Where Do You Put Your Faith and Trust?

They have something to sell, and they look for opportunities to sell it. Hopefully it is a product that they believe in with integrity. In any case, it is what they've learned to demonstrate and educate others on – how their product works and the benefit of investing in it. They’ll give you a litany of reasons why you need to buy.

To borrow from the old adage… when you are a financial hammer, every investor looks like a nail. 

A Time to Invest and a Time to Wait

The issue with people who only talk their own book is that’s all they have. Their one product must work for everyone at all times. They must construct all premises with their product being the solution. All roads lead to their product.

If you are a particular kind of doctor and you believe in a specific philosophy, that's what you're going to “sell” or advocate. One doctor may have a specific philosophy of patient treatment, while another doctor may have another. Neither one is necessarily right or wrong. There are just different perspectives.

But as the patient/prospective buyer/investor, how do you know which one to choose from in any given situation? How do you know when someone is selling you something that actually fits you and your circumstances?

You wouldn’t know… Unless you have the education for it (a degree or certification is not necessary, but your or others’ learned experience is critical). 

Learning How to Invest is Just as Important as Making Money

If you are a high-income professional or business owner, it's very difficult to find time to understand how finance and money work.

You know how to make money, but knowing how to make your money work for you takes a different set of skills and is as necessary, if not more, than making money.

Most professionals and business owners fail here because they lack the time. You have the ability, but you lack the time, resources, or support from your peers.

Society tells you plainly not to learn investment skills. “Just put your money in financial products and tax defer it. Give it to a broker, brokerage, or advisor, and let them handle it.”

This is the default. The default best serves Wall Street and the employees who sell products on Wall Street. Wall Street advocates make money whether the market is going up or down.

You, on the other hand, have to hang on for dear life. It’s thrilling when the market roller coaster is going up, but when it takes a big dip down, it's not much fun.

I began studying many years ago how to be a better steward of my money before I became a dentist. I studied books on investing in the stock market, mutual funds, and other Wall Street investments. I also read books on real estate and tangible assets.

Tangible assets like real estate were the most attractive investments to me because of the direct control of their success. That's why we go into business (another tangible asset) in the first place. We want our hands directly tied to success. We want to be able to control our own destiny and benefit from the superior effort, skill and sacrifice we are willing to put forth. We want to be a part of the equity, but doing so takes work.

Those of us in business instinctively understand this opportunity. However, few extend the same philosophy to stewarding the proceeds of our success. 

Why in the world do hardworking professionals who run successful businesses give their money, literally hand it over, to others to put in products they don’t understand? Perhaps because they’ve been taught to do just that. To believe that’s what you’re supposed to do. After all, this is what society conditions us for from the earliest ages. It is a success narrative that is taught in school, as well as by well meaning parents, mentors and peers.

What other pathways exist? What are the alternatives? 

Getting Off the Hamster Wheel

I’ve come alongside hundreds of hardworking doctors and their spouses for over 14 years. These doctors have provided very well for their families over many years. They've put their kids through school, lived in great neighborhoods, and accumulated all kinds of societal accolades. But as they near the end of their careers, they have very little to show for it.

They reach the latter half of their career only to wonder “where did all the money go?” 

This leads to financial uncertainty and a gnawing sense that they are missing some key pieces to the puzzle of their future. 

Most doctors cannot get off the hamster wheel because they don't have a suitable model or the proper blueprint/viable plan. They have abdicated their responsibility to financial products sold by someone “talking their book.”

Randomized investments (spaghetti on the wall) are very common for doctors and high-income professionals. We just finished a blueprint weekend with some of our newest members, where we examined all of their current investments and assets. Typically, they are all over the place.

They've had different advisors over the years, and they just plug and play like whack-a-mole. There's no coordination. No plan. No progress towards something that would actually replace their active income at a defined point in the future.

Without assets that produce cash flow to replace your income, you will always have to produce more yourself. For most, the scariest, most anxiety-inducing moment is leaving active income and doubting whether you have enough.

That's the question we help answer in Freedom Founders. The financial world can never provide an exact timeline or finish line, let alone mile markers to having enough because all their calculations are based on accumulation, where you can, at best, only predict a likelihood of outcomes.

With cash flow, you can determine with specificity when you have replaced your active income. This allows you to start making decisions based on what matters most to you and not based on fear or worry.

This mindset shift is life changing. It is the key to translating the success you have experienced in your career into more Freedom of time and the ability to live life on your terms. 

It is the pathway off the hamster wheel. 

As Warren Buffett famously said… 

“If you don't find a way to make money while you sleep, 
you will work until you die.”

If you want to figure out your blueprint with clarity and specificity and have productive conversations with your spouse like we do in Freedom Founders, I invite you to schedule a call with my team.

I love what I do and the people I get to work with. You may or may not be a fit, but the only way to find out is to take a chance on yourself and explore an alternative path.

Freedom belongs to the brave and the bold. 🙂