228: Pivoting with Purpose: Aligning Your Money and Life Goals

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 episode should be coming out January 16th. And did you know that most people have already given up on their New Year's resolutions? I don't want that to be you. The year is so young and I know it's just early January or mid-January anyway, and you still have the rest of the year and so easy to let another year go by without making the meaningful changes that I know you want to make.

Also, it is not too late to attend one of my live classes, Design Your Wealthy Life. Again, this is coming out on January 16th, this episode, and I'll be going live again on Saturday, January 18th at 11 a.m. Eastern. And so you want to save your spot right now, go to my website, wealthymommd.com, and you will see a banner up top where you can save your spot for Saturday. And so I really encourage you to come if you haven't signed up already, because it is all about designing the life that you really want and how to align your money goals because money is not the end goal. It's a means to an end. It is a tool, a very powerful tool.

So what I want to talk about today actually is a bit more of an insider behind the scenes episode of what's going on in the business. I alluded on one of the episodes at the end of the year that I'll be making some big changes in my business. So that's what I want to talk about today.

So before I go into what the specific changes are, what I realized is this is such a beautiful example of how life changes, how people evolve, how businesses evolve, and how you can change your mind. You are never stuck to one thing, one career, and even what you're doing in your career. You could still be a doctor, but maybe change focuses, maybe start your own practice or go into pharma or whatever. There's so many choices available to you. I want to make sure you never forget that you do have choices and that it's normal to evolve.

What I found with a lot of physicians is that we think we should just stick to medicine and have the same job for the rest of our lives.

And that paradigm, and this is for everyone, whether you're a physician or not, that paradigm is simply outdated. So aside from attending my live webinar, it's actually not too late to attend our upcoming conference, the live wealthy money and wellness conference for female physicians. It's taking place February 20 to 23, 2025. So in a month in beautiful Hawaii at the Four Seasons, Oahu.

So I may have mentioned before, but this is the last time I'm doing this conference. I guess technically I shouldn't say last, but we're definitely not doing one in 2026. And as far as I know, with the way my business is going, it's probably not something we're going to do anytime soon.

A lot of people have expressed, "Oh no, how come?" Quite simply, two things, a conference requires a lot of work. I think you can probably appreciate how much work it takes to plan one, to curate it, organize all the things. It's like a three-day wedding, but a lot more work. And quite frankly, it loses money for the business. And I have to pay myself, I have to pay my employees, well, my contractors, I should say, and simply it is costing the business way too much money.

So from a financial perspective, it was – I am not saying this for you to feel sorry for me, but financially, it does not make sense for us to do one. I would have to charge a lot more money, which obviously I could do, but at this time, we've decided it is not a good use of company resources money-wise and time-wise. So that's the current decision anyway.

Plus, I have so many ideas for smaller intimate retreats, although the conference is pretty intimate size-wise. And so stay tuned for that. I'm thinking of doing something at Miraval this fall. I really want to do a Paris retreat. I already have the whole itinerary plan. It's just about choosing a date and making it happen and obviously making it available for some of you to join me.

So after teaching pretty much strictly money for since my business started, that's kind of how my business started as educating female physicians around money because I really saw the gap in education and just resources available. And also, it's so important to learn money and I've really enjoyed doing that. But again, as I said before, I've changed as I've learned and through my personal growth, sort of my desires about what I want to teach. And really, I don't even think of it as a major change in terms of what my business is going to be providing, but more of an evolution and my understanding of money is that, yes, it is so important to understand money, but I have seen too much of a disconnect between money and life goals.

And what I mean by that, and this is why that workshop is called Design Your Wealthy Life, because ultimately, when people ask me questions like, I don't know what to invest in, I don't know where to start. That question mainly tells me that you probably haven't really thought about what you want your life to actually look like.

And I have found, and I found this for myself, is we kind of stopped asking ourselves like not so much what do I want to be when I grow up, although truthfully, I still ask myself that question assuming I still have many years ahead of me, although I'm about halfway through I guess technically. But I don't believe that I should even be doing this for the rest of my life, right?

And so what are the areas of my life that are important to me? I know you all have areas of life that are important to you and that you would love to make some changes in. And it is so easy to not do something about it. It's so easy to neglect it to – I don't mean neglecting as if you're willfully doing that, but we're busy, busy physicians, busy taking care of our families.

If you have young kids, you're maxed out mentally, right? And it's so easy for things to kind of fall through their cracks. This could be your spouse, your boyfriend. This could be your health, right? And even parenting, right? Especially if you're working so much and you can barely see your kids. Like all these things are competing for your attention. They take up a lot of bandwidth and things will not change unless you purposefully put time and attention into it.

And again, I know how easy it is for another year to go by for even five or even 10 years to go by, and you're wondering what happened. This is not exactly what I want my life to look like.

And so if you're in this camp, first I want to say you are not alone. This is so common. It still happens to me because it's easy for me to kind of go autopilot in one direction and then realizing, you know, this area, well, it is parenting. It's my child, Jack. I actually really want to do this. And a lot of times I have to literally remind myself like, Hey, this is something I want to do. And this is a great example because just because you "forget" or don't spend time on it, it doesn't mean it's not important to you. It's just that we really have to live our life intentionally.

So I'm saying all this because I saw this for myself, I saw this with my clients, and so I actually have retired my main program, Money for Women Physicians. This was not a decision that I took lightly, but I really took time to think thoughtfully about what direction I want to go in and what I thought would be really valuable to the people that I work with. And what I decided is that I really think it's important to marry the two things together. Although, obviously, you can do a separate program on money, you can do a separate program on life, but the way I like to approach things is obviously, it's sort of my framework, if you will.

And so, I basically decided to combine the two, meaning the money part and also the life part. And what I mean by the life part, because that's such a big general topic obviously, is like, you know, I created this life wheel. Now, I didn't create it, life wheels exist, but I chose six specific areas. And then, so think of a wheel and think of the spokes and there's six spokes and money's at the center of it. It's not the only fuel to make those areas better, but money definitely is involved. Obviously there are things that aren't money related involved, But again, money is a fuel. It is a very important tool to help those areas of life thrive.

And so those six areas are career. Number two is family, and that includes your spouse, that includes your kids. Number three is relationships. So this is everything aside from that. So this could be relationships with people at work, your friends.

A lot of us have different communities like maybe your school community, maybe your local community. So that's number three. Number four is basically I call fun and that's kind of a catch all. So for hobbies, for you know, that could be travel, right? Things in that category.

Number five is health. I prefer the word vitality, and this is – When I say broad, it's mental health, it's physical health, right? It's not just health in the way we think of it as just physical fitness. So that's number five.

Number six, I called self. And this basically is your inner world, your inner voice. Most of us have a pretty inner critical, not so nice voice. It's about personal growth. It's really about yourself because so many of us neglect that, right? Like you are the person living your life. Let's not forget about you.

So common as a female physician mom to basically kind of stop taking care of yourself because you're so busy taking care of your patients and your family, kids, and maybe also aging parents. It's a lot, okay?

And so I've designed a program to work on both areas intentionally. When I say both, I mean life and money. So I'm really excited to let you all know that this program is going to be six months. It's called the Happy and Rich Club for Women Physicians or Happy and Rich for short. I love that name because it really encompasses what I want all of you to take away from it and that really focuses you on its life and its money.

And so it's going to be six months. It's going to be a relatively small, intimate group. We're all going to get to know each other and there will be an optional add-on to meet in person. And so to learn more about that program, you'll want to go to my website and you'll see the link to learn more about it and to either enroll or schedule a short call with me to see if it's a great fit for you.

So I'm really excited about this new program I'm doing. I'm really excited to get to know a small group of women really well to really work on those areas. Something else I'm also working on, this is something that's going to come out a little bit later, probably more like April ish is a business program for female physicians.

I had mentioned it before, but I wasn't quite ready to start it. I wanted to think a bit more about what I want to teach, how long all these logistics you have to think about when you're creating a new program. And so that's going to launch later in the spring. And that's kind of what it sounds like. It is a program for female physicians who are starting businesses. It's really geared for people in the beginning stages, but you don't have to be a beginner. Meaning like if you're making well over $100K as a coach, it is still for you because it's basically, I haven't figured out quite the name, but I really think of it as like a mini MBA.

And what I mean by that is I'm going to teach you literally everything you need to know to run your business because there's the marketing and selling and we are going to cover that by the way, but there's all the other things like what email program do you need? Should you be emailing your list frequently at least once a week? What do you say? How do you set that up? How do you set it up so that you're getting people into the right segments, you know? What's a funnel? How do you set it up? How do people work with me? What portal should I use? How do I hire my first assistant? What are SOP, standard operating procedures? How do I train a new person? How do I actually run the business? And how do I look at my business finances, right?

Business finances is a different topic than personal finances. Obviously, they're all related. So there will be some personal finance stuff sprinkled in just because, you know, a business is creating money for your personal finances as well. So it's really going to cover everything and you can come with me with for any questions you want. I love talking business. If any of you have interacted with me and we've talked about your business, you know that this is a topic that's near and dear to my heart. Whenever I talk to someone who has a business idea, like I just have so many ideas for you and I obviously have a lot of knowledge about what our best practices and so I'm really excited to share this with a small group of women as well. So stay tuned for that. So basically what's changing is I'm retiring my main money program.

I am starting this new six month, I guess you could call it a mastermind, the Happy and Rich Club, and I'll be starting a business program. It's probably going to be called Business for Women Physicians. I haven't quite decided if it'll be a four or six month thing because there is a lot of material I want to cover in addition to all the mindset coaching that's required around business. So that probably really should be a six-month program as well.

And then I'll be doing smaller retreats. Some will be related to those two programs I mentioned, but there also will be standalone retreats and some will just be fun like the Paris one. They'll be sort of we can really work on and talk about anything that you want to talk about in your life, money or life-wise, and to be in beautiful Paris. I know, the more I talk about it, I'm like, I really need to get this planned. This will probably, in my mind, is really more of a spring 2026 type thing, but this fall, I definitely want to do some kind of retreat.

It will probably be at Miraval, Austin. I think it's really central, easy to get to from both sides of the country. And I've been there many times. I know they can do a great job with accommodating us. And obviously if you have not been to Miraval, it is amazing. It's a high-end luxury, all-inclusive spa resort. And so all of your foods included, including snacks, alcohol is extra, but it's very reasonably priced. A bunch of activities. You get a credit every day to use their spa. Some of the activities are paid. There's a lot of free ones as well and just an amazing place to take care of yourself and relax and be away from the family. Kids are not allowed. It's adults only.

So I think it's a wonderful opportunity to really practice some amazing self-care. You will definitely not regret it. So I will let you know when we have dates for that. It'll probably be in the fall, October, November-ish type situation. So that's what's going on in my business and the reason why – Well, I want to share it with you to share and also just to give you permission to pivot and make changes.

I see a lot of women besides being afraid of change because change is always kind of scary. I think a lot of us feel that we should just be sticking to what we're already doing and that maybe changing is selfish or maybe it's weird, it's not normal. And I just want to give you permission to do that. If, you know, maybe you've been in clinical medicine for 20 years and you're like, you know, I think I'm ready to do something else, like do it. It's normal. You should do it. Life is too short. Our life is finite, but also it's long in many ways, right? Like we're going to live into well into our 80s or 90s. Like it doesn't make sense to do the same thing for the rest of your life. You know what I mean?

So not saying that if you love what you do and you could see it doing "forever", I'm not saying that's wrong. I'm just saying that if you have the desire or you're feeling some kind of pull to maybe pivot, by all means, do so. You have permission to do that. I am giving you your permission slip to do that.

And so if either of these programs sound great for you, reach out and let me know that you're interested, especially if you're a business person. I don't think it's set up on my website. We'll have some kind of thing you can fill out to let us know that you're interested in hearing about our business program when it comes out. And so I don't know if that will be set up by the time this episode comes out. So if it's not, just reach out to me and tell me you're interested and we'll make sure that you get on the list to learn more about it.

And actually, it will be set up. I'm deciding right now that we're going to have that set up because I want to start having a conversation about business and I'll send you sort of a separate business email here and there to just give you some tips until we actually start that program.

So just want to thank you if you've been following me from the beginning or even just the past year, just want to thank you for being here and listening to my podcast. I really appreciate you and I'm just so grateful. I'll talk to you next week.

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