How Ignoring Expert Advice Cost Me $270,000

I have done things that were just stupid. Right. I've lost $270,000 in crypto because I thought I knew what I was doing and I saw other people were making money. But for me, that was a bad decision. And I was educating myself. I was reading, right. And I didn't have someone who could help me along. I didn't have any experts. I was literally that person who was just googling things. And, you know, that set me back financially. That really hur.

I love the freedom story, but I really love the get real part more because I believe that on social media and just everywhere, we hear all the highlight reels of people's stories about getting to where they are now and how it seems like some overnight success when really, you know, overnight is 10 years or 15 years or whatever it is. And it's a lot of, you know, trials and tribulations and, you know, tears, eerie nights, and just, you know, crazy roller coaster rides. Life is tough. And so I want to hear from you. I've got a few things that I actually wrote down that we can talk about, but you might naturally roll into them. What are some of the, like, get real moments in your life, the pitfalls, the horrible experiences that you had to push through to get where you are today?

Well, I think, you know, there's. There's some of the difficulties of just the rigors of medical school, putting a lot of time in there, and residency, which isn't necessarily fun with the time. I think since my graduation, I've been a physician for almost 21 years. I think it's that realization, and I think this is the difficulty is, and this must, I'm sure, be the case with a lot of people you work with is they're very smart people and they're very good at their jobs and what they do, but they're not experts in all these other things. And that's the same case with me. Right. And I'm. I think we feel sometimes that, oh, well, you know, I'm a lawyer. I went through law school. You know, I know all this case law. I memorized this case. I'm a doctor, I'm a dentist. You know, I did all these things that probably most people can't do. And yes, you are an expert in that field, but you are not an expert in all fields. And when you go down the road of trying to become an expert in something, you have to realize that the people providing information or what's out there, one, you're not sure how to vet it. You know, you don't know what you don't know. And two, you have. Unless you are willing to. To put in the time that you put in for the other specialty you have, the other job you have, why would you expect the same results? That's right. I don't think people think about that. You know, it's. It's kind of this. Well, you know, I went to college, I went to medical school, I went to residency, I went to fellowship. So if I were to dedicate 60 hours a week for eight years, I hope that I probably would know maybe as much as you, but I'm not going to do that. Right. I mean, and so it really hit home to me. And that's why I feel financially and with how I manage my money now, it's about trust, because that's especially in the, you know, past however many years. And, you know, I'll meet with the patient and they're like, oh, well, I Googled this. And you're like, oh, okay, well, okay, I understand you've read something on the Internet, but that might not be true. And I realized, like, that was me, right? Like, oh, I read this on the Internet of what to invest or I should do this or that. And you have to. I mentioned control. Or you have to be able to cede some control and have some control to get freedom. And the seeding of that control is when you partner up or find someone where you realize, look, this person knows more than me. And that's a good thing because you want to be working with an expert. And I trust. And I think that's very similar to a relationship someone has with their physician. Right. You hopefully, when you see your doctor, they know more than you. Right. You want to see an expert and you trust them. If you don't have those three components when you see a doctor, I mean, you probably shouldn't have a relationship with them. And I think that's what started our relationship together. When I came to the office, I think people are so surprised if I. If I sometimes talk to people about that. Oh, you, like, met them in person? Yeah, I did. I was there. They have a building, employees. I saw everything, and they really spend time with me. And so that was a big step for me because I have, you know, I have done things that were just, to be honest, just stupid. Right. I've lost $270,000 in crypto because I thought I knew what I was doing and I saw other people were making money. I mean, now I. Now we're not going to go down that road. But for me, thank you. That was a bad decision. And I was educating myself, I was reading, right. And I didn't have someone who could help me along. I didn't have any experts. I was literally that person who was just googling things. And you know, that set me back financially. That really hurt. And I think that. And seeing the stock market and you know, I've had. Didn't happen to me, thankfully. But my brother was trying to do forex and this and that kind of thing and lost a lot of money. And I said, you know what? I'm not in the, I'm not interested in losing money anymore. I don't want to follow the market every day. There's no way I can do that. Right? There's people who do that eight hours a day and they still lose money and I'm not interested.

Man, that is so powerful. I love the comparison of the doctor and. And then you learning something new, right? Like you go to your doctor and you trust them, right. And you don't expect to be a doctor yourselves. You're not going to go to school. And people just think if there's real estate or some other things, stocks, crypto, there's such a low barrier of entry, they think they're going to go in there and go ahead and do a great job. And then we hear horror stories of time lost, money lost, the frustration, the self doubt, trying something new and then realizing that they couldn't do it and not putting two and two together, that hey, it takes time and you didn't give yourself the time to be able to do it. You thought this was going to be a side hustle that you can learn in a couple months or something. I think that's something that people don't really think about. And we've actually never heard the story in the way that you just shared it.

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