wealth, you definitely want to get on the waitlist now.
Even if you’re not sure, even if you’re thinking, “I don’t think so,” get on it. And the reason why is because, A, you’re going to get early access to enrolment, and it’s the only way to get a discount on the program. So you might as well join and you don’t have to buy when the program opens.
But I will tell you, this is a powerful vehicle for building wealth. Short-term rentals build wealth faster than long-term rentals, and you don’t want to make costly mistakes, right? And so I really consider these types of programs as a small investment to avoid lots of costly mistakes and to take action and start building your portfolio a lot faster than if you did it on your own.
Once again, that’s wealthymommd.com/aw. And if you do end up enrolling in the course through my link, I will get a commission. Okay, see you next week.
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157: Passive Real Estate Investment for Physicians with Peter Kim M.D.
Like many physicians, my guest this week decided he wanted other ways to generate income outside of his job as a doctor. This search led him to real estate investing, and he hasn’t looked back since. I’ve learned tons about real estate investing from him, and he’s here to share his wisdom on the podcast.
Peter Kim, M.D. is a practicing anesthesiologist who has invested in real estate both through direct ownership of rental properties as well through private, passive real estate deals (both syndications and funds). He started sharing about his journey to financial freedom on his blog, Passive Income MD, with the hopes of helping other physicians do the same through his online course and physician-only community.
Tune in this week to discover how to get started investing in real estate as a physician. We’re discussing why there is a massive need for education around real estate for physicians, why Peter chooses to focus mostly on passive real estate investing, and why real estate is the key to financial freedom for physicians like you.
Learn more about Live Wealthy, an exclusive coaching program designed for successful women who want to be confident.... and be rich.
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
- Why real estate is an amazing way to take control of your income as a physician.
- How Peter discovered his passion for real estate investing.
- Why Peter chose to prioritize investing in real estate rather than stocks.
- The amazing sense of community that exists in the physician real estate investing space.
- Why there is a huge need for education on real estate in the physician space.
- The reason Peter decided to focus more on passive real estate investing rather than active.
- Your options for making real estate investment your key to financial freedom, without using up all of your precious time.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
- Follow me on Instagram
- Peter Kim: Website | YouTube | Instagram | Facebook | Podcast
- Passive Real Estate Academy
- Leverage and Growth Summit
- Financial Freedom Through Real Estate
- White Coat Investor
- Die with Zero: Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life by Bill Perkins
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 up-level your money and your life. I’m your host, Dr. Bonnie Koo.
Hey everyone, welcome to another episode. So this is going to be a really, really fun episode for everyone because I have my really good friend, Dr. Peter Kim, many of you may know him as Passive Income MD. He has an amazing platform where he has created communities of mostly physicians to learn from each other, physicians who have a growth mindset mostly around real estate, but also around entrepreneurship.
And so I brought him on to chat about all the things, talk about real estate, and why it’s something you should consider. And I learned something, like the way he defined investing, and I think it’ll blow your mind too. Just how he described it was in a way I’ve never heard before. And now it’s going to be on my mind for a while and definitely going to share it with all the people, my clients, et cetera.
And one of things we talked about is he has a real estate conference and this year, as you’ll hear, he’s going to do things a bit differently and also include an entrepreneur and coaching track because they really go hand in hand together.
So it’s the weekend of September 21, 2023. I’ve been telling everyone to come because it is really fun and it’s just a great way to be in person, and I think that’s something we all crave, and to be with like-minded people. And also you get to meet doctors of different specialties, versus going to a conference for your specialty, which tends to be pretty boring, at least in my opinion. And this is a very different type of experience.
So at the time of the recording and when this podcast comes out, the tickets won’t quite be on sale right now. So I really encourage you to get on Peter’s mailing list to find out more. And if you’re on my email list, I will definitely be emailing you. And I will pop on and make sure that you all hear about it on the podcast when that time comes.
All right, here is Peter and I.
Bonnie: Welcome to the show, Peter.
Peter: Hey, I’m happy to be here.
Bonnie: Have you actually been on the podcast before?
Peter: I hope so. I don’t know, we talk quite often so who knows when I’ve been on, where I’ve been on. But I feel like I have, but to me it’s been a while.
Bonnie: All right, so why don’t you introduce yourself to people who may not know who you are.
Peter: My name is Peter Kim, an OB anesthesiologist. I’m now here in Orange County, California, married with two kids. I’m married to another physician. I guess my story started, again, I don’t want to tell the whole story right now unless you want me to later. But again, I found myself in a situation at work where I felt like I didn’t have much control of my schedule, my time. And so I started looking for other ways to create income.
That led me to real estate investing, and led me to some other business opportunities. Next thing you know, I started sharing about it online wherever I could. And that became this, I guess, online brand called Passive Income MD where I blog, I podcast, I have courses, I have conferences. And essentially we just create communities around physicians who want to learn how to create other streams of income, talk about finances, talk about life, talk about entrepreneurship, real estate, all of those things.
Again, it’s been a fun ride and I’ve been able to meet cool people like you.
Bonnie: I remember you told me that how you kind of figured out real estate was you started talking to other doctors who seemed happy. Something like that, right?
Peter: Yeah, I think the story is that when you’re in a bad situation, again, without going into too much detail, it was my chief at that time changed the schedule on me, changed my allocation of shifts, changed it from some daytime that I was supposed to do to some nighttime and more weekends, and less shifts. And so all of a sudden I saw my income potentially cut. I also saw the way I was working, I was going to be working way more nights and weekends. And I thought as a partner, it wasn’t a great feeling.
And when you’re in a feeling like that or in a situation where you’re unhappy, sometimes you feel like you’re the only person out there and you feel kind of stuck. I don’t know if anybody else listening to this feels or has felt that way. But what kind of worked out for me, luckily, is that I happened to find somebody like in the doctors lounge and they were telling me about maybe some of the investing they were doing and about vacations they were going on.
And then I realized, wait a minute, there are other people who must have figured this out. They must have figured out some other way to be happy as a doctor and continue to practice how they want to practice. So then I went on this tear where I started asking everyone. I started hanging out in the doctor’s office drinking my coffee and saying, “Hey, yeah, I noticed on Facebook, I saw you guys go on vacation. How often do you take vacations?” And just sort of asking people.
Essentially I became like a reporter where I started interviewing people, in a good way, just to find out more about their lives, find out what they were doing. And it turned out that I found all these doctors who actually were living really good lives as physicians. I never knew about it because you never really talk to them about these things at work, you just kind of live your lives.
And then I asked them like, specifically, what are you doing to really create that life that you want? And it turned out that the vast majority of them were investing in real estate. And so I was like, okay, I’ve got to find out more about this.
And so really, I just started really diving into it as deep as I could. And essentially I figured out that it’s possible for doctors to have their day job, but funnel and shift a lot of their income over to real estate and create this really, really nice other stream of income that really creates a lot of financial freedom for them. And that’s what I started doing.
Bonnie: Yeah, I remember when you first started your blog you were anonymous.
Peter: Yeah. Well, the story behind that is that I had a friend, and his name is CJ Langevin, and I actually interviewed him recently for the Leverage And Growth Summit. He himself has started this business where he starts the spirit and alcohol business, which is really cool. But at the time, he was really into this whole finance, you know, doctor and finances thing.
And he and I were talking about it, we started talking about real estate. And then he was like, “I wish more doctors were talking about this online.” He told me about the White Coat Investor. And he said, “There really aren’t a lot of resources around real estate and physicians online, and you should do it because you are learning about it right now. I’m sure people would want to know about it.”
The problem was that I was worried that if I talked about creating more time for myself, creating more freedom, that maybe people in my group would look at me poorly. And I was a young partner at that time and I wanted to talk about things like doctors living paycheck to paycheck. But I couldn’t do that freely, so I decided to do it anonymously.
And it’s so funny how it just took off from there. Even me not even putting my real name, just putting some vague details about myself.
Bonnie: Yeah, how long did it take you to come out?
Peter: I’d say about a year. So I wrote, it was actually really fun writing anonymously because you feel like you can really be open and honest and not worry about it. But then there started to be a point where people started just emailing me trying to find out more about me, asking me where I was, asking to meet with me, asking my opinion on certain matters. And I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is kind of getting bigger than actually I thought it would be.”
And I mean, again, there was a moment where somebody was like, “I’m going to be in your area,” because the only thing I mentioned was that I was in Southern California. They’re like, “I’m in your area, can I please meet with you? I really have a question that I need to ask you and meet up with you in person.”
I was like, oh my gosh, this person doesn’t even know who I am. It’s anonymous. This is kind of crazy. Somebody else was like, “I’m about to make this investment. I really need to have you validate whether this is a good decision or not.”
And I was like, okay. At some point I realized if I’m going to really make the impact that I want to make, which I love meeting with people, I love connecting with people face to face. And that’s really why I love the communities that I build. The only way to do that is to be out there.
And I remember talking to people in my practice, some people that kind of knew what I was doing. And I was asking them, what do you think would happen if I came out public? Do you think people would care? What do you think people would think? And most people said, “I don’t think people will care very much or not a lot will happen to you.” But I was worried about the consequences, worried about the worst case scenario.
And so after a lot of thought behind it, I decided to go public on it. And I went public and nothing happened. Nobody even said anything to me. I remember when I published it, I was all nervous. I’m like people are going to just start calling me into their office and this kind of stuff. But nothing happened. Nobody cared. In fact, if anything, it really allowed me to open myself up and meet more people and connect with more people.
And honestly, they felt that now that I was actually putting myself out there, that I was actually a real person. And people felt more comfortable talking to me.
Bonnie: I love what you said, no one cared. Because every time I’m worried about public opinion, one of my coach friends, I can always count on her to say, “Bonnie, no one cares.”
Peter: Yeah, no one cared. I mean, it did come up later. I will tell you, it did come up later. Later on, finally when – I think it was only just a few years ago, when I was considering my job and my position. And I talked to our new heads of the department because there had been some transition.
And they knew that I was working less and less and less. And one of them actually said, “I know you’ve got this other stuff online. I’ve looked it up. I’ve seen it.” And I was like, “Whoa, somebody actually saw it.” And that was the only time I remember it came up. It just made for some interesting conversations. But at the end of the day the situation I was in, I made sure, obviously, legally, that everything was okay. I made sure that it was kosher in that sense.
And again, I made sure not to bad mouth anybody. I wanted to make sure that stuff on there that people would read, that I know it’s public, that it would not come back to hurt me in a way. And so I just made sure everything that was on there was good and, honestly, nobody has cared since.
Bonnie: Yeah. Well, there’s a few things you said that I really want to highlight because basically, and actually we have similar beginnings in terms of how it happened because I had no, kind of like you, I went down a rabbit hole. It wasn’t real estate specific, it was just learning about basic personal finances.
And then someone was like, “People need to know about this.” And White Coat Investor was already around, but they’re like, “But there’s no woman in this space.” And so she was like, “You should start a blog.” And I was like, okay, I’ll start a blog. And it kind of went from there and then we met at the first White Coat Investor conference.
But I think what it comes down to is seeing a need and basically, you know, there’s a problem. And we both kind of saw that we could help people solve that problem through education and stuff like that. And then ultimately helping people because I think all doctors kind of have that desire to help people, right? That’s kind of, hopefully, why we went into medicine, right?
Just to show people, I actually just had a call with some of my clients and also women who were interested in joining my program. And one thing I said is, a lot of the financial advice out there focuses on cutting expenses, right? Like looking at expenses and seeing what you can cut down, which is fine. But most people never consider you could also figure out how to make more money, right? That’s not talked about.
And I was like, when you combine those two it’s very powerful and very synergistic. And then you can really make a lot of financial progress. And in terms of how to make more money, real estate is sort of a natural way, and then starting a business. And very few people think they’re ever going to start a business, but then they start seeing a problem that hasn’t been solved, or maybe it has been solved out there, but the beauty is there’s so many people to help, right?
You don’t need the whole world population to help people. Like we help mostly physicians, right? Because physicians, I think, feel comfortable having another physician helping them versus some rando. And vice versa. And so I think this just goes to show, neither of us woke up one day like, “Let’s start a business to make money.” It just kind of happened a bit more organically.
And obviously, people do intentionally start businesses too. But I think basically a lot of these businesses that I’ve seen physicians create is like they see a need, they want to help people. And basically, they realize that they can actually help people and make money while doing it.
Peter: Right. And I think one of the things that I realized through all of this, and if I really look back, I mean, the thing that really changed my trajectory and gave me hope was just finding other people who were doing these things.
At this point I thought I was the only one and I was stuck in this situation. I thought there was no way out. And I don’t know if, again, a lot of people feel like that, but sometimes you just meet the right people, you find that community of people who are doing stuff, whether it’s investing in real estate, starting businesses, making more money, like you said, doing these kinds of things. And then it just opens up your mind to different possibilities.
And that’s what’s exciting, I think, about a lot of the stuff that we’ve been able to create online and you’ve been able to do with your communities. All we’re doing is highlighting, a lot of times, other people. Ourselves and what we’ve been able to do, but also other people who are doing some really cool things. And it just gives people a chance to think outside themselves, think what’s possible.
That’s what’s really been a big part of my journey. And that’s what’s so fun about doing what we do, because we get to just talk about things and people are like, “Oh my gosh, I didn’t even know that was even possible.”
And then once you kind of open up those possibilities, then people, you know, they have ideas. They have desires. They have wants. They’ve had things that they’ve been dreaming about and that they’ve may be pushed down because they just thought it was impossible. Or it’s not for me, or I can’t do it.
And then they see these other people doing it, and all of a sudden they realize, yeah, maybe I can. They get to ultimately take those steps, help them get to where they want to be. And it’s really cool to see.
Bonnie: And also, a lot of doctors have that like just suck it up mentality. And like, well, I’m a doctor, I make good money. I shouldn’t complain, I’ll just suck it up, just work more. Because every year reimbursements go down and so they literally have to work more if they want to, you know, anyway, that’s a whole other story.
Peter: It’s the big hamster wheel. The treadmill goes faster and faster and faster, and to stay in the same place you have to run faster or else you fall off.
Bonnie: Yeah.
Peter: So I get it.
Bonnie: Yeah. So let’s talk a bit about real estate, because for a lot of my clients, that’s kind of the next logical thing to invest in after they kind of figure out their retirement accounts which is, obviously, mutual funds and stocks. So that’s kind of the next decision point for many of my clients.
And so what I teach in my program is like, hey, this is real estate, this is why you should consider it. These are the different ways, because there’s a whole range from passive to active and all the things kind of in between. And I just learned about mineral rights investing from you, for example. I was like, “What? There’s this?” And all this and that.
And so tell me, and I know you invest in both, but tell me why you decided to – Actually, I don’t know the answer to this, tell me why you decided to focus mainly on passive investment, although I know you have active ones as well. But in terms of like you decided to create a course for passive investment versus a course on active investing, even though you probably could teach that too, right?
Peter: Yeah, I mean, that’s a big question. I’ll kind of try to break it down. But the thing I’ve learned about investing over time, and I’ve always, whenever I ask people like what does investing mean? Like some people have good answers or people are like, “I don’t know, just making more money.”
But what I’ve really learned is that investing is taking today’s cash flow, basically trading it for tomorrow’s cash flow, right? Whenever that is. So the goal of all of this stuff, all of investing, of making money, all that stuff is for cash flow, right? That’s how we all live.
And so the question is, do you want to trade today’s cash flow for cash flow 20 to 30 years from now? Or do you want to trade cash flow for like cash flow starting next year or the year after? And what will that kind of do for you and your life and impact and lifestyle?
I think most of us in the conventional way, the way we were taught is that we should be trading today’s cash flow, meaning that we’re taking the money that we’re making today, and then putting it away and socking it away for something like 20, 30 years down the road when we can have that cash flow.
That’s conventional thinking, but I’ve also realized that’s not the way I want to live my life. I want to actually, if I’m going to invest money and pull from today, I want that money to come back to me soon. Meaning I want that money coming back to me next year, next month, and ongoing from there so I can ultimately start living and enjoying life now.
Meaning that I’m able to do the things I want to do now while I’m young, and I’m healthy, and I have my kids in the house. And I have good friends around, versus later on, which is not guaranteed. And number one, right, my health may not be good at that point and that sort of thing. So when I looked at that, when I thought about how I wanted to –
Bonnie: Let me just stop you for a second.
Peter: Yeah.
Bonnie: I’ve actually never heard of investing talked about that way, but it just makes so much sense. Like that’s literally, I just love the way you’re talking about it. Obviously it does involve, hopefully, making more money. But I love it, you’re basically using today’s dollars to create future cash flow.
And like you said, the conventional thinking, this is something I harp on a lot with my clients or just in my podcast and my work, is like most of us are basically taught, invest in your 403 B, stock market. And then 20 years is actually not a lot of time, usually it’s like several decades, right? Like maybe when you’re 60 or 65 or 70, then you could draw from it. And then the only choice in between is to work.
Peter: That’s what I mean. So basically, you’re just trading all the money right now. If you ever read the Book Die With Zero, he does a lot of data and he does a lot of research. I mean, the truth is that most of us listening to this podcast, if not all of the people listening to this podcast, unfortunately, are going to pass at the peak of their net worth. Meaning that you’re going to probably die with a lot of money in your bank.
And the question becomes, is that the most efficient use of your income, use of your time today especially, to create all that income that’s essentially just not be able to be utilized by the end of your life, right? It goes to your family and your kids and all that stuff. But you’re essentially trading time today for money that you probably won’t be able to use, at least a good portion of it.
I’m talking about those extra moonlighting shifts. I’m talking about those extra weekends that you could have given up, maybe even those holidays. And so when I began to think of things like that, I began to think like, okay, how do I want to best use my time and my money so that I can start to really enjoy my life now? And of course, with an eye towards the future, too, you don’t want to be totally irresponsible.
But if you can invest well and invest in things that produce cash flow sooner rather than later, then you’ll have money tomorrow and you’ll have money, hopefully, 20, 30 years from now. And you can pace things a little better.
And so when I looked at all the types of investing out there, what made sense, really real estate was probably the best vehicle, at least at that time, that I saw, right, I mean, to create that. And in fact, I still believe it’s the best vehicle for that because as physicians, we’re really lucky and fortunate that in some ways we have a steady paycheck. I mean, I know reimbursements are changing and things like that.
But it’s almost like we know what lever to pull for money to come out. That money can change how much comes out, but it’s pretty reliable. It’s like a slot machine. We know pull the money, put your time in, and that money will come out. The thing is, what do you do with that money? And how can you utilize the least amount of extra time to create that cash flow?
And so real estate just happens to be a great vehicle. And real estate is like a great umbrella. I mean, again, it’s a huge range. It’s like saying you’re in medicine, it doesn’t tell you enough information. You just know that being in real estate you can create more income, but there’s so many different ways to get involved. Like you said, active, you’re owning your own properties, being a landlord, to passive, which is like investing in other people’s deals. Or maybe even investing in a REIT, right? In something that’s publicly traded.
So there’s a whole spectrum and a whole range of things that you can get involved in. And so it really comes down to how much time you have, how much energy you want to put into all of this, and then how much money you have. Obviously, the more money you have to invest, the more you can create in terms of cash flow. But how much time do you have? And how much energy do you have to put into all of this?
And so I have a portfolio of both active and passive real estate, meaning that I own my own properties and also invest in other people’s deals. But I’m limited by the amount of time that I have. And do I want to spend all my time in real estate? Honestly, no. I want to spend some time doing some really cool things with my life. I want to travel with my family, travel with my kids, and do that sort of thing. Also run these other businesses that I’m really passionate about.
And so I don’t want to spend all my time in real estate and owning my own properties. Now, I know that I could make more money doing it. I know that I could probably do better if I spent all my time and energy in it, but that’s not really what I want to do. So I made it very clear that I have this amount of time to really put towards active real estate investing.
And if my portfolio outgrows that time, meaning that a certain property I bought starts to take up way too much of my time and it doesn’t make sense, I will sell it. And that’s what I’ve done in the past. And I’ve kept my active portfolio in a little box, because it does provide benefits. So I want the max benefits that I can take from it. But once it bleeds outside of that, I take that money, and I put it into passive investments.
Because ultimately, I think we all invest in real estate for what passive real estate investing offers, meaning that we want to put our money somewhere, have it create cash flow, and not put in any additional time, right? That’s what we want, I think, real estate to do.
Bonnie: Yeah.
Peter: I think a lot of us like real estate. We like buildings and things like that, and maybe there’s a business component to it. But at the end of the day, we want to put our money somewhere that produces income for us so we can live our lives however we want to. And I think passive real estate ultimately fits the bill.
And so you just have to learn how to do the due diligence on the front end, how do you pick the right people to invest in? How do you make sure you’re investing in the right deal? That’s where you can spend your time, energy and effort. But then once you’re in a deal, all you should expect to do at that point is to look for, basically, quarterly updates and make sure that the deposits come into your bank account. And then figure out what investment next if that property or that investment does sell?
Bonnie: Yeah, no, that was a really great overview. Sometimes I’m sure you wonder too, it’s like, huh, if there are so many other ways to trade today’s dollars and get it sooner than when you’re 60. The question becomes how come more people aren’t doing it?
What I encounter, and I’m sure you do when you start working with people, is there’s a lot of fear. Because basically we’ve all been kind of, I just like the word brainwashed, investing in mutual funds and stocks is “safe,” which is kind of funny if you think about it because we don’t really have control over these companies. And if you did you wouldn’t be talking to us, right? You’d be super rich and on the board of like Coca Cola or something.
And so there’s this sort of belief out there that real estate is risky, or it’s hard. And actually I was coaching someone yesterday in my program who has invested in quite a few syndications. And now she’s worried about it because of the way the market is going. And she’s like, well, none of them have had capital calls and yada, yada. But then she’s like, I don’t think it’s a good time to invest in real estate.
So how do you address that? And how do you think about that for yourself in terms of the risk? Obviously you’ve been doing it for some time, you’re comfortable, but I’m sure you’ve heard all the excuses or reasons as to why they shouldn’t do real estate and they should stick with stock investments, right?
Peter: Yeah, again, I think, whether we’re talking about traditional retirement or not. And I get really passionate about this because I’ve been looking into this quite a bit. I think that people look at risk, when it comes to your retirement, 401k’s and all that stuff, they just look at it one way. I mean, they look at your risk in terms of, okay, you put it in the stock market, you know it’s going to increase this much. And you can look at the history of the stock market and that’s how we make our determination.
And if you do your 4%, people heard of the 4% rule, you pull your 4% every year, then you’re going to have this much for the next 30 years. And the chances of failure in that situation is, I think, 4% or something like that, I forgot, by conventional metrics and that sort of thing. They use this whole thing called the Trinity study that they talk about.
But people don’t look at the other side of that. This is what I’m learning, and this is what people may or may not know about this whole 4% rule, and I hope you don’t mind me talking about it right now.
Bonnie: No, not at all.
Peter: But, again, people look at this whole 4% rule, and again, the premise and this is probably the foundation for a lot of what financial advisors will tell you today, save up this amount of money in your stock portfolio, in your retirement account. And you want to hit this number so that you can draw 4% a year, adjusted for inflation. And you’ll be able to live off that for the next 30 years. And they say like this is a basically 96% proof thing and everything else is risky.
Well, what they don’t tell you in that study is that actually, if I remember the exact numbers. I don’t have the exact numbers here, but when they look at, I’d say since the 1920s, 80% of people in that way, I think it’s 80% of people ended up with twice the amount of the portfolio than when they first started when they died after 30 years. Which also means that the median was that people ended up with 3.5 times what their original portfolio was by the time they died.
So you spent all this time worrying and spending and saving all this money till you’re 60, 65 years old and then you end up dying with three and a half times that in your portfolio. That’s the median. And to me, that sounds like a good thing maybe on the surface, and people use that as a good thing. They say, oh, it’s not going to be risky because you’re going to end up with so much more, more than likely.
The problem is you’re going to die with that much money in your bank account that you could have used early on in your life, to work less, to enjoy more, to spend time with your family, all of this stuff. And so basically you’re giving up everything today, or so much of today expecting this amazing thing to happen in 20, 30 from now when your health might not be good. You may not even make it. Who knows what your family situation is going to be like in that scenario?
So, in my opinion, basically, you’re giving up a lot today for something that’s not even guaranteed in the future. And to me, that’s like the definition of big risk. That you’re given up something certain today, which you know your health today, you know you got your time today. But for something in the future that may or may not come to me, that seems really risky.
And so how can I make sure that I’m able to take advantage of what I have now? And to me that vehicle, and it would be something that, again, distributes and gives you cash flow on a regular basis today that you can spend and use. And so I look for all these other things out there, yeah, dividend stocks are out there, too. But I looked for other things that you can utilize to do that.
And I found that real estate just seemed to be, obviously, the most widely used thing to create that kind of lifestyle. And I think that’s probably the most well-known. And again, it’s not something that hasn’t been done before by doctors and physicians. So I basically just followed the track of other people that were smarter than me. And that’s probably one easy way to do things, is find somebody that you find successful that has the type of life that you want. And then just model them.
Bonnie: Yeah, find out what they do.
Peter: Just model them. And so my heroes in this space are people that I looked up to who were doing real estate. So I just followed that roadmap and it’s really worked out well for me. And so that’s why I made that choice of real estate versus stocks. It wasn’t that I loved buildings and things like that. It was really what it gave me and offered me.
And then when I saw this whole thing with stocks I was like, it doesn’t make sense to me. I mean, when you start thinking about it, I’m not going to give it all up today for 20, 30 years that may or may not come. And honestly, I’m probably going to, at that point, have more than I need. And I can’t even utilize it.
Bonnie: Yeah.
Peter: I don’t know, that’s the way I think about things.
Bonnie: No, this has been an awesome conversation. Like I said, even just the way you discussed investing, it kind of blew my mind. So people listening who are not as familiar with real estate, I think it’s important to highlight that you do get a return on investment sooner rather than later, you’re not waiting 30 years from now.
And with syndications you start getting payments relatively quickly, it’s not 20 years. It’s within – Actually, I don’t know. You would know that more.
Peter: Well, it all depends. Yeah, it all depends what type of deal. And I think that’s one of the questions you have to ask, I think, when you invest in these things, and again, when I invested in my first one, I was sitting there six months from now and I was like, “Wait a minute, when do I get my first check?” And they were like, “Well, we told you it would probably be 18 months.” And I was like, “Oh, I didn’t realize that.” I didn’t ask.
So these things, they vary. And they’re different according to the type of deal, it depends on the market, it depends on how things go. But the goal of these things is to, you know, oftentimes these syndications will hold for three to five to seven years, meaning that you buy an apartment building. You as an investor essentially own a small share of it. And so you can literally say like I own 1% of that building, or whatever it might be.
And so as an owner, you get access to distributions when they get cash flow. And then when they sell you have a portion of the profit, an upside according to how much you invested. And so the cool thing about these types of investments is that you, again, somebody else is owning and managing it. And you just expect to get cash flow and distributions as the property does better and better and better. Now, that cash flow usually starts a little smaller in the beginning, and then it increases with time as the property gets stabilized.
One thing I like about most real estate that I invest in, and again, I don’t usually invest in a lot of the stuff where you invest and there’s no cash flow and there’s hopefully a big homerun at the end. You can do that real estate too, but again that kind follows the stock mentality, in my opinion, a little bit. What I like is I like the real estate that essentially forces you to take distributions. It forces you to get income along the way.
And when you get that income along the way it hits your bank account and you end up using it, right? You end up using it to buy your time back, you use it to go on trips, you use it to do all these things. And that’s kind of why I like what I’m doing.
Bonnie: And I will say, for most of the women that I work with, passive is kind of usually the first step because it is very attractive because it is passive, right? And they’re like, I don’t want to be a landlord, et cetera, although a good amount of them end up owning properties too, but not all of them.
I started with passive with your help, and I do own two active properties. I don’t love the active side. And I think that’s fine. I think I just gave myself permission to – Or it doesn’t mean I’m not going to do it down the line because they’re two single-family homes and I’m like, if I do it again in the future, it’s going to definitely be bigger and do multifamily versus these little dinky properties.
One thing that you highlighted multiple times is how important the community is, so that’s like really your superpower. And so one of the things that I think, I mean, you’ve created so many communities, but the one I want to highlight here since we’re talking about real estate is the real estate conference that you started pre-pandemic, took a break, and now is in-person again.
And I tell everyone to come to this conference because it’s a great way to learn about real estate and even if they’re already investing, they’re going to learn new ways. They’re going to make connections because, as you know, real estate is a lot about relationships. They’re going to be other mostly doctors who are doing this and that’s just so powerful like, oh, I’m not the only one. And you meet new friends, right? And then you meet like-minded people.
And so I’ve been telling everyone to save that week in September because that’s when it is. Talk about why you decided to create this and sort of how it’s grown over time?
Peter: Well, first of all, I just love getting together with people. I love connecting with people because I’ve been to a lot of real estate conferences on my own that were, let’s say, non-physician based. It was fun and I got so much value out of them.
And honestly, I get more value, oftentimes, outside the room than inside the room of any of these conferences, meaning with the connections and the network. And maybe it’s just one thing someone said that I took home and that changed kind of the trajectory of my investing.
And I was like, why isn’t there one for physicians specifically to talk about real estate? And there were enough people in our community that were asking for this, and I would say that, again, it wasn’t necessarily all my own doing. I just asked people, what do you want? What do you need? And people were like, well, we want to get together to talk about this stuff, and kind of immerse ourselves into it for a couple of days or a short day.
So that’s what I did. I mean, the first one that we launched, the conference in 2019, it wasn’t super planned out well in advance. I think we only launched it three or four months before the conference because people were asking for it. We decided to do it. For one day, I rented out a big ballroom in Los Angeles near the airport. And for one day several hundred people just showed up. They showed up, people flew in from Alaska, they flew in from Maine, from Florida, all parts of the country, which was crazy.
But it just showed me that the need is there. People want to connect with other people, hear their stories in person, and feel like they’re part of a community doing this. And so we did it virtually throughout the pandemic. And then once things were a little safer outside of that, last year we got together again in-person. And we do it now live and virtual, because a lot of physicians may or may not be able to make the trip.
So we’re going to do it again this year, September 21st to 23rd, again, in Los Angeles. And this one, actually, we’re doing a little bit differently, meaning that we’re talking about real estate and so we’re going to bring together a lot of key people and thought leaders in this space. We’re going to create a lot of opportunities for people to connect with other people, because I think that’s what it’s really about. I mean, you can hear about a lot of this stuff like at home.
The real value of a real estate conference like this is meeting other people that are doing this, creating connections, creating your network, finding out who people are investing in and investing with.
And this year what’s a little bit different is that we’re going to add an entrepreneurship track to it. So many people in our community, not only do they own real estate, but once they have this kind of mindset, they look to explore other things. To start their own businesses, start their own coaching practices, become advisors. Whatever it might be, they figure out other ways to create income.
And so a lot of these people have the same mindset. And so many people have wanted to have this all under one umbrella and that’s what we do through Passive Income MD in general. So we decided to add that track too. So for people that are interested in entrepreneurship as a physician, interested in real estate, about mindset, we’re going to put it all under one umbrella, and it’s going to be so fun because we’re going to bring together so many cool groups of people.
And the goal is, and always my goal – and I tell people this – is to create as many collisions as possible. Meaning that I want as many people to connect with as many people as possible when they come to this. I don’t want people to just sit there and be a passive person in this conference. I want you to connect because at the end of the day, this is all a team sport.
I believe that investing in real estate, especially passive real estate, when you’re investing in syndications, we can all help each other make better decisions, invest with better people, and ultimately help each other achieve our outcomes, keep each other accountable. And so that’s really the goal of the conference, and essentially everything else we do.
Bonnie: Meeting other people is so powerful. So if you remember the last conference you did, you kind of did some small breakouts. And I remember I had a lady in my group, and I think she wanted to network but she just wasn’t used to putting herself out there. And so we talked about it and I was like, “Okay, well, how many people do you want to meet and get phone numbers?” And then she’s like, “Well, I think I can do two.” I’m like, “That means you’ve got to do 10.” That’s what I told her.
Peter: I remember that.
Bonnie: Yeah. And then by the end of the conference, she had her 10. And actually, she was at the White Coat Investor conference and now she’s like a pro at this.
Peter: That’s amazing. I mean, it’s just little things like that, to find somebody to challenge you to help you get down the path sooner. And hopefully that helps people take action. I think that’s really what it comes down to, is to take action and just get started.
If anything, I always tell people my advice is to get plugged into a community. That’s really what it is. You’ve got to surround yourself with like-minded people or people that maybe you model, want to model, maybe aspirational.
In fact, it’s okay to feel uncomfortable in a group. Meaning if you feel uncomfortable when you’re sitting in a group and you’re like, “They’re so much further ahead of me,” then you know you’re actually in the right group. Meaning that you want the other people to push you, to support you, that you want to connect with. And everybody will help each other and bring each other up.
So if you’re not plugged into a community, whether it’s ours, yours, Bonnie, or you people that are just hearing this, find a community of at least a few people that you can connect with to talk about how to create your ideal lives, try new things, and make sure you just keep each other accountable in that.
Bonnie: Yeah, no, that’s awesome. And I think one thing I want to say is, one of the things I hear a lot, besides the fact that they love the community, like I said, I don’t think I went to any of the lectures last year. Maybe one or two at your conference, and a lot of it was just mingling. I think people, they’re really surprised by how nice everyone is and how willing people are to give their time to help people.
I think there’s this genuine desire to help someone move forward and help them sort of break that activation energy needed to really get started. And so I think that’s also what’s powerful, is like you meet people and they want to help you and they’re like, “Wow, these people are doing things that I want to do, or their life is where I want, and they’re willing to help me.” So I think that’s really powerful. I don’t think your conference is available at the time of this recording, right?
Peter: Well, we’re going to go on sale around May 15th is probably when the tickets are going to go on sale. We definitely have a limited number just because of the size of the hotel.
Bonnie: Yeah.
Peter: But people, if they’re looking out for it, I guess just look for, it’s called PIMD Con, just like casually, because that’s PIMD Conference. But it’s going to be called the Physician Real Estate and Entrepreneurship Conference. And so people can look out for it. If they’re part of our communities, I’m sure if you’re part of our email list you’re going to get a ton of information.
Bonnie, I’m going to make sure your community knows about it as well. I know Bonnie is going to be there. Some amazing people that people will want to meet will be there. You will hear about it, I promise.
Bonnie: Yeah, I’ll make sure everyone, obviously, on my email list knows and everything else. Okay. Well, Peter, thanks so much for being here. I learned a lot. Like I said, I’m sure this is going to be super valuable to other people. I think they’re really going to think about like, wow, using today’s dollars for 30 years down the line, or can I shorten that to a year? Or even if it’s five years, right?
That makes a huge difference in what it makes possible. Because I’m sure you and I both know, most doctors want to work a little less at least. And if they can access that in a few years versus 30 years, that’s huge, right?
All right. Take care, everyone. Thanks for being here.
Peter: All right. Bye, Bonnie. Thanks, everyone.
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156: Introduction to Real Estate 2.0
Over the next few episodes, we’re talking all things real estate. Real estate is a huge topic, so for this week’s show, I’m bringing you an overview of real estate in general, so you have some foundational knowledge before we dive deeper into how you can leverage real estate to start building wealth.
When you think about building wealth, you might think of the stock market as the most important piece of the puzzle. However, real estate actually produces returns on a much shorter timeline. Real estate can seem overwhelming, so tune in this week to learn where and how to get started on your own journey.
Tune in this week because I’m breaking down the basics, as well as some of the more complicated but important aspects of understanding real estate. I’m sharing the tax benefits that allow you to grow your money at a fast pace by investing in real estate, the different types of real estate, and how you can invest in real estate as passively or actively as you want.
Learn more about Live Wealthy, an exclusive coaching program designed for successful women who want to be confident.... and be rich.
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
- 5 reasons why real estate is the perfect way for you to start building wealth.
- Some common objections I hear around investing in real estate.
- How you actually make money in real estate.
- My own history of learning about real estate and using it to build wealth.
- Why real estate investing gives you more control than investing in the stock market and produces returns faster.
- The tax benefits of becoming a real estate investor.
- Your options for active versus passive real estate investing, including syndications and crowdfunding.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
- Follow me on Instagram
- 4: Think Beyond Your Clinical Income
- 6: Introduction to Real Estate Part 1
- 7: Introduction to Real Estate Part 2
- Learn more about Semi Retired MD and enroll in their free video mini-course here.
- Check out this guide to understand how women can use real estate to achieve financial independence.
- Understand how much money you need to start investing in active real estate with the breakdown in this post.
- Peter Kim MD
Hey everyone. So for the next few episodes we’re going to talk about all things real estate. And so you’re going to hear from two of my really good friends who are really great at, obviously, doing real estate. And so one from the passive side, one from the active side. And we’re also going to talk just a bit about their journeys, how they even got into it, they’re both physicians, just to really hear their thoughts about how to think about money and sort of the money mindset and also from a physician perspective.
So what I thought I would do for today’s episode is actually give you an overview of real estate in case you’re not familiar. And it’s actually a replay of one of my first episodes. We’re into episode almost 160 at this point, and so this is episode, I don’t know, it was like 5, or 6, or 7 or 8, and so it’s been a minute.
And so we’re actually going to combine both episodes in one because basically I’m giving a great and broad overview of real estate in case you’re not familiar and to help you figure out why it might be something that you should do. All right, so here it is. And then next week you’ll hear from Dr. Peter Kim of Passive Income MD.
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 up-level your money and your life. I’m your host, Dr. Bonnie Koo.
Today we’re going to talk about real estate. Specifically, today it’s going to be high-level. I just want to set the tone and we’re going to explore some more specific topics in later episodes because real estate is such a big topic. I mean, there are whole podcasts, books, and businesses devoted to solely real estate. And this is not a real estate podcast. Why am I even talking about it today? Well, I’ve come to realize that real estate is a great way to build wealth and relatively quickly, so I’d be remiss to not mention it.
Here’s an overview of what I’ll talk about today. I want to talk about why should someone like you should even consider investing in real estate? I want to go over some of the common objections to investing in real estate. And then I’ll talk about the overall benefits. And then I’ll start going into how you actually make money in real estate. I find that this is actually one of the most understood details about real estate investing.
Okay, before I start, I want to talk a bit about my real estate history. Like many of you, I knew that many people invested in real estate and that was a thing. But I just wasn’t personally interested in it and I had some of the common objections that I’ll go into a little bit later. But eventually I decided, “You know what? I need to learn more about this. I need to educate myself. If I could become a physician, I can certainly learn about real estate, right?”
So I started small. I started investing passively through syndications, and you’ll learn what that is in a later episode. And up until recently I was avoiding direct real estate, meaning owning my own property. At the time of this recording, we have purchased our first rental property. It’s definitely a learning curve and there’s lots of stuff happening, but I’m so glad we finally took the leap.
So why should someone like you consider real estate investing? If you recall my earlier episode, Think Beyond Your Clinical Income, I’ll be referencing this episode a lot. You’ll recall that I talked about a table with legs and that the goal is to create as many legs as possible so that your table of wealth is as stable as possible.
What’s great about real estate is there are so many legs within the leg of real estate and you can build this leg relatively quickly versus stock market investing, which just takes a long time and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. Also, you can have a lot of control over real estate and I’ll go into why that’s important.
Let’s go over the common objections I hear and that I personally had when it came to investing in real estate. So many of us think it’s so hard and it’s so overwhelming, you don’t even know where to start. And that’s partially because of the breadth of real estate. And so my goal today is to kind of start breaking down these pieces for you.
Also, many of us have heard horror stories about bad tenants, or fixing toilets, or things that could go wrong. And finally it’s a lot of freaking work, right? At least that’s what I think, and maybe that’s what you think too. I want to say that you know much more about real estate investing than you think you do because take a step back. Where do you live right now? Is it a home? Is it an apartment? Is it a condo? Are you renting it or do you own it?
Whether you rent or buy, most of us have experience renting, so we understand at least part of the puzzle, right? Just remember these types of experiences, when combined with focused reading and education and supportive mentors, can make taking the plunge into real estate relatively easy and you can become successful too.
Okay, let’s go over the overall benefits. There are five specific benefits I will go over: speed of growth, control, taxes, familiarity, and tangible assets. So first let’s talk about the speed of growth. I’ve mentioned earlier that you can create wealth relatively quickly through real estate. So what do I mean by relatively quickly? Within a few years. Compare that to stock market investing, which will take decades for compound interest to work.
Second, we have taxes. So a lot of us have what we call retirement accounts and these are sheltered from taxes, right? But at some point you are going to have to pay taxes on it. Whether you pay taxes upfront, like in a Roth IRA, or if you pay taxes later, like a traditional 401k. But there’s no getting around the fact that you’re going to have to pay taxes at some point on these investments. And many of you are thinking, “Well, but yeah, that’s normal. I mean, you’re always going to have to pay taxes.”
This is where real estate investing really, really hits the mark. And this is what I’m really excited to talk to you guys about. When it comes to real estate there are so many tax benefits to real estate investors. In fact, the tax code was written for real estate investors and this is especially true if you achieve something called real estate professional tax status, also called REPS, R-E-P-S. We’ll talk more about that later.
Okay, let’s go over the overall benefits of real estate. We’re going to talk about the speed of growth or speed of wealth with real estate. We’re going to talk about control, taxes, familiarity, and the fact that it’s a tangible asset.
So first, let’s talk about the speed of growth with real estate. And I think this is one of the biggest benefits of real estate because I hear so often from my women physician colleagues that they understand the basics of stock market investing, but that it takes so long, especially when they start plugging in numbers in a compound interest calculator.
And so if you want to reach financial freedom quicker, or at least get flexibility earlier, then you really should consider real estate because you can create freedom relatively quickly. So what does that mean, relatively quickly? You could do this within three to five years. I would say probably five years. That’s way, way less time than waiting decades for the stock market to pay off, right?
Next we have control. This is where some people get a little scared because in some ways, investing in index funds is kind of nice because it’s super hands-off, and it’s even more hands off if you just invest in a target fund. With real estate, it’s a bit more hands on, although there is a range over passive to active. But the more control that you have over real estate, the more benefits you will have and the more wealth you can grow quickly.
Familiarity, remember, most of you guys are already familiar with real estate investing way more than you think because you’ve been a tenant at some point as a renter or you’ve owned a home or maybe you’re living in that home that you own right now. So those experiences actually make up part of the knowledge of being a real estate investor. And the more types of homes, apartments, et cetera, that you’ve lived in, that gives you even more experience than you realize.
Finally, real estate is a tangible asset. You can see the property that you own. It’s real. And this is so different than investing in the stock market where you just see numbers on a screen and a bunch of letters and yeah, you know that you own 0.45 shares of a company. But what does that really mean? You can’t really see it. You definitely can’t touch it. And so for many people, the fact that you can actually see and touch your property can actually make you feel a lot more confident.
So let’s talk about how you actually make money by investing in real estate. And this is where I find a lot of people actually don’t understand how it makes you money. That’s partially because if you’re a homeowner, you only see one side of how real estate can make money, specifically appreciation. And that is one way to make money in real estate. But that’s sort of gambling, right? Because you’re kind of hoping that it will appreciate, and generally it does.
Obviously, every real estate market is different. For example, you know, my fiancé had a condo in Brooklyn, New York City. And so the appreciation in New York city is unreal. He was able to sell his condo at almost 400% more than what he actually paid for.
And that brings me to another topic, leverage. Because he didn’t actually pay the amount when he bought it. He bought it for, it was in the low one hundreds, let’s just say $150,000 for this example. He didn’t have to put in $150,000. He made a down payment of $15,000 and was able to sell it for way, way more. So that’s called leverage. Basically you’re making a down payment, you’re leveraging borrowed money to make more money.
This is kind of an out-there topic or concept because a lot of us think that debt is bad, right? Because in real estate you often take on debt to make money in real estate. And that’s a concept that many of us are not familiar with or we’re not comfortable with because we’ve been conditioned to think that debt is bad. We’ll talk about that in a later episode.
So cash flow is one of the ways you can make money with owning direct real estate. Basically, your tenants pay rent and the rent covers more than your mortgage and other expenses, so you’ve created a small amount of cash flow.
Now, a lot of people understand this concept and when you look at the actual numbers, you might think, “Well, gee, this is only cash flowing $500 a month or a thousand dollars a month. That’s not really going to move the needle for me.” But that’s just one aspect of how you make money in real estate. The real benefit, in my opinion, are the tax benefits.
And there are such numerous tax benefits that I sort of mentioned earlier. And so it’s really the tax benefits combined with all the other things, cash flow, possible appreciation, and leverage, that just grow your money at such a fast pace. Let me give you an example.
So I mentioned before that there’s something called real estate professional tax status. This is where you’re able to write your real estate losses, which are paper losses, meaning they’re not actually real, meaning you’re not losing money, but on paper you are losing money. That’s not making sense. Don’t worry about it now, it’s just something you do on your tax return, okay?
If you’re able to elect this tax status, real estate professional status, you are able to use these paper losses against your active income. What do I mean exactly? That means that if you are working as a physician or you have a business or some other sort of stream of income where you’d generally pay income taxes, right? Which most of us think is normal and that we all should pay taxes.
Well, if you have real estate professional status, you have the possibility of actually paying zero income taxes. Now, some of you might be thinking, “Well, that’s just not right. I mean, I should be paying income taxes.” Here’s the thing, the government will get its money. Instead of paying income taxes, you’re paying taxes through the real estate because when you own real estate, the real estate generates taxes for the government.
Think about it, property taxes. Do you have tenants living there? Property manager. All the things that go along with real estate investing generate taxes for the government. You’re still paying taxes; it’s just offloaded and basically, someone else is paying the taxes for you.
Think about that. You’ve got your cash flow, which is generally tax free anyway because you can write your paper losses against it. You’ve got leverage because you’re generally not paying the whole – Let’s say you bought a $300,000 property, you’re not putting in $300,000 to buy that property. Generally you’re paying a percentage of it, 25 to 30% let’s say, and the rest is loaned from the bank.
And then if you combine this with tax benefits, like real estate professional status, it can really supercharge how you create wealth. We’ll talk more about real estate professional status later because there are lots of nuances and most physicians initially will not qualify. However, it’s still worth it to invest in real estate because later you may qualify.
So I want to close out this overview of real estate episode by talking about the different types of real estate out there. Now, many of us just think of homes because you probably live in a single family home. That’s what we call it in real estate investing. That’s the most common type of real estate that people think of.
Well, let’s talk about all the other ways you can invest in real estate that you can actually own. It starts with just raw land, like you could just buy land that has nothing on it. Land is valuable or you can develop real estate on top of it. We already mentioned single family homes. This is the traditional home that you probably live in now. Then we have multi-family homes, basically it’s duplexes, triplexes, quads, et cetera.
Then we have our super large apartment complexes, which is where I live now. I’m renting right now. We have mobile homes, we have commercial real estate. We have self-storage, there is senior living. Just look around. You’ll start noticing all the different types of real estate that people live in. And those are all available as investments in the future.
You can think of real estate investing in two ways, equity and debt. And by understanding these two ways that you can invest in real estate, you’ll be a much more informed investor. Basically, you either own real estate to varying degrees or you’re lending money so that someone else can own the real estate.
So equity means that you are owning the property, at least to a varying degree, and we’ll talk about that a bit later. This can take on many different forms. For example, in direct ownership you actually own the property and then you rent it out. And this requires, I guess, the most work and you have the most control as well.
Another example is investing in syndications, crowdfunding, or real estate investment trusts, also known as REITs. This is the passive side of real estate investing. And when you do it in this way, you’re basically owning a share of real estate, kind of like how index funds are owning a share of a stock.
When you invest in real estate in this passive way, you basically get profit or grow money from the promised interest return, and then again when the share of the profit is sold. There are many similarities or correlations between real estate and the stock market.
Let’s talk about debt. If you’re familiar with how bonds work, then you can think of debt investing in real estate as something similar to that. This is where you’re lending money to another person or entity so that they can buy real estate. As an investor in debt, you will basically typically receive monthly interest or quarterly interest payments.
Now, these interest rates can actually be quite high, especially compared to bonds. And after a period of time, your capital is then returned. These interest rates can be as high as 10%. So the fact that the interest rate can be high and the fact that they’re relatively simple and relatively secure, because the debt is secured against an actual property, it can make debt investing actually quite powerful.
Now, I just want you to understand that the money you make from investing in real estate debt is often taxed or is taxed as ordinary income. Meaning that you’re going to pay your marginal tax rate on it. Now, you can invest inside of a tax advantage account inside a retirement account. Many of us think that you can only invest in stocks or index funds in retirement accounts, but you actually can invest in real estate, debt funds, syndications, et cetera, inside of a retirement account.
This special type of account is called a self-directed retirement account and they generally come in two flavors. You have self-directed IRAs, or individual retirement accounts, and you have self-directed 401ks. So if you choose to invest in things like real estate debt inside of it, then you’ll shelter your taxes.
Now let’s introduce the spectrum of passive to active real estate. I want you to think of two competing forces here. Passive means it’s relatively passive to you as an investor, which means it’s also the least amount of work on your part, the least amount of time. In return, you get the least amount of benefits and control.
And then on the far end of the spectrum, you have active real estate, which means the most work, the most involvement, the most control, and the most benefits, including amazing, amazing tax benefits that are afforded to real estate professional status.
Direct ownership, when you own the home directly, where you buy a rental property, this is the most active type of real estate investing. And this also comes with the most tax benefits because you really have control over real estate.
Now, for some of you that might scare you because you’re worried that you might make the wrong move or that you’ll make a mistake or you’ll have bad tenants, et cetera. I’m not going to sugar coat it, there are challenges and obstacles you will encounter when investing in direct ownership. But if you’re up to the challenge, you’ll also reap the amazing benefits as well.
I know many of you are interested in what we call passive real estate investing, but you still need to understand some basic terminology and do some education for yourself. The good news is all these terms are the same whether you do passive real estate investing or direct real estate investing. In fact, I’ll say starting with passive is a great way to transition to direct ownership.
Many real estate investors that I know own both passive and active real estate. Even within direct ownership, there are ways that make it easier and sort of more done for you as the investor.
So you may have heard the term turnkey real estate, and I think this means different things depending on who you’re talking to. But turnkey real estate, at least the form that I’m talking about, is where you still own the property, but someone manages a lot of the work for you. You have a little bit less control, it’s more hands-off, but you still own the property.
But if you want to get even more passive then let’s talk about syndications. What is a syndication? You may have heard that word a lot because that word is becoming more popular lately and there’s a reason why, because a law was passed not too long ago where syndications were allowed to “advertise” to the masses. Before that, they weren’t allowed to.
A syndication simply is where investors pool funds together to invest in various real estate projects. Think huge multi-million dollar projects that, on average, a single investor couldn’t do themselves. Many of you have heard about crowdfunding and real estate funds, and these are definitely the most passive types of real estate investing. And, like I said, because they are the most passive, they also have the least tax benefits.
Hopefully, I’ve made real estate a bit more accessible to you and also helped you realize that it’s not as hard as you think. And you’ve got to start somewhere, so why not start now?
This episode is sponsored by Zero to Freedom, the free video mini-course by Semi-Retired MD. Semi-Retired MD are doctors Letizia Alto and Kenji Asakura. They are the physicians who have achieved financial freedom by investing in direct real estate. In this free video series, you will learn what you actually need to know to successfully invest in direct real estate. Go to wealthymommd.com/semiretiredmd to join their free video mini-course.
So let’s talk a bit more about the types of passive real estate investing. Specifically, I’m going to talk about crowdfunding, syndications, and REITs. I think earlier I said my first foray into real estate was through syndications, but it’s actually through REITs and that’s because if you own an index fund, chances are, you also own a REIT because they’re usually folded inside some of the popular index funds, like VTSAX by Vanguard.
This is where a trust purchases property and rents the space, and then the income that’s generated from the rental is returned to the shareholders. So if you are already familiar with how to buy index funds inside of your brokerage account or your retirement account, then while an REIT is very similar and it’s super easy in that sense, you can buy an actual fund of REITs or usually it’s folded in already inside of some of the larger popular index funds. So you can buy these through Vanguard, Fidelity, et cetera.
Now let’s talk about crowdfunding. Many of us are familiar with this concept because we’ve all heard of things like Kickstarter and so you kind of have an idea of how crowdfunding real estate works. Crowdfunding real estate is fairly new, at least in a formal capacity. However, investors have been pooling funds for centuries.
Crowdfunding is popular now because of the new-ish online platforms that have streamlined the crowdfunding process. In this way, you can bypass the parts of active real estate, meaning working with the agents and brokers and contractors, and just go to a crowdfunding real estate website to invest in a variety of real estate projects. You still want to do your due diligence, however, meaning you need to understand the terms and how to read if it’s a good deal or not. And real estate crowdfunding can involve either debt or equity deals.
So let’s talk about syndications. Syndications are somewhat similar to crowdfunding, but they are a little different. The same in that they both require pooling together funds from multiple investors. So basically, you’re pooling money together to purchase a much larger real estate or project that you normally couldn’t invest on your own. Think multi-million dollar deals. Think high-rise apartment buildings, assisted living, self-storage centers, et cetera.
When you pool the money together, the expenses are shared and the risk is split. Oftentimes crowdfunding and syndications are used interchangeably, but they’re not exactly the same thing. I think the best way to think about the differences is that crowdfunding is focused more on obtaining large amounts of investors, hence that’s why it’s an online platform. You rarely talk to anyone high up in the company. You usually talk to a low-level analyst. When I think syndications, I think of sort of a smaller type of shop where it’s focused more on the relationships.
So that concludes our two part series on giving you an overview of real estate.
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