speaker-0: It's when the discontent becomes your discourse and you're able to really harness, hey, life is not exactly where I thought it would be, right? And so you have your perception, your goals, your dreams, your ambitions, and then that gap, it two things. One, you can succumb to the gap and say, Hey, this is how it is. Let me just grit and bear it and you know, work twenty years and get to the other side and have A decent career, or you can say, Hey, what if I redefine what it is to be a doctor? What if I redefine what it is to be an entrepreneur or a physician, you know, and ⁓ and take back control? And so it's all about reimagining, you know, they say think outside the box. It's time to live outside the box and really say, Hey, there's no box.
speaker-1: I think that doctors listening to this will really understand that tension. I think we're trained for so long to think that medicine can become more than what we do, but it becomes our identity. So we wear that cloak, that white coat, whether we're in the clinic or the hospital that you are, but it it follows us everywhere that we go. And so it takes a certain level of courage and confidence to step outside of the thing that we've spent decades training to become. Tell me more about when you knew that cardiology and functional medicine. Like what happened in your life at that moment when you say, you know what, I want to do more, I can do more? Was it something that you'd always known your entire life coming up, that that you've had this charisma, this speaking available, people followed you and so it was always going to be a part of your story? Or were you a doctor like many of us ⁓ have trained to become and then it clicked later?
speaker-0: Yeah. It's it's the second. ⁓ it's the latter for sure. quick aside story, I know w I want we want to get to the meat of the matter today, but ⁓ you know when when I when I came up and when you came up ⁓ ten, fifteen years ago, physicians really didn't have the menu of options that are available today, guys. So before we end this podcast, I wanna harness and galvanize the energy of these listeners. I mean, the podcast is called Beyond the White Coat for a reason, right? And I want you to so you don't have to abandon your physician identity to achieve that life identity you're looking for. And we're gonna show you how to do that, but I'll start with my story. Like it was my ⁓ third year as a medical student. I was presenting in front of a ⁓ n my first rotation in neurology and I was nervous. I was like Like I I was stuttering. I I had a note card with all the notes and it was like the ink. The ink was smearing. And yeah, like my I was drenched in sweat and I was like trying to present this patient and literally the the physician was like, Please let me go get let me prescribe you a beta blocker. You can't handle this rotation. Like you you are you know, you're a mess, essentially. And then I was like in my mind I was like, All right, click that. One day I'm gonna speak in front of hundreds of doctors or thousands of doctors
speaker-1: Bem perder so, baby.
speaker-0: And be like a world class speaker, right? And then
speaker-1: That was the motivating thing for you. Right? You remember like that was that was the tipping point.
speaker-0: And then I'll give you another tipping point. It was ⁓ twenty ⁓ nineteen, maybe twenty twenty, they started introducing something called high sensitive troponins, which is a lab assay to look for heart attacks. And normally when a troponin is positive, hey, that means this person's serious or something going on, but they wanted to be extra sensitive, extra careful. And so now literally we were getting consulted every day, ten consults just for these ⁓ troponin spikes or troponin bumps and We knew it was bogus. They knew it was bogus, but it was all like, hey, it's creating more revenue for the c I was like, dude, I did not sign up to be like a, you know, a console monkey, you know? I knew I wanna do more in my life, right? And then the final thing was like when I saw all my patients were like I the way to treat them was a pill, a stent, a transplant. Like I was like, dude, why can't we work upstream and and think about this? And so that's where the journey started. So to cut a story ⁓ short a little bit here. I said, hey, look, I want to help people in a in a different way. And this is before the whole longevity craze, which now is all mainstream. And functional medicine is now almost mainstream, right? Absolutely. But back when I did it, people were like, what? Functional who? Like, what are you talking about? Is that like woo-woo woo medicine? And so anyway, I got trained in that. But that was like, it's such a risk to go do this business. How do I mitigate the risk? And, you know, you're a surgeon, you're a doctor, like you mitigate risk. I'm a cardiologist. I like to mitigate risk. And so what I did was. Let me create alternative streams of income. And so there was no doc to doc that I knew of back then. So I had to take some very risky loans and borrow money and start creating a real estate portfolio. That led to me creating a multifamily portfolio, which you know led me to me be on this entrepreneurial journey that we're on today. But it was really these moments of discontent, this frustration, this plat hitting a plateau and saying, Huh, is there a better way? And then me knowing to put the ego down and even though I'm a doctor, I'm an MD, I'm a cardiologist, I know what I know everything about everything. No, I I only know this one field. There are all these other fields out there. How do I learn, merge, mix, marry, create synergies, and use my skills as a physician and extrapolate them in the business world?
speaker-1: So I love that. I love how you tie the arc of a personal struggle to then the professional aha moment. I think many of many people look at us and think that we've always been Teflon and we came up knowing and then we became these entrepreneurs and successful because it we were destined to be that. And hearing a personal struggle like yours with the sweating, and we can all relate to that, right? For me it was I I had a very profound stutter as a child up until I was like maybe like 13 or 14 years old. And so for me, that became something that I had to intentionally work to overcome and slow down my brain to get the output out. ⁓ and hence, like talking in public, I still think about, you know, 12 year old Zwate who had output failure and had to had to be the last one in the class to speak because I was rehearsing what I wanted to say over in my head over and over again before I actually said it. And then, like you, I was in a private equity based practice. where I did my first interventional pain job out of residency. And it becomes a thing where because I had a hammer, an epidural, they wanted everything to be a nail. And so every month it's like, how many cases did you do this month? How many epidurals have you done? And I felt this kind of like, look, this is this is bogus. Like the Mrs. Jones didn't come in with the kind of pain that requires me to do a transframelinal epidural. She came with the kind of pain that responds well to physical therapy. You know? And so Then you get this discontent and I've I share that that that burden with with you there. Now, your Viking Capital platform helps doctor to understand financial independence through entrepreneurship through investments. And we're a kind of interesting bunch, doctors, because we're highly paid professionals, but still not necessarily wealthy without the help of coaches like you. What's the biggest financial misconception you think that doctors generally have?
speaker-0: I it it starts with really ⁓ first feel the gratitude of being a doctor because I know there's a lot of doctor bashing, doctor frustration, doctor burnout. But guys, we have chosen a beautiful profession. It is amazing, it is beautiful, and is forgiving in the sense that you can take risks while being a doctor and right fall on your face and come back up and say, You know what? In two years I won't even feel it. Let's go. So What's the worst thing that can happen to me? Man, cry don't cry for me in Argentina because I'm gonna come back and worst case here, I'll make five hundred thousand dollars as the cardiologist. That's my worst case life scenario, you know? That's your floor. Yeah that's your floor. You you're your worst case ⁓ is why they okay, doctor dog closes one day. All right, great. I'll go back to my interventional pain practice with multiple locations, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's it it we have this. And so If you're inclined to be entrepreneur, if you're inclined to take, you know, ⁓ opportunities and solve problems and be valuable to the marketplace, then you can use your physician wealth and exponentially multiply it. But here's the clue, here's the red flag, here's what they didn't teach you in medical school. Financial literacy is not there. Like profit and loss, we don't know what that means even. Like, you know, we don't look at the T twelves, we don't look at ⁓ payroll. You know, we're w we're we're thinking more like an artist instead of an entrepreneur. And that's what this podcast as Wadi has put together so, you know, curated with peop people a around the country and around the world perhaps. That's the kind of stuff you need to listen to. You need to have like almost like a ph physician MBA and just figure things out a little bit before you jump into the entrepreneur world.
speaker-1: So I'm so like we didn't even coordinate this. This is a a spontaneous interview. ⁓ there was no prep there are no prep questions.
speaker-0: Yeah, I was like, ⁓ it's water, you want me to do a podcast? Okay, listen.
speaker-1: Go. Let's go. And and I'll double click on what you said, 'cause I've said it before in the podcast. We see so many of our borrowers come through the door after they've quit their medical job to launch something else. And it's so difficult to underwrite and approve someone who doesn't have an income. And you forfeited the most valuable thing that you have. You're a doctor. So while there's burnout and burnout is real and there's a there's a frustration around being a hamster on a wheel like we described earlier. Having to have that widget mentality that PE does, we still are highly compensated professionals. Our careers have meaning, and we're really fortunate to do what we do. And oftentimes those finance professionals, those real estate moguls are having to like donate to charities to feel like they're doing something good with their lives. Whereas every day we do good. So don't forfeit and see the thing that is so valuable both emotionally and financially to take a leap and do something entrepreneurial. This is a foundation from which you can jump. ⁓ and I'm I'm so glad you said that, Vic. What's the best investment you've ever made personally? What's your what was your home run?
speaker-0: ⁓ the best investment, let's you know, there's there's a couple ways to think about it. The the the ⁓ the best investment of the book. It was probably the seminal books that I read that maybe who I am, right? If I had to rapidly read them off, you know, the Kiyosaki series of books which everyone likes, the the Rich Dad Poor Dad stuff, ⁓ The One Thing, you know, the Four Hour Work Week by ⁓ Tim Ferris, like Think and Grow Rich, you know, the list goes on. But those books You have twenty to thirty years of a man's experience or a woman's experience, and boom, you consume it in five days, a week, two weeks, and you're able to it creates these aha moments. Second was getting coached by a a a a professional who was who's that's what they do. They help people take your limiting beliefs, your thoughts, but then marry them with your vision and goals and say, Hey, how do we get to here? And then all the mental head trash that I ha that I have along the way, they get a big damn shovel and they shovel it all out. So then I'm I have a clear path to get there. And the third thing really is ⁓ physical vitality and health. So, you know, we all come across challenges in life. I recently had to have a thyroid removed, you know, and things happen, right? But I've created enough reserve, I've become as Nassim Talebs talks about being anti-fragile to where, you know, I've climbed, you know, Mount Rainier, I've climbed Kilimanjaro I've done martial arts. I've been able I keep up with my two high school kids and and I'm not slowing down. And yes, things will happen, you know, that I can't predict, but I've invested in longevity and health and wellness and vitality. And now the last investment I would say is ⁓ meditation, mindset, ⁓ journaling, gratitude, all of that. So what I'm doing is Me as a human being is the best investment. And what happens then is whatever I touch is amplified, right? Whatever I touch becomes gold. And it's not because I'm lucky or I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm timing the markets or anything. It's just because I paid the price.
speaker-1: I think your story captures so much of what we mean by beyond the white coat. You completely embody it. And there's nothing wrong with loving medicine, as you've said, and you spent your entire career practicing it. But earning an MD doesn't mean that we've surrendered a right to be curious to see who else we can become. So I love your answer about personal investment, both emotionally, spiritually, physically, and then intellectually with the books that you mentioned. ⁓ one of my favorite books is ⁓ The Hard Thing About Hard Things, like by Ben Horowitz. And I think it's a fantastic book that was gifted to me. by another CEO. ⁓ during a particularly isolating time in my life as a CEO. 'Cause that's the other thing that can be really, really ⁓ challenging is that there's a kinship amongst us in business and medicine where you want to have someone that you can talk to that understands the challenge and the balance that we're carrying. So thank
speaker-0: And body, what you're talking about is ⁓ and for those of you guys, you know, there's the excitement of an entrepr entrepreneurship journey or a physician journey at the beginning, but then you get into it and it's like, ⁓ my God, like what did I sign up for? And most people just quit and say, ⁓ grass is green on the other side, they go out there, but they don't realize ⁓ same struggle. And then so you have to go through what we call the valley of despair, and this is the what we call the lonely chapter, you know? And whether you're a medicine or a doctor or entrepreneur or whatever. So why do you have to go through a lonely chapter? Hey, is Dr. Gaka g gonna make it? Can I make payroll? Hey, is it too much? Am I spreading myself too thin? What am I my kids? You know, all of these questions. And they're valid questions. They're beautiful questions, but we must answer them. And sometimes we're not there's not we're not around people who can help us. And so that's why coaches, mentors, people like Deswade, I mean, like you gotta reach out to friends and and and people who can help you and then make it to the other side because once you get to the other side, that's where all the glory is and the juices. And then each, like Denzel talks about, each one helped one, right? And so I'm trying to help as many people as I can across the chasm. So is Wade. So is all these people, right? Because people have helped us get to where we are.
speaker-1: Absolutely. Vic, you're incredible. Thank you for coming. We'll ⁓ we'll be sharing this with you ⁓ afterwards as well. Really appreciate it, man.
speaker-0: Thanks, man. Yeah, absolutely. Ice. Good luck. And ⁓ keep keep ⁓ I ⁓ the the last two words I have is what ⁓ Steve Jobs had in his ⁓ in his book. He goes, Stay hungry, stay foolish.
speaker-1: We'll take it with us. Thank you.