#30: Benefits of Attending Conferences

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're having a great week. Before we get to this week's topic, I'm going to take a moment to talk about our upcoming real estate investing conference. I mean, this is our big conference that happens every year and I say that well, it's really only our second year doing this. Last year we did it live and it was amazing. The energy was fantastic. The speakers and we're going to try to recreate that in a virtual setting that you can really just enjoy and take in from the comfort of your own home or from your car or wherever you might be or even when you're on call. And it's absolutely free, so there's really no excuses to get on it. You know, if you want to upgrade and get some of the recordings, there's that option as well. But our goal and mission is to get this out to as many people as possible and we're halfway there and so we'd love if you can register@ passiveincomemd.com PIMDCON Tell your friends about it. You're gonna hear from 20 plus speakers about how they've been able to take real estate and create their ideal lives out of it. There's going to be tons of strategy when it comes to taxes, asset protection, ways to buy and invest in your own properties, to invest passively in other people's deals to create that cash flow. So please check it out. As most of you know, I'm obsessed with conferences and that kind of leads into our talk for this week. And I want to let you know why I'm obsessed with them and what I try to get out of them. I mean, I didn't go to a lot of conferences, you know, in the last 10, 12 years, ever since I became an attending. Besides medical conferences. Every year, maybe every other year I try to go to one of the big, you know, either anesthesia conferences, whether it's ASA or whether it was my subspecialty OB anesthesia. I try to go to that conference every year or every other year, but I never go to a non medical conference. I mean, just didn't make sense to me, really had no use for it. I wasn't getting CMEs and so why would I go? And that all changed Back in, I think it was 2017, I went to my first financial bloggers conference called Fincon. And I didn't know what to expect. I was just getting to that space and I knew a lot of people were going to that and they said they got a lot out of it and I didn't really know too many people there. I decided on a whim to go and it was a mind blowing experience. I mean, there was, it was different because I'm used to being in that setting and talking medicine and these kind of things and people are just talking about their businesses, they're talking about their lives, families and strategies and just sharing and this. It was just such a super collaborative environment. And I walked away with so many different ideas, so many new relationships, so many things that I was going to change about my business and my life. And I was like, okay, I got to go, when's the next one? You know, when am I going to go again? And so I would go to that every year and I'd look for other conferences. And what happened in the last year and a half is that I ended up committing, I'd say at least to going, well, I ended up committing to going to at least one conference a month. I know that sounds pretty excessive for a lot of people and pretty much I was traveling for all of these, but I was getting so much out of these that I felt like it was worth the time and the money investment. And that's the way I saw it. I saw these conferences as an investment in my current situation, as an investment in my future. And so let me just tell you why I freaking love them. Number one is that I would love that I would go to one place and I would just get all this information that was like pretty much relevant to me, right? I mean, these conferences that I go to, some of them are hyper focused, some of them are a little less focused. But I knew going into it what I would get. And I would go to one setting and get all that. I mean, as you know, the Internet is huge and it's not like I couldn't find a lot of this information online, but it takes a lot of time, energy and effort to find the material that you want. And so you'd have to go searching online, digging through stuff. But if I trusted a certain conference and a conference host and that person to really curate the best speakers and the content, man, I could just go to one place and get all that over two days or a weekend or whatever that might be, and then walk away with, and then I would have to spend all the time at home looking up different people and looking up different reviews and trying to figure out who's the right person or not. I just get it all in one place. And to me that was extremely valuable. I felt like that was extremely time efficient and I'd be introduced to some amazing people that I still follow and really learn from today. And so that's one of the most amazing things about it, is that it's all curated into one place. Another thing is obviously the networking. And that's why I love in person events. I would sit there and I would talk to people. I learned about their lives and businesses, learn about what they're doing. You can read about it all you want online, but to be able to sit down with somebody over a meal, talk to them about it, ask them questions from somebody who's maybe one or two steps ahead of you, I mean, I found that was really invaluable. I mean, sometimes the, the key takeaway or the biggest thing that I take away from a conference would be from the conversation. I had a random conversation over lunch, you know, and you develop these connections and then you meet like minded people and you figure out how they've done it. And now some of these people have been doing it longer than you have. And I think that's where it's, you know, it's amazing to meet those people. And people ask me all the time, where do you find mentors, where do you find these like minded people? Where do you find that community of people who have the same interests as you and this sort of thing? And yes, we find them online, we have Facebook groups and stuff like that, but there's nothing like meeting these people in person, whether shaking their hand. We might not be doing so much of that anymore, but you know, just, and sitting there and talking to a real person. And so I would love that aspect of it. I mean, sometimes I would go to conference and sometimes some of the talks weren't extremely relevant, you know, a couple of them. And I would just go out there and try to seek and meet new people outside of the conference room. And you know, I enjoy doing that. Not everybody enjoys doing that and going out, meeting new people, but that was a thing that I, I got a lot of juice out of and, and it was like, it was invigorating. And so the networking aspect was huge. And then I'd always walk away from these conferences with at least one or two big ideas to implement. Whether that was in my life, whether that was in my business. You know, some of these conferences that I go to, they're not always on business either. I mean, there are ones that were on finances, there were ones actually conferences I go to on relationships. I started going to relationship conference, you know, one to help my wife's, you know, to work on their marriage, you know, and that one I took my wife on and that totally blew up our relationship in a good way. And it was something that we've never taken the time to do. And sometimes just getting away, getting yourself out of like the norm and the day to day grind allows you to kind of take a step back, right, and evaluate and look at new ways and new approaches, whether it's in your business, your family, you know, the life you're, you know, your, your part with your partner or maybe with your kids. And so I would try to find relationships on all aspects of my life that I wanted to improve. And so I'd walk away with one or two big ideas and try to implement them. I mean, there are so many ideas at each conference. I mean, it's just, it's impossible to really take everything away. And I know there are some people that literally try to go to every single talk, take notes and try to, you know, walk, just, just grab everything they can. And I think that's amazing. But realistically, if I walked away with one or two big ideas, one or two big connections, you know, that sort of thing that I'd feel like that was a success no matter how much I spent on that conference, because I know it's going to pay off later on down the line. And another thing, I would walk away, I mean, extremely motivated, out of these type of things. I mean, it's easy when you're in your own little bubble, like in the grind, whether it's even in medicine. You probably felt that in medicine too. I mean, when you go to these medical conferences, you go and you kind of get around all these other physicians that are doing, you know, really cool and amazing things in medicine and kind of reconnects you to the core of why you did this in the first place. Right. But sometimes when you're in the day to day, it's, it's hard to remember why you became a physician and why you're doing these type of things. And it's just a day to day grind, but you go to these conferences and everyone's kind of letting go and talking about their jobs and careers. I'd walk away inspired and motivated and re energized to do more with what I have in terms of my time, my energy, my skills and that sort of thing. To me, that was just. I mean, it is powerful. And for so many of us, you know, we do experience signs of burnout. Whether it's. Again, it's not just burnout in medicine, burnout in life is burnout in business, burnout in investing. I mean, you're just like some people. Like, you read enough out there on, you know, index funds and market on like, how to do your portfolio, like how many. How. Like how many months or how much time can you spend on that before you get kind of tired of reading that stuff? And so kind of being in these settings kind of re. Energized me to make changes, to consistently try to figure out ways to grow and. And learn. And I walked away with so much of that, leaving these conferences, that all these things, put all that together in a live setting. Honestly, I became obsessed with it. And luckily, I have a very supportive wife and partner. I have very supportive friends, I have very supportive staff when it comes to my businesses that allow me to step away. I very support. Luckily, the system and the structure that I worked in as a physician allowed for some of that. And so it's very fortunate. I know not everyone has that situation, but it's something that I've really worked hard to create because I just committed to it, you know, and I've literally, right now, it's been tough for me and maybe for many of you in this time where we're all kind of cooped up in our homes, we're all. We're not freely able to travel, it's definitely changed that. But I've turned to finding these conferences online. And maybe, you know, you've seen a lot of these conference, you know, hosts and conference makers, they've pivoted their businesses. You take it virtual now. It's obviously not the same. And, you know, we've all. We've also thrown our own conferences. We threw the Leveraging Growth conference back several months ago, and we had so many people attend that, and we learned so much from that, how to really try to foster that community in addition to, you know, bring people the most value. And so we're doing that again for a real estate conference. And in the future, my hope is that, you know, somewhere, maybe it'll be a hybrid type thing where it'll be live, because I still think that part is invaluable and some people get so much out of that. But maybe there will be a virtual component for convenience. But either way, we're trying to bring it to you. I'm not going to stop going to conferences. I'm not going to stop, you know, throwing conferences. And, you know, whatever support that I've gotten so far, whatever support that you will, you know, that I will get from people who are listening to this. I mean, I'm just so appreciative, you know, I'm just trying to provide ultimately what's brought the most value for me, and I hope that I can share it with other people. In any case, I'd love to hear from you guys. What do you get out of conferences? Like, why do you go to these things and do you go to them or do you plan on going to them? And how do you actually make the most of them? I mean, for me, again, I walk away with just one or two connections, one or two great ideas, you know, a little bit of inspiration and motivation and energy, and I feel like it's absolutely worth it. But what do you get out of it? Anyways, I'd love to hear and have an awesome and amazing week, everyone. Take care. Bye. 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 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.