Next Level 270: How to Think Like Investor to Improve ALL Areas of Your Life with Dr. Ryan Smolarz

When you look at a problem, say I want to think about this as an investor and really the sort of magic happens there because it to me, it is a different way of thinking.

Welcome to the Next Level Income show where it's our goal to take your income, your investments and your life to the next level. I'm your host, Chris Larsen. If you haven't yet, get a copy of our book for free at our website, nextlevelincome.com. that's www.nextlevelincome.com. just click on the book link and I'll even send you a copy if you put your address in. On today's show, we have Dr. Ryan Smollars. Dr. Smallars is an MD, MBA. He's a surgeon turned entrepreneur investor and he's a thought leader in healthcare, real estate and innovation. He's the founder of Beehive Homes, Assisted Living, Smell Again and Store Partners. He also serves as a blockchain lead for Store Token. With multiple patents, over $30 million in assets under management, Dr. Smollars blends medical expertise with business acumen to drive impact across industries. And today he's going to share his framework about how you can do the same thing. He also is the author of an upcoming book, heal Thy Wallet, that we're going to talk a little bit about today and hosts the Medicine and Money Show. Dr. Smollars, welcome to the show.

Thank you very much. Glad to be here.

I'm excited to have you here. A lot of our listeners, a lot of our audience have have backgrounds in the medical space as well like yourself and you know, I'm excited for our conversation today. But before I I jump in here, we heard the audience heard your intro, but I'd love for you to share a little bit about more about your background. Are you still practicing? What do you have going on today?

Yeah, so this is my admin day and stack podcast. We have five different events today.

All right.

So yeah, my, my week is usually full time as a surgeon, ear, nose and throat. And we have a bunch of different projects going that my wife thinks I'm out of my mind about. But you know, it scratches an it for a long time that I, I couldn't. There was just something missing in my life and it was became very obvious entrepreneurship and, and business was what was missing. And so yeah, that to takes up a lot of time but you know how to spend time with kids and the dog and the wife and all those sorts of things as well.

Yeah, no, I love it. And that was one of the cool Things I always enjoyed being in the medical device space. You had kind of a dichotomy. I found you found surgeons that were really entrepreneurial and you almost had to be an entrepreneur 50 years ago to be a doctor, to be a surgeon. And that shifted a lot. I saw that shift during my career and where surgeons became, and physicians in general became more and more employed and the new ones that were coming in had more of an employee mindset. And that's why I'm excited to have you share a little bit about your framework that you've built for doctors that I think a lot of investors that are listening here today can apply to them. But any thoughts on that shift between from entrepreneur to employee and how that's affected the industry as a whole?

Yeah, so I was the same when I was growing up. My dad was an orthopedic surgeon and I saw it as well, most of them were self employed. And then that shift happened to more, you know, employee based doctor stuff. And I think that what happened was right now in particular is there are a lot of people out there like me that just have an itch that they can't scratch. And the problem is, is they don't know what that itch is. And so I feel obligated to say, hey, it may not be this, but it also may be. And if you choose, if, if that's what it is, there is a very clear path to get to where you want to go.

Yeah, I love it. And, you know, that's one of the things that I think applies not just to physicians like yourself, but also, you know, professionals, you know, that are out there. You know, they're like, hey, I'm, you know, I've been, we got a lot of coaching clients. You know, they've been at their career for a couple decades. They're, they're humming, they're making great money, but they're like, well, what? Like, is this it? You know, what else do I do? Like, am I going to retire in 10 years? Like, I think I want to retire, but what am I going to do? And you know, our goal at next level income is to, is to give investors the education and the opportunities to give them that freedom to decide, hey, if your itch is to not miss your son's lacrosse game or start on your own venture and go out and have the freedom and flexibility to do that. You know, I think that, hey, if you have financial freedom, then you can go out and do whatever it is God put you here to do and really achieve your full potential. That's out there.

Absolutely. We're banging the same drum and have to be kindred spirits. To me, I. I totally agree with that. Being grounded in your finance and understanding that world, and it. Me. It. It allows you to take the straight jacket off. Right.

Like, that's a great analogy. Yeah.

Yeah. I just felt so constrained. I felt like the walls were closing in on me, and I couldn't figure out why. Like, what is this that's got me gripped where I just. I've got so much anxiety. And that's what it was is like, after seven years out in practice, like, I sort of figured it out, and then I, like, all right, well, is that it? No. Like, I've got so much more to do.

Yeah.

And. Oh, man. When. Once I figured out, hit the ground running, and it's been. It's been a wild ride ever since, but I love it.

Yeah. So you got your hands in a lot of. A lot of different things, Ryan. But what was that. What was that first step you took kind of outside of medicine, you know, to start to scratch that metaphorical itch?

Yeah. So I can tell you the day and time it happened. I was exercising with my friends, and we were surfing. There was no surf, so we were all kind of down talking and, you know, paddling around. And I looked at one of my buddies, and I said, you know what? I don't even know where. I think. I don't know. I don't even know which bank our money's in. I have zero idea of any of that. We're about to start a family, and I'm scared. I'm. I'm really terrified about being able to be the provider for my family. And I said, you know, I think I'm going to go to business school. And there was a big, long, silent pause. Ryan, you're a doctor. What are you talking about? Like, that's. That's not normal thought process. Six weeks later, I was sitting in business school in Miami, and I looked around and I said, my friends are right. Like, I. There are 30 people in this room, and one just doesn't belong. And who was that? I realized very quickly that I was out of my element. But the third day, the instructor was talking about marketing, and this light bulb went off, and it was. Every commercial that's out there in existence is directed at me because I'm always looking for the next car, the watch, or whatever. It was on my mind. And I realized that I want. I don't want that to be in my headspace. I want to be solving world problems.

Yes.

And I want to switch my mindset from consumer to investor.

Yeah.

And ever since then, I can't tell you how much more how fulfilled and satisfied my life's been. It's been wild and crazy, but at the same time it just, it filled that void.

Yeah, that's a great point. I wrote, I wrote about that in my book where, you know, I remember reading Rich Dad, Poor dad and Robert. This was. Geez. And I got my copy actually from Robert Kiyosaki, but I guess it was about 25 years ago at this point. It just come out and somebody was like, hey, you know, I was in the, I was reading book after book and somebody's like, hey, you should read this book if you're looking for something. I was like, this purple book. Interesting. And, but, but Kiyosaki said, you need to think like an investor. He said that's kind of like the pinnacle. And his message spoke to me too, because he was a sales guy that was in real estate and know, I was like, oh, I'm just getting my start here. So. Yeah, so I, I love that. I love that philosophy. You know, thinking like an investor, which is really. It's an allocation of resources, you know, your time, you know, how do you best allocate your time? How do you best allocate your money? It. It affects every choice that you do. I advocate my, my boys are 13 and 15 and people are like, well, what are you doing for college? I'm like, well, the first thing I'm going to do is teach them how to calculate the return on investment, the ROI of their college education. So they're not just, you know, walking blindly into this. And you've built a whole framework around this, your liftoff now framework. I'd love you to kind of walk through that for listeners because like I said earlier, I think it's a real benefit for not just physicians, but really anybody that's trying to get a hold of their personal finances and start to think like an investor themselves.

Yeah. So I've spent way too much time trying to figure this out. How. What are the steps to get to be a savvy investor? And what I came up with in the end of this exercise is that a lot of the steps are exactly what you said. What is the mindset that have to have. Because as doctors or surgeons, we are. It's beat into us this way of thinking and how to deal with risk. We try to take all the risk off the table. And as an investor, there is a Certain level of risk that you have to be comfortable with. And so I describe it like this. When I walk into a patient room, I've got my doctor on. When I walk out and I go take a call for one of the businesses, I put my entrepreneur hat on, and I. I take each one of the businesses in my. In my head, in my mental space. I have a chessboard, and each project has its own chessboard. So I take that chessboard, my head, and I put it down the table and I said, okay, what's the strategy for this particular project? And I start moving the pieces, right? And I think that that is crucial, absolutely crucial for someone who's starting this journey. So the first four steps are solely about mindset. And the first one is you have to believe that you can do this, because without that, there's nothing. Right. And people, the old adage is you believe what you believe, and that couldn't be further from the truth. You can believe whatever you want to. You just have to get around this people who believe that thing. Right?

That's right.

So if you want to be an investor, get around incredible investors, and by the, you know, couple weeks in, you're not going to remember that you didn't believe that you could do this, right? Absolutely.

The community is so important to support that mindset.

Yeah, it is so important. And then halfway through our framework, we get to the pinnacle where is. All right, now I've been through this mindset shift where now I'm starting to think like an investor, not like a consumer. Right now I'm thinking about world problems and how to solve them. Instead of thinking, I want to buy this car, I'm thinking, how can I make it better? How provide value to the environment and. Or, you know, whatever your cause is. And then the next five steps are the same steps you would get in any other framework. It's doing the due diligence, figure out your risk profile, fill up the buckets, how much percentage of this, how much percentage of that, you know, get your network in order, find the best teachers, all those sorts of things, but nothing, none of this happens without the right frame of mind.

Yeah, I love that. And I'll push back a little bit on you. You know, you go into surgery with the patient, you and that patient accept that there is a risk as soon as you, you know, begin that procedure and do that. And some of those risks, you don't know based on the patient, patient's, you know, specific physiology and those sorts of things. So I'd say that as a As a. As a physician, especially a surgeon, like you are comfortable with that risk, be prepared yourself to accept it. And so I thought. I think it's interesting you look at that because you're almost like, well, there's no risk, but there is. You have accepted a certain level of risk as the patient has going in there, which is a good. I think that's a great analogy.

Yeah. I mean, it's incredibly true what you just said. The difference, I think, is as a surgeon or a doctor for that matter, we're trying to do whatever we can to take the risk off the table.

Understood. Yeah, that makes great sense.

Yeah, yeah. And then as an investor, you're like, all right, there is risk here, but there's also more reward for the more risk that I take.

And that makes good sense. Yeah, yeah.

Everybody has a high risk tolerance until the deal goes bad, right?

Absolutely. Yeah.

You have to. Have to. Have to, as an investor, get down in your core and. And understand what your comfort level is.

Absolutely.

And, you know, to me, that's imperative.

Yeah, that's a. That's an excellent point. Excellent point. Yeah. You're not gonna do, like, another procedure for some perceived benefit to a patient where you're. You're trying to address an acute issue, which is. Which is very different. You know, one of the things is, is I taught, you know, my sales reps and the teams, we would look at a lot at different personality profiles, and one of the big things that I always observe was that physicians really always, they. Are you familiar with disc. You know, the disc personality? Yeah. Physicians seem to always. Even if they weren't predisposed to it, they were trained to look through that, See that, You know, that. That highly analytical perspective. You have to read clinical data, you have to go through that. I think it can be very beneficial, you know, for investor to look through that. What are some things that you see in working with physicians, Ryan, that from a physician's perspective, holds them back as an investor? And then some things that they can say, oh, that is a big. That's a big benefit to. To me as an investor going forward.

So let me start with the, the upside, The. The skill sets that you develop that are very integral in the life of an investor. And one of them is doing what you do in high stress levels. Right. So you're. You're dealing with people who are at probably the lowest point in their life a lot of the time.

Yeah.

They're not happy, and that translates into them not being happy with you. And you're very Keen to be able to deal with those situations. Investing is the same in my mind. I've never seen a deal that didn't have some element of going sideways at some point.

Right.

And you're able to go with that part. Now on the flip side, step number two is investigate. And I believe that as especially surgeons and probably physicians as well, don't investments from the 30,000 foot view enough, Especially as a limited partner? I believe that when we're in a patient room, we're focused on one person, one problem, and very detail oriented to get to the bottom of that problem.

By necessity.

Yeah, by necessity. And so when you have that other hat on, you're sitting in the 737 at 30,000ft looking down on the, on the investment. And in your mind's eye, everybody has one. There's a camera, and you can put that camera wherever you want. Right. So when I'm doing due diligence, I'm up here. When I'm making the decision, I want to be on the hill right beside the army that I'm directing. So the, the captain of the ship or whomever, I want to be there, but I want to be slightly above so I can see everything that's in front of me to be able to make the decision. So we have the diligence, the decision making, and then we have what's on the ground, which is the day to day operations. And when, when I am building businesses, I use that framework and I think, okay, I want my team to have the, the person at the top, whoever that may be, their head up and out and as we go down, I want their head in the business. It's not about subordination. Right. It's about who's dealing with the day to day.

That's right.

And so I think that doctors have a big problem with that and it translates into their business if they're a business owner as well. And the perspective in the mind's camera needs to be put up here.

Yeah, no, that's a great way. And it's, yeah, it's, you know, it's like any individual producer that's out there. Right. Whether you're a physician or you're a successful, you know, like sales rep or individual producer that then moves into more of a management or leadership role. Very, very different skill sets, especially when you're dealing with the team and hopefully your team has different skill set than you.

Right.

You know, right person in the right spot. But yeah, you got to learn, you got to learn a different skill set. I do that. So is that something you help, you help physicians with as well or is that something you're just using in your own businesses that are out there?

Yeah, I mean, I think that in the medicine and money show, we're, we're really focused on teaching how folks how to be a good limited partner.

Yeah.

But it translates so well into their day to day business that I think that to, to build up that skill set makes their, their prime business much better as well. So the short answer is I think we teach both.

Yeah. No, I love it. And it is, it is.

Right.

You have your personal financial business perspective. You know, most physicians are out there, whether they're. Even if you're an employee, if you understand, you know, the goals of the practice or the healthcare system that you, you work for and the economics behind it, then you can understand the drivers of those decisions that occur and lean in to those areas that can be more productive for the system that you're working for. It's very similar. It's very applicable from one to the next.

The principles are exactly the same.

Yeah, absolutely. You got a great podcast, I'll say that because I'm a guest on it, but how long have you been doing the podcast?

So it's been on and off. We, we took a little sabbatical there from it a little while. We were hard and heavy last year and now we're hitting it hard and heavy again. I took a step back to put the, the frameworks around it and really wanted to understand what problem do I solve, what is the cause of that problem and what is my uniqueness to the problem.

Yeah.

And now that we got that sorted out, man, we're ready to go.

Love it, Love it. And you got a book coming out next year. I'm excited because we're going to have you back on the show when the book comes out to really dive in. Have you written a book before? Is this your first.

First endeavor?

Yeah. Wonderful. What, what was the driver behind that?

I think that going through this process, if I did do, would be selfish because I think it's so powerful that the world needs to know.

Yeah. Yeah. When I've heard that from so many people. I've got a friend who helps helps authors write their first book and do that. And he says, hey, you've got a story and the world deserves to hear it. And I thought it was fun writing when I wrote my first book. It helps clarify things. It really helps you. You have to be introspective. You have to think about how other people are Going to see it and surprising how different people relate to that journey along the way and see those things. The other thing that was interesting to me was it helps you kind of, you know, reflect back on how your experiences shaped your current situation that you're in. Did you. Have you gone through something similar?

Oh, 1,000%. To me, my personal brand is not about me. It's about who I'm talking to. And that person is me back in 2016, starting this journey. And it doesn't really have anything to do with me at all. It's how. And how did I get to where I am today and how do I push this forward and make it even better on a daily basis? And so everybody talks about, especially in the Dr. World, it, you know, this doctor wants to get a lot of money, and it's all about, you know, the dollars and that sort of thing. They couldn't be further from the truth. This is about building a foundation and a way to protect your family and your loved ones and put this sort of cocoon around them and be able to take care of problems that come up.

Yeah, yeah. No, and that's. I think, you know, that is the one thing, you know, look, there's good doctors, there's bad doctors. There's, you know, there's bad actors all over the place. We can. We can point to a bad mechanic or somebody like that, but that my experience was overwhelming, that the physicians I worked with were. They. They cared so much about their patients. It's almost an altruistic endeavor to go into medicine in a lot of ways. And you have to have. To me, you seem to have to have that perspective. Obviously, there's. There's, you know, greedy doctors and greedy businessmen and, you know, athletes, all kinds of different things out there. But I do. I don't know. That's my perspective. Maybe I'm biased because I spent so much time with, you know, friends and other people over the years, but. And I think that that serves an investor well, as you go in and do that. But you're. You're so much more than an investor now, Ryan. You've got your hands in several other things. You care to share some of the. Some of the cool stuff that you're working on outside of, you know, the real estate and the investment space?

Sure. You know, as I kind of alluded to a little bit, my journey started in business school. And as I was coming out, I thought to myself, I don't want this to be one of those things that I do. And then I put it on the shelf and never think about it again.

Yeah.

So I kind of. I did started a whole bunch of projects. It wasn't intentional, but I would get to a certain point in the project and then it would have to go to, you know, one of the different consultants, and it would be there for while. And so I just kind of got bored. And so the first one was the assisted living home where we made every mistake in the book and. But we overcame the struggles and I started realizing that there is a way to think about these things and to be a good leader and to be a good business person. Right. You have to understand, like, how to think about it, how to make the decisions, how to build teams, all those sorts of things. And I really liked it. And so after that, we made a smell training company where we decided, okay, there is a way to try to get people smell back after they have some sort of insult to the. The cranial nerve that deals with smell. And so we put that together and then that translated into our second project on that, that front, where we made a reflux medicine that just came to market, I guess about three months ago, and went through all the patent processes. It's backed by five patents or whatever, and now it's slowly starting to take off. And then as an ent, I decided, well, you know what, I want to take bonus hearing aids to a different level. And so we started on that project and that's slowly coming to fruition. So we have.

I'm excited to see that. That sounds. Yeah. Very cool technology you guys are working on there.

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, my wife said that she was going to cut off one of my body parts if I started another company.

And which one. That's the key. Like, you know, I don't want to know.

I didn't ask. So I'm forbidden. But, you know, there's enough to keep us busy and, you know, we'll keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Yeah, no, I love it. I'm excited to see a lot of these projects come to fruition. You know, the. The smell. My smell hasn't been the same since COVID So I'm. I'm actually going to take. Take a look at that. So I was, I was. As I listened to. I couldn't help but laugh a little bit. You know, you pick probably the worst time for assisted living in 2020, but probably one of the best times for the smell training during COVID So it's good. That's a. That's a lesson in diversification. I Would love for you to share a little bit about how the audience can get in touch with you through, through your podcast. Stay on a list if they want to see your book and also if they want to learn more about your lift off now system for helping them be better investors.

Yeah, probably the best way to get to know about what the platform's about, the content. What we discuss is medmoneyshow.com it's our website and sort of everything kind of stems off from there. You can find the, the YouTube video we're about to launch, the, the Apple podcast. So all of those will be on there. There is a membership button where you can get on the WhatsApp group. We welcome all comers. You don't have to be a physician or a medical provider and we bounce ideas off of each other. We have daily market updates and you know, if, if you have a question about how to find this or that, we're happy to give our input. We call it our board of advisors, which is not the case because we don't advise people to do anything. But I feel like if I'm going to go on this journey and learn every day, let's build the best community on the planet and let everybody involved and you can teach me and I can give you my input. It sounds like a win win to me.

Yeah, it's mastermind. A brain trust and mastermind to do that. I'm checking it out right now here. So we'll put all this in the show notes as well. Anything else before we wrap up here today, Dr. Smallers?

I don't think so, but I leave your audience with this as you go. If you decide that this is the way of life that you want it to be really on a daily basis, figure out when you look at a problem, say I want to think about this as an investor and really the sort of magic happens there because it to me it is a different way of thinking.

Absolutely. Yeah. As you said in the beginning of the show, begin with mindset. And if you're listening today, hopefully you can have a similar moment where you're out floating among the waves as you were doing that that day, Ryan and begin your journey and hopefully the resources we provided here and this can help you on on your way. Thank you so much for your time.

Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Hey Chris, here again. I hope you found this episode valuable. Now I have one more thing to gift you. We have a page for my coaching clients where you can get a free copy of my book as well as much more from previous guests on the show. Just check out nextlevelincome.com coaching to get a free copy of my book, audiobook and much more. I'll send you a copy of my book and cover all the shipping costs as a thank you for listening to the podcast. Also, please like share and take just 90 seconds to give us a rating on Apple Podcasts.