Money and Entrepreneurship With Dr. Bonnie Koo

If your business isn't working the way you expected, it's not because you're bad at business. It's because no one ever taught you how it actually works. We were trained to master algorithms in medicine, but when it comes to revenue teams and growth, we were never taught anything. We weren't even told to figure it out. We just assumed somehow we'd know. Like it would magically make sense. But it doesn't. The era of the seven Figure Physician CEO is here. And it's not about working harder. It's about learning entrepreneurship as a system. The same way you mastered ACLs and pals, you can master the algorithm of building a profitable scalable business. That's why I recorded the Seven Figure Physician CEO audiobook. Whether you're building a medical or non medical business, and whether your goal is your first million, first 2 million, first 5 million, first 10 million, this is where the journey starts. There is no Calvary coming to save us. We are the Calvary. So. So go get your audiobook now. Www.entremd.com 7Figurebook. And let's rewrite the narrative for physicians starting today.

Hi docs. Welcome to the Entre MD podcast where it is all about helping amazing physicians just like you, embrace entrepreneurship so you can have the freedom to live life and practice medicine on your terms. I'm your host, Dr. Una.

Well, hello, hello everybody and welcome back to another amazing episode of the entremd podcast. And I am super pumped today. I'm always super pumped, but exceptionally pumped. I have Dr. Bonnie Ku here and she is the founder of wealthy mom, M.D. she empowers women physicians to create wealth. She loves talking about money. So do I. And this is going to be a great conversation and if you are one of the guys listening, it's the same principle. So please don't go anywhere. She has a lot of good stuff for you too. So welcome to the show today, Dr. Bonnie.

Hey, thanks so much for having me here.

All right, so I've been waiting for this. I'm going to, I have a lot of questions for you, but before we start, I'm going to have you just, you know, introduce yourself to listeners, let them know what you do, what you're about.

Yeah, so I am a board certified dermatologist and currently I practice teledermatology. That's partially due to Covid and I created Wealthy MomMD a few years ago, although it's kind of been an evolution over time. And it sort of started as a, you know, just financial education blog and you know, where I would pull together information and post it. And I was posting in Facebook groups. And then just recently, a year and a half ago, I decided to go all in as a business. That's kind of how our paths cross, right? And so I haven't been in business very long, but I. I think you would agree, Dr. Una, I. Business is fun and I didn't realize how much fun it would be. And so that's been really fun, you know, not to say fun so many times, but it has been fun to kind of see how fun business. Because I used to be someone. You know, I've talked about this before. I never thought I would be someone who had their own business ever.

I didn't know that piece.

I thought I was going to be like a worker bee. And I was fine with that, you know, because that's kind of. And when I would look at other people who had businesses or were entrepreneurs, that's kind of like a sexy word, right? I literally would be like, you know, I just don't think like those people. Those people are creative. They think differently than me.

So if now you say that, now I have questions. So when you did the blog, you're probably doing that because I want to put the financial information out there and help people. From that standpoint, then you had to make the transition from I'm helping people to I'm a full blown entrepreneur, I'm helping people, but there's also revenue attached to it. What were some of those challenges and how did you overcome them?

You know, it's interesting. I don't know if I saw it so much as a challenge. I think for me it was like, oh, I have to learn how to do business now. Because I knew I didn't know that. And so I kind of went on a rampage of online courses. I will say, like, people ask like, which courses should I take? Or what did you take? I'm like, I kind of took all of them. Like all the big ones obviously didn't take every one of them. I took a lot of the popular ones out there, like B School and Amy Porterfield's digital course Academy. I took tribe with Stu McLaren. I went to conferences, went to Amy's conference, et cetera. And so I just filled up on all that knowledge because I didn't have that. And so I'm not sure if I saw it as a challenge. It was just more like, oh, I have to learn this stuff and thank God there are all these resources out there where I can learn it versus just being just Dr. Google or whatever. Right.

Which doesn't work. Well, it could work eventually.

It just takes a lot more time. Right. And I, you know, I'm willing to pay for organization and access to a mentor. That's kind of how I saw it. So I thought that part of it wasn't so hard. I think the challenges are really, were really more mental.

Ah, so tell me a little bit about that because that was huge for me. For me, I was like, I can't put myself out there. Nobody really wants what I have. These are all limiting beliefs and they're not real. But, you know, nobody wants what I have. Nobody's going to pay for what I offer. And I was really uncomfortable talking about money. Very, very uncomfortable. So what kind of mental hurdles did you have to overcome?

Oh, kind of all the above. What you just said. Can I really do this? Can I really make money? Can I also, also as a physician and especially a dermatologist, it's like I had a lot of people say like, good luck, you know, like, oh, wow. Thinking I was crazy for creating an online business. Not like in a bad way, but I think, you know, it kind of makes sense. Like, why would I give up a well paying job or specialty or career right. In dermatology to start an online business? And I guess it's, I think it's fairly common for people to feel like they can't replace their clinical income. Which is funny, I think if you are limited to maybe the physician world of entrepreneurs, depending on which circle you come in. But if you go to other entrepreneur conferences that aren't doctors, they think what doctors make is like chump change, right?

Yes, they do. Yes, they do.

Yeah. And so that was really kind of eye opening for me, also for myself, because I kind of had a self imposed ceiling in terms of how much money I could ever make. Like, it's not like people ask you how much money you want to make, they ask you, what do you want to do? And I don't think I've learned over time that you really could make whatever you want. But like, that's not something that I ever thought was available to me as a choice. I still don't really fully believe it. Like I'm, I'm slowly growing into that, like, or I should say slowly raising that ceiling for myself because in some ways I feel like I can't make over a certain amount. But that's because I'm in this like derm ceiling, if that makes sense.

It does, it does. So for someone listening and I know we should come to this later in the podcast. But we can, we can start from here. For someone who's listening, who's been on the fence, like, you know, I want to started a business, I have the work ethic. I don't kind of know where to start for you. What you did was you took the courses, you know, you got coaches, you did all of that. What would be your number one advice for the person who's on the fence? Like, I want to do a business, but I don't know where to start from. What would you tell them?

Hire a coach, buy a program. That's what I would do. I mean, like, I'm always surprised when I meet people who are, I don't want to say struggling, but maybe struggling is the right word. Struggling with getting started. And they're not investing in coaching. I'm not just saying that as a coach, like it's, you know, maybe some cui, but like I always invest in coaching. I don't always have a one on one coach, but I, that's kind of what I prefer. But I'm always paying for expertise because I want to learn from someone who's done it before. It's so much, it's so much easier. Plus, like our brains are sometimes they're really negative.

They can, they can be. So, so what I'm hearing is we have two big things that happened here and that's really important for everybody to take note of. And the first thing is when you made that transition from I'm doing a blog to kind of help people to I'm doing a full blown business, your first thing was, I don't know how to do this stuff. So I'm going to go learn how to do this stuff. And for a lot of doctors, we've learned for so long, right? We spent over a decade in training and sometimes when we're done, we're like, I'm done. I'm not learning any more stuff. You know, I'll do my cme, but I'm done. I'm not throwing myself at trying to acquire new knowledge anymore because I've been doing this for over a decade. But when you try to be, you want to become an entrepreneur, you have to come to the conclusion that there's nothing in my medical training that has prepared me for what I need to now do. So yes, I don't have to do as much as I did to become a doctor or residency, 80 hour work weeks, any of that. But I do have to own the fact that I don't know this stuff and I Need to go learn it. And then in the process of learning it, Google is. Is the longest possible route with no guarantee of success. So get a coach, get in a program, do something. But. But don't try to figure it out yourself. It's not. That's just not a winning strategy.

Okay.

Can I say something about that?

Yes.

Yeah. So, I mean, obviously you and I are on the same page in terms of, you know, getting help, whether it's hiring a coach, you know, buying a program. But yeah, I find a lot of physicians, they think they could figure it out. And it's not that you can't. It's just, why would you waste so much time? A coach just, like, shortens that time significantly. When I say shorten the time, I don't just mean, like, less time, but also less time to make a lot of money. So I see a lot of people worrying about the cost of that. But what they don't realize is by saying no to that coach, whatever they cost, they're saying no to making so much money quicker.

And that's a huge opportunity cost. Right. So if you could be doing. If you could crack six figures in a year or two. I'm just making up numbers here. And you did the figure it out yourself route, and it took you five or six years, then that's literally multiple, multiple, multiple six figures left on the table. Because you didn't want to pay $15,000 or $20,000 for exactly a program. Right. That's a good way to look at. That's a good way to look at it. Okay, so we talked about limiting beliefs and those mental hurdles and stuff like that. And so when you work with your clients to overcome those limiting beliefs, what's your process? Like, where would somebody even start with that? Like, I have all the negative. All the negative thoughts. Can't do this. Can't ever figure it out. Nobody's gonna buy my stuff. Where would they even start with that?

Well, the first step is always awareness, right? Because sometimes they're not even aware that they're thinking this because they think they're just reporting the news.

Okay.

You know, like, really distinguishing, like, is this a thought or is this actually the truth? And just even like that, like, separating fact from story can be really powerful. And sometimes they're thinking things are not even, like, a hundred percent aware that they actually are thinking and believing something. So that's where. That's why having a coach or some process where you're sort of, like, questioning things and having different. Having, like, different. Another set of Eyes to kind of look at those angles is really helpful.

So coaching would be a really powerful way to get rid of that. And so you work with. You work in the finance space, if I will. Helping women physicians build wealth. So when it comes to the conversations you need to have with your clients, what are the top limiting beliefs there? Because there's a lot with money, right. Whether the top ones, because this will help people with awareness. Like we don't even realize sometimes that these are limiting beliefs to start with.

Oh yeah. I mean they come in different flavors. So some is just like people are just feeling really anxious and overwhelmed about money. Can't get over that activation energy to even start learning about money because they're so scared of it. So I hear that a lot. Like they don't know how to start. They don't know where to start because it makes sense. There are so many resources and people say different things. It's like, who do you trust? So I totally get that. And then I just say, you just start by starting. It sounds so simple, but it's true. Because people waste so much time figuring out where to start. Should I learn about stock? Should I learn about real estate? Should I learn about how to budget? It's like it doesn't really matter. You just start with one thing. And then the second thing I hear a lot different flavors is I can't make more than X because of specialty. That's probably the most common one I hear. So you can imagine that some of the traditionally lower paid specialties are the ones who say that or they really think that money comes from some permutation of time and effort. And so in their mind, if they want to make more money, they have to work more hours. And they can't see any way around that.

And that's a huge limiting belief. Oh yeah. Only so many hours in the day. Yeah.

Because then you don't even try. Right. Because you're just like, well, this is. I picked the specialty. It's kind of what I see a lot. And just overall limitations on their ability to make money, how much money they can make, especially if they're divorced or a single mom or older. Maybe they're 50 and they didn't really manage their money. Well, they think it's too late. Especially since most of us are fed the whole index funds compound interest, which works. It just takes forever. So if you are 50, if that's the only option you have, you don't have a huge shovel to throw into that index fund bucket. So just really limitations on what they can make. And I think it's interesting, you know, physicians like to be around other physicians in terms of Facebook groups at least. But like we just said earlier, I said earlier, if you hang out with entrepreneurs who are. Who think like, being a millionaire is like, normal, it's just. It's just very different, right?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, associations really are everything. They just up level your thinking when you feel like I've arrived, they're like, not quite. There's still room. And when you say that's impossible, they're like, no, no, it's not. You know, I just did that last week. So. So, yeah, so now that you say that, those are some really serious limiting beliefs. So could you tell me about some of your success stories? I like those, like someone who walked in and that was kind of their thing, and they worked with you and you're able to get them, you know, I mean, they do the work, but you were able to. You were their guide to get great results. Do you have some of those stories you could share?

Yeah, so some of them are less tangible than others. But I've had a lady that I'm thinking about right now who was recently divorced and so was now a single mom of two children, and she had kind of lost hope that she could have, like, the future that she wanted when it comes to living a certain way. And so, yeah, when you're carrying around that kind of emotional baggage that it's. There's no hope for you. I mean, she was a physician, so, you know, still making good money, et cetera. Right. But I think she really felt like her idea of what her life would look like was shattered just in terms of money, the type of life she was going to live. And so I think she actually said to me, like, she had hope again. And it's like, it might. That might sound like a soft sort of result, but she actually went on to start investing in real estate. I don't think she actually has bought real estate yet, but she was, like, looking at real estate and she was saying something like the fact that I'm that person that's even looking at real estate, like, she just never thought that.

Would be her, and that's huge. Those can be considered intangible in the sense that it's not dollar signs, but to see somebody who's like, this is a hopeless situation, come to the point where I have hope and let's track this down, That's. That's huge. It really is.

And another person that comes to mind, this is a bit more Tangible is she is a pediatrician. And so. And she'll, you know, say, like, we complain the most because we're the. We're paid the lowest, etc. And so. And she has invested in real estate, and she actually is now a coach and makes money as a coach in addition to her pediatrician practice. I mean, she's killing it.

That's great. I'm a pediatrician, so I'm going like, yeah, yes. To peds. That's awesome. So now she's no longer earning the lease. Because that's what entrepreneurship does, though, too, is that it sets you up where the ceiling is gone. It doesn't matter what your specialty is. It doesn't. It doesn't matter anymore. You can do whatever you want to do.

Exactly. You make the rules.

You make the rules. All right, so that's really good. Now in this. At the time of this recording, we're right in the middle of the COVID 19 pandemic, and if anybody had been unaware of the fact that we need to figure out our money and we need to figure out business skills and all that stuff, I think most. There's much more awareness around that now. What kind of advice are you giving, or what do you think doctors should be doing now? In this time, we're talking 1 in 5 doctors furloughed. We're talking 53% of private practices are like, we don't think we have enough to go for another four weeks. What kind of financial advice are you giving people now?

So it kind of depends where they're at.

Right.

In terms of. Because many physicians have the basics set up, like an emergency fund or things like that. So there's no immediate fallout. Right. But for some physicians, they didn't. Right. So there is fallout. And so they're. They're really scrambling to figure out a source of income. But this is where I really just focus on, you know, wealth creation is, like, it's really down to one rule. And so I call. It's the one rule of wealth. And it's so simple. You just have to buy and grow assets. That's really what it comes down to. I feel like. Why hasn't anyone told us that in the past? I feel like a lot of the advice out there, and I don't know if you feel the same, Dr. Unes, like, pay off debt as soon as possible, but that doesn't buy or grow assets, because that's what you need. You need money. Making money for you when you're not working, that's really the formula it's very simple. And so when you're working as a physician. So let me take a few steps back. I think the majority of physicians went into medicine because they want to be doctors, and I think most doctors still want to be doctors. There's obviously changes with the medical landscape, et cetera, But I think at the heart of things, most physicians still enjoy seeing patients. And so the thing is, if that's your only way to make money, you're going to work forever. And so I just. I kind of teach them that concept first. The thing is, like, people don't know any better because no one told us, like, we're like, brainwashed from childhood that you have to work for money. And so we just kind of question that. People are usually like, kind of like, whoa, what? When we sort of like, uncouple money from time and effort. But that's really the whole point of investing. It's just that we're generally limited by index fund investing. And I think that's fine if you're going to work a long career. Let's just talk pre Covid. That worked. If you were the traditional doctor who worked for decades and put a good chunk of your money towards investing, then you would be fine. But then I'm like, well, is that really true? Because then I just feel like. But that money could have grown so much more. And it's not about, like, accumulating massive amounts of money for yourself, but I just feel like money can do so much good in the world. So anyway, I digress, but I think if people truly understand, like, they have to learn how to make money work for them, and if they never truly get that and work towards that, then they literally will work forever for money.

I like that. So the primary concept is let's get money working for us as opposed to trading time for money.

I love it, but it's hard, right? Because it's so ingrained in our society that that's how you make money. You have to get a job. If you can't get a job, well, with the pandemic, right? Unemployment benefits, et cetera. And so I've been thinking about this a lot, and I'm not saying that people aren't being responsible, but it really just, I think, underscores the overwhelming societal belief that you need a job to make money and that if you can't get a job, then someone else should take care of it for you.

And we can create wealth, make something out of nothing, and that's what we should be doing. Okay. And for doctors I think it's even harder because we are so far away from the money conversation. Right? Like, oh, yeah, think about in clinical practice. We don't even make the connection, right? We go into the room, we come into the office, we put our stuff down, we have our morning coffee, we go see the patients, we walk out of the room, we get paid. We know nothing of the fact that they had to pay a copay, they had to pay deductible. The hospital actually sends people to collections and all of those things. Like, we're just totally divorced from the whole thing. So it's not unusual to see someone who then goes into business and goes into a private practice or so, and they're like, wait a minute, what? I don't want to do this. If I do a good job, the money will follow. And we think that because that's the way we're set up. You go, you see patients, you do a good job and the money follows. Nowhere else in the universe does it work like that. So, yeah, so there are things to be learned there. Okay, so talk about what's new. What, what are you doing with wealthy mom MD and, and all of that stuff. So we know about the blogging piece. We've kind of alluded to, you know, your one on one coaching clients. What else is new?

Yeah, so I started podcast a few months ago.

Yes.

Yeah, so I'm no longer blogging technically. It's, you know, there's a post about the podcast. I guess you could call that a blog now. But it's basically a podcast and so that's been fun. It's definitely a new challenge. I don't, I'm still not 100% comfortable, but anything new is always going to feel a little scary.

Right.

And then I also have a program called Money for Women Physicians. So basically my paid offerings are one on one coaching and Money for Women Physician, which is a. I guess it's kind of a hybrid. It's a course and it's also coaching.

Oh, great. Okay. So both of them. Yeah.

Because in order to really create wealth, you need to get rid of all that, all those money lbs. For sure.

That's the real work.

It really is. Because once that's gone, like it's. The learning part's easy because, I mean, it's. At the end of the day, financial literacy isn't difficult and it's definitely not difficult for physicians to learn in terms of our capacity to learn things.

Right? Yeah. Yeah.

So that's never the issue. It's just, it's really the mindset that gets in the way, that needs to be worked on.

All right, so where do people find your podcast, your course, if they're thinking about you, for one on one coaching, where they find all of that loveliness?

Yeah, everything's on the website, wealthymomd.com and if you want to find out more about what I offer, you go to wealthymomd.com forward slash. I think it's learn. I should probably double check that. But it's Wealthy mommy dot com. It's on the. It's on the menu, so you'll see it.

Okay, so. But the tab we're looking at is the Learn tab. Okay. Okay, excellent. And your course is that year long. Anybody can sign up, sign up anytime. Or is that something that people need to take advantage of at some particular times?

Yeah. So right now I'm offering the course twice a year. So it is a. There are some pre recorded parts, but there's live portions. And the live portions basically mean, like, access to me, where I'm there with you, coaching you, Facebook group, et cetera, extra, you know, for about eight weeks. And so that's offered twice a year. So usually there's a spring and a fall session.

Awesome, awesome, awesome. All right, people. So Wealthy Mommy, check out the podcast. Wealthy Mommy. Wealthy. Did I say wealthy mom md. Is that right?

Yes.

Okay. Wealthy mom md. Check out the podcast, check out the website, and if you're like, oh, my gosh, I have a gazillion limiting beliefs I need to get rid of so I can start building wealth, then you know what to do. So, Dr. Bonnie, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Any final words you want to leave us with?

Don't be afraid to learn about money and get wealthy.

Okay. All right. And if you think the wealthy people are the bad guys, they're not. I love it. All right, so thank you so much for coming on the show. This has been helpful. I think for some people starting off, they're like, okay, I just need to accept. I need to learn stuff and go learn it. If they were afraid of getting a coach on board, they're probably like, yeah, I should just go ahead and do that. So thanks, everybody for listening, and we will see you on the very next episode of the Entre MP podcast.

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