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Dike
Dike Drummond MD
www.TheHappyMD.com
[Transcript]
Physicians Unchained: Retirement Mastery for Doctors – Weekly Tip
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My new book Physicians Unchained: Retirement Mastery for Doctors launching in ApriL The NEW ROADMAP to Stick the Landing on this Life of Purpose
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Retirement and Money Part One:
Know your number - it's better than you think- and probably not even the right number.
Hello, Dr Dike Drummond, MD, here with the latest tip from my new book, Physicians Unchained Retirement Mastery for Doctors. This is actually episode number 12, and if you're on the early bird list, there's a place here to sign up. You'll be getting weekly lessons until we launch in April.
The "M" Word
Today, let's talk about the elephant in the room when you talk about retirement, you got to talk about the M word — money. So let's talk about money. This is part one of a three part series about different layers of the money conundrum when it comes to retirement.
Financial Freedom
Now, it is a reasonable expectation, if you're in your 50s and 60s, and especially if you're a doctor in America that you will achieve a state that's known as financial freedom. You've got enough money to live for your natural life and pay for your current lifestyle comfortably — financial freedom.
The Net Worth Question
And here's an interesting pattern I've noticed with mid career and later career doctors and money — really quick in a discovery session. If they're talking about maybe hiring me as a coach, I'm going to ask this question: what is your net worth? And it is simply amazing to me how many times the doctor will say, what's that? Or, I don't know.
And when I plumb down into why they don't know their net worth number, normally it's because they're afraid. They're afraid that if they actually calculate their net worth, it's going to be tiny, and they're going to feel like they're still behind the eight ball, trying and trying and trying to accumulate some wealth.
The Relief
Well, interestingly enough, in my experience, if I can convince this person to get a fee only financial planner and have them calculate their true net worth, eight times out of 10 the person is surprised at how good it is, and they immediately begin to sleep better at night. It's kind of crazy.
Build Your Team
At any point in time in your career, it's important to know your net worth, know your trajectory to a point where you might be financially free. So one of the things most doctors have to do is build a trusted advisor team — financial advisor, accountant, tax person, investment folks — and the way you find the best ones is to ask for recommendations from friends that you trust, other doctors that you trust.
So get your number calculated so you can relax, because 80% chance it's better than you think, especially again, if you're in your 50s and 60s.
Cash Flow Is the Real Number
Now here's the interesting point. In retirement, your net worth is probably not the most important number, because there's another number that trumps net worth when it comes to the day to day living of your life after medicine — that's cash flow. Your net worth is only as valuable to you as it can be when you convert it into cash every month to pay your bills.
And it is actually possible to be very comfortable in retirement with a very, very small net worth, if you have ongoing permanent cash flow sources that you can count on.
The Example
For instance, Social Security — as long as it continues to be available to us in America. You may have a couple of different pensions. You could have a military retirement, because that can be done in 20 years. You could have worked for Kaiser Permanente too, and have a Kaiser Permanente pension and lifetime health care benefits. So if you stack all three of those up, you probably don't need much of a net worth to be just fine every month in terms of cash flow.
The Take Home
So what's the take home here? Don't fear your net worth. Calculate it, know it. Build your financial team so they can keep you on the trajectory to financial freedom. Because financial freedom is the most important financial goal of a doctor's career, and it's also the absolutely most freeing position to be in when you do retire, so that you can be in the obligation free zone of your life after medicine.
Go ahead and build your team. Know your number, set your trajectory for financial freedom, because that's the most powerful position to be in when you decide to enter the retirement transition and create your life after medicine.
That's it for now. Keep being the light worker you are. If you're seeing me on social media, you're not on my early bird list. Somewhere on this page is a place where you can sign up so you can get these weekly updates from the book and be the first person to know when the book is available in April of this year. Keep breathing. I'll see you in the next video.