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Dike
Dike Drummond MD
www.TheHappyMD.com
[Transcript]
Physicians Unchained: Retirement Mastery for Doctors – Weekly Tip
Who This Book Is For — And Why I Wrote It
Hello, Dr Dike Drummond here with this week’s tip for my new book, Physicians Unchained: Retirement Mastery for Doctors.
I want you to know the book is now with the editor. We’re doing a high-level edit to make sure that I put the meat in the front so you can get the tools right up front, and then it reads right to your heart, because this is really heart and spirit work—life after medicine.
I also have a new cover design, and I want to show that to you next week as well.
Who Is This Book For?
So this week, let’s talk about who this book is for—who this book is for—and why did I write it?
Well, first of all, this book is for any doctor at any stage in their career.
And the reason is, it should have been taught in med school and residency all about how to not fuse yourself with Doctor along the way, so that you can actually retire with some elegance and grace.
Just like burnout was never taught in med school or residency. You’re at risk for it because of our medical education, but nobody ever taught you the warning signs.
It’s been 15 years of my career working as a coach and a trainer and consultant to help people recognize and prevent burnout, but that didn’t make it into the curriculum either.
There’s never a bad time to contemplate what you’re going to do with the last 20 years of your life, because as we live longer, the period that you have between the days that you stop seeing patients and the day that you die gets longer and longer.
So let’s talk about it now so you can begin to look forward to it now.
The main financial milestone that enables retirement is financial freedom.
So I’ll just say it right now: every doctor, every day, should know what their net worth is and what their net worth goal is for financial freedom, and where you are on your trajectory toward the point where you would be financially free.
One of the first questions I ask any doctor in a discovery session—no matter what they’re coming to me for—is, “What’s your net worth?”
And if you say, “What’s that?” or “I don’t know,” what happens is you’re probably afraid of the number.
Let me just tell you: go get yourself a fee-only financial planner. Get your net worth calculated, and nine times out of ten, it’s better than you think.
1)n If Retirement Is Far Away
But if you’re on the trajectory toward financial freedom and you’re years and years away, this book is for you.
Because it will show you how to begin to march down your fusion with your doctor identity and make the time that you actually step away from practice much easier than if you try to do it cold turkey.
2) If Retirement Feels Impossible
If you’re close to financial freedom right now, and every time you think about retirement you get knocked out, or pissed off, or something knocks you off balance and you put it off for another six months, or a year, or three years—stop, start, stop, start, stop, start—there’s a reason for that.
And that is a sign of fusion with doctor identity.
If you’re contemplating stopping practice and it feels like the end of something—like running into a brick wall, or you’re all washed up, or being put out to pasture—right now is the time to start addressing that fusion.
So that when you finally achieve your financial freedom threshold, you’re ready to retire and make the most of the last stage of your life.
And by the way, the last stage of your life is not retirement.
That’s another semantic error that we have about this whole concept of what happens after a doctor stops their active practice.
3) You are retired and Not Loving It
If you have retired, you’ve gone ahead and stopped practice, you’re financially free, you have retired, and you’re in your life after medicine—and you wouldn’t rate your quality of life as at least an eight out of ten—then this book can help.
It will show you all the different ways you can build in more satisfaction and fulfillment, adventure, creativity into your experience of your life after medicine.
Because one of our goals is to make sure that at no point in time are you anything less than eight out of ten satisfied with your life after medicine.
4) Even If Things Are Already Great
And if you happen to be retired in your life after medicine and you’re doing great—let’s say you’re ten out of ten in your satisfaction—that’s awesome.
The challenge with this period between the time you stop practicing and your ultimate death is that it’s a moving target.
Things change all the time as our health status changes and as we age.
So I encourage you to read the book so that you can stay nimble on your feet and continue to build your life after medicine to match your current circumstances.
We should have been taught these skills in training
If I had my druthers, I’d have this book on the shelf of every medical school in the country as standard curriculum for becoming a doctor in the first place.
Certainly standard curriculum in any of your specialty societies or county medical societies.
JOIN the Early Bird List
For sure, if you’re seeing me on social media, you’re not on my early bird list.
Somewhere on this page is a link you can sign up with so you can get these weekly updates in your inbox, and also I can alert you when the book is ready for purchase.
By the way, when it goes on sale, it will be on sale at cost—meaning I’m selling it for the cost of me to print and ship it to you.
Basically, it’s free, apart from my cost, because I want to get it into as many hands as humanly possible—especially now, when so many people are hesitating to retire because of the condition of the healthcare industry and their own legitimate survivor guilt.
Closing
Sign up on the early bird list.
I’ll see you in a week.
Until then, keep breathing, keep paying it forward, keep being the light worker that is you.
And I’ll see you in the next video.