Financial Insecurity Is The #1 THREAT To Doctors?

[00:00:00] Welcome. You're listening to the GrowOrtho Podcast presented by HIP.

[00:00:05] This podcast is dedicated to orthodontists who want to stand strong in their market and be leaders in their community.

[00:00:13] Now onto today's show.

[00:00:16] What's the number one contribution to depression, burnout? What would fix it?

[00:00:20] And the answer is more compensation.

[00:00:22] So the average physician makes $350,000 a year.

[00:00:26] That's a top 1% wage earner in the world.

[00:00:28] So when I say you don't have an income problem, they look at you like you're crazy.

[00:00:33] Everyone's so focused on the accumulation phase, right?

[00:00:35] If I told you that, you know, 2,000 people scaled Mount Kilimanjaro, but 1,000 made it down.

[00:00:41] So retirement is the peak of the mountain.

[00:00:43] So what good is it to bust your tail and accumulate all this money,

[00:00:47] but then in the distribution phase when you're sort of in your golden years with your family, whatever, your retirement,

[00:00:53] halfway down you run out of money.

[00:00:55] Dr. Eric Nielsen, thanks so much for coming on the Grow Ortho podcast.

[00:00:59] Luke, thank you very much.

[00:01:01] Most definitely. So you are not an orthodontist. You are the other ortho.

[00:01:07] I'm super excited. I'm the other ortho.

[00:01:10] So yeah, probably the only other ortho that's been on this podcast.

[00:01:13] But we go back a ways. Just for the listeners, just to shout out to Luke.

[00:01:19] I'm an orthopedic surgeon, been in practice for 15 years,

[00:01:23] and I left the Andrews Institute, went on my own,

[00:01:28] and Luke's team was instrumental in introducing myself to the importance of marketing.

[00:01:34] So I think I was one of your first healthcare clients.

[00:01:37] First doctor.

[00:01:38] And Luke ended up growing that to leaps and bounds for me,

[00:01:43] and then I think Luke wised up and realized how insane it is to work with MD physicians

[00:01:48] and wised up and decided to work with the other ortho

[00:01:52] and realized, wow, much better business sense,

[00:01:55] better clientele, just a much different sort of attitude than working with these MD physicians.

[00:02:02] So I hate to dog my own class, but the reality is that's the truth.

[00:02:06] Appreciate you saying that.

[00:02:07] Tell us a little bit about you. Where did you go to school?

[00:02:12] How did things start to happen with residency and training?

[00:02:16] You mentioned the Andrews Institute.

[00:02:17] Give us maybe just five minutes snapshot of your history.

[00:02:21] Sure. So grew up great parents, older brother, grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina.

[00:02:27] And it was in ninth grade when I realized I wanted to be a orthopedic surgeon.

[00:02:30] I saw a knee replacement surgery on PBS.

[00:02:33] So yeah, public broadcasting, which I don't think exists anymore.

[00:02:35] But it was on a Saturday and I saw a knee replacement and my dad saw me seeing that.

[00:02:39] So he sat down and he was like, you know, do you want to do this?

[00:02:42] I'm like, yeah. And my dad was like, you know, as a father son,

[00:02:45] it was his moment to like, hey, the gene pool is moving in the right direction.

[00:02:48] So I just wrote it on a notecard and I stuck it on my window.

[00:02:53] And since ninth grade on until I graduated, I stared I'm going to be a doctor one day.

[00:02:59] That's what I stared at. And so that was my grind.

[00:03:01] And so that was my purpose. God put that on my heart.

[00:03:04] And so I end up going to Auburn University as undergrad.

[00:03:09] I was living in Texas at the time.

[00:03:11] And then from Auburn, I left, took two years off, went to USF med school in Tampa and then graduated there.

[00:03:17] Went to McGill up in Montreal and did my orthopedic residency up there for five years.

[00:03:22] Left and then, you know, the king of orthopedics was Jim Andrews.

[00:03:26] And I was like, man, that's where I'm going.

[00:03:28] And was able to get a fellowship with him in sports medicine, did a foot and ankle after that.

[00:03:33] And my life dream was to take care of athletes. That's all I want to do.

[00:03:36] So he took me down to his center here in Gold Priest, Florida, started shop there, started my orthopedic practice independently,

[00:03:43] built the foot and ankle program, taking care of Auburn athletes, pro athletes.

[00:03:48] Wow. I was king of the hill, man. I was the man.

[00:03:50] And then I started getting into practice.

[00:03:53] He got really, really busy.

[00:03:55] And I got into the hospital politics and I was independent and this was an employed sort of center.

[00:04:01] And things just got kind of sticky.

[00:04:04] So I just, you know, like my dad said when I was a kid, you've always been unmanageable, which is a compliment.

[00:04:10] So I was unmanageable.

[00:04:13] So I went off on my own.

[00:04:15] I just wanted to have that.

[00:04:16] I wanted to control sort of my life.

[00:04:19] I didn't want someone telling me what to do.

[00:04:20] So I didn't want to be employed physician.

[00:04:21] That was just for me.

[00:04:22] And so I left, started up, you know, Nielsen Orthopedics, my own practice with your help.

[00:04:28] We transitioned.

[00:04:29] It was a scary time.

[00:04:30] It was very scary.

[00:04:31] And you helped me grow that and I added a partner and we've been in practice ever since.

[00:04:37] I've married, have three wonderful kids, and I've accomplished everything I wanted to do from an orthopedic standpoint.

[00:04:44] And at this point, you know, I turn 50 next week and the next sort of aspects of my life,

[00:04:50] I just want to help young physicians not have the troubles that I see out there that we talked about, you know.

[00:04:58] And so I think if we can, you know, when my time comes, I want to just look my kids in the face and my family who's,

[00:05:07] when they're standing there looking at me, laying somewhere and being,

[00:05:09] hey, he gave it all and tried to help these young docs have a better life.

[00:05:13] And one of the big problems you realized for yourself is being able to create wealth,

[00:05:23] not earn income, but create wealth so you can actually enjoy the remainder of your time with your family

[00:05:31] and then maybe even pass on something and leave that legacy.

[00:05:34] Absolutely.

[00:05:35] Because it's, you know, you start working and you're so focused on just, yeah, income, income, income.

[00:05:41] But as a private practitioner, you know, pensions are gone.

[00:05:45] You know, your retirement years, no one hands you a book and say, well, here's what you have to do for 20 years.

[00:05:52] And then it's all going to be there for you and don't worry about anything.

[00:05:55] So there's no real, there's really no planning.

[00:05:57] And now even though there's financial planners, so I like to help create wealth.

[00:06:02] And that's it.

[00:06:03] And when you understand the difference between income and wealth, you know, like today's a Thursday, my colleagues are all working.

[00:06:11] This is my Advent Day.

[00:06:13] Like I get to go play and do things that I want to do on Thursdays.

[00:06:16] I was sitting by my pool doing some reading, preparing, come over here doing this.

[00:06:20] I got to go back.

[00:06:21] I have a meeting this afternoon, but you know, that's a very big difference.

[00:06:25] And so if we can help physicians learn how to create wealth and ancillary income coming in outside of your practice,

[00:06:31] because the reality is it's tough to really generate a lot of income today as a physician when reimbursements are going down, expenses are going up.

[00:06:39] Yeah.

[00:06:40] Things have changed tremendously.

[00:06:42] Things have changed dramatically.

[00:06:43] And I'll talk about, you know, I talk about burnout.

[00:06:46] I mean, I'm burned out.

[00:06:47] I really don't want to do this much anymore.

[00:06:49] You know, it's kind of sad to say, but I really don't.

[00:06:52] I've done things I want to do, but I don't like where things are going.

[00:06:55] So what can I do to change and help those that are actually just getting started or in it right now?

[00:07:00] And they still really love it, but they don't like the all the daunting task and the strains that it puts on you.

[00:07:07] I don't even know really what you're up to in regards of finance, life insurance, advising.

[00:07:15] So I guess kind of start at the beginning or the transition from strategic doctor and what you're doing now.

[00:07:23] So, as you know, you helped me get started with strategic doctor, which, you know, haven't been in practice for 15 years.

[00:07:32] You know, I was challenged to say, hey, you know, what are you going to do with your career to help other physicians?

[00:07:37] And obviously everyone pushes to research and education, which is important.

[00:07:42] But I'll tell you, in the last five to six years, there's a financial crisis that physicians are facing.

[00:07:50] And so what we wanted to do with strategic doctor was to create an educational platform.

[00:07:54] And it's a financial educational platform.

[00:07:56] And as we got into that, we found we really needed to fulfill an arm, not just the educational piece.

[00:08:03] So we found American Heritage Financial, which is a massive financial group that can handle life insurance,

[00:08:09] disability insurance, you know, assets under management.

[00:08:12] Get your first job. Who's going to review your contract?

[00:08:15] So what we've come up with is a sort of pathway so we can meet the physician where they're at on their pathway,

[00:08:22] meaning that someone's in practice for 10 years, their needs and where they're at might be vastly different than someone who's just getting started.

[00:08:29] So in a sense, Wealth DX is an educational platform that really preaches financial wellness because, again, like I mentioned,

[00:08:38] this crisis, burnout and depression have reached epidemic levels.

[00:08:43] You know, 80 to 90 percent of physicians are burned out.

[00:08:46] And so when you're burned out, that leads to depression, which ultimately and sadly reaches suicide stuff.

[00:08:52] I mean, you're talking about 400 suicides a year per physicians, which is horrible.

[00:08:57] You had talked about or you brought up challenges that physicians are facing.

[00:09:03] And what's so ironic is none of this is talked about in school.

[00:09:08] They don't learn any of this stuff.

[00:09:11] And so they really come out unprepared.

[00:09:15] And I don't want to I don't mean to talk down in any way.

[00:09:19] That's not what I'm trying to do, because they're so good.

[00:09:23] Doctors are so well trained and, you know, they're very analytical.

[00:09:27] But when you zoom into one thing for so long and nothing else is introduced, you miss a lot of other things.

[00:09:34] So when you come back up and in the real world, you know, you may miss all this financial literacy

[00:09:41] and you then get into the mainstream and the mainstream way may be OK, but it's probably not the best way.

[00:09:51] So how do you guys start to infiltrate that and make them aware of, hey, here's what you need to know.

[00:09:59] And I'm assuming with your platform, it's kind of broken down so they can actually digest it.

[00:10:04] Correct. To your point, Luke is I call it a it's a the micro economic linear model in the education system

[00:10:14] is taught to doctors to think linearly, meaning that you go to med school.

[00:10:18] So you have physician plus patients equals income.

[00:10:22] And that model used to graduate, hang a shingle and you go practice and you're good.

[00:10:27] And that model is now broken. It's changed.

[00:10:29] And so that's the challenge we have in thinking that, hey, it's not about being employed or independent,

[00:10:36] because whether you're employed or not, you still got to run your practice.

[00:10:39] You still got to run yourself. You're running a business.

[00:10:41] We're running a business is called me incorporated.

[00:10:43] And we're teaching them that finance influences your lifestyle, influences your work, your home.

[00:10:50] Everything is encompassed in one.

[00:10:52] So tax strategies, life insurance, protection, asset protection, all this stuff has to work together.

[00:10:59] And so really we sink their island.

[00:11:02] That's what you have to do, sink their island and by presenting the problems.

[00:11:06] So here's the deal. So the average physician makes $350,000 a year.

[00:11:10] That's a top 1% wage earner in the world.

[00:11:13] So when I say you don't have an income problem, they look at you like you're crazy.

[00:11:18] You're a top 1% wage earner.

[00:11:20] Yet 7%, not 70, but 7% have a net worth over $5 million.

[00:11:27] 50% have a net worth of $2 million.

[00:11:30] And 50% of physicians work beyond the age of 65 because they have to, not because they want to.

[00:11:36] So you see the disconnect.

[00:11:38] A lot of income, but something's not working.

[00:11:41] And so there's reasons for that lifestyle creep.

[00:11:44] Financial literacy being number one.

[00:11:46] And the world's changed, right?

[00:11:47] Expenses are now skyrocketing and reimbursements have decreased as a physician for 20-something years.

[00:11:53] So we're dependent on the insurance carriers.

[00:11:56] And yet our reimbursements are going down every year.

[00:11:58] So you have no control over that.

[00:12:00] And so that's where the focus is on being more efficient with what you have because you don't have an income problem.

[00:12:06] But yet when you ask physicians, Medscape puts out these studies every year, which is interesting.

[00:12:11] 2024, the recent one is what's the number one contribution to depression, burnout?

[00:12:17] What would fix it?

[00:12:18] And the answer is more compensation.

[00:12:21] So they don't have an income problem.

[00:12:22] They have an outflow problem.

[00:12:24] And so how can we make them more efficient to address the problem?

[00:12:27] Well, it's so interesting that you bring that up because it's really the culture as a whole.

[00:12:33] I was talking to a sales guy the other day and I said, hey, his goal was to make 10K a month.

[00:12:39] And I said, well, you don't behave like somebody who makes 10K a month.

[00:12:43] So there's a massive disconnect.

[00:12:46] And I said, what happens when you don't behave this way and so you don't focus on the lead measures, the behaviors, habits, discipline?

[00:12:53] So then the lag measure doesn't happen, the 10K.

[00:12:56] And then that leaves you in this chasm of maybe you made 4K, but your bills are 8K.

[00:13:02] So you're hoping to pay your bills and then save some money.

[00:13:05] How do you handle that?

[00:13:07] Well, I just tell myself the next month I need to make even more money.

[00:13:10] It's like, no, you need to go all the way back to the beginning.

[00:13:14] And this is what society doesn't teach us because and I don't want to get into conspiracy theories because I don't believe in a lot of things.

[00:13:22] I don't believe in a lot of that stuff.

[00:13:24] But I do believe that largely if society was teaching the things we're talking about, so many more people would be winning.

[00:13:33] And so the game is rigged to some degree.

[00:13:36] Now, whether you're way over here or here, I'm kind of in the middle.

[00:13:40] I think you are too.

[00:13:42] But you have to understand that a lot of this goes back to just how you show up every single day.

[00:13:50] And even with your help, I'm sure you've seen people who have bad habits.

[00:13:56] And then they're like, well, I'm going to pull all my money out, all this stuff and I need to fix X, Y and Z.

[00:14:02] But I'll be back.

[00:14:03] So I want to I want to hit the mindset part in the behavior part.

[00:14:08] What did you do?

[00:14:10] And how did you figure this out?

[00:14:11] And then what do you see other successful people do?

[00:14:14] And I'm not talking about people worth 10, 20 million dollars.

[00:14:17] I'm just talking about people who do well.

[00:14:20] There's some safety and security and there's some legacy.

[00:14:24] How do you go back to that?

[00:14:26] Because I think a lot of things is mindset and psychology.

[00:14:30] You know, so what's your what's your belief on that?

[00:14:33] Yeah, I agree 100 percent.

[00:14:34] I mean, it is mindset when I first started practicing in 2009.

[00:14:39] You know, as a resident and fellow, I was making fifty thousand a year and that's sort of the average.

[00:14:43] And that hasn't changed much.

[00:14:44] And so you go from that to fifty thousand a month.

[00:14:49] Massive jump, massive.

[00:14:51] And I fell victim like a lot of them.

[00:14:54] I was wanted a nice car, wanted a house, got a boat, blah, blah, blah.

[00:14:59] But when my first tax bill came and I wrote a sizable check to the government, I thought, wow, I remember my dad telling me as a kid, it's not how much you make, it's how much you hang on to.

[00:15:10] And that's when I realized, wow, I have an income.

[00:15:12] I have a outflow problem with taxes.

[00:15:15] But also, to your point, the mindset was, you know, I felt uncomfortable taking a lot of money, in my opinion, hundreds of thousands of dollars and handing it over to a financial planner.

[00:15:27] Just saying, here you go.

[00:15:29] And then twenty five years later, OK, man, how are we going to how is this going to work out for us?

[00:15:35] I just had a trust issue.

[00:15:37] And so I, with the help of Google, I began to learn.

[00:15:41] I stayed up late at night and I learned about what's the difference between a tax strategy and a tax deduction and tax depreciation.

[00:15:47] Just a little bit about that.

[00:15:49] What's a 1099 versus the W-2?

[00:15:51] What is life insurance?

[00:15:53] What are the different types of life insurance?

[00:15:55] Do I really have the right disability insurance?

[00:15:57] How do I know?

[00:15:58] And so I began to, I say, pick up rocks and look under holes.

[00:16:03] And I heard you mention on another podcast, we're trained to be technicians.

[00:16:06] And I was innately kind of born with an entrepreneurial spirit.

[00:16:10] And so when I'm working like yesterday in clinic from eight to five, I got my technician hat on.

[00:16:16] When I leave the office, I'm on my way home.

[00:16:20] I decompress.

[00:16:22] But maybe I put my entrepreneur hat on for an hour or two.

[00:16:25] And then I begin to think about, OK, well, you know, my manager hat comes on.

[00:16:29] And so then to your point, you know, how can I not just work in my life?

[00:16:33] I got to work on my life.

[00:16:35] And so I think what's important to you too, and spirituality was important to me.

[00:16:38] And I was just going crazy in the beginning.

[00:16:40] And my wife was like, hey, I didn't sign up for this.

[00:16:42] I have three kids and a wonderful wife.

[00:16:44] And what's really important to you?

[00:16:46] And I began to realize through maturity.

[00:16:48] But I think mindset, I didn't trust anybody.

[00:16:52] And so making sure that I could vet people.

[00:16:54] So what we're doing now is I wish someone would do for me when I first got started.

[00:16:59] And so I think empowering physicians, not enabling them.

[00:17:03] I think that's where they go wrong is because they just pawn this offer.

[00:17:07] They get intimidated too, the clients we talk to, because physicians are type A personalities, let's be honest, right?

[00:17:12] They think they know everything.

[00:17:14] And they're supposed to know everything in medicine.

[00:17:16] But when you start asking them about, well, how much do you want to retire with?

[00:17:19] They don't know. They get frustrated.

[00:17:22] And we see that.

[00:17:24] And it's because they don't know an answer where they're supposed to know everything and they don't.

[00:17:27] So you have to massage that a little bit.

[00:17:29] There's a cultural issue there that we, to your point, we have to address.

[00:17:33] What are some of the false beliefs?

[00:17:35] Maybe they come in and they have some things set up financially and you're like, OK, a lot of this is not in your best interest.

[00:17:43] Where do you start?

[00:17:45] There's a discovery phase. Right?

[00:17:47] We start talking to physicians and we sort of like last night, for example, I did a lecture for LSU med school.

[00:17:54] The graduating med students think, well, gosh, that's early.

[00:17:57] It was a one hour lecture, was on Zoom, and the response was overwhelming.

[00:18:02] And we find if I could talk to med students or residents all day long, that's who I talk to because they're like they're not tarnished.

[00:18:09] They're not bitter.

[00:18:10] They're excited about where they're going.

[00:18:12] Whereas you get to a physician who's 10 years out, it's much harder to sort of backtrack and say, look, you know, what you've been doing is OK, but you made some mistakes here.

[00:18:21] But this is where it's all about efficiency.

[00:18:23] So the whole purpose of what we do is how can we make you more efficient with your money?

[00:18:30] So it's a discovery phase.

[00:18:31] We take an intake.

[00:18:32] Hey, kind of where are you at?

[00:18:34] So just take this an intake two page form takes about 15 minutes.

[00:18:36] You kind of just write down what do you have in savings and what are you invested in?

[00:18:40] Are you heavily in the market?

[00:18:41] Do you have life insurance?

[00:18:42] What kind of disability insurance?

[00:18:43] So you just take all this information, see where they're at.

[00:18:46] And then we can basically take that, put it on a spreadsheet and say, this is where you're going to be in 10 years and in 20 years.

[00:18:54] Got computer programs that can build you in and where you're at and say if we can just tweak a couple things, maybe use this product.

[00:19:02] But the end, it's about a system.

[00:19:04] It's all everything's about a system, right?

[00:19:06] Your operation here is a system.

[00:19:08] There's a way you guys do things.

[00:19:10] How you get up in the morning and get dressed, everything's a system.

[00:19:13] And so we create a financial system based on math and says this is what you need to retire and these important questions.

[00:19:21] This is how much you have to reduce in your lifestyle when you retire because not to jump ahead, but it's all about right now.

[00:19:30] Everyone's so focused on the accumulation phase, right?

[00:19:33] If I told you that, you know, 2000 people scaled Mount Kilimanjaro, but a thousand made it down.

[00:19:39] Mm-hmm.

[00:19:40] 2000 peaked it.

[00:19:41] So retirement's the peak of the mountain.

[00:19:43] So what good is it to bust your tail and accumulate all this money?

[00:19:47] But then when on the distribution phase, when you're sort of in your golden years with your family, whatever, in your retirement, halfway down, you run out of money.

[00:19:55] What does it do?

[00:19:56] So no one focuses on the distribution phase.

[00:19:58] Right.

[00:19:59] And that's really where you need, that's the target is to make it down the mountain and then leave a legacy.

[00:20:05] And so that's where I think separates what we're trying to do from your everyday financial planner.

[00:20:11] Yeah.

[00:20:12] And I would, the little that I know, I would kind of categorize that in short game versus long game.

[00:20:18] Again, society teaches us and to go back to that sales guide this month right now.

[00:20:24] Like, yeah, you're making, you said average 350 salary now.

[00:20:29] What happens when you don't make that?

[00:20:30] What happens when you get arthritis in your hands?

[00:20:33] Well, you know, and you could start to go down all these paths.

[00:20:36] Well, if you just invested 20, 30 percent of your income, you know, for a decade, you know, in the right products, you may be able to sustain that.

[00:20:48] If you have the right disability, you know, all these things.

[00:20:52] But to go back to short game versus long game, I was listening to something about Warren Buffett the other day.

[00:20:58] And most people don't know that he became a pretty serious trader by the age of 10.

[00:21:04] OK, so he's obviously like a savant and like that was his purpose.

[00:21:09] OK, he found his purpose from 10 to 50.

[00:21:14] I believe his net worth at 50 to maybe 52 was a couple million dollars.

[00:21:21] And there was a few trades and deals that happened that by 53 years old, he became a billionaire.

[00:21:29] And it was like 53, one billion, 52, two billion or sorry, sorry, 53, one billion, 54, two billion.

[00:21:38] And then by 60, it was like 80 billion.

[00:21:42] OK, so the long game, he said there was 10 trades maybe that created all of that.

[00:21:51] And I made hundreds of trades.

[00:21:55] So how long did I have to do it?

[00:21:57] And I made a lot of things, a lot of decisions that were average because I was so patient, diligent, had the right disciplines, behaviors.

[00:22:07] Finally, I became a billionaire and one of the world's richest men.

[00:22:11] Most of us wouldn't be that disciplined.

[00:22:14] We would give up and be like, got to do something else.

[00:22:17] But investments are the long game.

[00:22:21] There is no overnight, you know, I'm going to buy Bitcoin and become multi- now maybe, you know, yeah.

[00:22:30] Yeah, but most trusted vehicles, it could take 30, 40 years.

[00:22:36] And so I think that's just a big thing to focus on is you've got to focus on the long game and to kind of put a bow on this.

[00:22:46] As you grow, let's say your private practice, you grow, yes, because of skill and you're a good doctor.

[00:22:53] But a lot of it's risk and you could call it luck or blessings.

[00:22:57] You know, there's laws if you I don't mean laws of like laws of the land, but laws of humans and the universe.

[00:23:05] And you mentioned God.

[00:23:07] Whereas if you do the work, the Bible says a worker is worthy of the wage.

[00:23:12] So if you do the work, if you, you know, you're one of the top in your class, if you do it for 30 years, like you're going to earn a good wage.

[00:23:20] But, you know, what about keeping that?

[00:23:23] And so stewarding that the right way.

[00:23:26] And we just don't think about it, right?

[00:23:28] You know, that's good.

[00:23:30] I mean, to put another bow on that is taking a short long term long game.

[00:23:34] I always say this, you know, Tiger Woods arguably the most famous golfer ever to live.

[00:23:40] You know, if you play golf or not, do you want Tiger Woods as clubs or do you want to swing?

[00:23:45] You want the swing.

[00:23:47] That's the long game is you want the swing.

[00:23:49] You don't want the club.

[00:23:50] Yeah, clubs can help you.

[00:23:51] But in the end, you want to swing.

[00:23:53] And I think that's, you know, that's incredibly important.

[00:23:56] Bill Gates talks about the ten dark years.

[00:23:59] You know, in 10 years, he's like living at Microsoft and sleeping there.

[00:24:03] And you have to sacrifice a lot.

[00:24:05] And look at what physicians have to sacrifice for schooling, training, residency programs.

[00:24:13] The same is really true for the next phase in business.

[00:24:17] You're not getting out and it's like, oh, I made it to your point.

[00:24:21] You put the shingle up and patients are just going to it's 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 more years.

[00:24:28] And yeah, you can enjoy it.

[00:24:31] It's not all hell.

[00:24:32] But as a business owner, statistically, the first 10 years, it's going to be it's going to be a climb.

[00:24:38] It's a grind. It's a grind.

[00:24:40] There's no question.

[00:24:41] And I think the grind is harder now, obviously, with the way things are.

[00:24:45] But in terms of like health care, just for physicians, I would say, well, you know, look at the characters in the play.

[00:24:50] Right. Who's playing in this play?

[00:24:51] You've got the government, you got the hospitals, you know, and you got insurance companies, you got patients and physicians in general.

[00:24:58] The sandbox, the government, the hospitals and the insurance carriers play in the same sandbox.

[00:25:04] Physician, the patients are over here in a different sandbox.

[00:25:07] And I always say, what can you do? What can you control?

[00:25:11] So I realize I cannot control insurance carriers.

[00:25:14] I cannot control the government.

[00:25:15] I can't control hospitals so I don't fight with them when I don't deal with them.

[00:25:19] All I can control is what's in my world.

[00:25:22] And so provide the best care you can provide to the patient.

[00:25:26] And what you said earlier and touched on is like the golden rule kind of thing, you know, doing to others.

[00:25:31] But really, it's providing service well above and beyond what you're paid for this new generation coming out.

[00:25:40] That's like a foreign language.

[00:25:42] And the reality is entitlement.

[00:25:45] Yeah, entitlement. So in pulling hill, I mean, that is a you can instill one thing.

[00:25:49] I tell my kids this. I mean, provide more service than you're paid for.

[00:25:52] You keep grinding and grinding and providing more service.

[00:25:55] The fruits of your labor will come.

[00:25:58] And so teaching physicians, young physicians that and not losing that love to take care of patients.

[00:26:05] But because reimbursements are going down, expenses are going up, that mathematical equation,

[00:26:11] they're going and they're failing as proof was already said.

[00:26:14] So what can we do to help that?

[00:26:16] And so I think being more efficient and through education is going to actually change that whole paradigm, if you will.

[00:26:22] For sure. Jumping into a few practical things.

[00:26:26] You mentioned life insurance.

[00:26:28] Yes. And we actually talked and to be clear, we don't do business together.

[00:26:33] Correct. Now we're just friends.

[00:26:37] But you and I had talked maybe six or seven years ago about life insurance.

[00:26:43] And you gave me this thin book is probably a hundred page kind of magazine size almost.

[00:26:50] And the book made complete sense.

[00:26:53] And then I talked to a few other high earners and they vouched for it.

[00:26:58] But then I go to the Internet and everything on the Internet is don't get whole life.

[00:27:04] Correct. Yeah.

[00:27:06] So people may be listening and I have both now.

[00:27:09] So I have term to insure me and then I have whole life as an investment strategy.

[00:27:15] Can you just give a brief overview of how the insurance game, life insurance actually works?

[00:27:23] Yeah, it's the million dollar question really.

[00:27:26] Billion dollar question maybe.

[00:27:27] But yeah, so I think just in general there's two types, right?

[00:27:31] There's term, which is just what it is. It's term.

[00:27:33] You buy it, you know, and term is great. It serves a purpose.

[00:27:37] And so really when you're looking at any product, I always say what is your goal?

[00:27:41] What are you trying to attain?

[00:27:43] So when someone says I don't like whole life, I don't like term, I don't like stocks.

[00:27:48] Okay, well, when you have income, you're going to invest in something.

[00:27:51] What is your goal?

[00:27:52] That's the first question I have to ask someone.

[00:27:53] What are you trying to attain?

[00:27:54] So life insurance has a death benefit.

[00:27:56] So everyone thinks that okay, I bought life insurance of my what value my life is.

[00:28:00] So when I die, my wife or my family, my kids get this.

[00:28:05] So there is a death benefit.

[00:28:07] There's also something called a living benefit.

[00:28:09] And that's where people don't understand that. That's the whole part.

[00:28:11] We're not really, I'm not pushing or I'm not using my whole life policies for necessarily death benefit.

[00:28:18] Yeah, it's there and it's great.

[00:28:20] I'm using it for a living benefit for a cash savings plan.

[00:28:24] Right. And so I'm using that because I, you know, Wall Street scares me.

[00:28:30] You know, I'm not a big fan of I you cannot predict what's going to happen.

[00:28:35] And if you go into the whole well, the average rate of return has been 10 percent every year for 100 years.

[00:28:41] Yeah, but I can guarantee you 25 percent rate of return on a dollar over four years and you'll have less money than you started with.

[00:28:47] That's because I can show you mathematically how that happens.

[00:28:50] Everyone focuses on rate of return and not the volume of the money.

[00:28:52] But to get back to life insurance, it's properly structured.

[00:28:55] That's the whole key.

[00:28:56] There's a few, you know, mutual insurance companies that offer products that are made for say banking.

[00:29:05] So I'm using this a banking policy.

[00:29:07] That's just one element of it.

[00:29:08] But I like him because it's safe and secure as a high wage earner.

[00:29:13] Why do you have any risk to lose any money?

[00:29:15] My life insurance policies has zero percent chance of losing money.

[00:29:19] It implores compounding interest.

[00:29:21] And the key is uninterrupted compounding interest.

[00:29:23] Someone says, well, my my stocks are are compounding every year.

[00:29:28] No, they're not. When you have when you have a loss, it resets everything.

[00:29:32] In fact, it might even you talk to people who just retired a couple of years ago and see how they're doing.

[00:29:36] And so uninterrupted compounding interest, the eighth wonder of the world, according to Einstein, it's safe and secure.

[00:29:43] I like paying tax on my seed, not the harvest, meaning that I pay my tax.

[00:29:50] I buy my premium with pre-tax dollars or sorry, post-tax dollars.

[00:29:54] It grows in my policy tax free and it comes out tax free.

[00:29:57] I like that.

[00:29:59] I don't want to pay tax because guess what?

[00:30:00] My tax rate is going to be in 20 years.

[00:30:03] I have no idea.

[00:30:04] But I'm willing to bet you it's a lot higher than it is now.

[00:30:08] So, you know, I like the tax strategies.

[00:30:11] I like the asset protection.

[00:30:13] It's creditor proof.

[00:30:14] Nobody can get it.

[00:30:15] I like the fact the government has no clue about where your policies are.

[00:30:19] No one is thinking about these.

[00:30:20] And I'm in control.

[00:30:22] I'm the bank and I'm the bar.

[00:30:24] So, for example, I have an investment I want to do.

[00:30:27] I'll pull money out of my cash value.

[00:30:29] I'll use it for this investment.

[00:30:31] The company puts a lien on it being that it's never come out of my policy.

[00:30:35] They just put a lien on it and it's compounding as if it wasn't interrupted.

[00:30:39] And now I'm over here doing something that, for example, by a CT scan for my office.

[00:30:44] Now my CT scans making me money, providing a service to patients right there on site.

[00:30:49] And now I'm taking money and I'm paying back my life insurance policy because there's a lien on it.

[00:30:54] But it's compounding as if it never went out.

[00:30:56] So now my money is working in two pockets.

[00:30:58] And I'm not really aware of any other product that can do that.

[00:31:01] So that's why it's.

[00:31:02] And then guess what?

[00:31:03] I get to write the promissory note.

[00:31:05] I get to write off the interest on it.

[00:31:07] So it's very powerful.

[00:31:09] And the concept they threw out there years ago was called infinite banking because there's really no infinite.

[00:31:14] You can create and do whatever you want with it.

[00:31:16] So it took me two years full disclosure to really buy into that and say, I can figure it out.

[00:31:21] Why is it so good to be true?

[00:31:22] It didn't seem make sense to me.

[00:31:24] But after doing it, I started in 2012.

[00:31:27] I've never looked back and I feel like it's the best deal in town.

[00:31:30] So I think but again, when someone says whole life, it's like beer or wine, right?

[00:31:35] And if you're a wine drinker, say all wines the same.

[00:31:37] It's a very ignorant comment to say all whole life is the same.

[00:31:40] And it's the Dave Ramsey factor.

[00:31:42] Right?

[00:31:43] Well, Dave Ramsey, he's the leader of saying he kind of pushes down whole life and say by term of arrest.

[00:31:48] Well, as a physician, Dave Ramsey is not talking to you.

[00:31:52] He's talking to the guy making 30 grand a year just bought an 80,000 hour truck.

[00:31:57] So keep that in mind, too.

[00:31:59] Yeah, he's talking to the entry level or the middle class American, which there's nothing wrong with.

[00:32:08] But you have to know what advice is sound for where you're at.

[00:32:12] And that's most people, you know, and I think he does that really well.

[00:32:16] Talking to most people that makes sense, especially when you look at debt and how actually the people who hold the most debt and can't pay back their debt is that class.

[00:32:27] And so I applaud what he's doing.

[00:32:30] But most of what he says may not be relevant for our audience.

[00:32:35] They're generalizations.

[00:32:37] And I think he but he's I just wish he was a little more.

[00:32:40] I wish you would just say, hey, whole life has a place for certain people instead.

[00:32:44] He's like he's just so anti.

[00:32:46] Yeah.

[00:32:47] And, you know, I actually did a talk one time on comparing like or debating him a little bit.

[00:32:53] But it's again, he's done a lot of good for a lot of people, which is fine.

[00:32:56] But but again, it's if you really truly understand whole life and the key is properly structured, it's not set up by oh, my friend does this or, you know, my dad's colleague does this.

[00:33:08] It's got to be someone who knows exactly what they're doing.

[00:33:10] And it's set up specifically to do these kinds of things we just talked about.

[00:33:14] Yeah, that makes sense.

[00:33:17] Maybe somebody's thinking, hey, I'm like 60.

[00:33:20] Maybe whole life doesn't necessarily.

[00:33:23] Yeah, I mean, it depends.

[00:33:25] I mean, we've had a few people we've talked to.

[00:33:27] And again, you're talking about, you know, some people have generational tax issues and they're trying to put money certain places.

[00:33:33] And so they can actually it's not necessarily too late to do that.

[00:33:37] You can do there's dinner's different.

[00:33:39] There's different, you know, you can pay premium the whole time you're alive.

[00:33:43] You can do 10 years.

[00:33:45] You can do certain. There's there's so many things you can structure.

[00:33:47] So it's not necessarily one.

[00:33:50] Oh, I got to be a high wage earner.

[00:33:51] No, you can.

[00:33:52] I mean, we there's you can just do the same thing on a smaller scale for this audience.

[00:33:56] We're talking about, you know, higher wage earners.

[00:33:58] But yeah, there's there's really no age cut off per se.

[00:34:02] How about disability?

[00:34:04] Because that's a pretty big risk for doctors.

[00:34:06] I know if you smashed your hands, you know, that would be game over.

[00:34:11] How's that work?

[00:34:12] So I always tell people, you know, we obviously, you know, are education based.

[00:34:17] And we do have a fulfillment arm with with life insurance.

[00:34:20] And so I always tell people, hey, not everyone necessarily wants life insurance.

[00:34:26] They don't have to have it.

[00:34:28] But every health care professional needs disability insurance.

[00:34:32] So you need to get that.

[00:34:33] So it's an abyss.

[00:34:35] And so disability again, there's about three or four companies that actually write good policies.

[00:34:41] There's some art to how they're created.

[00:34:43] And the reality is people think, well, I've got disability.

[00:34:46] And so I'm a surgeon.

[00:34:48] So I'm driving home, getting a car accident, lose some fingers, depending on what company I'm with.

[00:34:53] And depending on how that thing is written, I can get my disability for the rest of until I'm sixty five every month tax free or I get zero.

[00:35:03] So you think you may have it, but you don't have it until you actually need it.

[00:35:09] So I'm not trying to promote any company, but there's a specific company.

[00:35:12] What's nice about us is probably the best company out there for disability for health care professionals, I believe, is principal by the top.

[00:35:22] We have an agreement with them.

[00:35:24] So residents and training, automatic approval through principal because of the sheer volume that we have and produce.

[00:35:33] So it's really nice.

[00:35:34] So for that sense, whereas some people there's an interview process, there's physical, there's things that can say, well, we can only cover you up to this point.

[00:35:43] So there's limitations on that.

[00:35:45] So disability is a huge, huge deal.

[00:35:48] I mean, I have disability when I got set up.

[00:35:51] It was a friend of a friend.

[00:35:52] Hey, he's this guy.

[00:35:53] He set up mine.

[00:35:54] So I did.

[00:35:55] And then I'm like, yeah, it's good.

[00:35:56] Then I went back and looked back.

[00:35:57] I'm like, oh, my gosh, this was a disaster if I got hurt.

[00:36:01] But everyone thinks, well, how common is it to get hurt?

[00:36:03] You know, numbers are about 30 to 40 percent of physicians will use their DI at some point.

[00:36:08] Wow.

[00:36:09] It's not like 1 percent.

[00:36:11] And it's not it's not really it's not traumas or accidents.

[00:36:14] It's like illness, disease, cancer.

[00:36:18] You know, they get some some sort of illness occurs and they can't they can't work.

[00:36:22] And so I'll say one more thing about employed physicians specifically when you're independent, you're forced to get a private private policy,

[00:36:30] which is what you should do.

[00:36:31] Employed physicians, half the ones we talk to all have DI through their hospital.

[00:36:38] And it is an absolute catastrophic nightmare.

[00:36:41] It has no coverage because, for example, they say, well, I have own occupation.

[00:36:46] For example, you get hurt.

[00:36:47] There's riders in there that think if I get hurt, OK, I can't operate.

[00:36:52] But man, I can run around and give lectures all day and I can I can be a CEO of a hospital.

[00:36:57] I have an MBA.

[00:36:58] Say I get that some DIs will cancel your policy because I can go do something else.

[00:37:03] My coverage is I'll get my 15 K, which is really kind of the max fifteen thousand a month tax free from Tom 65, regardless of what I do.

[00:37:15] So I can still see patients because I can't cut right.

[00:37:19] I still get that money.

[00:37:21] All these hospital people, you know, these hospital policies, man, it is it is there's as soon as you do anything else.

[00:37:27] You cannot get covered.

[00:37:28] You don't pay anything. So very important for those employed physicians to get a private policy.

[00:37:33] And now there's cool policies where you can actually pay into you can you can stack two policies, you can pay into some.

[00:37:39] And when you turn 65, if you don't ever have a claim, they'll kick back premium to you.

[00:37:43] It's kind of nice.

[00:37:45] That is nice. Awesome.

[00:37:47] Thanks so much for coming on the show.

[00:37:49] Yeah, man. If people listening, watching want to get a hold of you, what's the best way they can do that?

[00:37:55] Man, I mean, shoot me an email. MDNielsen at Gmail dot com.

[00:37:59] Perfect. Thank you.

[00:38:01] Thanks, Luke. Enjoyed it.

[00:38:02] Thanks for listening.

[00:38:03] If you'd like to learn more about hip or any of the topics in this episode, send an email to hello at hip creative inc dot com.

[00:38:13] That's hello at HIP creative INC dot com or jump over to our website at hip dot agency.

[00:38:24] Thank you.