As a physician, managing your finances can be surprisingly easy to do, but more often, finances tend to fall into the ‘important but not urgent category. For most of us, this means it’s something we don’t want to stress over too much, which makes it easy for us to put our heads in the sand and think that it’s going to be okay.
Financial health is key to achieving goals in your wellness, so it’s time to move beyond the self-imposed excuses and create time for your everyday financial responsibilities. Learn how to sit down and look at your income, your expenses, and ways to cut back on things that are not important.
Practice intentionality not just in your clinical practice but also in your finances by spending money based on your values, not blindly.
Join the conversation with Dr. Elisa Chiang as she shares financial literacy and money mindset tools that will help you optimize your financial wellness. Dr. Chiang is an Ophthalmologist and fellowship-trained Oculoplastic surgeon and life coach. As a coach, she primarily works with healthcare professionals to help them master their money mindset so that they can build wealth and practice medicine on their own terms. Dr. Chiang offers one-on-one coaching on overcoming burnout, achieving new goals, personal finances, and overcoming blocks towards investing. She also has a new podcast “The Grow Your Wealthy Mindset Podcast”
Tune in for the rest of the conversation!
During this episode, you will learn about;
[00:00] Introduction to the show
[02:20] A bit about today’s guest, Dr. Elisa Chiang
[03:03] Dr. Chiang’s journey through medical training
[04:34] How real estate investment has played out in Dr. Chiang’s career
[08:55] The knowledge and financial gaps in young attendances coming out of residency
[15:55] How Dr. Chiang found coaching and how it got her out of burnout
[17:50] Leaving versus finding your ideal way to practice medicine
[20:20] Changing your mindset to stay efficient and connect with patients
[21:45] Pursuing financial wellness and how it pairs with dealing with burnout and self-care
[23:27] Dr. Chiang’s advice on why a financial advisor might be unnecessary
[27:31] Practical tips on how to grow in your financial knowledge
[29:39] How to reach out and learn more about Dr. Chiang
[30:06] Ending the show and call to action
Notable Quotes
- If you’re trying to get financial freedom without enjoying the right now, that is not true security.
- There are things that are urgent and things that are important, but most of us spend time on things that are urgent but not important, and we ignore things that are important but not urgent.
- No one cares about your money more than you do
- Invest in your own financial education
Do you want to get home sooner from the clinic or hospital? With all your notes and charting done, too? Get your FREE PDF guide with 10 tips to maximize your clinical efficiency! https://mededwell.com/efficiencyguide/
Connect with Us
Dr. Ryan Stegink
Website: https://www.medededwell.com
Get Coaching with Dr. Stegink: https://mededwell.com/coaching
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mededwell
Instagram: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mededwell
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mededwell1
YouTube: https://youtube.com/channel/UC_6svH-LEDhLjqD7bKa2TSQ
Dr. Elisa Chiang
Website: https://www.GrowYourWealthyMindset.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/GrowYourWealthyMindset
Facebook Group Women Physicians Creating Wealth: https://www.facebook.com/groups/862065417721814
The Grow Your Wealthy Mindset Podcast” https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-grow-your-wealthy-mindset-podcast/id1625701090
*Elisa Chiang would like to amend her statement, Warren Buffet actually recommends investing in an S&P low cost index fund, not a total US market Index fund.
Above are the episode show notes and below is the transcript. Some episode transcripts have been edited more than others, but they are up in the meantime to help those who would rather read and for searchability on the web. Extensive editing has not been prioritized as I seek to both produce regular content and maintain my own wellness. See the website disclaimer if you have questions, since this is all for your education and entertainment only. Enjoy!
Transcript
Dr. Ryan Stegink (00:00):
Have you felt exhausted in medicine? Like your practice is more like a treadmill than truly a calling. Is the charting weighing you down, working well past your last patient of the day, charting at home in the evenings and on weekends, the notes, paperwork, lab results, quality metrics, all the things, right. What if I told you there were some ways to make a change, to get more efficient so you can finish work at work and have the margin to intentionally choose thoughts and actions consistent with your values and priorities. You can get my free guide with 10 tips for getting work done at work more efficiently. Get yours today at mededwell.com/efficiency. After that, if you know, you want to take a deeper dive into your thoughts and clinical practice, check out MedEdWell coaching with Dr. Stegink, fight burnout and moral injury. Find fulfillment and create margin by examining your thoughts and actions to take that next step forward from where you are to where you want to be aligning your actions with your priorities.
Dr. Ryan Stegink (01:21):
To find out more into book a consult head over to mededwell.com/coaching. And now for the rest of today’s episode, welcome to the MedEdWell podcast, empowering physicians to get work done at work, and then be able to reflect and choose what is important for both their life and medical practice. I’m your host, Dr. Ryan Stegink general pediatrician and life coach for physicians. Welcome to another episode of the MedEdWell podcast. I’m so excited. You’re here and I’m excited to bring to you a guest, Dr. Elisa Chiang and I’ve been talking about having guests for a long time, and I’m so excited to have another physician here to share her story and how wellness and taking your next step can look different for each of us. So, Dr. Chiang is an ophthalmologist, an oculoplastic surgeon and life coach. She works primarily with healthcare professionals to master their money mindset so they can build wealth and practice medicine on their own terms certified through the life coach school. Dr. Chiang now offers one-on-one coaching on overcoming burnout, achieving new goals, personal finances, and overcoming the mind blocks towards investing. Welcome to the show! Thanks for being here. Go ahead and share if I missed anything from your bio and share a little bit about your journey through medical training.
Dr. Elisa Chiang (03:02):
Yeah, no, I pretty much captures it. So I did a MD PhD medical science training program at case Western reserve. And that’s where I really started first delving into personal finance because Cleveland where cases is a pretty low cost of living city. A lot of us MSTP students actually purchased homes to live in during our training period. And so that was the process that first got me kind of learning about personal finance, just actually shopping for a mortgage and understanding what, you know, a arm was and what LIBOR was. And you know, all these terms that are found in finances. And that just motivated me to learn more about personal finance. And then of course start learning about investing as well.
Dr. Ryan Stegink (03:47):
That’s really cool. And especially being part of the MSTP program, I’m sure that the extended training helped you in figuring out it’s like, Hey, I’m gonna be here for long enough to make this worthwhile. And you really had a leg up and learning about that earlier. I didn’t learn about some of those things until much more recently.
Dr. Elisa Chiang (04:07):
Yeah. One of the other MSTP students, he bought a house and he was single. So he actually rented the other rooms to other medical students. And I think, you know, I don’t really know how his finances worked, but my guess is that he probably would run free that way.
Dr. Ryan Stegink (04:21):
That’s impressive. So as you progressed medical school through residency, how did wellness your interest in personal finance and real estate? How did those all kind of play together in your career?
Dr. Elisa Chiang (04:34):
Yeah, so in retrospect, when I was in grad school was actually the first time I experienced burnout and it was really that my PI, the principal investigator was he had micromanaging tendencies to say the least, and that was something I, I really resisted. And so I actually started getting involved in real estate investing after reading rich dad, poor dad as a grad student, I finished my PhD kind of off cycle. So, you know, typically you start your third year of medicine, medical school in July. And I finished my PhD around October, November. So if I were to go back to third year at that point, I could’ve, but I would’ve lost like a lot of elective time. And so I actually opted to just take a, a leave of absence. And during that time really got involved in real estate investing and ended up flipping two houses, as well as kind of doing some other partnerships and deals, you know, kind of working as a property manager and, you know, really learned a lot about investing that way as well.
Dr. Ryan Stegink (05:32):
That’s impressive. And just using that time, which I’m sure it’s probably hard to figure out exactly when you’re gonna be able to defend your PhD and complete that part of your training, but then to be able to say, Hey, this is a unique opportunity based on the skills and experiences you already had, especially cuz burnout and just the exhaustion and lack of control. I think it could be, seems like it was for you an opportunity to really explore that those other interests.
Dr. Elisa Chiang (06:06):
Yeah, no, I think it was a great opportunity explore and no, I got married fairly young and my husband, you know, he’s a high school teacher, so he does make reasonable money, but you know, nothing near what a physician makes, but at that time it really allowed me to, to build, to take that time off. Cause I didn’t have to worry about income. It was funny because I did kind of look at, you know, some part-time jobs and trying to figure out like what I could do. And here I was having a PhD and not really all that employable
Dr. Ryan Stegink (06:36):
So yeah. Unique challenges, but it sounds like your life circumstances and just figuring out what you wanted for that next step forward. Sounds like it, it was a good fit in the end.
Dr. Elisa Chiang (06:48):
Yeah, it was. And since we were really used to just living off my husband’s income and still saving, and my parents actually, you know, instructed me to contribute to a Roth IRA the year I graduated from college. So I spent a year kind of working, doing research while I was applying for med school. And so I contribute to the Roth IRA that year and was actually able to contribute to both my husband and I contribute to our Roth IRAs throughout my MD PhD years. And that also really helped build wealth because, you know, with compound interest, being able to put money away at a, a younger age really allows that compound interest to work over time.
Dr. Ryan Stegink (07:28):
That’s impressive in my own journey, some of these things are incremental knowledge gains, but having both the knowledge and then taking action on that and having the cash flow to do so. Yeah. You’re really able to take advantage.
Dr. Elisa Chiang (07:42):
Yeah. And during residency, you know, I really spent a lot of time trying to convince my co-residents to put whatever money they could into the Roth IRA because you know, that was the time where they were actually gonna be in a low tax bracket. And you know, once you’re attending, yes, you can do the backdoor Roth IRA, but it’s not as advantageous as you know, when you’re a resident and you’re still in a fairly low tax bracket, you know, it feels like as a resident we’re not paid well and certainly we’re not paid well for the amount of work we do in for our education level. But when you think about it, the average American family of four is, you know, their income’s actually around $55,000 at the time I was in residency, which is, you know, fairly close to what I was paid for as a resident. Now I did my residency in Chicago, which is a very high cost of living city. So certainly money doesn’t go a long ways there. But you know, there were definitely families in Chicago where probably the whole family did make 55,000 and they found ways to make ends meet.
Dr. Ryan Stegink (08:36):
Yeah, I did my medical school in Chicago area, so yeah, it’s unique challenges there, but definitely some opportunities. What do you see for young attendings coming out of residency as some of the gaps in terms of knowledge, in terms of financial wellness?
Dr. Elisa Chiang (08:54):
Yeah, I think part of it is that we spend so long in delayed gratification and we’ve worked really hard during our training. And so once we come on attendings, we feel like we deserve to spend that money that, you know, we’ve earned. And I’m not saying that we don’t, but usually the difference between what you’re making as a resident or fellow to what you’re making attending is like a very significant difference. And so you can, you know, start spending a little bit more and enjoying, you know, life a little bit more without necessarily growing into your entire attending income. Cause like one of the things about us having such a long training period is that we don’t have as much time where our, where we are investing in putting money into retirement and saving for things like, you know, our children’s colleges, which, you know, colleges just become atrociously expensive, such that we do need to, you know, be mindful about our physician income and, you know, physician income also varies like significantly.
Dr. Ryan Stegink (09:50):
Yeah. And I’ve heard it said that the jump from being a resident or fellow to an attending is the largest single jump in income that you’re ever gonna get in terms of sure. There’s maybe moving to a high cost of living area versus the low cost or some of that geographic arbitrage where certain areas may pay more, but yeah, figuring out how to intentionally step into that attending salary. Sure. You can grow that sum, but maintaining some of that margin is really important for me. I burned out outpatient pediatrics eight months out and cut to eventually 0.8, five, and it’s been a lot more sustainable for me personally, but having the financial margin to do so that I hadn’t already purchased my forever home. Not that that’s really a thing I think, but it just gave options. So I think what you’re saying is really helpful.
Dr. Elisa Chiang (10:53):
Yeah. And one thing is that at least in ophthalmology, the chances of you staying in your first job are, is only like 50%. So I think the retention rate of is that you leave your first job within three year over 50% of ophthalmologists leave their first job within three years. And if you think of it that way, you really don’t wanna be buying a house, right. When you, you know, move to your first job because you really don’t know, you know, if you’re going to actually stay there for the long run and we really don’t have experience in what we really want out of a job. We’re so just used to being told what to do in residency and fellowship and just doing it. And I think, you know, we can learn a lot more about contract negotiation and understanding, you know, just what we want, you know, do is describe important to you. You know, how much pay time off is important to you, you know, do you really wanna be working five days a week in clinic and, and surgery or, you know, would you’d be much better off working four days a week? And I think these are all things that we really don’t learn until we’re actually doing the job. And yeah, I, I think it’s all this kind of ties into the fact that most people don’t end up staying that first job.
Dr. Ryan Stegink (12:05):
I didn’t know that 50, more than 50%. I knew there was a lot of turnover the first couple years out for physicians across the board. But yeah, that’s really sobering to think about, yeah, as you go into ophthalmology that there’s a better than half 50, 50 chance that I’m gonna change jobs. So yeah, that makes sense. Why you’d think about that. And I think it’s really hard in training sometimes if you’re at a big academic center that you work with, a lot of people who are at that big academic center and you don’t necessarily get that perspective of, Hey, what does private practice look like in this specialty? Is that really a thing or more and more of them getting bought up or who’s done locums. I never ran into somebody who was doing locums in my pediatrics residency. So yeah, just those perspectives and what to look for. You don’t know what you don’t know.
Dr. Elisa Chiang (13:01):
Yeah. That’s so true. And the thing is about buying a house is that it’s really easy to get yourself into a house it’s much harder to actually sell right there. You’ve got physician loans where you have like low or no money down to get in. You don’t have to pay your realtor at all. You know, you may have some closing cost to pay, but there’s not a lot that you have to put in to get into the house. But if you end up selling in, you know, less than three years and you didn’t have like crazy appreciation, which, you know, recently may be happening, but you can’t count on that. Then when you sell the house, you, you know, have to pay the realtor fee for your realtor as, as well as the buyer’s fees. You have the closing cost. And if you had like little or no equity, cuz you didn’t really put down a down payment, you very likely have to bring money to the closing table, which you may not have.
Dr. Ryan Stegink (13:47):
Yeah, no that’s helpful perspective. We’re actually closing next month on our first home and yeah, some of these costs and different things to that are part of the process have been kind of eye opening. We actually talked to my brother-in-law and they said the biggest thing for them was underestimating the amount of space they would need as they’ve had children. And so just the needs and things you’re wanting in a home in different seasons may change. And so yeah, the less than three years, and it may make sense in many situations to rent, but it’s being educated and running some of those numbers.
Dr. Elisa Chiang (14:28):
Yeah. And the other thing is that if you actually find yourself in a position where you really just, you know, decide that you can’t stay at your current job or, or you may even meet, let go, you know, with the COVID pandemic, we found that, you know, physician jobs are not as secure as we once thought they, they were, but it can take quite some time in order to get a new job. If you’ve got a non-compete, you may have to leave the area or you may be facing quite a commute. And if you’re going to a different state, then you have got to get a new license and then the credentialing involved. So it’s not easy to just, you know, hop over to a new job if something happens to your current position.
Dr. Ryan Stegink (15:04):
Yeah. I think that’s really helpful. Just the things I didn’t know about credentialing, how long that really takes in residency, you start here, this is your start date, July 1st or a week before. And it all happens. There was probably some behind the scenes making sure the licensing board got all your stuff together, but yeah, whether it’s burnout or the risk of it not being a good fit or the pandemic and people being furloughed or let go. Yeah. It’s definitely things to consider as you look at finances. So for you, how did real estate finance wellness, tell me about how that all came together for you when you found coaching.
Dr. Elisa Chiang (15:55):
Yeah. So coaching was really what got me outta burnout. So my first reaction to burnout when I was a grad student was, you know, was trying to learn more about investing and, you know, getting to a point where I felt like I wouldn’t have to work for somebody else. And even looking at establishing a plan for financial freedom. So I kind of looked at like, okay, this is how much doctors make, how much would I need to invest? And at what lifestyle would I, you know, try to live at so that I can still enjoy life. But once as soon as I could be financially independent and I mapped out that really, you know, after 10 or 15 years of working as attending, that it should be fairly doable to get there. And I certainly was on that trajectory, but the second time I got burned out was when I was working for a big hospital system and it wasn’t even the hours worked.
Dr. Elisa Chiang (16:41):
It was really just the lack of autonomy, the lack of voice, the, you know, kind of being told what to do that was unreasonable. And so at that point I kind of started thinking, okay, 10, 15, I can’t do another 10, 15 years of this. Like, you know, what’s the fastest way I, I can get to financial independence. And, and so I was really looking at real estate to do that again because, you know, honestly with real estate, it is possible to do it in, you know, less than five years. In fact, there’s one physician who basically, you know, really dove into it and did it in one year. So that’s what I started thinking about. But luckily at that point I also found coaching and, and the coaching really is what got me out of burnout and really made me realize that, okay, I could work for financial independence, but you know, if I’m always just trying to get to somewhere else and not enjoying life now, then that doesn’t really give true security.
Dr. Elisa Chiang (17:32):
Right. Cause even if you get to like a certain number of, or automatically you have enough to live on for your basic living expenses, like, you know, if you embark a beer market right at the beginning of your financial independence journey, you know, potentially you are not really as, as secure in that financial independence. And you know, it’s hard if you stop practicing as a, a physician, you know, after probably one year as a surgeon and, you know, two years as a non-surgeons, you really just can’t like come back to medicine, right? Like you would have to kind of do some additional training and it’s, it’s not easy. So it is something that you really, really wanna think about before leaving the practice of medicine. And then you also wanna think about like, well, why’d you start the practice of medicine at first? Like what was the driving factor?
Dr. Elisa Chiang (18:18):
And can you still find a way to do that in a, in a way that, you know, you are happy practicing and maybe that, you know, is not practicing full time, maybe it’s practicing part-time or maybe it’s, you know, giving up certain parts of, you know, what you do in the job. You know, if you’re OB GYN, maybe it’s just doing GYN and not the OB, because, you know, you just don’t wanna be up at night doing deliveries, or maybe it’s going to some place where there is a, you know, hospitalist, OB who does the night deliveries, you know, how does the ideal way to practice medicine, look for you and really trying to pursue that instead of really just focusing on trying to get to financial freedom and, you know, leaving medicine
Dr. Ryan Stegink (19:01):
That’s really helpful. We appreciate those insights. And I think it’s really easy being in the midst of burnout to just be kind of stuck in some of those hard thoughts of, I don’t have any control. And even to the point of thinking, I don’t have tons of options and to be able to see that no, there are other options, whether it’s giving up the deliveries as an OB-GYN, or cutting a session as a pediatrician, or yeah, it could look different and coming back to those values and why you got into medicine in the first place, and maybe your motivation and your priorities have changed about what you like in your practice, but taking the time to slow down and do that is really hard when, as a resident, sure. I worked long hours, but I had protected time to go to lunch conference with my colleagues. And there was just a different cadence as opposed to every 15 minutes you’re coming to a new room. And yeah. So taking that time to pause and reflect on what you’re thinking and what you want, I think are really helpful thoughts.
Dr. Elisa Chiang (20:20):
Right. And even thinking that like, oh, every 15 minutes I’m in with a new patient, but you know, often a lot of us are driven by that, you know, doctor, patient relationship. And so how can you still have that feeling of that doctor, patient relationship, even when, you know, you only have 15 minutes, well, how long does it take to actually make a human connection? It is possible to have that even in one or two minutes, and that can make the difference between the, those encounters, right? If you just spend the actual one or two minutes to have a human connection, instead of having it all be about, you know, the medical treatment and diagnosis and getting to the next patient.
Dr. Ryan Stegink (20:55):
Yeah. No, I think that changing, that thought that mindset of, okay, I can connect and I’m gonna be fully present while I’m here. And maybe there are some other tools whether it’s getting your template set up or a preference list so that you can stay efficient, but maintain why you actually wanted to be in medicine, maybe that’s to connect with patients. That’s certainly something that’s important for me. And yeah, it’s just a matter of continuing to remind myself of that. So going from there, where do you think that people find the biggest challenges in terms of pursuing financial wellness and how that pairs with how they’re dealing with burnout or just dealing with their personal self care?
Dr. Elisa Chiang (21:45):
So I think for a lot of people it’s actually spending the time on it, cuz we’re all busy and, you know, there are things that are urgent and things that are important. And a lot of times we spend time on things that are urgent but not important. And they’re just calling our attention and we ignore the things that are important, but not urgent and managing your money tends to be in that important, but not urgent category. So it’s easy to kind of just be Anusha and put your head in the sand and think it’s gonna be okay. But if you really just can spend a little time in managing your finances so that you can have a healthy, you know, financial situation, I think having that financial stability also makes it so that you’re not so tied to that paycheck as well. And if you really know where you’re at, then you also know if you can actually just cut back on hours and maybe that just is what you really need to do.
Dr. Elisa Chiang (22:34):
So I think it’s important to kind of sit down and really look at, you know, what’s your income, what’s your expenses. And you know, maybe with your expenses, like, are there ways to cut back that you wouldn’t even notice, you know, are you spending money based on your values or are you just kind of blindly spending money? I think internet orders and Amazon seems to be a big culprit. Like you can spend a lot of money just, you know, putting stuff in your Amazon card that looks good at the time, but you don’t necessarily really need or want and later on you’re it’s just kind of stuff that you have now.
Dr. Ryan Stegink (23:05):
Yeah. No, I think that’s really helpful to think about what intentionality looks like in your clinical practice and your life, but also yeah. In finances, what would you say to someone who’s says, yeah, finances are important, but should I be doing this myself or should I have a financial advisor do it for me or help me with this?
Dr. Elisa Chiang (23:27):
So in my personal opinion is that, you know, as physicians, we’re all smart enough to actually manage our own money and no one’s cares about your money more than you do. So not to say that there aren’t good financial advisors out there. And if you really do want a financial plan, what I would recommend is finding someone who’s truly fiduciary someone, who’s just gonna charge you a flat fee to give you a financial plan. And they’re not gonna sell you a bunch of financial products, but unfortunately that’s really less than 10% of financial advisors in the United States. Most financial advisors are really insurance salesmen, to be honest. So, you know, and some of these insurances you need, you should definitely have own occupation, disability insurance, and, you know, depending on your situation, you should probably have some term life insurance. If you know, someone depends on your income.
Dr. Elisa Chiang (24:12):
If your spouse depends on your income or you have, you know, young children, but often you’ll start getting sold different financial products like permanent life insurance or universal life insurance. And these are just things that really have a high commission. There are a few circumstances where they may be beneficial, but for most of us, it’s really not something that we need and it gets sold to us because the financial advisor gets the largest commission from it. And they kind of talk you into it by, you know, you know, they may say something about like how you can save, you know, taxes off of doing it this way or they make it sound complicated. They make all finances sound complicated. So it sounds like, you know, you need them where in actuality, all the math that you need is really fairly basic math. You know, there are some financial calculators in order to do calculations like compound interest over time and how much a, you know, your investments will be worth with the compound interest, but you don’t need to do that.
Dr. Elisa Chiang (25:09):
Math. You’re just gonna use like a specialized calculator or a equation through Excel to make those kind of calculations. And you can find those, you know, on the web everywhere. You know, I also have like a financial independence workbook that you can download off my website and includes an Excel sheet that, you know, has everything that you can put the numbers in and get the results out that way. But you don’t really need anything complicated in terms of, you know, investing like index funds are gonna do better than anyone picking funds. Like even when you look at the greats like Warren buffet and Peter Lynch, they did really well when they had smaller amounts of money to invest, but as they got more and more money because they were doing well, the best they could actually do was just match the total stock market. And so Warren buffet is, you know, very famous for saying like, yeah, just invest in a total us stock market index fund.
Dr. Ryan Stegink (26:01):
Yeah. No, that’s really helpful advice and just figuring out, okay, we’ve been through medical school, we’ve learned new things, hard things, but really it’s about knowing how do you match the market and figure out your risk tolerance and what you think things will be doing. And it, but it doesn’t have to be super complicated. I got a good disability insurance policy, but then in following up with them, yeah. They tried to sell me permanent life insurance. And I said, no, because it’s like, I had learned at least enough at that point to know that, okay, this is not what I’m needing and it’s not for most physicians. So yeah. And if you need that, there are, yeah, like you said, those fiduciary flat fee hourly make a plan, maybe check in every couple years as a way to hopefully help keep educating you in the process that in addition to what you’re learning yourself. So from there, what are some other ways that you think positions, especially coming out of training what’s maybe if you boiled it down to your top tip for what they should be doing to set them on the path, to growing in their financial knowledge whether that’s pursuing financial independence or just giving them more options.
Dr. Elisa Chiang (27:31):
I think, you know, it always always begin just with investing yourself. So, you know, investing your own financial education, you know, the white code investors is a great resource. There’s, you know, certainly a lot of podcasts including this one where, you know, you can learn a lot of, you know, information about how to just, you know, manage your finances. Also just, you know, notice what, when you’re in a scarcity mindset, because, you know, in the end it is all about mindset. So for example, like, you know, when the market’s going down, you don’t wanna sell, you know, the market is gonna fluctuate. It’s gonna go up. Sometimes it’s gonna sell go down sometimes. And when it’s going down, you just think about stocks being on sale. And it’s actually a good time to buy, you know, when the stock market’s down, right. Because when it keeps going up, it’s just higher and higher price and you’re not buying it on sale.
Dr. Elisa Chiang (28:19):
So you gotta, you know, keep the course and it doesn’t have to be complicated. I mean, if you wanna learn more and learn a lot of, you know, what like a PE ratio is, and you know, all these different things and picking individual stocks or, you know, playing with options. I mean, if that’s fun for you, that’s something you do, but it’s certainly not necessary. You know, if you do wanna diversify into real estate, I mean, there are different ways to do that. There are ways that are more passive and more, you know, hands off, but again, investing in your education and knowledge so that you know how to get into those investments and what are the best ones to choose. But then once you choose those, then you know, you can be hands off investing in real estate through likes syndications, or if you do really wanna be hands on, then kind of know yourself and know that like, that is something that you’re interested in. And again, investing your education on that. There’s a lot of great books and different courses out there, or, and also just look for a mentor or guide someone who can really help you through all that.
Dr. Ryan Stegink (29:16):
Thanks so much. Those are really helpful things that I’ll have to go back through myself as I wanna just keep learning and that growth mindset. So having that abundance, but also wanting to grow and, and learn. And so I’s super helpful if someone’s wanting to learn more about what you do, connect with you, your Facebook group, or to work with you, where would they find you?
Dr. Elisa Chiang (29:39):
Yeah. So the best place to find me is my website growyourwealthymindset.com. Like I mentioned earlier, I do have that financial independence workbook that you can work through that comes with an Excel sheet, has, that’s like a, a calculator for calculating, like, you know, how much you need invested in order to retire at whatever given time. And there’s different variables. You can adjust for that. I’m on Facebook and Instagram and all those link s are, you know, right off my website as well.
Dr. Ryan Stegink (30:05):
Perfect. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate it. I wanna encourage my listeners to, to share this episode with another physician medical student, someone else that could really benefit from taking that next step in their personal professional and financial wellness. Again, thanks for all you do and have a great day. And now for our important disclaimer, Dr. Ryan Stegink is a practicing general pediatrician, but the MedEdWell podcast does not reflect the view opinions or belief of his employer nor his affiliated university. Additionally, the MedEdWell podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only, and should not be considered advice regarding financial legal student loan, medical, or any other specific topic. In such a case you should see consultation with certified professional in that particular area. Again, thanks for joining us on the MedEdWell podcast and have a great day.