Speaker 1 (00:02.156)
Welcome to the Physician Family Financial Advisors Podcast, where physician moms and dads turn today's worries about taxes and investing into all the money you'll need for retirement and college. I am Ben Utley.
and I'm Nate Rennecke. So Ben, what are we talking about today on the podcast?
Nate, I am so glad that you asked because today we're going to try something different. Rather than just talking about how to make physicians feel financially secure, we're going to hop in the time machine and we're going to go forward into the future and see how things look 20 years from now. Nate, are you ready to get into our custom crafted time machine?
Hold on. I'm putting on my sunglasses. In the future there's always sunglasses. So I on big sunglasses so that I don't look out of place and I'm sitting in the time machine.
Okay, I'm rocking an 80s style, I'm put on my Ray-Bans.
Speaker 2 (00:55.995)
man, okay, you got it.
When you're ready, just step in and throw the switch and I'll make the time machine sound.
Here we
Whoa, Nate, I think we're in the future.
Sure. What year is it?
Speaker 1 (01:15.736)
Gosh, I think it's like 2042 or something.
Wow, 2042. We hear that number a lot.
We do. It's like a retirement destination for some of the people that we serve.
Yeah, wow. We made it!
We did. We did. Hey! Look, I see a newspaper!
Speaker 2 (01:35.894)
A newspaper? That's strange. 2042. Okay. Let's take a look. Let's see what's going on in 20...
the headlines.
Speaker 2 (01:46.798)
Let me see here, see what's important. Look, this is the first headline. COVID-42 vaccine globally available. COVID-42. Let me read that one. It says, on Tuesday, the Intergalactic Health Organization announced that hyposprays of the latest COVID vaccine would be available throughout the galaxy, even for the universe's most impoverished planets.
No way. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:16.674)
Wow, seems like we're beginning to achieve health equity 20 years in the future.
interesting.
What else do see, Nate?
Speaker 2 (02:26.766)
Okay, let's see. So Elon Musk's tweets from Mars. Wow, that's interesting. Okay, multi-trillionaire tweeted from his home base on Mars to his entire staff that they must join him in office. Wow, this guy just won't quit.
He won't quit, but you know, we did finally find a way to get that guy off the planet.
yeah. Wow. Interesting. Okay, meanwhile we're all, it's 2042, right? So we're all working from the metaverse from home. Interesting. Okay.
course.
What does your metaverse look like? Mine looks like a beach.
Speaker 2 (03:02.326)
Mine looks like my house.
Yeah. Nice. Nice. It's still good. It's a pizza oven still working years from now.
Pizza oven is still going, except I just don't have to spork so hard on the dough.
Nice.
Okay, let's see here. Empire State Building trading volume tops record. This should be interesting. As one of the largest pieces of real estate to be traded on the blockchain, non-fungible tokens were recently traded 1 million times on Tuesday, eclipsing the previous record set last week. You can trade the Empire State Building then.
Speaker 1 (03:38.976)
It finally happened. We finally found some use for the blockchain. Wonder how Bitcoin is doing.
says Bitcoin recovers from its latest sell-off to its current valuation of one penny per coin. Those people are really holding on.
Yeah, yeah, those hodlers are in for the very, long haul. Wow. I can't believe that we actually found a newspaper 20 years from now. Who knew that we're still doing things in print, but I some things will never die. Hey, Nate, look over there. It looks like it looks like a graduation celebration.
That's right.
Speaker 2 (04:06.763)
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (04:14.574)
That's strange though, they're a little too old for graduation.
Yeah, the- the- I guess the valedictorian... Gosh, she looks like she's in her mid-60s. Wait a minute. She seems familiar to me. How about you?
Yeah, that looks like a client of ours.
Yeah, she looks pretty good, you know? To be in her mid-60s, she looks happy and... wait a minute. There's... There's... Her family is there.
Right, kids. Looks like her parents still there. Forensic- WHOA! That's me!
Speaker 1 (04:51.72)
dude, and I see me over there too. Wow, I kept all my hair and I finally got a little weight off.
I gained weight! This is freaking me out.
Hot dude.
Well, we better get back in the time machine before we see ourselves and disrupt the space-time continuum.
Okay, let's do it.
Speaker 1 (05:10.754)
Throw the switch when you're ready, Nate.
I threw it.
Whew, back in the year 2022. Wow, what a trip that was.
I mean, blockchain is cool and all, but I want to keep that weight off. Yeah.
Yeah, well, and I want to keep my hair. It goes with my face made for radio. So, hey, we recognize the woman that was standing up. I think that she was giving like her retirement speech at her retirement party. Do think so?
Speaker 2 (05:43.138)
That's what it looked like to me. Yeah. like the last party for yourself.
Who else did you see there besides her family and her friends?
Well, looked like there was some other doctors there, so some colleagues. When you say family, that's made up of most of the important people, kids, mom, dad, also some friends though. And that encompasses a lot of people, family, friends, and colleagues.
I was kind of surprised to see how like healthy she looked. She seemed kind of relaxed and almost like there was this this glow or aura about her. She seemed like genuinely happy.
Yeah, and so did the people around her. It looked like that this person, this woman was really important to all those people. It's not too often. I've been to a few retirement parties where you could tell someone was really special and a lot of people showed up, made a lot of impact. And that's what this looked like to me.
Speaker 1 (06:48.866)
Yeah, didn't look the least bit burned out. like she's going out in style.
That's right. So yeah, mean, if she's in her early to mid 60s, she did something right, right? I mean, she didn't have to retire too late. She must have made some good financial decisions.
Yeah, so she's probably in her 40s right now and she's one of our clients somewhere. So, you know, I'm curious, I mean, what do we do to get her there? And more to the point, what does she do to wind up at the finish line with a smile on her face? Maybe we could kind of dip into that.
Yeah, well, the the one thing that is obvious that we sort of mainly talk about is the money part. Yeah. Saying she made some good financial decisions, but I was way more interested in all the people around her and what it takes to truly make an impact, maybe with your colleagues, but also at home with your family. But even more than that, in yourself to get to that point, not feel burnt out.
and to be truly happy and fulfilled in life when you're about to end the thing that took up most of your life, which is medicine in your work. Right. Right. How does one do that?
Speaker 1 (08:07.79)
It kind of makes me think about this thing that I encountered when I was going through personal and business coaching. They call it the of the wheel of life. It's a thing that helps people achieve some balance in their lives. Maybe we could talk about some of the areas that we've identified on the wheel of life.
Yeah, yeah, there there are I think there's I don't know seven or eight of them, but the ones that we think are super important I I came up with four so We have work Right growth that's And then connection and the last one that a lot of physicians I think struggle to think about some don't but is play play
Play. Play. I'm not even sure what that means.
play.
Hey, we're being pretty playful right now.
Speaker 1 (09:03.943)
If it's in the Wheel of Life, must be something good.
Yeah, that's right. So work growth connection and play. So let's start with work.
Yeah, but it seems totally obvious. Like, you show up at work, you work, you come home. Like, what is it about work that's so important about, you know, like, over the next 20 years that it's a formative thing in your life?
Right. Well, I think work is the most straightforward way that people have an impact on the world. And if they find something that gives them some meaning in their work. And I think also, you I believe that, you know, we're sort of wired to do good work. Like it feels good to work and, physicians feel that really thoroughly. The problem is
Rethinking work so that I can not overtake your entire life. That's the real hard part, right? Physicians I think it's very it's almost admirable to give up your life to be a physician But what what people who admire that don't see is how much it really takes away. So we have You know, we've talked to physicians for years about Rethinking what makes
Speaker 2 (10:23.63)
work feel like work, so your schedule, the leaders that you work with, what you're doing at work. Can you speak up that a bit?
Yeah, and the incentive structure where you work, you know. I had a thought about that that's coming to me here for second. So I know that we covered this in a podcast. Which of our podcasts was it we discussed?
We have a bunch of them about work. I mean, this is this is the thing that burns physicians out, even though it makes them feel, you know, good. We had one that is should physicians set themselves on fire? That's the fire movement. That was actually one of I think I was episode two.
Yeah, definitely an episode two. Really popular.
Yeah, really popular. Yeah. And then there was a one that was about changing jobs. was episode 22, changing jobs and how to make your physician family work better. Physicians really get a lot out of discussing why they're changing jobs, why work isn't working. And so that was a pretty popular episode. And then one of our most popular episodes was the eternal physician and exploring the idea of never retiring. So what would you do?
Speaker 2 (11:39.896)
How would you shape your work if you'd never retired? And that was episode 27. And that's sort of what we're talking about here. Someone who shows up to retirement in their mid-60s and they are happier than ever. They didn't slog through 30 years of work and dislike it or 30 years of burning themselves out just to get to retirement and be that happy with that much support around.
And they didn't RE, right? They didn't retire early. They retired at a regular retirement age, right? I think that one of the reasons that physicians get kind of stuck in the burnout hamster wheel is, you know, society demands a lot. They make a lot of sacrifices, but I also think that work is a zone of competence for physicians and it is for good financial advisors too. I mean, I, I like work because I feel competent at my work and feeling competent is one of my values.
Right? But I think it's very easy to get stuck in our zone of competence to the point that we go there, we get a good feeling, but the more we go there, the more it wears off. And I that happens in jobs and it sneaks up on the physicians that are serving until they wind up stuck in it. know? So I think looking at work is just, just like a part of things rather than a thing is important.
Well, even physicians can feel like they're just punching the clock, no matter how complicated it is, because you get to the point where you understand it so well. You know, I'm earlier, much earlier in my career than let's say you are. And I've noticed that even now there's a point where you could say, I'm good enough. I could stop growing. But you realize that that's just, you know, that that's like death.
to stop growing would be to stop living. And you're so much, so many good things when you're young and you're going, even in grade school, life is just exploding with new things. And you wanna keep that going. It's just that you have to go deeper. And so that brings us to our next one actually, which is growth. Serve a wide variety of physicians from all walks of life.
Speaker 2 (13:57.802)
at growth looks different to everyone. But can you talk about how you've seen some of maybe past clients or how you've grown over the years?
well with, with clients, the growth seems to come in response to a stimulus. usually there's a stimulus and there's a wake up call. like the stimulus might be a really crappy day at work. might mean somebody died on your shift, or it might mean your management did something that was just atrocious. Right. And you can lay down and let that stuff beat you up, or you can choose to respond to that in a way that evokes growth.
Usually requires change from you. We all encounter this. Every human being encounters this. We, think it growth comes from rising to a challenge. I think that growth comes from going into a fear. And of course, the first thing you have to do before you go into a fear is identify that fear. Get, get it down, maybe write it down on paper, a few sentences and say, you know, I'm afraid of this. I'm afraid of this outcome and really pick that up. Be curious with it. Look at it from all angles and say, you know,
the bad thing that I fear happening, is it really going to happen? Or could it be other ways? You know, to get a grip on that fear and then maybe go into it, experiment with it, take a movement toward that thing that's fearful. So that is something that I've seen clients grow through. I've seen my kids grow that way. For me personally, you know, one of the ways that I grow is through reading nonfiction. Sometimes it's self help, sometimes it's books about the world.
it's for me that's a way to to hook on the growth because my mentors a lot of my mentors are in books
Speaker 2 (15:38.826)
And for me, it's it tends to be really accepting an uncomfortable situation that I know is going to is going to get me to the next stage of growth. know, this might this is going to be little weird, but this podcast, like being silly on this podcast, I mean, this is growing for me. I.
you when you're first starting something like this, it's hard to do that. But every time we've done it, it's been accepted and it's been fun. And I think that doing things like this, just starting something new and struggling through it has always been the way that I grow the most. The other one.
Sitting in the discomfort as it comes, know, just letting the discomfort be there rather than fighting it and turning around
Yeah. The other really uncomfortable thing to do is some deep self-reflection that has always been really powerful for me to grow knowing where I should grow really. So this is an interesting one. I think you and I, Ben, we're growers and that comes more naturally to us to sit in that discomfort to be reading. What I've noticed is that when you're growing a lot and physicians certainly have
to go through a lot of growth just to get a job as a doctor. Is that what can kind of elude you is connection with other people because not everyone grows as much or as fast as you. So it's hard to connect with people other than colleagues or other than your kids who maybe you are pushing growth on them. Let's discuss that. I wanna know some success stories, maybe
Speaker 2 (17:31.15)
or some some things that you know about clients that you see them grow but they're also connecting with their family because I think this is a big one for physicians.
Gosh Nate, just go ahead and put me on the spot, why don't you? Yeah. I think that one of the ways that I've seen physicians connect is inside their families. So for example, I feel like I'm constantly reconnecting with my children because they're growing. you know, a physician will have a child that goes off to college and when they come home, it's a whole different kid than what they shipped out. And so accepting the change that's happened in that child and
and reconnecting with them is part of it. I've seen physicians connect outside of the workplace by consciously developing a group of friends that are not in the physician circle. And so I think it makes it a safe place where you can kind of grouse a little bit about work and express some of your deeper feelings about it. And it's not going to go back into your work circles. And I think.
Those groups are very important because it allows a person to drop their professional face and to feel more vulnerable with people around them and really express more of their humanity. Some of their foibles, some of their faults. I know that this is something that physician culture does not abide. It's not okay to be broken. It's not okay to be wrong. It's not okay to make mistakes. But if you have a friend group that is, you know, maybe they're performers, but they're not performing in the realm of physician.
physician work, it gives you permission to be more of who you are and that uncoiling and that relaxing of the spring, think, has a big impact on life.
Speaker 2 (19:18.51)
That's great. And as a, as a person who struggles with this, with, with the connection piece outside of work, like Ben, you and I, can talk for hours about work or non-work because we're in the same boat with a lot of this stuff. I'm saying with physician to physician, it's hard for me to connect with people outside of work sometimes other than my family. And so I, I feel
a duty to say, to give out some of the secrets that I've come up with over the years, which is to help myself connect with other people. And so I'm going to give them out today. So I think it was really helpful for me to create a list of people that are not directly connected to work and are not my family at home. So that could be extended family or friends that
are my friends I just don't connect with often and rather than texting them or you know doing something on social media with them I just if I feel like man I haven't connected with someone in a while I pick someone on that list and I call them.
You mean, you literally dial their number on your telephone as if it's 1980 and you call them. Stunning, stunning.
Yes. Blast.
Speaker 2 (20:36.238)
And they're stunned when I call. And this actually has created, it's weird because I only did it a few times before I had some deep, deep friendships. They could not believe I called for no reason.
I would think that for our clients, know, some of them are on Facebook. I think that it would be, you know, looking at the people that are gone by in your Facebook feed and picking somebody in there and just picking up the phone or DMing them or maybe trying to set up a time for lunch. know that lunch is a busy time for some physicians, but even just a five or 10 minute phone call to say, Hey, you know, we were together in college. It's been a long time since we talked. I just want to.
catch up for just a few minutes and touch base, most people are really welcoming that touch because it's rare. I mean, we see each other on our screens and very seldom do we see each other in real life. And it's almost like today a phone call is what a handwritten thank you note was 10 years ago.
Right. Exactly. Yeah. And the other one, like you said, the physicians don't struggle with this as much, but connecting with your family. really believe strongly in the connection with your spouse and how important it is. And because that feeds your connection with your kids. Yes. So date nights, even if it's not, I think date night once a week, it feels impossible, but it's like,
Hello date night.
Speaker 2 (22:05.132)
What's the alternative? Lose connection with your spouse, not be on the same page about your kids and what's going on in life. So it's date nights. then something that me and my wife do is that usually every day we just quickly connect about what's going on, not necessarily give a rundown of what happened at work, what's going on with the kids, what are we doing tomorrow, kind of just home economics and.
that tends to just keep us on track. And then when we get to the weekend, we don't feel overwhelmed and we get to go on our date night.
dude, when my kids left the house for college, it was really crickets here and we had to kind of reorganize our relationship and we started doing what I'm going to coin as micro dates.
And so every morning before the sun comes up, I bring my wife coffee in bed, which is something I'd never done before. It's like, this is a new kids in college kind of thing. I bring her coffee in bed. We sit down, we pet the dog and we play wordle. And then after wordle, we look up one thing in Wikipedia to talk about. It's amazing what we've learned, but it's just a way to kind of get warmed up for the day and kind of get connected. And then, you know, 20 minutes later, we both go our separate ways. And, you know, I hit the laptop and
You know, she moves off and does whatever she's doing during the day to kind of keep things running around here. But just that little bit of connection every day has really brought things together. And I know that for someone like a surgeon who has a variable schedule, that would be tough. but maybe it's possible just to work in a micro date, even if you can't have like a standing date night.
Speaker 2 (23:40.556)
Yeah, yeah, we we care a lot about this as well. We recorded a I think a relatively popular episode. I know I've gotten some good feedback on it. But episode 13 was how can doctors improve their financial marriage? So this is
Speaker 2 (24:01.89)
Yeah, right. And remember, so I want to bring us back to what we're talking about today. We're talking about retirement. We are talking about what the end goal and what we prepare every client that we have for is retiring. But it's not just getting there with money.
Yes. Yeah. We're talking about the year 2042. We're talking about, you know, that physician standing up in front of a group of peers, friends, families, coworkers, connections, and having a good experience rather than running from what has been or what could have been a really rewarding lifestyle.
And so you are it is silly to think that you can get there by burning the candle at both ends and not tending to some of these other things in life and then be happy once you get there
Yeah, and I think balance is a loaded word because when we think balance, we think of a balance beam with a fulcrum and a same load on either end. think balance really varies for everyone. And that could mean that the fulcrum is way over on one end, you know? it's, and I think balance just really means introducing something into your world that wasn't there before.
and kind of continuing to kindle that flame. It doesn't mean like, gosh, I'm gonna go from working 60 hours a week down to 30 and then I'm gonna start knitting or hand building pottery. It's not like that. It's like, I think I'm gonna work this one thing in that will sustain me and nourish me for years to come so that when the end of the road comes, it's not just leaving medicine and entering the void.
Speaker 1 (25:40.428)
Okay, so we have one last one, which is play. is my favorite area and it's also the area where I struggle most. back when my kid was little, she was like eight or nine, I sat down with her and I said, hey, I feel like I want to play more. You when I play, I feel good, I get creative. It actually gives me more energy for when I go back to work. And I asked my daughter, said, how do you play? And she said, well, first daddy, you have to take a nap. I was like, you're kidding me.
And she says, and then when you wake up from your nap, you have to get something yummy in your tummy. I was like, what is this? And she said, in order to play, you have to be able to rest first and you have to take care of yourself and then you can play. And I mean, this is my eight or nine year old kid. was stunned at how wise that is and how naturally it came to her. And I realized, wow, in order to play, I have to decompress. And so if I'm to go on vacation, I'm not going to be playing the day after I start my vacation, I'm to be playing like.
a day or two after I start my vacation because I need to come down and decompress and unwind before the real play is going to happen. is a vacation is great. So I would count that as play. But also I think getting down on the floor, if you have young kids getting down on the floor, handling whatever toys they're they're messing with, know, doing something that's physical as opposed to something that's on a screen or watching something with them, getting down at their level and the dog, you know.
in playing with them. you know, if you have a kid who's grown and home from college, there's intellectual play where you can talk about some of the things that they're learning and you can go into what they're learning. Or maybe even co-read a book that they're reading in, let's say, an honors class or something like that. I think that that counts as play. And of course, going to plays, going on vacation, going to concerts and music things, particularly in connection with other people.
It brings a lot of balance and relaxation in life that when you get back to work, you're just that much stronger.
Speaker 2 (27:38.568)
Mm-hmm. I love it. Yeah, there's a few, you told me this Ben, there's a few critical things you can do to play and you know, there's like, there's writing, reading, things like that. And you said cooking and you made a joke, don't, I think it was kind of an inside joke, but cooking for me, I'm not a great cook, but I love making pizza. So I have a really nice pizza maker and all that. And you came over to my house recently and I was describing it to you and you go, man, this is your play.
And I was like, I didn't even realize how much I enjoyed this, how much this took me out of my day to day and how much creativity I got to put into cooking and how much that gives you when you get back to work. It's just another way to connect who aren't in medicine with these doctors. They don't get it. Yeah. They still want to connect with their parents.
I'm still waiting for the pizza play podcast with Nate.
Yeah.
I can see you doing that. But then it would be making work out of play and you have to be very careful about that.
Speaker 1 (28:41.646)
That's true. That's right. Okay, so before we go, I want to kind of expose some research that I have heard about. So there's a whole body of knowledge that comes out of positive psychology, and I call it collectively the happiness research. So some of these are self-help books. Some of them are things that done by behavioral economists and sociologists and psychologists. And I don't have a specific reference, but there's this one study that refers to a thing called the
the happiness smile. And the gist of it is that when we're born and when we're kids, before we get into our, in our teenage years, that we're very happy. When they measure happiness, however they do that, those folks are very happy. And then you, you know, get in your teenage years, things get angsty, life is less comfortable, and then you are in your young adult years, you're headed off to college, and things are less happy, and then...
You know, you get out of college, you're searching for your first job, you're hunting for a mate, things are even less happy. Then you get married. That's a very happy moment. But then you have kids and literally the happiness declines. And I know this is heresy to say that kids make you unhappy. I'm not saying they can ruin happiness. I'm just saying that people that are sampled and asked about their happiness levels who have children are less happy than before. So, but then you get to an inflection point where kind of the
the least level of happiness is when people are in their, kind of their mid to late forties and their, their children are just about ready to launch. Okay. And then after those kids launch, after they go to college, when they're starting to leave the home, the happiness curve turns around and starts to bend back up. Okay. And so, then they get, people get back into their work, they get back into their relationships and ultimately they retire, in which case many times they are happier. And then the age.
until they get to late in life, and that is one of the most happy points in life. So this shape going from, you know, happy on the left to not very happy in the middle to happy again on the right over the passage of time forms a curve that looks a lot like a smile. And so I recently was telling my dad about this. He's 80 and he said, you know, that's right. He says, I'm 80. said, this is the happiest I have ever been in my life. I told that to another friend of mine. He said, yep, my dad is in his 80s.
Speaker 1 (31:03.156)
Also happiest he's ever been in his life. My mother feels the same way. So, you know, financial security, health, connection, friends, growth, self-expression, all of those things. But, but there is a caveat to this. This is also in the research. So there are some people who hit their late forties, early fifties and their curve continues to bend downward. And for those folks, they have not taken care of their personal finances.
They have not taken care of their relationships and their marriages. They haven't maintained bonds with their children. They don't have anything outside work and their curve continues to bend down. And I attributed that to a phenomenon that I would call failing to invest in the things that money cannot buy. Right? Money cannot buy a social connection. Money cannot buy a happy work experience. Money cannot buy personal and spiritual and intellectual growth.
These are the things that you have to invest in, but money can't buy them. And the way that you invest in those is with your time, your energy, and your personal attention. Because when you get to that 65 year old retirement party and you're standing in front of your friends and your coworkers, part of the way that you get there is by preparing for retirement by saving. But a huge piece of this, more than half of it, is the way that you handle your life 15, 20 years before that.
Yeah, I love it.
Yeah. So, I guess I'm going to wrap us up today and just summarize that really a good life, a sustainable life is a balanced life. And it's something that I have always tried to keep in the forefront of my mind as I move along. It's something that I like to share with clients as well as listeners. So, you know, if you want some more of this goodness, if you want some...
Speaker 1 (32:57.718)
some encouragement, something to keep on track to keep you focused on the things that really matter. I encourage you to pick up our newsletter. So visit PhysicianFamily.com, scroll all way to the bottom, and there's a newsletter sign up box. Pop your email in there, click submit. We send out the newsletters on a monthly basis. So once a month, we're not going to spam you. And the messages that we put in there are really intended to help you and keep you on track. thanks for everyone who's listened to us, and we look forward to chatting with you in the future.
Thank you for listening to the Physician Family Financial Advisors Podcast. Is there a question you would like answered on our next show? Go to PhysicianFamily.com to record your question. While you're there, sign up for our newsletter and gain access to tools you can use to turn worries about taxes, investing, and extra money into a lifelong feeling of financial security. That's PhysicianFamily.com.
