YFP's Trusted Partners
Search
Close this search box.
Book a Discovery Call

Author: yfpadmin

YFP 097: Growing a Brand Through Memes, Products, and a Podcast

Posted on by yfpadmin

Growing a Brand Through Memes, Products, and a Podcast

Richard Waithe, PharmD, joins Tim Church on this episode to take a deep dive into discussing his unique career path, his non-traditional pharmacist role and how he’s helping improve patient adherence and health literacy, and some of his side hustles to create multiple streams of income.

About Today’s Guest

Richard Waithe, PharmD, is passionate about patient engagement and advancements in technology that improve adherence and health literacy to ultimately improve outcomes. With years of experience on the front lines in community Pharmacy, Richard is committed to helping individuals better manage their health and medications.

He is currently the President of VUCA Health, a company that has the largest library of medication education videos that serves to enhance patient engagement and provide an on-demand extension of pharmacists and other healthcare providers. He is also the host of the Rx Radio podcast where he interviews Pharmacists practicing in a vast variety of fields and discusses the future of our profession. Richard is the author of the book First Time Pharmacist: Everything you didn’t learn in school or on-the-job training.

Summary

Richard Waithe, PharmD, joins Tim Church in Miami to discuss how to grow your brand with memes, products and a podcast.

Richard graduated from the University of Florida with his PharmD in 2014. He worked at Target pharmacy first as an intern and then a pharmacist. When Target was bought out by CVS, Richard learned the importance of branding and saw first-hand how branding changed behavior through patients reactions to the buy out.

During his P4 year, Richard felt the desire to become an entrepreneur. While on rotations, Richard saw that it was a mess and needed to be better, and knew that he could do more beyond his current role. He began a MTM practice, MedVise. His journey starting and running MedVise taught him a lot as he had to learn about website building, marketing, and branding.

He also created the RxRadio podcast which targets all pharmacists. The podcast discusses themes of exploring different ways pharmacists can have an impact through various careers and paths. His biggest challenge in getting the podcast running was the editing, recording, and building a listenership.

Richard has been able to monetize the podcast through merchandise like mugs, t-shirts and onesies and the book he wrote, First Time Pharmacist: Everything you didn’t learn in school or on-the-job training. Richard built his a social media following around memes that were created out of his experiences in community pharmacy.

Richard took on the position of President at VUCA Health in 2018 which focuses on medication education and providing content to healthcare providers and health plans. When Richard was a P3 student, he volunteered for VUCA Health when the company was a start-up.

Getting to this point with his brand was not easy. For two years, Richard dedicated time everyday from 10 pm to 2 am, while working as a community pharmacist full-time, to work on what he was passionate about.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Church: Richard, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show and for being part of this side hustle edition.

Richard Waithe: Thanks for having me, I’m excited to be here.

Tim Church: Well, I’m excited to be here because I’m hanging out with you in Miami in your house, where we’re recording this episode, which is pretty cool.

Richard Waithe: Yeah, yeah. The weather, luckily, played out to be a really nice day.

Tim Church: Yeah. I didn’t know for the longest time that we were actually neighbors, you know, which I call us south Florida neighbors because it’s really not that far down the road, which is cool.

Richard Waithe: Yeah, there’s not a lot of pharmacists kind of building a lot of brand down here and kind of vocally. Most of the time, I’m connecting with people that are doing similar things to us, they’re like living out in Pittsburgh, California, and all these different states.

Tim Church: Shout out to your friend Adam Martin.

Richard Waithe: Yeah, Adam Martin, there you go. And it’s cool to know that someone’s kind of in the backyard that we can kind of chop it up with.

Tim Church: Yeah, it’s great. Well, I want to jump in and kind of learn, have our audience learn more about you and your career path. But one of the things that has been, keeps popping on my social media is all these amazing memes that you create. So talk a little bit about what you’re doing with those and how — what I want to know is how do you have so much time to get these going?

Richard Waithe: Yeah. So it’s funny about memes, and you’re actually the first person to kind of bring this up I guess really vocally, which I’m really excited about. And the reason is because I’ve been able to build a pretty solid community on social media purely off the back of those memes. And the inspiration from them, I think they’re — I mean, not to boast, but the memes are hilarious.

Tim Church: They are.

Richard Waithe: And I’m cracking up. And I make a lot of them. Like, if it says RxRadio on the meme, I made it. But it’s from pure pain. Like it’s from pure struggle of being in the community pharmacy and that like even to this day, I still kind of remember back about like the different interactions. But the great thing about it, though, beyond the fact that it was great I was able to build kind of a community around it, is that it lets us connect a lot. And it lets, like when people are seeing it, they’re seeing that other people across the country are kind of going through the same thing that they are. And then it also allows, it also drives team morale within the pharmacy. Like I have people that are tagging their team members in the pharmacy in these memes. And it’s great to know that they’re able to help get them through their day. People are messaging me saying, “Hey, this is just happened to us in the pharmacy. It would be a really funny meme.” It’s just great to kind of build that sort — I don’t want to say if it’s a coping mechanism but just build that community to help everyone get through their days usually.

Tim Church: So one of the characters that commonly comes up in these memes is Samuel L. Jackson.

Richard Waithe: Yeah.

Tim Church: So my question for you is is that somebody you just like? Or you just feel like he’s pretty easy to put in many different memes?

Richard Waithe: He’s like meme gold, so I just kind of use him for that. I don’t have any particular reason other than that.

Tim Church: Oh, OK. Other than that. I noticed that that was a pretty popular one, along with Bird Box.

Richard Waithe: Yeah, the Bird Box meme killed it. Which, you know, it’s funny because luckily, everything that pops up that’s a meme could be applied to pharmacy, which is great. And so it’s great to kind of keep up with culture that way. But Sandra’s another one that like — I feel bad. So I always reference like Sandra picturing being like a customer that’s just kind of always annoying at the pharmacy, and I feel bad because I have people that are following that their names are Sandra. And they’re like, “Hey, my name’s Sandra. You’re always mad at me,” and stuff. It’s just super funny. But yeah.

Tim Church: So talk a little bit about your career path as a pharmacist.

Richard Waithe: Sure. So I went to University of Florida. I was at the Orlando campus for pharmacy school. And I was pretty involved there on campus. I was in a lot of leadership roles and got my career started actually with Target Pharmacy. I started as an intern in school, and I did that for a couple years when I graduated, went right into a pharmacy position. Did that for a couple years, and we ended up actually getting bought out by CVS. I was there during the time of that transition, which was super interesting. One of the biggest lessons I really learned in that transition, not only just from an operations standpoint and transitioning kind of cultures, but I learned the importance of brand from there because I literally had patients tell me that they’re super sorry, but they’re actually not going to be able to come back to the pharmacy anymore because of that brand that was changing over.

Tim Church: Wow.

Richard Waithe: And I thought that was really powerful because it had nothing to do with the product, which the product essentially was the medications and the service that my team provided to the patients, which was great at the time. It was the branding that really triggered something in their mind for them to change their behavior, and that was such a huge lesson to me in realizing that brand is everything, no matter how good your product is or not — I mean, don’t get me wrong. If you have excellent branding and marketing, but your product is terrible, like obviously, that might show at some point. But just the fact that the importance of branding was a huge lesson there. So after I did that transition for awhile, I went over to Publix Pharmacy, which I was there for a couple years. Also made it to a manager position there as well. And recently, last summer, actually, I fell into a role where I’m now the president of VUCA Health, and we provide medication education content to healthcare providers, health systems, health plans and things like that. Along the way, I’ve picked up a couple side hustles that we might dive into.

Tim Church: Yeah, before you jump into those, can you talk a little bit more about VUCA Health? Because I think this role that you have as a pharmacist is really unique and a really cool and exciting role.

Richard Waithe: Yeah, so we — so the funny thing is a lot of people ask me, how did you get this role? Did you apply? I get all these questions. But the interesting thing is that I actually — the role that I’m in now, while it being six years later almost, was the flower that grew from a seed I had planted when I was a P3, where I had met the founders of the company while they were just a startup, and they just needed students to help them build out some content, like to at least start it. And I was one of those people that volunteered for that. So it was a seed that I had no idea what that was going to potentially turn into, but the fact that I always just liked to take up new opportunities, and I took that, and it led to this, is pretty amazing. But in terms of the role itself, I did step away kind of from patient care, which was definitely a huge change and a huge transition. And I stepped more into kind of the business and business operations sides of things. I was able to also do a lot of the marketing for the company and lead a lot of those fronts. But it’s — the interesting thing is — and we’ve actually kind of talked offline about this — is that technically, a pharmacist doesn’t have to be in the role that I’m in, like anyone could kind of — I don’t want to say anyone could lead a company, but anyone with any sort of degree can essentially lead a particular company. But I think it’s extremely helpful to be having a pharmacist training to be in this particular type of role. One, we’re providing education content to patients, so it’s good to know that my absolute goal being that I was a pharmacist is to make sure that we’re delivering messages in a way that people can understand and actually help them improve outcomes and change their behavior. But it also helps in terms of being able to serve my potential business partners in the sense of being a pharmacist, our whole thing is about empathy. We do a lot of training in empathy. We’re trying to make sure that we’re caring as much for that patient and meeting their needs to help them with their outcomes. And applying that in the business world is actually, I think, imperative to success. And realizing that whether it’s your customer or business partner that you’re potentially working with is being as empathetic as possible to their situation, finding out how you can help them in whatever it is that they’re trying to do with the sets of tools that you have as a business.

Tim Church: And so the main thing that you guys are doing as a business is you’re really looking at pharmacies, organizations, and figuring out how to bring interactive media, video content to them and almost either supplement or replace the traditional monographs for drug information. Is that right?

Richard Waithe: Yes. So we have a couple different deliverables. But from an overarching standpoint, our goal is to help improve health literacy. So you look at the wave of digital media and the way people are consuming media with YouTube and Facebook and videos, Instagram, all this stuff. For the last 30 years, since OBRA ‘90 was enacted, it’s only been required that when a patient goes to the pharmacy, that you have to get counseling from a pharmacist and you had to give them materials about their medication. And those materials usually came in the form of paper. And it usually came in very small print, eight pages potentially, right? And not a lot has changed since that. And our company has been able to augment that in a sense where our videos are usually short, they’re usually two minutes in length. It can’t really essentially replace the monograph, but it can essentially help drive deeper conversations with providers. With our deliverables specifically for independent and community pharmacies is that we are not replacing the monograph but moreso, we’re providing the monograph in a digital way so they can actually get access to that same monograph that they get on paper. They can get it digitally through our platform. That’s platform’s called Meds on Queue, it’s one of our deliverables. But essentially, we also sell to health plans, we sell to health systems, independent providers in terms of like whether you’re at a clinic, we provide also just the medication education videos. Being a pharmacist, I’m not trying to replace provider interaction but moreso to allow providers to become confident after a particular interaction happens or even before the interaction happens that that conversation is going to be valuable, and the patient’s going to go home with the confidence that they can potentially watch a trusted video about their health or medication.

Tim Church: I think that’s so cool. And I just think about my own practice with patients in primary care setting that even though I discuss the information, medication changes, different things like that, I provide written instructions for them, a lot of times, it’s still not getting through. They’re still not understanding as deeply as they should be. So I think what you guys are doing is so cool because it really provides an enhancement for that health literacy and really to help patients use their medications better and understand them more because there’s a lot of statistics out there that, you know, so many patients, they either don’t take their medications because they don’t have all the education or they just have no idea basically what they’re doing or don’t want to take the medications because nobody ever took the time and provided that education. So I think it’s really cool. So you’re doing awesome stuff with VUCA Health, so at one point did you say, I have this entrepreneurial itch or I want to do something in addition to what I’m doing as a pharmacist?

Richard Waithe: Yeah, so that for me, that actually started when I was a P4, that itch, I would say. And it was because when I first went out on rotations, before that, all I knew was theory. All I knew was like, OK, this is how healthcare works, you’re going to be a pharmacist, you’re learning all this stuff. When I got out into rotations, I saw that, like, it was a mess. And I was just like, we need to be better at this. Like we need to do more. And I don’t think I’m going to be able to — while I’m going to have a great impact, I know that I can do more beyond than what I’m probably going to be my real, actual real is going to be where I’m going to make my money to pay my bills. And I actually started, at that time, I actually started kind of like a private MTM practice where I was going to do essentially MTM, but I was calling it “Personal Medication Management.” And it was through that I started realizing that this is how I’m really going to have an impact and do more. And I learned a lot, I got into website building, I got into the basics of what marketing was and marketing services. I learned about, again, kind of driving how to build brand, build a brand as a personal brand and also for the company. But that was where I really got my itch was just like, I know I need to do more and really turn — and I know that that was going to take some time to do that. Like I wasn’t going to be able to do it in my current role as just being a community pharmacist.

Tim Church: So what is the status with that company that you started there? What was the result of that?

Richard Waithe: So I learned a ton in that, obviously, in terms of what it was to get a company going, I had to get like a CLIA waiver and do all these things because I wanted to, you know, provide point-of-care testing and do all kinds of things in there. But that was moving along extremely well, and then the reason I actually stopped that was because of the role with VUCA Health came to be. And I felt that I was going to be able to have a very similar impact just on a bigger scale. And I thought there was more opportunity to grow, and so I ended up taking that role. But within that, during the time that I was doing — it was called Medvise at the time — during the time that I was doing Medvise, I also realized that not only do I need to do more, I need to help also inspire the rest of the industry to do more. And that’s when I kind of started the RxRadio podcast and RxRadio branding. So I started doing that kind of in tandem with being a community pharmacist and trying to build that brand to personal medication management.

Tim Church: So talk a little bit about the podcast, who you’re targeting, what is it all about?

Richard Waithe: So the podcast is essentially targeting anyone in pharmacy, but in reality, the general theme around it is exploring the different ways that pharmacists can have an impact. So it’s looking at, you know, pharmacists that are working in different avenues in the hospital setting, it’s pharmacists that are going into informatics and working with mobile apps, pharmacists that are at high level leadership positions in community pharmacies and health plans and things like that. So I wanted to really expose all the different ways that pharmacists can practice with their degrees. But in terms of like what the target is, a lot of them, a large part of the audience is community pharmacists. I mean, you just look at the numbers. It’s just kind of what the numbers of pharmacy are, but a lot of students are tuning in. But it really is for that curious pharmacist that’s wondering what else is out there, what are other people doing, what could I potentially find as my own niche, is kind of who the target is for the podcast.

Tim Church: So what challenges did you face with getting it up and running and then just the maintenance of the podcast?

Richard Waithe: So I had zero experience in terms of media before the podcast, and I think the biggest challenge was — so right now, we’re recording on a couple pieces of different technologies, and it was not easy to learn that. And I had to do a lot of YouTube watching, there was a large learning curve in figuring out how to do all these things, how to edit. I think just the details was the biggest challenges of like figuring out how to get things to places. Then it was, OK, how do I get people to listen? That was another thing. Like how do I build a community of people that are wanting to tune into this content and how to market that, and that’s kind of where the memes started coming along, you know, just building the community that way. But learning how to market and distribute media was a fairly, you know, steep learning curve, I would say.

Tim Church: Now, I know you’ve had a ton of episodes actually air over the past couple of years. Has that resulted in any monetization?

Richard Waithe: Yes. So in a couple ways, the podcast has done well in terms of monetization. So I have merchandise that’s on a the website, it’s RxRadio.fm. There’s merchandise there. And then I also have a book that I wrote that I wrote right before I actually transitioned out of pharmacy. The reason I wrote that book was because I knew, I actually at the time of writing it, I knew things were changing. And I had some time before that change was going to happen, and I wanted to get as much experience that I had just learned that were fresh that I was using in my day-to-day, I wanted to get that out there. So I did have that book in play. And the podcast was definitely a driver of the success of the book and drove to sales of the book. But I think the biggest thing that has so far come along with the podcast has been the ores — the ores — the doors that have opened up in business and in networking. I’ve found value that no shop merchandise sales or book sales are ever going to bring by having the value of building my own brand and content. That has been — it wasn’t a direct monetization, but that by far has been the biggest benefit of that. But don’t get me wrong, the side hustle of kind of having some extra income from the book has been helpful. You know, it’s helped offset a lot of different costs, especially whether it be student loans, insurance payments, like all these kinds of things.

Tim Church: Is that where most of the book revenue, where is that going? Is it mostly going to debt payments and savings?

Richard Waithe: It’s mostly going — so the funny thing about running this podcast is that the money that comes from that book is not paying for all the stuff that I’m doing.
Tim Church: OK.

Richard Waithe: So for the most part, like if you looked at where the direct money is going to, I travel to schools, and I go talk to things, I do a lot of different things for free that a lot of it at some point costs money. And I essentially, those funds that I’m using from the book would go toward some of those things, so whether it’s a flight cost or time I’m taking away from not making money somewhere else, I’d be using that as kind of the income there. But yeah, I mean, it could easily pay for my student loans on the month by itself. Like it could easily do that.

Tim Church: Right. That’s cool. So talk a little bit about this book, “First Time Pharmacist.” What’s the big overview and kind of what’s in it?

Richard Waithe: So there’s a lot of different things in it, and it’s funny that we’re on a podcast that’s kind of surrounding around financials. So we do have a very small part in there kind of about, that I didn’t do — I actually got a friend that was a financial planner to kind of come in and talk a little bit about that — but there’s a lot of different parts in there about fitness, diet, because a lot of times, those things kind of get put aside as you graduate. But the bulk of the book is really about things that you don’t learn in pharmacy school. And it’s ways to interact with patients that can really make a difference in your day day-to-day in terms of your quality of life. There’s a lot of little nuggets in there where it’s not filled with fluff. It’s not filled with like, “Just be nice.” It’s filled with tactical ways to build relationships with your patients to be able to make sure that you’re having a great day. For example, one of the nuggets I’ll give to you is the fact that when you’re dealing with customer service, a lot of times, people see you as part of the machine. So let’s say you’re working for like a community pharmacy, let’s say. If a problem happens, they’re going to think it was you that made that problem, right? But a way to combat that is to actually remove yourself from that machine physically. And what I mean by that is going outside of the counter and being on the other side of the register with that patient. That allows you to explain the, hey look, I’m here with you. But that machine really did us a disservice. Like I didn’t do anything to that, but the computer XYZ, whatever the problem was, or the doctor XYZ, whatever the problem was. It’s just a tactic that allows you to be on the — show your patient that you’re on the same side as them, both physically and kind of mentally, emotionally, all that stuff. And by doing that one time for that one patient, you might not ever have to do it again with them, but they’ll always know that you’re not a part of that machine. You’re their healthcare provider, hoping to take care of them as best as you can. And it really allows your day-to-day to go so much better.

Tim Church: I think that’s a great point and a great tip for pharmacists out there. But I agree. It’s filled with a lot of different kinds of nuggets that you’re not necessarily going to get through school or through on your rotations. And you know, you and I have been talking off air that there’s just so many things that experience really brings into play because you can’t teach all of these things until you actually deal with it or have to deal with it.

Richard Waithe: Yeah, exactly.

Tim Church: So you talked about merchandise as a result of the podcast. What are some of the things that you’re selling?

Richard Waithe: So it’s real T-shirts, mugs. A lot of it is not geared towards specifically branding like our logos and stuff like that in terms of RxRadio, but I think the most successful merchandise on there we have is like onesies, like the kids onesies.

Tim Church: I do like the onesies. They say like “I love my pharmacist.” And then it says, “Because she’s my mom,” right?

Richard Waithe: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. They’re really cute. Obviously, these onesies are for the little kids and toddlers. But we’re getting to a point now where either you’re having a kid potentially or you’re an aunt to someone else. And they’re just really nice gifts. But those have been really, really successful.

Tim Church: How did you — I mean, when I looked at that, I mean, at first, I thought it was kind of an odd mix in terms of things that you had. But in the back of my mind, I’m thinking like, what was the driving force to put that kind of stuff? Not that — I think it’s great. But how did you even come up with that or decide that you wanted to do that?

Richard Waithe: I mean, I just remember being that — the funny thing about RxRadio and like the whole thing, it’s all tests that I’m doing. And I’m all like kind of testing things and seeing what works. Like for example, the book. The book was self-published. I published it. I wanted to test how to publish a book. Like it was basically an experiment, essentially. And the same thing started happening with the merchandise. I wanted to see what works, like what do people like? Like what is something that would be also valuable to them? So now, I’m also thinking about value is like my whole thing and everything I do on the podcast is about how to bring more value. And I just started thinking about the fact that we’re at a point now, if you graduated pharmacy school or you’re about to graduate pharmacy school, there’s likely going to be a lot of children in your life at some point. And I feel like what better way to drive one, a fun interaction that you’re going to have with some family members or yourself and your kids that are involved in pharmacy? Like the fact that you’re wanting to promote your profession, and that just came to me. It was like, how awesome would it be if you can give your little niece a shirt that says, “I love my pharmacist because she’s my aunt.”

Tim Church: No, it’s cool. I like what you’ve done there because I think people are interested in those kind of things to really highlight that they’re in the profession or to share that with their family. So how many hours are you spending on, you know, creating Samuel L. Jackson memes, doing the RxRadio and everything else that you’ve got going on?

Richard Waithe: So when I was — my life now is a little different because of my current role. So I don’t want to give you that example. But I’m going to tell you about how I was doing the exact same thing while I was a community pharmacist because I had like essentially a “normal job” at that time. I had this thing called #10to2, right? And it was essentially to say, OK, I’m currently working at a job that’s taking 40 hours a week of my time. But there’s a lot of other things that I want to do. So I needed to find the time to do that because they were ambitious things I wanted to do. I wanted to run a podcast, write articles, and do all these types of things. So I essentially dedicated every single day, whether I was working that day at the pharmacy from 9-9 or I had a day off, every single day, I made sure that I was working between the hours of 10 p.m. and 2 in the morning. And it was on things that I was passionate about. It was on my brand, whether it be personal brand or whether it be for RxRadio, whether it be memes, so multiply that out, that was the minimum that I was doing, working towards just my personal brand. I don’t do math well. What is that? Is that 4 hours times 7?

refinance student loans

Tim Church: Yeah.

Richard Waithe: That’s 28. So I was doing —

Tim Church: That’s a lot.

Richard Waithe: At least 28 hours. At a minimum.

Tim Church: Wow.

Richard Waithe: And this was not on — and proven in the way — go to Twitter right now, whether you have an account or not. Go look at the #10to2. If you look at the last two years — maybe with the exception of the last six months, only because like I’ve been working but just not on my personal brand, essentially — but the last two years, if you look at the hashtag on Twitter, I’m the only one that was hashtagging that. You can literally look back every single day. And this was like sometime between the hours of 10 and 2, I was talking about it, and I was doing that work and putting it in. So at a minimum, that’s what I was doing to get to that point where I was being, when I was able to run all that same stuff and still work at a regular job.

Tim Church: Wow. Was that hard to do?

Richard Waithe: It was hard, but the crazy thing is is that I would work from 9 — let’s say a Monday that I was working at the pharmacy — I worked from 9 to 9 p.m., right? The normal 12-hour shift at a pharmacy. It would suck to go home and work at 10, right? I would make it home, luckily, my commute wasn’t that bad and I would be able to spend time with my fiance at the time. But the 10-2, it was stuff that I was passionate about. So like that was actually not that hard. That was almost easy because I was excited about it, I really wanted to do things. That wasn’t hard, but it was hard to wake up the next morning and then go to work and do things like that. But that four hours, I loved it. And I’m still doing that today where I’m working like that and working as much as that, it’s just great because now it’s things that I’m all passionate about. If you’re doing something that you don’t like, you’ll easily get burnt out doing that amount of work. But it wasn’t that hard for me, only because I found something that I was really passionate about doing. So it really didn’t feel like work.

Tim Church: Is it hard to manage your personal life on top of everything that you’ve got going on?

Richard Waithe: It depends on how you mean “manage your personal life.” So I think that — and I’m sure that you, being that you’re in finances, when you’re talking to people and giving advice, it’s not a blanket type of advice that you can give. It’s so different between people because they have so much other factors that can play into how they can best manage their finances. And I treat my “personal life” a similar way in terms of my personal life is the happiness — because to me, work-life balance and personal life is like being happy, right? That’s like the ultimate goal of it all. It’s a completely different definition to what someone else’s is. So for my own personal life, it’s actually not that hard. But I feel like if I was someone else that had other types of goals and personal life meant a lot of different things to them, this would be impossible, really, to do.

Tim Church: Right.

Richard Waithe: But for me, I definitely had to make sure that I was really over-communicating with the people that meant a lot to me in terms of spending time with them to let them know kind of this is what’s going on and making sure I still put in the time to spend with them, but I also realized that I had specific ambitions that required work. And I love football. Football is my favorite sport. I know it’s dangerous, and there’s all kinds of things that are problems with it. But I love the sport. I grew up playing it, and I love to watch it. Basketball, same thing. I love basketball. I had to cut a lot of that out to make the time to follow my ambitions. But to me, my ambitions and my goals and my career were just more important than sitting and watching games. So that was hard to do, but it was an easy decision because I realized that I need to put my actions where my mouth and my mind was to be able to say like, you have these ambitions and these goals, you have to put in the work to do it. I think — but there was sacrifice involved.

Tim Church: Yeah. Definitely. It sounds like it. I’m just like, I’m sitting here thinking like, OK, well, when did you eat? When did you sleep? But I think it’s what you said is, you know, how passionate are you about what you’re trying to accomplish? And sometimes, in order to get to that next level, you’re going to have to make a ton of tradeoffs and sacrifices to get there. Otherwise, you may just be mediocre in what you’re trying to do.

Richard Waithe: Yeah. And mind you, I think within — I feel like it was an extreme. I’m not going to sit here and say, “Oh, it wasn’t that bad.” I know it was an extreme. But I think that not everyone has the ambitions to need that sort of extreme, right?

Tim Church: Right.

Richard Waithe: So there are some people that can say, call it #10to11. And they just do one hour a day towards something and see some significant results from that. But I think it’s just being able to dedicate a specific time block and a frame that works in your lifestyle to dedicate towards a side hustle, you’ll really see some results.

Tim Church: Definitely. I agree. I think that’s the key is however much time that is, is that consistency in making that happen all the time. And for me, personally, that’s what seemed to work. We’re going to go through different times when you have to shift your focus on your personal life or different things, but showing up and being consistent, even if it’s 30 minutes, I think can go a long way.

Richard Waithe: Yeah.

Tim Church: So Richard, what advice would you give to other pharmacists or students out there who have an interest in becoming an entrepreneur or starting a business? What would you tell them?

Richard Waithe: The first thing I would tell them to do is that like, first of all, it’s hard as crap to start anything on your own. And let alone start it and actually get it going, but to be successful, it is super hard. And because of that, the best advice I would give is to make sure that anything that you want to do as a side hustle or whether it be a side hustle or you’re actually trying to change your whole career, it needs to be rooted in whatever it is that you’re passionate about and not about what’s going to make you money. Because anyone tomorrow can go and study to take — especially if you’re a pharmacist, that means you’re extremely smart. You can study tomorrow and take a real estate exam and become a real estate agent and start selling homes and make a decent amount of money, but you hate it or you’re not passionate about it. And while you can make extra revenue in there, it’s going to be much harder to do if you’re not passionate about it. Now, if you love homes and interior design and all this stuff, you will be an extremely successful real estate agent, you know? Because of the fact that you love it. So I really think that people need to kind of take a step back and realize, do I love baking? Like do I love making cookies? Because there’s people making millions of dollars selling cookies.

Tim Church: There’s a need.

Richard Waithe: Yeah. And I think that you need to just find what it is that you’re passionate about doing. Because of the way that the Internet works now and social media, you can literally build a brand. You can make a cookie business, at some point, make a brand, write a book about it. Like there’s all these — there’s a model that you can follow, and you can apply it to anything. But it really does start with finding out what it is that you’re actually passionate about doing that you can do forever and not get burned out at because you love it, that’s what you should start with and then go from there.

Tim Church: Solid advice. I really appreciate that. And I think you’re right on there. So Richard Waite, master meme creator and entrepreneur, what is the best way for someone to reach out if they want to learn more about what you do but also see this amazing memes?

Richard Waithe: Yeah, so I’m on every single social media platform out there except for tiktok, I’m not on that thing. You might not have even heard of it, but a lot of teenagers love tiktok. But I am on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, now on Reddit as well. Any way, however you prefer to consume media, you can DM me on there, and I’ll respond and help in any way that I can. And then I obviously have an email, [email protected], which I’m sure they can probably put in the show notes because it’s hard to spell, but [email protected].

Tim Church: Great, thank you so much for coming on, Richard.

Richard Waithe: It was a pleasure.

Recent Posts

[pt_view id=”f651872qnv”]

YFP 096: How to Do a Backdoor Roth IRA

Posted on by yfpadmin

How to Do a Backdoor Roth IRA

On this episode, Tim Baker welcomes Christina Slavonik, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ and the newest member of the YFP family, to the show. Tim and Christina break down how to do a backdoor Roth IRA conversion, a move that most pharmacists should consider making.

About Today’s Guest

Christina joins us with approximately 15 years of experience in the financial services industry. After serving in various capacities, she attained her Registered Paraplanner℠ designation in 2013 and then her CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ designation in 2017. She currently resides in Ft. Worth, Texas with her husband, Paul, and their two cats.

Summary

Christina Slavonik has been working for YFP for a couple of months as a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™. On this episode, Christina and Tim discuss how to do a backdoor Roth IRA, also known as a Roth IRA conversion.

First, Tim Baker reminds listeners to follow “Baker’s Buckets”, meaning that you should always start saving for retirement with an employer match when available as this is free money. From there, it might make sense to max out an IRA or HSA. After you’ve maxed out your IRA and HSA, go back to your employer 401(k) or 403(b) plan to add in the $19,000 you can put in every year.

Most pharmacists bring in around $125,000 a year, meaning they cannot deduct their traditional IRA contribution as they are above the income limits. In 2019, single taxpayers with a MAGI of $122,000 and married filing jointly taxpayers with a combined income of $193,000 can’t contribute directly to a Roth IRA.

Christina explains that you can instead do a backdoor Roth IRA. First, open up a traditional IRA if one is not already opened and contribute the first $6,000. Then, you can make the conversion by filling out and submitting the appropriate forms. You are then able to convert the nontraditional money to a Roth IRA.

Christina and Tim discuss how to contribute to these accounts, best practices for waiting periods, steps for filing taxes if you contributed an excess amount to an IRA, and a recap of the Roth IRA conversion process.

Check out this blog post for more information on backdoor Roth IRAs.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Baker: What’s up, everybody? Welcome to Episode 096 of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. I am so excited to welcome back Christina Slavonik, our newest member to the YFP family. I know, Christina, we heard a little bit from you at APhA Seattle, so welcome back to the podcast.

Christina Slavonik: Yes, thanks so much, Tim. I’m glad to be back.

Tim Baker: So I guess, you know, Christina, just to put you on the spot here, you know, you’ve been working with us for the last couple of months.

Christina Slavonik: Yes.

Tim Baker: How has it been at YFP? And what’s different about us?

Christina Slavonik: Sure. Yeah, it’s been so refreshing. Just really a breath of fresh air just working with —

Tim Baker: Awh, shucks.

Christina Slavonik: Younger people, you know? And we all have, you know, the same kind of not really have the same backgrounds, but at least we have the same things that we’re all working through and especially when you’re able to narrow down your clientele to one niche, it really helps you focus on what they’re really needing, what they’re really wanting, and then being able to share your own life stories as you go through that path together.

Tim Baker: Yeah, I think it’s one of those things where, you know, in my past life, I would work for firms that was kind of a jack-of-all-trades, kind of master-of-none type of thing. That’s not really our game. You know, we really want to focus in on the big issues that are facing pharmacists out there and really provide good service and solutions to really tackle those issues. So today, we’re going to talk about Roth conversions. Like I mentioned, it can be a little bit of a technical subject, but one of the things that we probably should mention first as we kind of get into our list of steps here is way back when in Episode 073, How to Determine Priority Investing, we kind of talk about what Tim Church has deemed “Baker’s Buckets.” So typically when I sit down with clients, you know, I say, “Hey, client, typically how we like clients, pharmacists to really fill their retirement buckets, you know, you should always start with your employer match. So if your employer match is 3%, 5%, 7%, that’s free money.” And nine times out of 10, that should be what we are trying to get, get at least to the match. But from there, depending on the 401k or the 403b, what that plan looks like, not everyone’s 401k, not everyone’s 403b, is going to be equal. So there are some really great 401k’s and 403b’s out there. There are some that are kind of not so great. So it might make sense to kind of go into the IRA world or the HSA world and really max out that bucket next. So typically, for the IRAs for 2019, you can put in aggregate between the Roth IRA and the traditional IRA, $6,000 per year. So that’s roughly $500 per month. In the HSA world, the Health Savings Account, which we’ve talked about time and time again, it’s the only account out there that has a triple tax benefit. So basically it goes in pre-tax, it grows tax-free, and then it comes out tax-free if it’s used for qualified medical expenses. You typically, for a single individual, it’s $3,500 per year that you can do. Or if you’re a family, $7,000 per year. So once we max those out, then it might make sense to go back into the employer plan, the 401k, the 403b, and get to that $19,000 that you can put in — this is not counting your employer contribution — that you can put in every year into that 401k. So Christina, now that we kind of have “Baker’s Buckets” aside and we’re diligently putting in a contribution into the IRA, what happens next with regard to this whole conversion? And why would I convert I guess to begin with?

Christina Slavonik: Sure. Well, in looking at the typical pharmacist’s salary, which I believe is around — latest stats is around $124,000-125,000. You already know that you cannot contribute directly to a traditional IRA. Well, you can, but you can’t deduct it. So that’s the caveat with that. So where the Roth IRA comes into play is most of the times, you won’t be able to contribute directly to the Roth because of your income limits. So I know for 2019, if you’re single and you make an income, a modified adjusted gross income, of $122,000 or if you’re married filing jointly and you’re making an income of $193,000, then you can’t contribute directly to a Roth. So how you can do that is by doing a backdoor Roth IRA or it’s also known as a Roth conversion. And what you will need to do is open up a traditional IRA, and this is assuming you don’t already have a traditional IRA open. We’ll get into the reason why — what will happen if you do currently have a traditional IRA. But first things first, you open the traditional IRA, you put your — say you’re going to max out your contribution for the year — you’d put your contribution in there first of $6,000. And then you can make what’s called a Roth conversion, and normally your firm, your wealth provider, whoever you have your investments with, they should be able to walk you through what forms are needed. You fill out the form, submit it, you have a Roth IRA opened. And then you’re able to convert those traditional dollars, non-deductible traditional dollars, into your Roth IRA. And the beauty of that is not only is your money going to be in the Roth, but it’s going to be after-tax, you’re not going to have to pay any taxes for it going in because you just made the non-deductible contribution. You will have the earnings grow tax-free. And then if you’re — there’s certain stipulations about once you hit retirement or you’ve had the account open for five years, you can start to withdraw those contributions and earnings tax-free. So there are many, many other benefits to having the Roth IRA. One, you do not have to make what’s called a required minimum distribution. And with a traditional IRA, you have to start pulling out money at the age 70.5. You have no choice.

Tim Baker: Right.

Christina Slavonik: But with the Roth IRA, you avoid that altogether as well.

Tim Baker: So just to recap on that, you know, and to back up, anytime that you see “Roth,” you automatically should think after-tax. So whether that’s a Roth IRA, a Roth 401k, a Roth 403b, the money that goes into that bucket is going to be after-tax. The flip side of that is the traditional IRA, the traditional 401k, the traditional 403b, those are all funded with pre-tax dollars. So in simple terms, you know, if I have a traditional 401k and I’m putting in 10% and I make $100,000, then basically I’m putting $10,000 into that account, and the government sees as if I’m being taxed on $90,000. So it lowers my income for which I am taxed on. In that same breath, you know, if I’m putting into a Roth, once I’m putting in with after-tax, so I don’t go from $100,000 to $90,000. I stay at $100,000. But when the money comes out in retirement, I’ve already been taxed on it, so I’m not going to be taxed twice. Whereas traditional, when it comes out, it will be taxed. So it’s important to understand that dynamic. So everyone can contribute to a traditional IRA as long as you have earned income. But not everyone can contribute to a Roth IRA. So if you make a certain amount of money — so it’s if you’re single, if you make more than $137,000, married filing jointly, if you make more than $203,000, then the door slams shut for the Roth IRA for you. So what the Roth conversion does it takes those non-deductible IRA contributions — so everyone can contribute to a traditional IRA, not everyone will get a deduction. So because we don’t get a deduction, we want to move essentially those moneys from the traditional IRA to the Roth IRA and, you know, for a variety of reasons, Christina, that you mentioned, that’s the thing to do. So Christina, if I am a Do-It-Yourself investor out there and I’m looking at kind of my investment game, I don’t have anything open outside of the 401k that I have through my employer, basically you’re saying first step is to open up the traditional IRA and the Roth IRA concurrently? Is that right?

Christina Slavonik: That is correct. If you can, yes.

Tim Baker: OK. And then if I know that I’m not going to be getting — I’m not going to get that deductible IRA contribution so I’m single, I make more than $122,000, how should I actually go about contributing. Should I wait ‘til the end of the year or the tax year to contribute? Should I be contributing per month? Like what’s your thoughts on that?

Christina Slavonik: Sure. Well, it really just depends on personal preference. I’ve seen both sides of the spectrum where a person will save money, like just put it aside in a regular bank savings account, set that aside for their IRA contribution at the end of the year, and right before the tax deadline, they will put it in and do the conversion right away. You know? Others will contribute monthly to that traditional IRA and over time, once they get the contribution to where they can max it out for the year at $6,000 for 2019, then they would make the conversion. And so yeah, the only caveat with contributing directly to the traditional on a monthly basis is if you do have it in any kind of interest-bearing account or if you do decide to put it in a short-term investment, when you do convert, you are going to be converting those earnings as well, which may have a little bit of a gain or may have a little bit of a loss.

Tim Baker: Right.

Christina Slavonik: So it’s just something to consider when you’re going about that process.

Tim Baker: And I think that’s kind of the nuance is it can be a fairly complicated situation, so that’s kind of some of the nuance that a lot of people may not think about is that, you know, if you contribute $6,000 over the course of the year but the account has grown $100-150 in appreciation, that’s something to consider when you’re doing your conversion. And most likely, you’ll have to pay the tax on that, on the difference. So Christina, when you go to make a non-deductible contribution to your IRA, there’s some say that you should have, there should be a small waiting period to let the funds settle. Can I actually go and convert that right away? What does that look like? What’s best practice with regard to making a conversion?

Christina Slavonik: Sure. The common consensus is just to wait a few months, you know, just to let that contribution settle. There are some people that will do the conversion right away, but just because you just want to look like you are making a non-deductible contribution and not immediately converting, it just kind of puts some space between that. It’s just kind of a best practice.

Tim Baker: Sure. Well, and I think there’s some think that the Roth conversion is something that’s illegal or that we shouldn’t be doing. That’s not the case. This is a perfectly legal kind of technique to move the non-deductible traditional IRA contributions into the Roth that is part of the how the tax code is written. So let’s fast forward to it’s April 2020, we’re hopefully in the process of filing our taxes, which we just recently got through, what are some of the steps that we should do in terms of any forms that we need to file or anything that we need to worry about with regard to filing the taxes? And then secondarily, if we see that maybe we’ve contributed in excess to the IRA, how do we fix that issue?

Christina Slavonik: Sure. Well, make sure your CPA or whoever is doing your tax return, that they know that the contribution you had originally made into the traditional was a non-deductible contribution. And most likely, they will have a form 8606, which they will need to fill out. And yeah, just make sure they’re aware of what you were doing. And as a best practice, we try to say if you can do your contributions and your conversions in the same tax year, that helps your CPA or tax preparer out a lot so he doesn’t have to be tracking what happened in 2018 versus what happened in 2019, so to speak. So there’s for that one. And if you for any reason get a massive pay raise and you had been contributing directly to a Roth and then you go back and you look and you see, oh my goodness, I’m making — my income is being phased out, I shouldn’t be able to contribute directly to a Roth, well, you’re going to have to figure out — there’s a calculation or you can have your tax preparer help you — that you’re going to have to remove whatever excess contribution you had put into the Roth IRA.

Tim Baker: Right.

Christina Slavonik: And so again, there’s a calculation to go about figuring that out, but just know that there are three ways that you can remove it. If you happen to catch it before the tax filing deadline, by all means, withdraw it. Journal it back over. You could talk to your firm and see how they go about doing that. Some will just, you know, say to recharacterize, which normally doesn’t happen until after the tax filing deadline, or you can apply the contribution to the next year. Just don’t make a Roth IRA contribution directly. But just know that if you do decide to leave that excess contribution in the Roth IRA, there is a 6% excise penalty that you will have to pay every year that excess remains in there. And so generally as a best practice, if it’s not a whole lot, I would just say carry it forward to the next year. You may have to pay a small 6% on whatever that excess was, but at least you’ll be covered for the coming year, if that makes any sense.

Tim Baker: Yeah, so just to kind of recap, from basically January to April of say 2020, you can still contribute towards your 2019 bucket for the IRA. So if we were to kind of determine that we’re at our limit already, you could essentially contact your custodian, whether that’s Vanguard or Fidelity or whoever, and say, “I’d like to apply that excess contribution forward to the 2020 bucket.” So Christina, you know, in terms of the process, we have determine what your adjusted gross income, which again, that’s going to be the number that really drives the train on a lot of this tax stuff that goes on. And typically, you take the gross income and you subtract out any contributions you make to the retirement plans. And if you have HSA contributions, student loan interest deduction, if you’re a resident out there, you can probably still get those. That gets to that number, and that’s going to be the driving force of what you can do from a traditional IRA, a Roth IRA, if it determines that you can only make non-deductible traditional IRA contributions, make those contributions, typically, you want them to season a little bit. So wait 30-60 days to get those into the account, and then go ahead and basically fill out the necessary to make the Roth conversion. So we’re essentially, we’re moving those non-deductible IRA contributions from the traditional bucket into the Roth bucket, which is the after-tax bucket because we’re going to pay the tax on it anyway, and there’s lots of benefits to do that. And come tax season, working with your CPA, your advisor, to fill out Form 8606 just to track all of that. It’s best to do that kind of in the same year, so contributions basically marries up with the tax season that you’re filing. And if there is excess contributions to the Roth, we can fix it before the tax filing deadline or recategorize after the fact. You could also contribute to the, move it forward to the next year just so we kind of stay within compliance. So Christina, any other thoughts on the Roth conversion? Anything that we missed that probably listeners should know about when they’re trying to tackle what sounds at first glance kind of can be a very simple procedure but when we peel back the onion a bit, it can be a little bit complex. Any other thoughts?

Christina Slavonik: Yes, just one final thought. When it comes to look at your traditional IRAs — and this is just assuming you have other traditional IRAs when you are considering doing a Roth conversion — that amount that you convert, you can’t just pick that ‘Oh, I want to do this sum of money in this IRA.’ It takes into account your entire balance, not just the $6,000 contribution for the year. So say you were to have your traditional IRA, you have $20,000 in there. Well, for that initial tax year, you may have to move over the full $20,000 because it’s going to take into account — the conversion piece will take into account all the money you have in that one traditional IRA. It’s blind. It can’t really see that you only want to do $6,000. So that’s just one other piece of advice to keep in mind. Most people that do this kind of transaction, they do not have traditional IRAs. If they do, it’s only for this purpose. So that is just one thing that I’d like to point out there, Tim.

refinance student loans

Tim Baker: Yeah. Another thing to also point out is I think this particular technique is going to become more and more valuable. With the new tax code, for a lot of people out there, taxes are going to be lower in the near future. So to kind of do this conversion and get these moneys in the right bucket, I think is very valuable. But also remember when you make the contributions into the IRA, whether it’s the traditional or the Roth, that’s just half the battle. The next part of it is really selecting the investments that are inside of that. So we come across pharmacists that are putting money into an IRA, but they’re not actually investing that, whether it’s in a mutual fund or an ETF or a stock or a bond, that type of thing. So understanding that when the money goes in there, we still have to take the necessary steps to get that invested and get that money working because at the end of the day, intelligent investing where you’re taking risk in the market and know that the market is going to go up and down is necessary really to become that “Seven Figure Pharmacist” and really get ahead of things like tax and inflation. And these are some of the things that we work with when we go through the investment module with our clients is making contributions is only half of it. And we have to make sure that we’re building out a proper low-cost asset allocation that has exposure across a variety of sectors in the market, whether it’s large-cap or small-cap or international, bond, that type of thing. So Christina, great job today kind of going through this kind of somewhat complex topic. Like I said, Christina recently helped Tim Church on this blog post that we put out. So if you go to the Your Financial Pharmacist web page, YourFinancialPharmacist.com and check out our blog, you’ll be able to see a lot of this information, also, five steps that we talk through. If you go to YourFinancialPharmacist.com/096, YourFinancialPharmacist.com/096, you can get the basic steps for the backdoor Roth conversion, the checklist to kind of work your way through this process. And like I said, if you’re working with another custodian, a Vanguard, a Fidelity, they’ll be able to walk you through this hopefully to provide the necessary forms and guidance — maybe not guidance but at least point you in the right direction to go through the logistics of converting that. At YFP Planning, we kind of do this on behalf of clients as part of the investment management that we do. So Christina, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast, really enjoyed kind of having your voice on here. We’re going to have to do it again soon. Yeah, thanks again for coming on.

Christina Slavonik: Thank you so much, Tim. I look forward to doing it again.

Recent Posts

[pt_view id=”f651872qnv”]

YFP 095: Level Up Your Career: An Interview with RxAshlee

Posted on by yfpadmin

Level Up Your Career

Dr. Ashlee Klevens Hayes, founder of RxAshlee and creator of the Rx Buzz Podcast, joins Tim Ulbrich to talk about her career journey and passion for supporting high-level professionals to in creating, launching and landing their dream jobs.

About Today’s Guest

Ashlee Klevens Hayes is a third generation pharmacist who set out on a traditional pharmacy path that turned into so much more. She’s an initiator, an entrepreneur and career strategist. After graduating from The University of Southern California School of Pharmacy she completed a 2-year health system pharmacy administration residency at the University of Kentucky and then took on the position of Associate Director of Central Pharmacy Operations at UK. In 2017, she founded Rx Ashlee, a career development company that focuses on business development, branding, marketing, career pivots and interview preparation for highly skilled professionals. Shortly after, she launched the Rx Buzz Podcast on the Pharmacy Podcast Network and started with the University of Southern California School of Pharmacy as a career strategist.

Summary

Dr. Ashlee Klevens Hayes is a third generation pharmacist. She is a career strategist at the University of Southern California School of Pharmacy and launched RxAshlee in 2017. Ashlee completed a 2 year health system pharmacy administration residency at the University of Kentucky and loved it. She enjoyed seeing how quickly outcomes and results could happen. Ashlee and her husband had to move 7 times in 5 years for his job making it difficult to stay in one position for a while. Ashlee transitioned to be a consultant at a startup company and was exposed to a different side of entrepreneurs.

RxAshlee began in 2017. Friends were turning to Ashlee for advice on how to get non-traditional pharmacy jobs and she realized she was able to support people in this capacity. The main trend Ashlee saw was that people were underselling themselves and that they don’t spend enough time or energy on branding so they can stand out on paper and in interviews. RxAshlee aims to help you level up your career and get your dream job.

Ashlee currently works with high-level professionals in creating, launching, and landing their dream jobs. Ashlee offers a variety of packages and services, but is incredibly passionate about interview preparation. In 1-3 hours with a client, Ashlee watches a person transform in their interviewing skills and loves hearing when clients land their dream jobs.

Ashlee reminds you that your education is a starting place and your career isn’t necessarily a direct path. Blending your education with you passions, strengths and what you want to do and then branding yourself as that person will allow you to step into fulfilling work that you want to be doing.

Ashlee reminds people that if you want to make a change in your life, you have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Ashlee has a lot on the horizon with her business. She has several keynote presentations in 2019 and is writing a book, among leading a women’s group and working on more courses to launch.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Hey, what’s up, everybody? Welcome to this week’s episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. I’m excited to have on here – it’s been a long time in the making – Dr. Ashlee Klevens Hayes. We’ve got an exciting conversation to talk about career development, interview preparation, business development, lots of exciting things, to share her journey on this path to the work she’s doing today. So quick introduction to Ashlee: She’s a third-generation pharmacist who set out on a traditional pharmacy path that turned into so much more. She’s an initiator, an entrepreneur, and a career strategist. After graduating from the University of Southern California School of Pharmacy, she completed a two-year health system pharmacy administration residency at the University of Kentucky, and then took on the position of Associate Director of Central Pharmacy Operations at UK. In 2017, she founded RxAshlee, a career development company that focuses on business development, branding, marketing, career pivots and interview preparation for highly skilled professionals. Shortly after, she launched the RxBuzz podcast on the Pharmacy Podcast Network and started with the University of Southern California School of Pharmacy as a career strategist. Ashlee, welcome to the show, excited to have you.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Tim, this has been long overdue. Thanks for having me. This is super exciting.

Tim Ulbrich: Long overdue.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: I love talking to you.

Tim Ulbrich: So fun. Hey, I thought I knew you pretty well until I started doing my homework for this show and totally forgot about the two-year admin residency. We’re going to talk about that, your inpatient experience, I forgot about that, and – have we made the Buffalo connection before? I didn’t realize you did undergrad at the University of Buffalo.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: I did. I moved from Orange County out to crazy Buffalo.

Tim Ulbrich: What were you thinking? I grew up in Buffalo, and I was like, why would she move from southern California to Buffalo?

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: I’ll be honest with you. My dad was faculty at the University there.

Tim Ulbrich: OK.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: And we had some connections, and it just – long story short, it just made sense for me to go out there financially and just in terms of seeing my parents. They were traveling out there a ton, and so I made the commitment. And honestly, the first year was really hard because it was snowing, and I had never been around snow before. But then ultimately, I ended up finding my husband out there. So it was a good move.

Tim Ulbrich: Yes.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: And I suckered him into coming back to California too.

Tim Ulbrich: I don’t blame you. I mean, it is night and day, right? Buffalo and southern California?

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Totally.

Tim Ulbrich: I grew up in Buffalo. It’s a great city, but I mean, when you’re used to the sunshine…

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: I loved it there. No, I really did. It was a great just start to my nontraditional path.

Tim Ulbrich: Yes, yes. And we’re going to talk about that. We’re going to talk today about how to invest in yourself; we’re going to talk about, you know, how to set yourself apart. And you’re doing some awesome work in this area. And I really enjoy following your journey and have a lot of respect for your energy and your passion and your commitment in this area. So before we talk about what you’re doing today with RxAshlee and with USC School of Pharmacy – which by the way, is getting around – I had people here from Ohio State ask me about this work that you’re doing at USC, so it’s exciting to see that work.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Oh yeah? OK, let’s do it. Let’s talk – I would love to talk to them.

Tim Ulbrich: But I want to start back at the point of graduating with your PharmD from USC. And you make this decision to go into a two-year admin residency. So PGY1, PGY2, Master’s degree, very specific for many that go through this route in pharmacy.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Kind of, yeah.

Tim Ulbrich: What was the goal here? And why did you make the decision at this point in time?

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Well, to be totally transparent, like you mentioned in the beginning, my dad was a Chief Pharmacy Officer, and so I kind of had a front-row seat my entire life to all the unique, different opportunities and journeys that pharmacists could take, but my dad was a huge, pivotal point, a mentor to me forever. And he loved his job. He loved it. He loved the autonomy, he loved the business side, and he also could have some indirect patient experiences too. So I decided to join that bandwagon, and I followed his footsteps. And I ended up at UK. I was the first PGY1, PGY2 health system administration resident under the new leadership at the time. So gosh, now it’s been about 5-6 years. I don’t even remember. And so they’ve had a few others behind me, which has been really fun for me to be a mentor to them and witness them grow their muscle in that field. So you take a traditional clinical residency program and throw in a nontraditional clinical program, and you know, you have growing pains. But ultimately, the goal was for me to come out and to be a manager or assistant director or a, you know, eventually a Chief Pharmacy Officer, which I was totally down that path. I was heading down that path. I was like, this is what I want to do. I want to be a CEO, I want to be a Chief Pharmacy Officer at a healthy system, and things kind of took a change, as you might notice.

Tim Ulbrich: So what I find interesting, Ashlee – I was glad to look that up before we had talked. And we had discussed that before, but when I think of pharmacy operations and I think of you and your strengths and your talent and what you bring to the table, not that you couldn’t do operations really well, but I think you’re a big vision person, you’re a strategist.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: I am.

Tim Ulbrich: You’re an entrepreneur. So when did that click for you? Because I’m guessing, you know, you went into the operations role post-residency.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Oh, I loved it. It was great.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, talk us through that transition.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: It was awesome. And I was exposed to so much at such an early phase of my career that I realized I really like seeing outcomes and results happen pretty quickly. And I just felt like project management and multitasking and working with whole different interdisciplinary groups: physicians, prescribers, nurses, I loved that part of the work. What was hard for me – and Tim, I’ll be totally honest with you because that’s what I do – it was hard for me because my husband had a big job, and we were constantly having to relocate. It happened probably seven times, literally seven times, over the past five years.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: And in order for me to have that trajectory of getting to CPO, to Chief Pharmacy Officer, it really just wasn’t ideal. And it wasn’t working. So that’s — at some point, I was like, how am I going to do this whole entire love of operations, project management, strategy, planning, vision, just overseeing so many different projects while still balancing my relocation, which is honestly — I knew going into our marriage that I was going to have to do this eventually, so then you get creative. You get thrusted into this. How do you make all of this work? And at that point, I was the assistant director, and I had an opportunity to transition into be a consultant for a startup company — a consultant in operations, and I did that. And it was so fun. And I was exposed to a whole different side of non-pharmacy work, but it was pharmacy work. It was non-pharmacy because I didn’t talk to patients at all or prescribers. It was just different because I was working with software implementation. So then I was exposed to this entrepreneur side, and I was talking — and the people I was working with had no pharmacy background. They had no pharmacy education, but yet, they were talking the language of pharmacists, and I was like, what is going on here? And it was eye-opening. I was traveling the world, literally traveling the world, traveling across the country talking to different people about our products, and I realized what do I want to do next? You know? What am I good at? What are my skills? And that was really teaching people how to do what I was doing, start a consulting company, go do nontraditional things. And that’s kind of when the fruition of RxAshlee started.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s so awesome. I mean, there’s such a need for nontraditional, you know, career paths, mentorship.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Totally.

Tim Ulbrich: And I was looking at your website and stuff before, and just to be able to see that merging of hearing from others that recognize that talent within you and that passion to help others and for me and what I’ve known you for the last 1-2 years, like it makes so much sense. But to hear your journey and where it’s come along was a lot of fun.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Yeah.

Tim Ulbrich: So we’re in 2017, and entrepreneurship, the bug sets in. And as you know, once you have the entrepreneurial bug, it isn’t going away, right?

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: No, never. Well, you can try for it to go away. And then it just never goes away.

Tim Ulbrich: Yes, yes. So true. So you start RxAshlee, which for our listeners, we’ll link this in the show notes. It’s RxAshlee.com, RxAshlee.com. So where did this idea come from to get started? Because in reality, any business starts with a problem that needs a solution.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Yeah.

Tim Ulbrich: So what was the problem? And what was the solution? And what did you bring to the table with this?

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: The problem was that a lot of my friends were turning to me for advice about how to get nontraditional pharmacy jobs. So problem for them, but a solution for me because I felt like innately, I kind of just knew. And I was unclear at the time why am I the one answering these questions? I’m not sure. Like why aren’t these people just going out and doing what I did? Isn’t that easy? Like just go out and do it. And I recognized there was an opportunity for me to actually, I don’t know, just support them in this capacity as actually, this could be my job. And I started doing this just for free, to be honest. I started reviewing thousands of resumes. Thousands of CVs. And I started realizing how much people undersell themselves. It’s sad, you know? I talk to these highly qualified people, very competent, very educated. It’s not like the people I’m talking to are Joe Schmoes. They’re like really legit, really, really smart people. But how we distribute ourselves and how we talk about our story and how we articulate, you know, our goals, that’s a disconnect.

Tim Ulbrich: Yes. Absolutely.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: And especially, you know, CVs and cover letters and all that stuff, I don’t think we as clinicians spend as much time and energy and focus on how do we look on paper and our image, our brand? And so I realized that’s when kind of the fruition and the whole start of RxAshlee actually came was when I saw that I was talking to people all over the world just because I wanted to do it, like for free, for fun. And then I was like, wait a minute, I’m spending all my time and my energy and my resources. Why don’t I kind of see where this goes? And that was two years ago, so.

Tim Ulbrich: So much good stuff there, and I think back to my previous role. I reviewed thousands and thousands of residency letters of intent, CVs, and at the end of the day — and I think it must be either from, you know, just form examples or things that are out there, like unless I had met them and they had been intentional about how they branded and marketed themselves and made relationships, they all looked the same at the end of the day. They were all successful, they were all doing lots of great things, but it came down to that relationship, that networking building, and those that really could, to your point, sell themselves.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Yeah.

Tim Ulbrich: And so I hope the P4s and 3’s and 2’s and 1’s, anybody, really, hears that and I think the intentionality of that is so, so important.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Yeah, and sometimes, there’s a negative stigma around the whole phrase “selling themselves.” But we’re not built to be sales people, but at the same time, I just want to affirm to you that it’s not you selling yourself, it’s just about you talking. Being able to confidently walk up to someone, whoever it may be, especially an employer or someone who could lead you to employment, just being able to talk about yourself. And I think a lot of people are very uncomfortable with that. And for whatever reason, that’s not my problem. I have a lot of problems, Tim, let’s just be real. But that is not one of them. As a pharmacist, as a clinician, I’ve always been able to kind of keep up with prescribers, pick up on the key words, pick up on what they want to hear and how they want to hear it. And same with job employers, people who are hiring. You have to be able to articulate and just really be able to talk the talk, and that’s what it’s about.

Tim Ulbrich: Yes.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: It’s not about qualifications once you get to a certain point. It’s not really about your qualifications or about, you know, what skills and certifications you have. It really is about just being able to confidently walk into a discussion if it’s a networking event or if it’s a job interview. Just be able to talk about yourself and why you want to do the things that you want to do.

Tim Ulbrich: So I’m curious, you’re in this moment of saying, OK, I’m doing this for fun, I’m reviewing all these CVs, and you probably have this “Aha!” moment of like, oh my gosh, if I see another Microsoft Word tracked changes document, you know, I need to eventually turn this into some type of a business, and there’s an opportunity to do so. But I’m guessing at the same time, you probably had some self-limiting beliefs, fears about is this an actual business? Will people pay for this? Is there a need? Is it validated? So talk me through that. Were there fears that were holding you back in doing that?

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Let’s talk about — yeah, we could talk about a whole podcast episode on that. You know my story through that.

Tim Ulbrich: That was a stupid question, yes.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: I talked to you about that a variety of times. But of course. 100%. I am no different than any of the other listeners in my fears and, you know, what people thought about me at that time. Now my life looks a little bit differently because I have results, right? I see positive results. When you see results, confidence tends to follow. At first, it just takes a little bit of courage and a little bit of humility. And then here I am a little bit of I see the results that my clients get, so now I’m like, OK, this stuff works. It’s validated. But in the beginning, let’s go back a couple years. I remember having conversations with my husband, like how am I going to do this? What are the logistics? And he looked at me, he said, “Ashlee, I don’t really care what you do. Like you do you. You just need to pay for your student loans, and you need to pay for child care, and you need to be able to like keep up with rent and keep up with our bills.” And I was like OK. So we shook on it, and I was like, “Watch me.”

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, yeah.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: And from there, I knew exactly how much money I needed to make in order to survive, right? Like bare minimum. I wasn’t talking about like going to Target and spending $100 there. No. I was very intentional with every penny spent. So you’ll appreciate this, Tim. I was very intentional with all of the money at first.

Tim Ulbrich: I like that, I like that.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: You know, like I was just head down, focused on how am I going to pay my bills? Like that’s at the end of the day. And I did that for a year and then I started seeing, again, I started seeing results, and I was like, OK, so it’s time to reevaluate. I’m going to look at some services, I’m going to put together different packages. Who do I want to work with? Instead of I’ll just work with anyone. And it just really has evolved over the past couple of years. And one thing led to the next, for example, like I had a career coaching client that came to me, and we were working together for a couple months. He landed a job interview, and he called me up. He’s like, “Ashlee, can you prep me for my interview?” And I was like, “Sure.” I whipped something up, and the next morning, I prepared him. A week later, he was flown out to the job interview, he nailed the interview, like the interview of his dream job. And he called me, he was like, “You should have charged me five times that price because I got the job.” And I was like, here we go. Here comes the results. And so from there, not that — a few more too. I started creating packages for people and how I could really, really support them land their dreams jobs.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: And it wasn’t — again, I just want to reiterate, it’s not a matter of qualifications. It’s not a matter of, you know — once you get the interview, it’s not really a matter of what’s on your resume or what’s on your CV or what jobs you’ve had in the past. It’s about how you craft your own story. And that’s what I help clients with. And that has been so potent and so powerful. And quite frankly, so fun for me because that’s what energizes me.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and what I love about that — and I’m sure you hear this from your clients all the time — is that while they’re engaging with you in that, whether it’s interview prep or you’re working them through that process, that is a lifelong benefit that they’re investing in.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Yes! Totally.

Tim Ulbrich: Because to your point, once you knock that out of the park and it leads to a job or whatever, confidence builds. And you know, I can speak from my own personal experience, once you go through that process and you get some wins or you go through a successful negotiation, whatever you’re working through, all of a sudden, you start approaching things with a different mindset.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: A different lens. Yeah.

Tim Ulbrich: And that mindset — a different lens, exactly. So —

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: And that’s what happens too. So I have career pivot clients that turn into interview prep clients that turn into lifelong clients because they recognize the value of investing in yourself and investing in this process.

Tim Ulbrich: Yes, yes.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: And it’s always nice to have kind of an outsider looking into your own little bubble and to kind of give you an outside view of what’s going on.

Tim Ulbrich: So speaking on investing in yourself, I shared with you before we jumped on the interview here that for me, 2019, you know, I don’t know if I’m having a third-life crisis, whatever we want to call it, but to me, 2019 is all about game on mindset and investing in the things that I think are most important in my life. So you know, whether that’s my marriage with Jess and I, whether that’s from a career standpoint, finances, health, (inaudible), it really feels like it took me awhile to really see into that positive lens of the ROI of investing in that support.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Totally, yes.

Tim Ulbrich: And I think that I tend to be probably be somewhat frugal. You know, I’m the financial guy, after all. But when you begin to see the return on investment, those things that are most important, and you think about, hey, when this is all said and done, I look back and say, ‘These things were the most important,’ I’m never going to regret in making those investments. So talk to me. I’m guessing you have several clients that some get over that hurdle to invest in themselves, some —

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: 100% of clients are like, why should I ever spend money on this? Literally everyone asks.

Tim Ulbrich: What is that? I mean, give us the background on why that is.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Right. Well first and foremost, just because you’re the finance guy doesn’t mean you’re frugal. You’re just intentional with your time and resources and money, right? Money’s just a tool. So I love that. I mean, just because you’re an expert in money doesn’t mean you’re frugal. It means you’re smart. And you spend your money intentionally. And that should be for everything. Your life needs to be very holistic approach in the sense of where do I want to spend my energy? Where do I want to spend my money? And what do I want out of all of this? And I’m the same way. I look at everything with intentions. My diet, my lifestyle, who I spend my time with, what I say yes to, what I say no to. And I know for me personally, the more I invest in the process, the more accountable I am to the outcome.

Tim Ulbrich: Amen.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: So for example, I mean — gosh, I have so many examples — but one of them being I myself invest in a business coach. I myself have a speaking coach because I know that I want to bring my level up, right? I’m always just like how do I perfect some of the things? How do I tweak some things? So what do I do? I invest in experts who are better at these things than me. And quite frankly, one of the things that I guess I could speak for RxAshlee is that I’m really good at interviewing. And so what I’ve turned this into is a service. And how do I teach people? And whether or not they want to invest in it is whether or not they feel like they need it. That’s a whole other conversation of if you need it or not. But I am a big believer of investing in the things that are going to give you the biggest ROI, as with you, Tim. But one of them is my marriage. I’m very committed to whatever it takes, you know, my husband and I go away two weeks every year, just us two just because it’s important for us. We get such little time just between us amongst both of our busy careers, amongst our family, balancing all of the things that we do together. So we invest in our marriage first and foremost. And that is by time away and by all other things too. I mean, marriage counseling or whatever it is you need, you have to take those steps in order to really get the best outcome. And financial advice is no different. If you don’t know how to manage your financial services, what would hold you back from investing a little bit of cash, a little bit of income, to get you the bigger result of, wow, I feel confident in the direction that I’m going now.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and that’s why we share with people, I have a financial planner as well because I know at the end of the day, you know, that for me, knowledge aside, there’s always something more to learn on this. But even with knowledge on the topic, I need accountability, and I need somebody to challenge me and to set goals and to help my wife and I navigate it. So I’m with you. And if you listen and watch most of the successful entrepreneurs that are out there, I can think of probably almost all of them, the stories that I’ve listened to, that all have a coach in different areas of their life, you know? And I think that speaks to it. Let’s talk about interview prep for a minute because I think that is your jam. Right?

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Totally. I love it. I mean, I love a lot of things, right? I’m a multi-passionate person. I love supporting clients in whole different aspects of their career, anything career-related, I just love it. But the thing is is the interview prep — to be totally transparent to me — it’s a quick win. People like quick wins. I spend a couple of hours, maybe 1-3 hours, with a client. And from time 0 to the end, it is like a totally different person. And it’s so fun for me to watch that process. So that’s why it’s been a big one because it’s very little time that I’m spending to see such an awesome result. And so that’s why it’s been growing, and it’s been huge, and the testimonials and the reviews, it shows itself. But long term-wise, I mean, I love working with clients long-term too.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. Yeah, I think —

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: It’s like a constant pull of, you know, interview prep versus long-term clients.

Tim Ulbrich: I think, though, as we think about some of the things that are going on with the job market and other things, and this is a way that I think people, to your point, a quick win can really, really differentiate themselves and is one thing that has a win that will last much longer than the individual preparation work that they do with you. So for those that are interested in learning more, I know you’ve got some info on your website, RxAshlee.com. You’ve got a section on interview prep, sign up for your email list, make sure that you’re up-to-date, and I think you’ve got some information on there for a call as well for those that may be interested.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Yeah, I have a course that I produced. Basically, what I realized was that 99.9% of the clients that come to me have the same questions. They don’t know how to answer a few basic but sometimes tricky questions, and so what I did was in order to lower the cost and to make it just really more potent and quick for the client, I created a course. And it’s been really successful. And then what happens is if the client has more one-on-one questions, then at that time, they can invest in working one-on-one with me. And I have found that extremely beneficial because I gave you like the down-and-dirty, simple tricks on the course. But then if you want just to take it a little bit more to the next level, then I would love, obviously, to support them even more. So that’s been really fun.

Tim Ulbrich: So I want to talk for a minute about some of the work that you’re doing with USC College of Pharmacy and from my experiences in the academic world, you know, I would often do career advising with students. And they would come to me, and we’d have a conversation about their goals and aspirations, and I could tell they were down one of two tracks. They saw, really — many of them saw two paths in their mind: community pharmacy or largely in-patient pharmacy residency. And I think as I see the work that you’re doing on the “nontraditional” setting, that’s a limit we have right now is that there’s not a broad awareness of the opportunities that are out there and really aligning students strengths with the interests that are there. So tell us a little bit about —

refinance student loans

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Oh yeah, I could talk about that forever. Yes.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah. And some of the work that you’re doing at USC.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Let me ask you a question. When students come to you, what do they define as, you know, nontraditional pharmacy? I’m just curious.

Tim Ulbrich: So if I get a response on that, they’re typically then starting, I would say maybe they broaden out to like managed care, PBM world. Sometimes I’ll hear things like nuclear pharmacy or long-term care consulting. But that really is the end of it. And if you look at the trend data at many colleges, if you take the residency pool and you take those that go into community pharmacy, that is usually 90-95%, if not in some cases more, of where the students are going. So how are you getting that message out there?

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: In my opinion, that is traditional pharmacy.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: All of those roles. So what is nontraditional pharmacy? And I think that’s the message I’m trying to spread amongst obviously our students but just really the global pharmacy world at large is nontraditional pharmacy is whatever you want it to be. It doesn’t have to be a pharmacy title. It doesn’t have to be a specific industry. It doesn’t have to be a specific sector. What you need to do as students and as just the larger body of pharmacists is recognize that your education is just laying the groundwork for you. It’s not a direct one-to-one path. It’s not this plus that equals this. Gone are those days. No longer are the days that that’s where it’s at. And if we’re not on the bandwagon, then we need to jump on that bandwagon because we have to teach the students to get really, really creative as to what are their skills? What do they enjoy doing? You know, use your background, use your education to just be like a starter place. And then blend with that with what are you good at, what are your passions, what do you want to do in this whole entire universe. Like the sky is the limit. And then just go out and brand yourself as that person. And go out and do it. What’s holding you back?

Tim Ulbrich: Yes, totally.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: That’s the question. And I think what a lot of schools are missing is telling the students that, giving them the support, giving them the “I think that’s a great idea, go out and do it. I support you.” I just had a student in my office this morning talking to me about how he wants to get involved in health literacy and like how he wants to do outcomes research in that realm.

Tim Ulbrich: Huge problem, right? Yes.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Huge. It’s an amazing topic. I’m like, “OK, well, what can I do to support you? What can we do? What internship can you get? What alumni can I support you with? You know, let’s do it.” So it’s totally changing, and we just need to lay — from day one, from ground zero, from day zero, we’ve got to get them to start thinking like outside of that white coat.

Tim Ulbrich: Oh, yes.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Outside of the tradition of traditional pharmacy, this is the only thing, one plus one equals two. I strongly just don’t think that that’s where we’re heading anymore. And we need to support the students in thinking that because they’re very smart. They’re very, very competent, capable human beings. They just need a little bit more nurturing.

Tim Ulbrich: Yes.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: They just need more impetus of, yeah, that’s an opportunity. Go after it.

Tim Ulbrich: And I’ve seen this mindset develop very quickly, you know, in a pharmacy student’s schooling. I mean, their first, second year, they’re obviously watching their peers above them, they may have come in with preconceived notions of what these paths are, so I feel like there’s somewhat of an uphill battle to redefine that, right?

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Well, of course, because they see the faculty doing the, for the most part, fairly traditional roles.

Tim Ulbrich: Yes, yes.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: So we have to realize as faculty, as staff, these students are looking at us. We are the embodiment to what they can and can’t do. So I think what we can do as staff and faculty is really just support their dreams, support their ambitions. Don’t tell them what’s right or wrong. We don’t know.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Who’s to say who’s right or wrong?

Tim Ulbrich: I love that. And I think there’s so much fear there around, you know, obviously student loan debt plays a role in that, the income expectation.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Totally, yeah. I’m in that. Tim, that’s my jam. Like I pay my student loans — I am not innocent here. I am not student loan-free.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: So I get it. But I’m still doing it. And I still love my job and for some reason, my husband and I are still able to pay our bills.

Tim Ulbrich: Yes.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: So I think it’s just the whole notion of having less fear.

Tim Ulbrich: So a student who’s listening to this podcast and, you know, hopefully they don’t have Ashlee Klevens Hayes as a career strategist at their college of pharmacy, right? So they may not be getting this. But they’re maybe going to begin starting —

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: First I would tell them to follow me on Instagram. I love Instagram.

Tim Ulbrich: There we go.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: I love Instagram.

Tim Ulbrich: Yes. We are new on the Instagram platform.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: It’s so fun. OK, first of all, you called it “the Instagram.” No. It’s Instagram.

Tim Ulbrich: Can you tell I’m new on the Instagram platform?

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: It’s fun. It’s a creative outlet. And I think LinkedIn’s a little bit — for me, personally, it’s a little bit more professional where I don’t feel like I can voice what I really want to because I feel like I get a little bit more pushback on LinkedIn, quite frankly. Instagram is creative, there’s so many different people on there, it’s so fun for me. So anyways. We digress.

Tim Ulbrich: We do. So student, let’s say a student at University of Buffalo, here at the Ohio State University, and they’re hearing this and they’re thinking, wow, I’m really passionate about this area. I mean, health literacy is a great example. It could be one of a thousand areas of healthcare, right? There’s infinite opportunities. But they think, I don’t know where to go with this. It’s an idea. I don’t necessarily see or know of a job that’s defined. I can’t find a job posting. Where do they start?

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Well, it’s a great question. I would say, go read my blogs. There’s like 25 blogs that I have talked about this for a long, long time. You know, where do I start? That’s everyone’s question. How do I get a job? And that’s a mindset thing. And instead of asking, how do I get a job?, ask yourself, what am I good at? What are my strengths? What does success mean to me? You know, what do I want out of my career? That’s the first thing. What are your goals? Like what is it you want to create out of this life of yours? And how do you want to impact people? And how do you want to influence people? That’s No. 1. Step 2, go brand yourself as that person. Once you’ve identified kind of the path you want to take, I didn’t start off this way. I didn’t start off by having all these different services, packages, courses, books, speaking engagements. I just started off like reviewing CVs.

Tim Ulbrich: Yep. One step.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Yeah.

Tim Ulbrich: Yes.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: And then I was like, oh gosh, it’s so much more and deeper than just the CV. It’s so much bigger. And the vision is you’ve got to figure out what you want and then OK, let’s make you look like the best freaking candidate out there. And then go for it. And only do the things that are going to get you closer to that bigger vision. And I think a lot of students come to me, and they’re like, I don’t know what a vision is. I’m like, “OK, well, what do you want for your career?”

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. What gets you excited, right? What leaves you energized.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Right, exactly.

Tim Ulbrich: Yes, yes. It’s that reflection. And I’ve talked before on the podcast about the book for me, one of the books, many that were game-changers, but one that was really pivotal in kind of my path was “Start” by Jon Eckhoff. And just, it talks a lot about this concept of like be aware, reflect on the things that you cannot get off your mind because you’re so passionate about it or that people are telling you, that you’re really good in this area and helping people and doing this or that, and acknowledge that. Reflect on it. And then take one step towards beginning to articulate what that vision is. And then obviously, begin to execute on that. But we talked on your show, if you articulate the 20-year plan, that becomes paralyzing, right? But you take one step. One step.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Totally. Oh my gosh, yes. Let me just say, just to be clear, five years ago, if someone would have told me that I was launching this business, I would have been confused. I would have no idea that I would have been in this place. But I had an idea and I knew what I was good at. And I knew how I wanted to help people. And that’s the same definition of a lot of pharmacists out there. They want to help people. The way I help people is much different than the way other pharmacists help people. So I think you just have to have that idea of what does helping people look like to you? And then what capacity do you like talking about that? And then from there, obviously, you just put your head down and work. And you don’t give up. You commit. Commit to this. And I think that’s what’s been the best part about all of this for me is seeing the clients that commit and the outcome is huge.

Tim Ulbrich: Let’s talk about that hard work and commitment for a minute because you and I both know that starting a business is both exhilarating and it can be a grind at the same time. And I think we don’t always talk about, you know, both sides of it. And of course, the passion brings you through those moments of, you know, difficulty. Seth Godin calls them the “dips,” and you’ve kind of got to — very few people get to the other side of the dip. So what keeps you motivated through the hustle, the hard work, balancing family, all these things?

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Oh man, good question. All of the things?

Tim Ulbrich: Yes, yes.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: First and foremost, I have a daughter who I want to show her that if she puts her heart and mind to something, that she is capable of doing anything in this whole entire universe. I want her to see that firsthand. Two, I — honestly, I have a support group that I go to. I’m in a big entrepreneurship group that I lean on them hard when I’m feeling like the little bit of imposterish. I don’t think that really goes away. And three, I see the results of my clients, and that drives me. And honestly, at the end of the day, I think that’s what I’m in this for. I want to see people just as happy and thriving just as much as I am. And I think the people that I’m serving, the audience that I’m working with, they’re all so smart. So smart. I have physicians, I mean, I have pharmacists, I have you name it: agriculture, architects, lawyers, that are coming to me, and they are brilliant. So smart. They just need a little bit of tweaking. And that’s — at the end of the day, that’s what I’m good at, and that’s what I support them through. So I think the results have been a big driver for me.

Tim Ulbrich: So you alluded to this a little bit in what you just said, but you know, the reality is — and it’s hard to think about this, but I think it’s so critical for you, and I know you’ve thought about it, but our listeners also be thinking about legacy. And the reality is what you’re working on today is obviously going to be left behind for others to continue to consume, to build upon, and ultimately, you know, I’m thinking of your daughter, to look back and say, yes, that was my mom. You know? So what do you want your legacy to be?

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Oh gosh, this could get me like choked up, Tim. What the heck? I’ve had such great mentors in my life, one of them being my dad. And I talk about him a lot. He passed away very suddenly in the middle of my second year of pharmacy school. And he was like the legacy that I wanted to live by. And one of the last conversations I had with my dad, the last, which is so powerful, is I was driving to pharmacy school, he was driving to work, and we were talking about pharmacy, all of the stressors that came along with being a Chief Pharmacy Officer. But at the end of the conversation, he goes, “Ashlee, I just want you to know, I’ve kind of like word vomited on you, but I love my job. And at the end of the day, at the end of the day, you have to make a positive impact on this world, on your job, and on the people you’re working with. Or else it’s not worth it.” And that’s stuck — and eight weeks later, my dad passed away. And that’s stuck with me now nine years ago that that’s what’s the impetus behind me launching my own brand and my own business is I love what I’m doing.

Tim Ulbrich: Yes.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: And it’s not every single day is like skipping and rainbows. No, I get things pop up all the time. But I feel really fulfilled. And I think if I can show that to the people around me and especially like my daughter and my husband and my family, then that inspires them to do that. It’s kind of like a trickle effect, you know?

Tim Ulbrich: I do. And that’s why I love, I love what you’re doing in terms of, you know, helping people whether it’s a quick win in interview prep, whether it’s helping them make a career pivot, whether it’s helping them take their business to the next level and develop it is that has such a profound effect on every other area of our lives. And we cannot disconnect them. And I think some of the negativity that’s out there right now in the job market is a disconnect or trying to disconnect between the work and the life and all the other parts that come. And you cannot. They all influence one another.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: No. Yeah, no. Yeah. Well, I have to say, if you’re one of those people that is, you know, feeling a little — not just unhappy. It’s more than just unhappiness, right? If it’s unfulfilled or if you feel like you’re not living up to your expectations in your career. You have to understand that if you — and I say it on my business card, it’s on my LinkedIn, it’s everywhere. If you want to make a change in your life, you have to get comfortable being uncomfortable. Because with all this newness comes uncomfortable territory. On the first podcast I launched, I talked about imposter syndrome, and I read off the screen, I was so nervous. I was shaking. And I think I should have had a cocktail before that because I was so nervous to put my heart out there and to put, you know, all these thoughts out into the world for people to look at me. But it’s working, and that’s what kind of drives me too. I’m still uncomfortable, just to be clear.

Tim Ulbrich: Sure. Yes. So give us a book recommendation, a podcast that you’re listening to, something that’s inspiring you that can inspire our audience.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Oh, that’s a great question. So I just read the book, “Fearless” by Jean Case over the weekend. She is the national — or I might screw up her title, but she’s like the chairman of the National Geographic. She’s the first woman or second woman to be in that role. And she just talks about all these inspiring people who came from nothing. These people are essentially — not no ones, but they came from nothing, and then they turned their lives into this huge, impactful careers. And that’s really, just hearing those stories and hearing, you know, all of her tips and tricks on how she go to where she is now, and she’s a philanthropist. It’s really inspiring. So that’s the book I read over the weekend.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: I read so much too. Just I love reading.

Tim Ulbrich: Me too. Me too. And I’m hoping to inspire that in my boys because I didn’t have that when I was younger, but I can’t get enough of it now.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: I used to hate reading.

Tim Ulbrich: Me too. I’m ashamed to say that.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Oh, I’m not. I hated it. But now, over the last three or four years, I’m in it. I love it.

Tim Ulbrich: We’ll link to that in the show notes. So what’s on the horizon for RxAshlee? What are you working on?

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Oh, all of the things. You know, it’s always changing. But I have four keynote presentations this year, which I have to say, when you take on a big presentation in front of a big audience, it’s so much work. Holy moly. So much energy. So that’s one thing. Two, I’m leading a women’s group. It’s a branding — it’s not a mastermind, I would say, but it’s just like 10 of us that are just trying to go through career pivots or launching their own brand, and that’s been so much — I love that group. I mean, those are my people. I am writing a book, I’m launching courses. You know? It’s just keeping up the grind, and I love it. It’s so much.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s awesome. So obviously, you mentioned before, you’re on Instagram at @RxAshlee. Again, that’s @RxAshlee. And we referenced the website, RxAshlee.com.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Thank you, Tim.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. This has been so much fun. Looking forward to more collaborations. I would highly encourage our listeners to check out the work that you’re doing over at RxAshlee.com, and I’m sure we’ll have you again on the show here in the future. Thank you.

Ashlee Klevens Hayes: Tim, I love what you’re doing. You know, we’ve had this conversation so many times, and I just want to say, thank you for what you’re doing in the profession. I know how much work it takes to put yourself out there and to kind of like just go after it. And you are a strong mentor to so many of us out there. So thanks again for having me on the show.

Tim Ulbrich: Thank you. Have a great rest of your week.

Recent Posts

[pt_view id=”f651872qnv”]

5 Key Financial Moves To Make With A New Baby

Posted on by yfpadmin

5 Key Financial Moves to Make with a New Baby

The following is a guest post by Karen Berger, PharmD. Karen is a pharmacist and medical writer in Fair Lawn, NJ. Her husband has been trying unsuccessfully to put her on a budget for many years.

This post contains affiliate links through which Your Financial Pharmacist may receive compensation

In an earlier post, we talked about how to prepare financially when expecting. Once your little one makes his or her big appearance, though, the financial planning is not over – it has just begun. Continue to work on those important financial moves we talked about earlier, and start to incorporate these additional tips.

Nothing can prepare you for life with a baby. Whether this is your first or fifth baby, the first few months are exhausting. You walk around on a few hours of sleep every night – getting more than four hours of sleep in a row is cause for celebration. You might not remember the last time you showered or sat down for an uninterrupted meal. Although it is the last thing on your mind, financial planning for new parents is key to ensuring a strong financial position for the upcoming years.

1. Start Saving For College

With the average cost of college for 2017-2018 at $20,770 for in-state public schools and $46,950 for nonprofit private schools (including tuition, fees, and room and board), and prices increasing every year, it is never too early to start saving for college. Don’t forget to multiply these numbers by six (years), the average length of time students take to earn a bachelor’s degree, and also by the number of children you have.

Having a monthly savings goal is a fantastic way to help your children pay for college. NerdWallet estimates that saving $500 a month, per child, earning 5%, should be adequate for you to cover $50,000 of college costs per year for four years once your child turns 18. Obviously if you’re planning to pick up the tab for potential graduate or professional school, you’re going to need to save a lot more. You can find calculator tools online to tweak the numbers to your personal situation. Often, saving for college will involve a combination of several of the strategies below:

529 College savings plan: The 529 is the most popular savings plan geared toward education; there are two types. The first type is the 529 investment savings account. With this plan, you invest with the same risk/return profile of other stock investments. Check your own state for tax breaks or matching funding before looking into 529 plans offered by other states.

The second type is the 529 prepaid tuition plan. This method locks in tuition costs and avoids the yearly increase in tuition. Paying for 6 semesters now, at today’s cost, will pay for 6 semesters in the future, even if the costs are higher at that time. These plans are starting to have more restrictions.

Pros of the 529 include: high contribution rates (plans typically allow up to $300,000 in lifetime total contribution), the ability to change beneficiaries, and the benefit of tax-free growth. Also, if the parent is the account holder, the 529 is considered a parental asset and it will have a minimal impact on financial aid as compared to other education savings options.

On the other hand, there are a few cons of the 529. It is strictly to be used for education, so if your child does not go to college, the money may be unavailable for other purposes. However, depending on the plan, you may be able to change the beneficiary or pay tax and a 10% penalty on the growth of assets. There is also the inherent stock market risk.

Savings Accounts & Other Low-Yield Options: Savings accounts are flexible, but provide little in the way of interest. Using a regular checking/savings account with the intent to save for college may backfire, as money may be tapped into and not replaced. Not only that, but because of inflation which is typically around 2-3% per year, you may actually be losing money keeping it parked here. Certificates of Deposit (CD) and US Savings Bonds are other options, but these are mostly out of favor due to low interest rates. Sometimes, a very conservative contributor may favor this option.

Roth IRA: A Roth IRA can be used as a combination retirement account and educational savings account. It allows you to invest with after-tax dollars while the earnings grow tax-free. Although this is typically used as a retirement account with a penalty for early withdrawals on any growth before 59 ½, if used for higher education, distributions can be taken tax- free and penalty-free. The biggest downside to this is that it could significantly reduce your overall retirement projections. In addition, the distribution must be made in the same year that the qualified expenses are paid. Another item to note is this distribution is considered to be income to the student and could reduce eligibility for need-based financial aid.

Coverdell Education Savings Account (ESA): This is like a smaller version of a 529: it offers tax-free withdrawals, and you can invest in the market. However, one of the biggest advantages is that you will have a lot more investment options to choose from, since you won’t be limited to what’s available to what a specific 529 plan offers. Contributions are limited to $2,000 per year, and until the beneficiary turns 18. ESA’s may offer more flexibility, and qualified expenses may include educational expenses from Kindergarten all the way through graduate school (529 plans also now allow up to $10,000 per year to pay for private elementary and post secondary school tuition).

Important to note with a Education Savings Account is that income limits apply, and depending on your salary/combined salary, you may not be able to participate. Currently, the income limit for a maximum contribution is $190,000 for a married couple filing joint returns, and contributions phase out at $220,000 in 2018/2019. The limit is $110,000 for those not filing a joint return.

If you are indeed eligible to contribute to an ESA, the cool thing is that you don’t have to choose between an ESA and a 529 – you can do both!

Trusts: These are structured as UTMA or UGMA. Assets are transferred to the child’s account and invested on his/her behalf until the child reaches the “age of trust determination,” which is between 18-21, depending on the state. As soon as the beneficiary becomes an adult, he/she can use the money however he/she wishes. As a custodial account, these assets are considered to be assets of the child/student and are included in calculating financial aid. These funds will stay in the custodian’s taxable estate until the child reaches the age of trust determination.

2. Make A Will

This is the happiest time of your life – who wants to think about something depressing like a will? Although it seems sad, a will is a very necessary part of life. Just think about the recent, unexpected passing of 90210 and Riverdale star Luke Perry from a stroke at the young age of 52. That was a major wake-up call for many people to get their affairs in order.

In your will, you will clearly and concisely state your wishes for the distribution of your assets after death, and appoint guardians for your children if both parents pass away. You will designate an executor, who will ensure the provisions of the will are carried out.

You can either hire an attorney to create your will or do it yourself. I would recommend hiring an attorney if you can afford to do so. The attorney handles all of the intricate details, making sure nothing is left out and can keep a copy on file. Attorneys may charge a flat fee or hourly rate, with an average cost of $300-$1000 for an uncomplicated will, or up to $10,000 if you have complex assets and an estate, or the need to establish a trust.

Many companies offer a very affordable legal plan for employees, where you contribute a small amount per paycheck for legal representation by participating attorneys. At the time, my husband and I were able to do both our will and closing on our house, and we did not have to pay anything above the regular paycheck contribution.

If you would rather create a will yourself, you can use an online program or software to make a will for less than $100. Requirements for witnesses or other specifications vary by state.

Another thing you need to do that falls under the “no fun, but necessary” category, that goes along with your will, is to create a living will, or advanced directive. This lets you set the terms for healthcare providers about the kind of health care you want or do not want to receive, in the event that you are unable to speak or make decisions for yourself. The living will sets forth your wishes on resuscitation, quality of life, and end of life treatment. The Durable Power of Attorney for Healthcare is a designated, trusted person who will make medical decisions for you in an emergency situation, in cases where the living will may not provide a clear answer. This person is there to fill in gaps that are not clarified by your living will, and cannot contradict your living will.

term life insurance, term life insurance for pharmacists

3. Obtain or Update Life Insurance

Now is the time to get a life insurance policy, if you do not have one already. Life insurance ensures that your beneficiaries (spouse, children) are financially taken care of if you die.

There are two types of life insurance:

  • Term Life Insurance: This type of life insurance offers coverage for a specified period of time. It is less expensive than whole life insurance and has a predetermined guaranteed death benefit. Your premiums will increase at preset time intervals, such as every 10 years.
  • Permanent Life Insurance: A number of policies such as whole life, cash value, and universal life, fall under this umbrella. This type of insurance has a death benefit that never expires as long as you pay your premium. In addition, there is typically a saving/investing plan baked in, which is one of the benefits that agents use frequently as a marketing tactic. The rates of return vary, depending on the policy, and they are generally filled with many different kinds of fees. Plus, these policies are often much more expensive than term policies. Because of these issues, the YFP team recommends that most people should keep their savings and investments separate and go for a term life insurance policy.

Once you determine the term (usually 10-30 years) that works best for you, you need to decide the amount of coverage. Financial experts often recommend that your death benefit be 6 to 12 times your annual salary. However, this may not be enough and a number of factors will come into play, including what you can afford, homeownership, and number of dependents. For a more tactical approach, you can check out this calculator.

long term disability insurance

4. Obtain or Update Disability Insurance

Would you be able to support yourself and your family, pay bills, and achieve your financial goals if you became disabled and couldn’t work anymore? If your answer is no, then you need disability insurance.

Do you know your most valuable asset? Surprisingly, it is not a material possession such as your house, but it is the ability to earn a living. Disability insurance pays a portion of your regular income if you are unable to work for an extended period of time due to illness or injury.

Although it seems unlikely, more than 1 in 4 20-year olds will have a disability for 90 days or more by age 67. Often, people think of worst-case scenarios and assume that they are immune, but something as “minor” as a back injury can put an otherwise healthy person on disability.

There are two types of disability insurance – short-term and long-term coverage. Both replace part of your monthly salary up to a certain amount, such as $10,000, during a disability. Some long-term policies also may pay for additional services, such as training to return to work.

Short-term disability replaces 60-70% of your salary, and pays out for several months up to one year, depending on the policy. It has a shorter waiting period, about 2 weeks, between the time of disability and the time when payments are made to you.

Long-term disability policies typically can replace up to 40-60% of your salary. With long-term disability insurance, benefits end when the disability ends. If the disability continues, benefits end either after a certain number of years or at age of retirement. There is a longer waiting period, usually 90 days, between the time of disability and the time when payments are made

Disability insurance can get pretty complex as there are a number of riders and definitions that vary between companies. Besides your age, occupation, term, benefit amount, and waiting period, these riders will play a huge part in the cost of your policy. To get a better understanding of these and what to expect, you can check out this free guide.

How do you sign up for disability insurance? First, look at your workplace. Often, employers include coverage and contribute towards the premium. Even if your employer does not pay towards your coverage, you can often buy your own coverage through the employer’s insurance broker at a discounted group rate. You can also check with professional pharmacist associations. Another way is to buy an individual plan through a broker or directly through an insurance company. Your Financial Pharmacist offers a helpful service through Policygenius that shops multiple companies to find you the best disability insurance policy.

disability insurance, disability insurance for pharmacists

5. Start or Continue Contributing Toward Retirement

Although retirement may seem far away, and college savings for your children may be at the front of your mind, it is an inevitable event that requires planning. I always remember Suze Orman telling callers on her radio show, “You can take out loans for college but you can’t take out loans for retirement.” The sooner you start saving, the longer your money has to grow. Be sure to contribute to your company’s 401(k) plan, and if your company has a match, try to at least contribute that much since it’s basically free money. The maximum 401(k) contribution limit for 2019 is $19,000 unless you’re over 50 in which you can add an additional $6,000.

Even If your company does not offer a 401(k), or you are self-employed, you can open up an IRA (individual retirement account). For 2019, your total contributions to all of your IRA’s cannot exceed $6,000 if you are under 50 years old, or $7,000 if you are age 50 or older.

Besides an IRA or 401(k), a Health Savings Account (HSA) is another great way to save for retirement as it has triple tax benefits. It lowers your taxable income, grows tax-free, and can be distributed tax-free if used for qualified medical expenses. Despite its name, your contributions do not have to sit in a simple savings account, but can actually be invested aggressively. In order to get access to an HSA, you have to have a high deductible health plan (HDHP).

These financial moves to make with a new baby may not be the most exciting things to do and they can come with a high cost, but they will help you sleep better at night, knowing that you are taking care of your family. Now, here’s to hoping your new bundle of joy sleeps through the night!

Financial planning for a baby, and in general, life events, can be overwhelming. Often it is best to bring in an experienced financial planner to help you plan and prepare. If you are looking for some extra help, you can click here to book a free call with the YFP Planning financial planning team.

Current Student Loan Refinance Offers

Advertising Disclosure

[wptb id="15454" not found ]

 

YFP 094: Debt Free Theme Hour

Posted on by yfpadmin

Debt Free Theme Hour

On this debt free theme hour, sponsored by Airbnb, Tim Ulbrich welcomes Matt and Amy Farley who paid off $207,000 in just under 4 years. They talk about what motivated their journey, how they were able to work together and what’s next now that they are debt free.

About Today’s Guests

Matt and Amy have been married since 2011. Matt graduated from the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy in 2015 and has worked in the informatics space since then. Amy is a high school choir director at Washington High School in Cedar Rapids, IA. They have two kids and a dog named Millie.

Summary

Matt and Amy Farley share their journey of paying off $207,000 of student loans in 4 years. Matt accrued $60,000 of student loan debt from his bachelor degree and the rest in pharmacy school. When he graduated, his debt totaled $187,000. Fortunately, his wife Amy didn’t accrue any debt for her undergraduate studies.

Amy grew up in a frugal household where her parents didn’t make a lot of money but were able to provide them with a great upbringing. Amy says that her parents trained her and her siblings to budget and helped them find scholarships for their college education. With scholarships, Amy was able to complete her bachelor’s degree with no debt. She later completed her master’s degree which was cash flowed through their budget while she continued to work.

While Matt was in college, his view on money shifted. After reading Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey, he began to view possessions and money differently. Instead of seeing success marked by the purchase of a new car or large house, he saw monthly payments and debt. When Matt graduated, he saw a high debt number and realized that his take home pay wasn’t as much as he expected, even with a 6 figure pharmacist income. His motivation behind paying off his student loans quickly was that he wanted to be free of debt and have options in the future for other experiences. Amy’s motivation came from faith and wanting to be free from the control of money so that they could give back to others and their children, as well as have money for future goals and experiences.

Initially, Amy and Matt planned to pay off their student loan debt within 2 years. They realized that this trajectory wasn’t sustainable and “slowed” down how aggressive their payments were so that they could start a family and buy a house. The couple shares that their secret of success was found in their budget. They used the budgeting tool YNAB and created a zero-based budget so that every penny went somewhere. They talked regularly about their budget and made sure they were on the same page regarding large purchases and big financial decisions. They also used a debt snowball calculator in Excel to gain momentum to reach $10,000 milestones. Additionally, they were both paid biweekly which allowed them to budget with 24 yearly paychecks and use the additional 2 paychecks for larger payments or other goals.

Matt’s advice to those in pharmacy school is to minimize your lifestyle and not live off of your loans or take trips using them. He also suggests that residency, although can be very helpful for networking and specialized training, may not be necessary for everyone. If residency isn’t pursued, your higher income could be used to pay off your debt or work toward your financial goals.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Hey, what’s up, everybody? Welcome to this week’s episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. And we have a good one for you this week. I have Matt and Amy Farley with me, who paid off over $207,000 in just under four years. And they hit submit on that last payment of debt just a couple days ago as we’re sitting here doing this recording today. They’ve got a great story to share about their journey, what worked, how they have worked together effectively as a couple and now what is the future ahead that they’ve gone through this journey. You might remember, we asked you, the YFP community, what you wanted to hear more of on the podcast, and Debt Free Theme Hours was near top of that list. So we have another great one for you today. We’re going to hopefully continue to feature more of these into the future. So Matt and Amy, welcome to the show. And thank you so much for coming on.

Matt Farley: Hey, Tim. How’s it going?

Amy Farley: Thanks for having us. Hello.

Tim Ulbrich: Yes, excited. You have an incredible journey. We just talked briefly before the show, and I know Matt, you and I were messaging back and forth over the past couple months. But I am excited for our listeners to get a sneak peek into the journey that you went through. And it’s really incredible if you think about what you did. $207,000 of student loan debt in under a four-year period and just hitting submit on that last payment just two days ago. So first of all, congratulations on doing that. That’s an incredible accomplishment. And Matt, I’m guessing as you now log out of the Navient platform and you see that big $0, that has to be a great feeling, right?

Matt Farley: Yeah. Honestly, it doesn’t even feel real. You know? Like I’m so used to there being thousands and thousands of dollars on there that I just kind of started accepting that. But now, I log in and it says $0. It feels pretty good.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, it’s amazing when you log onto the platform and you see hundreds of thousands of dollars and, you know, we’ve talked before, it feels like Monopoly money. It doesn’t feel real, and sometimes, you send in those big payments, you don’t see the needle move very much. And I felt the same way when my wife and I hit this journey and we finished paying off our debt. Same thing, Navient platform, I was sitting at my kitchen table. I’ll never forget the moment, but it was like the fireworks, I needed them to come, and they never came. So it took awhile to really set in the reality of that. But you guys have a bright, bright future ahead. So Matt, why don’t we start with your background in terms of undergrad and then into pharmacy school? Tell us a little bit about your journey and some of the debt that you accrued along the way in terms of both undergrad and pharmacy school and then obviously, that collectively being the large part of the debt that you were working through paying off.

Matt Farley: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I went to undergrad. I did four years at the University of Northern Iowa and accumulated about $60,000 of debt. Wasn’t super wise with how I paid for school. I kind of lived on loans and paid for tuition all at the same time. Then I went to pharmacy school at the University of Iowa, accumulated the rest of the debt. Actually kind of going through pharmacy school got some pretty good scholarships that paid for a little less than half of pharmacy school. But you know, it just seemed like it still accumulated to when we graduated being at about $187,000. And so luckily and fortunately, my wife Amy didn’t have any debt from undergrad. So that was kind of the number we were looking at when I graduated pharmacy school. And so you know, after pharmacy school, I took a job as an IT pharmacist. My background’s in IT, in informatics, and I’ve been a part of a couple startup companies along the way and in pharmacy school and so was able to land that job out of school and just felt really motivated at that point to knock out this debt. And so that’s the number we started with, and yeah. Now I’m working as an informatics pharmacist for a pharmaceutical company.

Tim Ulbrich: Thank you for sharing. And Amy, talk us a little bit through your background. And as we talked before the show, my understanding is you grew up in a little bit more of a frugal environment and you kind of strapped your way through this with scholarships and ultimately, cash flowing a Master’s degree. And so I guess we can blame Matt for all this debt, right?

Amy Farley: Oh, absolutely.

Matt Farley: Unfortunately, it’s my fault.

Amy Farley: I reminded him of that once in awhile. But no. Yeah, so I grew up in a really frugal house where my parents didn’t make much, but they worked very, very hard to use every penny and give us a great upbringing. And then they trained me and my siblings along the way too of budgeting techniques and worked really hard alongside us to find a lot of scholarships going into college, so yeah. I went and got my undergrad at the University of Northern Iowa as well. But I was able to pay for all of that using scholarships that my parents kind of helped me figure out and learn how to do. And then I started working as a high school choir director and decided that I wanted to get my Master’s, so I did that online while working and while we were starting to pay off all of this debt. And just like you said, we cash flowed my Master’s.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s awesome. And so the work you’re doing now is in music education, and you had mentioned directing the high school choir, correct?

Amy Farley: Yeah, yep. So I direct show choirs and your regular choir that you think of and then a jazz choir as well. It’s a lot of fun.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome. Yeah. So Matt, how many thank you cards have you written to Amy’s parents for helping out with all those scholarships?

Matt Farley: Yeah, I mean, definitely. We talk about it. I haven’t written any cards, but we’ve definitely talked about it.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s fun, that’s fun. So one of the questions I want to ask — and I’d love to hear from both of you on this — is we talk a lot on the show about, you know, the why, the motivations, the what’s behind the hustle and the grit. And for everybody, that often is different. But when I hear your story, $207,000 of debt that you paid off in less than four years, to me, that really says there’s a significant motivation and why around getting this debt off of your shoulders, for whatever reason. So Matt, let’s start with you. Talk me through some of the motivations of why you wanted to have this debt paid off — and let me even add on to that, I guess. Was it always that way? Or can you recall a moment where that transition had happened?

Matt Farley: Yeah, you know, for me, my view of money throughout this process has shifted a lot. I discovered a book, “The Total Money Makeover,” when I was in my second year of pharmacy school that shifted a lot of how I viewed money and possessions in general, right? You know? I think I used to view when people had a nice car, I thought that they were successful. Now, I almost view that as a negative. You know, not that it’s bad to have a nice car, but I always kind of wonder if that car has a payment attached to it or if that ginormous house has a payment attached to it. And so for me, that was when I started this process of viewing money differently and viewing my student loans differently, right? I kind of just thought when I was in pharmacy school that yes, I’m taking out money for school, but I’ll have so much income that it won’t really matter, right? That my lifestyle will be able to be whatever I want it to be, and I won’t have to think about money very much because we’ll have that six-figure income that a pharmacist gets. And so, you know, we graduated and just kind of recognizing that that was a huge number and that when you look at the take-home pay that you actually get as a pharmacist, there really isn’t as much as you might think, right? And so kind of looking towards the future and looking down at like all these different loans you could potentially have and all of the interest that goes along with them. For me, the motivation was being free of that. You know? When you’re talking about loans at 6% or 7% on this debt and then if you have a car payment, you add in 3-5% and then your mortgage is 3-5% or whatever, right? You start doing the math on this over 10-40 years on some of these loans. And it really eats away at your financial success. And so for me, a lot of my motivation was just looking towards the future and wanting to have options for the things that we wanted to do. You know? I love working, but it would be nice if I didn’t have to, right? Or it would be nice if we could just take three months off and think about things or you know, like I love being a pharmacist, but maybe someday I want to start my own company or something. It just seems like the options are available to you if you become financially free from these loans, right?

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I love that, Matt, because we talked before the show a little bit that having options, it’s very difficult to put a number to how valuable that is. So you know, I’ve talked to pharmacists before that maybe they want to have an option like you mentioned in pursuing something entrepreneurial. Or they love their work, but they want to have the choice of doing it or how much. Or maybe they’re burned out, and they’re ready to seek something new. Or maybe they have an ill child and want to spend some more time at home. Whatever would be the case, the point is you have options, right? And that is incredibly freeing, and it’s very difficult in a financial plan to put a number on that. And I’m so glad that you had mentioned that. The other thing I really appreciate your comment there is just the concept of the future. And I think, you know, you had mentioned, if you look at really a pharmacist’s take-home pay after taxes and all the things that come out of your paycheck, that dollar amount isn’t necessarily as big as you may think it is. And when you look at the goals or things you need to achieve 20, 30, 40 years from now, you know, that’s not necessarily a whole lot of time to be able to get those things done, and there’s a lot of diligence that needs to be had there. So Amy, same question for you. Tell me a little bit about some of the motivations and why for you guys to be so aggressive because the reality is — and you know this well — is that as you’re dumping all this money at student loans, this means you’re not doing necessarily some other things and there is some sacrifice there. So what was the motivation for you to be able to pay this off so quickly?

Amy Farley: Yeah. I think one of the other things that was a motivation for both of us was our faith and just wanting to be free from the control of money. I think that we’re called to do that in our faith, and so just wanting to be free from that control and the love of money in that way so that we can give to others freely, that we can use our money to bless other people really easily. And then I think another side that Matt didn’t really touch on either is being able to give back to our kids or our future generations, you know, wanting to pay for their college or give them experiences that maybe we weren’t able to have growing up, those types of things too. Just so that we have kind of a freedom financially to live the way that we would like to.

Tim Ulbrich: Love that. Love that. Matt, you had mentioned that when you had initially started, you guys were thinking all in on two years, which I look at those numbers, and I’m like, that’s crazy talk. But and then you had to slow that down, “slow that down,” a little bit, and you did it in less than four. So tell us about that decision to pivot, slow down, be a little bit more flexible, because I think that’s important for our listeners to hear that is that sometimes, the plan changes, right? That’s just the reality. So talk us through that.

Matt Farley: Yeah, you know, kind of the trajectory we were on wasn’t super sustainable. I think it’s a good thing to be intense, but I also think that if you view getting to the point where you are debt-free is like the end-all, be-all of like accomplishment in your life, you’re kind of going to be let down, right? Like you’re going to get to $0 and be like, OK, well, that was probably not worth killing myself. It was really important for us to start a family when we did. And we had been living in an apartment, and we wanted to move to a house and kind of get closer to work. And so we made that decision about a year into that aggressive payoff that we’re going to just slow this down, we’re going to try to build up some down payment for a house, and then have kids, which obviously is expensive. We didn’t go crazy. We bought a townhouse, and we definitely did things that were below our means so that we could continue to be aggressive. But I guess it was just a heart change about viewing the debt. I almost was kind of idolizing it, like this is the reason for life. You know?

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

Matt Farley: And while I think it’s really important, I definitely think while you’re paying off debt, it’s important to make it a sustainable process. I almost compare it to like losing weight, right? Like if you go on a crash diet, it’s not something that’s going to be sustainable. But if you learn the fundamentals of eating right, exercising and having like a good lifestyle, that’s actually something that will last a lifetime. So I guess that’s sort of the change in mindset for us a little bit.

Tim Ulbrich: So as I look at that number, $207,000 in just under four years, you know, my first thought is, I want to know exactly how Matt and Amy did this. So as you look back on that journey, give us some insight for our listeners that maybe are struggling with a similar debt load and have the desire to become debt-free but are struggling with trying to figure out, how do I actually do this? What does it look like? So Amy, what was the secret of success for you guys in terms of getting this done? Is it the budgeting? Working together? You know, how did you practically get to the point where you could free up enough money each and every month to make extra payments toward your student loans?

Amy Farley: Yeah. Well, I would say the budget is No. 1. And we use a software called YNAB, which is You Need A Budget.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

Amy Farley: YNAB. And one of the things in there is that every penny goes somewhere. So we got to the point where we were living on last month’s income, which I think was huge in all of this. So we knew going into each month, here is every penny we have to spend this month. And Matt’s our budgeting guy, so he would make sure that every penny went somewhere, and we really worked through like what is the minimum — or like what is actually what we need for groceries? What is what we need for all of these things? And then every penny that we didn’t need to use went immediately to debt. So I think that that’s a big thing is knowing where your money is going and having a plan for it so that you don’t just randomly spend and all of a sudden, you can’t make that loan commit, you know?

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. So it sounds like you guys used a zero-based budgeting process, I’m guessing if you’re using YNAB. My wife and I use that tool as well. It’s fantastic. We’ll link to it in the show notes, and I think it’s like $7 a month, right? Something like that if I remember right? $80 a year? Something not too crazy. But it is built off of — you’ve heard us talk before on this podcast about a zero-based budget, which essentially to Amy’s point, is accounting for every single — literally every single penny prior to earning that rather than tracking those expenses at the end of the month. And so we teach this process, we have some blog posts, we’ve talked about on the podcast. If our listeners go to YourFinancialPharmacist.com/budget, they can download an Excel template that will walk them through that process, and then they can upload it to a tool like YNAB or EveryDollar envelopes, Mint, whatever tool that they would want to use. So Matt, you are, it sounds like, the budgeting person. So how does this work for the two of you? Are you taking the lead and then you’re bringing Amy in as kind of the final decision or to make sure there are certain goals or things you’re trying to achieve that you’re on the same page? What does this look like week-by-week, month-by-month?

Matt Farley: Yeah, so we talk pretty regularly about the budget. Generally, I’ll put it together and then if there’s anything that’s a major change, we’ll talk about it together. We use the functionality in YNAB where when you’re making a purchase, you can log what you’re purchasing and actually check against how much money you have, right? So if I’m buying groceries, I know I have $200 left in that category. So that’s sort of how we communicate just through the app, in a way, because we can just know how much is there. And then when we’d have big purchases to make or we would have big decisions about how much to pay out towards loans, typically I would just consult with Amy before doing that, you know? It seems like we’re at this point with our budget where it’s standard about what’s going to happen. And then anything outside of that, we have a discussion about. Like I feel like I’m blessed that Amy is very just frugal in general, so if I just put her on autopilot, she’s not going to, you know, rack up a credit card or something like that, which is great.

Tim Ulbrich: So Matt, besides the budget, anything else you would add in terms of the secrets of both you and Amy being able to pay off so much debt in such a short period of time?

Matt Farley: Yeah, there’s a couple, actually. You know, one that doesn’t work for everyone, but we happened to be paid biweekly. And so when you get paid biweekly, you can live off two paychecks a month, and then there’s actually 26 paychecks a year that get paid out, so for both of us, we had two extra paychecks each year. So we basically live on 24 paychecks but get paid 26 paychecks. And that was actually really helpful for us from the perspective of like little bonuses and big chunks of money that came off the debt. So I think anytime you can do that, that’s really helpful. And then we use a debt snowball calculator in Excel to really visualize the dates that certain payments were going to be made. Yeah. This probably isn’t totally popular with everyone, but we didn’t consolidate our debt. We had lots of little debts, and that was almost helpful for us to get motivated, you know. It was like, we paid off another $8,000 debt. And then we paid off a $10,000 one. You could almost see that progress. Now, if someone’s more mathematically motivated, that doesn’t make sense sometimes, right? But that was helpful for us.

Tim Ulbrich: Sure. Well, and I think you’re highlighting — just to make a comment there — I think you’re highlighting two very important things that are behavioral aspects that allowed you to be successful. So for somebody, and maybe it doesn’t matter for somebody else, but if you’re paying off debt in a very short period of time, and you’re able to see that progress because you have multiple loan debts that you’re paying off and rolling to the next one, rolling to the next one, and if you were to consolidate or to refinance into one big payment, then that would have maybe lost some motivation along the way, especially when you think about a short time period and interest that’s accruing, maybe that behavior was more important, you know, than the math along the way. The other thing I love that you said, Matt, is the concept of the biweekly pay and allowing you to have some chunks of money that you could strategically put towards goals or things that you’re working on or debt payments, whatever it be, because I think — and I’m guessing it sounds like for you and Amy — those moments when you had those bigger payments or those bonus type of payments, those are the moments where you feel like you’re really getting some momentum that keeps you motivated, that keeps you going and going and going. And I see this with the model you’re describing, I see this with tax refunds or things that people use, but those wins along the way really help keep the motivation as you’re in it for the long haul, even here just under four years, but obviously, it’s a grind while you’re going through that.

Matt Farley: Definitely. It’s like for us, it was really motivating every time we went to the next $10,000 increment, right? So OK, we’re in the $50s now, we’re in the $40s now, we’re in the $30s now.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

Matt Farley: So the chunks of money helped with that when you can jump those increments.

Tim Ulbrich: Amy, one of the questions I have for you — and Matt, certainly feel free to build off of it — but as everybody knows who’s listening, you know, finances and relationships are sometimes like oil and water. Right? And it can be difficult to be on the same page. Obviously, as we zoom out, you two have been very successful. My question is, you know, has it always been rainbows and cupcakes? I mean, has there been difficulties along the way? Or if not, what really have been the strategies that have allowed the two of you to work together and to be on the same page towards this common goal?

Amy Farley: Yeah, I think we have worked pretty well together and started off working really hard to be on the same page from the get-go, which has helped a lot. But yeah, it hasn’t been roses the entire time. I think there have been a lot of times when we’ve disagreed where our money should go. I know that like when we were buying a house, I really, really, really wanted that single-family home, and Matt was like, “Nope. We can’t spend that much money. We can’t.” You know? So we had arguments and disagreements in that way where we’d want to spend the money in different ways, and I think just being willing to sit down and really talk through it and, you know, make compromises where it’s necessary but also remind each other frequently that like someday, we will be able to have that single-family home if we want it. You know?

Tim Ulbrich: Sure.

Amy Farley: But for now, we’re going to make this sacrifice. And so yeah, it’s been good to just work together and be involved. For both of us to be involved in it so that when those hard times come up where we don’t agree that we can look back and be like, OK, here’s where the progress is, here’s where we’re going, you know, at this point in life, we’ll be able to do that. So I think it’s hard in our society where there’s a lot of comparison to other people. You know, you get on Instagram, and you see, oh, my friend just went to Cabo. Oh, crap. You know, like I would like to go. But just having to be like, that’s not for us right now, and that does not fulfill life.

Tim Ulbrich: Sure.

Amy Farley: And having to remind each other of those things frequently.

Tim Ulbrich: And the reality — we’ll talk more about this here in a few minutes about what’s kind of ahead — the reality is if you guys want to go to Cabo in the future, you’re certainly going to have the option, you know, to do that among with many other things that you want to do because of the position you put yourself in. What I love about what you said there, Amy, is the reality of, you know, two people being involved in the process. And even if one person’s taking the lead, I think if two people can get on the same page with the vision, that for you all the debt-free was the vision that you were really working towards, and obviously, that was going to be able to allow you to achieve the other things that were most important to you, the why types of factors. If you can get on the same page with that shared vision, the month-to-month budgeting I won’t say is easy, but it becomes easier because that vision is in the background. Right? You shared the direction, and now it’s a matter of month-by-month, what do we need to do to get there? So Matt, one of the questions I wanted to ask for you — and really, on behalf of the listeners because one of the things I often get asked is, ‘Well, what about retirement during this aggressive debt repayment?’ And obviously, you balanced other things, so you purchased a townhome, you cash flowed a Master’s, you cash flowed a car, but what was your retirement strategy? And were you contributing? And if not, like how did you reconcile the delay of doing that?

Matt Farley: For sure. Yeah. So we did contribute enough for a lot of those four years to get the match at our employers. But towards the last year, kind of bumped that up to more like 10% of my take-home — or sorry, of my pay. And I did struggle with this a little bit because you’ll hear different strategies, right, when you’re getting out of debt. You know, should you? Should you be investing? Or should you not? For me, I wanted a little bit of a mixed bag approach, knowing that — I guess what I would say is I’d rather cut my lifestyle than I would the potential compounding you get from investing, right? So I wanted a little bit going in there to just get things started. But I wasn’t as aggressive as I would have liked to be, obviously, if I didn’t have any debt. I guess I wouldn’t ever yell at someone for like not investing. It’s really hard for me to mathematically not take a match from an employer, though, just to give that up is hard.

Tim Ulbrich: Yep, I share that with you. And we kind of preach that here as well of, you know, the free money, and it’s hard to dispute that. And I think the other thing that it does is it keeps it top-of-mind. It doesn’t distract you from the goal, but it keeps it top-of-mind, and you feel like you’re making some momentum, even if it’s not the 15-20% that you want to get to. You’re starting to move that snowball, right? And it’s going to eventually get downhill and pick up some speed. So Matt, this next question I have for you since you were the one that had all the baggage with the student loans, so as you look back now on this journey, 8+ years of school, accruing undergrad debt and obviously that compounded in pharmacy school, you know, I’m really asking this question on behalf of the students that may be listening. If you could start all over again, you know, what would you do differently? And what would you have done during school to help minimize this position?

Matt Farley: I mean, honestly, if I was coming out of high school right now — I know that’s not a lot of the pharmacy students listening — I would be so much more aggressive towards scholarships and trying to be involved in those types of activities. In pharmacy school, it’s hard, you know? There aren’t as many scholarships to go around. And so I think the main thing you can do is minimize your lifestyle. We did have some scholarships, and I was able to get some of those, but you know, I think mostly, I just wouldn’t live off loans, right? Like we went to Europe off loans, which was obviously a really stupid decision. I think it’s easy to tell yourself when you’re in the situation, pharmacy school is stressful, right? That you kind of deserve to have fun activities, you deserve maybe to go somewhere for spring break or you deserve to make a really awesome trip in the summer. And I guess I would encourage people to not do that and recognize that your lifespan is likely to be really long, and this is just a season of life where things are hard. And so if you can minimize that lifestyle as much as possible, that helps a lot. And then just get creative, you know? I’m sure there are more scholarships out there than I was aware of to apply for, and so I guess that would be my advice. And then you know, I guess the last part of that is if you’re considering residency, I think residency is a great thing from the perspective of experience and kind of widening your network. But I do think it’s over glanced over on the opportunity loss that it costs to actually do a residency. You know? I was considering doing a two-year residency in administration when I came out of school. There’s no way I would be debt-free if I would have done that. Now, that’s maybe not the worst thing if maybe that’s exactly what you want to do for your career, but I guess kind of what I tell pharmacy students a lot is employers are looking for you to solve their problems not necessarily be qualified for a job. And so if you can work hard and you can understand how things work in the field you want to get into, it’s possible to do things without a residency. Now, I’m not discouraging people from doing that, right? But I do think it needs to be considered when you’re actually looking at your finances.

Tim Ulbrich: Amen to that. And I hope our listeners heard that last part there. I firmly stand with you that that first door is opening is such a critical one to open, and sometimes, it requires a training to get there. But once that door opens, if you have a good work ethic, and you’re somebody that can identify problems and propose solutions, you’re going to be very successful and other doors will open into the future. So I think that’s great wisdom there. So Amy, here you are, you and Matt are a fresh 48 hours off of being completely debt-free from your student loans. And you know, obviously, you guys have a good household income. My question is, what’s next? I mean, what’s ahead? What from here becomes a priority of you were making massive student loan payments, and now you’ve got this monthly income that’s freed up. What’s the game plan going forward?

Amy Farley: You know, I think that’s a great question. We haven’t talked a ton, but we have kind of looked at the things that we weren’t able to put money into that we would like to, kind of life goals, putting a little bit more into retirement, paying off — being able to pay for our kids’ college, things like that, and starting to save up for those now. So we’ve already done a little bit of looking at how we want to shift around this money into new places. But it also means that we have a little bit more freedom to kind of enjoy life. So hopefully, maybe a trip to Cabo or you know? I think that there are some of those things that we will definitely take advantage of now. It also just frees us up to be able to, you know, once we have more kids or whatever that if we would like to get a bigger house to fit those kids, then we’d be able to do that. So we haven’t really made an exact plan, but it just opens up us to live in a new way.

Matt Farley: As you might imagine, I’ve already put together a spreadsheet of where our money is going.

Tim Ulbrich: Thought so, maybe.

Matt Farley: And we haven’t talked through it.

Tim Ulbrich: You might want to fill Amy in, yeah. No, what I’m excited to hear from you guys over the past few months and year and beyond is thinking of the zero-based budgeting process. What’s so powerful about that is you had a line item for student loans. It was a very big line item, right? In YNAB. And now the question is, what does that become? You know? Is it giving? Is it experiences with the family? Is it entrepreneurial interests? Is it buying a home? What is that? But that really becomes that exciting conversation about life after debt-free, which is something we’re going to be talking much more about on the podcast going forward. So Matt, one question — I know you mentioned you read “Total Money Makeover,” so that was an indicator to me that you’re a financial reader/nerd probably.

Matt Farley: Yep.

Tim Ulbrich: So my question for you is, you know, how important was reading or listening to podcasts, you know, how important was that to your success? And is there a specific book or two or resource out there that you would recommend to our listeners?

Matt Farley: Yeah, definitely. So I think the biggest thing is just kind of consistently reading or listening to anything financially-minded because I think it causes you to pay attention to what’s going on, which is half the battle. You know, you might not be the best budgeter or the best investor, but if you just kind of know what’s going on with your money and understand the products that you’re purchasing from an investment standpoint, that is huge to me. So some of the books that I read — and I’m just going to preface it, I don’t agree with all these books. I don’t think they’re like perfect. Some of them tell you to do unwise things, but “I’ll Teach You to Be Rich” for me was an interesting book to read to understand investing a little bit better. I forget the author’s name, but he talks some about using credit cards more than I would be comfortable with using them. Actually, we did use a credit card to pay for a lot of our expenses, and we’re able to do that without any concern of actually carrying a balance. But I know that’s not the case for everyone. So if you have a tendency of doing that, right, I’d say avoid that. I listened to Dave Ramsey’s podcast pretty consistently and recently discovered yours, so I’ve been listening to yours recently too. And I think it’s another great podcast to listen to understand what’s going on with your money and hear from other folks that are like-minded.

Tim Ulbrich: So “I’ll Teach You to Be Rich” is a Rumeet Sethi book. That’s a great book. I would also recommend that. I share the same feelings that you do. There’s some things in there where, you know, I may approach them differently, but I really like the way he teaches. I think it’s very easy to understand, and it’s a very digestible book and resource. So we’ll link to that in our show notes as well. But I would echo, Matt, your comment about just absorbing information. And sometimes, you know, I’ll listen to something or read something, and I’ll walk away with a very tangible action item. But many times, it’s just that keeping the topic front-of-mind, right? And that’s true with anything, you know? It could be your goals around spirituality, it could be your relationship. But the things that are most important to you, always having those top-of-mind and making sure that you’re always prioritizing those, setting goals on those, and reflecting on how things are going. So.

Matt Farley: And one thing if I could add — I don’t mean to interrupt — but one of the things that I actually learned the most on that got me started with investing was a Frontline documentary on PBS called, “The Retirement Gamble.” It’s like a 40-minute video, and it’s pretty old at this point, but for some reason, it actually resonated with me for how to invest, what’s an expense ratio, what’s a mutual fund, what’s an index fund. That was really helpful for me to actually watch, so I would suggest that to anyone who’s interested in learning more about that as well.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. Awesome. Thank you for that. And Matt and Amy, thank you so much for your time, for coming on to share your journey, really an incredible journey of paying off over $207,000 in just under four years. And I know you’ve inspired me personally, and I’m confident you’re going to do the same for our listeners. And I can’t wait to hear and talk from you in the years to come to see the amazing things that you’re doing. So thank you so much for coming on the show.

Amy Farley: Yeah, thank you.

Matt Farley: Yeah, thanks for having us. You can do it, everybody!

Tim Ulbrich: Yes. Thank you guys.

Sponsor: Before we wrap up today’s episode of the podcast, I want to thank our sponsor, Airbnb. Today’s the day to consider joining the community of more than 2 million people that are earning extra cash by hosting on Airbnb. Whether it’s hosting while you’re out of town or making the most of that extra room that sits empty for most of the year, think about it as an investment in your future. Maybe it’s paying extra on student loans, maybe it’s investing more for the future or saving for kids’ college, whatever it be, this can help you fast-track the financial goal that you’re working on today. It’s free to list, and Airbnb has a tool that will help you price your place just right. Again, there’s no need to worry about your property as Airbnb offers a host guarantee that helps protect your property in the unlikely event that something goes wrong. And you’re the boss when you host on Airbnb. Your home, your rules. Host when you want, how you want. List one bedroom or the entire place. It’s completely up to you. So whether you’re looking for some side cash or a steady income, hosting on Airbnb might just be the best investment you haven’t made yet. When you go to YourFinancialPharmacist.com/Airbnb and start hosting, you’ll receive a $100 Amazon gift card if you generate $500 in booking value by June 30, 2019. Terms and conditions do apply.

Tim Ulbrich: And one last thing if you could do us a favor. If you like what you heard on this week’s episode, please make sure to leave us a review in iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Also, make sure to head on over to YourFinancialPharmacist.com, where you’ll find a wide array of resources designed specifically for you, the pharmacy professional, to help you on the path towards achieving financial freedom. Have a great rest of your week.

Recent Posts

[pt_view id=”f651872qnv”]

YFP 093: Highlights from APhA Annual Meeting

Posted on by yfpadmin

Highlights from APhA Annual Meeting

Tim and Tim interview several APhA conference attendees on the floor of the exhibit hall about their personal finance journey and the highlights of this year’s annual meeting.

Join APHA

Join APhA now to gain premier access to YFP facilitated webinars, financial articles, live events, resources, and consultations. APhA members also have access to receive exclusive discounts on YFP products and services. You can join APhA at a 25% discount by visiting www.pharmacist.com/yfp and using coupon code YFP. For more information about our financial resources, visit www.pharmacist.com/financial-education.

Summary

On this week’s podcast episode, Tim Ulbrich and Tim Baker interview several APhA 2019 conference attendees on the floor of the exhibit hall about their personal finance journey, as well as learning about their highlights and takeaways from this year’s meeting. Christina Slavonik, the newest YFP team member, shares some of her background and path leading her to become a certified financial planner. Brianne Porter talks about how Eileen McDarg, APhA 2019 keynote speaker, shared ways to practice and build resiliency and how to take care of your mental health as a pharmacist. Brianne also gives an update on her personal finance journey since her podcast appearance on Episode 60. She and her husband purchased YNAB, paid off $12,000 of debt, and began saving for an emergency fund which has brought her peace of mind. Gina, P2 at Virginia Commonwealth College of Pharmacy, joins the podcast after purchasing 7 Figure Pharmacist by Tim Church and Tim Baker. Gina discusses how financial skills aren’t focused on in pharmacy school and is taking personal finance into her own hands. At this year’s conference, Gina mainly attended info sessions and the Rutgers fellowship program roundtables. Kara, P3 at Florida A&M, speaks about how she experienced firsthand the importance of personal finance and of keeping track of money while growing up. Tim, P3 at USC, shares how he’s realized the importance of budgeting and minimizing loans while still in school. Tim and Tim close the episode with a reflection on the conference. Over the last couple of years, they have witnessed personal finance becoming more of an interest for pharmacists and have seen pharmacists increase their knowledge by utilizing resources like YFP.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Hey, what’s up, everybody? Tim Ulbrich here with Your Financial Pharmacist, live from APhA with the one and only Tim Baker. Tim, how you doing?

Tim Baker: I’m doing well. How are you, Tim?

Tim Ulbrich: Good. Excited to be here in Seattle. We’re live at the booth.

Tim Baker: Yeah, this is crazy.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

Tim Baker: This is the first time we’ve done something like this, and I feel like we want to soak up the ambiance that is APhA here in Seattle. Unfortunately, Tim Church is unable to join us, but we have a crack team that’s going to be helping in our booth, Cristina, our new associate planner is here. We’ll probably have her on the podcast a little bit later. But yeah, I’m excited. It’s a lot of buzz in the air, and we had a good opening night last night, lot of people stopping by the YFP booth. So yeah, it’s been good so far.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah. It’s going to be a great meeting. We’re excited for not only the exhibit hall, we’re going to be doing some financial roundtables this afternoon with students and new practitioners, talking about budgeting, investing, home buying, student loans. And then we’re going to do a workshop tomorrow afternoon.

Tim Baker: Yep.

Tim Ulbrich: All about goal-setting, finding your why, and budgeting. So all things personal finance and pharmacy, that’s what we do at Your Financial Pharmacist. That’s what we’re doing here at APhA. And a shout out to the partnership that we have with APhA.

Tim Baker: Yeah, absolutely.

Tim Ulbrich: They’ve been a great partner and friend and really helping us spread our mission and message to help pharmacists achieve financial freedom.

Tim Baker: Yeah, and I’m really looking forward to — you know, we’re not quite sure what this episode’s going to look like, but I think we’ll splice together some conversations that we have with other APhA conference goers and just get a flavor of what they’re looking for in terms of the conference, maybe some of the things that, you know, are concerns of theirs for their finances. And yeah. I’m just kind of excited about this new format with the conference today.

Tim Ulbrich: So we’re signing off for now, and we’ll be back here live at APhA 2019 in Seattle, Washington.

–

Tim Baker: What’s up, everybody? Welcome back to APhA 2019 in Seattle. I am with Cristina Slavonik (?), who is the newest member of our YFP team. Cristina joined us about a month ago. She is our new associate financial planner, so she is working with me day in and day out, helping clients with their financial plan. So Cristina, welcome.

Cristina Slavonik: Thank you so much, Tim. So glad to be here.

Tim Baker: So why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you kind of came to be that newest member of YFP?

Cristina Slavonik: Sure. Well, I do have an extensive background in the financial services industry. Just kind of a brief background, I had training as a bank teller starting out like Tim 15 years ago. Kind of worked my way up through the ranks, worked in the private side where we did wealth management for high net worth clients. And then just recently, you know, got my CFP certification, Certified Financial Planner certification, and was looking to branch out. And one thing I liked about Your Financial Pharmacist is rather than catering to a broad market of people, you guys just focus on the pharmacy niche and what you can do for pharmacy students and those in all the various transitions of that career path with them.

Tim Baker: Well, yeah, and it kind of goes back to that whole idea of, you know, I feel like in a lot of financial planning firms, it’s a master of none, you know, kind of the jack of all trades. If you have a pulse, you can be a client. And for us, you know, we really want to focus in on what are the needs of the pharmacist community? And you know, typically, it’s centered around, you know, just being overwhelmed with the student debt and confused on how to properly budget and save and invest and the whole pain point around I feel like we’re just not progressing financially. So I think like keying in on that and really beyond the foundation of building out the financial plan. So Cristina, what have been your impressions of kind of the conference so far? And what’s that been like for you?

Cristina Slavonik: It’s been real exciting. This is my first conference. And just to see the energy and the inquisitiveness of everyone here, it’s really been quite an educational experience for me just to hear what is really on people’s minds, especially with some of the breakout sessions. We’ve had some really good, thoughtful questions and how people, they’re really trying to get on the right path and, you know, start out on the right foundation with their finances.

Tim Baker: Yeah, and I think it’s one of those things that a lot of pharmacy grads, you know, PharmDs, I think there’s a thirst for that, you know, in terms of like, OK, you know, what the heck do we do now? You know? Especially if we’re staring at some debt and, you know, really getting the foundation of a plan going. So I think, you know, what we’re really trying to do is bring some obviously products, you know, services, whether it’s the blog, the book, the podcast, that type of thing, financial planning, to the table and, you know, really assist those on their path to financial freedom. So Cristina, in terms of like, you know, the work that you’re doing with clients kind of day in and day out, you know, what are some of the things that you’re kind of helping us, YFP Planning, what does that look like?

Cristina Slavonik: Sure, yeah. I mainly help with the onboarding process, just making sure that any accounts that are transitioning over, that we have the proper paperwork in place and helping them through that process and also working with their financial behaviors. We do have some surveys that we put out just to kind of educate them on things they can improve on like maybe frugality or their confidence level. And just kind of helping them be better versions of themselves.

Tim Baker: Well, and I think client service is so important. And I love having you as part of the team and really kind of being, you know, another set of eyes and hands to really help clients through the process. And I think, you know, bringing you on as another Certified Financial Planner, another, you know, viewpoint on things, I think it will really grow out our service offering. And I’m really excited to have you on and really, we need to get you more on the podcast.

Cristina Slavonik: Yes.

Tim Baker: And doing your thing. I know you helped Tim Church on the Roth.

Cristina Slavonik: The back door Roth.

Tim Baker: The back door Roth conversion post. So we’re going to be featuring you more and getting your voice heard, so I think people are kind of sick of the Tim, Tim and Tim. So —

Cristina Slavonik: Well, now, we’ve got a female voice.

Tim Baker: We’ve got a female voice, and I did — when I interviewed Cristina, I said, can you change your name to Tim? And that was shot down. So you know, we had to break the mold. And I think it’s all positive going forward. So Cristina, thanks for coming on the podcast, more obviously in the future. And yeah, we’re just signing off for now at APhA 2019 in Seattle, Washington.

–

Tim Ulbrich: Tim Ulbrich here, back live from APhA. Day No. 3 of the APhA annual meeting here in Seattle, Washington. And lucky enough here to have one of our — well, one of my colleagues at The Ohio State University College of Pharmacy and a guest from Episode 060 of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast, Dr. Breanne Porter. We had her on talking about one new practitioner’s lessons learned accruing $224,000 of debt in seven years and lucky to have her here alongside of me at the APhA meeting. How’s the meeting going so far?

Breanne Porter: Hi, Tim. It’s going well. Thanks for having me.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

Breanne Porter: It’s very exciting.

Tim Ulbrich: Thanks for stopping by. You did an episode, Episode 060, that I have referenced often and I would highly encourage our listeners, go back there, check that out. It’s very inspiring.

Breanne Porter: OK.

Tim Ulbrich: I think you were very raw and genuine in the journey you’ve gone through and the lessons that you’ve learned. And I know you’re passionate about this topic and making sure others are on the track to financial success, right?

Breanne Porter: Yeah, that is correct. Yes.

Tim Ulbrich: So talk me through, you just came out of the main session this morning at APhA, all about resilience. So talk to me about what that session was about and the author of the book and the person facilitating that.

Breanne Porter: Yeah, so the keynote this morning was on resilience, and they had Eileen McDargh I think is how she says her last name. And she was really inspiring because she came in basically and, you know, we were talking a lot about mental health and some of these topics can be a little heavy. But really, what she shared with us were some basic practices and things that we can do on a daily basis to really help build that resilience. She talked about how it, in some ways, people may be more genetically predisposed. But it really is a practice that we can all work on to sort of build in our day-to-day and really become a little more resilient in the day-to-day. So it was very helpful.

Tim Ulbrich: And we got to kick the negativity out of our lives. Right?
Breanne Porter: Yes, yes. One of her practices is no red ants. So the people that suck the negative — that have the negative energy and suck it out of you, suck out your energy, basically. You’re not allowed to have them in your life. So no red ants.

Tim Ulbrich: I love that because I think that we all know just from being in the workplace, no matter where you are, I mean, that is such a factor of the culture of a workplace. And I think we underestimate the attitude and what we bring into the office each and every day impacts everybody around us. And that’s true at home, I mean, that’s true with family and so many other things. This topic of resilience, to me, is such an important one. We often talked about it on an admissions standpoint when we were admitting pharmacy students. You know, how do we assess resilience? Because we know in the students we work with, those that have it, and wherever it comes from and however you can find it, they’re going to be able to fight through, they’re going to be able to self-assess, figure out where they’re struggling, improve upon. We see in residency all the time, and I think it’s also true with personal finance. I mean, when people are coming out of school and you’re struggling with student loan debt and all these competing priorities, there’s a lot to work through. And so I think that topic of resilience is a good one. So again, that is Eileen McDargh, right?

Breanne Porter: Yes, McDargh. Yes.

Tim Ulbrich: And the book is called, “Your Resiliency GPS” if anyone wants to check it out. We would highly encourage you to do so. I’m going to be reading it soon, so I’m excited about that. So since we had you on in Episode 060, you shared that journey. And as I mentioned, we’ve highlighted that story. So what are some of the things that you’re working on right now in your own financial journey?

Breanne Porter: That’s a great question, actually. I feel like I’ve made a lot of strides. I’m very proud and excited. So I’m happy to share with the group. But we recently purchased YNAB, my husband and I recently purchased YNAB.

Tim Ulbrich: Love YNAB, by the way.

Breanne Porter: It stands for You Need a Budget, so as straightforward as it can be. We purchased that about six months ago, I think. And since then, we’ve paid off almost $12,000 in debt.

Tim Ulbrich: Wow, congratulations.

Breanne Porter: Yep. Thank you. We’re very proud of that. We started saving towards some goals. We have a huge emergency fund, which is great because I’m pretty sure I’m going to be paying out taxes now, as soon as I file with Tim Baker and his company. But yeah, basically, we’ve just really been able to I think, you know, become more confident in our financial health and really feel more comfortable. Because, you know, things happen now. I had a dog emergency the other day, my dog consumed 15 ounces of dark chocolate and had to spend a night at MedVet. And you know, a year ago, I would have just been carrying that balance for months, probably. And it felt so good to be able to just hand over the cash and be done with it.

Tim Ulbrich: You can’t put a dollar amount to that peace of mind, right?

Breanne Porter: No. Oh my gosh, no. I sleep so much better every night just knowing that I’ve paid off the debt but also, I have that money aside now too. So.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, I’m with you. And that’s a hard thing. We talk so much about the numbers, but when you talk about peace of mind, you talk about being on the same page with your spouse, when you talk about defining your goals and knowing you’re working toward achieving them, like that’s the stuff that really matters. And what I love about your journey and thinking about where you kind of came in a very passive participant in your financial journey to a very excited, motivated participant in your own journey. I mean, that’s really what it’s all about. You caught fire with it, and we often at Ohio State, we end up in financial discussions. People have to hear us talking about budgeting and other stuff. So thank you so much for sharing that update. And again, for those that didn’t listen, go back and check out Episode 060 of the podcast where Breanne shares a lot of her story. So have a great rest of your meeting.

Breanne Porter: Thanks, Tim. You too.

–

Tim Ulbrich: I’m here with Gina, who is a P2 at Virginia Commonwealth University College of Pharmacy, VCU School of Pharmacy, and here back at the APhA meeting, excited to have you stop alongside the booth. You just purchased a copy of “Seven Figure Pharmacist,” grateful for that, so thank you.

Gina: Yep.

Tim Ulbrich: So tell us a little bit about yourself, where you’re at obviously in your journey of pharmacy school and how the meeting’s going so far here at APhA.

Gina: Yeah. As Tim said, I am a P2. I’m currently looking to pursue a professional residency or a fellowship.

Tim Ulbrich: OK.

Gina: I’m not too sure yet. But definitely I’m also interested in compounding as well. I picked up the “Seven Figure Pharmacist” book because I was interested in — well first off, schools don’t really touch upon financial skills. We do host occasional lectures and talks, but I feel like this is definitely an essential skill. It’s important to have a job, but it’s rather how to utilize that such as like investing and all. And I figure I don’t have much background on that personally, so that’s kind of what I’m hoping to get out of that book.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

Gina: Especially to prepare myself for graduation.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah. And I’m so excited to hear you energized about this topic as a P2. You know, as I think back on my journey, part of the pain that I had paying back $200,000 of student loan debt is I wasn’t thinking about it early enough. So you know, the fact that you’re thinking about this early tells me that you’re passionate about learning and that will be everything in terms of your journey. And so establishing that principle of learning early on is so important. So kudos to you for investing in that. It’s an important thing to do.

Gina: Thank you. I mean, especially in this day and age, you know, tuitions are rising with any school, undergrad especially. Yeah, it’s definitely an important skill. It’s the future.

Tim Ulbrich: So here we are at the APhA meeting. So how’s the meeting been going? What’s been your favorite parts of the meeting so far?

Gina: Good. I’m a student, I’ve attended info sessions on — for example, I just came back from the Rutgers Fellowship Program roundtables, and that was pretty informative. Other educational sessions included like dietary supplements, contraceptives, etc. Yeah, it was pretty eye-opening.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

Gina: Yeah.

Tim Ulbrich: Great meeting. It’s been beautiful here out in Seattle. And I know coming from the East Coast, the travel certainly can be exhausting. But it’s a great, great city here in Seattle.

Gina: Oh yeah.

Tim Ulbrich: Thank you so much again for just taking time. Thank you for your support of the work that we’re doing. And best of luck to you going forward.

Gina: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

–

Tim Ulbrich: Back at the exhibit hall here at APhA 2019 in Seattle. Excited to be here with Cara from Florida A&M University. And she stopped by the booth yesterday, had purchased a copy of “Seven Figure Pharmacist,” was so excited about it, we did a little recording. And we found out the audio wasn’t working. So she’s back today. So thank you for joining.

Cara: No problem at all. It’s a pleasure.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah. So tell me a little about yourself, what year you are in pharmacy school and how your meeting’s going so far.

Cara: So I’m a P3 student from Florida A&M, and my meeting is — the meeting’s going amazing. You really get to network. And that’s so important in this job field right now.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. So this topic of personal finance, I can tell in just my short interactions with you, it’s something you’re very passionate about.

Cara: Yes.

Tim Ulbrich: You told me that you are adamant on not being broke, right?

Cara: Yes.

Tim Ulbrich: We’ve talked about stories of many pharmacists that go through this process, accrue lots of student loans, have a good income but feel like they’re living paycheck to paycheck because of student loans and other competing priorities. So tell me about your desires going forward and why you’re so motivated about this topic.

Cara: So I’m motivated, first of all, my mom was a single mother, and I saw that it seemed like she was working as hard as she could, and she was sacrificing so much and still could barely make ends meet. And there’s no reason for that. She didn’t do as much as she could for me to turn around and do the same thing. It’s always you’re supposed to grow.

Tim Ulbrich: Yes.

Cara: So it’s important to have financial literacy. And she really pushed to me, like hey, you need to count your coins.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, what I love in my talking with you just for a short time, you have caught fire on this topic.

Cara: Yes.

Tim Ulbrich: And what I’ve seen is once people have that passion for learning, it’s game on. And a pharmacist’s income alone is good, but it’s not going to equal financial success alone. Or you’ve got to take that income and put it into work. We talk a lot about people that are income affluent but that haven’t turned that into balance sheet affluent. So it’s got to be able to transform that income into wealth. So I’m excited for you and for your journey. And while we’re here, I’m going to do a quick shoutout for Dean Johnnie Early at Florida A&M University, just left us in Toledo, Ohio, and went down there. So thank you so much for your time. And I hope you have a great rest of your meeting.

Cara: Thank you so much.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah. Thank you.

–

Tim Ulbrich: I’ve got Tim here with me, a P3 from USC College of Pharmacy, and grateful for the opportunity to have you here for a couple minutes. Yesterday, you stopped by the booth. I was trying to talk you into doing some podcasting and you were a little bit nervous, but here we are, back today, and you’ve come back. So I appreciate your time.

Tim: Sure. Thank you for having me here.

Tim Ulbrich: How’s your meeting going?

Tim: It’s pretty great. It’s my third day, and I have met a lot of people and going to different booths here at the exposition as well as go to the research and poster presentations. I think that was cool as well. And being a delegate for Rho Chi and PLS. Also, I have never been a delegate before, so that’s also a new experience for me.

Tim Ulbrich: So it’s been a busy meeting. And I just found out that you are flying home very early morning tomorrow, getting into the LAX airport, and driving to USC to take a final exam. So it’s dedication for you to be here at APhA, investing in your professional development, which I’m excited to hear. And I can tell you’re excited about this topic of personal finance as well. So tell me what’s top of mind for you when it comes to personal finance as a current student and thinking ahead to making that transition into new practitioner life.

Tim: I think it’s very important to start early. As you know, currently interest, they may accrue, they don’t charge it. I don’t like making more interest.

Tim Ulbrich: Yes, baby interest. Capitalization.

Tim: Yes, they’re not being capitalized.

Tim Ulbrich: We call it baby interest.

Tim: Oh, OK. Then I’m making baby interest, but it’s just accruing. So I think it’s important now to start budgeting, see where I’m spending my money and try to minimize all the expenses that I don’t need so that I can minimize my loans and hopefully have not too much loans, especially attending university, so.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, try to minimize some of that stress later on.

Tim: Yes.

Tim Ulbrich: I’m glad to hear you say, we talk a lot about that while somebody’s in school, it can very much feel like Monopoly money. And you don’t realize the impact of how that interest is growing.

Tim: Right.

Tim Ulbrich: And then to your point, once you get into active repayment, that interest grows on the principal, and that starts growing interest, which is that process of capitalization.

Tim: Yes, exactly.

Tim Ulbrich: So for the students that are listening to this, anything you can do, Tim’s got good advice here. Minimize the amount that you’re borrowing, of course sometimes it’s easier said than done.

Tim: Right.

Tim Ulbrich: Ultimately, you’re trying to minimize that principal balance as well as the interest that’s accruing to minimize what you’re going to have to pay in active repayment. So USC College of Pharmacy, one of the top programs in the country. Tim Baker and I actually had a chance to come out there last year, talk with students, very impressed with the campus, top notch students — and I’m not just saying that to say that. We left that weekend just very impressed with the USC brand, the level of students, the caliber of the students, so I wish you the best of luck. And thank you for coming onto the show.

Tim: Of course. Thank you for having me, and thank you for coming last year. We really enjoyed you being there and teach us about finance.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. Thank you.

Tim: Thank you.

–

Tim Ulbrich: Tim Ulbrich here, back on the floor of APhA in the exhibit hall with Tim Baker. We are wrapping APhA Annual 2019. Wow.

Tim Baker: Already.

Tim Ulbrich: Already, right? It’s been a great meeting.

Tim Baker: It went by really quickly. Yeah, it just seems like so much buzz this year around our booth and I think the topic of personal finance. APhA, like I said, puts on a good show here. Yeah, it’s been great. I don’t know, Tim, I feel like coming out of these conferences, I just get so charged up even not being a pharmacist myself but just, you know, about — I know there’s going to be some negativity at times about the profession of pharmacy, but I just get super jacked up coming from these types of meetings and going forward. And you know, for us, trying to find better ways to do what we do in terms of providing product and service for pharmacists with regard to their personal finance needs.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. And there’s been a ton of energy around the topic of personal finance. And you know, I feel like thinking back to 2015 when we kind of started the journey, like one of the things we kept saying is we want to move the needle on this conversation.

Tim Baker: Yeah.

Tim Ulbrich: About personal finance. And I feel like, you know, we’re of course biased, right? We love this. But I feel like the awareness and knowledge of students and new practitioners — and we’ve talked with faculty members, and we’ve talked with others — the terminology, I mean, things I hear students talking about.

Tim Baker: It’s unbelievable.

Tim Ulbrich: Understanding refinance and budgeting, loan forgiveness. Like, we didn’t hear that 3-4 years ago. And I think we’re seeing that needle shift a little bit.

Tim Baker: You know, it’s funny. I was talking to a pharmacist today, and she came up and actually she’s right behind us in our booth here. She works for the FDA, and she’s like, “Hey, what do you think about like that married filing separately if I’m going for PSLF and my spouse isn’t?” And I’m like, wow. Before it was, what’s an income-driven plan. And now, we’re talking about oh yeah, I’m optimizing my PSLF strategy here. I’m doing this or that or refi or — it’s unbelievable. And you know, I don’t know if we can take full credit for that, but I think, you know, I think the fact of the matter is that there is absolutely more of an awareness than it was a couple years ago. And I think it’s a credit to our listenership and really, the students and the new practitioners out there that are really being intentional and looking at this stuff. And it’s super easy, as you can attest to, to not be.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, absolutely.

Tim Baker: And to kind of wander off or stick your head in the sand. So you know, that just jacks me up. And I love that, and I think, you know, I’m looking forward to next year’s conference in D.C. because I want to see even more of like the evolution from where we’re at today.

Tim Ulbrich: I couldn’t agree more. And I think the excitement and the energy around, you know, caring about this topic and, you know, we help pharmacists achieve financial freedom. That’s what we do. And we’re missing Tim Church out here.

Tim Baker: We are.

Tim Ulbrich: Because you know, we’re feeling this energy and this vision and what we’re doing is just as much a part of him as it is us and his contribution to that. So Tim Church, shoutout to you.

Tim Baker: He’ll probably be ready to run through a wall there, you know.

Tim Ulbrich: You’re right, he would. What you said to me that really resonated that I’m feeling is intentionality. I mean, we did some roundtables yesterday, and we talked about budgeting and, you know, finding your why and thinking about goals and all these other things. And I felt like the context of budgeting and seeing a group excited about, you know what, a budget doesn’t have to restrictive. A budget doesn’t have to be something that holds you back. A budget is about putting you in a position to achieve the goals that you really want to achieve, like that really is what this whole thing is all about. And that’s exciting.

Tim Baker: Yeah, and I think when you can reframe the mindset of like, you know, thinking of a budget as like, ‘oh, I don’t want to, it’s restrictive,’ to a budget allows you to really achieve the why and you know, to take the trips that you want to and to achieve financial independence when you want and that type of thing. It’s like, when you back it in, when you look at it that way, it becomes dare I say fun. It becomes more — you get more and more momentum when you’re working towards those goals and the budget really is the means to the end of that. And I think just there’s a — it’s almost like the “b” word is a dirty word. But I think it can be a very positive thing, you know, if you really ask those reflective questions of what is the point of all of this? Like what is the point of making this income of paying down these debts? You know? When I talk with clients and I ask those questions, it’s typically not like, oh, I wish I would have funded my Roth IRA. You know, looking back, it’s more like, I wish I would have done these things with my family or I wish I would have ventured out on my own and did something in business or whatever. And I think like, get excited about that. That, to me, is that encouraging thing. Like build a life plan and have the financial plan really support it.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, we preach, obviously, principles to build wealth. But our goal is to equally preach what leads to a wealthy life.

Tim Baker: Right.

Tim Ulbrich: And I think that’s so important for us and at least from my viewpoint, that’s what’s so incredible about being a part of this journey is to be able to see people unlock what matters most to them. And we’re getting ready to head into our last session here this afternoon where we’re going to talk with new practitioners all about that concept of, here you are as a new practitioner, you just graduated, you’ve got all these competing priorities. So what? What is this all about? And can we define that so that when we get into the nitty gritty of the financial plan and the budget and all of that, that we’ve got purpose, we’ve got direction, and we know why we’re being intentional. So as we wrap up APhA 2019 here in Seattle, Washington, just another shout out to the American Pharmacists Association, we appreciate their partnership. You know, it’s been so fun seeing the energy of students and new practitioners and others here at the meeting, looking at how can we better the profession, how can we evolve the profession? And we’re excited for what lies ahead in this partnership. We’ve got a webinar coming up in the month of April around home buying. We’ve got new content coming throughout the rest of the year. We’re going to do some more live events, the Day of New Practitioner Life this summer in Washington in July. So for those that are not familiar with the work we’re already doing, Pharmacists.com/YFP. For those that are APhA members, you can log in, access the catalog of webinars and other content that we’ve done. For those that are not a member, you can use the coupon code AYFP19, AYFP19, to get 20% off your membership. So Tim, it’s been a lot of fun.

Tim Baker: Yeah, same. Looking forward to next year.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely.

Recent Posts

[pt_view id=”f651872qnv”]

19 Ways to Make Extra Money as a Pharmacist in 2020

Posted on by yfpadmin

19 ways to make extra money as a pharmacist in 2020

Updated 2/2020

The following post contains affiliate links through which YFP or its team members may receive compensation.

Within the past couple years, many pharmacists have unfortunately experienced pay cuts as multiple community pharmacy chains reduced weekly hours to be considered full-time (such as 32 hours). With this example, considering median pharmacist pay, it would result in about a $25,000 loss per year or more. That’s a big deal for anyone but especially those struggling to pay back pharmacy school loans and other debt.

Not only that, some pharmacists have experienced a job loss because of stores closing or companies downsizing.

Even if you’re fortunate and haven’t had a pay cut or lost a position, you still may be looking for ways to accelerate your financial goals, fund vacations, or just upgrade your lifestyle, etc. Obviously, you can cut and minimize your expenses up to a point, but eventually, you’ll reach a limit. This, combined with the pharmacist salary being relatively fixed in many settings, can lead you to find ways to make extra money as a pharmacist.

While there are a plethora of options to make extra money and many side jobs for pharmacists, some are not practical. Your time is important, right? With a median hourly pay around $60, doing something for less where you trade your time for money may not be the best use of your efforts unless it’s something you’re really passionate about. Other ideas such as starting a blog or podcast with the goal of eventually monetizing can work but they can take years to reach that point and take up a ton of time.

For this post, we are going to focus on some practical ways to earn some extra cash not in a year or five years from now, but this year. While most of these are focused on a pharmacy background, I have included some others as well that are relatively easy to get started and won’t necessarily take a lot of time to execute.

1. Take Extra Shifts

This is probably one of the easiest ways to earn extra money as a pharmacist if it’s available. While not likely for those working in community pharmacy, there may be some opportunities in hospitals and health systems especially when there is a temporary shortage.

One of my friends who recently switched from a community chain to a mail order specialty pharmacy was really concerned about the pay cut he was going to initially experience. However, even though the base salary was lower, he actually made more because of the ample opportunities for overtime.

2. Look for Additional Projects / Assignments

Throughout my pharmacist career, there have been several times when special projects required pharmacist intervention. Typically, these have been large volume medication changes that needed patient education either due to manufacturer backorders or formulary changes secondary to pricing changes. Because of the potential cost savings for these projects, employers can often justify overtime pay.

While these types of opportunities may not be blatantly advertised, I would encourage you to reach out to your supervisor or manager to see if there is anything available.

3. Refinance Student Loans…And Then Do It Again

Save money by paying less in interest each month because of a lower rate. That’s the typical reason why most people with refinance student loans. While saving money is great, why not also get paid. In a single year, my wife and I made $2,700 by refinancing our student loans multiple times. Each time we were able to get a lower interest rate through a different company and each time we were able to get a cash bonus.

Refinance companies will make money from you by the interest you pay each month. Because pharmacists typically carry high debt loads in the six figures, refinance companies will make more money over the course of the loan versus those with much lower student loan balances.

Therefore, as an incentive for you to use a particular company, they will offer a cash bonus or welcome bonus. As mentioned above, you’re not limited to doing this one time. With interest rates always changing, it’s not uncommon for another company to provide a better rate than what you refinanced to the first time.

Now, some big student loan review sites offer nothing to very little to their audience when they refinance in order to take larger commissions. But that’s not our style. We have partnered with several refinance companies that offer bonuses of $300-$800 to you and sometimes higher when they are running promotions. Yes, we receive a commission on each refinanced loan, but we have shifted most of the benefit to you.

If you’re pursuing the Public Service Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program or non-PSLF forgiveness (taxable forgiveness after making income-driven payments for 20-25 years), then refinancing is off the table given it will disqualify you from these programs. If you want to refinance your student loans, check out our current offers below:

Current Student Loan Refinance Offers

Advertising Disclosure

[wptb id="15454" not found ]

 

4. Take a Moonlighting Position

A few years ago when I was gung-ho about getting rid of my student loans ASAP I was on a mission to figure out how to bring in extra income. At that time, I was limited to 40 hours per week with my full-time job without any overtime opportunities so I had to look for something else. Eventually, I was hired as a PRN pharmacist at a local hospital where I would work in the evenings and weekends allowing me to bring in anywhere from $500-$2,000 extra per month.

If you’re looking for a moonlighting position, consider inquiring at local hospitals and independent pharmacies. While they may not need a ton of help, even a couple of days a month could bring in a decent side income.

5. Earn another certification/credential

In the world of medicine and particularly pharmacy, there are credentials and certifications for everything now. They can be a great way to promote your additional qualifications and training and could even be required for specific academic and clinical positions. Some employers may actually incentivize you to get these as well either in the form of a one time bonus or even a permanent raise.

For example, federal employees who work for the VA are paid based on their grade and step and will have a GS or General Schedule status. The grade usually pertains to the position and the step is typically determined by initial qualifications at the time employment starts and also the years of service. Therefore the most common way to get to the next level is often just to keep your job.

Depending on the facility, one can also add a step or two by earning a board certification or special credential like a Certified Diabetes Educator (CDE). If your employer will also pay for the prep materials and the exam(s) itself, then that’s a double bonus! This is definitely something you want to ask prospective employers about if you are planning to start your pharmacist career or switching jobs.

Beyond raises, it’s possible that some paid opportunities could come knocking. Since getting his BCOP, my friend and colleague Brandon Dyson, PharmD is semi-regularly called by a consulting firm doing research on a new product to figure out the market and to see if this product would integrate into existing oncology practices.

These are usually a 1-hour consult call, and he usually gets paid $200 or $300 each. Although they are not consistent, he notes that once you get a relationship with a given firm, they start contacting you more.

6. Switch to a Higher Paying Job or One With More Opportunities

Many pharmacists express feeling stuck or burned out in their current job and that there’s no way out. It’s true that it can seem overwhelming to make a transition, especially if you’re someone who doesn’t like to step outside of your comfort zone and feel like you’ve lost some of your clinical skills and knowledge to pursue something else. Although it’s never usually easy, it’s definitely possible and making the move could result in more money or the potential to make more money.

My friend and colleague Alex Barker, PharmD, and the founder of the HappyPharmD, created an entire business around helping pharmacists create inspiring work and lives by primarily assisting them in transitioning to pharmacy and non-pharmacy jobs that they are passionate about. He does this through 1-on-1 coaching and also through his free training.

If you’re someone looking to make a job change, I highly encourage you to check out his free webinar on how to escape burnout, get job offers regularly, and take control of your pharmacist career.

pharmacist salary, side jobs for pharmacists, pharmacist side hustle

7. Start Doing Medical Writing

Brittany Hoffman-Eubanks is a community pharmacist who started her medical writing career about four years ago. Initially, this was a side hustle that brought in a couple thousand dollars per year. It supported her obsession with traveling and need to see everything in the world. Now she is working on making the move to make this her full-time gig.

Medical writing can come in the form of continuing medical education, needs assessments, and research and grant proposals just to name a few.

Although the income from medical writing varies so does the method of compensation. It could be hourly with a huge range of $25-$180/hour, per word typically somewhere around $0.20-0.25 per word, or a flat fee of a couple of hundred dollars to a couple of thousand dollars depending on the scope of the project and writer experience.

If you have stellar writing mechanics and grammar use, and you want to get started with medical writing, Brittany has a few recommendations for you. First, there are several social media groups where you can network and find opportunities and encouragement from other writers. Joining applicable associations such as the American Medical Writers Association is another good idea.

You can also check out episode 126 of the podcast, where Brittany breaks down some other tips for getting started in medical writing.

8. Provide Continuing Education / Other Presentations

If you’re able to deliver an effective message, you could be turning that skill into dollars. Think about how many national, state, and local pharmacy organizations there are. Most of them are paying people to provide CE since it’s something that’s required.

But even beyond pharmacy, many other healthcare providers such as physicians, nurses, physician assistants are also required to maintain their license with ongoing education. Why not reach out and inquire about delivering medication-related programs?

The other great thing is that if you are an expert on a particular topic and have already done the work, you can essentially deliver the same content multiple times across multiple channels enabling you to minimize the time for any prep work.

Beyond continuing education, if you have a great story or possess knowledge on a topic outside of medicine that is needed, people will pay for this as well. Tim Ulbrich, PharmD, the founder of Your Financial Pharmacist, has made around $10,000 in the past two years telling his story about getting out of debt and delivering education on personal finance to pharmacy schools and pharmacy organizations.

9. Start a Consulting Practice

Have you ever thought about starting your own business by providing clinical services? Contrary to what you may have heard, you can get paid for doing MTM and other consulting work. You just have to know the keys to implementing services along with the mechanics of billing and reimbursement. It can be a great opportunity to work more closely with patients and directly impact their health and well-being.

Blair Thielemier, PharmD has set up an entire academy to help pharmacists get their consulting business off the ground. Besides an on-demand online training program, you get access to business coaching and live Q&A calls. You can get $50 off the first month of your membership by using code “YFP50”.

how to make money as a pharmacist

 

10. Complete Comprehensive Medication Reviews (CMRs) through Aspen RxHealth

Aspen RxHealth is a company with an app-based platform that connects pharmacists with patients to perform MTM. The app connects with Medicare plans and identifies patients who are eligible for a Comprehensive Medication Review (CMR).

What’s cool about their technology is you call the patient directly from the app and then perform all of the necessary functions of the CMR directly within the app. There’s no paperwork and once complete, the patient gets a copy of the review and any recommendations you have.

They currently pay $40/CMR and then typically throw in bonuses and incentives to complete a certain amount within a week or particular days. In one recent report, pharmacists were making around $72/hour based on the volume they were able to complete.

I went through the process myself to check it out and see what it was all about. The onboarding process was fairly easy and smooth and my application was approved within a week. They have a Learning Management System with videos to help get you acclimated to the app and the dos and don’ts of performing a CMR.

What I really liked is that you can work whenever you want and complete CMRs when it’s good for you as long as it is within the typical business hours that the company sets. This also includes being able to make calls on Saturdays.

Once I actually got trained and was prepared to make some calls, it was a little disenchanting because I had made about 15 calls and could not get a single person to answer. Apparently, I am not the only one who has had this issue as the last time I checked it takes an average of somewhere around that number before one typically gets a patient on the line. Because this took me about an hour or more just to make calls without any success, I decided not to continue.

However, I have heard from other pharmacists, that they have someone who makes calls for them to either transfer or set up a time to discuss their medications which could reduce a lot of the wasted time for a pharmacist just making calls.

At one time they were only accepting pharmacists registered in Florida, but you can learn more about the platform and opportunities at www.aspenrxhealth.com.

11. Write a book

With the expansion of ebooks and audiobooks and the tools for self-publishing, it has never been easier to write and publish your own book. While the thought of taking something like this on could seem grueling and years to accomplish, the reality is that it doesn’t have to be dissertation and you could take an idea to finished product in a matter of weeks to months.

When I wrote my first book that educates patients about medications for type 2 diabetes, I was able to get the whole project done within 6 months. It was a very short book but this was intentional in order to keep the reader engaged and not overwhelmed with too many details.

While the process for writing and publishing a book is relatively simple, making a meaningful income that not only covers your costs to create but also ongoing is not. Because everyone is doing this now and there are millions of books on Amazon and other marketplaces, the competition is high. Even if you have an awesome idea that is filled with great content, you can’t expect to just release something on Amazon and sit back and watch the royalties come in.

Marketing and the positioning of your book is really the key to actually make it a profitable endeavor. Yes, you need to have great content that people want to read, but you have to have a strategy on how you will get the message out. If you have a big audience through a blog, podcast, social media channel, or another outlet, that really helps and can be a great starting point. If not, you can partner with other influencers and people with large followings.

If the idea of writing a book sounds intriguing but you have no idea what to write about, here are a couple suggestions. For nonfiction, consider medical topics that are important or widespread that would be of value to patients or other medical professionals.

Test prep or study materials for exams and courses are another option. Outside of pharmacy and medicine, consider writing about a very profound story that involved you or someone you know. If you have a very creative and imaginative side, perhaps writing a fictional book could be up your alley. There are many possibilities out there!

Ok, one big tip I have, if you are going to self-publish, is don’t be cheap on creating the cover. People DO judge books by their covers and many people are turned off if they can immediately determine your book is self-published solely based on the cover. Spend good money on a quality cover!

99 Designs has a great service where multiple designers compete to get you the best cover. A couple of great books to help you get started with the writing and publishing process are Authority by Nathan Barry and Book Launch by Chandler Bolt. If you are interested in doing an audiobook, I would recommend reaching out to Tony Guerra, PharmD who has published and helped other pharmacists publish many books.

12. Teach a course / Become an adjunct professor

Brandon Dyson, the co-founder of TL;DR Pharmacy, author of 100 Strong Residency Interview Questions, Answers, and Rationales, and wizard of all things pharmacy, has been teaching a general pharmacology course for the past five years through Georgetown University School of Nursing.

Currently, the course is offered three times a year and he gets paid for each one, bringing in $4,000 each or $12,000 per year. Not bad for a side hustle, right? The best part is the course is online so he doesn’t have to worry about traveling and does all the teaching and mentoring from home.

If you enjoy teaching and are able to deliver great content in an engaging and professional way, there may be some great opportunities for you. Besides checking out the major pharmacy and non-pharmacy job sites, you could consider reaching out to a local pharmacy school.

Offering to do a free lecture or learning session can be a great way to show off your skills and could result in future paid opportunities. Also, don’t restrict yourself to just pharmacy school. Like Brandon, you should also consider other healthcare professionals like nurses, physicians, and physician assistants who are required to learn pharmacy topics.

13. Serve on an advisory board

An advisory board provides strategic advice to a company or organization and unlike a board of directors, they typically do not have any voting rights or decision-making powers.

Pharmaceutical companies and other healthcare organizations often have advisory boards and there are typically opportunities for pharmacists to get a spot. You often need to be an expert in a particular area or have the experience that can demonstrate your value.

Diana Isaacs is a pharmacist who is an expert in the diabetes arena and has often been asked to serve on advisory boards to provide her knowledge and insight. While the compensation varies, she has typically earned a couple of hundred dollars/hour in exchange for her time. You can learn more about her experience with this in episode 137 of the podcast.

14. Become an Expert Witness

In episode 112 of the podcast, Brent Rollins shared his story about becoming a pharmacist expert witness for law firms primarily focusing on marketing cases in addition to standards of care cases. He was able to get some experience while he was in school when his professor asked for assistance on a big case, he got his start and continued to receive casework.

Many criminal and civil cases involve medications and toxicology and quality of care/negligence where pharmacists can be positioned well to provide their expertise and testimony. While reports vary on compensation, according to a report by SEAK, an expert witness directory company, medical experts earn on average $350/hour.

You can serve as a witness by providing documentation or reports, answering questions by attorneys, depositions, and expert testimony.

Having a colleague as Brent did, to get an in is certainly a good way to get started but also consider your network of friends and family if they are attorneys or know attorneys who frequently take on cases that use pharmacists or other medical experts.

You can also check out some of the big expert witness directory companies/sites such as SEAK , The Expert Insitute, HGExperts. You can also get plugged in with the American Society for Pharmacy Law. which is a nonprofit organization that organizations of attorneys, pharmacists, pharmacist-attorneys and students of pharmacy or law who are interested in the law.

15. Monetize a non-pharmacy skill

In 2019, I made about $3,000 from building websites. Through my experience at Your Financial Pharmacist, I picked up the skill of basic web design and although I’m not an expert by any means, knowledge of the foundation has allowed me to monetize it. Plus, it’s really fun and something I truly enjoy so it doesn’t even feel like real work to me.

Through my podcast interviews with pharmacists who have unique side hustles, it’s evident how talented and creative those in our profession are. What skill or knowledge outside of pharmacy do you have? Is there something you are passionate about that can either help solve other people’s problems or bring incredible value?

Some ideas include photography and video editing, graphic design, IT, translation, voice production, social media management, and marketing. You can check out sites like www.upwork.com and see if there are any freelancing jobs where you have the skills to jump in.

In 2020 I interviewed a pharmacist named Stephanie Roberts (episode coming soon) who had a passion for creating art and did this just as a hobby for a while until one day she had the idea of possibly selling some of her pieces. To her surprise, her pill petri dishes and trays using epoxy resin have been a huge hit and continue to sell out all the time.

She has become so successful that she now makes over six figures with her art alone and pharmacy has become her side hustle! You can see some of her work below.

pharmacist side job, pharmacist career, how to make more money as a pharmacist

16. Switch to a high yield savings account or money market account

When you consider inflation, money sitting in regular checking or savings accounts can lose a lot of purchasing power over time given most interest rates are essentially next to nothing.

Sure you avoid market risk or the risk of keeping cash in other investments but there are other options that are less risky and can yield at least some return. These include high yield savings accounts and money market accounts.

If you are sitting on a bunch of cash that’s for an emergency or you are saving for a big purchase, these can be good options can earn a little extra money. Now if your savings amount is relatively low and you aren’t adding anything to it then it may not be anything substantial, but remember it’s better than 0.001%.

I recently did a review of my experience with CIT Bank which offers competitive interest rates from 0.85-1.40% for their high yield savings and money market accounts.

17. Become an Airbnb host

Tim Baker CFP®, team member on the Your Financial Pharmacist team loves to take his family on vacations around the country and the world. But frequent trips can get expensive. That’s one of the reasons why he and his wife became an Airbnb host. In just 1.5 years they have made $10,000!

Hilary Blackburn is a pharmacist in the Nashville area who rents out her primary residence about 14 times per year and has been able to earn about $8,000 per year or more. You can learn more about how she’s making it happen on episode 121 of the podcast.

If you’re not familiar with Airbnb, essentially it is an alternative way to lodge instead of the traditional hotel. As an Airbnb host, you list a property you own or rent on their platform for guests to book and stay. Airbnb only takes 3% of the total reservation so you keep most of the booking fee.

Some people host their primary residence when they are out of town or have additional rental property or space that they list. For some, the thought of having strangers stay in your house even if you’re not there may seem pretty overwhelming and concerning.

Sure there are some potential issues that could occur such as theft or vandalism but you have control over who is able to stay based on reviews and other factors on the Airbnb platform. Plus, as a host, you get access to up to $1 million of property damage protection if you ever need it.

If you want to find out how much you could earn by listing your space, you can check out the Airbnb estimator below.

18. Buy a rental property / House Hack

Many people have built entire businesses around managing rental property. On one of our most popular podcast episodes, Carrie Calton, PharmD discussed how she achieved financial freedom by acquiring 18 rental properties! You don’t need a ton of cash in order to purchase a property as you can typically get approved with even a low down payment. However, that amount will be dependent on your risk tolerance and the equity you want to start with.

It may seem enticing to simply look at the potential mortgage payments vs. how much rent you could collect for a particular property. However, when you are doing an analysis to determine if the property would be cash flow positive and provide another stream of income, you have to consider ALL of the costs and maintenance involved such as insurance, HOA, taxes, repairs, capital expenditures, etc.

Along the lines of buying a rental property is house hacking. This usually involves buying a property with a low percentage down (generally 1, 3 or 5%), living there for a year (required), and renting out the other units or rooms. For example, if you purchase a single-family home, then you would rent out the other bedrooms.

Or if you owned a duplex or condo with multiple units, you can live in one and rent the others. Depending on the cash flow, you may be able to cover the mortgage payment and even make a profit. Check out episode 130 for more information on this.

Bigger Pockets is a great resource to get started and learn more about real estate and rental properties. Besides their podcast and online resources, they also have an awesome book: The Book on Rental Property Investing by Brandon Turner.

19. List your car on Turo

What happens to your car when you go on trips or the days when you don’t need it? It probably just sits in your garage or driveaway right? But what if your car could make you money? With Turo, you can!

Often referred to as the Airbnb of vehicles Turo is an alternative to a traditional car rental service. From the user standpoint, through their platform, you enter the date and location you are looking to use a vehicle, choose what you want, and book. You can pick it up or even have it delivered to you.

turo

So how much can you earn? It varies from $40/day up to several hundred dollars per day depending on if you are handing the keys over to a Toyota Corolla or Mercedes E-class. Here’s an example based on Turo’s calculator. If you have 2018 Tesla Model X and live in the Miami area, you could earn approximately $1,724 or $180/day if your car was booked an average of 9.6 days per month. Not bad right?

You’ll earn 65% to 85% of the trip price, depending on the vehicle protection package you choose but you can also choose to just use your own commercial insurance which could get you a bigger cut.

Conclusion – How to Make More Money as a Pharmacist

There are many practical ways to make extra money as a pharmacist. Some are directly related to the profession while other opportunities exist by capitalizing on other skills and interests you have. Some need relatively little time and effort (i.e. refinance student loans) whereas others may require additional training and several hours of work.

With the pharmacist salary being relatively fixed, having a side hustle and earning additional streams of income can help you reach your financial goals faster and help pay back pharmacy school loans. It can also give you an added layer of protection from relying on one source of income, which is important as the profession continues to undergo changes and technology and innovation are disrupting traditional roles and positions.

Another Way to Find Side Jobs for Pharmacists or a Pharmacist Side Hustle

If you want some additional inspiration I would recommend checking out the side hustle series where I interview pharmacists who have businesses and gigs that bring in additional monthly income.

refinance student loans, earnest student loan refinance bonus, credible student loan refinance bonus, student loan refinance bonus, student loan refinance offers

 

Recent Posts

[pt_view id=”f651872qnv”]

YFP 092: Creating an Indispensable Pharmacy Career

Posted on by yfpadmin

Becoming an Indispensable Pharmacist

On this episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast, Tim Church welcomes Alex Barker back to the show to share some of the highlights of his recent career transition out of pharmacy practice, some tips for pharmacists who are struggling in their careers, and how to become an indispensable pharmacist. Alex also discusses the release of his new book Indispensable: The Prescription for a Fulfilling Pharmacy Career.

About Today’s Guest

Alex Barker is a pharmacist, entrepreneur, author, and creator of thehappypharmd.com and the Happy PharmD Summit.

Summary

On this episode, Alex Barker dives into how and why he transitioned from a full-time pharmacy career to a full-time hustle and about his passion in helping pharmacists be happy in their careers.

After a one year residency, Alex got a job in an ambulatory care setting. He liked his work but wasn’t fulfilled, so he started doing different jobs on the side. Eventually, these different side hustles led him to launching The Happy PharmD in 2017. The Happy PharmD helps pharmacists start businesses or find and transition into a new career.

In December 2016, Alex had been working in his side hustles for 3 or 4 years and felt like he should’ve been farther along with his earnings. He realized he was unhappy with his full-time work. He decided he was going to focus all of his energy on the Happy PharmD after his wife asked him if he was going to regret spending more time in his full-time pharmacy career in the future. In October 2017, Alex went all in and made the Happy PharmD his main gig.

Alex recently published a book Indispensable: The Prescription for a Fulfilling Pharmacy Career. Indispensable is a guide that is meant to help pharmacists if they are feeling burned out or lost in their careers. The book is broken into four sections which cover the current reality of the pharmacy profession, options of other careers, strategizing your career transition, and indispensable career choices. The book is geared to help pharmacists who want more from their career or lives.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Church: Alex, thank you so much for being on the show again.

Alex Barker: Hey, you know I love being here.

Tim Church: I think you’re creating the record for most times on the YFP show with this being No. 3 as you were back on Episode 038 and all the way back in Episode 007. But a lot has changed since those episodes, and just the other day, I was looking at my Skype contacts at work, and it said, “Alex Barker, offline for 194 days.” And I thought to myself, offline as clinical pharmacy specialist, online as entrepreneur.

Alex Barker: Yeah, that’s a good assessment. By the way, call Guinness Book of World Records ‘cause I want to hold that record down, baby.

Tim Church: I don’t know. We might have had a couple people that have been on twice, but I guess I don’t really count since I’m on the team. So I’ve just kind of made appearances here and there. But anyway, for those who don’t know your full career story, can you just talk a little bit about your career path and really how you turned your side hustle into your full hustle?

Alex Barker: Sure. So the very short story is I started off my career, I did a one-year residency, got a job in an am-care setting. And I liked my work, but I wasn’t fully fulfilled by my work and the creativity that I wanted to see happen in my work. So I started things on the side. I sold everything from baby strollers on eBay to making stickers to building websites, doing marketing for small businesses, and lots of other failed projects. And that all culminated into the Happy PharmD, which I launched in January of 2017, where I made it my mission to help pharmacists either start businesses or get into new careers. And now, it is at this recording, Feb. 2019, I’ve been doing that now for two years. And recently left my job as a clinical pharmacy specialist to do that work full-time. So that’s kind of the very short version of it all.

Tim Church: Yeah, so I want to dig into that a little bit, Alex, because for everybody listening, you leaving your full-time, secure, clinical pharmacy specialist job into something in the entrepreneurial space and really taking ownership over your income and providing for your family, I mean, that’s not a small decision to make.

Alex Barker: No, it’s terrifying. I’m still scared.

Tim Church: But I want you to talk about that a little bit. How did you come to that decision to where you say, “You know what? I’m going to do this full-time. I’m going to leave that security blanket that I have in place, even though I have those great benefits, the insurance, the steady, predictable income, and I’m really going to go after the Happy PharmD full-time” in addition to your other projects that you have?

Alex Barker: You know, I think it’s all psychological and fear-based. I don’t think anyone makes a decision until the pain of not making a decision is greater than the reward of just not making the decision or being lazy like I am so often at times. I would say in December of 2016, I had been hustling for about 3-4 years, and I loved it. But I felt like I should have been farther. I felt like I should be doing this kind of stuff all the time, either in a full-time career in academia or I should be a full-time entrepreneur. I was just very unhappy with work, my conditions, I wasn’t doing everything that I wanted to do, I struggled with my teammates. And so I made a very difficult decision, one which I talk about in my book, “Indispensable,” and it was to just focus on one thing – to put everything else aside and say, “OK. I’m going to focus all of my attention and effort on the Happy PharmD and focus on helping as many people as I can.” And that really helped me put all of my energy into one basket to make it so that this thing could be successful and that I could grow a team, and I could hire people who could help me do the same work that I’m doing and kind of multiply myself. And probably the thing that really scared me the most was when I started seeing success with this business, and I said to my wife, “OK, it’s do or die. I think we need to decide, is this what the future of my career is? Or should we — I don’t know — choose something else? Or should I be like full-time worker for the next 10 years, and go with a FIRE path, a Financially Independent Retire Early? Or should I put everything I have into the business?” And she asked me a powerful question. I don’t think I’ve ever shared this story, but she asked me, “Are you going to regret spending more time in the job where you don’t feel really fulfilled or happy at the end of the day with what you do?” And that really stuck with me, and it made me think about where I wanted to go with career and what I wanted to do and the impact. And I thought about academia, I thought about this business. And I finally made the decision to pretend as if my business was my full-time job. Pretend as if it was supplying all of our income needs, and so in like October of 2017, I decided to pretend as if my day job and income did not exist, and we were just pretending as if to live off of our business. That really helped quench my fear because I was paralyzed by the idea of moving full-time into a business. The idea of living off of my business was terrifying to me because, you know, my efforts yielded results. And it was no longer just come to work and get paid, do your job and get money. This business was more like, hey, you’ve got to show up, you have to help people, you have to hustle. And only then will you get paid. Only then will you see results. That was really scary.

Tim Church: So what was the hardest part of the transition? Do you think it was the financial aspects or was it a combination of a couple things?

Alex Barker: Yeah, definitely a combination. But I would say the fear of losing out on money is the greatest thing. Personally, I believe most pharmacists, when thinking about their careers, thinking about transitioning, I think we all struggle with our golden handcuff syndrome. We all feel like we can’t take a pay cut or we can’t, you know, get into something that may be less money in order to feel happier with a job. But I found that when people actually transition into something they enjoy doing, they usually have more freedom, more drive, more desire. And for those that are entrepreneurial, they find that pathway to ultimately create extra income. For me, I was very scared to put myself in a no-way-of-escape situation. You know? Putting myself in the corner and saying, “OK, Alex, hey, listen up. You better hustle. You better perform because if you don’t, you can’t blame yourself or other people” — I’m sorry — “you can’t blame other people for what ends up happening, whatever it is.” I think we as pharmacists, we don’t want things to fail. I think it’s in our blood. We’re trained from the very beginning that if we fail, patients die, someone gets hurt. And if that’s the case, well then that applies to all sorts of other things in our lives. And we, when we try something, we don’t want it to fail. I didn’t want my things to fail because if it failed, that means I am a failure. And so I found myself in years prior like focusing my energy on multiple different projects, different side hustles, different things, different ideas. And because I did that, I ultimately didn’t see a lot of success in one single area or one thing. And I told myself, “Well, you know what, I’m going to try this other thing. I’m going to try this other project or other idea.” Instead of giving it my all, my everything, and giving myself a deadline of if I don’t perform, if I don’t meet this end goal by this deadline, then I will give up. I will try something else because what I did didn’t work. And putting myself on the ropes like that was a lot of pressure, but it definitely helped me overcome fears of failure and fears about money that I had.

Tim Church: How much has failure played a role in your entrepreneurial journey?

Alex Barker: It’s probably part of the job description. If you want to say like “role.” I’m constantly failing. I’m constantly trying new ideas and finding out that they don’t always work. I hire people, and I find out that, hey, they’re not showing up, they’re not doing what I’m asking them to do. And that’s a struggle. I’m also finding out that I suck at a lot of different things. As you know, Tim. You know that I’m not good at my website. I’m not good at marketing or designing things. And relying on other people sometimes is tough because — actually, you and I, Tim, have talked about this with my book. I wanted my book to come out like the summer of last year.

Tim Church: Yeah, I’ve been waiting on that.

Alex Barker: And I haven’t let it come out because I wanted to do a very good job with launching it, with producing it, making sure it’s very high quality, great content, research-based information. And I found that that takes time. I can’t do a crappy job with it, and be proud of what I would create. And so it’s taken time. And that’s — I considered that for awhile a failure, you know? But it’s really just a part of the job, unfortunately. Like you just try things, and if it doesn’t work out, you keep moving.

Tim Church: Yeah, I love the book by John Maxwell called “Failing Forward.” And he has a really powerful quote in there, but he basically says that the difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure. And I’ve always kind of gone forward with that in mind that that is part of the job. And in order to excel and to get to the next level, you have to almost expect that it’s going to happen. But it’s really about that response and how you’re going to take that in order to move forward, basically.

Alex Barker: Imagine if they taught that in like the pharmacy curriculum. Like.

Tim Church: It’s the antithesis of the pharmacy curriculum, right?

Alex Barker: It has to be somehow included, I suppose in like an entrepreneurial thing. But I’m sure at the time, most students are not interested in that because all they think of entrepreneurism is dependence. But yeah, it’s scary, right? I’m pretty sure he talks about Colonel Sanders in that book, right?

Tim Church: He does. Yeah, it’s a great story because it wasn’t until I think his mid- or late 60’s when he actually got a deal and started becoming big because he kept getting rejection, rejection, rejection.

Alex Barker: Yeah, I think the actual story is he was rejected 1,000 times by people. There may be an additional zero on there, but I think it’s 1,000 times.

Tim Church: Yeah. It’s something like that. It’s a really cool story, so if you haven’t read that book, “Failing Forward,” by John Maxwell, I highly recommend it. One more question for you in terms of your journey, and then I want to talk a little bit about the profession and your book. But how much has being debt-free allowed you and enabled you to make this transition?

Alex Barker: Oh, it’s huge.

Tim Church: I guess the better question is how important has that been?

Alex Barker: Oh, it’s been the thing to set us free. You could argue that — I guess it would just have slowed me down if I did have debt, right? Because our debt payments, my student loans and my house, the major debts we had, you know, it’s a big chunk of money every month, right? So I think by not having them, I could probably predict that we got away from my job earlier than what we did. But because of it, we are immensely free. We own our house, we have no college loans. We can — this summer, Tim, I’m visiting you this summer in a camper van. We’re going around the entire summer and living the van life.

Tim Church: At Disney, right?

Alex Barker: Yeah, actually, we are going to Disney. Yeah. And if it weren’t for being debt-free, I don’t believe we could really do that this soon. So it’s allowing us to live a lot freer with our lifestyle and our money choices.

Tim Church: That’s so cool. And I love your story. You know, and I know you talk about that in the book too is, you know, a lot of people have different mentalities around debt, and it has to do with basically where you see yourself and where you want to position yourself. And you basically came out and said that, you know, you would rather be debt-free now to give yourself more options and opportunities versus staying in a position you didn’t necessarily like but able to maybe retire a little bit earlier than you would otherwise. So that was a pretty cool story that you talked about. And I think that’s what’s so important is it’s not always black-and-white, and it really has to do with your goals and your aspirations and where you’re trying to get to.

Alex Barker: Totally. Yeah. I cannot argue with that.

Tim Church: Well, let’s switch gears a little bit. It’s basically an understatement that there’s a lot of negativity in our profession. Right?

Alex Barker: Yeah.

Tim Church: There’s many pharmacists out there feeling trapped, burned out, stressed out, unfulfilled. What are your thoughts on this in 2019?

Alex Barker: Oh, man. Well…

Tim Church: Keep in mind we only have like 20 or 30 minutes.

Alex Barker: I’ll try to be as brief as I can then. I’ve made it our company’s mission this year to help 500 pharmacists transition into new jobs. And the reason for it is because I’m very passionate about helping pharmacists figure out what they’re great at, where are our — healthcare’s greatest needs, where do we need to put people to fix these problems that we have and people who are curious and are passionate about it? And to put all of this in perspective, I recently wrote an article about I believe it was like four or five things that are stressing pharmacists out or burning them out. And I received an email from a widow of a pharmacist, and I actually put her story in my book. And she shares that unfortunately, her husband died early, I believe in his young 50’s, if I recall correctly. And she was told by another pharmacist that you cannot convince me that work did not kill him. And that has — when she sent that to me, that’s really stuck with me. It kind of emotionally moves me. When I get some hater email or I get discouraged about my work, I often look at this email and think about the people out there who are just like him, who are struggling in their jobs, they’re really not loving it, but they convince themselves to be forced to work in these conditions. And that gets me excited to help them, it gets me a little bit scared about the challenges that are ahead of me to face that problem, but I don’t think anyone should be making six figures and be miserable. I think that’s ridiculous. I really think it’s with the way things are in the market, with the way things are in this world today, I don’t believe there’s any reason why we should be miserable in our jobs. But I think we lie to ourselves often and convince ourselves that no one wants us, I don’t have enough experience, I don’t have any desirable traits or qualities or values, and so because of that, I’m not going to try and I’m just going to be burnt out. I’m going to be miserable in my job, I’m going to go to work, get my paycheck, go home and try to be happy the rest of the time during my life. And I want to fix that. So that’s what I think about burnout and all of that nastiness in our profession.

Tim Church: So over the past year and a half, you’ve been working on your book that’s finally out. And I’m really excited because I was privy to some of the initial work and behind-the-scenes work and got the audio author’s cut early. So big announcement: It’s finally out. “Indispensable: The Prescription for a Fulfilling Pharmacy Career.” Alex, how does it feel to be done with this?

Alex Barker: Hot dog. It feels good. Some crazy stats on this that a close friend of mine let me know. 81% of people, Americans, want to write a book. Less than 1% actually do. And of the 1% that do, 30% actually publish it. So it’s crazy hard. It is not easy to write and publish a book. I did not think it would take me like 17 months to do this, but we’re finally here. It’s ready, I put a lot of time, energy, tears — no blood, but plenty of sweat, and I’m very excited to get this in the hands of people.

Tim Church: I’m really excited for you because it definitely packs a ton of value. And I’m not just saying that because I’m an Alex Barker fan or we’re friends or colleagues. But it actually is just jam-packed with so much great content. So besides drones delivering pad thai, becoming a guitar master, your poor Jenga skills in Dungeons and Dragons, what is this book all about?

Alex Barker: You’ve read the book. I love pad thai. This book is something that I wish I had when I was first entering the profession. It’s a book, it’s a guide, meant to help you if you feel like you’re burned out, to help you understand what your problem is with your career and how to fix it, how to solve it, to go about it in a sustainable way that leads you towards an indispensable career. Most pharmacists that I’ve spoken to in the last two years feel dispensable. No one’s ever said that to me, but that’s how they feel. They’re worried about being let go. They’re not fulfilled by their work. They feel like a new grad could come in and replace them totally, and they wouldn’t care. And that, to me, is a crime that I guess no real one person is guilty of. But in order to create something that’s fulfilling, you’ve got to find out what makes you indispensable. And I guess you’ve got to read the book to find out what that is. Wow, I didn’t think that would come out of me.

Tim Church: Yeah, yeah. Wow. Well, it’s broken down into four different sections, right?

Alex Barker: Mhm.

Tim Church: So can you just briefly break those down in terms of what you have in those different sections?

Alex Barker: Yes. I totally can, Tim. Perfect memory. Tell you all of the parts of my book. So Part One is all about looking at your current reality in the pharmacy career and seeing the different problems that we’re facing, whether it’s the current job market, whether you’re struggling with burnout and what your options are. And Part Two dives more into that, into your options and discovering the where and how you can make the change, whether it’s a new field in pharmacy or even out of the profession. On a side note, we work with a lot of different pharmacists. The vast majority of them, we help move into just a new field of pharmacy. But some do transition completely out of pharmacy. We’ve helped people get into real estate, financing, insurance, financial advising, internet marketing, all sorts of stuff. So it doesn’t, you know, it doesn’t have to be pharmacy, if that’s where you think you’re at. Part Three dives into the messy middle and strategizing your way into your career transition. And finally, Part Four is all about making indispensable choices with your career, choosing to focus on relationships and creating value.

Tim Church: There it is. All the sections. I want to talk a little bit about one of those where you discuss this idea of passion and work and a lot of the misconceptions behind that. Could you give the audience just a little sample?

Alex Barker: So I think a lot of people feel like they like their job, they want to help people, but they just don’t know what their passion is or what they’re passionate about. I, when I was a little kid, I was passionate about Legos and WE wrestling, and I was into comedy and making videos. But the thing that’s always been true about passions is that passions change. And I think I share a story about a fellow podcaster, Seth DePascal, and his journey about getting into retail and hospital and eventually, finding his passion in compounding. And he never knew he was passionate about compounding. He never thought a day in his life about compounding as a career path. But really, what he found is that following his passion first would have never come for him should he choose that path. And I think I also reference a story about Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, if he would have followed his passion, he would be like a Zen master out in China. He wouldn’t be leading Apple. He would be teaching people how to achieve Zen. So following passion isn’t exactly the thing to do first when figuring out your career. Passion is a good thing, but it’s usually developed over time. You get more interested in it. For example, I’ll give you a great example. So in my own pursuit of choosing the Happy PharmD, I’ve become crazy interested in labor economics. Sounds super boring, right, Tim?
Tim Church: It does.

Alex Barker: Yeah. You don’t have to lie. It is super boring to anyone else, but I’m amazingly interested in it because it’s revealing all sorts of economical truths about our job market. It’s really opened my eyes to things that most people aren’t talking about. And I’m able to on my blog. In the same way, what I propose we do is follow our curiosities and interests in pharmacy. And if you don’t know what those are, well, it’s time to ask yourself some questions and force yourself to get re-interested into pharmacy. Can I share a quick story?

Tim Church: Yeah, go for it.

Alex Barker: So I’m working with this guy named James. He’s out of St. Louis. And he was struggling in his career. He wasn’t enjoying his work, he was working in an institution, hospital pharmacy, and we were working together, trying to figure out, OK, well, what is next? And we ruled out all of the things that he was good at and different career paths. And then we came on an interesting idea. And he said, “You know, if I could quit my job and didn’t have to work at all, I would probably go volunteer for some sort of opioid treatment center or something that deals with the opioid crisis.” And that has led him down a very interesting path where he’s now very involved in different opioid committees in the local region. But he’s also now more involved in his work doing opioid-type work and committee work and different processes and creating policies. And his work now has become a lot more interesting to him, and he’s actually getting — well, depending on when this is released, I would be able to say, you know, I think he’s actually in talks with other people now to join either a new company or new projects or new things that involve straight-up opioids. So the point is sometimes, we just have to get curious or go back to when we were first in pharmacy school and think about, well, what were the things that really made me curious or I wanted to learn more about to inform a decision now about where you want to take your career next.

Tim Church: Yeah, I really like that concept because I think that’s probably where a lot of people even will transition out of pharmacy because that curiosity they have into even other types of work that provides value in the marketplace. And you talk a lot about that in that particular section, which is really cool. So Alex, who do you think this book is meant for? Is it for everybody in the pharmacy profession? Specific groups?

Alex Barker: Not at all. No. This is definitely not for everyone because some people have great, indispensable careers. They’re already probably doing many of the things that I recommend. I’m sure that the book would be a great supplement, maybe some new ideas about how they could achieve more with what they want with their career, but this book is really for the pharmacist who wants more from their career or their lives. It’s for the person who says, “You know, this job is OK. But I’m not doing everything that I think I was meant to do with my career or my job. It’s for the pharmacist who says things like, you know, it’s just a j-o-b. It’s just a job. Or if they feel burnt out. I didn’t write it for the elite. I didn’t want to write it to them. I wanted to write it to, truthfully, me when I was burnt out, when I was feeling stressed out about my job. And I was worried about what I was doing with my career and where I would end up. I was very scared a long time ago. And I wrote it to me and to the same people who are struggling with that same dilemma with their career and wondering, did I make a right choice pursuing this? Those are scary thoughts that you can’t really voice online. Like you can’t post something like that on LinkedIn or on Facebook and say, I don’t know what I’m doing. You can really only say it to maybe your close colleagues that you work with because everyone else feels the same way. Or you can say it to someone in passing at a party and just say, “I just don’t like what I do. I do not –” and you hear this all the time. And when I tell people what I do outside of pharmacy circles, they usually tell me, “Oh yeah, I know a pharmacist. They don’t seem happy.” Which is not good. I mean, that’s not good that that’s the default for our profession, right? Not at all. Yeah, I think we have a branding problem honestly. I mean, everyone that — the face of pharmacy right now is retail and community. And you know, if you — I challenge anyone to like go into a random retail store and just look at the faces of people. I do this often, actually. I’ll just go in and check things out and see how people are doing behind the counter. And they look stressed. They look rushed. Every once in awhile, I’ll see a smile, which is encouraging to me. You know? And I don’t want to make it seem like certain fields of pharmacy are always bad. It’s totally not true. There’s lots of happy people with fulfilling careers in every practice, I think, even retail, even corporate.And that’s great. They should be there. We need those people there. But a lot of people are mismatched. They’re not placed in the right position to really thrive, and their lives and their stress are usually evidence of that.

Tim Church: So what would you say, Alex, what’s the one thing that you want people to walk away with after they’ve read the book?

Alex Barker: Oh, man. Take action, baby. Hot dog. If you read this book, and you don’t take any different action, then like I would feel bad. I would want to refund you if you bought the book. You’ve got to take a different action. Everyone’s heard this now, but the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. It’s time to do things differently. It’s time to not just be applying to jobs on job boards because you’re competing with dozens of other pharmacists who likely look better than you on paper. It’s time to do something different, get more involved with your associations to take action to do something different because — what’s the phrase? What got you here won’t get you there. So even if, you know, you don’t read my book, that’s fine. What I want you to come away with, even from this podcast, is that, you know, you’ve got to create value for others. You’ve got to build relationships. And to create an indispensable career, that means you’ve got to take some proactive action, my friend.

Tim Church: So Alex, where did the inspiration come from to write this book?

Alex Barker: The pharmacists I work with. The people, when we first talk like over the phone and we’re trying to figure out their careers, a thing I often hear all the time is that I’ve got too many negatives going for me. I don’t have a PharmD. I don’t have any experience outside of community. I haven’t done anything great with my career. And they have all these excuses, and I’ve worked with people who have thought that they would never be hired by the companies that they were hired by. And seeing that transformation, seeing people go through that process and being confident in their ability to really perform at the highest level of pharmacy, that has been my inspiration for writing the book, for doing a lot of the work with clients, and truthfully, hiring more people to help with this process because if I’m going to help 500 people, I can’t do it alone. I’ve got to get other people on this train.

Tim Church: That’s awesome. I know that you’ve shared a lot of these stories within the book, which are really cool to see how you’ve helped with those transformations of people who are really struggling, really feeling that stress that you were once in. So I think that’s a really cool story. Another cool story is the charity aspect behind the book. And I was hoping that you would share a little bit about that.

Alex Barker: Yeah. So one of the things I decided about halfway through this process is that I wanted to use 100% of the profits of this book to go straight to charity. And there’s one charity that I’m very passionate about, and it’s helping families fund adoptions. I’m wanting to raise hopefully $30,000 this year, 2019, to give to a family to afford adoption. I share a little bit of my own story in the book, but I’ve been profoundly affected by adoption. My dad, the man who I call Dad is not really my true father. He’s my stepdad. But because of him, him coming into my life and taking me as my own son, has — I wouldn’t be on this podcast if it wasn’t for him, for him showing me what it means to be a man, what it means to be a loving husband and a great father. And that really moves me to want to help other families afford adoption, which is stupid how much it costs. $30,000, are you kidding me? No one can afford something like that. And so I want to help families be able to do that because the average adoption right now costs $30,000. And so all of the proceeds of this book are going to go straight to this fund. And from actually here on forward, every year, I plan on donating continuously to families to adopt children who are not wanted. And that, to me, like that’s the legacy, I hope, of this business is to bring families whole. That’s something I’m very proud about.

Tim Church: Such a cool story, Alex. And I appreciate you sharing that. So I highly recommend that you go out there and you get the book, “Indispensable: The Prescription for a Fulfilling Pharmacy Career,” especially if you’re someone that feels stressed or burned out and want to explore other strategies and opportunities. You can get the book on Amazon as an audiobook, paperback or a hard cover. Alex, what’s the best way for someone to reach out to you if they want to learn more about you and what you do?

Alex Barker: Best place is The Happy PharmD, that’s my home base, where I live. We’ve got lots of great information on there about career development, how to grow your career, how to get into a new job, job transitions. And we have lots of resources and some other courses on there. We also have a free training webinar on there about how pharmacists can transition into a new career path. So I highly recommend you check it out. And alternatively, you can also shoot me a message on LinkedIn.

Tim Church: Alex, thanks again for coming on the show, talking about your book and sharing your story.

Alex Barker: Thanks for having me, Tim. I had a blast.

Tim Church: Hey guys, just a reminder: If you want to get your free copy of “Indispensable,” just write us an honest review in iTunes for the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. And then send us a screenshot to [email protected]. And do that by Sunday, March 24 for your chance to win.

Recent Posts

[pt_view id=”f651872qnv”]

Why Most Pharmacists Should Do a Backdoor Roth IRA

Posted on by yfpadmin

Why Most Pharmacists Should Do a Backdoor Roth IRA

*Disclaimer – The following post is not tax or investment advice. It is meant to provide education on the subject matter covered and the ultimate decision to make any changes should be determined only by you and your designated financial professional(s).

Invest for retirement in tax-favored accounts. It’s one of the core financial recommendations you’re probably familiar with. While the 401(k), 403(b), or TSP is one of the best ways to do this, your contributions are limited to $19,500/year (for 2020). And if you’re someone looking to build a stellar retirement portfolio, that may not be enough to hit your goals.

As a pharmacist, you may have been told you make too much money to contribute to one of the best retirement accounts available, the Roth IRA. While that may be true, you may not have to settle for a traditional IRA or park your cash in a taxable brokerage account just yet.

That’s because there’s a legit strategy to work around this known as the “backdoor Roth IRA.”

While this retirement saving strategy does require a few extra steps, the ability to invest thousands of dollars with tax-free withdrawals can be well worth the effort. Plus, Roth IRAs have some other awesome benefits that are not available with traditional contributions.

When you’re eligible to take distributions at age 59 ½, you won’t owe any taxes on that growth.

Also, unlike a traditional IRA, there is no required minimum distribution and at any point you can withdraw any of your contributions you’ve made if needed tax free. Plus, if you have held a Roth IRA for at least 5 years, you can make early withdrawals on the earnings without penalty for a first time home purchase up to $10,000.

*Please note that the 5 year rule is different for a Roth conversion which allows you to move funds from your traditional IRA and place them in your Roth IRA. The 5 year holding period restarts for each conversion and any withdrawals during this time frame will result in a 10% early withdrawal penalty if you are under 59 ½.

Let’s go through why backdoor Roth IRA can be a great option and then how to actually do it.

backdoor roth ira, roth ira

The Issue with a Traditional IRA

IRAs or Individual Retirement Arrangements, are retirement accounts available to anyone who earns an income in addition to non-working spouses (covered later). No matter what company you work for or retirement plan they offer, you have the opportunity to contribute to an IRA. This is something you set up completely outside of work and can be done in addition to your 401(k).

Like your 401(k), IRAs also come in two flavors: traditional and Roth.

Contributions to traditional IRAs can lower your taxable income today with the amount growing tax-deferred resulting in you paying taxes at the time of withdrawal. However, because of the income limits to get the deduction, most pharmacists will never get this benefit.

Now the rules get a little tricky here because these limits are determined by whether you and your spouse have access to a retirement plan at work. But assuming you do, the ability to deduct traditional IRA contributions phases out completely at $75,000 if you file single and $124,000 if married filing jointly for 2020, hence excluding most pharmacists working full-time.

With this in mind, there is really is no question on whether a traditional or Roth IRA is better since there won’t be any benefit with the former. Therefore, either contributing directly to a Roth IRA or using the backdoor strategy will be your best move.

Roth IRA or Backdoor Roth IRA?

With the median pharmacist salary around $126,120, it’s very close to the income limits before you’re restricted from making standard Roth IRA contributions.

But rather than an all or nothing situation, the IRS begins phasing out your contribution limit once your modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) exceeds a certain threshold. These thresholds are listed below and depend on your filing status (single or married) and the tax year (2020 or 2019) you’re submitting your return for.

Single Taxpayers and Heads of Household

Single filers can make regular Roth IRA contributions when their income falls within these ranges for tax years 2020 and 2019.

One perk of being married is higher income limits to contribute. If your household income is below the amounts listed below, you can make Roth IRA contributions for tax years 2020 and 2019.

Married, Filing Jointly and Qualified Widows or Widowers

Before you think the backdoor Roth is your only option, glance at the income limits to see if you qualify to contribute directly to a Roth IRA first. No need to put in the extra work if it’s not necessary!

Even if your annual income falls within the IRS income phaseout range, you can still make partial backdoor Roth contributions. For example, if you’re a single taxpayer with a MAGI of $125,000, your maximum Roth contribution is $5,600 in 2020 and $4,800 in 2019.

This means you can contribute $5,600 directly to your Roth for tax year 2020 and the remaining $400 with the backdoor method to still contribute $6,000 annually. If you are able to make partial contributions and want to determine your limit, check out the IRS guidance for 2020.

Roth IRA Contribution Limits

The amount you can contribute to backdoor Roth is the same as the standard Roth IRA before the IRS phaseouts start applying.

You and your spouse can contribute up to the following amount to your Roth IRA:

  • Tax Year 2020: $6,000 ($7,000 if you’re 50 years or older)
  • Tax Year 2019: $6,000 ($7,000 if you’re 50 years or older)

To maximize your peak earning years, the IRS lets you contribute an extra $1,000 annually once you turn 50, something known as a catch-up contribution.

These are also the same contribution limits if you fund a pre-tax traditional IRA. Keep this in mind as you will need a traditional IRA to make valid backdoor Roth IRA contributions.

Make sure you only contribute up to the annual limit to your Roth IRA. In 2020, that’s either $6,000 or $7,000 per person. For non-backdoor Roth contributions, you can request a refund to correct the problem. If you don’t correct the excess contribution, you will pay a 6% penalty on the excess amount.

Open a Spousal IRA

If you file your taxes under married filing jointly (MFJ) and your wife or husband either earns a small income or doesn’t work, you can consider opening a spousal IRA to double your annual contributions. As long as your earned income is equal to the amount you contribute to your IRA and your spouse’s IRA (at least $12,000 if you each contribute $6,000), the spousal IRA contribution is valid.

In 2020, having a spousal IRA lets you and your spouse both contribute $6,000 ($7,000 if you’re 50 or older). That’s up to $14,000 of cash that grows tax-free until you withdraw it. Pretty cool right?

In order to take advantage of the spousal IRA option you will need to open up both a traditional IRA and and a Roth IRA in the spouse’s name. After contributing the annual contribution to the spouse’s traditional IRA you will then convert the balance to the spouse’s Roth IRA.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Making a Backdoor Roth IRA Conversion

Ok. We’ve gone through the benefits of a backdoor Roth IRA, why it’s a great move, and the contribution limits. Now let’s go through how to make this happen step-by-step:

via GIPHY

 

1. Make Nondeductible Traditional IRA Contributions

The first step is funding your traditional IRA with nondeductible income. If you’re making this contribution before April 15, you can either date it for last year (2019) or the current year (2020).

After the federal tax filing deadline (April 15 for most years), your only tax year option is the current year.

You’ll be completing an extra form, but this step is like making regular post-tax Roth IRA contribution. These contributions don’t reduce your taxable income for the current tax year.

The best way to fund your IRA contributions is from the checking account you use to deposit your paycheck. You must then decide if you want to make a lump sum conversion or dollar cost average as money becomes available.

Lump Sum Contributions

If you have $6,000 in idle cash and are close to the deadline for making your contributions, lump sum is the best option. With this strategy, you only have to make one contribution each year and your tax implications will be minimal if you make the conversion relatively quickly.

Dollar Cost Averaging

If you can’t max out your IRA at once or prefer to take advantages of changes in the market, you can also considering dollar cost averaging. With a $6,000 annual contribution limit, you can contribute $500 a month if you want 12 equal monthly payments but you could also come up with some other schedule.

Besides doing this out of necessity, there are other benefits with this technique. By contributing an equal amount over a period of time, you will naturally avoid trying to time the market. You will buy more shares when the market is down and fewer shares when the market is up.

Where to Set Up Your IRA

You have a lot of options on where to fund your IRA including banks, brokerage firms, and mutual fund companies. Companies such as Vanguard, T. Rowe Price, or Fidelity allow you to open accounts without any fees or commissions but there may be a minimum initial amount depending on the investment you choose.

Now, when you make your contributions, you will have to decide how you actually invest the money. Remember, the IRA is not the actual investment but rather a tax-advantaged vehicle or shield for your money.

You will have thousands of options here and how you invest will depend on your goals and your risk tolerance.The one point to keep in mind will be to minimize the fees. Many index funds and ETFs exist with expenses ratios as low as 0.03-0.08.

However, keep in mind that by subjecting your contributions to market fluctuation, you could actually lose money prior to making your conversion. Therefore, the conservative approach would be to keep contributions in a money market account or other low-risk investment with little to no volatility.

2. Make a Roth IRA Conversion

Your next step is to convert your contribution amount into a Roth IRA. It can take several days for your traditional contributions to settle before you are able to convert them but by having your Roth IRA with the same broker, you should be able to easily schedule the conversion.

When making the backdoor Roth IRA conversion, your broker will ask if you want to withhold any income for taxes. Since you made a nondeductible contribution in the first step, don’t have your broker withhold anything.

Potential Tax Implications for Lump Sum Contributions

You will be responsible for any taxes when you file your return, but the amount should be minimal if the cash doesn’t sit in your traditional IRA long enough to significantly appreciate in value. This is your most likely tax situation when you make lump sum contributions and you don’t have an existing balance in your traditional IRA that converts first.

Potential Tax Implications if You Dollar Cost Average

If you convert money that has appreciated in value, let’s say 30%, you pay taxes on those gains. For example, let’s say for 2020, you contribute $500/month to get up to the max contribution of $6,000. But, because the market was on fire, you actually have $7,800. You would be responsible for paying taxes on the $1,800.

How Long Should You Wait Between Traditional Contributions and Roth Conversions?

One of the questions that commonly comes up when making the Roth conversion is how long to wait. Technically, as soon as your account is funded with your nondeductible traditional contributions, you can make the move.

However, doing this could cause some issues with something called the step transaction doctrine. It has to do with the overall result of a series of transactions where the IRS could essentially penalize you with taxes because you are exploiting a loophole.

There is controversy by financial experts on what the best waiting period is. Some advocate for one month while others recommend waiting a full year before making the conversion.

3. Report Contributions and Conversions on Your Tax Return

When filing your federal return, report the nondeductible contributions and Roth IRA conversions. Your broker will send you the necessary tax forms each year to properly report the information to your accountant or online tax prep software.

Although you’re contributing to a traditional IRA first, you will make nondeductible transactions. You will need to complete IRS Tax Form 8606 to report your total traditional IRA contributions for the current tax year. This lets the IRS know you’re not funding your backdoor Roth with tax-deferred contributions.

4. Repeat as Necessary

Follow the same steps if you have a spouse as you can each do a backdoor Roth IRA every year.

Backdoor Roth IRA Tax Implications

I discussed earlier that you likely won’t have to pay taxes on your traditional IRA contributions when you make the conversion assuming there is no growth during that time frame. However, in that particular case, it assumes this is first time you are doing a backdoor Roth IRA and that you only have other existing Roth IRAs.

It gets a little more complicated if you have existing funds in nondeductible traditional IRAs. Because of the IRS aggregation rules, they look at everything you have contributed in the past, not just what you contributed for the current tax year and it all becomes “aggregated.” Therefore, if you have a large existing traditional IRA balance, it may negate the benefits of the backdoor strategy.

If you are in this situation, you could roll the existing IRA balance into a 401(k)-type account if your employer allows. This can either be your employer 401(k) or a self-employed 401(k). This way you can fund your backdoor Roth with the income you earn in the current tax year and have a starting traditional IRA account balance of $0 and avoid a potentially hefty tax bill

When your current traditional IRA balance is small or doesn’t have large investment gains, it might be better to pay the taxes on the amount you convert instead of rolling it into a 401(k), especially if you have limited investment options or high fees.

Conclusion

The backdoor Roth IRA is a legal and easy way to maximize your retirement savings and can be a great option for pharmacists given many will not be able to directly contribute to a Roth IRA because of the income limits.

If you haven’t filed your 2019 income taxes yet, you have until April 15, 2020 to make IRA contributions. You also have all of 2020 and until April 15, 2019 to make the tax-advantaged contributions we’re discussing today.

If you need help doing your conversion or want some guidance on how to invest the funds within your Roth IRA, you can schedule a free call with our financial planning team to see you’re a good fit.

Also, If you’re looking for other ways to reduce your taxable income when investing, IRAs aren’t your only option. I recommend listening to this podcast episode to help determine your priority of investing.

Current Student Loan Refinance Offers

Advertising Disclosure

[wptb id="15454" not found ]

Recent Posts

[pt_view id=”f651872qnv”]

YFP 091: How to Become a Fit Pharmacist

Posted on by yfpadmin

Becoming an Entrepreneur: The Fit Pharmacist

On this episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast, Tim Church interviews Dr. Adam Martin about becoming an entrepreneur for another edition of the side hustle series. Adam has been practicing as a pharmacist in the community practice setting for over 7 years, in addition to being a certified personal trainer, licensed nutrition consultant, author, speaker, and competitive natural bodybuilder.

About Today’s Guest

Graduating from the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy, Dr. Adam Martin has worked as a full-time pharmacist in the community practice setting for over 7 years, in addition to being a certified personal trainer, licensed nutrition consultant, author, speaker, and competitive natural bodybuilder.

His passion and focus is empowering pharmacy students and pharmacists
to overcome the barriers we face in pharmacy to make self-care a reality. He outlines how to do this with practical and realistic tips in this book Rx: YOU! In his book, Dr. Martin dispenses his Rx for success in how to simplify nutrition, fit in fitness, and manage stress so that you can become The FitPharmacist and put the health back into healthcare.

Summary

It’s easy to hear Dr. Adam Martin’s passion for self-care, pharmacy, fitness, and life. While Adam’s mother was sick with cancer, he spent a lot of time with her going to pharmacies and noticed how compassionate pharmacists were in caring for his mother. He wanted to continue that care and empathy for patients as a pharmacist and was driven to become one, despite not being accepted to pharmacy school at first.

Adam’s been a practicing community pharmacist for 7 years and loves his work. He enjoys being able to build a rapport and relationship with patients and feels that every interaction is important and directly impacts someone’s life.

His passion for his pharmacy career floods into every other aspect of his life and is apparent in his entrepreneurial journey. In college, Adam started helping his colleagues with their fitness and health journeys. This ultimately formed a community and inspired him to create an Instagram account (@thefitpharmacist) which currently has almost 30,000 followers.

Now, The Fit Pharmacist business has 3 tiers which include nutrition, health coaching, and physical fitness. In his business, Adam continues to help pharmacists and pharmacy students put the health back in health care and truly take care of themselves so they can better serve their patients.

Adam’s also been in business since 2013 with Dr. Joe Klemczewski and Dr. Kori Propst of The Diet Doc. Adam is also a speaker, author, and coaches other pharmacists and pharmacy students to become health coaches.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Church: Adam, thank you so much for taking time to come on the show and for being a part of this side hustle edition.

Adam Martin: Tim, thanks so much for having me. Been a big fan of you and other Tim, especially since reading the book you guys created, which is phenomenal. “Seven Figure Pharmacist,” so much value in there. It’s just really a masterpiece for the profession. So thank you so much and congratulations on that production.

Tim Church: Oh, thanks, man. We really appreciate that and, you know, that was really the goal in mind is to get that information out there so that people don’t make the same mistakes that we did. So definitely appreciate you for the shoutout on that. Now, being into fitness and weight lifting, I want to know, did you get your workout in today?

Adam Martin: I actually did. You guys can’t see on the video, but I’ve got my “Deadlifts and Chill” shirt on. It’s the same thing as “Netflix and Chill” but “Deadlifts and Chill.” So yes, sir, I worked at Club Pharmacy this morning and then went right to the gym. But yeah, that’s my life is pharmacy and fitness.

Tim Church: Awesome, man, me too. I got mine in, so I felt good going into this podcast, you know, making sure that I was ready. Got my workout in. So before you kind of do your workout, is there anything that you listen to? Any kind of music that gets you pumped up for a workout?

Adam Martin: Oh, absolutely, man. Throughout the whole time, not like a specific song, but a high BPM. If you guys have satellite radio, BPM is an awesome station. You guys can use like Pandora for free, but yeah, any high beat. I actually studied Spanish in addition to pharmacy, so I love like upbeat Da Miel (?), Yummy (?), all the awesome people out there that are doing like mixed reggae type stuff. So any like high beat, high energy. But then I also like some rock. If you guys listen to Disturb, they’re legit for really getting your mind in the game. For sure.

Tim Church: After I read your book, I thought maybe Lil Jon and the East Side Boyz maybe as well.

Adam Martin: Yeah, you got that reference. Well it’s funny, I actually play that song to keep my techs engaged at work. Whenever they say like, we need a mix for reconstituted amoxicillin, every then and now I’ll put “Shake it Like a Salt Shaker.” So yeah, man, you’ve got to bring in the fun. And that’s why I call it Club Pharmacy is because, yes, it’s very serious, we’re taking care of people’s health. We’re literally impacting their lives. But you have to have fun and enjoy that because if you don’t, that stress is going to eat you alive. So finding some sort of way to create that environment or joy, happiness is going to allow you to give to your full potential, and that’s why I do what I do.

Tim Church: Even if it’s with Lil Jon.

Adam Martin: Exactly. And actually, he’s really intelligent. So I know he’s making millions of dollars for saying three words, that being “yeah,” “OK,” and “what,” but this guy, he’s actually pretty intelligent — I don’t know if you’ve ever read up on him or not, but he makes some good mixes.

Tim Church: Yeah, that’s cool. I’ve been into like ‘80s montage music lately. So like all the Jean-Claude Van Damme and the Rocky movies. Those have been kind of my jams lately.

Adam Martin: Nice, man. Yeah, that’s what’s cool is it really depends on each individual, which is the whole approach that I have with health coaching that I do is there’s not a cookie-cutter plan where everyone fits into one category. It’s what are your goals? What do you like? What can you stick with? Because a lot of people fall into that trap of I want extreme results, so I have to make extreme sacrifices. Just like what we’re talking about with working out, like, oh no, I have to suffer. This is not going to be fun. Like this is punishment for the food I wasn’t supposed to eat. No. This is a celebration for what your body can do. Life is meant to be lived. And why walk when you can dance, man? So make it a party. So find that music that you love. I have some friends that really like classical music when they lift. That really juices them up.
Tim Church: That’s interesting.

Adam Martin: I don’t know how the heck they get through their workout, but that’s them, and you know, to each their own.

Tim Church: That’s how they hear it, yeah. Well, I’m really excited to kind of get your entrepreneurial journey and how you’re delivering value to other pharmacists out there. But before we kind of do that, can you talk a little bit about your career path as a pharmacist?

Adam Martin: Absolutely. So my career path as a pharmacist was my — I guess I’ll start with my why. My mom — actually, I love animals. We’ll start there. I love animals, so of course, the clear choice was I’m going to be a vet. Right? I want to take care of the puppies. I want to do all those things. So I very fortunately went and chatted at a vet clinic to kind of see what really went on. And it was not at all what I expected. I hated it, so luckily, that was in high school, so I was able to make a pivot to something else. Unfortunately, around that time, my mom got diagnosed with very aggressive cancer. I didn’t know it at the time, but she was given less than six months to live. And she was very determined, had a very strong mindset and ended up fighting for over five years in that battle. But during that time, we were in the pharmacy most days of the week. I don’t know any pharmacists personally at this time in my life. We don’t have any neighbors or family friends or anything like that, and all I knew was these people were really smart, and they’re crazy busy, like running around, short-staffed, all those things. But amidst that, a total stranger, my mom and our family, they would go above and beyond and really show that care and dedication and just say, like, “You know, can we drop this off for her? How is she doing?” Just genuine questions that just like caught my attention, like this is amazing that a total stranger can care so deeply for a stranger. So that really is what got me looking towards pharmacy in the first place. And then the more I looked into it, the more it was very clear I was meant to do this, like with absolute certainty. So I applied, I went to Pitt undergrad. And I applied to pharmacy school, super excited, and then I got rejected. “Your grades suck, this and that, you don’t” — whatever the reasons were, I didn’t get in. So I could have used that and said, “You know, this is crazy. I wasn’t meant to do this. This is too competitive. Blah blah blah.” But I really had my why. Like I was meant to do this. And instead of being discouraged, I got resourceful, I got involved in organizations, I was in the pharmacy school so much volunteering and learning, people thought I was a student. So I used that as my strength.

Tim Church: Wow.

Adam Martin: And then I actually the next year, applied again. I didn’t get accepted; I got waitlisted. I was the last person to get in my class, in my class of pharmacy. And I was like so excited and blessed. I’m like, oh, this is amazing. At the time, I was like, “Woohoo! This is great.” And we had orientation. And they talked about, don’t do this, don’t get in trouble. If you have a problem, talk to someone. And then the very last thing they said is, “By the way, you need to elect a president for your class.” And dude, it was a moment I’ll never forget. Like I was meant to do this. My parents really pushed leadership skill development. I was an Eagle Scout, all these things. And it was like, everything that I’ve done has now come to this point right now. So I ran for office, and I got elected president of my class. And I was like, you know what, I worked so hard to get in this, it literally took years plus one to get in here. I’m not going to waste this opportunity. So because it took so much, I overcame so much pain and rejection to get in there, I looked at this as such a gift. So I became like, how am I going to maximize this? Around that time, I also got into fitness. I’d been lifting for a few years, but I really got focused in the nutrition aspect. And what I found was if I went out and partied, I wouldn’t be able to concentrate in the classroom, and my workouts would suffer. But if I ate well and rested and did all the good things, I would be really focused in class, I’d make really good conversation, I’d take good notes, and my workouts would be amazing. So it was this dichotomy of fitness and pharmacy that really catapulted my success — not necessarily grade-wise, because I wasn’t a Rho Chi, I was more of a back-Rho Chi or a no-Rho Chi, so the grades weren’t all there. But the relationships, the learning, being involved in the community, volunteering. I went to seven conferences while I was in pharmacy school. So really just putting my energy in learning and connecting and networking and really making the most of all these amazing, brilliant people in pharmacy that I was blessed to have access to as my professors and colleagues. And whenever I graduated, it was right when the market started to shift. So when I was a first-year student, I was in Phi Delta Chi, and the people that were graduating in my fraternity were all talking about, oh, about a sign-on bonus or relo bonus, all those things that, you know, were the glory days of pharmacy. Well, that was literally the last year of that. That was I think 2008. And then it started to shift. Sign-ons were gone, relos were gone. And whenever I graduated, those didn’t exist. And it was really competitive. The job market really got tight. But because I networked and showed value, went to conferences, I ended up getting like six job offers when I graduated. Whereas people that just went through the motions didn’t even have any. Like there were some people that they didn’t know what they wanted to do, which is fine, you’re still looking to figure that out. But they didn’t have any job offers, so even after graduation, they were really struggling because that market shifted. So that really gave me an idea to not only help pharmacy students maximize pharmacy school but to help pharmacists and people in healthcare to live and give to the best potential possible because as you guys know listening, you’re probably in pharmacy, either a student or a pharmacist, there’s a lot of stress. Like a ton of stress. You’re trying to do 30 things at once, you’ve got flu shot quotas, you’re trying to give drugs that are off-market, and people are yelling at you, all these things. But you still want to give. You still have your why for why you got into this. But if you don’t have clear focus on that, it can really wreak havoc. And then you can fall into this trap of I’m here to give and serve, so me taking a lunch is selfish. Me giving up my time to work out instead of working out and taking care of myself, I’m going to give it to my patients. That’s really what it’s about. But short-term, that might work. But over the long term, that’s where it gets us into trouble. We start gaining weight, we start getting really overwhelmed with stress. And then it comes to a point where we’re not able to perform at our highest level. So by “giving our own self-care away,” we’re literally creating a detriment to the service of healthcare we’re providing. So self-care is not selfish at all. It’s the most selfless thing you can do because by investing in yourself, you can give more. And that’s my whole purpose is how to help people give their full potential.

Tim Church: I think you’re story of getting into pharmacy school and that path that you took is such a cool story just of resilience but inspiration on how you got into the field. And then I think you also made just a huge point about healing the healer, and that was always a point that was brought up when I was in school that you really have to take care of yourself. And I want to get into that a little bit more, but talk about what you’re doing as a pharmacist right now in your full-time job at a community pharmacy.

Adam Martin: Sure. So I love community pharmacy because it’s based on relationships and really having that rapport with your patients when they come in, you know them by their name, they know you by their name, you can follow up and say, “Hey, how was your graduation?,” sending them cards, just having genuine conversation and caring about people. That’s why I love going to work, and I can stand for 13 hours without a break and dance out of there like I just got there. So just having that level of impact and the relationships with the people to really just give and help them in their darkest moments because guys, when people come in the pharmacy, they’re most likely not having a good day. So if you can come to that interaction with energy and support and just being there for them, you’re going to impact their lives in so much — like it’s indescribable, the level of impact that you have the potential to make. But if we ourselves are facing issues that are controllable by diet and exercise, we’re doing a disservice. So by investing in ourselves, we can really make each and every interaction high-level. And I know that might sound like ridiculous or unrealistic, but I mean, I’m not at a slow store. We do over 500 a day without overlap. And you know, I go through the same stuff, tech call-offs, all the things. I’ve been doing it since 2012, so living in the trenches to give practical advice that’s realistic to help you with nutrition, fitness, dealing with stress, that’s kind of where that passion came from, unfortunately, through seeing so many other pharmacists succumb to that stress and the pressures that can take ahold of you if you allow it. So that’s where my one book came from, “Rx You: The Pharmacist’s Survival Guide to Managing Stress and Fitting In Fitness,” to take all those best practice tips and help you to overcome that and really invest in yourself.

Tim Church: Wow. I think you hit on so many points there that are just so key because you nailed it that pharmacists are so accessible and have the opportunity to really help people in multiple ways. But just even taking an interest in them when they’re at their worst can make all the difference. And I think sometimes, realistically, like you talked about, it can be difficult when you have all of these other things competing for your time and attention and just your own general energy and exhaustion. And so I think that other people probably listening are thinking, yeah, I get everything Adam is saying, but sometimes, I bet it’s difficult to maintain that same level of service and attention that you can give throughout your entire shift there. So I think that although it’s something that we should all strive for, it’s probably not always easy, right? To do that all the time during your entire shift.

Adam Martin: Oh guys, I’m not perfect. Like I make mistakes. But being able to do that the majority of the time and set yourself up so it’s easier — it’s not that it gets easier, it’s just that you get better. So it’s not that over time, stress goes away. Quite the opposite. You guys know, like they cut hours, more quotas, now there’s Shingrix on top of flu shots, and that’s on back order, so we just can’t wait ‘til that drops back again. But yeah, I mean, it’s not that it gets easier, it’s just that you get better. And you’re going to have days where life happens. If you’ve got kids, they kept you up all night or you’ve got relationship problems or you have a flat tire on your way to work, yeah, life happens. But being able to roll with the punches and bounce back from that, that’s what that practice. So what you practice in private is what you see in real life. So being able to do those rituals and prepare yourself so that when those things come up, you can face that adversity head-on and use it to strengthen you as a kind of overcoming a challenge.

Tim Church: Well, I mean, it’s cool, like I love the energy and the passion that you have just around the profession but your job and how you’re impacting patients every day. And I think that’s awesome, and you know, unfortunately, I don’t think that’s always the case in our profession. And it depends on your own ability to control your emotions and the things that are going on, but also there are some factors within the profession that do make it challenging to kind of come with that same level of passion and intensity. But I want to shift gears a little bit, and I want to know how did you become interested in entrepreneurship and creating this business, The Fit Pharmacist? How did that all come into play?

Adam Martin: That’s an awesome question, man. And I don’t really consider myself an entrepreneur because I have a full-time job, but I guess I’ve got like two jobs, like the entrepreneur gig. But it started out by literally just people coming to me and saying like, “Hey, how can I do this? What tips do you have? What suggestions?” and just helping them. And it literally created a community. What started off as an Instagram handle became a community and then a business, and now like this movement in pharmacy where there’s pharmacy students and pharmacists that share their story every Friday. I’ve been doing it for 2.5 years now for Fit Pharmacist Friday, where that’s a source of inspiration and motivation for others who are exactly what you said, going through these challenges. And we all have our seasons where we feel down or it’s not going to happen or tough times. But having that community, much like what you and Tim have with Your Financial Pharmacist of support and mentorship, is just so phenomenal that it just kept growing and I kept getting more and more people and then the followers started growing, and I just kept creating content because I love it and I’m like, hey, here’s an issue that I see all the time in pharmacy that people complain about. This is something that I’ve used and others find helpful, let me share this. And that’s how it spread is just creating value that works and is practical because you can want to be healthy and talk to a nutritionist, but they don’t really get pharmacy world and how we don’t have a break and we have to do 30 things with the manpower to only do five. So when they tell you to eat a salad for lunch and chew 30 times before you swallow, it’s not practical. So if it’s not practical, and you’re not going to do it, and then you’re going to be right back where you started. So having simple solutions that are actually, you know, going to be effective in your work environment is really where I thrive to cut through the crap. But it’s still using stuff that’s research-based, effective, scientific, but translating that to pharmacy world, whether that’s nutrition, fitting in workouts, mindset mastery through meditation or self-development through reading, seminars, things like that. That’s where my niche came from. Then it just became so many requests for people to do one-on-one coaching. As a competitive bodybuilder, a *drug-free* — pharmacist, but drug-free bodybuilder, yes, that just fueled my passion. And I just created this community, and it turned into a business, and I just started to think, you know, this is something. Like I get messaged every day by people all over the world — literally. In India, Spain, Africa, I write for a magazine in South Africa, like it’s literally a global community. So in order to do that effectively, I need to figure out how business works. Because I wasn’t trained in that, I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m just creating value with stuff that I love. And to answer your question, that’s kind of how the entrepreneurship worked is I just did what I love, did it from good reason, with good intentions to help people to overcome the struggles that I myself went through and see others doing and just kind of extending a helping hand. And that created the book and the community and the business. So that’s what I do now is I help pharmacists and pharmacy students do the same thing in creating their health coaching business. I’ve been in business since 2013 with the godfather of flexible dieting, Dr. Joe Klemczewski, and his partner, Dr. Cory Probst (?), who is literally the best health psychologist in the world. I actually joined them as a client when I first graduated pharmacy school, and I asked them like, “Hey, I have this passion for nutrition. There’s all these certifications. What do I do?” And he said, “We can train you to do what we do.” And that’s what I looked at for awhile just to kind of see time play out, check out was what they’re doing legit, get referrals, just doing all those things to make sure it’s all good because he was an idol in natural bodybuilding world. So I knew he had a huge following, really great integrity, everyone has awesome things to say. But you know, money talks, as they say. So I really wanted to play that out, and it was one of, if not the best investments I’ve ever made in my life. So I’ve been with them since 2013. I’m actually flying to Nashville this Friday to give a talk alongside them. So they started as my mentors, now they’re my colleagues and business partners.

Tim Church: And so what it sounds like, Adam, is that it took some time to sort of grow that community, put out a lot of great content, and then people were catching on, really seeing that value that you were bringing to the table. And it almost seems like they sort of naturally became something that you could monetize, that you were solving people’s problems that they were having.

Adam Martin: Exactly. And straight up, like I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the awesome people in our community of the Fit Pharmacist movement. Like they’re phenomenal. Literally, you had mentioned earlier that not everyone’s always at the top of their game or so enthusiastic. Yes, that’s true. But I want to come back at that and say, there are so many that are, that they have hard days too. They’ve gone through those things, and that’s why I started that Fit Pharmacist Friday is to let people know that, you know, your colleagues, your students, might be Debbie Downers, I don’t know. But you need to know that there’s a community of people who have gone through some serious crap, whether it’s emotional or abuse or relationships or financial, and they’ve come out being so much stronger, creating strength from their struggle, making their mess their message, leading by example and being just a source of inspiration. So that’s why I do that. And it’s created this awesome community of pharmacists that are all about, you know, helping others. So that’s what it’s about, and I wouldn’t be who I am or where I am without you awesome people. So thank you. Thank everyone who’s listening and been with me on this journey because like you said, it did manifest naturally because — and it’s picked up momentum, so I guess a value point for those listening is very simple: Clarity creates power. So when I started, I had all these passions, you know, nutrition, working out, pharmacy, and it was like all over the place. But then finding my message and tying that all together, being an advocate and really resource to put self-care back into healthcare, particularly in the pharmacy profession, that’s when things really exploded because I got so clear and focused such that every action, every article I wrote, everything was tied to this one mission. And when you get clear on what you’re trying to do and the value and purpose of giving that you’re really on a mission to create and give to others, that’s when you’re going to take off. And I’ve read many books on this, I’ve gone to seminars with Grant Cardone, with Lewis Howes, with Tony Robbins, all this year, and it’s just getting those mentors. And I hear the same message, clarity creates power. Really get connected with your why, and stay true to what you’re looking to accomplish, stay true to that mission, why you’re doing it and the outcome that you want, and that is going to drive so much more success. And if you stay with that and be consistent and put in the work, you’re going to get results beyond what you could ever imagine.

Tim Church: It kind of reminds me of that quote from Zig Ziglar where if you help enough people get what they want, eventually, you’re going to get what you want. And that’s just really what I kind of hear as you’re going through that and talking about that because it’s easy to see that your passion and the power that you’re putting into this movement and parts of your business is really encouraging others but just having such a huge impact, and it’s really cool to see that. And to get a little bit more practical about the business itself, can you break down the different layers on how you’re bringing in additional income?

Adam Martin: Absolutely. The business is the Fit Pharmacist. And I have three main tiers with that. It’s expanding to a fourth right now. That being nutrition and health coaching, really helping people to live their best lives through helping them, specifically through mindset coaching, so how to deal with stress and anxiety, really have that attitude and practice of constant, neverending improvement, to really have those mentors and learn those things. The second being physical fitness, finding something that you enjoy because I love to deadlift, but you might not. Or you might have some physical ailment. So all my clients that I have, not one of them is interested in bodybuilding, and I am 100% OK with that. So just because I am a bodybuilder, that doesn’t mean that I expect you to be. That’s my passion. But you might like Zumba or something else. So it’s finding what you love and enjoy and doing that because it’s different for every person. And then the whole nutrition aspect. I do not believe in supplements or scam shakes or being reliant on a product because what’s going to happen when you go on vacation and don’t have the product or you go to a birthday party, and there’s no product there. It’s not living. It’s relying on an external thing. But when you really focus on education and being able to make those decisions and knowing nutrition, the science behind it, in a simple way. Not like a crazy, you know, professor-type deal, but practical knowledge, that’s going to allow you to become your best nutritionist. And I don’t throw you under the bus; I guide you through the process because everyone is starting from a different point. So that’s why I do very extensive in-taking with each of my clients to figure out what their goals are, what they’ve tried before, where they are right now and then where they’re looking to go so that we can create a realistic action plan.

Tim Church: And so do they pay you, is that like a flat fee for a service that’s over a certain period of time? Or how does that work?

Adam Martin: Sure. So the payment structure is based on time. So it depends on the individual because some people, you know, they’re at their healthy weight, they’re just really looking for more mindset. So I have a three-month program for someone that has that experience and they’re just looking to take that to the next level. I have a six-month program, and then I have a year-long program. So that’s why that intake is so important to really get to know the individual and based on where they are and where they’re looking to go, based on what their goals are, I can really make a recommendation for what would best allow that to practically happen. So that’s how that pricing structure works.

Tim Church: And then, so that’s one aspect of the business is doing basically consulting, helping pharmacists and other people get on a great nutrition plan, a fitness plan, and then what’s the other aspects of the business?

Adam Martin: So there’s a lot of pharmacists that feel like they’re not fulfilled. They feel like they’re just clocking in and just keep dispensing medications. It’s not their jam. They’re looking for another way. They’re really into the nutrition; they see the benefit for themselves, and they want to do that. They want to be the pharmacist that, you know, dispenses fitness to their patients and leading by example. But there’s so many internet programs and things like that, how do they do that? And how do they learn the business side? Because yes, there are pharmacy schools that offer PharmD-MBA programs, but you know, specific for fitness coaching, health coaching, things like that, that’s my other business is helping pharmacy students and pharmacists really do that practically from someone who actually does it. So it’s cool to get the inside business from like you guys do with your finance book, mistakes you made for investing and frivolous spending and so forth, just like me. Like I’ve made mistakes in building my business, spending money where it didn’t need to be, spending too much time doing this where it should have been that, so guiding them through that process with that whole plan and allowing them to do it at a faster rate with more success and I’m with them through that whole time so that, like I said, it’s different for every person, things are going to accelerate at a different pace. So being their coach through that process. I’ve been doing that for two years now, and it’s honestly one of the most rewarding things in my life because once you see someone really realize their potential and say things like, “Wow, I’ve always seen people do this, and I never thought I could do it. But I just did it, and it feels amazing.” I had one of my current clients for the 2018 course just closed his first health coaching client on a six-month program last week. And you should have seen him. Like he was so happy. Like it made everything, like all the work, all the late nights and everything that I had put in, it made it all worth it. That actually leads to the third layer of business, since you might pick up on I can’t shut up, and like I really done that for a long time, and that is speaking. I love to speak. It’s a passion of mine, it’s a natural gift. But really learning that and honing it so it can be effective in helping people to get those simple solutions to really empower themselves, whether that’s a mindset thing, staying in their element and overcoming stress at work, nutrition, social media, all of the things that I do and practice myself in a talk. So I speak at several businesses in the Pittsburgh area and all over. I’m actually flying to Nashville on Friday to talk about social media. But it’s a passion. I love it. And pharmacy schools are my jam. I’ve been working on a book for three years now to help pharmacy students master their whole experience in pharmacy school because I had an amazing education at Pitt, I love that school so, so much. But there’s some things that I wasn’t taught. Maybe I was not paying attention, so it could be my own fault. But there’s some things like building your personal brand, how to network effectively, like the ins and outs: what to do before a conference, after the conference, how to follow up, all of those types of things, I made a book. The first half is those practical skills that looking back as a pharmacist for eight years now, looking back in pharmacy school are my highlights, what were the things I wish I knew, that’s the first half of the book are those skills that will really set you apart and give you a competitive advantage in your career. And then the second part of the book is what took all the time. There are a collection of interviews from the best people in our profession, each chapter being a niche. So I have a chapter on specialty pharmacy with one of the best people in the industry. I have someone in research. I have someone that does PGY1 residencies, and all of those different things, those different avenues you can go, that are literally the top of their game. And I had pharmacy students do the interview so that they could get the experience asking them questions like, “Right now, you’re at the top of your game. If you knew you were going to end up here, and you were on Day 1 at pharmacy school, what things would you have done differently? What resources would you recommend diving into if this is your niche? What connections — where would you spend your time so that you would end up where you are, but at a faster rate so the value of that knowledge is really what took the time?” But then I took it a step further and what I told the dean who is a part of this project, Dr. Kroboth at the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy, a phenomenal individual, so inspiring, I told her, “What I want to do is create this book, sell it. I want it in every pharmacy school in the country. But I don’t want to keep $1 from the sales. I want all of the money from the hard copy book sales to go to an endowment fund for a scholarship for a pharmacy student who is overcoming adversity and looking to make an impact in our profession.” Because I want to give back, I want to pay it forward. So that was my innovative way to create that. And that’s kind of why I’m so juiced about it, why I love going to pharmacy schools and talking, because it was the biggest gift I’ve ever gotten is a chance — a chance to get in and to really put my passion into work to make the most of that time. And I want to help others do the same, so that’s the why behind all my energy and talking and all the stuff that I do.

Tim Church: Wow. That is awesome, Adam. I didn’t know about that book. Is that out already?

Adam Martin: No. That has been in the works.

Tim Church: OK. So that one’s coming.

Adam Martin: That one’s coming in 2019. So it’s funny. I started that book three years ago. But then in the time, I was like, people really want like self-care tips. Like I keep getting messages every day, Instagram, Facebook, so I need to create a resource for that. So that’s where that book came out, and the response was, “Oh dude, you always say like the business is determined” — I forgot how this quote goes, but the market determines your success. That book came out, and 60 copies in 24 hours, it was a bestseller on Amazon, like it was incredible. I had people from Abu Dhabi buy it, Mexico, Canada, China, like amazing. Like literally worldwide reach. And I was blown away. Like I made this, I’m like, this will be like a cool e-book. And one of my mentors was like, no, no, no. You need to make this a hard copy book. I’m like, OK. So I did that, and I was like, I’ll sell like 10 copies. It’ll be cool, you know, to publish a book. But dude, it was amazing. And that just fueled and reinforced like hey man, you have something here. You need to keep going because you’re providing value, and it’s actually effective. And people are messaging me, saying, “This helped me so much.” Tony — Tony Guerra had me on his podcast, like dude, I lost 5 pounds from your one tip. I’m like, cool man.

Tim Church: Which tip was it?

Adam Martin: That was the water test, which I actually —

Tim Church: Oh, I love it. I love it. I do that all the time.

Adam Martin: Dude, I created that at work. So that’s in the trenches tip because I kept getting hungry because I was so busy, I would start feeling hungry. But I knew I wasn’t hungry, but I had this feeling. So I just chugged a bottle of water, and then 5-10 minutes later, the hunger feeling was gone. So I started looking into it, and I come to realize that the brain does not know the difference between hunger and thirst. So literally, if you feel hungry, it could be that you’re just thirsty. So in order to determine that, you’re probably dehydrated running around like a chicken with its head cut off at Club Pharmacy trying to answer all the 50 phones and the people trying to get their script filled ASAP. So chug a water, and it’ll likely go away. And 99%, dude, like I use this every single day. I used it this morning like three times. Almost every time, it goes away from drinking water. So that will save you unnecessary eating, extra calories, so it’s simple math. Like you guys are numbers with finance. It’s simple math. Calories in, calories out. If you can cut that stimulus so you don’t keep putting more calories in you don’t need, you’re going to get to your goal faster and not be walking backwards or not walking at all as we’re talking food.

Tim Church: Yeah, no, I love that tip. And there’s definitely some others that are really key in the book. I really like one of the lines that you put in there, and it was about that a lot of pharmacists, just based on the nature of the jobs, whether it’s community pharmacy or the other type of position, that a lot of times that excuse is, “Well, I don’t have to eat right. I don’t have time to exercise, you know, because of my job and because of my kids and because of all the other things I’ve got going on.” And then what you came back and said is, it’s not that you don’t have time. It’s that you haven’t figured out a system, a routine, the habits that work well with your lifestyle. And when I read that, I thought, wow. That really is the key is you’ve got to find something that works for you. So I think that was such a cool point that you put in there.

Adam Martin: Thank you, man. I appreciate that. It comes to the main concept of how I conduct my life, how I help my clients really find that “Aha!” moment for the system that you just described. It comes to something coined by my mentor, Dr. Joe Klemczewski, and business partner, that being structured flexibility. So you need a plan of what to do, things to cook, workout strategies and whatever, but you don’t want to fall into the psychological trap of black-and-white thinking. Like it’s this way or the highway. You need that flexibility component because as we know, life is not black and white. So if you try to do it in a black-and-white manner, you’re going to give yourself more frustration and anxiety when you’re trying to succumb those at the same time. So it’s going to be counter-productive. So if you have a plan, the structure, but you also have flexibility to kind of roll with the punches when things aren’t exactly as planned because such is life, you’re going to have a much easier and enjoyable time, whether that’s saving for finances with paying off debt, whether that’s mastering your mindset, nailing your nutrition at work and days off, and just like you said, finding the time to work out. I bring that up again in the book for pharmacy school, relating it to Beyonce. Like look what she does, like amazing things. But she has the same amount of time that we do, right? So she has a system to just be efficient, and she’s been doing it for so long, she’s putting in the reps, literally. It’s about reps — being good and building that skill by being consistent and practicing those things. So yeah, it’s not “I don’t have time” but it’s that “I’m not making it a priority to find that time. So and that’s different for every person. So you might have five kids, you might have a job where you have to drive three hours one-way. It’s different for each person, so really looking at your life to see where it can fit, kind of like how you guys do in “Seven Figure Pharmacist.” In the beginning, you talk about having that money checklist of really — the “vitals check,” that’s what it’s called, the “vitals check” of what am I working with? Where is my starting point? And then once you know that and have that awareness, you can know where you want to go and how to get there.

Tim Church: Well, Adam, there’s no question that what you’re doing is delivering a lot of value to people. I mean, I think everybody can hear that in your passion. But one of the questions that I wanted to know is certainly, you’re running a business and you’re monetizing a lot of what you’re doing, which is great because you’re providing good value. But what are you doing with the additional income that you’re earning from the Fit Pharmacist?

Adam Martin: Putting it back. Literally. I have a separate business account where all of my money goes in, and goes back into the business, creating value, creating better content. So now, that’s shifted into upping my podcast. I have a podcast, the Fit Pharmacist healthcare podcast, but I actually just interviewed your colleague, other Tim.

Tim Church: We need to talk, which Tim? Which one?

Adam Martin: Yeah, yeah. Other one. So increasing the quality of that, so the equipment to do that. I’m now getting really into videos, so creating that production. The other thing is I love, like you said, to give and use my passion and skills to make an impact. So I’m going to Panama in February on a medical mission trip with, actually, a girl that I met in the Fit Pharmacist community, who is just — that’s her niche. That’s her passion. She’s on an advisory board for a nationwide mission trip organization. And I had her on the podcast, I think it was like six months ago. And we were talking about how to go on a mission trip, like what to expect, how to get started. And in that interview, she said, “Oh yeah, we’re going to Panama.” And I’m like, “Oh, do you need another pharmacist?” She’s like, “Actually, yeah.” I’m like, hmm. That’s it. So that’s not cheap. You’ve got to fly, investing with travel and all the stuff and vaccines. Plus, it’s the opportunity cost, so as you guys know working at work in chain pharmacy, you don’t really get that much vacation time, but I’m investing my vacation time into that. So that’s literally how I spend. I reinvest it. I put it back into the business, into myself. So that’s going to seminars. Like I literally tried to think, how can I invest $15,000-20,000 in my personal skills this year? What am I passionate about? What am I looking to do?

Tim Church: I think that’s so good, Adam. I love that you’re reinvesting a lot of the money in yourself and in the business just because you believe in it so much. And I think that’s awesome. But I think a lot of people, they’re probably listening and just like on other episodes, that you’re doing a lot in addition to working as a full-time pharmacist. How do you practically manage the Fit Pharmacist with your personal life and your full-time job? And how many hours — what’s a typical week like in terms of how much time you’re spending on it?

Adam Martin: So that’s an excellent question. And there’s a really big dip that you can fall into of not knowing when to say no, not knowing when the cutoff is. So it’s not having a “To Do” list, but it’s having a “Not To Do” list that’s really going to help you in the long term because I see so many times people get into this niche of health coaching, and they go all in for 2-3 months, and then you don’t hear from them again. And they’re like, “Oh, I went through some stuff, blah, blah, blah,” or “Oh, I got too busy,” or “Oh.” But if you pace yourself — so that’s not saying, let off on the gas. But really having time blocking and chunking in your day. So again, it really depends on your schedule, whether you’re married, you have kids, being realistic with that. For me, — so Gary Vee, if you guys listen to him on entrepreneurship, Gary Vee talks about that magic — what is it? 10-2 hour, which my colleague and friend Richard Waithe practices. 10-2, he’s all about that. For me, that doesn’t work for my lifestyle because some days, I work mornings, some days, I work nights, so I kind of sandwich it. So I call it my power hour in the morning, which is really two hours, which is reading, daily devotion, just going on a 20- or 30-minute walk while listening to personal development videos or things like that. And then prepping for the day, setting my goals, setting my intentions, going through my gratitude list. I start every day, two hours, with that routine, and it really fuels me and sets me up. Then it depends on how my days are structured with work because I’m on a rolling two-week schedule. Sometimes, it’s two hours after that. But getting that two- or four-hour window in every day, but knowing when to quit. So it’s so tempting — and I did this for years when I started way back in the day — of I’m going to go to bed at 9, but then you get this idea and you start writing an article, and then it goes into another thing, and it’s 12:30. And you don’t want to “quit” or be lazy, but you have to know when to say no. And you have to really put your priority in real-life relationships. Social media is a huge trap. It’s a great tool, but it can really suck the life out of you.

Tim Church: Definitely. Definitely.

Adam Martin: I’m serious.

Tim Church: No, I know. Yeah.

Adam Martin: So really seeing what it is. It’s a tool, it’s social media, and putting priority on real-life interactions, literally like in person. That’s where it’s at. So being fully present with that person is the best compliment you can give them. So I love my family, I’m very blessed to have an amazing dad. He’s such a role model. Like he’s a missionary, he is building a library in Africa. Just the most giving and loving man of God I’ve known, and I’ve modeled my life after him. So I want to spend time with him. So I do that on a consistent basis. But it’s doing him and me a disservice by being there and being on my phone. So when I’m with him, my phone’s charging in the corner. I don’t see it. Or just having that promise to yourself that this is special time. I am going to be fully present with this person because I don’t know if he or she is going to be here tomorrow. I don’t know what the future’s going to bring. But I know right now, I have the gift of being with them. And I don’t want to waste that on some Instagram post or whatever. So time blocking and chunking is the best advice I can give. Practicing deep work, which I have a whole chapter on that in the pharmacy school book. If you guys ever read “Deep Work” by Cal Newport. He also wrote a book, “So Good They Can’t Ignore You.” Phenomenal author. But really chunking your priorities into times that fit your schedule but knowing when that cutoff is. So again, coming back to what I started with, it’s not making a “To Do” list but a “Not To Do” list. So have those non-negotiables. When 9 p.m. hits, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing, it’s time to stop. It’s time to be with your loved one and spend that hour that, yeah, you could write an article, you could do whatever, but you might not have that tomorrow. So really be present in that moment, and the best investment you can make is in the present with the people that are in your life. So that’s my advice as to how to keep it all together is know where your non-negotiables are, really invest in those that love and support you, and give back. That’s really the key. And it sounds so cliche. And I’ve heard that all my life, but in the past year, I’ve really practiced that, and it’s transformed not only my personal life, but my business life. And it’s been an amazing journey.

Tim Church: That’s so good, Adam. Thank you for those tips. I think that’s really great, and it just kind of highlights how important it is that, you know, you don’t have to be going 100 miles an hour in your business to be successful all the time. You know, there’s obviously going to be times, and it’s going to ebb and flow when you’re working hard, but also just making sure that you’re dedicating quality time to the people that matter most to you just because that is such an important thing to keep in mind as you’re going through that. So last question I have for you is, what advice would you give to other pharmacists or even students out there who have an interest in becoming an entrepreneur?

Adam Martin: So consistency is key. So what I mean by that is you’re going to read a book or see a movie or YouTube video or go to a conference or listen to a podcast where you get super inspired and want to go all-in. That’s great. That’s what we call motivation. The difference between people that stay in the game, that make an impact, that turn their passion into a business is shifting that into commitment. So motivation comes and goes. You know, it ebbs and flows with how you’re feeling, your interaction, your environment. It can be totally different from one day to the next. But commitment is you are tied to this goal. You have a why, and you’re tied to it. So you might not feel like going to the gym tomorrow. You might be exhausted or have a list of so many other things that you could do instead. But you’re committed to your fitness. You’ve turned your should into a must, a non-negotiable. This will happen, regardless of how I feel because I owe this to myself. When you make that commitment to yourself and to your goal, that is what is going to set you ahead. They say so often, go the extra mile. It’s not crowded there. Here’s why. That principle. Motivation vs. commitment. Everyone wants to go all-in, they want to grind, and you know, no sleep, like all work, all day, like no play, all work, whatever that is. And in the beginning, you’ll find that. And that only lasts a couple months. But the longer you stay in the game, the less and less people are there. So if you’re in the game for 4-5 years, there’s not going to be much competition there because it gets hard. Guys, it gets hard. Entrepreneurship is a lonely route. It’s not guaranteed. You’re going to eat crap. You’re going to sleep on couches, you’re going to have adversity you never saw coming. But if you are committed to that goal and that why and your reason, then that is how you’re going to succeed. So delayed gratification is another thing with that. It’s kind of a paired relationship. So you might be networking and putting out content for months without many likes or comments or shares. Keep going. Do not quit because everyone quits. But if someone comes on your article, and they see you’ve been consistently writing one a month or whatever, they’re going to be like, “Oh, wow. You’ve been in this a long time. That shows that you’re committed.” It’s looking at your track record. So those two principles, if you can like put those into practice, you’re going to make it. So be consistent. And be patient. They’re very simple but very difficult to put into practice. And I think if you do that, that’s what’s going to keep you in the game, and the longer in the game you are, it’s not a guarantee because you have to adapt and innovate with time and change and so forth. But that is really the secret sauce because so few people do it.

Tim Church: Adam, that was awesome. And thanks for sharing those tips. And I know that your story and what you talked about today is really going to inspire at least somebody out there to kind of go down this journey but just to pursue their passion. And I want to thank you for coming on the podcast. And what’s the best way for someone to reach out for you or to learn more about what you’re doing?

Adam Martin: So the ‘gram is my jam. So if you’re on Instagram, guys, that’s where I’m most active. @thefitpharmacist. DM me, comment on my posts. I get back to every single person. I pride myself on that because I feel like every interaction, there’s a reason behind it, regardless of what that is. I also have my website, TheFitPharmacist.com, where I have all my articles there, resources, that’s where I highlight all of the Fit Pharmacist Friday features that you can get inspired and connect with them.

Tim Church: Adam, thank you again for sharing your story, for coming on the show. It’s just been a real pleasure.

Adam Martin: Thank you, Tim. I appreciate what you and other Tim are doing. The other thing I say is, guys, get their book. It’s incredible. Seriously. Like I love to read, but it’s — I love how the book is structured. It’s just so simple and practical, so I can’t say enough good things about it. I love what you guys are doing with Your Financial Pharmacist, such a valuable asset to our profession. So it’s such a pleasure to finally meet you, meet you and talk to you, Tim, and I just can’t wait for what the future holds.

Tim Church: Thanks, Adam. Really appreciate that.

Adam Martin: Thank you.

Recent Posts

[pt_view id=”f651872qnv”]

Facebook Linkedin Envelope

Compliance/Legal

Disclaimer/Privacy Policy

Firm Brochure (ADV Part 2)

Brochure Supplement (ADV Part 2B)

YFP Planning CRS

Subscribe to YFP Money Matters and get financial tips, money resources, and the latest podcast episode sent straight to your inbox every Friday morning!

© Your Financial Pharmacist Planning LLC, 2024 All Rights Reserved

Careers
Privacy Policy
Disclaimer / Advertising Disclosure