#114 Financial Literacy from “the Bruce Lee Principle”

Foreign. Welcome to the Passive Income MD Podcast, where we talk about creating your ideal life through multiple streams of income. I'm your host, Peter Kim. If you enjoy hearing about this stuff, make sure to hit subscribe so I can bring it to you every week. Now let's get on with the show. Hey, everyone. Hope you've had another great week. This week we're going to be talking about something fun. It's going to be talking about financial education, talking about some basic principles that, you know, I think can apply to your life and your financial education to help you get where you want to be. Now, I'm a documentary junkie. I've watched so many of these things on Netflix, and if there's one that's interesting, I kind of gravitate towards that. Yeah, I like my reality TV stuff too, as well, or whatever. It is really fun shows. But I was watching an interesting documentary I remember a couple years ago, and it talked about elite athletes and it showed some of their training regimens. I'm fascinated by that because it's like, you know, you think that all these elite athletes got where they're at just because of raw talent. But I think that's far from the case. There are so many people that are talented, athletically gifted, but really only so many actually rise to the top. And it really has to do with the training and the stuff they do in private which allows them to be really successful publicly. That you see. And a lot of us think it's talent, but again, it's the hard work they put in. So something stuck with me. I remember from that documentary, they called it the Bruce Lee principle of finding your path. They talked about Bruce Lee quite a bit. And I think it's safe to say most of us have heard of Bruce Lee. You know, most, most people widely, you know, he's widely considered the most famous martial artist of all time. And most of us have seen. Well, I think many, many of us have probably seen his movies or I've seen a lot of videos about him. But what many don't know is how hard he worked, I mean, honestly, tirelessly to figure out the perfect path for everything in his life. And he was very intentional about it. Now, his pursuit of this type of perfection led him to study everything, like all aspects of kind of training, from nutrition to weightlifting supplements, different fighting disciplines, and he even created his own form of martial art. Now, what does this have to do with any of us? I know we're getting to it. Well, I mean, again, I believe we're all on our own path, like we're seeking out whatever the perfect or ideal life is for us. And there's so many different aspects of that journey, but I could safely say that a huge part of it comes from how well our finances are doing or how the, what the state of our finances are. So again, what does that have to do with Bruce Lee? Well, he left clues for how he approached his journey of perfection and he used it as the foundation for what he taught his students, pretty much for everything. And so here's a four step process. It's research your own experience, number one. Number two, absorb what is useful, number three, reject what is useless, and then four, add what is specifically your own. So I want to say that one more time, research your own experience, absorb what is useful, reject what is useless and add what is specifically your own. And I think we can learn a lot from this. In fact, we can use this same process, I think, in our own journey to financial freedom. I'm going to talk about them real quick. So number one, research your own experience. Now I believe again, we're all on this path to create this ideal life that includes an awesome financial future, whatever that looks like for you. But so many of us are really just quick to jump in and follow the crowd. We read one thing online, we just listen to so called expert in the space and we just do what they tell us to do, what seems to be the norm or accepted method. But again, I believe that there is no such thing as like one perfect path or one size fits all experience, especially when it comes to financial freedom. Because again, a lot of us have different goals in life. We have a lot of interests, we have a lot of different passions, we have a lot of different family situations. And so I think it's really important to spend a lot of that time upfront researching into what many others have found to be successful, not just one way. So again, at some point, Bruce Lee, he had his own traditional martial art path and didn't seem to be working perfectly for him. So he started researching fighting techniques in boxing, fencing, jiu jitsu, whatever it is. And then he took all of these things to figure out what the whole landscape was. And then he said that his best approach to his own fighting style was like a blank canvas, like, go see what else is out there, but start with a open mind. And he wasn't afraid to look around and say, hey, these are the strengths of some and the weaknesses of some others. So he ultimately figured out what worked for him. And again, same is true for us. We all want that financial freedom. We want to make medicine a hobby. I'm sure most of you, if not all of you, want that. We want to work on our own terms, spend time doing the things we love with the people that we love. But again, everyone has a different opinion, how to get there. So right now, you know, at the time that I'm recording, this, stock market is going pretty crazy. There's tons of volatility, but there are some people that will still say it has to be through this path, through the stock market index funds. Then there are people on one side going, it's only real estate. Then there's people that, you know, still might be saying this. It's through crypto, whatever it is. There are so many different people really staying on one side or another, and they're fully convinced that their way is the only way. So I know this gets confusing for a lot of people, especially when it's the beginning of your journey. So here's my advice. Look into all of them. Figure out what successful people are doing. Find those people that are successful, that are where you want to be, and find out from them what they've done to get there. What are the people that they've utilized in terms of resources, what are the books they've read, blogs, podcasts, like whatever it is, research, research, research. And I know it takes time because we all want to get going, but in the grand scheme of things, the investment that you put in, whether it's time or money, going to, you know, taking courses or going to conferences like the one we're going to have this fall, you know, find what's interesting to you. Take time to invest in yourself and ultimately see what you gravitate toward. Like, find out what your passions are and interests and what seems to resonate with you. Like, early on, I used to only invest in the stock market. That's all it was. I used to max out my tax deferred accounts, contribute to my Roth ira. And then at some point I realized, wait, I don't want to just wait till I'm 60 to retire. Like, I felt like this wasn't affecting my life today. I wanted to start living my ideal life with my family, like now, not later, when I'm 60 years old, 20, 30 years down the road. So then I realized the only way to do that was through creating cash flow kind of machines, right? Investing in things that produce cash flow so I could replace my day job income. So I look for people who had accomplished that, and I found many of them were investing in Real estate, and that's why I went that way. So I spent hours and hours listening to podcasts, and even within real estate, there's a ton of ways to go. So again, I try not to recreate the wheel. I just found out who was doing what. I invested a small amount to see what I liked. And over time my strategy has changed. But again, I started initially with what people told me to do. But then once I started researching for myself, I found something that, you know, I liked far more, that seemed to make a lot more sense for me, and that has ultimately allowed me to reach my goals so much sooner. Now, number two, he says, absorb what is useful. Now, as you start to research and you see what paths are out there, you're going to start hearing and seeing tons of different strategies and ideas. And honestly, it can seem really overwhelming. Like when it comes to real estate, some say you should be a direct owner, you should start with your own property, single family, duplexes, house hack, multifamily, short term rentals, or invest passively, crowdfunding, REITs, syndications, funds, self storage, mobile home parks. Whatever it is, it can just seem like a little bit too much. So the key is to figure out what resonates with you. Just take a look at each. Find people who are doing, you know, who are successful, find out what stories that you hear that appeal to you and find out what you want to emulate or who you want to emulate and learn from. So I mean, I think everyone has something to say and some advice to give. So when you start feeling overwhelmed, just pick the things out that seem useful, Absorb what is useful, maybe one or two key principles or strategies, write them down, then figure out how to do those things well. And if they don't do as well, then course correct. Again, when I started investing real estate, everyone has strategy for me. But again, my ultimate goal was to create cash flow, not just money, by increasing in value or what's called appreciation, the value going up over time, that's important. But again, it was really about cash flow. So I started investing in a couple of things that made sense to me. I bought my own properties, I invested passively through syndications and funds and really just breaking it down little by little, coming up with those goals, absorbing what strategies that seem to make sense to me helped me actually get started and it actually helped me progress on my journey. Now, number three, reject what is useless. So when it comes down to it, I can tell you what worked for me. But not everything I do is going to work for you as well. Now I try to share as much as I can in the blog, but podcast what's worked for me. And it's not to tell you you need to do this one thing, it's just basically show you that hey, this has worked for me. The reason I talk to so many other experts, I bring them in as well, is that I want to show you what's work for them. Now there's an aspect of luck, timing, situation, experience that really is involved with everything. So again I started investing in a good time 2014. So I had a nice run up and I have to admittedly there was some luck to that and some timing, but those same strategies may not work right now with what's going on. At the same time, I do believe that this time could be the most important time in your financial investing career. Meaning that this is an opportunity for you to get in and it could result in life changing situation where you're getting in at a part where you can get in closer to the bottom of the market and be there when all this, you know, wealth transfer quote unquote takes place. The key is this, when listening to advice from someone, you still need to do your own due diligence, do your own thinking. Don't just follow someone blindly. That's when you can get into real trouble. That's when these investments go bad. That's why we do so much teaching and education around due diligence like Passive Real Estate Academy, because again, we want you to know when you look at these deals, if it works for you, it might work for someone else, but it may not be great for you. I mean even the most trustworthy financial advisors, again I have one as well myself, they don't know all of maybe your personality, goals and passions, their vice might be pretty global and might make sense for a lot of people, but it might not be customized for you. So only do things if it makes for you. If not, you might hear it, reject it and move on. Reject what is useless for you. So don't waste too much of your time and effort. Try to tell others why it won't work for you either. It's like don't feel like you have to justify everything. I mean they won't understand because you know, obviously it's worked well for them. Just reject things that you want and just move on. Now the last step requires you to put things together. After you've done all this research, you figured out your own path, you've incorporated the good things into your journey and your path and you've rejected, like the ways that, you know, maybe don't seem to work well for you. Then after that is really up to you to figure out how to take all of that and come up with a plan for yourself to make it work specifically for you. Now, again, it means that you have to take what you've learned. You might have to innovate a little bit. You might have to course correct. You have to trust yourself that you can, you know, you'll get where you want to be and know that really, you're the only one that truly knows how to get there. If you think about it, we've all done this before. It may seem scary, but we've all been through years and years of education, training. We worked under so many different attendings, different mentors. We've gone to, you know, additional fellowship and that sort of thing. We've done, we've seen what other people do, and not all of it has made sense to us. Some of it, you know, we've taken the good stuff. We've taken what, again, doesn't make sense to us or it's useless. And then we figured out how we should practice. I know that many of us are pretty much clones of some of the people we've trained in under, but we haven't done everything that they do. And then we've probably innovated some things on our own. So, yeah, if you look at the way you treat patients, it's probably a hybrid of all these things you've read and learned along the way. Yeah, I would say finances are absolutely no different. And if you can follow these four principles, it can really help you out and get where you want to be. After all, you know, our, our financial path, every single person is completely unique. No two paths will look the same, and it shouldn't be. Everyone's experiences and backgrounds are different. But again, I think we all have the basic same goal. It's ultimate financial freedom. Do what we want to do, live life on our own terms. And I think that if you can follow this whole methodology, it sounds simple. These four steps defining your path to financial freedom, you won't waste a lot of time and energy. You won't spend time trying to defend yourself or kind of going down the wrong path or judging other people. If it doesn't agree with you, that's fine. Just find something that's useful there and reject the rest and move on. And ultimately, the key is this. Take action, pursue a path, do all this. If you stumble, that's okay. Course correct, you'll figure out what doesn't work for you and what does. You get to constantly refine your own experience. And if you do that, you're going to find yourself achieving your goals much faster than you think. Hopefully that was helpful. Hope you enjoyed this. Have an amazing week and let's talk again soon. Thanks. Enjoy the show. Let me know by dropping a review in the podcast app you're listening to us in. And if you haven't already, make sure to hit subscribe. Are you a part of our community yet? Join thousands of physicians who are also on this journey to creating their ideal lives through multiple streams of income. You can join us on our Facebook group Passive Income Docs, and you can always learn more at our website, passiveincomemd. Com. Thanks again for allowing me to be a part of your journey. See you next time.