#64: How Many Summers Do You Have Left?

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Thanks.

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Hey everyone, hope you had a great week. By the time you're listening to this, you'll probably be in the thick of summer. I know that this summer has been completely different from last summer, hopefully for most of you, and you've been able to at least get out there somewhat in a safe way and, and experience more of life. Now this week I want to talk a little bit about something that's not actually financial, but it's something that's kind of been on my mind recently. Again. Now, I wrote a post about this several years ago and I remember having a conversation with one of my more experienced colleagues and we were discussing our plans for the rest of the summer, just like around the time, like now, like, you know, you probably talk to some of your neighbors. What are you doing for the rest of the summer? And we were just having that discussion. I remember that he began to tell me what his plans were, and then he mentioned something that has stuck with me since he said these words. I don't have too many summers left. So. Right.

And I know we both laughed about.

It at the time and I thought it was really funny. But after the conversation ended, couldn't get that little thought out of my head. I began to wonder, like, no, that's actually a good thought. How many summers do I have left? Now, just, personally, I'm 43. I'm going to be turning 44 years old. You know, I'm almost halfway into my 40s. And, you know, considering the average male's life expectancy in the US is like 78 years, I mean, that probably means I've got about, just on average about 44 years left. And, you know, I don't like to think about things in terms of, like, you know, in terms of death or think about things that are morbid. I obviously usually live on the happy, optimistic side, but at the same time, it's nice to at least put things in perspective. I mean, again, it was a little unsettling, but really, there are. I figured out that there are, like, two ways to look at that. Right. I guess I could say, look, I've. I'm halfway through the summers that I'll ever have, but it also could mean that I've got at least half of my summers yet to experience and I need to make the most of them. So I remember thinking about this at the time, and that was like, right when I was, like, about 40 years old and thinking, how do I wanna spend these summers? Do I wanna spend these summers missing my kids grow up? Do I wanna spend those summers missing holidays with the families or working weekends? Or do I wanna make each of these summers count and make the most of it? And so I've taken all sorts of measures over the last few years to really take control of my time and really control the. What I do in the summers. And so for me, that has been a focal point for me. And it's something that helped put things in perspective. And I wonder if you've thought about that, you know, and it got me really thinking from that point till now, like, what are the ways I can make the most of the time I have? And so, of course, like any blogger does, I put it out into the world. And I want to talk to you about it today, right on this podcast. Number one. I decided I just have to be extremely intentional with my time. Number one. Now I know that most of us just live day to day and that day ends and you go to the next day. But again, how much of us are actually planning how we want to utilize the time that we have? Right. We all have to sleep a certain amount of time. Yes, there's an amount that we are working, but how do you spend all those other hours and how are you planning that out to make the most of it? So I really made a decision that if something doesn't add value to my life in some way, I'm not going to waste any more of what I consider my most precious resource on it. Right. Time. And so what I've done as a result of that is if there's some activity or some chore or something that I need to do and I don't enjoy it, well, I simply hire somebody for it. And I've done that trade off and leveraging somebody else's time and you know, providing them value by hiring them, but also allows. It frees me up to do the things that I really enjoy. So that's what I've learned, that I've got to be super intentional with my time. Number two, I realized that I need to prioritize and, and set definitive goals. Again, if I want to maybe intentional with my time, I have to prioritize how things go so that I can make sure I achieve the goals that I want and that I set. Now if I'm going to do that, I realize I have to write these goals down. I can't just have a global, hey, I want to live life well, or I want to, you know, make a good amount of money or do these kind of things. I've realized that the more specific you get and the more you write things down in specificity and you probably heard of the smart goals S M A R T I'm not going to go into it today, but it's a way, it's a framework for you to set goals that allows you to be really specific and measurable and really kind of put the time down and put, you know, again, ways that you can really set achievable goals. And doing so has really changed my life because it's helped me put my time and my efforts into context. Meaning that when I do have free time, when I do have like that energy, like I know what my priorities are and I know what I need to do to reach those goals. Like one of my priorities, just like it is for many of you, is to see my kids grow up. I want to spend time with them. And I want to spend time with my wife and really just enjoy what life we have while we're all healthy, while we're all in the house, while they want to spend time with me. And so I've set the goal that I want to take a, you know, I'd say four family trips a year. And, you know, they can be big, they can be smaller, but at the very least, I'm setting those four family trips a year. When I look at my calendar for the next year, I set those first and I make sure that I plan around it. And that's just an example of how I prioritize things and set those definitive goals. Another thing is that I realized that if I'm going to really be around for that long and have all these summers, I need to take better care of my health, that I need to invest in my health. I realize for me personally that years and years of these long overnight shifts, it was taking a toll on my body. Personally. I don't know about you, but yeah, I mean, I was working a lot in OB anesthesia, which I really, absolutely enjoy love doing, but spending every fourth or fifth night, up all night doing 24 hour shifts, it just wasn't doing me any favors in my body any favors. And so I realized that I needed to take better care of my health. I need to eat better, I needed to sleep better, I needed to exercise more, make that a priority. I need to invest in my own health and take care of myself. And I know that notoriously, physicians are horrible at doing that for themselves. They're great at taking care of other people, but when it comes to their own health, they kind of neglect things. And so I realized that, hey, I'm gonna invest in my own health and figure out ways that I can really control stress in my life. And that might mean things like, you know, meditating more and doing these type of things that again, a couple years ago I would have thought were worthless and kind of foo foo and that kind of thing. Now I make those things a priority, especially first thing when I wake up. And I found that I usually wake up an hour, two hours early just to take care of these things. And it's really dramatically changed the amount of energy that I have and the outlook I have on life. And then the other thing is, I realized is that, you know, personally, I've realized that I needed to reduce my time at work. Now, again, I'm extremely passionate about what I do as a physician. You know, I love helping and serving the community. I love kind of treating patients. And I love that relationship that I have with my patients, especially in OB anesthesia. But I realized that again, I was spending such an amount of time doing that that I was neglecting my health in some ways, my family and these kind of things. And so I learned to slowly drop my clinical time to fill my time more with things that, you know, outside my life that I also enjoyed as well and allowed me to reach that point where, you know, again, I call it gradual retirement or partial retirement versus kind of like falling off a cliff type retirement where I was looking for that sustainable place where I could work as much as I want to work, enjoy my life, but also really have time for those other things. And then the last thing I realized, and this is a note for now as I'm speaking on this podcast and maybe it's something for you. For the rest of this summer, we have X number of weeks till school starts for the kids or until work starts or whatever it might be for you. How are you gonna make the most of this summer? Obviously, the world has changed so much in the past year and things are extremely unpredictable. How are you going to spend your time? How are you going to make the most of it to create experiences that you'll always be able to look back on and say, hey, that was, that was an amazing time in my life. And so I want to encourage everyone, figure it out. Think about it. How many summers do you have left? And how do you want to enjoy this time now? And how do you want to set yourself up so that you can continue to enjoy time and your summers in the future just how you want? Again, tomorrow is not guaranteed, as you know, that's pretty cliche. But there's a balance there. And so you want to find that balance between, you know, enjoying today and actually planning for the future. And if you want to let me know how you spent the rest of this summer, go ahead and reach out to us on our Facebook group, Passive Income Docs. You can always reach out to us through our blog. Again, just of note for those who are listening, people have been asking about it. In about two months we're gonna have the third annual Financial Freedom Through Real Estate Conference. It's gonna be a totally virtual conference and last year we had over 9,000 physicians and high net worth professionals participate in this. We're gonna talk about active investing to passive investing. And the goal of all this is not just real estate investments, it's more about creating that passive income. And there's multiple streams of income so you can choose to live life and your summers however you want. So look out for that. Again, for those who are asking, we're also going to be launching our next class of the Passive Real Estate Academy on the backside of that conference and going to be opportunities if you get in early, to get a discount on that. Again, for those who are not familiar with that, it is a course that will teach you in four weeks to confidently invest in passive real estate investments just so you know you can make good decisions and definitely avoid bad ones when it comes to those types of investments. So anyways, have a great week. 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.