WCI #69: An Interview with Carrie Reynolds from Hippocratic Hustle

This is the White Coat Investor Podcast where we help those who wear the white coat get a fair shake on Wall Street. We've been helping doctors and other high income professionals stop doing dumb things with their money since 2011. Here's your host, Dr. Jim Dahli.

Welcome to White Coat Investor Podcast 69 an interview with Kerry Reynolds, MD.

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The day today comes from Morgan Housel who said the paradox of wealth is that people tend to want it to signal to others that they should be liked and admired. But in reality, those other people bypass admiring you not because they don't think wealth is admirable, but because they use your wealth solely as a benchmark for their own desire to be liked and admired. Thank you so much for what you do, not only for sharing this podcast and the website with your friends and colleagues, peers and trainees, but also for the daily work you do taking care of your patients. A lot of times we forget after we've been in this career for a few years just how important the work we do is. We have these days where we feel like we didn't do any good at all. I mean, sometimes I go into the emergency department and I feel like I've seen a half dozen people with abdominal people and half dozen people with chest pain and I haven't actually come up with a diagnosis for any of them. But you know what? Every now and then you're making a huge difference and if nothing else, you can at least provide some reassurance to people and a listening ear for them on some of the worst days of their lives. So don't forget that what you do is important. Whether you're a physician or an attorney or other high income professional. There are people who are desperately in need of your services and your expertise and that time you spent stuff and really was valuable. Today we've got something pretty special. We're going to be bringing on Kerry Reynolds, M.D. who is the founder of the Hippocratic Hustle. Let's get into that interview now. All right. Welcome back to the White Coat Investor Podcast. We have a Special guest today, Dr. Kerry Reynolds from Denver. She is a pediatric gastroenterologist. You probably don't know her from her gastroenterology practice. However, you probably know her from the Hippocratic Hustle, a very popular broadcast podcast. Rather not broadcast that she does, particularly aimed at women physicians and trying to help them with side hustles, which she is becoming very quickly an expert on, it turns out. Welcome to the show, Dr. Reynolds.

Oh, thanks so much, Jim, for having me. I'm really excited to be here.

You're very welcome. Let's get into this and I'm going to have you tell us a little bit about yourself, kind of introduce yourself. Can you start just talking about your upbringing and family growing up and your education?

Sure, yeah. I was born and raised in Michigan in southwest Michigan to a pretty normal American family, kind of middle class. Went to private schools as I was growing up, private Christian schools, which I know my parents really, you know, pulled together all their finances to be able to put my brother and I through that kind of education. Ultimately went to Kalamazoo College, and that was a liberal arts. Private liberal arts school, which is super expensive. But they helped me partway and scholarships and student loans and everything helped me with that. I actually majored in history in undergrad. So after I graduated, I had to think about what I was going to do when I was done and ultimately took about two years to decide that I wanted to do further studies and ultimately landed on medicine. Went to Michigan State University for all my pre med courses and then went on to Wayne State University in Detroit.

Very cool. And after you finished med school?

Yes, after I finished med school, did pediatric residency in Metro Detroit at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak and then fellowship in Kansas City. So I've been around a little bit. My husband's family lives here in Denver, so we followed them out here to Denver about three years ago. And we're really enjoying the mountains and the skiing and everything that the. The west has to offer.

Yeah, I'm a big fan of the west, as most people know, but I actually interviewed in Kalamazoo.

Oh, did you really?

I kind of interviewed everywhere, it turned out, but I'm not Sure. What I was thinking. I actually did 21 residency interviews, but the one that treated me the best was in Kalamazoo. They had this sweet swag bag that all the interviewees got and it was pretty fun. I remember, however, driving just south of there. I can't remember where I was driving to Indianapolis or something.

Sure.

But boy, I came up on the back of like an Amish wagon or something at about 70 miles an hour on some back road. And luckily, luckily they had this big sign on the back of the. Of the horse drawn wagon that I saw and didn't actually smack into the back of them, but it was quite an experience. I was the first Amish person I had ever seen was in Southern.

Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. The. The Myers there have horse hitches in that area.

Wow.

So. Yeah. Yeah.

So very cool.

Yes.

You know, it's interesting. There's a story that I read out of one of the throwaway journals in emergency medicine about this Amish guy that goes into AFIB all the time, has to go in and get cardioverted. But I guess they kind of pool their resources to pay for their health care and so generally pay cash. So he didn't want to spend any more of his community's money than he had to. So he actually skipped the sedation. Is what he does when he goes in to get cardioverted. He just goes, give it to me, Doc. It only hurts for a little bit.

Oh my God. Tough cookie there, I tell you.

I think so. I think a lot of those folks are pretty tough.

Wow.

All right. Well, you just revealed something to me just before we started this podcast that I want to talk about. I understand that one week ago. We're recording this now. What's today? Let's see, today's the. The 27th of July. So one week ago today was your last day at your W2 job.

That's right. That's right. I'm so excited about this transition. It's kind of ridicul. So you asked me, you were like, what are you doing on Friday? Why are you home? And I'm like, because I just quit my job. So it's so much fun to be able to say that.

It's a rare moment for an MD to quit their job.

Yes. Oh, my God. Yeah. So, I mean, it was something that was coming along. I've been in this practice for almost three years. It was time to think about if I want to do partnership or if I wanted to stay on as an employee, if I, you know, what I wanted to do. It was like transition time. And after talking to the owners of the group, it was pretty clear that we didn't have the same business sense, or not business sense, but the same business ideas and the same business goals for ourselves. For their goals were different than my goals. So since their goals were so different than mine, it wasn't a good place for me to stay. And so I made the decision to find something else to do.

Wow, that is a huge step. It sounds like you kind of left and do you have everything ironed out for what you're going to do now, or is this kind of a leap into the great unknown?

Hilarious. I didn't just, like, drop the mic piece out, you know, you know, beat the printer in the. In the. In the field, like on office space. But no, nope. I made some plans before I left, for sure. I can't. I. You know, we'll get to this probably, but I. My husband and I, between the two of us, have over $500,000 in loans, student loans that we're still trying to. So definitely cannot just be.

So not working wasn't an option, it sounds like.

Not at all. Not at all.

Tell us what you're going to do now.

So I will be doing Locums. I'm really, really excited about this transition. I have talked to some amazing people who have been really successful with locums as a career choice, actually, and not just as a temporary situation. And the people that I've talked to have been very excited and very supportive of me getting into that ring. And. And I'm really excited about it, too, because it affords me a chance to help people who otherwise wouldn't have access to my subspecialty. And so I'm hoping the patient population also will be very appreciative that I'm coming out to their small town and providing them care so they don't have to drive four or five hours. You know, growing up in Michigan and growing up in medicine in Michigan, you really don't have to drive very far unless you live in the up. You don't have to drive very far from medical care. Even if you live out in what we would call the country, you might drive two hours. But here in the West, Jim, you might realize this, too. It's just like people drive five or six hours, eight hours. I've seen patients who drove eight hours to talk to me about constipation. So I'm really excited about being able to provide access to some of these areas that don't have pediatric gastroenterology and to help out those pediatricians and those providers out in the communities, out in the more rural areas and help them out just the way that I do here in the city.

It's pretty amazing. A lot of people don't realize just how big it is out here. I mean, the University of Utah is a tertiary care center that draws from all of Utah, most of western Wyoming, all of southern Idaho, a big chunk of eastern Nevada, and even some of northern Arizona and western Colorado. So it's pretty impressive just how far people will come. Did you find it that it was particularly easy or particularly difficult as a pediatric subspecialist to do locums?

So far, so good. So definitely when I look at the job offerings, when I was looking into the locums, there weren't that many jobs available. But. But they all seem to have a pretty specific need and need more than one person. So I don't, I don't think there's a lot of people in my specialty who are doing this. So there definitely is enough work. And I was able to find work pretty easily. I was warned by the recruiter that I was working with that there might be times when it would dry up a little bit and maybe there wouldn't be work for a little bit. So I'm trying to, you know, make hay when the sun shines and really, you know, put in some hours. And then maybe if I'm forced to take a break for a month or two while I'm sorting something else out, then I'll, you know, I'll have that, that, that freedom and flexibility to do, to do that.

Now it seems like with the more specialized you are, the more difficult it is to get out of a big city, the more difficult it is to get out of a tertiary medical center. Yes, but you're kind of hyper specialized here and you're talking about small towns.

Oh my gosh.

How does that work exactly?

Well, it's fascinating. One of my partners and one of my best friends from Fellowship actually works out in a small town on the west side of Colorado, Grand Junction. And she started off part time because she really thought, I'm not going to have enough business out here to support full time. And she is so busy part time, the demand is so high out there and people are driving three or four hours to see her out in that area.

It doesn't surprise me. Have you been to Grand Junction?

Oh, yeah, yeah. It's actually, I mean, it's not a horribly small place, It's a small town, but it's not totally. You know, it's a nice little town out on the west side. So, you know, there's a lot of places like that around, you know, around the west that have a fair amount of people and their pediatricians and their mid level providers especially have some concerns about patients and they, and they need, you know, more specialized care and they don't feel comfortable managing some of these cases. And so they're seeking out pediatric subspecialty.

To help them out, particularly those that love mountain biking. That's what I know about Grand Junction, is there's a lot of pretty awesome mountain biking out there.

But there is. There is.

All right, well, that's cool. That's exciting. So how does this line up with your side hustle, the Hippocratic hustle? How is this going to work out with doing Locums?

Yeah, I think this was another thing that pushed me into wanting to do this. You know, I've started the podcast over a year ago and have been trying to be very consistent with getting episodes out once a week as much as possible. But as you know, Jim, this is not an easy thing to do. It takes a lot of work and a lot of time, especially with all the engagement one needs to do with social media when you're in this business. And so definitely, as I've gotten deeper and deeper into the podcasting and enjoyed it more and more, I've wanted to dedicate more and more of my time to it. So it was almost like I was working, I don't want to say two full time jobs, but it felt like it at times when I was trying to get stuff out for the podcast, that I was working full time at my regular job. And then the podcast was taking so much time. So super excited because right now, Friday was my last day. I have about four to six weeks until I start my next, my first Locums gig. So I have all this time to really focus on it and, and really, really nail down the podcast. So I'm super excited about that.

Is that the most time? Time, I say a time off. You and I both know it's not time off, but is this the most time you haven't been involved in medicine since you started medical school? Four to six weeks?

I would have to say pretty much, yes. I mean, I took maternity leave, so that was another break that I had in the first year of my residency. But other than that, yeah, I think even when I was moving, it was like one week off to move. I can't imagine another time where I've even Taken, gosh, more than two weeks off, maybe two weeks in a row would be the max.

Pretty exciting.

Yeah.

For those who are just catching on, we're talking to Kerry Reynolds, M.D. of the Hippocratic Hustle. You can find her work@hippocratichustle.com she is most known for her podcast, there's, which focuses on all things side Hustle, particularly geared at women physicians. All right, so you mentioned something else before we got on the show today. You have a recent purchase that I think a lot of physicians, particularly environmentally conscious physicians and maybe frugal physicians, have at least thought about at some point. Can you tell us about it?

Oh, my gosh. I just. I'm so excited about it. I just bought a Nissan Leaf, a 2018 Nissan Leaf. Electric, all electric, plugs in, charges the battery. That's all you got. So it's. It's super exciting to be able to drive, you know, in such an environmentally friendly way. And. And it's a really cool car.

Very cool. Now, my. A bunch of my partners have Leafs. They. They joke about racing them to our meetings. You know, I almost wonder, besides the, you know, the fact that you're not killing the environment, which is a big deal here in Salt Lake, where we have a smog problem, but it's almost like it's an okay status symbol to buy. I've noticed on my forum there's a big, long thread about Teslas, whereas I think if it was about Porsches, I think people kind of look down their nose a little bit at it. But because it's, you know, environmentally conscious, too, it's almost like a double status, simple symbol. You get to say, hey, you know, not only can I buy a Tesla, but I can, you know, I'm saving the planet, too.

Yeah.

Look, do you see any of that in the electric car, you know, community?

Oh, my gosh, definitely. I mean, I got into my interest in the electric cars, of course, because I see the Tesla X driving around, and that is literally my dream car. I mean, a family car that looks so sweet and it's electric. You just can't go wrong. Right? But you price out. You price that thing out, and it's what, $80,000 to $100,000? And even the sedan is $50,000. I didn't even price it out, seriously, because I knew it was ridiculous. Then they have this new Tesla, the Tesla 3, that was going to be 30,000, but then you add all the options and it ends up being 50 to 60, but whatever.

Not exactly compatible with half a million Dollars in student loans?

No, not at all. Definitely was outside my league. Also a two year wait list for that newer Tesla definitely wasn't on my radar at all. But I started hearing about the tax breaks that you can get with it now. Now people have to act on this quick because they're going to be start, they're going to be starting to be phased out coming up really, really soon. But here in Colorado, which actually does have the best tax breaks available for electric cars, let me tell you all this stuff, it's crazy. So if you buy a new car, so that's why I got a new one, I would never buy a new car, honestly, I'd never would. I always buy about a two year old car if I buy anything. But if you buy new, you get $5,000 from the state. So that was automatically just taken off the top of the price. You get $3,000 from my electric company and that was just right off the price. So right there you're down 8,000. And then from the federal government, if your taxes work out, you get 7,500. When you do your taxes here next year. I mean, you add all that up and it just makes the car so affordable right now. Plus, for a new car and it's electric and I won't need to do any oil changes. I won't, you know, basically need to rotate the tires and get new wiper blades. I mean, that's it.

Pretty attractive. So all those tax breaks add up to what, about half the price of the car?

Well, the car does start somewhere in the 30s, I think on the low end and it maxes out a little under 40, so it does. It still isn't the cheapest car in the world, but I was able to trade in my. I did have a poorly thought out purchase a couple years ago. I bought a Lexus RX350. I was able to trade that in and basically with all those tax breaks break even on my entire purchase, I think I'm making a great choice to buy this new car, which is kind of crazy because like I said, I always buy them off lease when they got 14,000 miles on them. That's a good place to start. I was planning on driving this Lexus into the ground. That was my plan. I had it for about five years, but this opportunity presented itself. Plus every time I go to the Lexus dealership, I spend about $600. I was looking back at my transactions and the maintenance on that sucker was crazy, even though it didn't break. That's why I Bought it. It's really reliable.

Sounds like the boat dealer to me. I've got joint custody of my boat. They have it all week and then I have it on the weekends. It's like, you know, we're divorced and we've split the kids, but I feel like I'm always getting something fixed in there. Truly, a boat is a hole in the water you throw money into. All right, well, we've alluded a little bit to some things in your financial life, but since this is a financial podcast, we probably ought to talk a little bit about finances. Tell us about your financial life, where you're at, what are your goals, etc.

Yeah, so basically I am working on becoming financially independent. I more recently have gotten into the financial independence scene and sphere and listening to all these financial independence podcasts that I'm really big fans of now. And so I'm really putting a lot of focus on that. I've always been focused on getting rid of my student loans, but up to about a couple years ago, I. I was kind of in that camp of just holding on to some of those lower interest student loans and letting them rot in there, essentially because the interest was so low. But I really want to just get rid of them. I want to get rid of them. I want them gone, and I want that freedom and flexibility that financial independence can provide. So even though I'm not there yet, and like I said, we still have a long way to go, my husband and I have recently made some choices in our life as far as our work. Like, I made a choice. My husband recently changed his work in order to improve our cash flow. So we're going to be putting all that extra money directly to the student loans and also maxing out our tax advantaged retirement savings and really making a strong effort and a plan for a possible early retirement.

Congratulations. That's exciting.

Thanks. Yeah.

All right, let's talk about the Hippocratic Hustle. Tell us about its birth and what you're trying to accomplish with it.

Yeah, I think it was born out of me being a little bit bored. I think I must. Which is kind of funny to say because I must just have ADHD or something. I need to be doing something constantly. But I was out in practice for about a year and I was feeling a little bit. I was feeling a little bored, maybe a little burned out. I mean, I'd only been working for a year, but, you know, you go to the clinic and you see patients and then you come home and it just didn't. It wasn't very fulfilling for me. So I started thinking about what I could do, what would be kind of fun for me. And I've always listened to podcasts ever since, gosh, I was probably about 2002 was when I first started listening to podcasts. So it's always been something that I've enjoyed listening to, and it's always been one of my favorite ways to get information. I just can't sit and read blogs. I apologize. I just can't. So I think I can't sit still very well. So I love listening while I'm cleaning my house or driving to work and. And getting information that way. So I was kind of thinking, what could I do? And I'm on a lot of women Facebook groups, women physician Facebook groups. And on those groups, there's always people who are trying to explain what interesting thing they're doing. And it's so hard to type that out and to share that in the Facebook forums that are on there. So I thought, well, if I just interview them, you know, I could get their story out and I would find it interesting. If I find it interesting, someone else might. So that's where the Hippocratic Hustle came from.

Very cool. Now the for those of you who keep hounding me to do more than one podcast episode a week, I got people telling me they want me to read all my blog posts into the podcast. For all you guys that need more podcasts, here's your chance to get another podcast. Hippocratic hustle.com. you can find it anywhere you get podcasts. You know.

That's right.

And so check that out. What would you say is your message for physicians? If you could sit every physician in the country down and have five minutes with them, what would you say?

I would tell them that they are not stuck. I think so many times doctors think that they're stuck in the job that they have, or they're stuck in the rut that they have, or they're stuck with their student loans. I mean, there are things you can do. You can be creative and you can get out of that rut. You know, that happens so much in my subspecialty because so many people go into academics and then they feel like they can't leave the institution that they grew up in and that they work at. But there are other places you can go there. You know, if you're feeling like you have too many student loans, you need to pay it off. There's the geographic arbitrage. I mean, you can move. I know it sounds hard because if you live near family, you may not want to do that, but you can move, you can attack these loans, you can attack and reach financial independence and then move back to where you want to come, you know, where you're from, where it's higher cost of living or whatnot. I mean, there are things you can do. So doctors, you are not stuck.

Now, let me push back a little bit about that, against that. I mean, isn't medicine this incredibly awesome job? Who wouldn't want to be a doctor? And to be in this rut, you know, as you call it? I mean, haven't we spent a decade and a half learning how to be a pediatric gastroenterologist, and then now we're talking about getting out of a rut, you know, I mean, what, what do you think happens over that time period, that 10 or 15 year training period or the first five or 10 years in practice that causes people with this job they dreamed about for decades to feel like they're stuck?

Yeah, I mean, I think burnout kicks in. And here's what I think actually, is that when you're going through medical school, you're going through residency, you're going through fellowship all those times, there's always something that you're working towards. There's always a test that you need to take or a challenge that you need to reach as far as maybe research or things like that that can basically occupy our mind. But when you're getting out and working, you may not have that challenge anymore because you're out and working. And it feels like that's what it felt like to me, that when you're working a regular 9 to 5, well, it's really 7 to 6 job, you just feel like, what else is there? This can't be all there is. And some people gain fulfillment from working towards their business goals as far as maybe owning the practice or things like that. And that will lend them some creativity and some outlet for that kind of intellectual energy that we have as physicians. And some people need to do a side hustle or a side gig or a mission project or things like that that can really keep them engaged and interested. So those are the people I like to focus on on the podcast, are the people who are doing creative things that really help them fight burnout.

You know, it's interesting. It's this strange conundrum that once you become competent at what you're doing, you become good at it, you become most useful to the world at it is about the time you get bored with it, right?

Yeah, I Think we were trained to do that in medical school. I mean, it's been three years, and that's the time that my fellowship took. That's the time that my residency took. It's, you know, medical school's four years, undergrad's four years. I think we have these, like, chunks and segments of energy that we're putting into things, and then we have to. Then we're forced to move on to the next thing. And so I think if there's not something for you to work towards in your. In your job or in your work, that you'll start feeling that itch.

Yeah, I. As I look back over my career, my favorite job was residency.

Oh.

I loved being a resident. Now the hours kind of sucked, and I basically stepped out of the whole rest of my life for three years.

Right.

But I loved it. The actual work, being at the hospital, doing something for the first time, seeing something new. Oh, I don't know. It was great. And I've never found the excitement about medicine anywhere else that I had during residency.

Oh, that's interesting.

I loved it.

Yeah.

If I could figure out a way to be learning and seeing as much new stuff all the time as I did during residency, that would be a pretty awesome career. But I guess I probably wouldn't be very competent at what I was doing if I was seeing all this stuff for the first time.

Well, yeah. Well, when you're a senior resident, it's like you have your. I remember this being on call at the end of my residency and having my command center for call. You know, I was ready. I had my phone. I had all these phone numbers memorized. I could get ahold of anybody. I could. I was like. I was. I knew everything as far as, like, the practice of the whole residency program. So anyway, I felt really, really competent in control then, too.

Yeah. Which is a dramatically different feeling than a lot of interns right now are feeling, isn't it?

Yeah, for sure.

All right, so you've had about, well, 50,000 or more downloads at this point. How's it feel to know that people listen to you, come back for more, and are looking at you as a celebrity of some sort of.

Oh, my gosh. I don't know if I'd say celebrity, but I feel so honored that people are listening to the show and that people are sending me feedback and that it's going so well, and people are telling me they're really enjoying the show. I guess it's something that we can be proud of, Jim. I mean, what you've built. And what I'm building with the podcast, it's a creative outlet for us. It's almost like a piece of art that we're creating for people. And when people appreciate that and you hear that, it's really fulfilling. So I really appreciate all my listeners. It's so amazing.

So have you had people walk up to you and say, you sound just like you do on the podcast?

Well, sometimes I feel like maybe I have my podcast voice on. I don't know if I have it on right now, but then when I'm talking to people, I sound kind of bored and, you know, just kind of. But yeah.

What are the most almost unnerving experiences you have, particularly the more transparent you are. I'm fairly transparent about our financial lives. Life on the blog. So people walk up to me that I've never met and know all these details about my life, which is a little bit interesting sometimes, where you go, wow, this is really unequal, what we know about each other here in this conversation.

Well, it's so great to be able to connect with the listeners, and it's great when you can meet them in person, too, because then you can reciprocate a little bit on the connection. So that's what's great about podcasting, is you really can make that personal connection with your listener. And so it's just a really unique medium. I'm sure some bloggers have been able to do that through the written word, but through listening, it's so intimate because you can hear the podcaster's voice and connect with them that way. I want my listeners to feel like either they're talking to me on the phone, or maybe they're in a coffee shop and they're overhearing a really interesting conversation at the coffee shop. That's what I want to. That's what I want to portray with my podcast. And so see if you can get.

People to listen in. Pretend they're not, huh? Right.

I guess so.

So you've done now, as of today, 44 episodes is what I see up on your site. Which one of those was your favorite?

Yeah, I think my favorite might have been the first one I recorded, which was my. Actually my second episode. And that was an experiment. So it was the. It was the pilot, I suppose, and I recorded it with my best friend in real. So, you know, she had a business. She's a emergency medicine doctor, and she runs a ketamine clinic. This is the Megan Oxley MD episode with ketamine. The ketamine clinic episode. Anyway, she runs a ketamine clinic and she lives in Detroit, where I don't live anymore. And so I knew she was doing this, but I didn't hear all the details. So it was the opportunity for me to hear the ins and outs of her new business. And it was just really fun. Fun to be able to hear that and to realize that I could actually do this interview format podcast. So that was exciting.

Very cool. Now, you also do a fair number of episodes with Miss Bonnie Maryland. You call them the. What is it? Friends Talk Finances.

That's right, that's what we called it. We may retitle that into something a little bit more creative. So it's in the works, so stay tuned. But yes, we're going to be doing more episodes together in the future. As some people might know, she had a bab. They moved to Philadelphia and her life has been a bit crazy. So that kind of interfered with our recording to a certain extent. But I literally just got back from her house last night. So we just spent the past couple days together and we had a lot of brainstorming sessions. And so we're super excited for the future for this segment. So if anybody doesn't know Ms. Bonnie Mard, who is also a guest on your podcast. Right, yeah.

Let me see which episode she's on. I'd have to go back and look, but I think it was 10 or 20 episodes ago or so.

Yeah, I don't remember either. It was somewhere in the 20s, I think. But she is a personal finance blogger who focuses on women physicians. So when I was doing this, I reached out to her to see if she would want to be a recurring guest. And I didn't know her at all. I was just a fan girl, honestly, and I was one of those people who knew everything about her life, but she didn't know me and she graciously said yes. And so she signed up for recording a couple episodes with me. And so we have some of those past episodes out where we try to really break down finances and try to make it accessible for anybody really, but women physicians in general, our audience, and so that people don't have to be scared of these financial topics.

Very cool. So for those who are Interested, we featured Miss Bonnie Maryland on episode 23 on the White Coat Investor podcast. Episode 23, Cindy tells me.

Awesome.

So on your podcast you've kind of decided to focus on women. Tell me about that. What did you feel wasn't being done well by non gender specific folks in this space?

Yeah, well, I wanted to really make all this information accessible and as I mentioned before, so that people don't feel intimidated by the topic. And I wanted to also, I wanted to connect with women and with my listeners on a personal level. I think this kind of information is heard a little bit better by people when they're spoken by their peers and explained by their peers so that they don't feel intimidated by it. So that's really what I wanted to do. And I'm in a lot of Facebook groups and the misinformation about disability insurance, about life insurance, about all that stuff is rampant. It is crazy. So there's a lot of people that we have out there to educate. And so I think we need to try to get the message out in any way we can and reach as many people as we can.

What do you find is different for women when it comes to finances?

Yeah, I think in general women have a little bit of an apprehension to it unless, you know, there's someone special like Ms. Bonnie, MD. They maybe weren't educated deeply in it. I know that my mom was always the one who balanced the checkbook. And I think I've heard the statistics that over 80% of households, the women run the day to day finances, but the statistic is much more swung in the men's direction when it comes to the investments and the life insurance and kind of the higher finance stuff than the day to day finances. So this is definitely something that I know is intimidating. It was intimidating to me. I guess I'm speaking to myself, I'm speaking to my former self, my younger self, that I was intimidated when I first got into this. And I just don't want people to be intimidated because it's, it's, it's not as hard as it seems. So definitely trying to make that accessible.

You know, I've run into a lot of couples where he's the doc, she's the stay at home mom and she takes care of all the finances because he's working 60, 70, 80, 100 hours a week. And she's not only taking care of, you know, the checkbook and the buying of stuff, she's handling the budgeting, she's handling the investments, she's handling the insurance. She's. Yeah, the one that's become financially literate. The doctors, you know, typical dumb doctor with finances. And she has become this financial expert. And the combination of the two of them has been very powerful because high income and they've, you know, they're using it very, very wisely. And so I suspect that you probably have A lot of listeners that are women but are not physicians.

Mm. Oh, yeah, I would love that. For sure. Any way I can get the message out and to help families in general. For sure. That's definitely my ideal listener.

Do you think women are more likely to learn from or listen to a woman teaching them new financial principles?

Oh, yeah, I think so. I think so. I think, like I said, just hearing the message from a peer is just a more comfortable way to learn this stuff and just less intimidating. I think as women, we've all had that situation where we've been sitting down and there's some man standing over us telling us what we should be doing, and we know that we have more education than that, we are smarter than that, and we don't need to be treated in that way. So I think sometimes women are a little bit wary of that kind of situation. I know I've had that when I've tried to buy cars where the guy comes in and just kind of tries to fast talk me, and I'm like, dude, man, I am actually pretty savvy with this stuff, so settle down. We're gonna be negotiating. So, you know, I think sometimes there's some stereotypes that are passed towards the women, and the men who are trying to sell them life insurance or cars or whatever are don't understand and basically stereotype the women that they may not know. So definitely it's a. It's a great way to get the information from a peer too.

Do you think men are the same? You think they want to learn from men?

Oh, gosh, that's a good question. I don't know. I mean, I definitely. In my family, my husband really doesn't want to have anything to do with this stuff, so he's happy to let me do it. But, yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I guess it's just maybe the voices that's coming through and how accessible it is. So, you know, maybe the presentation of how I present it might be more accessible for someone who has zero knowledge. But either way, you get the info, the info is out there. So there's a lot of different ways to consume it.

Let's talk about side hustles for a minute. Do you think most doctors should have a side hustle? And if so, why?

So side hustles are interesting because I think there's this new gig economy, you know, where we have to do these, like, side gigs. If you're thinking about entrepreneur in general, you know, people are talking about driving Uber or this or that, so Side hustles and side gigs are not necessarily in the medical world, in my mind, limited to earning money for a little bit of extra on the side. I just really think that it's something that we should consider. Like I said before, if you're not feeling fulfilled by your 7 to 6 job that you have, then consider doing something on the side. A project, a mission, trip, service, opportunities can all serve that same purpose. So if you're not feeling fulfilled within your job, then definitely consider doing something outside of it.

You know, I had a reader write in basically feeling guilty. This was a position that was making $800,000 a year, saving the majority of it, investing it completely appropriately, and feeling guilty because he didn't have multiple streams of income.

Oh, that's interesting.

What advice would you give to that doc that's making a very good living and managing his money well, but doesn't have some other stream of income and doesn't sound terribly interested in it?

Oh, my gosh, that's funny. That's the pendulum that swung the other way. If he's feeling fulfilled in his current career and he has everything he wants, and I wouldn't worry about it. I mean, goodness, as long as you're planning for the future and you're not letting life happen to you and reacting to life as it comes upon you in kind of a unthoughtful way, then, man, you're killing it. You can, you can do that.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, the. The same boring, you know, strategy that I've been talking about on my blog for the last seven years. You know, go to work, see the patients, carve out 20% of your gross for retirement, invest it in retirement accounts, put it in index funds, and enjoy the rest of your life. It really does work. But I think with, you know, all these other options that we're talking about in the blogosphere and on podcasts, I think sometimes people start feeling bad, like, that plan doesn't work. Like, you have to buy, you know, investment real estate or you're not going to be successful, or you have to have a blog or you're not going to be successful. And I think, you know, I mean, 90% of it, you've already done by virtue of becoming a physician. You just got to get over the. Get over the goal line at this point.

Yeah. And I mean, your message is so applicable to people who want to achieve financial independence and understand that once you achieve financial independence, you have that FU money. You know, you can walk if you need to walk, if you need to Take a little bit of time, maybe do locums for a little bit while you're reevaluating your. Your situation, or if you need to travel and do something a little bit different and then come back into it, you have that, that flexibility and that freedom to do that. So, you know, doing it the straight and narrow for a little bit, get those things paid off and be financially independent would work really well for people to try to avoid the burnout that they might get after they've been in practice for a number of years.

A lot of times doctors don't forget just how marketable they are, just how valuable the skills they have are, and they're worried, what happens if I lose this job? Well, the truth of the matter is the classified ads in the back of your specialties journal are six pages long. You know, there's people begging for you to come work for them. Yes, your pay might go down 5% or, you know, whatever, but.

Right.

The truth of the matter is most of us can walk out of our job today and within six months have a job that pays exactly the same. And the only reason it takes six months, because you got to get credentialed.

Right.

It's not that it takes that long to line up the job or to start working. You know, you could basically start tomorrow if it wasn't for all the credentialing and licensing garbage.

Oh, my gosh. I know. And it's like, you're not stuck. Even if you feel like you need to be close to family, if you go to some of these places and look for positions in some of these more rural places or places that are having a hard time recruiting, you couldn't work there. You could negotiate six weeks off instead of your standard four weeks. You could negotiate a pay raise so you can afford the nanny to help you out when you, you know, because you don't have family nearby, you can outsource a little bit more because you don't have family nearby. There are options. And you are not stuck. You need to just be flexible and, and optimistic that there are other choices for you.

Let's talk a little bit, a little more of a personal question here for you. If your side hustle took off, you know, if the Hippocratic hustle became this thing that was paying you two or three hundred thousand dollars a year, it really started making a ton of money. How would that affect your career in medicine?

Okay, first of all, I would not be afraid to walk away from medicine if I so chose at that time. Because again, we are human beings and we are not married to our career, even if we studied for so many years. If you're doing something that is fulfilling for you and you know and is helpful to society, who cares if you're a physician or not? So I have no qualms about encouraging people to do that if it works out for them. The hard part about being a physician is you can't leave for too long without people questioning things and credentialing getting a little bit sticky. So you kind of have to still stay a little bit engaged. So I don't know what will happen if I ever have that opportunity. I think it would be hard to completely step away from it because it is something that I do love and I do enjoy. If someone told me you'll never pick up an endoscopy scope again, I think I would probably go cry because it's so much fun for me to do and I have a skill that so many people can't do that would really break my heart.

Looked really fun to me in med school. I thought about GI for a long time because I wanted to drive scopes. It just looked like, you know, fun. Video game.

It is a video game. It's totally. I get to play video games. It's awesome. So. But if someone told me I couldn't do that, I would be really, really sad. But. But if I had something to turn to that was is equally fulfilling and engaging and I mean I would have no qualms stepping away from medicine. And I don't feel guilty and I don't want anybody else to feel guilty about that either.

Now you recently had the physician on fire on the podcast who's one of the member of the White Coat Investor Network. I think we had him on this podcast a couple of episodes ago. But that was the first male you'd had on your podcast. How come you had him on and what did you hope listeners would learn from him?

Oh my gosh. Well, as I've gotten into this community, obviously there are so many amazing men in this space who have a great story to tell and great information to to share with my listeners too. So I want to make sure that my women in my community aren't missing out on that message. So definitely Physician on Fire was an amazing guest. Super fun to talk to him and he has so much to share with us. Along with some of my other male guests, I just had NI Darko from the Hippocratic Hustle podcast on as my more recent episodes. So that was really fun. And Jim, you are welcome to Come on. So that's my open invitation. So get it on the books.

I'm not sure I got an open invitation the first time we met. Did I?

No, I apologize. I didn't. I was. I know, I know. When I first started, I was like, this is going to be all women. You know, this is. No, guys can't. Come on. But definitely, I've softened that perspective a little bit and. And have. Have. I'm going to allow my guy friends because I definitely have a lot of super, super duper smart guy friends out there who have great information to share to my listeners, and so I want them to have access to that, too. And believe me, I share your website with anybody who will listen because it's great. It's an amazing resource. Absolutely amazing.

Now, you have quite a few guys listening to your podcast as well. Have you ever done a survey or looked at the data to see what the percentages are?

I have not yet done that, but I think on my month off that I have here, I think that would be a good idea.

It wouldn't surprise me a bit if you 10 or 25% of your listeners were guys. Just because so much of the information, I mean, it's like anything, you know, so much of it's applicable to everybody. It's like personal finance for doctors. Right. Doctors think they're special and they want something geared right to them, but the truth is, 95% of it's the same for all of us, you know?

Yeah.

So that wouldn't surprise me a bit. Well, what else would you like our listeners to know? Is there anything we haven't covered today that you think is important for them to get that they're not getting on my podcast?

Well, I think overall, my podcast is encouraging women to make good choices with their money, to educate them about all the opportunities that they have with personal finance, to encourage them to live life creatively and on their own terms. Yeah, I mean, overall, I just want to be able to connect with my listeners and to. And to share what I wish I had known when I graduated so from residency. I wish I had known all this stuff. I wish I had your book. Oh, my gosh. When I first graduated, I wish I had my book. Yeah, right. And definitely I give your book out to all my students that I had rotating through with me, and they were so appreciative to hear that message, too. So I think we have a lot of people, Jim, to educate out there, so I think we have our work cut out for us.

Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It's been great having you here.

Thank you so much for having me. So much fun talking to you.

For those who want to learn more about Dr. Carrie Reynolds and her work, go to hippocratichustle.com well that was a great interview with Dr. Reynolds. I hope you guys enjoyed that.

Did you know that the White Coat Investor not only has a podcast and a blog, but several books that will help you on your way to financial independence? These books cover topics such as asset protection and minimizing your taxes to keep more of your hard earned money. They discuss plans for insurance, housing spending, student loan elimination, investing and estate planning. You can learn how to become a millionaire within five to 10 years of leaving residency and how to invest in a sensible, low cost and effective manner with or without the assistance of a financial advisor. There's even a book geared directly toward medical and dental students so you can start optimizing your finances early in your professional journey. Find the book that is right for you at the WCI store, at shop.whitecoatinvestor.com or on Amazon. You can do this and the White Coat Investor can help.

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Your host, Dr. Dahl, is a practicing emergency physician, blogger, author and podcaster. He is not a licensed accountant, attorney or financial advisor. So this podcast is for your entertainment and information only and should not be considered official personalized financial advice.