Fixing Your Life, Burnout, and Money Problems by Identifying Your Core Values with Robert Glazer

INTRODUCTION

This is the White Coat Investor podcast where we help those who wear the white coat get a fair shake on Wall Street. We've been helping doctors and other high-income professionals stop doing dumb things with their money since 2011.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
This is White Coat Investor podcast number 434 – Fixing your life burnout and money problem by identifying your core values with Robert Glazer.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

Our quote of the day today comes from Oscar Wilde, who said, “You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy or any of your time or any of your space.” I love that mindset because we all make those mistakes and you can't spend your life looking back at them.

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INTERVIEW WITH ROBERT GLAZER

We got a great interview today. We're actually going to be interviewing one of our keynote speakers from the upcoming conference. So, let's get him on the line and let you get to know Robert Glazer a little better.

My guest today on the White Code Investor podcast is Robert Glazer. Welcome to the podcast, Robert.

Robert Glazer:
Thanks for having me.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
For those of you who don't know him, and I suspect that's most of you since this is the first time we've had him on the podcast, he's the founder and chairman of the board of Acceleration Partners, which is a global leader in partnership marketing. He's also co-founded and chaired Brand Cycle, which was acquired in 2021. He's a serial entrepreneur and he's an award-winning executive. But most importantly, he's passionate about helping individuals and organizations elevate their performance.

He's also going to be one of our keynote speakers at WCICON 2026. Early bird registration is starting September 1st. If the same thing happens that happened the last time we were in Vegas, registration also ends September 21st, if it sells out in 23 hours like the last one did. But Robert is an author of eight books. He's written twice as many as I have. And the most recent one that's come out is called Rethinking Two Weeks Notice. He's got another one in the pipeline though, that'll be out within just a couple of months called The Compass Within. So, lots of great work, Robert. You should be very proud of what you've accomplished so far.

Robert Glazer:
Thanks. Hopefully we're just getting started.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah. Now, one of the things we love about your work is you've had the opportunity to interview lots of business leaders, authors, thought leaders. Can you tell us a little bit about some of the most impactful things you've learned from those interviews?

Robert Glazer:
Yeah. And this will connect to what we talk about later, but I think there's two things. One, we tend to hear about the highlights. And I think for me, in terms of particularly people that had success, what was the sort of turning point or the low light or when was it hard or when did they struggle? I think that's when a lot of the interesting stuff happened.

Two, I tend to ask people like, “Tell me about your childhood. What were you like as a kid?” And it's amazing how much those stories connect to what it is that they're doing now, either sort of going with or going against. I think it's just interesting and it ties to the topic we're talking about. We're trying to figure out who we are and what we do best. And I think a lot of us were, we were born and no one ever gave us the instruction manual and it takes us a while to figure that out.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah, for sure. All right. Well, on that note, let's go back to your childhood. Tell us a little bit about your upbringing, what it taught you about money, what it taught you about success and the things you've kept from that upbringing and the things you felt like maybe needed a little bit of adjustment.

Robert Glazer:
Yeah. Interestingly, I had a super strong work ethic. I think I didn't realize I was an entrepreneur because no one told me that was a thing, but I had a snow shoveling route and I had a candy selling business. And then in college I rented trucks and I brought people stuff to school. And so, I was much more interested in work and that sort of stuff than any of my schoolwork. I think I was constantly being told that I was not living up to my capability or expectations like literally every year for many years.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
This is coming from parents or teachers or friends or who's this coming from?

Robert Glazer:
Everyone. You may or may not see my report cards in my speech next year. They're pretty funny because they all say the same thing and they were different teachers. But that all sort of connects because I had to figure out what was important to me and what I like to do. And that wasn't necessarily what was going on in the classroom. And at some point, I figured out how to put that all together and to spend the time unapologetically working on the things and studying the things that I was interested in and that I wanted to learn about. I went through a period of underachievement. I think that led to a period of overachievement and almost burnout. And then it was really about finding what's that appropriate middle ground.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Very cool. I love finding the balance. Our audience in large part is high-income professionals. It's like 75% doctors. These people were pretty hardcore about their education. It sounds like your report card may not look like their report cards did.

Robert Glazer:
I would not have gotten into medical school with my report card, let's be clear.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
But they have the same struggle you have. They have this period of time where, frankly, they're overachieving because you have to overachieve to survive. 80, 100-hour work weeks during residency, et cetera, building a practice afterward. And this idea that maybe going nose to the grindstone the whole time your entire life is not the right move is an important lesson for people to learn.

IDENTIFYING YOUR CORE VALUES

But you discuss a concept you call core values. And I think The Compass Within, this book of yours, is coming out soon. It goes into great depth about this. And I suspect you're going to talk about it at the conference as well. But can you give a brief synopsis of what you mean when you talk about core values? What is a core value and why should it impact your life?

Robert Glazer:
Yeah. We hear this term a lot. It's thrown around at a company level, individual level. My experience is if I have 100 people in a room and I say, how many people know what their core values are? 50% to 60% are like, “Man, not really.” Maybe another 35%, 36% are like, “Hey, yeah, I've thought about it. The word family or integrity or a bunch of one-word things.” And one or two people will say, “Yes, I know my core values are. Here they are. They're written out. And they're not one word.” And those people tend to be operating at a different level or with a different sense of engagement and maybe harmony.

Core values, we all have personal core values. They're different from office corporate core values. These are the non-negotiable principles that guide our behavior and decisions. They're intrinsic. They're not aspirational. They're who we've always been, not who we are. In fact, when you figure them out and you look back on your life, you're like, “Oh, now I get that job and that relationship and why that worked and that didn't.” They're consistent. They show up in all areas of work, life, friendships. And I think they're clarifying.

To me, really having actionable core values that you can articulate helps you make some of the most important decisions. It's a decision-making rubric. Particularly in the book, I talk about the big three, which is your vocation or profession, your choice of partner and your choice of community. If you don't make these aligned with your core values, they have very little chance of success.

And a lot of us, unfortunately, kind of know a core value when it's been violated. My analogy is, if you imagine you're taking a sports car and you're driving it through a tunnel, a really nice car, and I turn off the lights, you're going to drift to one side. You're going to hit the thing. It's going to screech. You're going to come back to the middle. You're going to go to the other side. It's going to hit the wall. You're probably going to get out the tunnel. I don't know if this is a PG or PG-13 podcast. So we'll say, your car is going to look like crap. We'll go with the PG-13. But it's going to make it through.

That's sort of how some of us operate. We're like, oh, this is bad. Understanding your core values is turning the lights on in the tunnel, seeing the lines and staying away from the walls, which is sort of the edge. Staying away from these non-negotiable principles. Because when you're rubbing up against the wall, it's just never going to feel good. And you're not going to feel like you're doing your best work or living your best life.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Very cool. I love the guidepost analogies. It's interesting. I mentioned before we started recording that it was Katie, my wife, who really kind of introduced me to you and your work. It's been very impactful in her life. She's our chief product officer here at the White Coat Investor. But starting this year, she has another job. She was elected to our local school board this last year. And so, she's now a successful elected politician.

But when she was considering running for school board after encouragement from a friend, she spent some time thinking about all that and what would be involved in the position and whether it aligned with her core values. She'd spent some time the previous year in that discovery process and realized that two of her core values were service and education. And so, this is perfect.

Robert Glazer:
Picking a road. I remember she sent me that note. I'm just putting it all together now that that's the same person. If I knew your four core values and I said, “Hey, how does this job sound?” I can make a job that sounds like just the worst thing ever and like worst jobs in America by picking the opposite of how your core values are aligned. So, yes. So service and education. And look, she didn't change her vocation. But she added that to her life, which is important.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Very cool. Now, you mentioned three pretty important things. And let's dive into these a little bit. I want you to go in more detail on how these relate to your core values and how you ought to be living your life. You mentioned three important choices that we make: your vocation, your partner and your community. Can you give some advice to people on those three things if they have not yet established that, as well as if they feel like there needs to be a change in any of those areas?

Robert Glazer:
Yeah. The book is a parable. It's a character going through these challenges. And a lot of people say, “Oh, that resonated with me or that story” because it's the sort of thing that we all have. So, let's start with a partner. And this is something I probably didn't understand in my 20s or maybe even my 30s.

Our partner could be very different than us on different personality tests, different activities. It's not that we all like to do the same thing or we process information the same way, but we've got to be on the same page about the big things. I think that's where it sort of comes together when you talk about kids and community and these things.

And if you're not really aligned with your partner on the big thing on values, I think it has very little chance of success. In fact, I was helping someone figure out their core values in a work context. They were going through a divorce. As we figured out two of their values, they were like “My ex is the opposite of these two.” And I was like, “Well, that's not surprising to me. That's really hard.”

You can have some points of friction. But if you have opposite magnets, if you have opposite values, let's just imagine like someone even has a dominant value of “I have a value of long-term orientation. I spend a lot of time thinking about long-term strategies and playing the long game and otherwise.”

Well, if that's really important to me, and I was married to someone, a partner who is all about today, like it's all today. It's like “Spend like there's no tomorrow.” And maybe they are that way because they had a parent or a loved one pass away early or whatever it is. But that's going to be hard. If that's our only disconnect on a values basis, we can work around that. If we have four of those things, if every day is like, “Hey, we should think about what we want to save and do. – Nope, let's go spend it all today.” It's going to be too hard. It's just too much friction. So, that's partner.

Vocation. This could be either what you choose to do, which is “Am I a doctor? Am I a lawyer?” I think though, for a lot of people, it's how and where do you choose to do it? You can work at one law firm that has a different culture value set from another law firm. So, it's either like, I'm doing the thing I was supposed to do, or I'm doing it with the people and in a place where it aligns with my values.

And interestingly, the last one I think we tend to forget a lot about is community. Because the community supports a lot of our behaviors and what we do. I think particularly when you figure this stuff out, let's say my core values include all perspectives. And I like to hear from different people and learn from them. And I live in a town where we are around an election, it's like, choose your side. You're either on team red, or team blue. And you're like, this just doesn't feel like me. I had a health scare, or I had a parent that had a health scare. Health and vitality is really important to me.

Well, if I live in a community where everyone goes out drinking seven days a week, and that's the primary form of socialization, I'm either going to go to the bar and not drink, and it's going to be weird, or I'm going to go to the bar and drink and feel bad about myself, because it's not what I want to do. The communities we choose really drive our behavior, and we need to be a little more cognizant of how they support our values.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
And I imagine you walk people through this process of discovering their core values, both in your books and your presentations and in a lot of your work. But give me the brief method of trying to discover “What are my core values?”

Robert Glazer:
Yeah, let me tell you how it all came about. I figured this out, like 10 years ago, it was a huge unlock for me. I was speaking a few years ago, and I realized everything that someone said in my bio was sort of after I had figured out my core values. I was so excited about it that I took what I had figured out, because I couldn't find anything good.

I was at a leadership training where it convinced me I was values oriented, but they didn't tell us how to figure out our values. I went on this six months odyssey and figured it out. I then and following my definition of actionable core values, which by their nature cannot be one word, they cannot be things like integrity or family. We can double click on this later. But family, to me is not a core value. It's a priority. There's a value behind how you show up for your family, that's probably the same as how you show up for your employees or your friends or otherwise, and it's consistent.

I built this curriculum in my company. We started using it in leadership training, we ran through five or six classes with it. And I was like, “This is really good.” I wrote this book Elevate talking about spiritual capacity and understanding your core values. And people kept saying, “All right, well, how do I do it?” And I was like, “I don't have an easy answer for you. I have this program that I did on my team.”

I ended up making it into a course. And a couple thousand people have taken the course and your wife might have actually I think probably took the course. And they wrote incredible notes. I made changes. And I went and joined a school board and all this stuff. So I was like, “I got to get this to more people and I should write a book, but I'm just not sure people will read a book on core values.”

I'm a big fan of Pat Lencioni and Bob Berg and people that have written parables. And I kind of was like, “Huh, what if I created a character who's going through these things?” He meets a mentor, and he's coached through this process that I've built over the years, and you get to watch it, you get to watch the core values discord and see yourself in the character, Jamie, and you get to watch the coaching.

And at the end of the book, it tells you exactly, it just says, “Look, this is what you saw. And this is the framework. And this is the process. And there's how to do it.” And actually, anyone who buys and pre orders the book gets the course for free before launch so the course can provide the support.

There's a process and framework behind it to figure out what I say are your actionable core values. And it's about an hour of the course and the books about an hour, the work is longer than that. It'll take some time, but you'll have a pretty good start after you spend an hour on that.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Very cool. And like anything, if it's important, it's going to require some time and effort and dedication. It's not something you're going to throw down in eight minutes.

Robert Glazer:
Yeah, a lot of people they're like, “Yeah, this sounds good. And I see the stats that I'll share with you about what the difference of people and organizations who are aligned with their values, but it sounds hard. Sounds like a lot of work.”

I'm like, do me a favor. Part of the framework is these six questions that you have to answer about things in your life that have gone well or not well. And it's designed to pull out some of the behavioral based things. And they're at robertglazer.com/six if you want to see the six questions. Just grab a coffee, answer these things and take a look and see what comes out for you.

I've seen people post their results on LinkedIn and their notes. And I think when you do that, you might look at that and be like, “Huh, there's some themes here I might not have realized, like maybe I should dig in on this and see what the rest of this looks like.”

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah. What's an example of one of those six questions?

Robert Glazer:
Yeah. A simple one, what non-work environments have you been highly engaged in in your life? If you think about it, what situation? Someone might say “When I was planning parties and organizing things and bringing people together.” Another one is, “In what professional roles or jobs did you do your best work?” And it's not just like as an associate, get into the nitty gritty on that. What were you doing? “Oh, I was given independence and freedom. And I was given rope to figure it out.”

You start making all these notes on these six lists and these six questions, and eventually you'll start to see there's some pretty recurrent themes. And sometimes the things that we learn the most are from some of these negative questions. When were you disengaged? What did you struggle with? What are the qualities and people you struggle with the most?

Things that are the opposite or that frustrate us tend to be the opposite of something that we value. So, if I knew one of your values, what I often do to test people is I would invent an archetype. And I would say, you're meeting this archetype at a party and they want to talk to you. And then when I describe them, your face is going to tense up and you're going to be like, it's kryptonite, to get this person. If you tell me, it's generosity and being thankful for what you have. And I'm like, okay, Jane comes over to you at the party and she's talking about her trust fund and how they won't give her the distribution. And you're just like, there's a visceral reaction to it.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Is it possible for one of my core values to be avoiding meetings? Is that possible?

Robert Glazer:
Yeah. Well, we'd have to get into why you don't like meetings. Whether you find they're not real or there's probably a consistent thing behind that.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah. Maybe related to undying.

Robert Glazer:
Maybe your core value is “Get to the point.”

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah. Maybe that's it.

Robert Glazer:
In that case, I'd say, how do you feel if you're talking to somebody that just rambled? They rambled for hours or something like that. And see, that reaction that you just made, that's the reaction someone makes when they're right.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah, for sure. And maybe it's just underdiagnosed ADD that most emergency physicians have. I don't know.

Robert Glazer:
But that's a good thing for emergency physicians. The dopamine, the rush.

MATCHING YOUR CORE VALUES TO IMPORTANT PARTS OF YOUR LIFE

Dr. Jim Dahle:
It's not a bug. It's a feature, I think in a lot of ways. But it's true though, matching your core values to a partner, your community, your vocation and particular workplace is probably pretty darn important in making us happy in life. Do you have any tips for helping us to match into our community?

Robert Glazer:
Yeah. Well, first you need to figure out what yours are, and then you need to figure out what the environments are. And by the way, a lot of organizations, what is painted on the wall as their core values is not the core values. The core values are what are they rewarding? You could say we reward working smart, but the truth is it rewards a hundred hour weeks. That's different.

I think when you have that clarity, you can even think about, again, how am I doing my work? You know what? Let's say I'm an include all perspectives person. You should give me the projects where I'm going out into the field and getting everyone's feedback and collecting and getting a real good sense of the sentiment coming back and being able to share that. I'm not the person where you want me to go make a unilateral decision and not talk to anyone. That just goes against everything I believe and feel. And so, I think there's an ability for people to start to augment their work. And if they have a good boss or leader say, look, I want to do more of this and less of this.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah. Very cool.

Robert Glazer:
And any good leader should want to align their people to their strengths and use them to the best of their ability.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah, for sure. Good leaders recognize when their employees or staff members or colleagues, whatever, are better at something than they are, which is most things with any sort of reasonably large organization. You're going to find somebody better than you at just about everything in your organization.

Robert Glazer:
Look, that's what you would want in a perfect world. You'd want a whole bunch of people that are really great at the things that you don't want to do or don't know how to do.

USING YOUR CORE VALUES TO REDUCE BURNOUT

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah, for sure. I think there's a big contributor to physician burnout. They get into a workplace, they've got what they value, which might be maximizing this outcome for a patient or spending time building a relationship with a patient. And the workplace value is something else like efficiency, cranking through as many patients as you can so they can make some money. And I think that contributes a lot to physician burnout. Any tips on knowing your core values and using that to reduce burnout in the workplace?

Robert Glazer:
Yeah, my experience is that burnout is not correlated to the amount of work. It's the amount of time you're misaligned to these values or what you want to be doing. Because when we're in the zone of things that are values aligned, this is like time slips, this is the stuff you'd spend all night doing if it was free, if it was aligned.

I think people can make that awareness and unfortunately, in medicine, I think sometimes, as you were saying, let's say one of your values is solve the problem or figure out the point. You want to be in these emergency triage situations, you don't want to be in meetings. That's not where you want to be. Even within these disciplines, I think people have to think about what they want to do.

I had a friend years ago, a lot of times this happens in every organization, he started taking on administrative stuff. And he hated it. He'd go on vacation, and they'd call him and he just gave it up. And whatever he gave up for the income thing, he is so much more happy. He likes doing the work. He likes being the practitioner. The administrative stuff didn't feed any of his needs or wants. And frankly, he was happier with giving that up and taking less money. A lot of times in the organization we are pushed to take the next thing or take the higher thing or whatever. I think you want to figure out what the best thing is for you.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
A good example of that, I've got a partner. He joined our partnership a couple of years after I did when he came out of residency, a fellow by the name of Dr. Casey Launder. He's now serving as our medical director. And he told me the other day, we're going over patient interaction. He told me the other day, I like this way more than I expected I was going to, this administrative position. Because all of us emergency, we all think we only want to see patients and don't want to do any administrative work. He's really found out that it does align in a lot of ways with some of his core values to do this additional work.

Robert Glazer:
Whereas one of his friends might not. I remember a guy years ago, he had a hotel out in Park City. I said, “What are you doing? – I spent the summer, I'm a doctor. Where are you from? – Not from Utah. – How do you do that? – Well, I figured out years ago that I love this place and outdoors and flexibility.”

He created some medical job where he's the referral second opinion guy on everything. And people send him things, he makes a referral, and he's figured out how to work wherever you want. And there was an example where someone would say, “Well, you can't do that.” And he decided, “Well, no, this is my non-negotiables. My non-negotiables is I want to spend 12 weeks a year in Utah, I want to be outside in the summer.” And he figured out how to create a job that allowed him to do that.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah, it may take some financial maneuvering or sacrifice to align core values with your life.

Robert Glazer:
Yeah.

HOW TO ALIGN YOUR LIFE AND YOUR CORE VALUES

Dr. Jim Dahle:
What tips do you have for people that are finding “Man, I've set up my life and my life requires this income that I can only get if I'm not living a life aligned with my core values?” What tips do you have for them?

Robert Glazer:
Yeah. Look, sometimes in your world, this isn't probably putting food on the table. But sometimes we all want a Jerry Maguire moment, but there's real world responsibilities we have to do. And so, I think sometimes it's “Hey, decide, identifying the problem, deciding you're going to fix it, but understanding it might take six months or a year or otherwise.”

But look, a lot of us are stuck in some version of the rat race where we're in a community that has certain requirements. Then we are working more to meet the requirements for that community. And it takes some integrity with yourself, some honesty to say, “This isn't what I want. My kids don't need to go to this private school. In fact, that doesn't align with my values and not how I was brought up and I don't need to do the administrative job.”

Look, figure out what enough is, because sometimes you have more, but you're not happy. It's like, defense wins championships. And sometimes like the offense goes up and the defense goes up and you're like, “Look, I can just change this equation.”

I remember years ago, someone told me they asked people who had a million dollars in net worth to a hundred million dollars in net worth, how much money was enough? And what do you think the answer was after they asked that group?

Dr. Jim Dahle:
I'll bet it was twice as much as they currently had.

Robert Glazer:
It was a percent. It was like 40% more than they currently had. Or whatever it was. So it just shows you a good answer. It's all relative. And so, there's a famous thing about, I don't remember who said it, but he was at a party. The guy was bragging about all the rich people at the party and what they have in the boats. And he turns the guy and he goes, but I have something that you'll never have. And he goes, “What's that?” And he goes “Enough.”

Again, when you are doing more values aligned work, you're happy, you're engaged, you're at peace. I think you could be making more money, but be more miserable and spending it on things that you don't even really want to be spending it on.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah. That's a famous quote in the personal finance space for sure. It's Kurt Vonnegut.

Robert Glazer:
Yeah. That's what it was. It's a great quote. Because what is enough? Most of the people at this conference or in your world, they probably have enough, but they're on track. So, that's not the problem to solve.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah, for sure. It's identifying, recognizing when you get there. And aligning your values along the way is a pretty important piece.

Robert Glazer:
Yeah. And to those of us who are high achievers, if you've talked to folks, if you listen to Scottie Scheffler's personal breakdown speech, two weeks ago that I wrote about, when they just fixate on a summit and they get to that summit, they rarely enjoy the view. It's either a second or it's not as good as they thought. So what you're trying to do is find a really pretty climb where if you were climbing it an hour that day or four hours that day, it makes you sweat a little bit, it's uphill, but you could climb it all day. The view is unbelievable and you just enjoy it.

We architect a lot of things that “When I get to this, I will be happy.” And that is the false premise. Because if you've talked to almost anyone who's had that architecture, they will tell you, you don't suddenly become happy when you look off that vista or that cliff.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah. I love the climbing analogy. I don't know if you know this about me, Robert, but I'm a climber.

Robert Glazer:
I didn't know that.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
I've spent my whole life climbing and you're right. It's amazing how little time you spend on the summit. Sometimes it's literally walking across the summit on your way to the descent route, and that's it. It really is about the climb. And life, too. It's not about the summit.

Robert Glazer:
You got to enjoy the climb. There's the Everest summit, but look, most of the people at Everest don't even get to summit or even in the same party. So you better make sure that the whole thing is worth it.

There's like three climbs in life. The first climb is the one where people talk about the mountains. I think about it more of climb where everyone else told you, you needed to do it. So you get pushed onto that mountain and you climb it. And by the way, you didn't like the climb and the view wasn't great either. It didn't provide what you're supposed to do.

There's a second one where you feel like “I chose it. It's mine. I enjoy the climb, some days I don't.” But it would all be justified by that destination. And I think a little bit, you get to the destination, you realize it doesn't make me fulfilled. Even though I said I chose it, I still was pressured by other people or society.

And again, that third one is a beautiful vista uphill. I could do it for an hour a day. I could do it for 10 hours a day. I'm not really concerned with where it's going. I just like the climb.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
I think a lot of us do figure that out from time to time. For example, Katie and I went climbing in the Tetons. It's been a number of years since this climb. We did a route called the Lower Exum Ridge and the route ends halfway up the mountain. There's another route you can do if you want to go to the summit. We didn't go to the summit. At that point we'd been to that summit. What we were there for was to climb. We enjoyed the climb. And so, we escaped from the route at that point once we did the part of the route we were interested in doing.

I think there's probably a good analogy there for a lot of parts of your life. That it's not about winning, it's not about hitting a milestone. It really is figuring out how to enjoy it as you go along. And how you apply that analogy in your life, I think is a little more tricky than just understanding the analogy.

Robert Glazer:
For sure. A hundred percent. But first comes understanding. And look, your wife's the perfect example. Did she quit her job and become a teacher? No, but she started to think about “How do I contribute? And how do I do that in the education space? And how do I add that to my life and get that in my life? You can't do any of that without the awareness, because again, what happened in that case, I think for her was awareness and opportunity crossed and they're like, “Huh, I would have looked at this job opening or this request for people to run two years ago, and I wouldn't have even thought about it, but now I was like, oh, maybe I should think about it.”

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah, exactly. Great summary. Other experience you've seen people through in your work where you've helped somebody discover their core values and how that impacted their life going forward.

Robert Glazer:
Yeah. I think it really can change how you lead because the best leaders are deeply authentic. And I think we lead from these values, whether we do that with awareness of it or without awareness of it.

And having done this work with so many people I've seen, let's take, for example, someone who has a core value of trust. Well, in my thing, I talk about a lot of values come from you're running towards something or away from someone for whom trust is really important. In almost all cases that I've seen had a big violation of trust earlier in their life.

The way they operate with friends and work is I sort people into, “Can I trust them or can I not trust them?” Well, to that leader, someone who's five minutes late or misses a deadline or can't be found during a work day, that drives like deep visceral, like “This person can't be trusted. This is threatening.” It wouldn't trigger it for me because it's not as important for me.

And what they end up doing is they just sort people into binary trustworthy or not trustworthy. And the people that are deemed not trustworthy don't know it. They're in the penalty box. The key is thrown out. They're sort of like, “Why is this person not giving me any work? What's going on?” That's the problem if you don't know it.

Having done that work with some leaders, what they did was they went back to their team and they said, “Hey, I just realized trust is really important to me as a leader. And actually here's how you earn it with me and here's how you lose it with me. And if I feel really distant or sort of aloof or whatever, there's probably been a break of trust and you should come have a conversation with me about it.”

The folks that have figured that out for all their values, they go back to their teams and they're like, “Look, this is who I am. I'm not going to change myself. I lead from trust, but at least I can put this on my shirt and say this is how I lead.”

And there's some really great things to do. You can't tell someone how they're going to lead. You can say, these are qualities of good leaders in our organization, but you're going to lead from these things. They're really real for you.

My dominant core value is find a better way and share it. That's literally what I'm doing on this podcast. It's part of everything I do. I'm not going to not do that. And so, that's what I tell people. Look, if you want to be on my team, you want to work with me, we're about finding better ways and new solutions. And my fighting words is “Because it's been that way.” Why do we do that? – Because it's been that way. Don't say that on my team. That's a fireable offense.

It really feels good when you're like, look, you can be you. But as I said, you're either driving the car or it's like one of those cars that they teach 16 year olds on where there's a second steering wheel and someone else is driving it for you.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah. It reminds me of my least favorite phrase to hear from my kids. “Not my job, not my job.” I hate hearing it.

Robert Glazer:
Right. And we could dig around, you probably have some accountable. Do you come from a military background or anything like that or family or no?

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Well, I did spend four years on active duty.

Robert Glazer:
Yeah. That would be like a fireable offense. I've done this for a while. So that would be a fireable offense in the right to say that is not my job.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah, exactly. Every job it becomes your job in the military sometimes. Well, very cool. Robert, it's been awesome to chat with you. We've been talking with Robert Glazer. He's going to be a keynote speaker at WCICON26. That goes up for sale on September 1st, that's early bird pricing starting September 1st. Maybe it's the only pricing if this thing sells out as fast as the last time we went to Vegas.

He is also the author of “The Compass Within” and “Rethinking Two Weeks' Notice”. A great thought leader in this space of aligning your life with your core values. Thank you so much, Robert, for being willing to come on the White Coat Investor podcast.

Robert Glazer:
Thanks for having me. It was great speaking to you. I look forward to seeing you at the event.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
It's wonderful to have great guests on the podcast. As Megan told me afterward, you can really tell when they're a keynote speaker because they're very articulate and obviously spent a lot of time and are very comfortable in front of other people and speaking and sharing their thoughts and sharing their core values and their core beliefs.

If you are interested in hearing more from Robert, the best way is probably coming to the conference. We're going to buy you a copy of his latest book. It's not even out yet as we record this. It's “The Compass Within.” It's going to be in your swag bags at the conference. You sign up for that conference at wcievents.com.

I think it's going off for sale at midnight, starting Monday. Monday, the 1st of September early bird pricing is going to last through the 23rd of September or until the conference sells out, whichever one comes first.

Last time we were in Vegas, we sold out in 23 hours. So, if you want to come to the conference, I wouldn't delay. Not only do you get better pricing by buying it early on but you're sure you're able to come as well.

Now we haven't sold out for a few years, but we get pretty close most years to the amount of people we're looking to bring there. So, it wouldn't surprise me. That's such an accessible location that we actually do again this year.

The conference, if you're not aware, it's in Vegas. Yes. So you get the convenience of a short, cheap, direct flight into Vegas, but it's not on the strip. You're close enough to the strip that if you want to do the strip in Vegas, you can do that. You can go down there to clubs or shows or gambling or whatever you want to do on the strip. But you're not staying there.

You're staying in a resort property that's well off the strip. And it's going to feel much more similar to prior WCICONs where it's a bit of a retreat feel. You come out, you're interacting with docs. You find your tribe, these people that are like you that are not afraid to talk money with each other, real dollars, real cents at lunch in the hallways, they're all sitting next to each other in the classroom. This is your chance to really feel a member of this community.

Sign up for that starting Monday, wcievents.com. We're going to have a great time. I think I'm even leaving some hikes. I'm thrilled about that. That'll be the first time we do this at a conference, but one of my favorite places in the world is just outside of Las Vegas. Red Rock Canyon. It's pretty awesome.

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Thanks for leaving us a five-star review and telling your friends about the podcast. A recent one comes in from somebody calling themselves Money Doc who said “Fundamental for all financial levels. I started from knowing nothing to feeling quite competent just by listening to the podcast alone.” Which I'm pretty impressed by actually. Because I view the podcast as maybe not quite as in-depth as a lot of the stuff we cover on the blog and the emails and books, et cetera.

He goes on to say “On recent podcast episodes with Tyler Scott hosting in place of Jim, honestly, it's still great. I've loved listening to Jim walk me through all the different steps in my financial journey. But hearing from Tyler, who also has similar background being previously a dentist and on top of that now doing financial advising, he's well qualified. Obviously he knows what he's talking about. I learned a lot from hearing the same principles taught in a slightly different way. I especially like to teach first – question after test to see if I can answer the question myself. Anyway, keep it up. Whether it's Jim or Tyler, you both have my support.” Five stars.

A great recent review. We appreciate that. Thanks so much for what you're doing out there. Your work is important. It matters. And there's a reason they pay you so well. All we're here to do is help you to be able to focus on that work, on your patience, on your practice, on your business, whatever it is you do on your family, on your own wellness.

Keep your head up and your shoulders back. You've got this. We're here to help. We'll see you next time on the White Coat Investor podcast.

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The hosts of the White Coat Investor are not licensed accountants, attorneys, or financial advisors. This podcast is for your entertainment and information only. It should not be considered professional or personalized financial advice. You should consult the appropriate professional for specific advice relating to your situation.

INTRODUCTION

This is the White Coat Investor podcast Milestones to Millionaire – Celebrating stories of success along the journey to financial freedom.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
This is Milestones to Millionaire podcast number 237 – Plastic Surgeon Hits Mid-Career Milestones.

This podcast is sponsored by Bob Bhayani of Protuity. He is an independent provider of disability insurance and planning solutions to the medical community in every state and a long-time White Coat Investor sponsor. He specializes in working with residents and fellows early in their careers to set up sound financial and insurance strategies.

If you need to review your disability insurance coverage or to get this critical insurance in place, contact Bob at www.whitecoatinvestor.com/protuity. You can also email [email protected] or you can just pick up your phone and call (973) 771-9100.

All right, welcome back to the Milestones to Millionaire podcast. This is the podcast where it's all about you and your milestones. We want to celebrate with you. You can apply to come on the podcast at whitecoatinvestor.com/milestones.

By the way, we're having a special sale on all of our online courses just for podcast listeners. It's 20% off through the 29th of this month, just a few more days. Use the code PODCAST20 to get 20% off all of our courses.

Now, all of them are sold with 100% money back one week, no questions asked, guaranteed. As long as you've watched less than 25% of the course, we'll give you your money back. So, there's no risk to you and now you can get it for 20% off.

All right, we've got a great interview today. I hope you enjoy it. We don't get a lot of mid-career kind of milestones, so this is fun to have one. Stick around afterward. We're going to talk a little bit about the debt dilemma that dentists face when they come out of school.

INTERVIEW

Our guest today on the Milestones to Millionaire podcast is Fred. Fred, welcome to the podcast.

Fred:
Well, thank you. It's good to be here.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Tell us a little bit about yourself, how far you are out of training, what you do for a living, what part of the country you're in.

Fred:
Yeah, I'm in Colorado and I'm about 23 years out of training. I finished my second residency in 2002, and so I've been in practice now for more than two decades. My specialty is actually plastic surgery, to be more specific, microvascular reconstructive plastic surgery. I'm also board certified in ENT and fellowship trained in oncology. So, I have a pretty broad scope of practice.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
It's a lot of time spent in training.

Fred:
Yeah, it's about nine years of surgical training, so it adds up quickly.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Any regrets whatsoever about spending that long in training?

Fred:
No, if I could spend more, I would. I think becoming educated and trained is quite a gift and it's something that I've enjoyed. I actually think it's great to get as much knowledge and education as you can in multiple aspects of life. I've really enjoyed it, but I've had no regrets about it. Part of the fact that I've had no regrets is that I've also been very fortunate in my ability to pay for through family support, to be frank, and that has enabled me to do a lot of things in life that are very unique, I think, and also very special.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah. As we talk about your milestone, it's maybe a little different than lots of milestones we've had on the podcast. You've been able to reach a certain level of financial security that allowed you to spend some time and peace of mind to actually do some writing, get away from surgery quite as much and do some writing. You note that you paid off all your debt as well as reached your savings goals for college, for your kids. So tell us a little bit about those goals and why they were important to you.

Fred:
Yeah, I think the best way to describe my goal is more financial security. What that means to me is being able to provide the same educational opportunities that I had to my children. I've put a lot of emphasis over the last many years of saving for college and higher education for my kids so that they could do what they wanted to do. And I hit that goal about four years ago.

I also paid off all my debt in terms of mortgages and my wife's educational loans. And so, it's something that I have no debt and basically my kids can kind of do what they want from an educational standpoint. And once I hit those goals, I think there's a big burden. It was a burden off my shoulders in terms of what I can do. I love what I do. I've really never thought about retiring early. I love what I do. I've never wanted to sort of become retired at 40 or 50, not even 60. It's something that once I hit those goals, it sort of gave me some freedom or at least peace of mind.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Did you cut back on how much you were working and earning after reaching those goals? Or was it just more a sense of peace of mind?

Fred:
It's peace of mind. I mean, I cut back a little bit. I still take a lot of calls. I still work five days a week, but I was taking off some afternoons and I was taking off some days that I might not be on call. But I've been in a routine now for 20 years. And I think most surgeons are like this. They get up very early and they go to bed very late. They get their own personal stuff done before 07:00 o'clock in the morning. From 05:00 to 07:00, it's a routine that once you're in it, it's kind of like something that you're comfortable with and it's hard to shake. And so, if you shift things around a little bit, there's a lot of time in the days before people get up, they can get work done.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Tell us a little bit about your college savings goal. What were you trying to accomplish there? And how did you do it?

Fred:
Yeah, it was 529 plans. I started literally the first month that I became an attending. And I just started stocking away money for both my children, or I only had one at the time, but eventually the second. And that was just an automatic withdrawal rate of a certain thousands of dollars per month. And then my dad was able to also give me some money for college for my kids. And so, we have a lump sum of money now, which can enable them really to go to any private school they want. And if they don't want to go to private or any school they want, it doesn't matter. They got the ability now, I think, to make a choice that's their own.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
How did you decide how much was enough in that fund?

Fred:
Well, I looked at the schools that I went to and extrapolated what they would be. And so, it's a lot of money.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Did you include medical school as well?

Fred:
Well, I wish my kids would go to medical school. I would be delighted if they went to medical school. I don't think they will. I think they prefer other aspects of education. But if they decided they wanted to do that, I would find the money for it.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
But you didn't include that in your goal, though.

Fred:
I did not. No, it's private college and probably one to two years of graduate school.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Okay. So, did you ever put a number figure on that? Did you say, “I want to have $250,000 in there?” Or how did you pin it down?

Fred:
It's probably $400,000 to $500,000 per child.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah, that ought to pay for a very nice college education, as well as some graduate school, unless you pick the very most expensive place you can find in the country.

Fred:
Well, it's a little bit about choice. My parents were very well educated. And my dad always told me a story that his father was straight out of Greece. And he was a first generation immigrant. And his dad owned a Greek diner in Philly. And he was able to go to school to Penn because the owner, his dad, became basically an indentured servant to another Greek. He sold the restaurant to him and put his son through college. And so that lesson, my dad always said to me, I'll pay for whatever you want to do. I've taken that lesson to my children.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Now, there's a very good chance you have overfunded these 529s, and they will not actually spend that much. What's your plan for any overfunding?

Fred:
Well, they can take it to their kids.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
You're just going to change the beneficiary to the grandkids?

Fred:
Change the beneficiary and make it a fund for education. That could be whatever they define as education, as long as it has value for themselves. And it could be their children. But the comfort of knowing that you can receive an education no matter what the cost, that's a great thing to give somebody.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Now, let's talk a little bit about paying off your debts. What debts did you have when you started? It sounds like your parents helped you with your education. Did you have student loan debts as well?

Fred:
No, my parents paid for college, for medical school. And then I went to graduate school twice, once during medical school, once during residency. And so, they paid for basically my graduate school, one of my residency programs paid for one of my graduate degrees. But it was paid for my parents. The money was always there.

I actually knew very little about finance, probably until I was an attendant, to be frank. I knew that you should invest in free tax accounts to the max. I don't think I had a brokerage account until probably 10, 15 years ago. The focus was on becoming educated and obtaining a skill set and a knowledge base that would kind of help others. And that was the focus.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Now, your debts were what? A mortgage? Or what else did you have?

Fred:
The debts I had were two mortgages. And then my wife also, she's a teacher, she went to school to be a teacher. And there was debt for her undergraduate, as well as her graduate degree. And so, that was some family debt for education. It was that, mortgages. And then if you think about saving for college for two kids, it ends up being a lot of money. And once that was all paid off, which is really all four years ago, that's sort of when the peace of mind became very realistic.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah. What was your goal as far as paying off your mortgage? How long did you want to take to pay it off? And how long did it take you? And tell us about how you budgeted to do that.

Fred:
I finished training at the age of 37. And so, a lot of surgeons don't finish training until mid-30s. In fact, at least for plastic surgery, everybody, I would say most people in my generation finished a separate residency first. They did general surgery, ENT, and then they did a second residency in plastic surgery. And then you throw in research on top of that. Most of us finished mid-30s, late 30s. I bought my first house at 37 and didn't pay that house off. But when we moved, I eventually paid that house off in about eight years.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Eight years. And then that was what you were aiming for. That was your goal, or it just happened to work out that way?

Fred:
It just worked out that way. As you begin to have bigger salaries, to be frank, you can pay more things off. And so, it was enabled through bigger salaries.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Give us a sense of what you've earned throughout your career.

Fred:
Yeah. My base salaries have ranged from about $175,000, which was my initial salary, to up to about $600,000. And that does not necessarily include bonuses. Those change according to the institution and the frameworks for bonus structure. But that would be a rough estimation. And so, the first salary was about $175,000, and that was after two residencies, two surgical residencies and a fellowship. It took a while to get a salary that was reasonable, to be frank.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Give us a sense, what percentage of that were you putting toward investments and toward extra payments on your debts and so forth? Give us a sense of how frugal you were living to accomplish these goals.

Fred:
Yeah. I would not call myself frugal. I came out with no debt, so I was able to pay bills that were daily bills, and I didn't have debt on my head. I basically started my pre-tax accounts as an attendee, not as a resident. I didn't even know they existed, I think. And so I started that as an attendee.

When I realized the longevity and the needs and what you needed to save, I understood the 20% rule at that time. I began to roughly do about 20%, starting when I became an attendant. And most of my savings at that time was strictly pre-tax accounts with a brokerage account that was a couple hundred dollars, $500, $1,000 a month at the most. And then I was putting money aside for college for my kids at the same time.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
How far away do you think you are from becoming financially independent at this point?

Fred:
I'd say a few years. But if I had to retire for whatever reason, I'm fine. I've got a disability. I've actually got a pension where I work now. I've got enough in the bank that I would be fine. I don't need a huge salary per se, and all our expenses would be met. I'm financially comfortable, but I probably have to cut back on lifestyle a little bit. But I've lived a good life. I've traveled, I've been educated in multiple countries, and I've done many things in my life that I have no regrets about. So it's not like I'm saving up to go there abroad for the next five years.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
It sounds like your upbringing had a pretty significant impact on you, maybe not in you becoming financially literate very early on, but tell us a little bit about your role models and how that upbringing affected the way you managed money.

Fred:
My dad was a naval commander, and he was also an oceanographer. So he was in the Navy when I was growing up, became a residential real estate agent in Washington, D.C. And basically, he was able to do well. He did not teach us finance per se, but he was a hell of a role model and still is. He's 85 and still works every day. He basically set the standard that if you find something you love, the work is not a big deal.

The other thing that I would consider a very big role model is my grandmother, who was one of the first women actually to graduate from Penn in 1933. And she became a public school teacher in Philadelphia. Her discipline was history, and that's what I've studied as an undergraduate and in graduate school is history, here being medical history.

When you have role models like that, that are stressing education and are giving you security, it's kind of what you want to do. And so I've spent a lot of time in graduate school and undergraduate studying history, European history, medical history. And I've also known that if you like what you do, working until you're 85 is fine. It's actually enjoyable.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Now you published a book recently, Reflections of a Microvascular Plastic Surgeon: Reconstructing Shattered Lives. Tell us a little bit about the motivation to do that, as well as the financial aspects of it and what you learned from it.

Fred:
I must say I was getting somewhat demoralized by the whole COVID situation in 2021. And then part of that motivation to write a book was actually to sort of help with that morale. And also just don't think people understand how hard trauma surgeons work, how hard reconstructive surgeons work.

The book is meant to inspire people to kind of do what I do. It's also meant to show kind of issues of quality of life, expertise, and how patients exceed expectations. The whole chapter is divided up into basically, you know, facial reconstruction, breasts, limb salvage, research, all the things that you think about.

The whole book is devoted to patients. Each chapter is how patients exceed expectations and how important it is, what we do as doctors. And I think when people see the value in it, they begin to get reinforced in their career choices and what they're doing. When you're working 12 hours during an operation, you're tired, but there's extreme value. And that sort of lesson is what I wanted to show. I think doctors will appreciate it because they'll see the value in what they do to help people. And so, that was the motivation, but there is no money in it.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Written more for doctors or written more for patients?

Fred:
It's written for both. I've given it to my patients. The patients that are in the book, they requested copies. And so, people that are going through trauma and cancer care, where they're undergoing tremendous life changes, it's meant for them, but it's also meant to inspire people to step back and just value our role as a doctor. Because you begin to see how important we are.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Do you get rich off the book or was it disappointing what book publishing pays?

Fred:
Oh, it doesn't matter. Your publisher gets 90%, you get 10%. If a book is $40, you get $4. And so, there's no money in bookselling. You do it to basically inspire people and to hopefully offer some sort of life lesson. But there's not money in book publication. There's money perhaps for other folks, but you do it for yourself, you do it for people, you do it so you can offer some life lessons to others.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah. All right. Well, if there's somebody out there that's like you were 20 years ago, wants to be comfortable, retireable by mid-career, maybe wants to spend a little bit of time doing some other stuff on the side, like writing a book, what advice do you have for them?

Fred:
Well, I think the first thing is that you have to understand that career and money are not sprints. They're marathons. I think as long as you have security and a plan and you know you can do something and love it for 20 years, you're going to be fine. And I do think people should take time off to do things that are going to enhance their ability to appreciate their work as a doctor.

That could be as simple as working abroad in the country. It could be taking graduate courses and things that are related to medicine, perhaps history, perhaps English. Study things that aren't necessarily medicine or necessarily finance. Something that would enhance your understanding of what you do. I think that's going to help.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Very cool. Well, Fred, thank you so much for being willing to come on the podcast and share the lessons you've learned with others and hopefully inspire them to also meet their milestones.

Fred:
Oh, thank you.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
All right. I hope you enjoyed that interview. It's interesting as we go through life and talk about milestones people reach, people are very upfront and very clear and detail oriented when we're talking about the first few milestones. Getting back to broke or hitting a net worth of $100,000 or paying off their student loans, those sorts of things.

As we get further out, people get vaguer and vaguer and vaguer with the specifics. I think just looking for a little bit of privacy. And by the time they get to milestones like being a decamillionaire, they want to be anonymous completely. It's always interesting to talk with people about their milestones. But the more you're willing to share, the more the podcast listeners love it for sure.

FINANCE 101: THE DENTIST DEBT DILEMMA

I promised you at the top of the podcast, we're going to talk a little bit about the debt dilemma the dentists face. And here's what the dilemma is primarily. You're already going to dental school. And if you're like most dental students, you're paying for it with debt, which means you're coming out with something on average, around $300,000. That means lots of you have more than $300,000. $400,000 or $500,000 is not unusual at all. And if you go do a residency of some kind, like many dentists do, a lot of those residencies don't pay you. It's very different from medical residencies. In fact, sometimes you have to pay tuition still, while you're in residency.

And so, not only are you not making payments on your debt, but it's continuing to grow not only from the interest on the money you borrowed in dental school, but from money you're still borrowing to get through residency.

And so, the highest dental or the highest student loan burdens we ever see, are usually from dental subspecialists. It's orthodontist, and they owe $1.1 million, or $800,000, or something like that. If you pay for your undergraduate and, and maybe some sort of post grad degree, a gap year or something in dental school and your ortho residency, and you pay for it all with debt, it's not unusual to be in the high six figures, or even seven figures, just with your student loans. But I don't think that's necessarily typical for most dentists, I think most dentists are coming out with $300,000 or $400,000 or $500,000.

But that gives them a dilemma. Because they come out of school, or they come out of a one year residency of some kind. And then they want to practice dentistry. And they have a couple of choices. One is to go work as an employee, somebody else's practice. And maybe that practice is owned by another dentist, maybe it's owned by private equity, maybe it's owned by somebody else, but you're an associate. And you're probably not getting paid all that well, it's not that unusual even to be paid in the low six figures, less than $200,000 as an associate.

And that doesn't work very well, when you owe $400,000 or $500,000 in student loans, especially if you're ready to go buy a house. And with the housing crisis today, in a lot of areas of this country, it's hard to get anything decent for less than $400,000 or $500,000 or $600,000, it seems like. So you've got that debt also potentially being added on to your student loans.

But there's another dilemma, right? Because many dentists, if they run a successful practice, make more, dramatically more if they own the practice. And one of the best ways to actually boost your income is to buy a practice. But that means either starting it yourself, which can be challenging, or buying it from a retiring dentist. And you're probably going to need a practice loan to do that. Maybe it's another half million or even a million dollars.

The big question a lot of dentists have is, “Should I keep working as an associate? Or should I take on even more debt than my student loans and my mortgage?” And the answer, I think if you're really willing to get after it, and this practice really makes sense to buy, you've really done your due diligence on it, and it's going to help you significantly boost your income, is probably to take out that debt.

But you've got to live pretty frugally for a number of years to manage this triple onslaught of debts between your mortgage and the student loans and the practice loan. And so, not only do you have to make that practice just as efficient as you can and work your butt off and maybe even hire some associates to work there for you to help boost the profitability as well, but you've got to live very frugally as well. Certainly long enough to get rid of those student loans, but also probably to pay off most of that practice loan, at least to a place where it's very comfortable for the practice to carry that.

And then of course, nobody wants to be in mortgage debt for 30 or 40 years. So you probably want to pay that off in some sort of shorter than 30-year period as well. That's going to take some careful financial planning and budgeting. But don't worry, you're going to get there eventually. You're going to be able to live on that nice doctor's salary eventually. But this does mean that you've got the equivalent of a live like a resident period that's going to last for something close to five years, if not maybe even a little bit more, and then grow into that income as slowly as you can.

I just don't see any other way around it. You're not going to pay that $600,000 mortgage and those $500,000 in student loans, making $140,000 as an associate. You've got to figure out a way to get your income up. You've got the education. You probably need to take on some business risk, and yes, probably carry a little bit more debt to get there. I hope that's helpful to you.

SPONSOR

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You can contact Bob at www.whitecoatinvestor.com/protuity. You can email [email protected], or you can just call him at (973) 771-9100. However you contact him, do so and get that disability insurance in place today before you become ineligible to buy it, or it gets more expensive, or heaven forbid, you actually become disabled.

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DISCLAIMER

The hosts of the White Coat Investor are not licensed accountants, attorneys, or financial advisors. This podcast is for your entertainment and information only. It should not be considered professional or personalized financial advice. You should consult the appropriate professional for specific advice relating to your situation.