Speaker 0 00:00:08 What's up everyone. Welcome to the finance for physicians podcast. I'm your host. Daniel written join me as we dig into what it looks like for physicians to begin using their finances as a tool to live better lives. You can learn more about our
[email protected] let's. Jump into today's episode. I'm excited to be here with you today and to discuss a topic that I know is important to many of you. And that is being a physician mom and the physician mom, you're wearing two of the most important hats. In my opinion, that exists being a mom, of course, and raising children is huge. And being a physician and taking care of patients, that's a big deal as well. Obviously I'm not a mom myself, but this is got to be an extremely challenging balance to attempt
Speaker 1 00:00:49 To strike throwing the gender discrimination issues and the global pandemic. And you can see really why so many female physicians are dropping out of the profession altogether. How could you possibly balance all this? So today I brought in someone special to help me navigate this topic. My guest today is the founder of wealthy mom MD a business dedicated to helping physician moms have it all without giving it all. She empowers physician moms by giving the gift of financial literacy through her podcast, her coaching intercourses. He's also a board certified dermatologist he's certified life coach and a mother stepmother and fiance trying to strike a difficult balance herself. My guest today is Dr. Bonnie Bonnie, welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for having me. So I've followed you online for quite a while now and, and really just admire the work that you're doing in particular to help physician moms.
Speaker 1 00:01:39 So I'm super excited to talk to you about some of these challenges facing physician moms in particular, and really get into how money can potentially be a tool or resource to help them navigate this. But before we get into that, I think maybe a good starting point would be if you could share more about what wealthy mom MD is. Yeah. So it's evolved since I first started this in 2016 or so, you know, I started, it was a blog initially, and I was just sort of writing about certain financial topics, things that I kept seeing over and over again, being asked to discuss like, what's the retirement account? How should I do this? What is this? What is that? And that's kind of how I got started. And then the more I learned about money, the logistics, the details, you know, stuff that you helped your clients with.
Speaker 1 00:02:28 I also started to realize that there was something else at play, you know, because we both work with physicians. And so there's no shortage of intellect when it comes to the people we work with, like they're not dumb. They, you know, we can inhale large amounts of complex information and spit it out and also use it and how we practice medicine. And so it struck me at some point, like, why are female physicians? And I think women in general, but you know, I focus on females and it's like, why do we have so much trouble with money? Like, there's something else at play. It's not because money is a difficult topic because compared to becoming a doctor, it's very, very simple. But I often joke because you know, I'm a dermatologist, you know, I don't read EKG. Right. And I, so personally I think reading is really hard.
Speaker 1 00:03:18 It's something I actually never quite grasped. So it's one of the reasons why I'm not an internist. And so I make that analogy that like, if you can read an EKG, you can learn how money works. So it's not, it's not a knowledge, it's not solely a knowledge problem. And so that's actually what led me to become certified as a life coach. And so now I sort of blend those two worlds together. And so the way I describe it is I can teach female physicians, all the nitty gritty details. Like what's a 401k and can you have one? And how does that work? And that stuff is I think the easy part. And then the life coach tools deal with the mental blocks. Why aren't they learning about money? Why do they keep putting it off? Why are they so afraid to invest all the, all that type of stuff? And once you get a handle on those mental blocks, then it becomes easier to actually learn and implement all the financial strategies.
Speaker 2 00:04:14 Yeah, it's so interesting. Cause I am, I'm completely on the same level with you, uh, in that, in our planning firm, uh, you know, that's, it's not always one plus one is two. I mean the finance finances in general are very logical. It's numbers, numbers are logical and there's, there's always a, uh, you know, explanation and, and reasoning and whatnot, but what you find and in our world, when you actually work with real human beings, is that there's typically some, you know, underlying layers of, of issues or beliefs or emotions that are kind of causing these actions to kind of play out that are completely illogical. What are some of the examples you see of some of the most common, like kind of issues there that are kind of behind the surface that, that cause that you kind of find as you dig, dig in with people?
Speaker 1 00:05:06 Yeah. I think what you just said explains it perfectly like the math money is kind of logical, but then when you deal with the human beings, you're dealing, you're not dealing with a robot, right. That just spits numbers that you're dealing with, someone with complex emotions, feelings, belief, systems, et cetera. And so I think you nailed it on the head. Yeah. There's so many things, you know, I think one thing I see a lot among, you know, female physicians is it's taboo to talk about money. And so they probably don't talk to their colleagues about money. And so if they have any sort of money, anxiety or stress, they always think they're the only one. And add to the fact that we're physicians and everyone thinks we're rich. So I think there's also like a little bit of embarrassment and maybe shame that they don't really understand money. So there's like that going on. And I think also there's, I mean, there's so many things I can go on and on, uh, but also, and then add on being a mom as well, then there's all this like, you know, guilt layered on top of that. So
Speaker 2 00:06:04 Mom guilt. Yeah. We did a podcast on how perfectionism can kind of sometimes play out into your finances. And it seems that there's quite a few physicians that also kind of have this perfectionism built in to their personality and that kind of adds even more into the mix that can cause challenges. When you start to talk about, for example, a budget, you know, a budget is simple. It's like very much adding up where the money is going. It's very, very straightforward, but very few people do it. And it's just so hard, for example, for the perfectionist that they want the numbers to add up perfectly. And so they're going to have, they're going to get hung up when they don't add up perfectly. How do you deal with it? I mean, there's a lot of, uh, we're just scratching the surface of some of these issues that people have. And so how do you start to kind of deal with that or help people to deal with that?
Speaker 1 00:06:55 Well, I love that you brought up perfectionism. I actually just recorded a podcast on this topic, you know, from a certain point of view. And so I actually see two things. So first of all, I think we sh we should just say all female physicians are perfectionist by definition. I think that's just, we should just say that we're all type a, we, you know, we didn't become a physician by being a non perfectionist, I guess, is the best way to say it. Right? And so there's, there's two things that I see with being a perfectionist is there's what you said, kind of speaks to the afraid to fail part of being a perfectionist. And so if you think about it, we're trained as doctors that failure should be avoided at all costs because it can result in harming a patient or a patient's death. Right?
Speaker 1 00:07:41 And so it has real consequences in our jobs. However, unfortunately your ability to embrace failure is really important in terms of building wealth and building financial freedom, because then you're going to be afraid to take risks. You're going to be afraid to invest. I've had clients who had buckets of money just sitting in cash because they were so afraid of that. That's one extreme, obviously, right? And then the, you know, the next sort of level up is investing it, but investing so conservatively, it just doesn't make sense for that person's age. And so I've seen that whole range. So this, you know, fear of failure, this, and ultimately it's a fear of losing money. And so what I teach is losing money as part of growing money. It's kind of a requirement, it's a requirement. And I also tell them that they are already losing money if they're in cash inflation.
Speaker 1 00:08:32 And if they have stock investments, which most of us do because, you know, we have retirement accounts, you know, through work the stock, market's always going up and down, but people aren't really consciously thinking about the ups and downs. So there we are losing money, gaining money all the time, but they don't realize that's happening. And so there's that part, the wholesale that's a whole, you know, we could do a whole podcast on failure. And I also like to break it down, like all failure means is that you didn't get the outcome you wanted. So when it comes to money, it's like, okay, you want to invest the money to grow it. And if it doesn't happen, then it's a quote unquote failure. But it doesn't mean that you're bad with money. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to learn from it. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't keep doing it.
Speaker 1 00:09:16 So that's one set of perfectionism. And then the second thing I see is this, you know, people call it money scarcity or not enough. It's never good enough. It's not enough. And so that's a, that's a huge trait of perfectionism. That's kind of how it manifests for me personally is like, it's not enough. And, and I, I find it interesting, cause I'm obviously my attending physician now making a certain kind of money, but I have been, you know, quote-unquote, I don't like to use the word poor, but making no income as a medical student, making a middle-class or average salary as a resident. And then, you know, more than quadrupling that, and even my net worth has significantly increased in the last five years, but my mind still says, it's not enough. It's not enough money. And so there's that, there's that part. Um, and so either it's not enough or it's not perfect to the kind of the same thing just differently.
Speaker 2 00:10:10 And it can translate into, you know, keeping up with the Genesis, even, not everybody struggles with that particular aspect of it, but wanting to, you have to have some definition of what perfection is and finances, when you start to look at money that's very difficult or maybe impossible to have this definition of what perfection actually looks like. And so it's impossible to quantify that. So you start to kind of look at other people sometimes. And so you look at the people in your, uh, you know, circles. And so that translates sometimes into that, keeping up with the Genesis, which is, can have an negative effect obviously on your finances as well.
Speaker 1 00:10:45 Yeah, totally. And I think what you alluded to is that we think once we get to a certain point, we're going to be happy and satisfied and live happily ever after. And I think for most physicians, we thought that was going to happen once we finished training and you know, the promised land of being an attending and the money that comes with it. And then we realized, Oh, it's just not that it's bad. It's just, it's not the end, I guess you could say.
Speaker 2 00:11:11 Right. How do you think you attain happiness?
Speaker 1 00:11:15 Well, first of all, I'm not even sure that's the goal. Right. But you know, with social media and stuff, it's like, and I think this goes to show the Joneses. Like we think those people are happy. So like, Oh, they must be happy because they have nice things or they must be happy. Yeah. Or they must be happy because they have the two kids and the house and whatever. Anyway. So I wouldn't consider myself like super in lane, but I think I I've come to realize. And also this is through my coach training and being coached myself is that's not, that's not the goal to be happy a hundred percent of the time. And I think you, once you realize that you're not supposed to be happy a hundred percent of the time, like, I don't know about you, but I, it just made me relaxed. Like, Oh, I'm not supposed to be happy all the time. Which like, we like lot, if you think about it, we know it's true. Because just to give you an example, if someone close to us, dies, supposed to be happy, supposed to be sad. And so that kind of helps me see that it's like, you need both to appreciate both. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 00:12:15 Yeah. You need to embrace all emotions in order to be a healthy person. I think that's what therapists and people very experienced with that areas of the world would say is, and now it's not always so easy to actually execute on that. And humans tend to kind of get into the mindset of trying to get attained this perfect, perfect world of happiness all the time. And that's, that's just, you know, not really attainable. I think it's a lot about expectations. And, um, what I have found is that with money, um, I think there's some misconception about what money actually is like, what's the purpose of money in the first place. And I think some people think of it as their kind of ticket to happiness or, you know, maybe some other people think of it as that it's the root of all evil. And so what are your thoughts on kind of the purpose of money and starting to potentially help some address some of these, uh, you know, happiness issues we're talking about?
Speaker 1 00:13:13 Yeah. I like to think of money as a tool that helps you live the life you want. So that's like, you know, thinking of you yourself personally. But then I also think of as a tool that can do a lot of good in the world as well. And so I like what you said earlier, you said, um, people, some people think money is the root of all evil. And so that's, that's kinda the stuff that we talk about with my clients. Like what were they taught about money growing up? And so if you think about it, it all comes from whatever your parents believe for the most part. And so, you know, I grew up in kind of a conservative Christian household. And so I don't think I was taught that money was the root of all evil, but I definitely was taught like thumb version of that. Like I shouldn't, I shouldn't be the only thing I want in life or it's not good. Like basically it's not, it's not good if that's my sole reason to do whatever I do. Things like that.
Speaker 2 00:14:05 One of the things I've seen seems to be a challenge facing our clients, particularly female physicians, is that the resistance to ask for higher compensation. So I don't know if that ties into, you know, that money is taboo or you know, where that's coming from, but what are your thoughts on bringing up that subject of earning and what's your value and in particular with other people,
Speaker 1 00:14:29 Yeah, this is such a great topic. You know, this is obviously a money topic, but I'll send you a name of, there's a woman physician where this is her jam all about negotiation and helping women physicians doing that. So you should definitely have her on the podcast. But what I'll say about that is, you know, that is, it's a multilayered, I think problem. So I think a lot of that comes from societal cultural conditioning of women. And so, you know, we basically live in a patriarchal society and part of that influence women are kind of, we're sort of subconsciously taught that we should be grateful for what we have and that asking for more is bad. And so I think that is a huge part of why women have a hard time doing that. And women who do ask for more money and negotiate are often seen in a negative light because of those social and cultural archetypes. And that's been proven that like when a woman asks for money, like she's not seen favorably by her peers or her employer, whereas when men do it, they're seen as it's a good thing when they do that.
Speaker 2 00:15:38 Yeah. I could see that. That's, that's interesting.
Speaker 1 00:15:40 And so women are afraid to speak up. And also, like I said, women think like, well, I made good money. I shouldn't ask for more like they feel guilty or even ashamed to even ask for it.
Speaker 2 00:15:51 Do you think that that can potentially even tie into asking for more flexible roles maybe for example. So I have, I can think of people in mind that I work with that are, they kind of have this mentality that my job is not flexible. I must always work 70 hours a week because that's kind of the responsibility of the job. And I'm sure that that definitely exists where that is. There's maybe no flexibility or whatever, but it seems like they will just, they have this block in their mind that they will not even breach the subject of flexibility or potential part-time or, you know, scaling back or something along those lines.
Speaker 1 00:16:25 Yeah. I think that's stuff I've definitely seen that too, where I think it doesn't even hit the radar for them to even ask for something different, because I think, I think that's because of a few reasons, but I think one of the reasons is they don't think it's possible basically. And they didn't like, cause I hear that a lot too. And you just never know unless you ask. And then we'll all say to them is because I actually had a client recently where she felt guilty about asking to take some time off. Um, she had someone sick in her family and I said, what's the worst that can happen. They'll say no, and they'll just continue what you're doing now. You know? So I'm at break it down like that. They're kind of like, Oh yeah. And so this client, you know, just to kind of give you guys some closure for those listening, um, she did end up asking for it and it wasn't a problem at all. So I think she had built up in her mind that, you know, they're gonna say things about her or they're going to be upset or you know, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 00:17:17 Yeah. It seems like that's the results. Uh, and even the data and the research says that, you know, the majority of times, um, if you're a reasonably minded person that brings a reasonable case to your employer or colleagues that they tend to give you the answer you want it. But worst case scenario, like you said, is they just say no, and it's, you're in the same place you started. So there's some statistics on female physicians in particular that are a little bit alarming. Think it was 40% of female physicians are either part-time or have completely dropped out of medicine, uh, after that six year period of time. So, but I think the gist of it is it seems that there's a lot of females backing out of, of medicine or maybe they're working for financial independence, retire early fire as soon as possible. But is that what you're seeing too? And what are your thoughts?
Speaker 1 00:18:08 I think I know what you're talking about. I don't know the data in terms of like, you know, what were the reasons for each person, you know, because of the world I'm in, it's easy for me to say like, Oh, a lot of women are going for a financial dependence or retirement early, but I don't think that's the case. Like among my audience, like that's, there are people in that sort of category, but I think that's the minority. And so I guess my opinion is, and is that, well, I think it goes back to what I just said earlier about how well medicine was traditionally a male only field. And if you think about you just most careers, they were only for men. And so medicine is kind of notorious for being behind the times in general, you know, compared to, you know, a company like Apple or Facebook, who's bit more progressive.
Speaker 1 00:18:56 And so they're just to, just to give you some context, you know, my, my partner's old job was for a very large company in the U S a very well known entertainment company. And I remember reading the benefits and it said something like six months paid maternity leave, they pay for IVF, even give you like, it was a tiny cash bonus. It was like 500 bucks for a new kid. Contrast that with what you get in medicine. Now it depends if you're in training or not, but it's still pretty abysmal. Even if you're not in training, basically you're not going to get paid for it. If you do, it's maybe a few weeks, if you take more than four weeks off, everyone's going to hate you basically, because that means they have to work more and it's just not set up to allow women to be women.
Speaker 2 00:19:41 That's crazy to me. And it's 50% of females in it, about 50% in medical school are females.
Speaker 1 00:19:47 No, but that hasn't quite trickled up the chain. So it's going to take time, but obviously a 40% are leaving. It's going to take a long time to get there. So yeah, it's just not set up for us to thrive as the best way to say it. And I don't, I don't want to sound like I'm blaming the men, but it's also women because what other female physicians are hard on other female physicians having children or wanting more than just being a doctor. There's nothing wrong with just, I don't want to, what does even just being a doctor mean? I think these days, not just female physicians, but male physicians, like, I think there's this sort of changing culture that we are more than just a doctor. I think men want to be fathers too. They want to be good husbands and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 00:20:30 Yeah. And being a mom is a tough, tough job. I don't, you know, no first firsthand, but you know, I'm a dad and my wife is a, is a great mom. And, but she works so hard at it and it's just a, and she fills the pool, uh, to be with the kids, um, and kind of take the lead on that. And now over the past, how long has it been, I guess a year we've got this global pandemic on top of everything. That's kind of just, it seems like that has like amped up a lot of these issues. For example, you know, with, with my wife, she's had to be homeschooling, we are completely not suited to be homeschooling children. And, and how have you seen, COVID kind of play into all this?
Speaker 1 00:21:16 Yeah, it's, uh, I think it depends on if those parents work or not. And so, you know, cause there is a decent number of female physicians who have a part-time spouse or stay at home. And so, you know, I think those families were able to accommodate that more. But even if you, you know, have that it's been an adjustment, you know, for everyone. And so, you know, I can only speak for the challenges, you know, we've personally had, but I think COVID also showed us that medicine is no longer the stable job or career that we thought it was like, it still is. But there, it was already starting to kind of have show the cracks before COVID the push towards corporate medicine for lack of a better term. Right. And our autonomy dwindling over time. And I think COVID kind of even magnified that because depending on what you do, you probably lost some income during COVID, you know, because they stopped elective procedures, things like that. And certain specialties, dermatologist, for example, many of them closed their offices for some time. Right. When it hit another kind of all back open again, et cetera. And so I think it really magnified the cracks. And I think it's been a turning point for many physicians to be like, I better figure out this money stuff.
Speaker 2 00:22:34 Yeah. I think I kind of agree with you. You'd said earlier money as a tool. And I think, you know, when you can kind of get in that mindset is money is one of the, is a fantastic tool to really allow you to live a flexible life, whatever that looks like for you. And so I think people that have not quite figured out the money thing, they have this very inflexible dependent on jobs. They're completely dependent on their job. They have to go to work, they have to be relying on the check-in and that's a super stressful spot to be in. But money is your kind of ticket out of that very rigid setup. And it allows you, it gives you it's the perfect tool to kind of build in that flexibility. That's what financial independence is, right. That's like the ultimate flexibility financially, at least I saw an article you were advocating for financial independence as opposed to fire. Maybe we could kind of talk through what that looks like. I think that's a completely different perspective, I guess.
Speaker 1 00:23:32 Yeah. You know, it's funny, my, my, my definition opinion of that has changed over time. And because when I first started learning about money, I definitely was like, wow, this fire thing sounds cool. Like, why wouldn't I want that? And it was kind of like, I don't want to say a cult, but I got really excited about it. And then, like I said, the more I've learned and you know, I'm a little older and wiser now it's, I think it's one of those. I feel like the fire movement and I'm just speaking for myself, it became this, this milestone that we thought was going to make us happy again. And so it's funny because when I think about the way I live my life now, like we are not financially independent in terms of like what most people would agree on, you know, meaning like that.
Speaker 1 00:24:12 We have so much money. That's just paying us dividends every year or the 4% where like, it's, we're not funding dependent by, by those standards, but I am able to do what I want pretty much. And I think that's really what people want. It's not what they get attached to this like amount of money that's gonna all of a sudden make them be able to do all the things they want. But what I've, what I've I guess learned is that that's not necessarily the case. And you were saying earlier how people feel so tied to their jobs are so inflexible. And so that's one thing I've learned is that's not necessarily true and people can start taking choices before they reach that magical financial independence number. And don't, I think we all want to be able to enjoy our lives before we reach that magical financial dependence anyway, or retirement or whatever you call it.
Speaker 2 00:24:56 Yeah. I think that the challenge, um, I think I see a lot of people struggle with is this time component. So that that's really, you know, that ties into financial independence or retiring or whatever, really with retirement, you're just kind of like saving so that you have the resources to not have to work, which is a time change. I mean, it's a different, it's a different way of spending your time. You can either work or you can be retired. And so by saving up the money, you're eventually going to have spare time. Right. So I kind of think of it as is time is a very important factor. I think I also see that that is a, is a under utilized or underappreciated resource in a lot of cases, people are kind of thinking more about the dollar than they are about the time component.
Speaker 2 00:25:42 Um, I see that with the DIY movement, uh, I don't know if it's a movement, but it seems like there's a pretty big segment of physicians that are kind of maybe just doing their own plumbing and Monero and grass and changing their own oil, which is all great if you love doing it. But I think what it comes down to is time. And if you're fried, if you have, if you're maxed out on everything, like you really have to kind of take, take a look at, uh, all these things that we love and what we want to focus on, like being a mom or being a physician that requires time. Right. I mean, that's what it, what it comes down to. What are your thoughts on the DIY approach and the time balance and, and that sort of thing. Do you feel like that's something that is, um, you know, could be improved upon, or
Speaker 1 00:26:28 I love that you brought this up two things come to mind, so I don't have a problem with, you know, the, do it DIY thing or movement, whatever you wanna call it as well. But I think there's, it's, it's almost like they're telling people that if you aren't, there's something wrong with you or you're getting swindled. And so, and then you spoke about time. And so we said money is a tool. One of the best ways to use money is to buy back time. Because ultimately that is our most precious resource. It's not money it's time. And so I can do a lot of things, myself, Daniel and I choose not to, because I can pay someone else to do it because I want to be able to do what I want with my time. And I happen to do like money and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 00:27:13 So I do take care of my finances by myself, but I don't do my own taxes I have. And I see this a lot, like when I was like, Oh, you should do your own taxes. I'm like, why would I do that? I review it. And I understand that maybe more than the average person because of what I do, but you know, I, I have a business now. Like I'm not, uh, it's like, I'm just trying to think of the analogy that I see. It's like, you wouldn't go to the internet to solve your medical problems. You go to the expert, the doctor. And it's funny because doctors complain about people thinking they know more than the doctor because they go to Dr. Google. But then we do that with all the other aspects of our lives, you know? And so, yeah, I have a CPA, I have a CFO slash bookkeeper. They're separate people and I rely on their expertise to help me make decisions for my business. I have other sort of resources when it comes to money. Like, I definitely don't pretend to think I know everything about all assets, ways, a lot of things I don't know. And I love that I have other friends or real estate experts that I can call on when I need help, because, and I don't want to know everything.
Speaker 2 00:28:21 Right. And even like, uh, you know, cleaning your house or mowing the grass or, you know, uh, picking up stuff from the store. That's all that like grocery delivery is, is you're kind of buying a little time.
Speaker 1 00:28:34 Yeah. And so that's how I look at that is if you enjoy it, do it. But if you don't, you shouldn't be afraid to outsource it. I will say though, I do think it, you know, you should learn the basics. Like I don't want people to just offload it so completely that they have no idea what's going on with their money. I think that's a little irresponsible, but it's not that hard to color the basics. And I think a good financial planner advisor, you know, will sort of help you understand the basics of it so that you know, what's going on with your money.
Speaker 2 00:29:03 Yeah. I think I've seen, it seems like people will either outsource blindly, which is risky, where you just are, like, I don't even want to pay attention to whatever it might be at all. And I'm just going to outsource it and not worry about it. The problem with that is you don't really know how to measure if it's effective, even if it's like a, you know, cleaning your house, if you just don't even know what a good job is, like, how do you even measure whether or not it's effective? And, um, especially when you start talking about complex things like your money, um, you know, just blindly outsourcing is always a risky position because there's no way you, you don't have the skillset even to measure how well of a job they're doing. But, but so I would advocate for that kind of baseline financial literacy, uh, as well. And I think that's what a lot of what you have, uh, created in some of the resources you have is, you know, courses and coaching. And, and I'm curious, so I want to talk more about the coaching. Uh, I'm curious, kind of what that looks like for you. You have one-on-one coaching. Do you do group coaching as well?
Speaker 1 00:30:08 So right now I have some one-on-one clients and then my program is actually coaching and financial literacy. So it blends the two together. And so the one-on-one coaching is sort of, it's not always money-related because I guess the best way to explain this, Daniel is how you think about one thing is kind of how you think about other things, because our we're all human, which means we all have a human brain and human brains have the same baseline software installed. Everyone who has a human brain has the same baseline software installed. And so I teach them basically how that software runs on default. Like the, this is the out of the box operating system, and this is why you do the things you do and why you don't do certain things. And that, and people just relax when they understand that. Because like I said, people think like they're the only ones who are feeling this way and there's something wrong with them because they're scared or anxious or guilty, et cetera.
Speaker 1 00:31:10 And so I basically kind of just show him like, no, it's just how your brain is wired. And to understand that and why, and also, I don't know if he's an iPhone, but I'm sure the same thing with Android. You use an iPhone. Yeah. And so, you know how it, it gets new like software updates. Yeah. I think of coaching as I'm basically showing them how to download new software updates, their brains. It's like, no one told you that there were updates available and no one told you how to download them. And so that's what the coaching part is. And so now you're like, okay, what does that mean? Exactly. That's just a nice analogy. It's a, let's see. What's, what's a good example. I can give you. So, one thing I hear a lot from my clients is they feel behind financially, whether it's their new attending, you know, they're in their thirties.
Speaker 1 00:31:58 And then all their friends who didn't go to medical school have had 10 years of working compound interest, et cetera. Or they could be 50. And then they feel really behind them maybe even packed because they didn't really get their stuff together. And so we break that down because the reason why they feel behind is because they're literally telling themselves I'm behind the problem is they think that's a fact. And so one of the, one of the coaching one-on-one Daniel is just breaking down. What's a fact. And what's not a fact. So it's not a fact, it's just a thought or a story that your brain made up. And so that's what our brains like to do. It just makes up stories all day long. It's how we explain what we see in the world. And you kind of know this, be true, Janet. Right?
Speaker 1 00:32:39 Cause if you go see a movie and you're like, well, that was an amazing movie. And then your buddy saw it and he's like, what are you talking about? Did we see the same movie? It was awful. It was terrible. And so we know like people have different opinions. So like we know that on some level, but what we don't quite understand is that you can actually, you just, you're the one who made up that story and you can change it. The problem is we believe everything. Our brain makes up, it's all made up. Yeah. Because brains like to be right. And certain. And so that's what, this is part of the understanding how your brain works, does the default software and why it thinks the way it does his brains like to be right. If it gives it like certainty. And anyway, so I could go on about this all day long, but that I'm feeling behind or I'm behind is just literally a story that they have been playing over and over again, it's like a broken record and they believe it.
Speaker 1 00:33:33 And so think about it. If you're, if you, if you're telling yourself on behind financially, like you're going to probably feel really stressed out. And then when you're feeling stressed out, like, first of all, it doesn't feel good. And so you're probably going to just ignore it and do something else or eat a cookie or I don't know, have a glass of wine, you know, why would you, because our brains don't like to feel bad about itself anyway, so I could go on and on, but it's just one sort of powerful example, Ricard break that apart. And you know, I guess, you know, best case scenario is the client realizes that they're the ones telling themselves that. And then I question it. So I'll ask them some things like Daniel, what does being behind mean? And sometimes they'll look at me like, what do you mean? I'm like, well, you said, you keep saying you're behind like, tell me what that means. Like, pretend I'm like an alien from a different planet. And I have no idea what that means. So they'll start talking and they'll say things like, well, I should have more than I do now. I'm like, how much should you have right now? Yeah. What is more? And so that's the kind of questioning we do with coaching. And, and we usually come to the conclusion that they don't even know what being behind means too.
Speaker 2 00:34:37 Our splice. Yeah. I think I've heard it called maybe thought loops where you're you have this, a repeating thought process that you've kind of considered considered as ultimate truth. And it's really just this thought you've created in your own head. Do you think in most cases, just the awareness piece is what, uh, kind of starts people down the right road. I think that's a lot of what you were describing before is what you're doing is you're helping them to become aware of what's going on there and kind of get them off autopilot.
Speaker 1 00:35:11 Exactly. That's always the first step is just becoming aware that they're telling themselves this, because sometimes they think like, it's just truth. Like, I don't know, my eyes are Brown. Like, I'm just, they say it as if they're reporting the weather and that it's a fact. And so just even them realizing that it's not a fact, sometimes they're just like, Whoa. So anyway, yeah, that's always the first step. It's just gaining awareness of what thoughts are going on in your head. And then you can start to say,
Speaker 2 00:35:38 Okay, maybe I can, you know, recreate the thought loop. And maybe you are what you think. And you know, you have control because when you have control and awareness, then you can kind of turn your trajectory quite a bit.
Speaker 1 00:35:51 Yeah. It's it's you nailed on the head. It's basically realizing that you can actually redirect your thoughts. Think intentionally versus unintentionally. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:36:02 I think most physicians are maybe also this Mo all humans is probably better. All humans could, could benefit from, you know, coaching or, uh, having someone with experience and understanding how the mind works kind of shot, uh, hold the mirror up, I guess, to you. But what is, I don't know that that's, I don't know that everybody agrees, agrees with me. Maybe because otherwise all physicians would have coaches. How do you, uh, identify if you're a physician, how do you identify, Hey, I need to hire a coach or, you know, what's the trigger point in, in your mind that it says maybe I need help.
Speaker 1 00:36:36 You know, Daniel, I feel like it's one of those things. Like we have this public education system that doesn't teach you how your brain works. It's very odd and they don't teach you money either. Although that's changing a little bit, right? I think the whole, how your mind works is also starting to change, to be honest. And if you look at the non-physician world, just look at business executives, um, what we call C-suite executives, right? CFO, CEOs, like they've had coaches for years. If you look at pro athletes, they all have coaches. Cause I think you had said like, how does it fit? When does a physician know they need help? And I think that's part of, I'm not saying you said that wrong, but I think that's part of the problem is people think you only get a coach when you need help, but a pro athlete doesn't and kind of say like, well, why, why do they have a coach? It's not because they need help. It's because that's why they are a pro athlete is because they have a coach.
Speaker 2 00:37:27 That's such a good point. So I think that's a different mindset. It's performance enhancing kind of a mindset as opposed to like, cause I was talking with a client the other day and I'm like, I think that you would benefit from, um, maybe working with a coach or something along those lines. And they kind of took it like, well, I don't think I'm broken. And I'm like, I'm like, mm, maybe I said it wrong. I probably did say it wrong. But in my mind, I'm thinking performance indicator. I w I've worked with coaches many times and it's really a, um, up in your game sort of thing. Perfect. And the mind is what drives the ship here. And if you have been around long enough, you realize that in a lot of cases, you get in these ruts where you don't actually have control and you're not actually doing what you say, you're going to do yourself. And that's kind of where coaching comes into it is. They can kind of, I dunno if get inside your head is the right word, but, but help you kinda mind hack your way into performance enhancing, I think is what the right approach would be.
Speaker 1 00:38:26 Yeah. I liked, I liked what you said and you know, I just want to you to distinguish between coaching and therapy, cause people will ask them, what's the difference then they're complimentary. They're not like either or, and so I know many people who have a therapist and a coach and I guess the good news is there are so many resources to learn about this stuff. Like, and I think the best analogy Daniel is fitness, right? Cause you can hire a personal trainer, but most people don't, you can go to a group class, you can just go to YouTube or go to the internet and figure out how to do that. Right. And coaching is kind of the same thing. So you are going to pay the most for a one-on-one, but there are group formats, there are free formats. So there's something for everyone, I guess, is the best way to say it.
Speaker 2 00:39:10 Yeah. In my experience in looking at a real world families and people, what I have noticed is that the people that invest in things tend to, you know, do well with it. So, uh, whether that's money, like they, we charge people in our planning for them. Like they have to write us checks. So they have to be vested to a certain level in improving their financial situation. So that bias in itself is a solid step in improving your outcomes and same thing with working out. And I'll put my money on the person that pays the one-on-one trainer all day long over the person that's doing. WeightWatchers not that weight Watchers does not work. It might work well for certain situations, but when you have another person walking alongside you, it's a different level and it's, it's effective.
Speaker 1 00:40:02 I think all of them work, but yeah, it depends on the person, but obviously a one-on-one coach. There's a, there's a reason why they, they cost the most, I guess you could say.
Speaker 2 00:40:10 Yeah. Right. All those things, just so you know, what's that
Speaker 1 00:40:15 I have a one-on-one I have a group for me personally, as a client and you know, my, my bookkeeper, she works with small businesses and not just, she works with a lot of coaches, but she also has other non coach clients. And she told me that. And I just want funny because I think she's going to actually mine her data. She told me that people who invest in coaching for themselves, they make money faster.
Speaker 2 00:40:39 Oh yeah. Positive. I, I completely and look, I look back at my past, um, I've worked with probably like five different coaches in kind of seasons of life and each time it kind of bumps, bumps up your game and whatever area you're focusing in on. And whether that's like, you know, looking to balance more, so you maybe you're fried and you don't have any spare time or maybe it's like increase your performance and your business or whatever it might be in my experience personally. Um, and that's just me, but, um, you know, it, it's completely, you know, 10 X your, your cost on the, on the investment. And I think it's always been a good investment for me and, and, and people that I know or I would say would agree, is that your focus now going forward is, is coaching kind of your been your primary method of, of helping people?
Speaker 2 00:41:33 Yeah. And I think, you know, even before I was a quote unquote certified coach, like I was still a coach, right. It's just, now I have more tools to coach more, even more effectively. And so, you know, what you do is kind of coaching because I think coaching is kind of a broad term, right? The specific coaching I've been trained on through the life coach school is we it's called thought work, I guess, if you had to put a label on it. And so I have that tool now, but I still have all the tools. I still know how a 401k works. Right. So I can still teach people, all those basics. And, uh, so I just think that it's just a much more effective coach now to teach money to women physicians the best way to explain it. Yeah. And it's definitely not logical.
Speaker 2 00:42:18 And I think that you have hit the nail on the head, in the, in the route that you're going to, financial literacy is important, but the problem is you can kind of like learn about finances all day long and still there's these underlying issues that are kind of causing the problem that are not related. I look, I always like to look at the examples of, uh, you know, financial planners and there's a lot of them in, in, in my profession I know of that are not, they're terrible with their finances. They're just kind of a train wreck. So, um, the knowledge definitely does not get you the results there's solely for sure. Cool. Well, as we wrap up, I'm curious what what's on your radar for the future? What do you have, uh, what are you working on? What do you kind of, uh, building towards in, in your business?
Speaker 2 00:43:10 So, you know, I'm going to continue coaching and I'm actually working on a book. So please, to come out later in 2021, and as you can guess, it's not purely a how to invest your money type book. It's going to address some of those mental blocks about money. Head-on, it's written specifically for women, but obviously men could benefit from that as well. And I'm just going to continue building my one-on-one practice and my program. Awesome. Well, yeah, we've, we've hit on a lot of stuff. I feel like we could have like 17 sub podcasts on some of these topics cause they're big topics all in themselves and they're definitely the relevant topics at hand, but I really appreciate you sitting down with me and chatting through some of these Bonnie and definitely hope we can chat again sometime soon. Thanks so much for having me
Speaker 0 00:44:00 As always. Thank you so much for joining us today. If you found this valuable, please give us a review on iTunes and share with a friend. Also check out our
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