Episode Transcript
Pablo: Welcome everybody to the historic first ever live version of Finance For Physicians. I'm a guest host today helping Daniel out. He's gonna come on in a second, but just to let you all know, we are kicking this thing off. Daniel wanted to turn this podcast audience into a community and allow you to meet each other, gain from each other's experiences, meet the folks that you would like to meet, to talk about the things that you wanna talk about.
That's gonna help you be a better physician, avoid burnout, achieve financial independence, all the great things I'm honored to be here. My name is Pablo Gonzalez, and our host of Finance For Physicians, the guy that you already know, the founder of Wrenne Financial, old college buddy of mine.
Daniel Wrenne. Say hey, Daniel.
Daniel: Hello? Hello? Yes, Pablo and I go way back and Pablo has not given himself quite enough credit. He is the man when it comes to building a community. So we're in good company right now.
Pablo: I appreciate that, man. I appreciate that. And yeah, full disclosure, I've been hired to execute this project and make this thing work and I'm super pumped to be a part of it.
I got to meet a lot of you in kind of our early activation. We're gonna talk about what we learned from that in a second and what we're doing with the community piece. But first we're gonna take a little look back of this experience that you've had, Daniel. I know that you've had some good times and some bad times and a lot of good times to come, but I would love to, you know, start with, take us back to you wanting to start this podcast and what you thought that you were gonna get from it.
And then maybe we can dive into some of the highlights.
Daniel: Yeah. So, I guess it's been two years or a year and a half. I don't know since I started it and really the original intent was to provide more of a educational resource, kind of a one to many, affect larger groups of you guys. And our business is one to one.
So as planners, we get a lot of one on one time. And so I realized there was a lot of opportunity for that more broad education. So that was the original intent was like, let's get some education out there that's quality stuff for physicians and just see how it goes.
And here it's been a hundred episodes and here we are today, it's changed a little bit over time, too.
Pablo: I can't underestimate the epicness of doing a hundred podcast episodes. Right. As a podcaster myself, it's a journey, man. And I wanna really dive into it with you.
But first I wanna acknowledge the folks that have showed up. Right? You took a little bit of your time today, right? We don't take your time for granted. So, I wanna say hi to folks that are in the audience. Anna, Andrew, Gina, Jen, Leslie, Laurie, Matthew, and Ricky. It is great that you're here. We wanna turn this live version of this thing, right, today is just
me and Daniel chattering away, but soon it's gonna be Daniel and someone much more interesting than me in the upcoming months that you're gonna wanna participate with. So I just want to get it started with, introduce yourself in the chat, change the chat element from host and panels
so you're only talking to us, to everyone so everybody sees you and you're gonna notice that similar folks are gonna keep showing up and you're gonna start forging relationships here on this chat room. And second is if you have questions, if you want to add to the conversation, pop open that Q&A box and add it to the equation.
If you have any questions for Daniel, we can just go right into it. If you have anything that you wanna know, we, especially today, would love to hear feedback on the backwards facing stuff and the forwards facing stuff and what you wanna see more. My team is gonna download all this and bring you everything that you're looking for.
So please make use of your time here and just really get the most out of this by telling us what you want so we can go get it for you. So hundred podcasts in, Daniel. I'm super impressed by the fact that you're not just a hundred podcast in, but a lot of these were solo episodes. A lot of these were you showing up and essentially delivering a keynote speech, a little bit of a story that stuff takes a ton of preparation.
And then you had other ones that were interviews and you were, you were talking to other experts. You wanna tell me in your interviews and in moments of the show, let's talk about a couple of your favorite moments and lessons learned.
Daniel: Yeah, there were some really good times.
It was challenging, especially solo shows like you were talking about, but some of my favorite shows were actually some of the earlier shows. I think what I have learned is I enjoyed most talking to people, interesting people or experts and that sort of thing especially, that are interesting.
And so there were a few of the earlier episodes, I think back to some of my favorites were the one on perfectionism and kind of how that intertwines into your finances. And then there was another one on vulnerability. and Coming clean on like mental health challenges because I think those are huge
issues or challenges, especially in the practice of medicine that you're dealing with, perfectionism and working on your mental health. And these guys are like veteran physicians I'm talking to that know their stuff. So one of them was a psychiatrist for physicians. The other one was a very experienced physician who had hidden his bipolar for years and years. And finally, the way he described it was, came outta the closet with his bipolar and talking about their story and how before and after, and the impact it's had on their life. Especially the one about, his name was Dr. John Budin was the guy that had struggled with hiding his bipolar. His story was amazing. Him just talking through how that affected his career and the pressure to like, keep that in. And then when he actually came clean on it and how it all worked out, that was an awesome conversation.
It was one of those, it's like just any really good conversations with a friend, like you're just into it. And it's almost like you forget you're doing like a podcast or whatever. Those were both great. I had a bunch of good like interview podcasts that I really love some with a few of our good friends and clients.
The Browns talked about breaking away from primary care and their struggles with starting you know, starting to feel the burnout tinge. Those are all great episodes that come to mind. There's a bunch of 'em I can keep going and going but I think my favorites tended to be those conversational podcasts.
It was just a lot more enjoyable. And I think the takeaways were a lot more concrete. Plus I get to talk about finance all day long and I'm like, you know, this is an opportunity to really dig in with someone else.
Pablo: Yeah man. That, I wanna dive a little bit deeper into those, but a couple things that you mentioned, right.
This idea that podcast turn into these fascinating conversations, right? We told this to some of your community that was so kind enough to get on with our team to kind of find out a little bit more about them, that we are gonna open up the breadth of this show
to go a little bit beyond finance. So that, to the things that we've figured out that are useful such as these discoveries that you made with like perfectionism and mental health and burnout is a really big theme. What really hit me when I was in your office is just how well, you know, physicians, right?
So from that angle, I'm curious, the perfectionism thing. That to me seems very normal to think that a physician struggles with perfectionism 'cause the job demands it, right? What was the downside of perfectionism when it comes to being a physician that you either learned on that show or things that you've seen?
Daniel: Yeah. So it's kinda like you said, it demands the culture of me medicine must be perfect as much, at least as close as possible to perfection. And then the academic requirements on top of it, it's like you have the overachievers that have done really well in life.
And so, it's a tough thing to balance because on the one hand it's like really positive. And it is, I mean, like if I think about going to a physician, I'm like, well, they better be perfect. So, what I learned from that episode and that conversation and helped realize is when you start to apply it to real life.
This was with Dr. Michael Myers and he described like going home to your family sometimes it's, that's where it kind of, the rubber meets the road with perfectionism. It's like, as physicians, you get trained to be near perfect in your profession, but when you get home, it's like your family,
all they want you to be, to be is like imperfect. So, you know, you can't be perfect and be like a dad and all that. It's just a tough, tough balance. So it's like this back and forth with work, demanding perfection, and then home life. It's like, well, I have to be imperfect, so that's the struggle.
And he painted the perfect picture of that.
Pablo: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. This idea of when is enough, enough on that side of things, right? I feel like people that are so passionate about their career, so passionate about their missions, it's hard to turn that thing off.
Right. And you gotta be able to do it to find balance, which I know is within your core values, right? This idea of balance and teamwork and stuff like that. We gotta, we got a Q&A from Ricky Racela already. So I wanna encourage the Q&A. First of all, let us know in the chat,
what is your, I'm assuming that folks here have listened to the podcast before, I would love to hear kind of what your favorite episode was, if you have one, let us know in the chat would love to hear that. And we'll call it out, too. But Ricky has a question here. He says, Hey, Daniel, well done, man.
Episode 100! Have you seen your efforts and that of WCI, who I assume is white code code investor, POF,
Daniel: Physician On Fire.
Pablo: Okay, cool. I'm learning these acronyms myself, et cetera, have resulted in more financially literate doctors and less being screwed by Northwestern Mutual?
Or do you find that your new clients, or when you talk to new docs, they're still quite financially illiterate now similar to previous years, what do you think about that, Dan?
Daniel: No, it's gotten a million times better. Which is good news. When I started the business, so I started this business working one on one with physicians in this capacity in 2014.
And back then it was like challenging because literacy was very low. So people didn't even realize that they were getting taken advantage of by like what Ricky is mentioning, getting taken advantage by other advisors. So people didn't even realize it. And so there was this challenge there it's like, well, how do we even open people's eyes to that?
And so what I have found is, through those vehicles you mentioned, and, you know, I think in a lot of the work we're doing is there's a much higher financial literacy, especially from people that are a part of those groups, which is, it makes our work better. A lot of people think, well, people that are financially literate don't need to work one on one with financial planners, but that's not been my experience,
it's actually the reverse. Some of the people that work best with us, it's like, we're more productive when people have that financial literacy. So my experience has been that it's much better. There's still like a ton of work to be done. And we still experience a ton of, you know, interactions with people that were like, man, you gotta get to that baseline level, but it's getting a ton better. Thanks Rick, for the props on the a hundred episodes too, by the way.
Pablo: Yeah, that's cool, man. That's really cool. Good, good question. Ricky, keep him coming. We'd love to keep you a part of the conversation since you had made time to be here.
Daniel: Ricky sent me some really good feedback in the early days about episodes to cover. I tried my best to cover some of those, I also was getting feedback from some people they're like, don't go so technical . So Ricky had given me some of them were more technical topics. So I appreciate that by the way, Ricky.
Pablo: Yeah, listen, we were gonna save this whole like avenues of feedback, but since we're hitting it, let's be flexible here. Let's talk about that feedback, right? So Ricky's sending you feedback. Is he sending you an email? Is he hitting you on social? Where are you getting those sources from and give people some ideas of how to give you feedback outside of this one right now?
Daniel: I think Ricky sent me an email. Ricky, tell me if I'm wrong. I'm going off memory here and it was a while ago, but I'm pretty sure he sent me an email. And that's probably the most common avenue we have. We get hit on social media for stuff for comments and feedback and that kind of thing, too.
But I believe Ricky was an email also on iTunes people will leave or sprinkle feedback in their reviews. So those are all great avenues, but it seems like email is, yes, email. He has confirmed my memory serves me well.
Pablo: You're watching the chat. Good man. Good man. I just wanna encourage you if you're listening to this on a podcast and you're like, what the heck's going on, we're doing this live show in order to encourage feedback, right?
So if you can go to iTunes and leave some feedback, there that'd be great. If not, go to financeforphysicians.co and sign up so that you can come to the next live one and be a part of this conversation. We're gonna do this once a month on the third Tuesdays at three o'clock Eastern, we're gonna continue doing this so that we can build this community so we can make this even more efficient.
And then weekly, we're gonna still be releasing podcast as well. So that's not going anywhere. We're just opening up more avenues for feedback, 'cause we love this stuff and want to create the community. So let's go back to some of your lessons learned. So, that podcast about the mental health, right?
The guy that was, he was bipolar as a physician, right?
Daniel: Yep.
Pablo: When you brought me in to talk to some of your community, this idea of mental health being a big thing, and also this under layer of, as a doctor, it's kind of scary to tell people that you have a mental illness, that you're having a bad mental health day, whatever,
'cause people expect these things from their doctors, they expect them to be like infallible. Tell me a little bit more about kind of the courage of this doctor approaching that, being honest about it and what he learned.
Daniel: Yeah, one of the things I remember specifically, he said that you mentioned the word infallible and that had stuck in my head as one of the specific words he said they put a, or we put a premium on physicians being infallible and being uber confident.
And that's, you know, ultimately that's not possible to be like we were talking about earlier infallible and that's the, you know, ultimately the physicians paying the price and it, you know, there's this pressure to keep all these things in the closet, like you was saying, and that's just not good for your health, which we all know.
You know, he had the courage. To come clean and he's telling his story about it, which is even more respectable because people get to see that and I'm like, oh, okay. It's okay to do that. And, and so yeah, that was such a good example of that vulnerability and coming clean and then just being
aware of your mental health. It's almost like when you're not coming clean on that, it's just difficult to be vulnerable. When you have that hidden with people and he described that a lot in his work with patients, he was always thinking about that. He's like, I'm hiding this thing. How is that affecting my care?
Pablo: When you learned that, did that i lluminate anything for you, right? Since you are an advisor to physicians, did that help you kind of understand this idea that maybe they struggle asking for help even more, obviously your community self-selects for being able to ask for help 'cause they're hiring a financial advisor to give them some advice.
Yeah. But did that kind of help you understand a little bit more the psyche or help you do your job in any way better? Did you take anything away from that for your operation?
Daniel: Yeah, I think it helps us connect more with probably more people that we're not working with because I sense that there's just this resistance to kind of like give in to help early on when we start working with people or when we're even just talking to people that are like considering help.
We have calls regularly with people. They'll kind of be like, why should I hire you? You know? And it's like, 'cause we don't reach out to people. They schedule with us and we're like, well, I don't know what you, you're the one that's scheduled the conversation. So there's this tension about getting help and discomfort
and at least we've noticed in early stages and you know, it's okay. I mean, it is what it is. And I get it. I mean, so we, so knowing all this has helped us to kind of be more understanding of that and respect that and because that's just a part of not that it's obviously something you wanna work on, but it's just a part of the training and the upbringing in a lot of cases.
Pablo: Totally. So if you're listening to this, it's okay that you felt that shame, if you haven't asked for help, ask for help. You're not alone essentially. Right? That's the whole community thing that we're trying to prove here. So you can kind of get over these pitfalls that we all tend to do to ourselves.
Daniel: And I also thought of you know, as just thinking about those conversations, I'm just curious in some of the work we've done and digging into some of the challenges you guys face is like, what is the connection of, for example, I've already talked about perfectionism and mental health
and burnout, are those things interconnected? And finances, I think they're definitely all interconnected, but like how are they interconnected? And, you know, looking at those things, I think can shed a little bit of light and help. So The burnout obviously is a big issue, like helping to kind of start to navigate that.
Pablo: What your theory on that, Daniel? What's your theory on how that all interconnects?
Daniel: Yeah I think, well of course we get to work with people one on one, I think finances are far and away the best tool at your disposal to navigate it because a lot of the problems with burnout are out of your control.
Not all of 'em, but like the system of medicine is very, I don't know how to say it. It is causing a lot of this burnout. The system is driving people towards burnout. And so when you don't, and it's hard to control a lot of this stuff, the system, you can't change a big, huge system very easily, at least, unless you're like, you know, I guess you can work towards that, but it's difficult.
But one thing you can do is when you have your finances in order, It gives you lots of options to navigate and make changes. You know, imagine if you have plenty of finances, plenty of wealth, you can go create new ways of doing things or create a new system and help or even on a smaller scale change jobs, or start up your own business.
So I think the best Or buy help you can pay for help. You can go pay to have a coach to help talk you through it or it or indirectly pay for time away from work to go have a sweet vacation. 'Cause vacations are the best burnout cure. I mean, if you work all the time, it's gonna fry you up.
That's how humans are. And so you have to have money to go take a vacation.
Pablo: Yeah. Yeah, man.
I love how you put that, right? 'Cause going back to the handful of interviews I had the privilege to do and it kept coming up, this idea that being in control of your finances is a way to stave off burnout for exactly the things that you're saying, right.
We like to say money provides you options. But if you don't feel like you have those options, if you're on this hamster wheel of, I need to make more in order to preserve these options. Whereas it feels like the work that you and your team are doing, is this idea of having them be very aware of their options.
Therefore, the options become real. And now this idea of taking time off for a vacation or putting down for the home that they want, that isn't gonna then take away from their vacation or even just knowing that you don't have to work an extra three shifts this next month, 'cause it's not gonna really make a big difference on your down payment versus your mortgage.
Those are the conversations that came up that, like it's pretty clear that not knowing that stuff is really stress-inducing right? It's gotta add to the burnout.
Daniel: Yeah. I mean, we have worked with many families that go through major shifts to kind of like navigate.
Not everybody has major shifts, but navigating away from a burnout situation. Or maybe we're not calling it burnout, it's like a crappy job setup or whatever. It's, you know, almost always intertwined with finances, taking a lower paying job. We've had many people do that. That's a big deal and you have to have, it's also an intimidating decision.
It's like, what do you mean? I can't take a lower paying job. That's crazy. But I mean, to me, you can't put a price on that. You spend a lot of time in your work.
Pablo: Yeah. Correct. The quality of life based on, can they buy your soul? Makes a lot of sense, man. We got a couple of great questions already in the Q&A, I love the Q&A. We're gonna keep hitting it. The more that you do it so that we're encouraging more folks to join us lives so that we keep the conversation going exactly how you want Lori Huff.
Lori, thank you so much for participating.
Daniel: Hello, Lori.
Pablo: Yeah, she says it seems as though real estate is a huge topic in the physician finance world these days, you've touched on this in podcast before, I'd love to hear more discussion slash podcasts with physician landlords. Do you have any of these coming up specifically?
I'm interested in short term rental investment property owners that are physicians and the tax benefits of that as well. Thanks again for all you and your team does, congrats on a hundred episodes.
Daniel: Yes, we completely, that's on the docket real estate in general and it's a huge deal. And we have people, lots of people that are in it.
It's crazy how many people are interested in it and even in it I think the challenge has been like finding the people that are doing it right. And. There's a lot of halfway, you know, like I got one property I'm kind of not, I don't have a plan. I'm kind of just rolling with flow, see how this thing works out.
So our goal is to find somebody that's doing it right? Running it like a business and doing the right things and there's plenty of those people. Pablo knows a bunch of real estate people too, but I know of multiple people that are physicians doing it right. And we'll definitely have those on, we're gonna have like a real estate focused kind of series in the future.
And we'll definitely cover short term rentals. And then the taxes, like you said, that's a complete topic in itself and that's you know, we got tax people too for that.
Pablo: Yeah. Lori, little teaser for you. We organize this thing as these lanes of content that we're gonna deliver to you, we're gonna review all of them in the second half of this show right now. So real estate is definitely a domino piece right in the middle of all of that. So we're totally gonna talk about that stuff. And just quick follow up on that, Daniel from the physicians that you see doing this thing, right,
do you see, is there a mix of activeness versus passiveness or one type of real estate versus the other that you're seeing being particularly successful? Or are you kind of seeing the different people doing different ways based on their lifestyle succeed for them?
Daniel: No, I think there's a variety. There's people doing like the big CRO, the broad categories, I would think of as like long term rentals, short term rentals, and then like, syndications, I guess there'd be flips too, but there's not, we don't have as many people doing that 'cause t hat gets pretty active. So yeah, I mean we see a broad scope of those three biggies and you know, lot of people are trying it out, which is good. And we encourage trying it out. A lot of people are still figuring it out. But seems like 1 outta 10 people we work with really amps that up and accelerates it and, and becomes kind of like a, what I would call, turning it into a full business and they're very active.
And I think you have to be really active in it to make it an efficient business. If you've heard my podcast about real estate, I kind of like gripe about the word "passive income" 'cause I think that's misleading because it's not passive and if you go in thinking it's passive, you're going to have a rude awakening eventually and/or it's gonna be inefficient.
So I would rather reframe it from the view of it's a side business that you're doing. In a side business, you wanna be active in it because your efforts you put into it is gonna make it more productive. So my experience has been that the people are the most active, have had the most successful businesses in real estate and really in any business.
Pablo: Great take man. That's super illuminating. All right, Matthew Smith's got another great question. Matthew, happy to have you here, man
Daniel: What's up, Matt? I know Matt.
Pablo: It's Matt. All right. I feel like everybody knows that Matt Smith. So I dunno if it's the Matt, right?
Daniel: This is the Matt Smith.
Pablo: This is the Matt Smith? Good to know. Matt says with this being the hundredth episode, maybe it would be fun slash interesting to share what you think was one of the worst financial decisions you have seen a physician make. And then what has been some of the best success stories in helping someone?
Daniel: I don't think physicians ever make bad decisions.
I'm just kidding. I'm I'm gonna talk broadly. I think the biggest mistakes tend to revolve around all the decisions that are made around, starting in practice usually, and particularly the house decision. So I've seen the most royal mistakes around that house decision, particularly when transitioning into practice, 'cause it's like massive decisions all at once.
I'm sure to get just kind of caught up in it all and just start rolling with it and taking realtor recommendations and mortgage brokers are telling you you can afford this and whatever. And so it seems like that's probably the most common costly, at least mistake because that's also a sneaky mistake,
Your buddies don't even know it 'cause you got a sweet house and you're like having 'em over and they're like, this is a pretty nice place you must be doing well. And it's like, you don't really realize on the surface that, could be the cause of you having to be stuck in a job that you hate, you know, going back to the burnout thing.
So that's probably the most common mistake is revolving around those transitionary periods. Particularly the house as far as success stories, my favorite success stories of all, no question are when people are like, screw it. I'm out, like on a situation that's, that's problematic. So the job situation we've had a lot of clients lately that are just fried at their work.
And some of my favorites are scenarios where, and we've had multiple people do this, scenarios where they're like draw a hard line or I'm out to their job. And so they, you know, maybe they take a lower paying job somewhere else and and they're doing it for the right reasons. They're not doing it for the money.
Pablo: Man that's gotta be really cool, right? The whole, like, no, no, no, I'm on my own terms. Drawing your own line, drawing your own boundaries. It's gotta be super rewarding and being the person that enables that has gotta be awesome. What is the common thread with those that are able to draw that line and call their shot when they're fed up and say enough is enough, like naming your own price before you get to it, it's kind of how I see it?
Daniel: Yeah, I think being aware of what your options are. I think we kind of implied this earlier knowing that you're gonna be okay, even if you take a lower paying job. I remember when I left my position and started this business and I had just had my first kid and bought a house and everything So going from steady income to no income, didn't pay myself the first year
and it was very stressful at times, but what allowed me to do it is I had the finances in my head worked out to where I knew things would be okay, at a baseline level. So I think most people need, that's kind of like baseline necessity level, need to understand that they're gonna be okay at a baseline level.
And for me in that situation, it was like, once I have that, I'm like all over it. And I'm like making moves fast because I know I can still live a modest lifestyle and get away from this thing that's not great. So it seems like that's, that's the common thread is like, if we can get the plan, basically, like if we can get a good plan together, that's always the foundation now from there, there's a lot to it.
I mean, it takes a lot of courage to go in there and do that kind of thing. Sometimes that's a challenge for people, but once they know they have options, it's a big start
Pablo: Yeah, that
makes a lot of sense, man. I'm trying to think of last time that I did that it was 'cause I had money in the bank and I knew that I could survive for for a year in order to like build this business and and do what I have to do.
So what I'm hearing from you is basically just like knowing that your bases are covered. And then being able to just say, okay, well I can play for this upside because my baseline is covered and I know when enough is enough that I gotta go back to this other thing.
Yeah. And I think also the view of money is helpful.
How do you view money? Do you view money as like a tool or the end goal? A lot of times people, the pull on all of us is to like, kind of get caught up in money and like, see it as like more money is always better. But I think when people can view money as a tool, really just a tool, simple.
It's simply a tool to kind of allow you to move towards better life. So if you kind of have that, you know, view or philosophy, if you've kind of acknowledged that, that is super helpful, because at that point it's like, what's the point of this? If all it's doing is making me unhappy. Yeah.
Yeah.
I like that. I like that reframe, seeing it as a tool, as opposed to this thing that you need to have or not have is just something that you can use in whatever way you have it. I like that, man.
Let's go back to, you talked about the Browns and this leap into entrepreneurship,
tell me a little bit more about that episode and what you learned from them and what works for them.
Daniel: Yeah, so they were a couple that had started in primary care and were working in like this, I guess the classic hospital system you know, in a clinic and were early on feeling good, but pretty quickly started to feel like the pressures that a lot of physicians are feeling now with the produce produce more, see more people, squeeze, I guess, the squeeze overall.
And they were starting to feel like they were having a hard time providing like the care that they had envisioned they'd be providing. And so there was all this pressure and they're like, this is just not good, we don't like this. And so they had kind of this realization that like I was talking about earlier, they were like, whoa it's not worth all the money in the world
to continue to do this. And I'm really not getting paid all the money in the world. I'm getting paid less than that. So they're like we're out. And so they basically went down the path of starting their own concierge practice from scratch. Which is super bold and courageous and difficult and you know, just made the jump, started the practice. So the podcast conversation is multiple years later after they've started the concierge practice, which is doing fantastically well now fast forward to today.
But they kind of talk through that journey and it's super cool because of just hearing them talk through that. It's not like they were not fearful, they had concerns and stressors along the way, but it was all , kind of the right stress.
Pablo: Interesting, interesting. So the right stress versus the wrong stress. How do you tell me a little bit more about that? What is the right stress then?
Daniel: Yeah, I think it's different when it's on your terms and it's different when it's alignment with your values. So the hospital system was putting stress on them. See more patients, deliver
crappy care, and we want you to squeeze more in the day and we want you to spend less time with your family, and there's no time to go, if you're gonna go to your daughter's event, you gotta take a whole day off, a paid time off, you know, not just to sliver and there's all these things that we're adding up. So those stressors were completely not in alignment with their values. Now when they have their business, they're stressors, but that they're doing the thing that they love.
Pablo: Yeah. It's stress that stress that fills your bucket. Stress for filling your bucket as opposed to, stress to not spilling your bucket.
That's cool, man. I like that a lot. Speaking of stressors, what were the low lights of this content production journey, Daniel? What were the things that you didn't enjoy so much?
Daniel: So the interview podcasts are engaging and my favorite but they're challenging in a different way.
You have to logistically schedule and coordinate and prepare more, at least for me, because I can do these solo shows kind of in my sleep 'cause I talk about this all the time. We have a lot more preparation, a lot more follow up and so about, you know, I don't know how many episodes, like 30 episodes in I'm like, man, I'm kind of getting fried with not the shows themselves, but the coordinating of the interview shows were starting to fry me and I'm like, I gotta make a change or I'm not gonna be able to do as many. So I started doing solo shows and I'm like, these are kind of nice. They're pretty easy because I just, you know, can use client questions really any, all day long.
I mean, we have a million client questions and we can kind of pull that in as content. So, but the challenge happened, with that is after 10, 20, 30 episodes of solo, I'm starting to get lonely. It feels like you're talking to yourself. It was hard to be engaging.
It was just started to feel monotonous and so I started to kinda drift back the other direction and then I'm like, I don't know where I wanna take this. Fortunately, that's when Pablo and I got reconnected and were like, I need help, dude. 'Cause I like it this way. I really love the conversations, but I'm struggling with that execution and logistics. And Pablo is fantastic at that.
Pablo: Ah, man. Thanks buddy. I appreciate the kind words. To bounce it back on you as somebody that helps a lot of people with this stuff, your ability to deliver solo episodes is pretty unique. And I think that, that I've thought about it a lot. 'Cause I'm just like, I want more clients like Daniel and outside of going back to UF and having a hundred more fraternity brothers, like you, I'm trying toto figure out what works and as I deconstruct why you're so good at this apart from personality traits and a level of intelligence or whatever, I see a lot of extreme value in the fact that because you have
niche into something. I see it as this giant tactical advantage from a content production standpoint, but that's another word for saying that your dedication to this niche makes you more valuable to this community and this audience, right? That's that's what I keep seeing. It's your ability to answer the same questions over and over gives you this sample size that is really valuable to everybody else.
And then you're able to talk about it. And that is one of the unique things that I've noticed that really really works for you. A nd as I've talked to more and more of your community, it's very obvious. And then asking you and peppering back with you, like how well you understand the life of physicians is pretty extraordinary.
And that to me is the seed of why you're able to execute these episodes so well on the solo basis, man, which I think is really, really cool.
Daniel: The other challenge was when I started to go out on a limb a little bit and I guess with my values and I shared it in one of the episodes back about, so I got negative feedback about it, which was mentioned in perfectionist earlier.
I got a little perfectionist in me. One of the challenges of being a perfectionist it's like, you don't do well with negative feedback. So I'm like, oh, that hurt. But so the feedback, it was in an iTunes review. So the feedback was about me getting preachy or I don't remember the words they used, but it was like talking about religion and preaching and I don't think I was preachy,
maybe, obviously they thought I was, but I think I definitely sprinkled in my faith, which I am proud of and will continue to do. But I was talking about in that episode and I started to kind of question me sprinkling in my values and I'm like, oh, maybe they're right. Maybe I don't need to talk about that stuff.
And then I'm like, no, not doing it. Screw the negative review. You know, they are welcome to their opinion, but I'm not gonna change. So that was kind of my takeaway from it. I kind of spun it as a reinforcing that some people are gonna like it, some people are not.
So I'm working on that negative criticism thing.
Pablo: Well, you got some positive criticism here from Lori saying, I love that episode of you defending your values so proud of you.
Daniel: And thank you, Lori, for reinforcing that. She sent me a nice email after it and was like, yeah, I'm very proud of you for sharing that. So that helped.
Pablo: It's cool, man, that to me is, you kind of living what you preach, not just on the religious side, but what you were just talking about, right? Knowing your boundary, understanding where you stand in finances, it's not very different than understanding where you stand in your core values and knowing what's really important and knowing what you need to move forward.
So I think there's a parallel there, which I think is worth mentioning. And I also think it helps with your niche and, you know, like you be you, you're gonna serve the people that you are able to serve the best and be very, very clear about that. I think really works well for me, based on the conversation I've had man, so I think that's cool.
So let's talk about this pivot to community, right? One thing was you hired me to kind of like take some stuff off of your plate, but you were big on the community thing, which is to me, my favorite kind of thing to go after. That's what we really believe in.
What did you see as the value in really starting to pivot towards community, as opposed to just audience?
Daniel: Yeah. So Pablo is definitely
the community guy. I have an appreciation for community. Pablo is like THE community. And he's also a natural community builder, like in if you've ever met him, hopefully some of you eventually meet him in person.
Pablo: Agreed. I wanna be friends with everybody.
Daniel: He's an amazing networker, one of the most fantastic connectors of anybody I know. He's the guy that finds the person in the room that's not talking to anybody and somehow like intertwines them into conversations
and he's always thinking about those kinds of things. So Pablo is the community king right here. But I have an appreciation for community and really kind of resonated with what he was building. I think with physicians in particular, there's a lot of respect, rightfully so, for colleagues and what they're doing and how they're doing things and that sort of thing.
And I see that all the time and I think that's a good thing, but it's been really challenging for us to convey those sorts of things across the board and share messages and connect people. It's like, if only I could have so-and-so talk to so-and-so 'cause you all are having the same thing.
So I see it one on one with all of the people we work with, the same challenges and I'm like, you all should talk. This would be really good, so that was a big thing. I'm like, if we could do a better job of connecting the people we already have in our community. And then also some of the people that are a little bit further removed from our community or that are not working with us one on one, having, or allowing them an opportunity to kinda learn from some of these people that are doing it right
in more of a safer setting that's controlled and not just the internet. I think it's super valuable, you know, learning from your peers and that sort of thing. So if we can kinda build that and help lead the voice of that, that's a home run and that's what Pablo does.
So it was like, man, this is good stuff right here.
Pablo: I appreciate the kind words, man. Listen, I love that you're fully all in, on this concept. And so everybody is very clear when we talk about community, there is 2 ways that we are enabling that. One is these live shows, right?
The idea that all communities generally have like some kind of ritual and some kind of place where everybody gathers at one time and allows people to be part of a greater conversation and sometimes get to be on the stage, talking to everybody else. Other times, get to be in the audience, interacting with the stage other times, just in the audience
interacting with each other. That's fully what we're trying to forge here on these monthly live shows that maybe one day we turn into twice a month live shows. But otherwise in between that time, we want you all going to the Finance For Physicians Facebook group and that's kind of like the common hall, right,
where you go and and you have questions and you can post it and whoever else is in there can answer it or Daniel's team can answer it, the Wrenne Financial team can answer it, but fully, fully encouraging collaboration of everybody helping each other out. So would love to would love to see y'all continue to embrace that and tell your friends as far as
what we got coming down the pike, Daniel. I would love to tease that out a little bit. You also hired me to talk to a bunch of folks that you work with, to really understand what's important to them. And we came up with these content lanes that we're gonna keep driving down.
Obviously there's the finance content lane. Of that, we're talking about real estate, of course. We're talking about student debt, home purchases, taxes, and charitable giving. I feel like that's kind of like fastball down the play for you, man,
you know, we're gonna bring on experts from that, from those fields. But I would love to hear from the community that's right now in the chat, if there's anything that I didn't mention in there on the finances side, but anything in there , I feel like you've hit most of these already on your podcast, but anything come to mind, that you are particularly looking forward to there or any kind of nuance towards that?
Daniel: Yeah. I'll throw out some other topics that I think probably didn't mention, like one of the ones I'm excited about talking more about is finance for families.
So talking about spousal communication and then in fact, I recorded an episode I'm really excited about with my wife and we talk about our money stuff. And she's super direct, which is cool.
Pablo: Yeah, that's cool. So, you're mentioning another lane that we have, right?
Just life of the doctor kind of lane that's where I put the home economic stuff. The finance, communicating with your spouse, relationship.
Daniel: Teaching your children about money.
Pablo: Yeah. Raising kids and teaching them about money, the home economics, that stuff.
Yeah. Tell me more about that.
Daniel: Yeah. And I mean, that's a big topic in itself and I mean there's a lot you can do there. And I think a lot of people are intimidated with that because they're like, I gotta learn financial literacy myself first, but that's not exactly true.
And so getting into that, I think, 'cause it's one of my biggest values is raising my children. And I know a lot of you guys listening. That's a big deal for you guys. So we're gonna definitely dig into that as a topic like finance for families. Real estate, like Lori said, that's gonna be kind of its own
category. I used to kind of think of it, like investing as a category, but real estate's different. That's like a sub-category. So we'll definitely have that be its own category, real estate investing and all the different short term rentals long term rentals, taxes, all that stuff.
Pablo: Yeah. Cool, man. Ricky coming in with another question, man. I love it, ricky. You're officially the MVP of the community so far with two questions. And so we're gonna keep track of that stuff, but Ricky's asking, I look forward to more episodes on behavioral finance. What have you guys found is the most common behavioral bias amongst doctors that hurt their investing?
Is it over confidence? Is it limiting beliefs that not enough time or not good at finances, keeping up with the Jones's, which one of those?
Daniel: Yeah, that's, that's a good point. And that's on the list. I'm kind of calling this one. I mean, behavioral finance and the psychology money and all that stuff. I love that stuff.
And it's definitely a beast of a topic in itself. I think overconfidence is a big deal. It's a struggle especially early on, it's like younger folks that haven't had the mistakes yet. And so that's probably the most common one we see is overconfidence. And I'm also not exactly sure how to, we were talking about this today with some of my colleagues, like what is the best way to
work or help someone that's overconfident? And this is me selfishly talking, 'cause I want to help these people work through these things. That's the thing about these, is people don't realize that they have them often. So that's kind of part of it. It's like overconfident people, don't say they're over confident.
They're like, no, I'm just better. what are you talking about? So that's probably, I would say overconfidence is the number one issue, but there's a lot of 'em and we'll definitely cover those. That's kind of its own separate category as well.
Pablo: Love that. Yeah. Anna agrees by the way, Anna says I love the financial therapy episode. Would love to see more content on the psychology of finance. I think we're all in the same boat there. We're all amateur psychologists in this room. It feels like, right?
Daniel: Yeah, so the financial therapy one was great. I loved it too, and I actually did some stuff he was suggesting after that. I'm like, oh, I wanna walk through my timeline of my life and money. And you know, it was kind of eye opening myself, but I'm a believer that everybody needs or should, at some point, go to a therapist and that sort of thing. And I think all of us are like human and have flaws and that sort of stuff.
So that definitely affects your money big time. So there's a lot of interconnectivity with all this stuff.
Pablo: That's a really good bridge to this giant lane that we identified that I think, you had deeply thought about it. 'Cause as soon as I started asking you about it, you had all sorts of thoughts, but maybe you hadn't
realized that, that there's a real value in having this as a whole lane, but the topic of burnout, and everything that comes with it. The mental health resources, the misconceptions that causes the financial implications and this idea of do it yourself internal mental health resources versus alternative care, and going to therapists just all together, we realize it's gonna be a big part of the conversation, 'cause we wanna champion that part of it, man.
Outside of therapy in general. What do you see as kind of the more nuanced conversation there or what you're most looking forward to there?
Daniel: Yeah, I think coaching is another big thing. One of the guys we have already talked about potentially having on for the burnout as part of that series is
Big, he runs a coaching business to kind of help physicians through burnout. So I think getting help is a big deal, but the challenge, so it's all this stuff's interconnected. It's one of the challenges of perfectionism and overconfidence even is, you're less likely to get help. So I see all these behavioral tendencies and cultural pressures within the field
almost like pulling you away. It's, you know, culminating to cause all this burnout stuff and a lot of them you have control over. So I like focusing on the things you can control. So you can work through perfectionism to allow your you to kind of recognize maybe you need help and then potentially go hire a
coach to help you through that, a physician burnout coach, to help you through that. So there's lots of things you can do to kind of work through it. And that's the stuff I love. That's the stuff we're gonna focus on.
Pablo: Yeah. I like it. I like how you're phrasing this stuff as kinda like a stacking thing, right? If we get to one, then you get to open up the other, then you get to open up the other and we can kind of take 'em on the whole journey. I think it's cool. And last but not least, we have a lane called: "We're Gonna Talk About Money". We're gonna give you career advice, right? Your way to generate revenue within that specialties and ongoing education, right?
Like going to entrepreneurial route versus staying as staying employed, private practice versus hospital work, what the best places to work are. And I think one of the ones that I've uncovered recently is this idea of personal branding for a physician and how that can, you know, if we're gonna talk about calling your own shot, this idea that I really, really believe in, which is why I'm so into making content and all this stuff is, if you can personally brand yourself successfully, that's kinda the ultimate mote of career and entrepreneurship and whatnot.
What do you think of that?
Daniel: I think it's been an overlooked topic or area for physicians or it's kind of a newer thing. It seems like a lot of physicians are, of late, much more focused on brand building and that sort of thing. But I mean, by having a personal brand, it's gonna open up options for potentially new avenues and options are good.
I mean, same thing with your finances. It's like we're opening up options with these things. Yeah.
Pablo: Yeah. Oh, and I didn't mention something that came up a lot in interviews, Dr. Side Hustles. What are those alternative revenues, what else can you do with an MD? Things of that sort I think is gonna be an interesting topic.
Daniel: That'll be fun. And so there's a lot of those. Real estate kind of falls into that category a little bit. And one of the ones I'm excited about too, I was talking to the guy the other day talking about contracts and compensation. That's a big kinda subtopic within that.
It's like, how do we work to better understand how we're paid and how do we negotiate, changes and that kind of thing. That's the engine right there that generates the revenue. So it's obviously a big part.
Pablo: I love it, man. So that's all we got coming down the pike. I think it's gonna be a super fun journey, Danny. I can tell you that I feel very, very grateful that you pulled me into this project. 'Cause it's been rewarding to add value back to a community of folks that are so dedicated to what they do and are so passionate about it and are such a big part of the economy just from the size of the industry, to the amount of difference that they make in the individual people's lives.
I wanna encourage you, if you're listening on the podcast or watching this on YouTube, or you're watching one of these micro content pieces that we're gonna be making on social media. Go to financeforphysicians.co, sign up for the live show. Just put it on your calendar and you'll get reminders. And if you ever wanna show up to one, 'cause you think this topic is cool, you can show up and ask Daniel a question and we will work through all that stuff.
I think it's gonna be a fun time. We've done this with multiple people and people love it. So just give us a little trust, show up, be a part of it, join the Facebook group. If you find Finance For Physicians in the Facebook group, I really, really want to thank the 14 people that were on live with us today.
It is you're doctors. I know that an hour of your time is unbelievably valuable, so we're gonna strive to make this really, really, really valuable. And Daniel, I'm gonna let you get off with last words, but I got one last question for you, man. What do you love about what you do?
Daniel: I love being able to work with great people and have an impact on their lives. I mean, that's really what it comes down to. Whether that's one on one, that's great. Or even in groups, when I hear that we've made a difference and I think that's what everybody wants. When you hear that you've made a difference. That's what really gets me going. I love doing that.
Pablo: Love that man. Love that. All right. Say goodbye. Say goodbye to the folks that showed up for you today, man, this is cool. Thank you for letting me be a part of it, bud.
Daniel: Yes. Thank you for coming everyone. And I look forward to seeing you next time.
