Beyond FIRE: Financially Independent, Work Optional with Jimmy Turner MD

speaker-0: Monday comes early. This chapter closes. A new door opens. This is the second shift.
speaker-1: What is the purpose of money? Right? So for me, the purpose of money is being able to do what you want, when you want, with the people that you want, accomplishing the goals that you have, right? And so so for me, the purpose of money is autonomy. It is a surrogate for time. It is a surrogate for the ability to to bless other people. It's this the the surrogate for you to be able to accomplish the things that you're trying to accomplish and to do that with the people that you love and that you want on this journey with you.
speaker-0: How does a physician who admits he knew almost nothing about money become one of the most recognizable voices in physician finance? Today's guest, Dr. Jimmy Turner, didn't start out as a financial expert. Like a lot of physicians, he made financial mistakes early in his career and had to learn personal finance largely on his own. But what started as an effort to fix his own financial life eventually became something much bigger. Jimmy began writing about money, built an audience of physicians facing many of the same challenges, and ultimately created Money Meets Medicine, one of the best-known financial education platforms for physicians. Along the way, though, his own career took some unexpected turns. Burnout led him to dramatically cut back his clinical work. Entrepreneurship gave him another source of purpose. And financial independence changed the way he thought about medicine, money, and what he actually wanted his life to look like. So this conversation isn't just about how Jimmy Turner became a physician finance guru. It's about what happens when financial knowledge finally gives you something much more valuable than money. Options. Let's get into it. This episode of the Second Shift is brought to you by Targeted Wealth Solutions. Making a major career change or facing retirement can feel like leaving a familiar identity behind. At Targeted Wealth Solutions, we specialize in helping physicians navigate these exact transitions. As a fee-only independent fiduciary, our job is to take that financial complexity and turn it into clarity, giving you the freedom and permission to explore your next move. If you're ready to design your exit strategy with someone who speaks your language, let's talk. You can learn more at TargetedWelt Solutions.com. Now, on to today's conversation. Hello again, everybody. Welcome back to another great episode of the Second Shift Podcast, where we talk about the psychological, behavioral, financial, and identity challenges and opportunities that we all face when we move from a high impact career to something else, whether that's retirement or a different career path. I'm your host, Brian Jepsen. I recently fully retired from emergency medicine and now work full time as a certified financial planner at Targeted Wealth Solutions. I'm excited to introduce my guest today, Dr. Jimmy Turner. Jimmy is a practicing anesthesiologist and the founder of Money Meets Medicine, which is an excellent financial literacy resource for physicians as well as offering brokerage services for disability insurance. Jimmy, maybe you can fill in those holes there as you tell us more about your story. But let me start by saying that I give two thumbs up to what he's doing on both of those fronts. So Jimmy hosts a podcast that I also highly recommend called Money Meets Medicine, along with Justin Harvey, who is a CFP that also works primarily with physicians. They do a great job breaking down pertinent financial concepts, giving practical advice. He also has a blog and a book called The Physician's Philosopher's Guide to Personal Finance that's available on his website at Money Meats Medicine dot com. With that, let's get into it. Jimmy, thank you for joining us.
speaker-1: Yeah, super excited to be here, Brian. And this show sounds like it's right up my alley in terms of a number of career transitions I've taken, so I'm excited to chat about it.
speaker-0: No, definitely. It's you know, I I I've listened to a lot of your recent episodes and and you know the themes that you talk about with Justin on there are are perfect for what we talk about here and what a lot of I I I just don't think it's conversation that people have enough of, to be honest. Sure. So ⁓ so yeah, so with that, why don't you kind of I think our listeners ⁓ would love to hear your story. ⁓ so how did you get from a full time academic anesthesiologist to
speaker-1: Couldn't couldn't agree more.
speaker-0: A business owner, content creator, insurance agent.
speaker-1: Wow, this it's a bit of a story here, so you're gonna have to bear with me. But I have to go back to my fourth year of medical school because it ends up making sense later, later on in my story. If you kind of understand the origin of it, but when I was a fourth year med student, I knew absolutely nothing about money. I knew nothing about personal finance up until my fellowship. So I was, you know, trained in regional anesthesia. So I did an anesthesiology residency and a fellowship in regional anesthesia and acute pain management. And if you go back to the days of your back when I was a fourth year med student and we just had our first kid who's almost going to get her driver's license soon. So it makes me feel quite old at this point. But ⁓ when we had Grace, my wife and I felt like the appropriate thing to do would be to get term life insurance because if something happened to one or the other, we wanted the remaining family members to be taken care of. And I didn't know who to talk to. So brother of one of my medical school classmates, he's Yeah, my brother does insurance. Why don't you chat with him? And long story short
speaker-0: First last words, right?
speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. Didn't didn't know better at the time. And I won't throw any public companies underneath the ⁓ the bus on your podcast. I do it on my own. But all that to say, he's like, Yeah, we can get your life insurance, but should also apply for disability insurance. Now, I have ADHD, I've got an essential tremor, I've got a few medical diagnoses on my chart that he was aware of, had me apply, and ⁓ I got denied, which at the time didn't seem like that big of a deal. ⁓ then I got to training and a couple years later I'd find out about the guaranteed standard issue policy that literally doesn't look into your medical history. Essentially, so long as you haven't been disabled, you haven't been denied, and you're in training, you can get this disability insurance product. And so I wouldn't have been denied, I would have had disability insurance. But because of that denial, it precluded my ability to it basically excluded my ability to get that GSI later on. So I'm permanently uninsurable to this day from a disability insurance standpoint. And again, I didn't really think it was that big of a deal until years later when I'd start learning about personal finance and then eventually reading, writing, blogging, podcasting about it every day for the next 10 years thereafter. Then I realized it was actually monumental mistake. And so the the the how and the why of me starting a business after finishing training was that ⁓ I'm an academic at heart, even though I'm not in academics anymore. I still love to teach. That's why I've got the podcasts and the social media and the books and the whole nine yards. I love teaching people. And so when I started learning about money, and I realized how bad my mistake was, which was catastrophic in nature, essentially. If I ever get disabled, it's still a huge problem for my family. And I realized, ⁓ like I would I really enjoy this stuff. So I started teaching about it. And apparently I wasn't terrible at that. And so I ⁓ ended up creating a blog. That's where everything started, the physician philosopher back in 2017. ⁓ it's almost 10 years at this point. And wrote the book in 2019. And that was all born out of a desire to basically help doctors prevent what happened to me happening to them. And it became very broad in terms of a goal. Like I I wanted them to be financially literate enough that they would know if they're getting good advice, they would know if they're doing the right things and if they needed help, where to get that. And ⁓ and so it it morphed from there, you know, and we can touch on a whole nine yards. I've I've been a a coach, I've run a multi seven, you know, multi six figure business for coaching. I've sold online courses. I've kind of, you know, ran the gamut at this point from an online business standpoint. Now I'm I'm huge into social media, which is which has been fun and and new for the last eight months or so.
speaker-0: Yeah, that's awesome. I I I wanna take you back to the moment after you realized okay, I screwed up financially, ⁓ or you know, followed bad advice from from people, which is a very, very common thing, right? I mean, because there's such so many, so much bad advice out there, and for some reason those people seem to have access to medical students, ⁓ which is a whole other conversation. But how did you go from I need to learn So so I I'm the guy that kind of messed up to now I'm the guy teaching other people. What what what was how did how did you do that? I mean, when what changed in you that made you ⁓ kind of be driven, I guess, to to start teaching others about personal finances?
speaker-1: Yeah, so it was kind of multifactorial, but you know, being on the other side of this and and loving now at this point talking about entrepreneurship, you the there's a saying, right? Make ⁓ one of the best ways to to make a business is to make your mess your message. In other words, your mistakes become the the product that you end up helping other people with. Yeah. And for me, I I just knew that I made massive mistakes. I forbeared on my student loans during training. They increased by 150% because I just knew if I signed this form, it went away for a year and I didn't have to think about student loans anymore. ⁓ you know, I I made the mistake with disability insurance. I I made lots of mistakes. And for me, I I just I knew I needed to learn this stuff for myself, ⁓ initially is where that started. And then because I'm a completely open, transparent book in real life, just like I am on my podcast and in other other other walks of my world, people started asking me about those questions. And so when when people are thinking about business ideas, I'll often tell people, you know, hey, there's a few things you need to think about, right? Like what is the purpose of this thing? Are you trying to make money from it? In other words, is this a business or is it a hobby? Because the worst place to be in the world is to make it a jobby where you're like, well, I kind of want to make some money, but I also want it to be fun. It's like business isn't fun. Like there, there are lots of parts of business that are very, very hard. And my business is by far and away the most stressful thing in my life over the last 10 years. And so highly rewarding, totally worth it, but really stressful and hard. And so for me, knowing that it was a business, knowing that I had goals in hand to help other people, and I I felt like that that Help wasn't being provided in a way that was, let's just say, free of conflicts of interest or with significantly reduced conflicts of interest, even in the physician space. I would argue that's still true today as physicians sell products to other physicians. Absolutely. ⁓ and so because of that, I I started teaching people and I kind of realized, whoa, you know, th this is something that that I feel like I can do. ⁓ and so it it was born out of a need to help myself initially. ⁓ and then when I learned how big my mistake was, it became a desire to make sure that what happened to me never happened to other people. I'm a very, very values-driven person to the point where, you know, we do provide disability insurance. And our di the average denial rate in the industry is 20%. Yeah. The lowest publicized rate I've seen from any other person in the space is eight. Ours is less than one. We've never had a resident or fellow who has access to a GSI get denied. It's never happened. Yeah. It's awesome. Almost a thousand clients at this point. And so the reason why is because our North Star is. Do what the is right for people. Do what Jimmy would have wanted someone to do for him back when he was a fourth year med student who shouldn't have been applying for disability insurance, by the way, because he didn't have an income. But let's pretend I was in residency and it would have been appropriate. Like what would I what would he have needed? Right. And if the result of that means that we don't make any money from doing the right thing, that's what we do because it's just the right thing to do. And and it's not from just a a value standpoint either. Like I'm not, you know, I'm obviously not doing this for free, right? Right. It's also a business goal. Right. So if we do the right thing, long term people are going to recognize, ⁓ they're the business that does the right thing, even when it doesn't make them money. And believe it or not, if you play the long game, that actually makes you more money. Yeah. And so from a business standpoint, it made sense. From a just values driven kind of personality, it made sense. But it was driven out of a need to help myself initially. And then realizing, wow, I really made a mistake. And it was completely avoidable if someone had done the right thing for me. And that drove me to make sure that It didn't happen anywhere else.
speaker-0: Yeah, I love that. You know, I I think ⁓ you know, my journey is somewhat similar ⁓ in the special needs space anyway. You know, I mean I I do a lot of special needs financial planning and did some special needs stuff as a physician, all because of my own experiences as a special needs dad. You know, but it it's it's one of those things that ⁓ you know, if you can be honest with people and convey, you know, just what your own journey is, they trust you. You know, they they learn to trust you and and and they I think it's I think when it comes to right down to it, you can kind of if you get to if you talk to somebody long enough, you can get to understand what their what their motivation is, right?
speaker-1: Yeah, I completely agree. And and as people think through like business ideas, right? Because I I got a little tangential there. I mentioned the ADHD earlier. So when you when you're when you're thinking through like, hey, I I'm considering a second shift, the second act in my in my career. I'm thinking about starting a business, right? One of them is what is the goal, right? Is it a job or is it a hobby? You need to decide that. And then a second thing is people often have a hard time figuring out. I want to make extra money outside of medicine. I want I want to have a side gig or I I want to take a different direction, provide some autonomy in my life where money's coming in from outside of my clinical shifts. Yeah. And as you think through that, people have a really hard time picking a niche, deciding a product. And I always ask people to ask themselves a couple questions or their family. What are things that people ask you about just naturally? They come to you for advice. It might be parenting, it might be marriage, it might be business, it might be money, it might be. Who knows what? But people come and likely ask you for advice on specific topics because they've recognized in your life that you have some authority there. You are a person to be trusted. And a second way to think through that is to say, what is really easy for me that is really hard for other people. Like I I I can do the math on the back of a napkin. I do it all the time for people in terms of like, hey, how much do I need to be saving each year to retire by the age that I want? And then I walk them through the the exercise of figuring that out and based on the studies and talk them about. Like so it just became very easy for me to do those things. I don't have to look it up. I don't need a calculator. Like I can just run through it people. And ⁓ are there more sophisticated ways to do it? Sure. But it gets them in the ballpark, at least thinking about, ⁓ this is roughly speaking, how much I need to save. And so I started realizing, ⁓ like this is a topic that's highly taboo at the time. It's becoming less taboo, which is nice. ⁓ it is something people are uncomfortable talking about. It is something that people in medicine, doctors, make we meet man, we make a lot of money, but we have some of the lowest financial literacy.
speaker-0: We're terrible at it.
speaker-1: ⁓ it's so bad. And so it was a topic that was very easy for me after I learned about it. That was very hard for them. And it was also a topic that people started coming to me and asking me for advice, even though there are other sources out there where they could have learned that they wanted something that was different. That was so that no like and trust that you know is naturally built through my story. Right. And from from a ⁓ value standpoint, I think that's great. We're doing what we want to do and we get to sleep and put our head on the pillow at night knowing that we're doing the right thing for people.
speaker-0: Well and they trusted you. They already trusted you.
speaker-1: But from a business standpoint, building that no like and trust also turns out makes you lots of money.
speaker-0: Yeah, absolutely. So let me ask you this. You ⁓ early in your journey, you know, you you got out of medicine or you got out of ⁓ your training, started practicing as an anesthesiologist. How long did it take before you started doing the the business stuff and and how did that feel? You know, because I that ⁓ the studies, recent studies, I think Medscape did one recently that just showed something like forty percent of physicians now have side gigs. Which I think is super interesting and fascinating and I think is great news because honestly I I think if it's done well, it can prevent burnout or help to mitigate it at least. So take me through your story a little bit on on how how that happened is moving from full time busy anesthesiologist to adding full time busy business owner and content creator.
speaker-1: Say that I started learning about personal finance in the last six months of my fellowship. I graduated in July of 2017. So let's call that January to July. I ended up creating the blog in November, I want to say, of 2017, ⁓ is when it started and when I formed the LLC and all that stuff. And so ⁓ it wasn't long after my training. And and I often think back on like if I had found entrepreneurship while I was in training, would that have been a good thing? And to be honest with you, for me, I think it would have been a terrible thing.
speaker-0: You probably wouldn't have even been a doctor at that point, right?
speaker-1: Yeah, so so I I know a lot more about my personality and myself now than I did back then. And ⁓ and yeah, like I I think that would have been a terrible thing for me. I think for some people it's great they can balance those two things. But yeah, I had three kids at that point. I'm married, my wife works, and like so we we have so many things going on. So boundaries have become very, very important in my world. But that said, November after my fellowship was when I when I started
speaker-0: That's amazing. I mean that's super early. That's awesome. I'm sorry to interrupt.
speaker-1: No, you're good. And and and and part of it came from, you know, reading Whitecoat Investor. And and and Jim and I used to be business partners back back in the day. ⁓ so you know, we we we've crossed paths on many occasions. ⁓ and he used to post a a blog article on the state of the blog, and he actually would disclose how much money he was making. He stopped doing that because people started copying his business model. Yeah. And ⁓ and so, but for for several years in a row, he he published that. And for me, that article ⁓ maybe to to Jim's chagrin at this point, ⁓ definitely opened my eyes to like, ⁓ wow, like this is something that can actually bring in a reasonable amount of money because the amount of money you need to be able to make from a side gig as a physician to move the needle needs to be significant enough to warrant the time that's put in. And that business did not make money for like, I don't even know, 15, 18 months, a very typical traditional business model standpoint. And most businesses fail. And so I was putting 50 to 60 hours a week in at the hospital and then put another at least 20 hours a week into the blog at the time. I wrote three blog articles, all a thousand words each, every single week for three years. ⁓ I never missed a week. And so that was a significant amount of work on top of what I was already doing, in addition to to having three kids and trying to be a good dad and be a good husband and and the rest of the the rest of that as it goes. But I was glad that I did it because I was interested at the time. And I didn't know to your point that two or three years later, that business would be part of the solution that helped save me from my own burnout. And so ⁓ it ended up being what you were talking about a minute ago for me later and has continued to to be that, ⁓ that source of autonomy in my life. ⁓ but I that's not the reason I started it to begin with. I many, many doctors, the forty percent I'm sure, majority of those are doing it because they want a faster ch you know, ride to financial independence. They are burned out, they want to buy back some shifts or some time to get out of the hospital or clinic or Whatever, more often. ⁓ but for me at the time, it was just, hmm, this is really interesting. This is a business. It could make some extra money. I'm trying to pay off my student loans. two hundred grand paid it off in nineteen months. Some of that came from business money. ⁓ and so, but it did eventually turn into one of the one of the ways that helped my burnout.
speaker-0: I such an important lesson, I think, because you know, I I I a little bit different than you. I mean, I didn't start doing stuff like this until well after I'd had a long career in medicine already. You know, so so thirty years. I so I did a thirty year clinical practice essentially in emer in emergency medicine before I fully retired this this year. But you know, the last three to four years of that was transitioning into financial planning. But I I think ⁓ it's an important lesson that if to build it before you break, right? Because a lot of people, especially physicians, it's the other way around, right? They they feel burned out, they're on their on at their breaking point, and then they start trying to figure out, okay, well, what's next? And and part of the whole purpose of this podcast is to say, all right, you know, here are some options and and here are some things that that can help you. kind of navigate that transition before you are forced to do that.
speaker-1: Yeah, I s some people might describe me as a cynic or a pessimist. ⁓ I'd like to think I'm a realist with pessimistic leanings maybe. But I I've often said on social media that, you know, if you were to die today, your hospital would replace you tomorrow. And I think people that have gone through the experiences of that with in particular large corporate entities. ⁓ Yeah. And so and so everyone thinks that that that the hospitals there, you know, just kind of old school, altruistic.
speaker-0: Which is more and more common.
speaker-1: you know, loyalty until they have something happen in their career and they find out that they too were a number on a spreadsheet or a cog in the wheel. And that no matter what they did, it that it it didn't change any of that. And so for for me, that is very much my story. ⁓ I was a high flyer my entire time, ⁓ in terms of, you know, my journey through med school, you know, I was a student body president, the class president, I matched my number one residency at the same institution, was the chief resident, ⁓ you know, won the teaching award but first year as a faculty member that had never been done before. And so, and despite that, I had career opportunities pass me up for political reasons that I couldn't control. And ⁓ and that ended up s sending me into an absolute tailspin for two years. I I I didn't know what to do with myself as someone who had checked all the boxes, done all the right things, wanted to be in residency leadership. The residents loved me. I had all of the things going for me. I'd never heard a single thing that I'd done wrong. And ⁓ but that interestingly part of that story is that I started this taboo thing called a personal finance blog two years before that. ⁓ and turns out people had opinions ⁓ in ⁓ you know twenty nineteen about what that what that was. And and it's hilarious now because now now being in twenty twenty six, people love this stuff and they think it's great. But being at the forefront of it, ⁓ it was really taboo back then and we're like, I just we just don't know if you like we can have residency leadership that have this like side venture and like you're talking about personal finance over here and like money like
speaker-0: Forbid you should teach residents about finance.
speaker-1: Yeah, but that it just wasn't the same view back then. And so I had opportunities pass me up, even though I was definitely one of the most qualified people for it. Didn't even get an interview. And ⁓ and so that ended up burning me out because at the time, and and there's lots of lots of self-discovery that has to go on there, right? But part of what my my business allowed me to do was to step back, go part time when that happened, have some space to figure it out on the back porch with my wife. you know, therapy, you name it. I ended up getting into coaching for a reason because coaching helped me a ton when I was burned out. And ⁓ and and that journey allowed me to realize that so much of my self-worth came from external validation and the need to constantly accomplish. And had I not had that space, had I been forced to stay full time working four or five days a week at the hospital, destroying myself, ⁓ In the midst of all that, I wouldn't have had the time or the space to really figure out like what is the diagnosis here? Like I recognize I'm burned out, but why? I think most people think they're burned out because their hospital's terrible and it's corporate and you know they're all all out to get you and it makes the job terrible and EMR sucks and prior authorizations and insurance companies and the whole nine yards. It's like this it's not to say that those things don't contribute. They certainly do. Yeah. But why? Why does it bother you specifically? Because everybody ends up finding out once they go through some. some self-thought, some time to work through that stuff, it hits people differently. For some people, it's because they don't feel appreciated or valued. That was certainly what it was for me. ⁓ for some people, it's they don't have control over their schedule. And so they're missing T ball games and recitals and flute concerts and you you name it. And that that lack of personal autonomy is really burning them out. For some people it's professional autonomy, the surgeon that has to get prioritization for everything and have peer-to-peer conversations with like a pediatrician who doesn't even do surgery about whether their surgery is warranted or not. And for them, it's professional autonomy. And so until you have the space and time to figure that out, ⁓ you can't really make the diagnosis, which means you can't really know what the change is that you need to make. My business is what afforded me the ability to financially afford the time to work through that stuff. So the business wasn't the answer per se, but it provided me the personal autonomy to have the space to figure out what that answer was.
speaker-0: Yeah. So important. I think, you know, and doctors are man, we're so many of us are like that, right? I mean, just to become a doctor, you have to be like that. Where where it's we we we have a defined path, we're the best in we're the best in our high school classes, we're the best in our college classes, just to get there. And then we get done and it's like, okay, I'm still not happy, you know, it but but we keep on that treadmill, you know, we keep on that treadmill of achievement. Well Yeah, go ahead.
speaker-1: So Satal Ben Shahar calls it the arrival fallacy. And I don't know of another profession that hits harder with that concept than than medicine because of exactly what you're describing, where you have the blinders on. We we all know what the next steps are, right? You're you're in high school, you gotta go to college, you're in college, you gotta make good grades, you gotta crush your MCAT to get to to get to medical school, hopefully have some experiences along the way with a ridiculous amount of research nowadays that is stupid, to be honest with you, ⁓ to get into residency and, you know, medical school. But You know, then you got residency, maybe fellowship, and then and then practice. And if you're in practice, maybe you go into private practice and you've got this two to three year ramp to become a partner, or maybe it's academics and you're working to become an associate professor. But it's usually about a couple years out of training that you realize, ⁓ like this is it. And you've constantly next you've constantly been telling yourself the entire time, like, hey, this burnout I'm having in residency is totally going to be worth it when I become an attending. And you become an attending, you're like, Well, when I become partner, like that's when it's all gonna make sense. I'm gonna make more money and I'm totally gonna be happy at that point. And you keep finding a way. You know, along the way that as Gertrude Stein would say, there's no there there. And so you get there and you arrive and you find out that you're not any happier after a few months. And that arrival ends up becoming a fallacy. It was not the answer to your your happiness. And so we don't realize that in medicine until we're in our thirties. Like we've been on this journey for 30 something years. Right. And you get to the end of it and you're like, I am not happy. This
speaker-0: So and what's next? Where's my next achievement coming from? Because that's that's what's always given us kind of the motivation and drive that we had to get to where we are.
speaker-1: Exactly. The achievement treadmill it's it's it is a phenomenon that I have suffered with for many, many years.
speaker-0: Well, and I think it's interesting too that ⁓ I see that a lot in people that re are re retire, you know, where retirement is their goal. It's not it's not I'm I'm gonna live a life of meaning and joy. It's I'm gonna retire. And then they retire and and now there's nothing. And and they realize they're not happy as a retired person either because because they've chosen the wrong goal.
speaker-1: Yep. So so there's ⁓ a doc out there, Jordan Grummet. I know have you so Jordan awesome. Love love his stuff. And ⁓ shared shared a room with him at FinCon back when FinCon was the thing that I used to go to. It's a financial conference for for financial literacy people, right? You you're probably familiar that. And ⁓ and so Jordan, his work on the ideas of like what what does it mean to have a fulfilling, meaningful life as a person who you know is a palliative care hospice doc that that got to do life reviews of people and and
speaker-0: Cassius.
speaker-1: So I had that experience. This is so interesting because why Jordan's stuff touched my world so much and really hit home for me is that when I went part-time and I went to two days, I went from working a lot, like 1.3 FTE, to like two days a week. I I mean it was cold turkey pretty much. I I basically retired. So I'm working two days a week. I all of a sudden have all the time in the world. I was miserable. I ended up on antidepressants, I ended up in therapy. And part of the reason why was because of Jordan, what I would learn later from Jordan. You know, I lost that sense of purpose and connection and identity that I had for so long. And most people don't experience that until they retire. And so it's which is why they say it's so or so important to retire to something, not from something. You should be retiring to something that you're going to immensely enjoy. And it can't just be golf. Yeah. What's your purpose gonna be? And so that journey for me, when I got burned out, I went two days a week, snap decision because I I just was in such a bad place.
speaker-0: Next per what's your next purpose?
speaker-1: And and it made it worse because I all of a sudden had all this time and I didn't know what my purpose was. I started asking all these existential questions about life when I was in my early to mid thirties. I mean, I was like 32 or 33 at the time. And I'm asking, you know, what is God calling me to do in my life? Like I just I don't know. I thought it was medicine. I thought I was going into, you know, leadership in an academic hospital, and that's not gonna happen. ⁓ at least at the time it appeared to be that way. ⁓ and so I really love Jordan's take on that. And and I think that most people don't experience the need to truly establish what their purpose and their sense of community and their identity comes from until they retire. Cause most of those things, if you're a doctor, come from work. And you don't know that until you step away and you're like, What is this thing? And why it why am I so sad?
speaker-0: Well, yeah, but I I I also think that a lot of people, doctors who are burned out as they're working before they retire, ha have lost their sense of purpose. You know, I mean I think that's part of why maybe you feel that way is that you you know, when you went into medicine, you thought you'd have this grand purpose of curing the world and and stamping out disease. But you know, you get kind of get that kind of gets you get worn down over time. Right.
speaker-1: I I would push back a little bit and say that I think what happens is people still have a similar purpose to help others. Yeah. It's just that it becomes so hard in a system that doesn't let you do that, you experience the the moral injury of knowing what to do and how to do it, but not being able to do so. Yeah. ⁓ and so I I I I I think it becomes apathy. I think that the purpose is still there. It's just people feel like, I clearly am gonna be able accomplish this purpose in this job. And and so what's what's the point? You know, I yeah, is is kinda how I I see it.
speaker-0: Yeah. And I think it's interesting too as you as you're as you do start to explore your next shift, whatever that if that whether that's retirement or another career, maybe for physicians, especially, since we're the type of people that that is our purpose, you know, helping other people and and and all that kind of stuff. And ⁓ how many of us find that in in some other venue? I mean, you you have with your financial literacy, I have with my financial advising, ⁓ and special needs planning and and the other things that that I'm doing. ⁓ it just But I think it's okay that our purpose shifts a little bit and and it's going to shift. You know, our our our just what brings meaning in our life is gonna shift over time. And and I don't think we always recognize that as we enter, you know, like twenty years before.
speaker-1: I I couldn't agree more and and I think that my my career to the average person is probably very confusing. because I was that high flyer through all of medical training and you know, everyone saw me becoming a program director or chair someday. ⁓ and then I went part time to two days a week and we're they're like, Whoa, like this guy? Like that guy didn't now looking back, everyone's like, This isn't surprising at all 'cause they know they know Jimmy Turner at forty, but Jimmy Turner, thirty thirty years old, did not have the same goals and ambitions and and that sort of thing. And so I'm at the stage of my life where actually, you know, as of the day of this recording this week, my my youngest turns 10. And so I'm gonna have ⁓ soon to be 16, 13, and 10-year-old in my house. And so every single evening and weekend for me is spoken for. And I am very, very, very, you know, protective of my boundaries in terms of my time. Yeah. And ⁓ but when my my youngest in eight years graduates high school and all of a sudden I don't have all of those things anymore. Right. I might actually go back and work more at the hospital because I'm no longer in that stage of life where having that autonomy to never miss anything for my kids is the most important thing to me. And so we we go through these stages in life not recognizing that your purpose and your connection, your identity are going to shift and they're going to change and it's going to look a little different. And that's not, it's not broken. It doesn't mean something's wrong. That's just a natural process in life. ⁓ And ten years ago, like I I I had a very different set of goals and expectations and and ambitions than I do now. and so when you think that it needs to be the same thing for thirty years, of course you're gonna end up being, you know, in a in a spot that you probably don't wanna be in because you think it's supposed to be the same. But you've changed.
speaker-0: Changed. Yeah. That that's the reality. I mean, we we change as time goes on. And and if we aren't willing to change our goals and purpose and identity, there's gonna be that disconnect. So that that brings me up to, you know, some some of the things that you mentioned and and even from what I've learned from Jordan ⁓ Gromit is that, you know, the the whole movement of fire, you know, financially independent retire early. And I haven't talked to a ton of people that did that early on in life. But those that I've talked to, every one of them have discovered that of course they were all physicians, so maybe that's part of it. But they discovered, okay, well, this is not the right goal. You know, they they achieve they achieve financial independence, they retire early. And because of those things that we've talked about, where they that their retirement is the goal rather than living a life of meaning, ⁓ they find themselves unhappy.
speaker-1: Yeah, you know, I was having this conversation with my son last night, actually. ⁓ so he's about to turn thirteen and he's big into baseball. He started baseball four or five years later than the other kids. And if you understand the world of travel baseball, which isn't just pure insanity, ⁓ then like that that's a big deal. Like he had a lot of catching up to do to be competitive for for kids that are his age because of the resources that exist these days and and all that sort of stuff. And and so I was asking Wesley last night, I said, Wesley, When you think about success in a baseball game, like like how how would you define that? He's like, What do you mean? I was like, Well, y you catch and you hit. Those are two two things you predominantly do in a baseball game. So from a hitting standpoint, what what would what would be a successful day at the plate? And he's like, Well, you know, if I go, you know, I get up three times, you know, I I'd like to go maybe two for three, have six total bases and ⁓ you know, a couple RBIs if there are people out out there on the on the bags, you know, when it when I'm hitting. And ⁓ and so I just kinda asked him, I like, Well, Wesley, like, would you define it as an unsuccessful day at the plate. If you go 0 for three and two of your balls are absolutely obliterated. They are smoked, but hit directly at an outfielder who snags the ball. And your third time you have a eight pitch at bat and you get called on a strikeout for a ball that's a foot off the plate. And we have video nowadays, so we can actually go back and look at that. And you decide not to swing because it was a ball. It was unequivocally a ball and you made the right decision, but the umpire calls you out. Would you describe that as a s unsuccessful day at the plate then? And he's like, well I mean, I guess not. I was like, no, because like you can't you can't and you can't really control the outcomes. Right. And so focusing on what what is my ultimate goal as if that goal is going to be the thing that makes you happy instead of enjoying the process of the journey, ⁓ when you when you transition that shift to I you know, I'm just gonna try to enjoy this journey and the process of whatever I'm doing right now, as opposed to I'm gonna enjoy this when I get there, and having that giant arrival fallacy letdown. when you do ⁓ shifting that mentality to to the process and not the end product is really what I've found is the most helpful if you want and and and it's funny because if you look at I mean all of the all of the studies, all of the literature, you look at the major world religions, they they agree on one thing, which is that people are happiest when you are in the moment and and able to focus on the thing that you are doing in the midst of of that time, whether it be present s with other people and and being present with other people or things you're working on, right? If you were doing something but distracted, this is why cell phones are such a problem. And I I say that as someone who has a problem with that myself. ⁓ social media will will get to you there. But like the the the ability to get to enjoying the process and the journey is is ultimately what leads to sustainable happiness as opposed to waiting for that mountaintop experience and finding out three months later you're not happy because you need the next mountaintop. Yeah.
speaker-0: Exactly. And the mountain the mountaintop experience is nice, ⁓ but it's fleeting and and what you've become in the process. And and that's why I love where, you know, just hearing your journey also and and things that I've experienced myself, th there are no there are no failures, right? So failures ⁓ they're mistakes, but they're only failures if you don't learn from them. And ⁓ you know, and you've turned your mist the mistakes that you made into something super successful that's helped other people.
speaker-1: You know what's interesting though is that that I didn't learn that in medicine. I learned that from entrepreneurship because you so
speaker-0: Well in medicine, yeah, it's it's that's not what they teach you.
speaker-1: That is not what they teach you. And so so there are there are two examples. I just gave one of them. Like baseball is literally a sport of failure. There there is a mistakes column on the box score. It's called errors, right? Like it's an expectation that these things will happen in a game. And and maybe the only other area in life where it's just expected is entrepreneurship. You start a business, mistakes will be made, failures will be had. And if you don't flip it, you know, Ryan Holiday style at you know the stoic and say, you know, the obstacle isn't in the way, the obstacle Is the way to success, right? That this this failure is something I'm gonna learn from. And because of that, I'm not gonna shun failure, I'm not gonna be afraid of it, I'm not gonna hate it when it happens, I'm gonna expect it and enjoy it and learn from it and make it part of the process. ⁓ I did not learn that from medicine, which is why when my when my career trajectory failed and I was not given opportunities that I wanted, I didn't know how to process that at the time. Now I I know perfectly well how to process it, and I'm actually very good at that. ⁓ and so I also have a giant case of FOMO that that medicine produces as well. But ⁓ entrepreneurship, running a business is what has taught me the the need to enjoy failure. Like it's part of the process and and there's no other way to get to success other than to work through it. ⁓ and and so like I I embrace failure at this point, but man, for thirty five years I definitely did not.
speaker-0: Yeah. No, the the whole ⁓ morbidity and mortality conference fear of, you know, you make a mistake and everybody just gets up there and rails on you as opposed to that's I I think that carries forth. Yeah, for sure. So ⁓ financial independence then. ⁓ If it's not to retire early, why do we do it? What's the value?
speaker-1: Very different culture. So I I I've always that's not true. When I first got into this stuff, I think like most people, fire was an intriguing idea to me. ⁓ I've come to maybe not loathe and detest the idea of fire, but ⁓ I don't love it without its place. And so you have to back up, and I was a philosophy major, right? So so for me, for me, it always starts with the big picture, always 100% of the time. And so, what is the purpose of money? Right. So for me, the purpose of money is being able to do what you want, when you want, with the people that you want accomplishing the goals that you have, right? And so, so for me, the purpose of money is autonomy. It is a surrogate for time. It is a surrogate the ability to to bless other people. It's this the the surrogate for you to be able to accomplish the things that you're trying to accomplish and to do that with the people that you love and that you want on this journey with you. And so if that's the goal, right? anybody that knows me knows that that I
speaker-0: Your time.
speaker-1: Just very much enjoy being productive. ⁓ I used to think that this was like an external validation achievement treadmill kind of thing. It just turns out like I just love being productive. I mean, I've written two books and published I don't even know how much content at this point over the last 10 years. I mean, lots, tons, way too much. And ⁓ but the reason why is because I enjoy the process of creating content. Like I just love it. It's fun. It doesn't feel like work to me. And so if you ask most people to know me well, I don't think that they ever see a a future version of Jimmy Turner that's not working on something or trying to solve some problem. And that's just part of my personality and and what I really love doing. Now, maybe in my my older years might turn more into advising and helping other people solve their problems and not doing the work myself. Yeah. ⁓ but ⁓ I I just I just love that process. And so fire, fire is not the goal. Fire fire is an escape hatch. Fire is something that people view as this is my way out of whatever problem I'm currently having, which it might be a job, it might be. you know, corporate medicine, it might be, you know, you name it, to live this life of grandeur that that you just can't wait to live. ⁓ for me, because of that transition of viewing money as autonomy, ⁓ I I'm much more a fan of the financial independence work optional. So FIWO, in other words, you have the ability to practice medicine because you want to, not because you have to. You have the ability to practice medicine on your terms. So when an administrator bites back and you know that you're financially independent and you can just them stuff it. Right. Like like there's nothing there's nothing that you can do that's gonna make me do this thing that you're asking. And and by the way, I also recognize that I've got tons of leverage because my specialty's in huge need right now. Like I dare you to fire me. Like it's not gonna hurt. I'll go get another job, and by the way, I don't need one. And ⁓ you know, and so like and I I've had those situations happen ⁓ at work. I you know, I I had a surgeon one time whose, you know, wife was an administrative hospital and there's like the scheduling snafu that happened in the middle of the night.
speaker-0: ⁓ There's
speaker-1: And he ⁓ he made some offhand comment to me about, you know, just you're ready to hand in your pink slip, you know, sort of thing. And ⁓ I literally looked at him and I was like, just to let you know, man, I don't need this job. Like I'm here 'cause I wanna be and I like taking care of patients. I'm really good at that, it turns out. ⁓ but yeah, like whether your wife's happy or not in the morning just 'cause she's an administrator, I honestly don't care. I just don't care. And he and he was like jaw on the floor, like I like I can't believe you just said that to me. ⁓ how dare you? I'm gonna tell my wife on you. And ⁓ whatever. Power.
speaker-0: Killer.
speaker-1: Right. And I was like, no, we're doing the right thing for the patient, even though that's not gonna make your wife happy in the morning. I I I I legitimately do not care because I care about this patient, I care what about what's right, ⁓ and protecting the team and what you're asking me to do isn't the right thing. ⁓ and so you know, that that ability to have that autonomy and that power to control your career, your time, the way you practice, how much you practice, ⁓ that is really powerful. And and I've found, and I'm sure that you have too in your financial advisory work, when people get to that point. Maybe they want to leave medicine and then they find out, ⁓ now that I can afford to work two days a week instead of five days a week, I actually really like my job. I look forward to going back because it's a change of pace in my week. And and that's where I am. I I do anesthesia two to three days a week. ⁓ I make I got a massive pay cut taking the job that I have right now. ⁓ but I get there at 6 30. I'm done at three every single day. It is inpatient hospital work, so I enjoy doing it. ⁓ But like I never miss baseball practice. I never miss my daughter's flute concerts. I never miss any of that stuff. Do I make less money because I'm not a partner and I'm not ⁓ you know, a W-2 employee working late and nights and you know that sort of stuff? Yeah, absolutely. ⁓ but the purpose of money is not to make more money. And so so so for me, I now really like my job. I really enjoy going to the hospital and and doing my work. And I can't say that was always the case back when I was getting flogged and working all the time. Right.
speaker-0: No, I think it's interesting that financial independence instead of retiring early often extends careers. And and you know, so so I that's that's the true value in it. Is it just like you said, I love that acronym, FIWO, you know, work optional. And be and not just work optional, work options. I mean, it gives you it gives you options. It gives you the I guess the cushion to explore options that you may not have otherwise felt like you had the cushion to explore.
speaker-1: Hundred percent. Couldn't agree more. Yeah. I I I will say that I do know people. I remember Leif Dollin from Physician on Fire. ⁓ so Leif when he was going to fire and he and he realized that he got to financial independence. so he he would write about this on Physician on Fire back when he owned it. And ⁓ he'd he basically said once he got financial independence for him, it just kind of created this giant magnifying glass over the parts of his job that he hated. Yeah. For sure. And he just noticed them more because they were now optional. And so I do think for some that that's the that's the end result of that process is that they just have these peer to peers or whatever that they just cannot stand, they can't get over it and now it's optional and they just they're done. Yeah. And they move on to a completely different second shift of their career. Yeah. ⁓ whereas for others, and I would argue more, I've I've seen the same thing that you're you're talking about, which is my experience, which is I I I like my job a lot more now. Yeah. That I'm not required to go at times I don't want to.
speaker-0: Yeah, or maybe there's ways that you can pay somebody else to do the parts of your job that it hates. Now, obviously it depends on the specialty. Sometimes sometimes you really can't offload everything that you hate. But ⁓ but you know, not having to do it five days a week makes it easier. Yep. To to deal with that.
speaker-1: There's a person in the entrepreneur space that has an acronym. It's DAD. So I always talk about entrepreneurs that are happy, often DAD. So that's delegate, automate, or delete. So what what what of your job that you don't like can you delegate? What can you automate? Right. So that you don't have to keep doing it. And what can you delete? Like it doesn't move the needle for you financially. It doesn't move the needle for you from a professional fulfillment standpoint. ⁓ are there parts of your job? And and so I I do know I know surgeons who got to financial independence and basically told the hospital, like, hey, I'm not doing these kinds of procedures anymore. Like if you want those procedures done, you need to hire somebody else to do those procedures. I'm going to focus on these 10 procedures because these are the ones that I really enjoy and I'm really, really good at them. And I can provide a lot of help to people focusing on these 10 things. And there's a giant backlog of people who need these 10 surgeries. So I'm not going to do those anymore. And they just tailored their career to doing the very specific surgeries they really enjoyed and got rid of the ones that they didn't.
speaker-0: ⁓ so what do you think for physicians in particular? ⁓ you know, I I think a lot of us do eventually reach reach financial independence and are burned out but still have a hard time leaving. What do you think that is?
speaker-1: So so so ultimately, you know, having coached hundreds of doctors on on that exact topic and career transitions and stuff, really what it comes down to, and and I I would argue that this is what probably the problem is in ninety nine point nine percent of people's problems, is that they haven't intentionally sat down and thought about and spoken with somebody about what the problem is and figure and figured out what it actually is. Because I cannot tell you how common it is for people to say, Hey Jimmy, like I I just I'm burned out. I hate my job. It's because of you know my administrator and the the the force they're putting on me for X, Y, and Z. And I can't do my job that I want the way I want to, and all this other stuff. And ⁓ and really when you when you get down to you know brass tacks and you ask them like, hey, so when this thing happens at your job, like that that thing, believe it or not, is not what's making you feel that way. It's it's whatever your narrative is about that thing. ⁓ and I cannot tell you the number of people, right? You don't knock coaching until you try it. ⁓ I cannot tell you the number of people who were planning on leaving jobs. Two stories, planning on leaving jobs, and then got some coaching, and then they realized, ⁓ the problem that I thought was the problem is actually not the problem. This is the problem. And it turns out I can actually control that problem. And they end up being happy at the job that they had with never leaving. The other thing that happens, probably more common, is that they think that they know the reason, but they've never sat down with somebody who's gonna actually tell them what they need to hear, what they want to hear, right? Which is the difference between your spouse or a friend, right? Is you have a third person objective party whose whose job is to not make you feel better. Their job is to make you realize what is actually going on. And that's uncomfortable. And sometimes they point out, hey, you know, you keep saying you got a black eye will be really helpful if you stop punching yourself in the face. And this is how you're doing that. and and initially people might get a little angry about it, but then they come to realize, you know what, you're right. But if you don't figure out what the problem is, what people will often do is they just change jobs. And they change jobs, they will move their family, they'll change to a different job, and they'll get at that job. And six months later, they're the same exact place they were before they left because they thought the problem was the job. Yeah. And it turns out that it wasn't. It was it was your specific part of this process that bothered you for very specific reasons. And actually at your old job, you probably could have fixed that with a few different changes and you'd have been happy and you wouldn't have had to move your family and buy a new house and you know, all that stuff. It's it's it's really common for that to happen because doctors are so busy. We are told that asking for help is weakness. Right. We are told that ⁓ you know, you need to figure this out on your own. And when you can't and you are burned out and you feel helpless and you've you have learned helplessness having been taught to you in medicine, where you tried to do things and and people wouldn't let you. And so you just give up. ⁓ I think that's why people struggle is because they never actually take the time to intentionally sit down and think through it ideally with somebody else. Yeah. and and what that results in is pro con lists. So just if if if you're sitting here listening to this podcast, I'll give you a helpful tool that that I think is is a good way to think through two choices if you're you're set with them. Most people write down pro con lists, which I find to be a uniformly unhelpful exercise. And and the reason why is because when you make a decision That you end up regretting. It's not because of the pro side of the list, ever. Like almost ever. And so what it is because of is because you made a decision and then certain things happen that you didn't really think through in terms of worst case scenario. And you end up realizing the other decision was the right one to make. And so the better way to think through things if you're in a place and you're like, I'm thinking about going part-time, I'm thinking about changing jobs, I'm thinking about, you know, X, Y, or Z, is look at choice A and choice B and very intentionally. figure out what is the worst case scenario if I choose A and I choose B. And if you get to those places and you say, ⁓ huh, that worst case scenario and with choice A is something that I know I would not be able to tolerate, well, guess what? You're choosing B. And vice versa. And if you get to the place where both of them are worst case scenarios that you can tolerate and you've done some maybe some some thought work on that to realize how you could maybe get to that space, then you get to look at the pro side of the list and say, hey, which one of these things is going to make me happy? ⁓ but people often look at the the pros between two jobs and make decisions based on that without really thinking about, hey, what like what is the worst case scenario in this thing that looks wonderful on the pro side? Right. And realizing, ⁓ like if I did that, I would never be able to come back to this job that I'm leaving right now. I'm completely burning the bridge. Yeah. Right. Or maybe you say, Hey, the job I'm leaving right now, they would always take me back. So the worst case if I don't leave is that that job I'm looking at isn't offered anymore. And I since I can always come back, why why why shouldn't I go check it out? Which is what I literally just did myself. six months ago. Yeah. ⁓ Wake would always take me back. And so why not go try out this private practice job that's 30 minutes from my house that didn't require me to move? Yeah. You know? And it's been great.
speaker-0: Yeah, I think also interesting how ⁓ or just important to put that same kind of planning into retirement because you know that's that's a huge transition. That's maybe our biggest transition. That we very few people plan well, you know, that where where they say in and I think that that's why some people to answer my own question, I think that's why some people do struggle, even though they know they can leave financially, most likely. ⁓ They're not happy with what they're doing. They just don't know what to what what's next. And so it's easier to stay in your comfort zone even if it's not a great place, as opposed to taking that step out and and seeing what's next.
speaker-1: ⁓ yeah. And and it's tough, right? Because like making a change is hard for most people. ⁓ and it's scary and you don't know what's gonna be on the other side of that necessarily. And so you would just rather stay in your comfortable discomfort and to potentially make a change. ⁓ what I will say, and this is the beautiful thing about being a physician, is that there are many careers out there where if you wanted to go start a side gig or build a business or get into entrepreneurship, you'd basically have to abandon the job and take like a Soren Kierkegaard leap of faith that your business is going to work out, which is alm almost uniformly a terrible idea. Most businesses, by the way, do not work out. Yeah. But as a physician, because your your income is so secure and it's so stable, doctors have this ability to start these side gigs, which is why forty percent of them have one, and test those ideas and see if that thing's gonna fly or not before they ever consider cutting back or or working less or or leaving medicine. ⁓ I hop I hope but a bunch of doctors don't leave medicine, but at the same time I'm also acutely aware of the current situation of medicine and reality of it. So
speaker-0: Yeah. Well, you know, and I again I think that that's why why good financial planning is so important. You know, because because if you don't no longer need the income, it gives you the opportunity to explore those side gigs. And if they if they fail or they don't work out or you earn less money, that's okay.
speaker-1: Yeah. That's okay. I I I would say that, you know, you you need to find a good financial advisor, ⁓ because ⁓ financial advisors are human too. And and what happens, ⁓ you know, I mean it's liter literally proverbs, right? That the the person that is wise, the the the the person seeking wisdom is someone who who wants criticism, you want feedback, you want constructive thoughts about what you could be doing better. And if you have an advisor who is honest enough with you. to share those things instead of telling you what you need to hear because they're worried about losing you as a client, which is often the experience. like that person's worth their weight in gold because that person can serve as your coach and your advisor and be the sounding board when you and your your partner can't agree on a financial decision. And so and so, which is why most people get confused, like, I don't understand. Like my advisor is gonna cost X, Y, and Z, but right, you know, investing's not complicated. I'm like, you don't use an advisor for investing. I'm not saying that an advisor can't help you tap into things from a, from a, you know, Non-retail side that that that you don't have access to. I'm not saying that that's not possible. Yeah. But like that's not the main reason that you use an advice.
speaker-0: It's not the investment management. It's it's all the other stuff. It's all the other stuff. Yeah. So exactly right. All right. Let me ask you this. We're we're getting c close to time, but I want to ⁓ ask a couple of the questions. So ⁓ are there things that you're optimizing in your life today? You've already hinted at it, so I think I know what you're gonna say, but you are are there things that you're optimizing in your life today that you weren't optimizing 10 years ago?
speaker-1: That part's not. Hmm. Well, I'm I'm at a little bit of a frustrating fork in the road for me. so you know, on a on a personal level, probably three years ago I started really focusing on my health a lot more and ⁓ which included, you know, lifting weights and doing zone two cardio and really getting into that stuff and how much protein I was taking in and and and I really enjoyed that. I love learning new things. And so ⁓ for me, that's part of the the shifts that we were talking about earlier in terms of personality. Is I I'm I'm widely known for going all in on something for a few years and then changing to something else. And like that too. Yeah. And so I had had an injury, ended up having you know, shoulder surgery in October, ⁓ which is what led to blessing in disguise, what led to me having the time to finally figure out Instagram, which is almost at a hundred thousand followers, mind blowing. I had two thousand in like December. ⁓ and so ended up being a huge blessing in disguise. But then Started working out again and sure enough, I'm a baseball practice, catch a line drive across across my body and it pops, and I'm like, I heard it again. So ⁓
speaker-0: Just wait until you're in your late fifties.
speaker-1: ⁓ I know. I just I I fe the pro the problem with being forty in my experience is that like I still have the physical ability to like I'm still very quick, I'm still very strong. But my bot my my body's like, Yeah, you can do those things, but when you do them, like we can't really tolerate it. So we're gonna like just make you pull your oblique here. ⁓ and so
speaker-0: You haven't figured it out yet. That's That's why Achilles ruptures always happen at basketball games when you're forty, right?
speaker-1: Right? Yep, exactly. So for me it was definitely fitness for for for a while. I'm having to learn how to ⁓ just be okay with enough for now when it comes to to that regard. ⁓ because of the job change, you know, a a lot of the the mental work that's going on in my world right now is actually like what what is that balance that I want? Yeah. Like is it three days a week? Is it two days a week? And if so, why? And and when I when I get bothered that, you know, I have to wake up at four in the morning. ⁓ to to go to these shifts. Like, why is that such a big deal? And and and just working through like what does that journey look like? Because if we're gonna enjoy the journey, I think it's it's a process of trying to figure out, hey, how can I make my ideal week happen more and more and more often? And what does that ideal week look like? And so right now I'm in the midst of figuring out what that balance is for me because I got this new job and ⁓ and I enjoy the work, ⁓ but like the like my business is also taking off. And so I'm in that weird kind of in-between stage of, you know, Like if I 100% of my time to focus on my business, like that would probably be just sufficient in and of itself. Yeah. And ⁓ and so that that's a lot of the the the mental bandwidth that's being used at the moment is trying to find that balance ⁓ and and not and and by finding balance, I I mean like finding finding my balance professionally because you're never you're never gonna be in balance, by the way. Like it's like we're work-life balance, like there's no such thing. So ⁓ it's just a matter of finding the right professional side.
speaker-0: No, there's no such thing. I mean ⁓ maybe it's balance of energy, but certainly not balance of time.
speaker-1: Yeah. When you s when you when you say say yes to something, you're saying no to something else. That is just the way it works.
speaker-0: Yeah. All right. So ⁓ I always close out my podcast with the final question. ⁓ and again, you've you've hinted at this before, ⁓ but but I want to hear what how you t address it. So how would you define true wealth today, true wealth, and how's that definition changed for you over time?
speaker-1: So true wealth, I think, is is what I defined it as earlier, which is the ability to do what you want, when you want, with the people you want, accomplishing the goals that you have, whatever those might be. I think the transition for me was I focused on the autonomy side of that even early on. ⁓ but I didn't focus as much on how do I make that happen. Like you you can be wealthy. And live that kind of mindset life before you ever get to financial independence. Right. And so the the transition for me was focusing on like, ⁓ because we talked about FIWO. So co Coast Fire is another topic near and dear to my heart. So we saved a lot of money when when we finished training, like a third of my income every year ⁓ or more. And ⁓ and so because of that, like we we have enough money saved up at this point that I could technically not save another dollar and I'd have something like seven, eight, ten million dollars in my accounts by the time I'm sixty five. Yeah. And so what that means is that now since I can save less, that meant I could work less. And that's where that part-time kind of thought process came from was actually a combination of making more outside of medicine while I also saved less money. And that differential bought me my two days a week that I needed back then. Right. ⁓ and so I was able to coast to financial independence. ⁓ and so the transition for me that's happened, the biggest one is is saying, hey, I don't have to wait until financial independence to live this ideal week as often as I want. I'm gonna try to do everything I can on a on a in revenue side and on a saving side and on an expensive side to try to live that life as often as I can while I'm on the journey, while I'm in the process. ⁓ that that's probably been the biggest shift.
speaker-0: Yeah, so important. I you know, I I think again, we always or frequently confuse the the goal and the tool. You know, the money is the tool, it's not the goal. And so we can we can continue adding, I mean, you know, when is enough? You have to define it, right? So you you can keep adding another million dollars or another whatever to your to your bottom line, to your net worth, and and never find true wealth because because I think that money is the tool to allow you to to find. wealth and what really brings happiness isn't the money, it's it's the options that it provides you to spend time with your family and time with developing relationship and helping other people, which you can do with very little money. So it it's it's interesting how how, you know, as those who have reached financial independence, how little money is important to them.
speaker-1: No, I I agree. I've I've always said that money is a means to an end, not the end itself.
speaker-0: Yeah, awesome. Jimmy, thank you. Thank you for your time. ⁓ it's been great. I I've I've loved, you know, just listening to your journey. I think it's fantastic. I think it ⁓ and again what you're doing in with Money Meets Medicine is helping so many people. ⁓ and I applaud you and and hope you keep going and and ⁓ that people will will check you out if they I most people probably already know who you are, but we'll we'll give a little plug for
speaker-1: I appreciate it, Brian. It was really fun chatting with you and being on the show.
speaker-0: Yeah, anything any l final words before we end?
speaker-1: ⁓ I don't think so, other than I just y don't wait to start enjoying the journey. Like it that I think if there's a ⁓ a point that I want you to take home listening to this, that is what it is. And to embrace the process, embrace the failure, embrace just that journey of life. That's where that's where the happiness is.
speaker-0: Yeah, life is fun. It's hard, but it's but it it can be fun and can be joyful and and you know, as long as you maintain that positive outlook. not not easy all the time, but it's helpful. All right. As always, I want to finish with five lessons that stood out to me from my conversation with Jimmy. Number one, don't wait until you break to start building options. So Jimmy didn't start his business because he was burned out. He actually started it shortly after he got out of fellowship. And he started it because he was interested in personal finance and wanted to help other physicians avoid some of the mistakes he'd made himself. But when burnout eventually came, that business gave him something incredibly valuable, options. Gave him the financial ability to step back from medicine and create enough space to figure out what was actually wrong and to forge a new path that continued to involve clinical medicine. You don't have to know exactly what your second shift's gonna be, but creating options before you need them can make that eventual transition. Much easier. Number two, before you change your career, make sure you diagnose the problem. Otherwise, you might find that just changing your external circumstances won't make things any better. It's easy to say I'm burned out, I need a different job, or I just need to retire. But as Jimmy pointed out, the thing we blame isn't always the real problem. Maybe it's a lack of control over your schedule. Maybe it's loss of professional autonomy. Maybe it's feeling underappreciated. Maybe your priorities have simply changed. A new job or retirement won't necessarily fix a problem you haven't correctly diagnosed. Number three, financial independence is more valuable as a source of autonomy than as an escape hatch. So Jimmy uses the acronym FIWO, financial independence work optional. I love that distinction. Financial independence doesn't have to mean you stop working. It means you get to decide whether you work, how much you work, what kind of work you do, and under what conditions you're willing to do it. Ironically, having the financial freedom to leave medicine may actually allow some physicians to enjoy medicine again and even extend your career. All right, number four, retire to something, not simply from something. This is a refrain we hear over and over again. When Jimmy dramatically cut back his clinical work, he suddenly had something he'd been chasing for years, more time, and he was miserable. Medicine had provided purpose, identity, connection, and structure, and removing the work didn't automatically replace those things. So I think that's an important lesson whether you're 35 and considering going part-time or 65 and contemplating retirement. Before you create all that empty space, spend some time thinking about what you want to put into it. Finally, number five, don't postpone your ideal life until you reach some financial finish line. This may have been my favorite lesson from the conversation. So Jimmy described true wealth as having the ability to do what you want when you want with the people you want. while pursuing the goals that matter to you. And you don't necessarily have to be financially independent to start doing that. Maybe you can save a little less, maybe you can work one fewer shift, maybe you can change jobs, start a side business, protect more time with your family, or simply become more intentional about what you say yes to and the relationships that you're developing around you. Money is a tool. The goal isn't to accumulate the biggest pile of it possible. The goal is to use it to build a life you actually want to live. And to enjoy some of that life while you're still on the journey. That is the end of this episode of Second Shift Podcast. I appreciate my guest, Dr. Jimmy Turner, for sharing with us his journey. If you liked it, please share it with your friends and colleagues and subscribe to the channel. Help us get the word out. And if you are on the precipice of your own career transition and would like help with a financial strategy, reach out to us at targetedwellsolutions.com. See you next time. The work you did Snake.
speaker-1: Thank you for listening to the Second Shift. If this conversation landed with you, please download our free guide called the Second Shift Blueprint. Five questions you and your partner should discuss before any major transition. Get it at second shiftpodcast.com. That's number two ndshiftpodcast.com. Join us next week for another great episode. And remember, your life and identity doesn't end with retirement. It's just entering its second shift.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: The content shared in this podcast is intended for educational and entertainment purposes only and should not be considered personal financial advice. You should always consult with a financial professional to determine what is appropriate for your individual circumstances.