your financial pharmacist podcast

YFP 267: Second Half of 2022…Are You on Track?

Posted on August 4, 2022November 2, 2022 by yfpadmin

Second Half of 2022…Are You on Track?

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD, flies solo to talk through a five-step system you can implement to set and achieve your goals to finish 2022 strong.

Episode Summary

In this week’s episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast, YFP Co-founder & CEO, Tim Ulbrich, PharmD, takes a moment to reflect on the first half of 2022, revisit goals from the start of the year, and prepare for the second half of 2022. He talks through a five-step system you can implement to set and achieve your goals and finish the year strong. As Tim works through this goal-setting exercise, listeners can follow along with a template provided in the show notes, completing it while listening to the episode. Tim reminds listeners to build S.M.A.R.T. goals during this exercise for health and physical fitness, social and community, spiritual and mental health, financial, intellectual, business or career, and relationships and family aspects of their lives.

Tim’s five-step system includes the following key components to successfully setting and reaching your goals for 2022 and years to come:

Step 1: The 10-Year Heck Yeah
Step 2: The ‘So What?!’ Check
Step 3: The 1- Year Mile Markers
Step 4: Accountability
Step 5: Implementation

Tim dives into each step, explaining the value each provides in meeting your goals and how to move through them with intention. In the implementation step, Tim shares a powerful visualization practice for motivation.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

[INTRO]

[00:00:00] TU: Hey, everybody. Tim Ulbrich here, and thank you for listening to the YFP Podcast, where each week we strive to inspire and encourage you on your path towards achieving financial freedom.

On this week’s episode, I’m flying solo to talk through a system, five steps that you can implement to set and achieve your goals and finish 2022 strong. Before we jump into the show, I recognize that many listeners may not be aware of what the team at YFP Planning does in working one-on-one with more than 260 households in 40-plus states. YFP Planning offers fee-only high-touch financial planning that is customized for the pharmacy professional. If you’re interested in learning more about how working one-on-one with a certified financial planner may help you achieve your financial goals, you can book a free discovery call at yfpplanning.com. Whether or not YFP Planning’s financial planning services are a good fit for you, know that we appreciate your support of this podcast and our mission to help pharmacists achieve financial freedom. All right, let’s jump into this week’s show.

[EPISODE]

[00:01:04] TU: So we’re officially past the halfway point of the year. We’re in the month of August. We’ve got five months left in 2022. By now, any goals that we’ve set at the start of the year may be a distant memory. I suspect we can all relate to times when we fell victim to the cycle where we set big goals. It’s the New Year. We’re excited. We have that initial momentum. We then fall into old habits. And soon enough, we give up on those goals, and perhaps we picked that cycle up again the next year.

The mid-year point or just past that is a great opportunity to dust off the goals, to do some self-reflection and determine the path forward to finish 2022 strong. Well, it’s valuable to reflect and identify opportunities for improvement. It’s not valuable to dwell in shame and judgment of yourself. Rather, it’s a chance that we can pivot. We can take responsibility for the actions that we’re going to take going forward.

So if you’re looking for a jolt of motivation for the second half of 2022, let me encourage you to set aside a few hours to work through an activity that I’m going to talk through on this show. I promise, the return on investment of your time will be worth it. I’m going to walk through a five-step process to set and achieve your goals, and this is going to correspond with a template that you can use to follow along and to fill in for your own goals. You can download that template by going to yourfinancialpharmacist.com/goals. Again, yourfinancialpharmacist.com/goals.

We’re going to talk about several different areas of our personal and professional lives. Yes, this is a financial podcast. Of course, we’ll include financial goals in there. But we’re also going to talk about other domains that I suspect are very important to all of us, whether it be health and physical fitness, social and community, spiritual and mental health, intellectual, and so on. So let’s walk through these five steps. Again, you can download that template, yourfinancialpharmacist.com/goals, and you can follow along and fill in the information yourself.

All right, step number one is the 10-year heck yeah, the 10-year heck yeah. So we need to start with this 10-year vision, and we need to dream a bit because short term goals without an inspiring vision will quickly fall off as a casualty of the busyness of life and our tendency to be led by our motivations, right? I mentioned the cycle before, where we set big goals, we get some initial momentum, we fall into old habits, and then we give up on those goals. So we need a bold vision that’s going to transcend us to be able to continue on, even when our motivations may not be where you want them.

I love this passage written by James Allen from the book As a Man Thinketh when he says, “Dream lofty dreams. And as you dream, so shall you become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be. Your ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.” Now, I’ve done this activity enough times with former students, residents, and colleagues to know that some prompts here are helpful. I get it, right? 10 years down the road is hard to imagine when the here and now can be overwhelming enough.

So use the following statement to get you started with crafting this 10-year vision for each of the domains that you’re going to see listed in that table, right? So financial, social and community, health and physical fitness. We’re going to set a 10-year heck yeah for each one of those domains. So here is the prompt. If I fast forward to August 2032, 10 years from now, what things need to happen with my – Insert the domain, right? So it could be with my health and physical fitness, with my financial situation. What things need to happen that would leave me feeling heck yeah?

So if I fast forward 10 years to August 2032, what things need to happen that will leave me feeling heck yeah? We want to think about that in each of those domains; health and physical fitness, social and community, spiritual and mental health, financial, intellectual, business, career, and relationships and family. For example, when I think about 10 years from now in the health and physical fitness category, one that’s really important to me, I close my eyes, and I visualize myself being 10 years older. That puts me at 48. It sounds really old, saying that out loud, 10 years older.

At the age of 48, I’ve got my four boys who are now 21, 19, 17, and 14. Now, when I think about what would make up a 10-year heck yeah in this domain of health and physical fitness, I envision that I’m in better shape than I am now, and I’m competing in various events that validate I can get stronger and healthier as I get older. More specifically, I’m screaming heck yeah, if the following are true 10 years from today, August 2032. I’ve completed an Ironman triathlon. It’s one of my big goals. I’ve hired a personal trainer and nutrition coach, and I’ve created a schedule that allows me to spend a couple of hours most days of the week shopping for and cooking fresh meals, something I love to do and would like to do more often if time weren’t a thing.

Those three things, if I visualize 10 years from now, August 2032, I’ve completed an Ironman race. I’ve hired a personal trainer and nutrition coach. I’ve created a schedule that has a couple hours a week that allows me to be able to shop and cook for meals each day. If those things are happening, that’s a heck yeah. That gets me excited.

Okay, it’s your turn. So visualize 10 years from now in each of the domains that I mentioned. Again, you can download the worksheet to continue to follow along. As you begin to visualize, I want you to take a walk. Reflect on these. Dream a little bit. Don’t hold back and do not rush this step because this is going to serve as the motivation and energy that’s going to drive your one-year goals that we’ll talk about here in a moment, and it’s also going to drive the daily actions that we take. So that’s step number one, is we’re looking at the 10-year heck yeah. That’s our motivation. That’s our compass.

Step number two is the so what check, the so what check. Now that we’ve defined our 10-year heck yeah, it’s time to check to see if that 10-year vision is inspiring enough. So for each of the domains, I want you to fill in what is the next column of the worksheet, which is your so what. So this should answer the question why is achieving this 10-year vision so important. Why is achieving this 10-year vision so important, right? This is the so what.

Let your responses to this so what sink in for a while. Because if you revisit them, and they don’t make you feel like you could run through a brick wall, it’s time to challenge whether or not you’re thinking big enough for 10 years into the future. Now, if I go back to my previous example related to my health and physical fitness, when I say out loud and visualize that I’ve completed an Ironman, I have a personal trainer and a nutrition coach, and I have a schedule that allows me to spend time each week preparing meals, it brings a smile to my face.

When I think about my so what, my so what is that I’m able to keep up with my four boys. My so what is it I’m in better shape heading into my 50s than I was heading into my 30s. My so what is that I’m more productive than ever in my work, in the business with YFP, in expanding our mission to help pharmacists achieve financial freedom because I know how connected my physical health and fitness is to my ability and capacity to work and to work well.

Now, one last thing here is don’t hold the 10-year vision and the so what responses to yourself. Talking these out loud with a significant other, a friend, or colleague helps bring a different perspective. There’s something valuable that happens when we articulate our dreams. It either further confirms our energy and enthusiasm, or it exposes some BS or some clarification needed, such that we have to go back to the drawing board and refine them further. So that’s step number two, the so what check on our 10-year vision.

Step number three is the one-year mile markers, the one-year mile markers. So once we set that 10-year vision and confirm that we’re thinking big enough with the so what, it’s time to get some traction with specific mile markers that we can measure and that we’re confident, if achieved, will put us a step closer to achieving our 10-ear goal. Now, here we are, a little bit less than six months out from the start of 2023. So if you’d like to operate on a clean calendar year, think of these as the five-month mile markers or the half-year mile markers. You can then redo this activity heading into 2023.

Now, if you’re feeling overwhelmed at this point, keep it simple with one goal, one mile marker in each domain. But if you’re feeling inspired, consider adding a couple of extra but be careful. I would recommend no more than three in each area. Let’s not forget to write these goals in a smart format, right? This has been drilled into all of us at one or more times throughout our training in our career.

A quick refresher on smart goals, they should be specific, they should be measurable, they should be achievable, they should be relevant, and they should be time-bound. So let me give you a nerdy financial example of a smart goal because that’s what we do best at YFP. So instead of saying something like, “I want to have more saved for unexpected health care expenses,” I could instead reframe this as, “By December 31st, 2022, Jess and I will max out our HSA by contributing $7,300.”

Or better yet, we can add a why to this goal. So it may say, “By December 31st, 2022, Jess and I will max out our HSA by contributing $7,300 so that we can have peace of mind that unexpected health care expenses will not cause unnecessary stress and eat into our emergency fund or other savings.” Now, this goal was top of mind because of our four boys, their physical nature, energy and love for wrestling one another. That’s a recipe for visits to the ER. Thankfully, knock on wood, we haven’t had many yet. But we’re expecting those expenses will come at some point.

Now, going back to my previous example on health and physical fitness, the following are the one-year mile markers, the one-year targets that will put me on the path towards the 10-year vision. By July 31st, 2022, I’m going to complete an Olympic triathlon, which is about a quarter of an Ironman. By December 31st, I’m going to complete 260 cardio sessions that are divided between biking, swimming, and running. So it’s an average of five per week. And by December 31st, I’m going to evaluate three nutritionist options for consideration in 2023. This would include price offering, scope of work, and so on. That’s step number three. We have to be able to bring that 10-year vision and the so what into a one-year vision. So we need one-year mile markers, and that’s what we’re doing in step number three.

Step number four is accountability. So we’ve inspired a 10-year vision, we’ve challenged that vision with the so what in step number two, and we now have one-year mile markers to ensure that we stay on track. So let’s keep rolling. We all know from personal experience that goals plus accountability equals an increased likelihood of success. Goals plus accountability equals an increased likelihood of success. We see this every day at YFP, specifically with one-on-one planning that’s offered by the incredible team at YFP Planning. So folks come to us with big visions, big personal financial goals, and we’re able to provide some of the guidance, some of the expertise, and the accountability to help individuals achieve those goals through one-on-one comprehensive financial planning.

As we talk about accountability here in step number four, we need to ensure that we don’t internalize our goals, and that we have a system and a plan for accountability. Now, this is not simply a person or a group of people. It needs to be more intentional than that. For example, my wife, Jess, is a huge accountability partner for me. But if I simply list here in step number four that Jess is my accountability plan, that ain’t going to cut it, right? I need to get more specific.

For example, once a month, I’m going to review my goals and progress for Jess. This keeps me accountable, knowing that I’m going to update her each month. It also challenges her in her own journey and ensures we can get on the same page with knocking down any barriers to success, whether that be scheduling conflicts, watching the boys, and so on. Now, I would challenge you to find an accountability partner that is at least, if not more, on fire than you are about living an intentional life, someone that will challenge and push you along their own journey. So that’s step number four is accountability.

Then step number five, it’s time to implement. It’s time to make these one-year mile markers a reality. Remember, that’s our focus because we’ve written them in a way that if achieved will put us on the path towards our 10-year heck yeah. So after you populate that table, and again as a reminder, you can do that by going to yourfinancialpharmacist.com/goals to get a copy of that table. After you populate the table, print it off and put it somewhere visible. Build this into a daily or weekly rhythm that allows you to see these on a regular basis and be reminded of why you are trying to strive towards these goals. We need to ensure that the hard work that we just did doesn’t end up on a piece of paper that gets put away somewhere in a drawer.

If we can develop a system to remind ourselves regularly of our goals, they start to become ever present in our thoughts. When this happens, this is your signal that you’re on the right path. Because we want these to become so second nature that we begin to visualize and see them as a reality, not as a hope, a wish, or a dream. Now, there are many ways to remind yourself of these goals, but let me suggest one that I have found to be most impactful, and that is to incorporate the review of these goals into a morning routine in a way that they can be visualized.

Not too long ago, I established this a part of my morning routine where I record and listen to these words each morning, along with some other affirmations and truths that I have to be reminded of every day because there’s something powerful about hearing your own voice, encouraging yourself to strive towards the things that you’ve determined to be most important. It provides incredible energy and fuel to the day.

For example, back to the example around health and physical fitness, I would say something along the lines of, “Tim, visualize the following. At the end of July of 2020, you’re in the best shape of your life because you’ve just crossed the finish line of an Olympic triathlon, arms high in the air. The boys are beaming with joy seeing their dad complete this race and want to do one themselves.”

Now, just hearing those words make me smile, and I can’t wait to cross that finish line two weeks coming up this Sunday at the time of recording this, when I complete my first triathlon because it started as a dream in the fall 2022 and is nearing reality, all from setting a vision with a strong so what that led to the daily habits over the past six months that have prepared me for this race.

My challenge for you is it’s time to make the most of tomorrow. Start by designing what you want tomorrow to look like, rather than reacting to what the day brings. I hope you found this episode helpful. I’m looking forward to a great second half of 2022. Again, I would encourage you to download that template, yourfinancialpharmacist.com/goals. As always, thank you so much for listening and have a great rest of your week.

[OUTRO]

[00:18:01] TU: As we conclude this week’s podcast, an important reminder that the content on this show is provided to you for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. Information in the podcast and corresponding materials should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with a financial advisor with respect to any investment.

Furthermore, the information contained in our archived newsletters, blog posts, and podcasts is not updated and may not be accurate at the time you listen to it on the podcast. Opinions and analyses expressed herein are solely those of Your Financial Pharmacist, unless otherwise noted, and constitute judgments as of the dates published. Such information may contain forward-looking statements that are not intended to be guarantees of future events. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements. For more information, please visit yourfinancialpharmacist.com/disclaimer.

Thank you, again, for your support of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast. Have a great rest of your week.

[END]

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YFP 255: Own Your PharmD, Own Your Career with Ashlee Klevens Hayes and Chris Cozzolino

Posted on May 12, 2022November 2, 2022 by yfpadmin

Own Your PharmD, Own Your Career with Ashlee Klevens Hayes and Chris Cozzolino

On this episode, sponsored by Insuring Income, YFP Co-Founder & CEO, Tim Ulbrich, PharmD, welcomes back to the show Ashlee Klevens Hayes & Chris Cozzolino, two pharmacists and entrepreneurs. Together, they discuss the new book Ashlee and Chris have co-authored: ‘Own Your PharmD, Own Your Career: Real Life Advice from 50+ Pharmacy Leaders and Influencers.’

About Today’s Guests

Ashlee Klevens Hayes

Ashlee Klevens Hayes is a 3rd generation pharmacist who set out on a traditional pharmacy path that turned into so much more. She’s an initiator, a pharmacy 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.

Chris Cozzolino

Chris Cozzolino is a recent pharmacy graduate (Class of 2020) from the University of Iowa and the Co-Founder of Uptown Creation, a B2B Business Development and Consulting Firm. Prior to pharmacy school, Chris founded an Amazon Dropshipping store, which he still has to this day. During his time in pharmacy school, he Co-Founded Uptown Creation. Uptown Creation began as an Instagram Growth and Consulting company but has evolved into a more full-service Business Development Firm. Chris has a passion for business and hopes to merge this with his love for the pharmacy community.

Episode Summary

Many people who graduate from pharmacy school can feel overwhelmed when entering the sector for the first time. Pharmacists often feel that their training and expectations of the field do not match the real-world pharmacy setting. Imagine if you could speak to some of the top people in the industry for advice and guidance to help you on your journey to a successful career. This goal was the object of today’s guests, Ashlee Klevens Hayes and Chris Cozzolino’s new book Own Your PharmD, Own Your Career: Real Life Advice from 50+ Pharmacy Leaders and Influencers. Their new book offers readers a wealth of information that can only be gained from experience, comprising over 50 interviews with respected and successful pharmacists and industry influencers. In this episode, listeners will learn about Chris and Ashlee, why they decided to write a book on the subject, the importance of interpersonal skills to becoming a successful pharmacist, and common traits that limit peoples’ potential. Chris and Ashlee speak about the gaps in what pharmacy school does not prepare you for, typical expectations of the pharmacy world from new practitioners, and how to adjust and find success in the various seasons of your career as a pharmacist.

Key Points From This Episode

Introduction and a brief background about today’s guests.
The motivation behind Ashlee’s and Chris’s decision to write a book.
What Chris’s and Ashlee’s overall goal of writing a book was.
A brief discussion about the importance of networking to become successful.
Examples of lessons learned while writing and interviewing people for the book.
Importance of soft skills to becoming a successful pharmacist.
How finding measures of success for different seasons of your career is important.
Common traits Chris and Ashlee noticed hold back people from reaching their full potential.
Where limiting thoughts come from for pharmacists.
Strategies that Chris uses to ensure that he is enjoying his current career path.
Where Chris learned how important enjoying the process is.
Ashlee explains the importance of mindset and how you see opportunities.
Chris tells us about his decision to self-publish as opposed to working with a publisher.
What Ashlee has enjoyed the most from the book writing process.

Highlights

“The goal of the book is really to try to bring out those authentic tidbits that you might not be able to get out of somebody unless you’re speaking to them over dinner or casually and not in a professional setting.” — Chris Cozzolino, PharmD [0:08:46]

“We’re in this limbo, in this transition of going from a very traditional marketplace to a very nontraditional marketplace. That is very scary and intimidating to people who are used to doing one plus one equals always two.” — Ashlee Klevens Hayes, PharmD, MHA, CELDC [0:19:49]

“If you’re able to enjoy getting there just as much as that final destination, I think that’s what happiness is.” — Chris Cozzolino, PharmD [0:22:20]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:00] TU: Hey, everybody. Tim Ulbrich here. Thank you for listening to the YFP podcast, where each week we strive to inspire and encourage you on your path towards achieving financial freedom. What if I told you that you could interview 50 or more influential leaders within our profession? That would be incredible, right? Better yet, what if you could compile the key insights from those interviews for ongoing guidance and inspiration?

Doctors Ashlee Klevens Hayes and Chris Cozzolino have created that resource and Own Your PharmD, Own Your Career: Real Life Advice from 50+ Pharmacy Leaders and Influencers. These two leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs have demonstrated individually, how to own your PharmD, own your career. They have walked the walk, and while sharing their own insights and tips would produce a much needed resource, they decided instead to share the stage with some great minds in our profession.

[00:00:51] TU: Before we jump into the show and I talk with Ashlee and Chris about their book, I recognize that many listeners may not be aware of what the team at YFP Planning does in working one-on-one with more than 240 households in 40 plus states. YFP Planning offers fee only high touch financial planning that is customized for the pharmacy professional. If you’re interested in learning more about how working one-on-one with a certified financial planner may help you achieve your financial goals, you can book a free discovery call at yfpplanning.com.

Whether or not YFP Planning, financial planning services are a good fit for you, know that we appreciate your support of this podcast and our mission to help pharmacies achieve financial freedom. Okay, let’s hear from today’s sponsor and then we’ll jump into my interview with Ashlee and Chris.

This week’s podcast episode is brought to you by Insuring Income. Insuring Income is your source for all things term, life insurance and own occupation disability insurance. Insuring Income has a relationship with America’s top rated term life insurance and Disability Insurance Company, so pharmacists like you can easily find the best solutions for your personal situation. To better serve you. Insuring Income reviews all applicable carriers in the marketplace for your desired coverage, supports clients in all 50 states and make sure all of your questions get answered.

To get quotes and apply for term life or disability insurance, see sample contract from disability carriers or learn more about these topics. Visit insuringincome.com/yourfinancialpharmacist. Again that’s insuringincome.com/yourfinancialpharmacist.

[INTERVIEW]

[00:02:29] TU: Chris and Ashlee welcome.

[00:02:30] AKH: What’s up?

[00:02:32] CC: Excited to be here.

[00:02:34] TU: Both of you have been in front of the YFP community before, Ashlee way back when on episode 95 of the YFP podcast, Chris more recently on episode 28, but I don’t want to assume that folks know all the great things that you’re working on and who you are. So Chris, let’s start with you. Tell us a little bit more about yourself, your background into pharmacy and the work that you’re currently doing.

[00:02:57] CC: Yeah. My name’s Chris Cozzolino. I’m based in Iowa City, Iowa. I went to the University of Iowa for pharmacy school and graduated in 2020. I’m not currently practicing as a pharmacist, but while I was in pharmacy school in college, I was able to build a social media marketing business that does a lot of work with direct outreach and scheduling sales appointments for sales teams and business development reps. So that’s where my path is right now and really being in the thick of starting conversations with people, meeting people and doing things like this.

[00:03:31] TU: Awesome –

[00:03:33] AKH: You can’t say that you’re not a practicing pharmacist. You are.

[00:03:39] CC: I mean, I’m licensed and everything, so I can go practice at any point of time, but yeah.

[00:03:43] TU: That’s what I always tell Chris, my family and friends when they ask me a pharmacy question. I say, “You need to go talk to your local pharmacy.”

[00:03:51] AKH: Yes. Exactly.

[00:03:53] TU: How about for you? Tell us more about your background and the work that you’re doing now.

[00:03:58] AKH: Sure. I graduated pharmacy school a long time ago now. Then I did, I went to USC, so University State of California then I went to University of Kentucky. I was the first admin resident there. I think, it’s Health System Pharmacy, HSP. I don’t know. We didn’t have the lingo when I was back in residency, so I did that for a couple of years. Then I stayed on as the Operations Director of Bureaucratic Services. Then I transitioned to working for a medical device, pharmaceutical, a blend of a medical device at pharmaceutical company where I got this entrepreneurial mindset of why people are in pharma and they’re not pharmacists. I was confused. I didn’t know that existed. I thought you had to be a clinician to be in healthcare.

I worked for that company as an internal consultant for a couple of years, and then they ended up selling to a large pharmaceutical company and my position was severed in that transition in that purchase. For the first time in my career, I had a six month old daughter. I was the breadwinner. We were moving from Kentucky back to California, and I lost my job. It was a terrible situation, but it was the first time that I had the opportunity to take a step back and ask myself, what did I want to do with my career? What does success mean to me? How can I support my family, but still be around and how can I bring all of my different skillsets into just a different career?

With the blend of my pharmacy background, my business background, my operations background, I started RX Ashlee six years ago as a career strategist, and since then I’ve helped over 5000 pharmacies and mostly pharmacists, I would say 75% pharmacies and 25% health care professionals really thrive in their careers. That entails one-on-one services, keynote speaking engagements, workshops, seminars, webinars, podcast like this and then stuff like the little books that we get to write every once in a while, that Chris and I partnered in. So that’s been my our recent most fun passion project.

[00:06:03] TU: Six years with RX. Ashlee, where’s time gone? That’s wild. Yeah.

[00:06:08] AKH: I know, I mean, the first year or two, was my side hustle. It was definitely more of a let’s dabble in this and see where it goes. Then stuff got real once things started picking up and people were happy and clients are happy and that was happy and my husband was happy, I was like, all right, let’s see where this goes. So now it’s been it’s been amazing and I’m super grateful.

[00:06:29] TU: Why not? I’m sure this both with you before and I wholeheartedly mean, I have a ton of respect for both of you in terms of the work that you’ve done professionally of what I know of you guys personally. I think the value that you’re bringing to the profession of pharmacy is really inspiring to me. I know it’s having an impact on others. So we’re talking here today. Got my copy right here of your book that you guys recently launched, which is Own Your PharmD, Own Your Career: Real Life Advice From 50+ Pharmacy Leaders and Influencers, when Chris and Ashlee get together to collaborate on a book, I’m going to read it. Others should read it. There’s some great advice in here.

My first question here, and Chris I’ll kick it off with you is, you both are busy running your own businesses. Obviously you’ve got personal commitments as well, so why write a book? What inspired and led you to ultimately take on the task of putting this resource together?

[00:07:23] CC: Yeah. I think obviously Ashlee and I both like having our hands in pharmacy and Ashlee is a lot more on the forefront working with pharmacists on a daily basis, whereas I don’t get as much time to do that. Since I knew that I made it a goal of mine to make sure to stay active in the pharmacy community and be able to bring value from what my other passions are with business and entrepreneurship. There’s so many influencers in traditional entrepreneurship that spew the same messages that, if you’re in that ecosystem, you hear them over and over again, but if you’re not, you’ve probably never heard a lot of the even the clichés like, probably the most you’ve heard is your network is your network, which everybody here is it networking conferences.

There’s so many other tidbits from the entrepreneurship world and those influencers that have made my life a lot better to being able to bridge that into pharmacy. I’ve realize that a lot of other people gain value from that. Then on a secondary note, really wanting to tap into the brains of other people and take advantage of my ability as an extrovert to connect with people, have conversations and know that you can’t really pick at somebody’s brain unless you are talking to them or have a more real connection with them.

The goal of the book is really to try to bring out those authentic tidbits that you might not be able to get out of somebody unless you’re speaking to them over dinner or casually and not in a professional setting.

[00:08:59] TU: Yeah, that’s what I love about it. You can read it front to back if you want, and I think have a lot of takeaway, but also can sit on the desk and you can periodically have it as a source of inspiration. I hope, as I wrote as a challenge to folks in the forward to take advantage of the network that is inside of this book, right? Well, one of the things that and I know you guys have experienced this as well, when I talk with student pharmacists and even new practitioners and they’re talking boldly about ideas that they have, and they’re all energized, which is awesome. I said, “Hey, have you talked to so-and-so or have you thought about connecting with so-and-so?” There’s almost this fear that people are untouchable out there, that those are those people doing those things.

I’ve never run across a pharmacist that hasn’t been willing or another individual, especially if a connection can be made that isn’t willing to spend a few moments to share some wisdom advice, encouragement, and to connect you with someone else as well. I hope folks will take the advice that’s here, but also take it as an opportunity to connect with other individuals in the book.

[00:10:00] AKH: We just did that before the call, too. I mean, you guys, Tim, jumped on, said, “Hey, Chris, Ashlee is going to meet this person, you got to meet this person.” Then that is a trail of just amazing connections. You never know where it’s going to take you.

[00:10:13] TU: One of things I love about the way that you guys wrote this is that certainly the individuals that are here, it’s a diverse group of individuals, impressive titles and impressive accomplishments. I think what is most important is the insights into why they’ve been successful.

[00:10:29] AKH: Right.

[00:10:29] TU: I think that we can get hung up in a professional field that is highly credentialed of the number of letters we have after our name, and what titles we have. But what is it individually that has allowed those folks to be successful? As you guys distill the advice of these leaders, the 50+ individuals that are in this book. Chris, I’ll start with you. Did anything surprise you from the responses that came forward?

[00:10:54] CC: Yeah. I think it surprised me, but it makes a lot of sense looking back in hindsight. The biggest thing probably being that so much of the advice is very human advice and not necessarily profession, specific, while there are going to be those professions specific tidbits. It’s much more of the stuff that you don’t get by being a pharmacist. I think as pharmacists, we all go through so much training and that’s your day-to-day and everything. You’re so in the thick of it that being able to hear advice that goes bigger and beyond, just pharmacy as a profession, but more life advice and just profession advice. It’s still relative to healthcare, but has a bigger impact.

[00:11:40] TU: Yeah, there’s a vulnerability in the responses that I saw come through and into your comment earlier. That’s a lot of conversations over coffee to get that type of information that’s really here in one resource, but I was impressed with the vulnerability that came through and the responses and the humility that also came through and the responses. You can tell at least one of the themes I took away was a huge self-awareness among the individuals. So despite the success, despite the accomplishments, there’s great awareness into what has shaped them into the person and the leader that they are, but also what are the areas that they continue to improve upon to get better. I think that humility is really refreshing to read and to see as a team in the book. Ashlee, any significant takeaways for you?

[00:12:24] AKH: Well it’s interesting, because I train people on how to have humility and how to practice self-awareness every single day. When I saw the responses, I was like, “Yes, this is meat and potatoes that I’m trying to get into pharmacy practice.” It wasn’t necessarily surprising to me. It was more on par to what I believe in. It’s just nice that people are talking about it, because when I started blogging, when I started giving keynotes to pharmacists six or seven years ago, it was a very uncomfortable space, I think. People are, “Wow, you’re so brave. We’re talking about this.” It’s like, this is normal stuff. Why aren’t people talking about relationships, about marriages, about how to have a family, how to go through traumas in your life like divorce and still maintain a successful career?

When I started seeing these conversations pop up within some of the dialog and the conversations that we were having with the people who contributed to the book, I was like, “Thank you for just being open and honest and real.” Because I don’t think we – especially coming out of pharmacy school, I think you’re in this little bit of a bubble, not a little bit. You are in a bubble of what’s to be expected in the pharmacy world. Then you get into it and you’re like, “Wait a minute. No one told me about this stuff.”

Then I to say every level comes with a new double, so just because, I gave an example of just a recent grad, but ten years out, 20 years out, 30 years out, 40, 50 years out. Every season comes with a different challenge. A lot of the people that we brought into the book talked about the different seasons.

[00:14:02] TU: Yeah. Ashlee, every level comes with the new dev. I’m going to quote that for here. That’s a good one –

[00:14:07] AKH: I don’t know, if that’s me quote or I’ve learned it from somewhere else. So sorry, if someone else said it, but I just remember, I’ve been saying that a lot lately, because I’m in a different season of my life than I was ten years ago. I think no one told me to prepare for that. I think it’s really important for the readers or for people listening to understand to finding success at different, different seasons in your career is really important.

[00:14:29] TU: 100%. One of the things that really has hit me across the head over the last couple of years, but I would say has been a journey really over the last decade is I’m slowly realizing more and more that my mindset as I think about our business, what we’re working on and trying to transform the financial wellness of the pharmacist workforce. The greatest contribution that I can bring to our business to achieve the vision and the mission that we have is the mindset that I bring to see the potential of who we are and who we can become.

There’s a whole lot and I’m covering that of what are the limitations that someone puts upon themselves, where did those come from? How do we advance through the next level or bust through the next ceiling? Why does that ceiling even exist in the first place? There’s just so much to uncover there, but those are things in pharmacy school you’re not even thinking about and you start to see whether people use mindset, those words or not. That to me came through loud and clear in this book was the development of it. I get to talk with pharmacists everyday.

One of my greatest joys is when I get to talk with an individual that has a spark of an idea or has something creative they want to pursue. They just need a little push or a little bit of nudge, because they have a lot of self-doubts and fears and anxieties and a lot of things that it’s prevented them from moving forward with that idea and they need some challenging encouragement. So my question here related to that is, for many pharmacists to feel like, “Hey, I may not be the living to my full potential, I feel there’s something else that might be there. What did you take away as you compile this as one or two things that are often holding back pharmacies from really living to that full potential?

[00:16:11] CC: Yeah. I think the big one is fear of the unknown, just with the personality types that are in pharmacy and health care. We like structure. We like things that are known. It’s a little bit more difficult for us to push ourselves out of our comfort zones. I think for one, fear of losing a job or letting somebody down in your work, which from my experience, seeing other pharmacists, most pharmacists aren’t even close to the point of letting people down, but they’re still working vigorously to not let anybody down.

I think that so to take that a little bit further, the knowledge that you can always get another job, you can always take a year off and your life is going to be pretty much the same. That’s outside of having financial responsibilities. You need to be able to cover those financial responsibilities. But even if it’s you need to go part time to do some self-discovery, still make the money that you can support yourself, your family, your loved ones, but take the time to explore something else.

I don’t think anybody’s going to regret doing that if they’re able to have the conviction to take a leap of faith to do whatever that thing is or explore whatever that new area is. It doesn’t have to be outside of pharmacy, it could be just another roll in pharmacy or another area of pharmacy that is of interest to you. It’s never too late, which is such a cliche thing. I mean, it’s true.

[00:17:44] AKH: There’s a lot of people that talk about that in the book.

[00:17:46] TU: That fear of not letting other people down. I think you’re on to something there. Not to say thats unique to pharmacists, but I see that a lot inside of our profession like what is that? Where does that come from? Chris, I think your comment is spot on. It’s so far from that, right? But it can be paralyzing and it can be crippling when you’re operating each day with that fear. Not that I’m expecting you guys, but the crystal ball answer on this, but where does that come from? Why is that?

[00:18:15] AKH: Again, similar to what you said Tim, like this isn’t just a pharmacist thing that if I speak to pharmacists and I am a pharmacist and I’ve been around pharmacists, my best friends are pharmacists. I feel like I live, breathe and eat pharmacy, but I feel we think that we had to have it figured out. I feel like a lot of the people I work with have to know precisely what the next step is going to look like similar to what Chris said. I get the sense that we need a checklist, that we need one plus one always equals two. I mean, there’s no other way around it, right? There’s no gray.

In this ecosystem, in this non-traditional career marketplace, this gig economy, this crazy 2022 world, it’s just not as black and white as it used to be. So, my God, I’m a third generation pharmacist. So when my grandfather graduated he opened up a pharmacy and he did well. Then my dad graduated and he opened a pharmacy, but then he also had all these other gigs going on, and he had a pension plan, and he didn’t have student loans. His first car was a Porsche, like life was not terrible for him.

My experience was completely different. I have student loans. I do not have a Porsche. One day I will. My career has been really windy and I’ve been out for ten, 11, 12 years. I’ve had multiple different roles and not, because of anything other than advancing my career, but also wanting to do different things. I have different passions. I have different experiences, I have different skillsets. I think what happened is we’re in this limbo, in this transition of going from a very traditional marketplace to a very non-traditional marketplace. That is very scary and intimidating to people who are used to doing one plus one equals always two.

There’s no specific checklist, and that’s a lot of what the book talks about. That’s a lot of what I work on with my clients of, it takes time, but it actually pans out. It’s going to work out. So I think we’re just scared of that in limbo stage, if not knowing what looks like next.

[00:20:17] TU: Yeah. I was thinking about this a lot recently, Ashlee, and messy and non-linear, the words that keep coming in mind, and that is if we think back to our educational experience, it was clean and linear.

[00:20:26] AKH: Totally.

[00:20:29] TU: Messy and non-linear I think is where the magic happens. It can be painful like –

[00:20:34] AKH: Very painful.

[00:20:35] TU: It can be uncomfortable, but I think that’s where a lot of the self-discovery happens is in the messy and the non-linear. I think that when I read folks responses in the book that you can see that self-discovery, you can see that journey that the folks have been on. It wasn’t what they thought it was going to be at the beginning, typically.

[00:20:54] AKH: No.

[00:20:54] TU: Right.

[00:20:55] AKH: No, no way.

[00:20:55] TU: Which is exciting, I think. I want to give people a flavor of the book, and I’m going to do that by putting you guys on the hot seat with some your own responses. In the book, so each of you have a chapter in the book that you wrote similar to other of the 50+ plus leaders that responded. Chris, for the question where, what one piece of career advice would you give to your younger self? You said the following. “Enjoy the process. If you focus on enjoying the journey to your destination rather than fixating on the goal you will be happier. If you don’t want the process, you may not be on the right path.” Easier said than done, right? My question for you is, what strategies have you employed that you’re not just focused on the outcome that may or may not come into the future and it likely, if it does come, is going to be fleeting, but rather your focus on the day-to- day process and really having enjoyment in that. What strategies have you employed for that?

[00:21:44] CC: I mean, for one, I’m lucky that I’m able to do the things that don’t feel work to me and that spark joy within me. Yeah, that mindset of it, is a little bit of Gary Vaynerchuk and that’s one of the examples of an entrepreneur that a lot of health care and pharmacy people probably haven’t heard of, but spews the same messages that are very relevant. But the concept of enjoying the process and being able to have gratitude for the day-to-day that you’re able to do and you can have lofty goals and have goals that you’re trying to hit. But if you’re able to enjoy getting there just as much as that final destination, I think that’s what happiness is.

Finding a role, finding a position, finding a lifestyle that is conducive of that definitely takes a lot of trial and error. I don’t think anybody ever figures it out 100%, but trying to get closer to that and just doing the things that are enjoyable. I think again, going back to the ability to self-reflect and know what your strengths are, what your weaknesses are, but more so, what you enjoy doing and what you don’t enjoy doing and how that plays into your day-to-day and how you can structure it to do the things that you don’t enjoy doing. Maybe get those out of the way and then put more effort into the things you do enjoy.

[00:23:08] TU: As I hear you say that, there’s a lot of wisdom in that. I admire that as someone who’s pretty darn early on in their career, where does that wisdom come from? Is that experience? Is that mentorship? Where are you able to get some of that, in terms of enjoying the process?

[00:23:27] CC: Yeah. I think I’ve always been one to take risks, which I’m lucky to have that affinity to taking risk, which has allowed me to do an entrepreneurial route and taste a bunch of different things to see what I like and inevitably find the things that I enjoy and don’t enjoy. My parents played a big part in it, encouraging me to try different things and being supportive of that. I think having that support system that’s going to be encouraging to you and a base of people that you’re able to bounce ideas off of and like you were saying earlier, Tim, to some extent was having people that you can bounce ideas off of and let them nudge you in the right direction. It’s probably going to be the direction you’re already headed, but there’s a lot to be said about just somebody giving you that affirmation that it’s okay to do this thing that you’re thinking about. It’s not going to burn down everything that you’ve worked for.

[00:24:25] TU: It’s okay to go down the messy non-linear path, right? It’s okay. It’s okay. Great stuff. I appreciate that. Ashlee, one of the questions that you responded to and what advice would you share with the pharmacy friend who feel stuck in their current role and burntout? You gave several responses, but one of those responses, you said, “Burnout and feeling stuck are not the same thing. Burnout means you need a break, need tighter boundaries, and might need to refocus on your priorities. Feeling stuck is a feeling of a fixed mindset. Change the way you look at opportunities. It will change your life.” If Ashlee says it’s going to change your life, I’m going to listen. So what do you mean by the fixed mindset and what do you mean about changing the way you look at opportunities?

[00:25:08] AKH: Yeah. I like that answer. It’s been a while. I’ve had a whole pregnancy in between my answers and today. I like it. The fixed mindset versus, I can’t recall the stuff in my head, who talked about it. It was Stanford faculty professor who coined this many years ago, a psychiatrist. The fix-mindset versus the growth-mindset is the growth-mindset just loves feedback, loves to change, loves adapting, loves getting constructive support, loves improving. Whereas the fix-mindset is, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on, change is rough. I don’t really want to know about other things. I want to just stay on this path. Someone just needs to tell me how to fix a few things, and then I’m going to do it, and then it’s going to be fixed.

I get the sense that a lot of clients in the past have been down that fixed-mindset and only believe that they are capable of doing very limited things. It’s very challenging for me to convince them, that’s not my job to convince them, but I do try to encourage them with convincing them with data of, listen, you have so many opportunities in front of you, you have to actually believe that what’s capable for yourself. I can’t sit here and tell you what is capable despite the data, despite the facts, despite showing you percentages and just showing you other people’s LinkedIn profiles, other people’s CV’s, it doesn’t matter. You have to actually believe that there’s other opportunities for you.

I think a lot of pharmacies get stuck in that, “No, I have a B or an RPH, and this is just what my life is going to be. I’m going to be counting pills forever.” I’ve never had that, so to some degree, I have a hard time connecting with those people too, because I’m like, “Wait, why do you think there’s so many opportunities here? Go here, go LinkedIn, go look at all these different people, all across the world doing really radical life changing things with the same accolades and the same degrees that we have.

[00:27:04] TU: Yeah. I think to that point, if one can’t visualize what could be and if one can’t affirm themselves in that role or that being possible for them, that’s going to come through and how you approach every day. If you do end up pursuing a career change or a job interview, or you’re going to pursue all of it with that fixed-mindset as you’re describing it.

[00:27:25] AKH: Don’t give me wrong. Self-doubt, it’s definitely, it’s still there.

[00:27:29] TU: 100%.

[00:27:30] AKH: It’s okay to have somewhat limiting beliefs. It’s okay to have, I don’t like to say imposter syndrome, but it’s okay to not feel like you’re good enough. You have to commit to taking steps to get through that mindset. It’s for me it’s taken many, many, many years. I’m still working on it. There’s still things that freak me out that I’m like there’s no way I’m going to do that. There’s no way that people will do that with me either. I think if you have courage and if you have like Chris said, the right people around you and just a tad bit of strategy that I love teaching. I think that’s what matters the most.

[00:28:03] TU: I love it. Great, great stuff, you guys. Chris, for those that are listening that want to publish their own book, it’s something I hear a lot among pharmacists and other health care professionals as a goal that they have. Talk to us more about the process that you guys went through –

[00:28:19] AKH: Me just tagging him.

[00:28:20] TU: Why self-publish versus working with the publisher to tell us more about that journey.

[00:28:25] CC: Yeah. Ashlee, was definitely my guide on this.

[00:28:31] AKH: No, it was just more like, “Chris. I need this. Chris need that.”

[00:28:34] CC: Since she had already gone through the process, she knew the buttons to press, technically to do the publishing. One takeaway is that the actual route of getting words once you have them into book form isn’t that difficult. The hardest part is obviously getting the words there in the first place. If something’s stopping you, because you don’t know how difficult it’s going to be to self-publish that is very achievable. Again, Ashlee did a lot of the legwork on that, but from what I’ve seen and the way that she’s spoken about it, I know that it’s very doable and it was quicker than what I had even expected after we got in the words on the paper. But that was the part of the process that was the most time consuming and then editing and refining and making it tell the narrative that you wanted to tell in the format that you want to do that in.

Which I think goes into, why we wrote the book the way that we did. A big point that Ashlee and I both feel is that we’re stewards of the book since we have our passages, but then there’s also 50+ people that have their passages as well. It’s just as much their book as it is ours, which is for one of the reasons why we’re looking into making partnerships with organizations like AMCP to be able to donate any of the profits from the book to support student pharmacists and use this as not a vector that brings a ton to Ashlee and myself, but more of a way that it can be an evergreen novel and ever-evolving advice that is for the profession of pharmacy and that it’s as simple as that and not for anybody else.

[00:30:27] AKH: Yeah, and just to piggyback off that, Chris and I met four years ago on LinkedIn, I think, or some social media –

[00:30:33] CC: Yeah.

[00:30:34] AKH: We actually got to meet in person at AMCP. I was giving a keynote and Chris was a student. Tim, going back to your question of Chris, how have you become so wise and where does this come from? I plucked him out from the group and I could tell early on that he’s really smart, but also he’s a very, very good heart and really good intentions. Those are my favorite kind of people. So we’ve kept in touch over the years, and I’ve always begged Chris, to do some type of collaboration with me. I was like, “Let’s just do something we both love pharmacy and we both want to give back.”

Finally I told him, I was like, “Chris, I’m pregnant. It is done. We have to do it now or it’s never going to happen.” He promised me that we would do something before that in my pregnancy, and it’s coming, so we did it right in time. It was just the best project, Chris and then I couldn’t have asked for a better, more supportive partner to do this with. It’s been fun.

[00:31:32] TU: I love it, because I think that from my experiences while writing, when you find the right co-author and the right person in your jiving on the same page, it really is a rewarding experience. There’s accountability of course, it comes as a benefit. Ashlee, you’ve been through this before, you authored, Influential Dad, Empowered Daughter. We’ll be waiting for book number three.

[00:31:52] AKH: My goal is to write, once you get writing –

[00:31:55] TU: Fun.

[00:31:55] AKH: Well personally, my personal experience is once you get writing. I blogged for several years before this, so it’s not I’m a new writer-ish. Writing a book is totally different mindset, but once you get the bug, and once you see the impact, and once you see your contribution to the universe, and how people are writing to you from all over the world, and just how much you’ve touched them, how much you’ve challenged them, how much you’ve changed their perspective. Connections, the especial with this book, there’s a lot of people who are reading the book and then going out and connecting with all the different leaders and all different influencers, which is the goal of the book.

It really just for me personally, it motivates me to keep going. So I’m in the process even though Chris and I just published our last book, I don’t know, a couple of weeks ago. I already have a new book in mind. I already – my goal is to write it off open which I’m really, let’s see if that happens. Hold me accountable, Chris. For me, it’s like a bug. It’s like how can I help more people and how can I share my niche and my expertise with more people? Because again, like Chris said, once you write one, you understand the technicalities.

Now going the other route, the publisher getting a book agent doing all that, I’ve never done, but it is on my bucket list, but self-publishing is honestly just it’s for me personally, it’s been really valuable just to get your word into the world.

[00:33:17] TU: I love that. I would encourage both of you, because I feel very strongly that when you’re writing or sharing in another medium in a way that’s having an impact on others, you have a responsibility to keep doing it, if it’s having an impact. So I look forward to continuing to follow both of you in the journey. For folks that want to pick up a copy of Own Your PharmD, Own Your Career: Real Life Advice from 50+ Pharmacy Leaders and Influencers, you can pick it up on Amazon. Chris, Ashlee, thank you both so much for not only putting this together, but also for coming on and having this discussion. I appreciate your time.

[00:33:52] AKH: Yeah. Tim, we didn’t really talk about your foreword. I mean, you wrote a great foreword, too, for us. When Chris and I started working on the book, I was like, “Tim has to be person.” Then you guys officially met and Chris and I were like, “Oh, yeah, Tim’s definitely – ” You have such a great voice in the profession and you’re such an advocate and I mean, you fit right in with all of these other interviewers that we’ve been doing, and we both just really admire your work and appreciate the opportunity to connect with you. Thanks for taking the time to write such a great foreword. It was powerful. Even if you just read the foreword, I thought, I was like, “Oh, my gosh, this is really good.” So it was good.

[00:34:25] TU: Well, thanks for the opportunity. I was humbled to be able to do it, so it’s fun to be a part of it. Again, read it when it all came together. Congratulations to you guys and thanks again for joining.

[00:34:35] AKH: Thank you.

[00:34:35] CC: Thanks for having us.

[OUTRO]

[00:34:36] TU: Before we wrap up today’s show, let’s hear an important message from our sponsor, Insuring Income. If you are in the market to add own occupation disability insurance, term life insurance or both. Insuring Income would love to be a resource. Insuring Income has relationships with all of the high quality disability insurance and life insurance carriers you should be considering and can help you design coverage to best protect you and your family.

Head over to insuringincome.com/yourfinancialpharmacist or click on their link in the show notes to request quotes, ask a question or start down your own path of learning more about this necessary protection.

As we conclude this week’s podcast, an important reminder that the content on this show is provided to you for informational purposes only and is not intended provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. Information to the podcasts and corresponding material should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with a financial advisor with respect to any investment.

Furthermore, the information contained in our archived newsletters, blog posts and podcasts is not updated and may not be accurate at the time you listen to it on the podcast. Opinions and analyses expressed herein are solely those of Your Financial Pharmacist unless otherwise noted, and constitute judgments as of the dates published. Such information may contain forward-looking statements which are not intended to be guarantees of future events. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements.

For more information, please visit yourfinancialpharmacist.com/disclaimer. Thank you again for your support of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast. Have a great rest of your week.

[END]

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YFP 254: Home Buying Search: What to Do and What to Avoid

Posted on May 5, 2022November 2, 2022 by yfpadmin

Home Buying Search: What to Do and What to Avoid

Nate Hedrick, The Real Estate RPh and co-host of the YFP Real Estate Investing Podcast, discusses evaluating online home listings, why open houses exist, how real estate agents get paid, and how the home buying concierge service he developed can help first-time homebuyers.

Episode Summary

Searching for a house to buy can be overwhelming, particularly in today’s fast-paced market. There are several tools for potential home buyers to help them navigate the process, but these can often be confusing. This week, Your Financial Pharmacist Co-Founder & CEO, Tim Ulbrich, PharmD, welcomes back Nate Hedrick, the Real Estate RPh and co-host of the YFP Real Estate Investing Podcast, to discuss what to do and what to avoid in the home buying process. Nate shares four areas you should evaluate when reviewing home listings on the MLS or various real estate sites like Redfin, Zillow, or Realtor.com. He also gives insight into the real reason for an open house, why he prefers private viewings over open houses, how agents get paid, and why it is in your best interest to have your own agent. Listeners will hear some common-sense advice for homebuyers in the current market, general advice on making an offer, the purpose of signing in when visiting an open house, and what to do when asked who your agent is during a viewing. Lastly, Nate explains how the YFP Real Estate Concierge Service works with clients from the beginning to the end of the real estate buying process for first-time buyers and investors.

Key Points From This Episode

The resources that prospective buyers can use to search for homes.
Nate gives us an outline of the Multiple Listing Service (MLS).
What to look out for when viewing listings.
Being able to react quickly to the market to secure a purchase.
Steps to take when viewing a property listing.
The purpose of signing in when viewing a house
What to do when asked about an agent.
Advice on what to do when making an offer.
Rules and regulations regarding listing and buying agents.
The benefits of using a real estate agent when home buying.
A brief rundown of the YFP Real Estate Concierge Service.
Some of the challenges that first-time homebuyers are experiencing.
The best time to start the home buying process.

Highlights

“The things that are missing can be just as evident from the things that are present. Look at those pictures, but also look at what’s not in the pictures.” — Nate Hedrick, PharmD [0:07:11]

“I recommend doing a private showing. It’s a great way to get into the house early so that you can really take things on quickly and you can take your time.” — Nate Hedrick, PharmD [0:11:32]

“I’ve seen situations where it saves the buyer thousands of dollars because a real estate agent catches something or knows how to ask for something really important.” — Nate Hedrick, PharmD [0:17:26]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:00] TU: Hey, everybody, Tim Ulbrich here. Thank you for listening to the YFP podcast, where each week we strive to inspire and encourage you on your path towards achieving financial freedom. This week I had a chance to welcome back a friend of the show, Nate Hedrick, the real estate and RPH and co-host of the YFP Real Estate Investing Podcast. Some of my favorite moments from the show include hearing Nate describe the four areas you should be evaluating when reviewing home listings on the MLS or various sites like Redfin, Zillow, or Realtor.com.

The real reason open houses exist and why a private showing is preferred over an open house. How the agents get paid and why is the buyer’s in your best interest to have your own agent? How the home buying concierge service that Nate developed can help a first time homebuyer navigate the process from beginning to end? Folks can learn more about their concierge service and get connected with a local agent by visiting yourfinancialpharmacist.com, and then click on Home buying at the top of the page.

Before we jump into the show, I recognize that many listeners may not be aware of what the team at YFP Planning does in working one-on-one with more than 240 households in 40 plus states. YFP Planning offers fee only high touch financial planning that is customized for the pharmacy professional. If you’re interested in learning more about how working one-on-one with a certified financial planner may help you achieve your financial goals, you can book a free discovery call at yfpplanning.com.

Whether or not YFP Planning, financial planning services are a good fit for you, know that we appreciate your support of this podcast and our mission to help pharmacies achieve financial freedom. Okay. Here’s my interview with Nate Hedrick, the Real Estate RPH.

[INTERVIEW]

[00:01:42] TU: Nate, welcome back to the show.

[00:01:43] NH: Hey, Tim, always good to be here.

[00:01:45] TU: You and I both know that searching for a house can be an overwhelming process. I’ve gone through the process twice, to be honest. As exciting as it was at times, it was stressful. Not sure I really want to do it again. But here’s the thing. on one hand, we have great access to data, right? With services like Zillow, Redfin, I’m a fan, realtor.com that pulls information from the Multiple Listing Service, the MLS all over the country. But on the other hand, there’s not a lot of direction on what to do with all that information. What’s important? How do I schedule showing? When is the next open house? How do I submit an offer? So today we’re bringing you back on the show to talk and walk us through how to navigate all of this.

Before we jump in to our interview, I want to make sure to remind our listeners that there are some really important financial steps that you should be taking to make sure you’re actually ready to purchase a home, before we go down the rabbit hole that can be searching. So Nate put together a great article on how to manage buying a house despite having student loan debt. We’re going to link to that in the show notes, that was on the YFP blog. We’ve done a few podcast episodes dating way back to September 2018, where we talked through six steps to buying a home. That was a two part series. We did episode 64 and 65. Again, we’ll link to those in the show notes.

These articles, these episodes are really important that we’re laying the foundation. Are we ready before we get into the search? So Nate, let’s assume our listeners have done that up front work. They’re preapproved with a lender and now they’re actually ready to search. Of course there are sites like Zillow and Redfin, but are those the best places to search for homes?

[00:03:23] NH: Yeah. I mean those sites are fine and really great in many cases, but one of the problems with those sites is that they can be out of date, right? So what those sites do, in effect as they pull data, like you mentioned, they pull data from the Multiple Listing Service, which is really the source of truth, and it’s updated by real estate agents. Until those sites are updated the sites like Zillow and Redfin can’t pull the new data. Sometimes they do that scraping slowly and sometimes they do it more quickly.

I have seen examples multiple, multiple times, where clients have reached out and said, “Oh, Nate, can we go look at this place? It looks gorgeous. I saw that. It just came on the market.” Three days ago it was pending, but the site, for whatever reason, didn’t grab that MLS data and update it. But as soon as I logged in, I could actually see that the information. So the sites are awesome for doing up front searches looking at history. They’re very good at looking backward at historical data of what has sold, but truthfully, if you want to get up to the minute true information, you need to get an agent who can get you access to the MLS, so that you can get that data directly.

[00:04:18] TU: Yeah. I remember Nate, I’m sure all agents do this differently, back in 2009, when Jess and I moved to northeast Ohio, working with an agent. They have an MLS portal that we could log in and review in, just seeing the differences, as you mentioned, between that and realtor.com, Redfin, where we’d be really excited about a property contingent and it was already, had been sold. Before we go further, we throw on MLS a lot. Can you just break that down a little bit further? What is the MLS? Obviously, that’s going to be an important piece of what we’re talking about here today.

[00:04:46] NH: Yeah. The MLS is, like I said, the Multiple Listing Service. What this is, is basically an agreement between the brokerage is of a particular area or a particular state. The MLS is divided inter into regions, right? So they can be the entire state, they can be just a large city area. It depends on where you’re located. Basically, the brokerages or the Real Estate Association is within that area have gotten together and said, “We agree to share data between our brokerages and the MLS is how we’re going to share that data.” So brokerages will upload information directly into this database that’s managed by an independent organization and that organization puts out that information for everyone to be able to access. Again, what that allows other real estate agents and professionals to do is to look at that information in real-time so that decisions can be made much more quickly.

[00:05:31] TU: Nate, as you mentioned, sites like Zillow, sites Redfin, sites realtor.com, those are pulling from the MLS, correct?

[00:05:38] NH: Correct. They have some agreement in place where they can, again, scrape that data from the MLS and then show it in whatever way they like to.

[00:05:44] TU: Nate, I think all of us can relate to pulling up a listing, and browsing pictures from our couch, but there are important things that people should be looking for when they’re digging through a listing. Talk about what are those things that folks should be looking for?

[00:05:58] NH: Yeah, absolutely. It’s just pulling up a patient profile before rounds, right? There’s a ton of data to sort through, and it can be important to narrow things down. Like you said, it’s really easy to sit there and just look at the pictures upfront and dream about being in that particular house, but there’s actually a lot of great data there. If you understand what’s available to you, you can glean a lot of information from it. I’ll break it down, four main categories. I think this is how we can do this.

The first is the obvious one, right? The pictures and the video, you can use this information for a lot of things. It’s not just looking at the cosmetics, but you can also look for things like, are there obvious problems? For example, is the roof look like from the photos that it has problems or is there damage within the property that you can see in the photos? Sometimes it’s not just what’s being included, but it’s what’s excluded as well. Just like a missing lab value might tell you more than the myriad of in-range results that you get for a particular patient.

Pictures that are missing can be really telling too. If they say they’ve got a four-bedroom, three bathhouse, but there’s only one picture of one updated bathroom, it starts to make you wonder, “Well, what’s going on with those other two?” Is one of them hidden in the basement somewhere and never been updated in the other ones full of wallpaper that totally out of date. The things that are missing can be just as evident from the things that are present.

Look at those pictures, but also look at what’s not in the pictures. Then like I mentioned before, if you’re getting access to the MLS, a lot of times you’ll see brokers or real estate agents posting video walkthroughs. A lot of times the sites like Zillow and Redfin and things like that can’t pull that data or may not have access to those videos. So asking your agent, “Hey, can you give me access or is there a video of a walkthrough?” You can get that directly to the MLS, that’s the first one.

The next thing you want to look at is your stats, right? These are all of your basic information about that house, everything from bedroom and bathroom count like I mentioned. Things like square footage above and below grade and seeing where that information is coming from is really important too, right? Even as I go to list a property, the seller might say, “Yeah, this is four bedrooms, here are the four bedrooms, you can count them. But if the county records indicate that it’s only a three-bedroom house, or it’s been certified as a three-bedroom house through whatever past history, that fourth bedroom might either not be in the records for a very good reason, or it might actually not count as a bedroom. So again, think about that data and where it’s coming from.

The other things you’ll see is things the year that the house was built, and that can help you look at things like, okay, well if it was built before 1978 for example, there might be lead-based paint in the house. So I need to start thinking about that. If it was still before 1950s, there might be knob-and-tube wiring. So the year that it was built can tell you a lot as well. The last thing you want to look for there is things like the heating and cooling types. Some people depending on your area, this can be much more important than in certain locations, but understanding what type of heating is in that property. Does it have an air conditioner? Does it have a boiler? Does it have whatever? All that can be listed right there for you. It can provide you a lot of information.

The next data point to look for is the government data. So these are things usually displayed by the county that is listed on these websites and through the MLS, and that’s everything from school district, the property taxes. You can actually look at property lines and the parcel itself. You should be able to determine zoning from this. You can see if it’s zoned residential or mixed-use or commercial. Then again, like I said, past sales or rent prices will be listed there as well. That’s all through usually the county website and available.

Then that fourth piece is really the narrative. This is the, again, the physician’s notes. If it were our patient example, but it’s what’s included with the property, it’s what the seller wanted to tell you about it. It’s how they’re trying to sell it. Things disclosures from the listing description or brokers notes that can be available for the MLS again. So there’s a lot of pieces that you can look for on just what seems like a simple place to check out pictures.

[00:09:39] TU: Nate that was great stuff. You talked about for pictures and the video, the stats, the government data, the narrative. As you were talking, I was envisioning. That has to be a great way to set up a spreadsheet and record this information. My question, though, is with today’s market, analyzing all this information, really doing due diligence like things are moving quickly, though, right?

[00:09:56] NH: Yeah.

[00:09:57] TU: I think that’s one of the challenges in today’s market is making sure we have all the information, obviously, to be comfortable, to feel confident moving forward, but things are moving and getting the information that we need, but also being able to react quickly.

[00:10:09] NH: Making sure that you’re not making a mistake by reacting too quickly, right? So if you’re looking for a particular school district and it’s on the street that you’ve been looking at before, but you skip the government data and you skip the fact that it’s actually across the street, and that’s a different school district that could have huge ramifications on price and everything that goes along with it, taxes especially. So knowing where those pieces of information are upfront, so that you can move quickly is super important.

[00:10:33] TU: Nate, we dig through all of the background information. We found a house or several homes that we like want to look at. How do we go see the property? What’s the strategy here?

[00:10:42] NH: Yeah. So there’s generally two options to see a property, I guess. Three, I’ll talk to all three, but basically, the most common one that people think of, I think more often than not is an open house, right? Where you’re going to have the listing agent present, the doors are open, the house is vacant, and you’ve got the ability to walk through that with everybody else. I think the classic example of this is come by Sunday at 2:00 and there’s 30 cars in the driveway and you’re touring it with everybody else. Usually, those open houses will be again on the weekends and in the listing description or somewhere on the website you’ll be able to see when that open house or when the next open house will be.

If it’s not listed, they either might not have one or it might be not something that the data was able to be scraped on. So make sure that you ask your agent, “Is there going to be an open house?” But that’s only one way to go see the house, right? You have virtual showings as well. Or you could do private showing, where you can set up through the either listing agent or through your own agent to go see the house on your own time, and on your own terms.

Generally speaking, I recommend doing a private showing. It’s a great way to get into the house early so that you can really take things on quickly and you can take your time, right? You’re not shuffling around other people. You’re not trying to debate who else might be putting in an offer. You’re really spending the time that you need to evaluate. Is this the property for me? Again, in most cases, your agent can get that set up for a time that’s convenient for you. So rather than forcing it into Sunday at 2:00, you could do it at 8:00 at night or 7:00 at night after you’ve done the long working day. So lots of options with that.

[00:12:04] TU: Yeah. There’s nothing some pressure, right Nate? When you’re walking around open house and ten, 20 other people are looking at the house, you start to feel like, I got to act quickly –

[00:12:11] NH: Exactly, exactly.

[00:12:12] TU: Nate, I remember going to open houses in the past and one of the first things that they would have me do is sign in and then they would ask if I have an agent. Honestly, I never really thought much about that. So tell us more about what’s going on there. What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to say in that situation?

[00:12:29] NH: Yeah. Your best bet is just to be honest, right? This not a test or them trying to figure out if you’re supposed to be there. If it’s an open house, you are absolutely supposed to be there, right? Even if you’re not a qualified buyer, the whole point of an open house is to come look, so that’s okay. The best thing you can do is to be honest on that and what the agent is trying to do there. It’s one of the worst kept secrets of the real estate industry, is that open houses are not actually to sell a house. I know that sounds counterintuitive, but truthfully, in age of the Internet, they get plenty of marketability by just putting it on the MLS and letting Zillow and everybody else see it, right?

What the open house is designed to do is to drum up business for that real estate agent. So what they’re doing is they’re saying, “If you, Tim, are come into my open house and you’re ready to buy and you’re looking at houses in this area, but you don’t have an agent to work with, well, then you’re the perfect client for me,” right? “I can help you. I know clearly this area. I’m already working here and I’ve got a listing. I’d love to help you out with that.” So what we’re doing as agents when we’re holding it open house is trying to show the property, certainly, but more often than not, that agent is there to drum up their own business and try to create opportunities for themselves.

[00:13:34] TU: Nate, I go to the open house, I love the house. How do I make an offer? Well, using that listing agent save me money? Will that help in the negotiations?

[00:13:42] NH: Yeah. A lot of people assume this right, where, “I’ll use the listing agent, because then I’ll save money. I won’t have my own agent.” So there it is, but let me explain a little bit about how an agent is paid. I think that will dispel that myth. I’ll say this, there are times where that can be the case where it can save you something on commission, but the reality is not very often. So the way that the typical commission is paid is that the seller sits down with the listing agent and they agree on a price. They basically say, “Okay, I’m going to list your house for you. Here’s all the things that I’m going to do in terms of marketing, in terms of exposure, in terms of open houses. For doing all of that, when the house sells, I need you to pay me 6%.”

That might be high. That might be low. It totally depends on your area and the property that you’re talking about and the price point and all that. Let’s just assume it’s 6%. Well, that 6% then get split between the selling agent and the buying agent. So the person that actually brings a buyer to the property. So typically it’s a 50/50 split, 3% going to the listing agent, 3% going to the buyer. So if I come as a buyer with no agent whatsoever now all of a sudden that 6% doesn’t have to be split. What happens most often is that agent that’s listing the property simply keeps the 6%. It’s already been agreed upon, it’s already been signed by the seller. They don’t have to reduce that price at all.

You could, in theory negotiate with them to say, “Hey, if I don’t use an agent, can we get this down to 5%? Or can you take 1% off your commission or something like that?” That may work, but what you’re missing is that you don’t have an agent representing your best interest. The goal of that listing agent is to sell that property for as much as possible, because they’re representing their sellers interests. There are a lot of great real estate agents out there that will do their absolute best to split that difference between representing the buyer and the seller, but the reality is that they negotiated and worked at that seller first, and they have an obligation to treat them as best they can to get them the best price.

It can look like a savings, because you’re taking 1% off the commission or whatever, but if you don’t have an agent advocating for you, looking for the things that that agent isn’t there to help you look for, you might miss out on something even greater than that 1%, and it’s totally not even worth it.

[00:15:47] TU: Nate, does this vary from state-to-state? I’m not sure of the rules here of whether or not I don’t know what the term is dual representation, but of where someone’s acting is both the buying and the selling. I remember signing disclosures confirming that that wasn’t happening, talk to us more about what is or is not allowed here, and whether or not that very state-to-state.

[00:16:03] NH: Yeah. There’s a couple pieces here that we can break down. The first is whether or not that agent is actually representing you. So what you’re referring to is called dual agency, where that agent is representing both the buyer and the seller in a transaction. That idea of dual agency is allowed in some states, it’s not allowed in others. Some brokerages actually have a restriction on that. The broker was saying, “Look, we will never be a dual agent and here’s why.” But it’s permissible in a lot of areas. The other option or the other more likely scenario is that you’re going to be unrepresented. So you are coming in as a customer, not a client. So the agent that is selling the property represents the seller. They are not representing you in the transaction at all. They are simply helping you through it. So you’re a customer, not a client.

Again, I think understanding what that relationship is, if you are going to enter into an agreement like that and knowing what that means for you in terms of, “Are you actually my agent or are you simply an agent of the seller and helping me through the transaction?”

[00:16:57] TU: Nate, it sounds like having an agent’s a win-win better representation on your end as a buyer and doesn’t cost you anything, am I reading that, right?

[00:17:04] NH: Yeah. I mean, as long as you have the right agent on your team, someone that knows the market, what to look for, knows how to represent you in negotiations. Navigating the contracts like that is somebody that is a really important asset to you. As agents, we walk through these property deals all the time. You might be a first time homebuyer and have never done this before. So having somebody on your team that knows how to navigate all those pieces, they can be dramatically important. I mean, I’ve seen situations where it saves the buyer thousands of dollars, because a real estate agent catches something or knows how to ask for something really important.

I just had a situation come up recently with a buyer. It came back that there was a leak, it was a pretty simple leak, but it was at the water main of the house where it came in from the city. So the inspector said, “Yeah, this needs to be fixed. It’s leaking right now. It’s probably going to be a couple hundred bucks to fix it.” At first the buyer said, “Well, okay, that’s fine. I’ll just handle it myself when I buy the property.” But I said, “Well, hold on. This is a leak that is active, meaning that it has the potential to get worse. Meaning it could damage the property.” So this is something that the seller should address right away. “I’ll get this taken care of for you.” A quick phone call to the agent, and they agreed like that to say, “Oh yeah, we’ll handle that completely.”

Only a couple hundred bucks, but something that they didn’t have to deal with after they moved in, something that protected the property from getting worse and something that, again, going unrepresented, the buyer wouldn’t have bothered messing with. So having that right agent, somebody that can really advocate for you can really make the difference. Again, not to start plugging a service, but that’s exactly why we created the concierge service, the home buying concierge, because it’s designed to get you connected with really great agents that can have your best interests in mind.

[00:18:35] TU: I would encourage folks to check out episode 160 – Nate, you did an episode navigating the home buying process through the concierge service with Shelby Bannett, and Bryce Plott. I think that service really comes alive throughout that episode and the value that it has. Walk us through briefly, what is that concierge service? What value does it provide? What can folks expect and where can they go to learn more?

[00:18:55] NH: Yeah, so this all came about, because when I bought my first property, I had no idea how to find a good real estate agent, right? I just asked a friend, I Googled around and we ended up with an okay agent. It was fine. It all worked out great, but it just felt like there should be a better process to this. Again, especially if you’re somebody that’s moving out of state or to a new area, you might not know anybody there. So how do you wade through the myriad of real estate agents in finding somebody that’s actually going to be on your team? So what we created was the real estate concierge service, the whole idea being that you can sit down with me through a 30-minute prep call to really walk through your goals, your budget, what your must haves are, and starting to figure out what property you’re looking for.

Then once I’ve got that information, we’ll go out and find a real estate agent, that’s really a good fit for you, somebody that’s going to be that has the experience you need, somebody that knows the property types that you’re looking for, somebody that again is just going to be the right fit on your team, and it takes all that guesswork out of it. So again, the process is simple. You go online, you can go to yfprealestate.com, or you can go to your financialpharmacist.com/buyahome and you can tap into the book a call with Nate, and we’ll sit down and talk about what your needs are. I’ll get you connected with an agent and then you can get off and running. You can know that you’ve got somebody on your team that’s going to help you through that process.

The thing I really have been advocating for recently, too, is that it’s not just us handing off to an agent, right? I stay on your team through that whole process. I just had two emails this morning from a client who had a question. They didn’t feel like they were getting the full answer from their real estate agent. They said, “Can you just double check this for me, Nate? I want to have somebody else that knows what’s going on actually in answering this.” I confirm, “Yes, what the real estate agent is saying is accurate. Totally, you can believe them.” It gives that peace of mind behind the buying process with somebody that knows what they’re doing.

[00:20:38] TU: Yeah. I think especially for first time home buyers, right? It’s a big decision. We’re in this wild market that is, things are moving so quickly and I think just to have someone throughout process beginning and have a second opinion, examples you just gave would highly encourage folks to check that out. You’ve done an awesome job building this out.

[00:20:53] NH: Thanks.

[00:20:54] TU: Agents across the country in different areas, few different ways you can get there. Nate mentioned go to yourfinancialpharmacies.com, click on buy a home. We’ll link to that in the show notes. You can get a yfprealestate.com, so it’s not just for primary residence, for those that are looking at investing in real estate and finding an investor friendly agent also really, really important. Or you can go to realestaterph.com and that will all point you to the same place, which is a conversation with Nate. We’ll link to all of those in the show notes.

Nate, before we wrap up. Got to pick your brain every time that we talk about home buying in the last, seems since the pandemic. Each month it brings a different angle, different know, right? Here we are. Believe it or not, I seen interest rate on 30 year fixed mortgages starting to creep up closer, and closer, and closer to 5%. That is hard to believe when we look back in the middle of the pandemic, we were seeing 30 year fixed rates below 3% for a period of time. I remember back to October 2018 when we bought our home that was in the four or six ranges fixed rates on a 30 year mortgage and I thought maybe we’re not going to see that high again and here we are.

We’ve got now continued supply and demand issues. We’ve got more buyers and there are properties that are out there, and now we’ve got rates that are creeping up, so I think this affordability of home for first time homebuyers is becoming more and more challenging. Talk to us about what you’re seeing and what are some of the challenges the folks are facing.

[00:22:16] NH: Yeah. I think there’s a lot that goes into this, right? I think the biggest thing like you said, is the affordability, because if you’re all of a sudden jumping up a percentage point in rate, that could be a couple of hundred bucks. It could be even more depending on your market. So it can really start to affect, okay, well, what house can I afford? If people are going to be offering over asking price and competing with offers 20, 30, $40,000 over asking, that is going to start to go away, I think, as these interest rates climb even further. It doesn’t mean that the houses are unaffordable, but I think you’re going to start to see a shift back down.

I do want you to keep in mind too, in perspective, the interest rates we have today even if it is five, even 6% over the historical average, that’s still really, really low. It’s still below what inflation was in the last six months right? So historically, that’s not bad. It’s just when you compare that to the last two years, it feels like we’re in this state of, “Oh, my gosh, we’re really on these rising rates and it’s never going to end.” So put that in a little bit of historical perspective for yourself before getting too nervous. But I do think we’re going to start to see a shift in the market as a result of these changes.

[00:23:15] TU: Nate, one last question I have for you. If I’m someone listening and ready, I’m looking now versus, hey I’m thinking about this over the next three to six to 12 months. When is the right time to potentially connect with you and ultimately get connected with an agent?

[00:23:26] NH: Yeah. I think there’s never a bad time to connect with me. I think the best time is probably when you’re around six months out or sooner. I mean, it can be, you’re ready right now when you’re ready to look and we just are having look, we need a good agent or it can be again, we’re six months away, and I want to start planning ahead. If you’re before that, it’s probably a bit early to connect with an agent, but it’s a great time to start thinking about your overall finances, your budget, all the other things that we’ve talked about in the past about getting ready to buy a home. So once you get to that point where you’re in the ready state, that’s a great time to connect with me. Even if you’re not actively looking, we can start to talk through goals, objectives, things that are going to help you make that process that much easier.

[00:24:03] TU: Great stuff, Nate, as always. Really appreciate your insights to the YFP community and taking the time to come on the show. Thank you so much.

[00:24:09] NH: Yeah. Thanks for having me, Tim.

[OUTRO]

[00:24:11] TU: As we conclude this week’s podcast and important reminder that the content on this show is provided to you for informational purposes only and is not intended provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. Information to the podcasts and corresponding material should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with a financial advisor with respect to any investment.

Furthermore, the information contained in our archived newsletters, blog posts and podcasts is not updated and may not be accurate at the time you listen to it on the podcast. Opinions and analyses expressed herein are solely those of Your Financial Pharmacist unless otherwise noted, and constitute judgments as of the dates publish. Such information may contain forward looking statements that are not intended to be guarantees of future events. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements.

For more information, please visit yourfinancialpharmacists.com/disclaimer. Thank you again for your support of the Your Financial Pharmacists Podcast. Have a great rest of your week.

[END]

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YFP 253: YFP Planning Case Study #1: Growing a Family, Paying Off Student Loans, and Buying a House

Posted on April 28, 2022November 2, 2022 by yfpadmin

YFP Planning Case Study #1: Growing a Family, Paying Off Student Loans, and Buying a House

On this episode, sponsored by Insuring Income, YFP Co-Founder & Director of Financial Planning, Tim Baker, CFP®, RLP® is joined by YFP Planning Lead Planners, Kelly Reddy-Heffner, CFP®, CSLP®, CDFA® and Robert Lopez, CFP® to walk you through a financial planning case study on growing a family, paying off student loans, and buying a house.

About Today’s Guests

Kelly Reddy-Heffner, CFP®, CSLP®, CDFA®

Kelly Reddy-Heffner, CFP®, CSLP®, CDFA® is a Lead Planner at YFP Planning. She enjoys time with her husband and two sons, riding her bike, running, and keeping after her pup ‘Fred Rogers.’ Kelly loves to cheer on her favorite team, plan travel, and ironically loves great food but does not enjoy cooking at all. She volunteers in her community as part of the Chambersburg Rotary. Kelly believes that there are no quick fixes to financial confidence, and no guarantees on investment returns, but there is value in seeking trusted advice to get where you want to go. Kelly’s mission is to help clients go confidently toward their happy place.

Robert Lopez, CFP®

Robert Lopez, CFP®, is a Lead Planner at YFP Planning. Along with his team members, Kimberly Bolton, CFP®, and Savannah Nichols, he helps YFP Planning clients on their financial journey to live their best lives. To go along with his CFP® designation, Robert has a B.S. in Finance and an M.S. in Family Financial Planning. Prior to his career in financial planning, Robert worked as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician in the United States Air Force. Although no longer on active duty, he still participates as a member of the Air Force Reserves. When not working, Robert enjoys being outdoors, playing co-ed volleyball and kickball, catching a game of ultimate frisbee, or hiking with his wife Shirley, young son Spencer, and their dogs, Meeko and Willow.

Episode Summary

Welcome to our very first YFP Planning case study. In this episode, YFP Co-Founder & Director of Financial Planning, Tim Baker, CFP®, RLP® is joined by YFP Planning Lead Planners, YFP Planning Lead Financial Planner, Kelly Reddy-Heffner, CFP®, CSLP®, CDFA® and Robert Lopez, CFP® to walk through a case study featuring fictitious clients facing real-life scenarios like growing their family, paying off student loans, and buying a home. While the Jones family may be made-up clients, their financial scenarios, facts, and goals resemble common areas of focus and concern for many long-term YFP Planning clients. Kelly and Robert detail the various options and information pertaining to the financial plan of our fictitious clients, the Jones family, laying out all of the case study client earnings, expenses, debt, and goals. The team discusses potential client considerations for the financial plan regarding student loan repayment and their growing family. Kelly and Robert touch on everything from PSLF to wealth protection, speculating the necessity of a whole life policy, and the advantages of a joint credit card. This behind-the-scenes look at YFP Planning will provide insight and understanding of what goes on at YFP Planning, plus a comprehensive analysis and education on the financial picture for the Jones family.

Key Points From This Episode

Introducing YFP Lead Planners, Kelly Reddy-Heffner and Robert Lopez.
Describing the fictitious family of today’s case study: Jason and Lauren Jones.
The Joneses’ earnings, expenses, and debt.
Their goals and concerns.
How their cash position fits in the context of their goals and debt.
The question of whether or not to go the PSLF route.
The tendency to get caught up emotionally without considering the mathematics.
How the Joneses should tackle the wealth-protection aspect of their financial planning.
Speculation of whether a whole life policy is necessary.
The benefits of having one joint credit card per family.
What the Joneses should consider with regards to the mortgage conversation.
The power of financial planning.
The wealth-building opportunities for the Joneses’ emergency fund.
The ideal amount to put aside as an emergency fund.
Investment options and recommendations.
How to approach college education funds.
The future prospects of a supplemental income for the Joneses.

Highlights

“[PSLF] is a huge conversation both emotionally and mathematically to work through.” — Robert Lopez, CFP® [0:13:39]

“There are very rare circumstances where a whole life policy is cost-effective and really necessary in the planning process.” — Kelly Reddy-Heffner, CFP®, CSLP®, CDFA® [0:19:32]

“The power of financial planning is that process of planning.” — Robert Lopez, CFP® [0:23:44]

“Tying in a specific amount to a specific goal is very important.” — Kelly Reddy-Heffner, CFP®, CSLP®, CDFA® [0:26:47]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:00] TB: You’re listening to your Financial Pharmacist podcast, a show all about inspiring you, the pharmacy professional, on your path towards achieving financial freedom. Hi, I’m Tim Baker. Today we’re changing things up with a new type of episode. I sit down with YFP Lead Planners, Kelly Reddy-Heffner and Robert Lopez, to walk through a case study of a fictitious family, the Joneses.

Although the Joneses are not an actual couple we work with, they’re really a composite of clients we do work within reality. The first part of the discussion we lay the groundwork of the Jones’ jobs, salary situation, and where they live. We walk through their net worth and point out important elements of their financial situation. We also talk about their goals and what they’re trying to achieve.

We then talk through, how we would approach the Jones’ financial plan as if they were real clients. This is a bit of a behind-the-scenes look at what goes on at YFP planning. I hope you enjoy this episode, but first, let’s hear from our sponsor, and then we’ll jump in at the show.

[00:00:57] ANNOUNCER: This week’s podcast episode is brought to you by Insuring Income. Insuring Income is your source for all things term life insurance and own occupation-disability insurance. Insuring Income has a relationship with America’s top-rated term life insurance and disability insurance companies so that pharmacists like you can easily find the best solutions for your personal situation. To better serve you, Insuring Income reviews all applicable carriers in the marketplace for your desired coverage, supports clients in all 50 states, and makes sure all of your questions get answered. To get quotes and apply for term life or disability insurance, see sample contracts from disability carriers or learn more about these topics, visit insuringincome.com/yourfinancialpharmacist. Again, that’s insuringincome.com/yourfinancialpharmacist.

[INTERVIEW]

[00:01:48] TB: What’s up, everybody? Welcome to our first YFP planning case study. This is a new concept that the team at YFP planning is going to test out. We want to launch these, I think at least once per quarter and the idea behind this concept for both the podcast and video that will be shown on YouTube is to give you a look behind the scenes of a fictitious client that we are going to work through and look at, various information regarding to their financial plan, their goals.

The idea is to give you a behind the scenes of how we would handle these fictitious clients in terms of giving them some thoughts and ideas behind their financial plan. Today I am joined by our two lead planners, Kelly Reddy-Heffner and Robert Lopez and in a second here, we’re going to go through the fact pattern on our first case, the Joneses. It’ll take us a little bit of time to go through all the different facts of the case and then we’re basically going to have an open table discussion of how we would approach this particular client. We’ll do — this client is fictitious, but it’s based on a group of clients that we worked with over the years in terms of some of the planning challenges that they face. We’re going to have a variety of type of clients that we’ll talk with as we roll out this series. Hey, guys, welcome to our first case study. How is things going in your neck of the woods, Kelly?

[00:03:12] KRH: It’s going well. It’s good to be back to doing some planning after the tax season. So happy to be talking about a case study.

[00:03:20] TB: Yes. Yes. Tax season is behind us. I guess we can say that at least the deadline is. It was an eventful tax season, no doubt. How about you, Robert? How have things going on, your end of things?

[00:03:31] RL: Well, we’re already in the nineties out here in Arizona, so we’re doing our best to make sure the AC doesn’t die on us.

[00:03:37] TB: Yeah, please. Especially with Spencer, make sure he’s nice and cool. It’s funny, we were just talking about this yesterday, 45 degrees in Columbus, Ohio, yesterday. I think this weekend is going to be 85, so that is the weather of the season. All right, so I’m going to share my screen here and for those of you on the podcast, you won’t be able to actually see us. We’re going to talk through this. If you’re watching the video, obviously, you’ll be able to follow along. Robert is going to kick us off on the high-level facts. Then I will get into the network statement and then Kelly is going to finish us off and talk about goals and some of the other miscellaneous. Robert, the screen is shared, why don’t you kick us off here?

[00:04:15] RL: Yeah. Just waiting for that screen to load up on my page. Today we’re going to be talking about the Joneses, and so to try to keep up here is Lauren and Jason Jones. They’re both 33 years old. Lauren is a clinical pharmacist working at a public hospital. Jason is an Electrical Engineer. Then six months ago, they welcomed their daughter Lucy into the world.

Lauren earns $118,000 at her main job and then has a side hustle with supplements where she does $10,000 regularly. Jason is getting 112,000 from the Electrical Engineering Firm. He filed the taxes, married filing jointly. They are living in wonderful Dallas, Texas. Their gross income combined is $240,000. That breaks down to about $20,000 a month. Then after their taxes and contributions to the cafeteria plan or retirement savings and insurance, now they bring home about $14,200 a month and then they get chopped up in their expenses.

They have fixed expenses of roughly $7500, variable expenses that can change from month to month or above $3600. Then their savings target right now is about $2700 a month. They’re living in a three-bedroom single-family house that they bought a few years ago in 2018. They used an FHA loan to put 3.5% down on $295,000 home. They have a 4.25% interest rate.

[00:05:36] TB: Awesome. If you look at their net worth statement, we’re going to start on the asset side. Between checking and savings, they have about 35,000 in a joint account, 85,000 in a savings account. Then Lauren also has a CD of $10,000 that will mature in a year. When we take a look at their investments in their Roth IRA, both Lauren and Jason have Roth IRAs. She has 25,000, Jason has 15. They’re not currently contributing to this. This is an IRA, a Roth IRA that was set up with a financial advisor when Lauren was in Pharmacy School, definitely hanging out there.

403(b) Lauren has one 85,000 that she’s contributing 5% with a 3% employer match. She thinks it’s primarily in target-date funds that has about 85,000. Jason has a 401K with 55. He’s contributing 7% with a 3% match. He also has a Roth 401K or basically, he contributes into the Roth side of things and he’s in an A 20 allocation. Then he also has an old 401K from a previous employer with about 15,000. He doesn’t really know what to do with. Then Lauren has $5,000 in an HSA that she’s contributing 36.50 which is the max for a single person for the year and just sitting in cash, right now. They have the primary home that Robert talked about and they think it’s worth about 355,000 now that they own jointly.

Then if you look at the liability side of things, they do have a credit card balance of 2000 that they pay off every month. They basically use it for points for travel. They have a personal loan of 6000. It’s Lauren’s debt that’s to the bank of mom and dad, that they basically pay 0% interest and I think they put about $1,000 towards that, if I have the note right. Then in terms of long-term debt, they both have car note. Lauren has a car that has a 15,000 balance dated as 23,000. The total payment per month between the two of them was about 825. Jason’s interest rate is five and a quarter, Lauren’s is 4%. The mortgage was 272,000 left on that.

Then Lauren, like a lot of pharmacies out there, has a good amount of student loans. She has a total 170, 145 of that is in the public program and then about 25,000 in private student loans with an interest rate of 7%. You put the total assets of 695 minus their total liabilities of 480,000. That equals their net worth, which is 207,000. Positive net worth, not too shabby, net 33. Some other things that they talked about is they’re filing jointly like Robert said, but they’re doing it themselves but feel like their situation is becoming more complex, potentially converting their house to a rental. Kelly will talk about that here in a second terms of goals.

The baby, Lucy being born six months ago and then potentially looking at PSLF, they think they’re missing out on some deductions and they typically owe money, two or $3,000 each year that they don’t necessarily have a plan to save for. Kelly, walk us through the Joneses, their goals, and any other miscellaneous things that they have going on.

[00:08:40] KRH: Yeah. After we get a good idea of net worth, which, Tim, you shared with us and some of those retirement contributions and other things that they’re doing. It’s really important to understand the goals, because that frames, what we’re doing the planning for. In this case, Lauren wants to aggressively pay off the student loans but has some concerns about PSLF. Jason is in disagreement. It’s something that’s on the list to talk about. They are thinking through adding an addition to their family over the next two years. They’d like to start saving for their daughter, Lucy’s college education, but unsure where to start. Thinking through housing and if they’re going to grow their family. What does that next house look like?

They’ve added an opportunity to maybe turn their current home into a rental property and yield some recurring revenue from that. Then Jason is thinking about some career exploration, not uncommon. Of course, we’ve seen a lot of that over the past year with job changes, transitions. So thinking that through and seeing what that will do to salary. Some of the other things to think about, which also contribute to the conversation and the one that we’ll have here today is Lauren believes that she could increase her supplemental income. She’s bringing in that 10,000 now, but believes she can grow that in the future.

Lauren is also thinking through the care of her mom with the children. Sometimes we’re also worrying about her parents. So she has that on her list to consider in the planning as well. They both like to travel, so having a budget for that is important. Although not a top priority, retirement age of 65 is on the list, as a consideration as well.

[00:10:29] TB: Awesome stuff, guys. Appreciate us setting that up. I guess what would be from a job when you guys look at this fact pattern, with this particular client, the Joneses. What are some things that jump out to you that you would want to focus on and dig in and see what we could do in terms of some help with their financial situation?

[00:10:47] RL: Kelly, why would you go first?

[00:10:48] KRH: Well, I certainly would think through the cash position and how that fits in the context of the goals and some of the debt that they currently have as well. That’s a common question is, we’ve accumulated quite a bit of cash, what do we do with it? I would say that would probably be a good starting point is where does it fit with their goals versus other things that they need to accomplish on this list here.

[00:11:18] TB: Yeah. I think for me, one of the areas and this is often true with a lot of our clients, especially in around this age is, what the heck are we doing with the student loans? Right? I think as the financial planning goes, as the student loan plan goes to the rest of the financial plan. So to me, I think having that discussion with Lauren and Jason about, to PSLF or not to PSLF, right? We recently, Robert, I listened to your episode here recently about PSLF and updates, and some of the success stories around PSLF. But I think probably having a conversation about this and then supporting in this with the math to determine, does it make sense to go this route or not. What’s your thought on that, Robert, as you would walk them through this particular part of their plan?

[00:12:09] RL: Yeah. I think, it will be really important to figure out what Lauren and Jason are disagreeing about when it comes to PSLF, though she not believe that the program is going to be valid or does she not believe that her ability to earn this, basically, is she going to work in the public sector for the remainder of those ten years.

[00:12:23] TB: Yeah.

[00:12:24] RL: She’s already got 30 payments as a part of that 20. If we’re saying that this is happening currently, all 30 of those payments are happening under no dollar payments and no interest, thanks to the COVID changes. We’re already a quarter of the way there. That gives us 75% more the way I think it’s going to be too hard to pass up on the value of that. So really just reiterating that this plan works, hey, I can point to specific YFP clients. I can point to specific numbers on how many people have earned this forgiveness. I can show how you are or are not on track for your own personal forgiveness to make sure that this is a valuable thing.

That really ties into a lot of the other goals here, right. As we decide to grow the family that can decrease our payments, as we decide to maybe take a step back from a career that Jason’s getting some burnout from, that can free up some cash flow for us to live month to month. I have to worry about making really aggressive student loan payments. That does allow us to be more aggressive towards the private side. If she wants to be aggressive towards new loans, let’s pay off that 7% aggressively as opposed to something that’s at 0% right now, and could be at 0% for still a little while.

Then show what the value of that forgiveness could look like, when we’re talking [inaudible 00:13:32] the way there, $80,000 of forgiveness easily depending on what their income is going to look like going forward. I think that’s a huge conversation both emotionally and mathematically to work through.

[00:13:43] TB: Yeah. I think sometimes, we get caught up in the emotion without actually taking a look at the math. I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility, especially in this day and age with the pandemic and some of the forbearance and the relief there that if you have three years, four years, five years of $0 payments, and then if you also have one or two years that is being calculated on a residency salary that you could pay, I don’t have the numbers in front me as supportive, but you could pay $60,000 in total and that could be on 170,000, 250,000, $300,000 of debt.

When you look at that total amount of forgiveness, the amount of being forgiven is not necessarily as important in PSLF, it’s more of the amount that you paid, but if you can then minimize that by looking at more of the pretax accounts, like the 403(b) the 401K. In this case with Jason, if we’re going that route, maybe, maybe he doesn’t do the Roth, but if they file separately, which they’re not doing right now, it doesn’t necessarily really matter. But then –

[00:14:49] RL: It would, it’s a community property state for Texas –

[00:14:51] TB: Oh, Texas, yeah. You’re right, could call out. So those are the things that as when I say as the student loan goes, the rest of the plan goes, because you would argue that, you would be able to save more for the long term, but then maybe even more for the short term, whether that’s a job transitions fund, a vacation fine or something like that, because right now, she’s paying, they’re paying $2100 in student loan payments which is probably on the high side, again, probably some meat on the bone with regard to how much they’re paying in interest.

Maybe the compromise is that they just pay off the private loans more aggressively or with the cash that they have on hand, maybe they just write a check, and the private loans are gone and then they pay the minimum on the public loans. I think to me one of the things that jumps out when the fact pattern is that the two of them disagree on that, I think is probably having them both come to the table and talk through some of the maybe the angst around that. To your point, Robert, it could be I don’t think I’m going to stay at this job very long and I want to move to the private sector. That’s a completely different conversation.

I think having more of those clarifying questions to determine, hey, is this a good mathematically it absolutely makes sense in most cases, but from a career perspective, from an emotional perspective, maybe not. One of the things that we didn’t, actually we skipped over when we were talking about, that I’ll go through quickly here, when we talk about the wealth protection, we typically talk about things like insurance estate planning. One of the things to mention is that they probably were okay insurance-wise before their daughter came. I typically say, especially with life insurance, that the two thing, or two of the things that you look at is, if you have a spouse, so check in this case, if you have a house, check. Then you have mouths to feed, typically want to make sure that you have enough insurance.

Right now, Lauren has $500,000 a term policy, a 30-year term policy that she bought through the financial advisor when she was in pharmacy school, along with one times group benefit that’s 118,000, so 600 plus thousand dollars in life insurance. Jason that’s 500,000 that he also bought and then a 50,000 flat amount through his employer. They also have a small life policy that is worth the death benefit, it’s 50,000 with a negligible cash value that paying about 70 bucks a month. Then from a short-term and long-term disability, pretty common. Lauren has a 60% benefit for short-term and long-term disability it isn’t an occupation. Jason does not have any short-term disability, but he does have a long-term disability that’s an occupation for two years and then switches to any occ, until Medicare age.

We’ve talked about this on the podcast in terms of how that works and maybe something to talk about a little bit more today. Lauren doesn’t have any professional liability outside of what her employer offers. Then from a wealth protection perspective, we typically look at the estate plan and right now they don’t have any documents in place, but they’re looking at Lauren’s employer. They have a legal benefit that they would work through. If I’m asking the question of what jumps out, this is probably one of the — outside of the student loan. This would probably be the one of the next things that I would look at in terms of the wealth protection, particularly with Lucy being born six months ago.

Kelly, what’s your thoughts as you look at more of the protection stuff, which is often not necessarily at the top of everyone’s mind, especially as they’re going through a lot of these life changes. Kelly, what’s your take in terms of how they should attack this part of their financial planning?

[00:18:28] KRH: Yeah. I would agree that this is often an area that is neglected. Even at annual reviews, we sometimes see estate planning documents still on the list. I think with Lucy for sure, getting a will in place, guardianship, very important, and having that taken care of would give them a lot of peace of mind, as well. As far as insurance coverage too, once you’re a parent, it would be highly unusual to probably be under $1,000,000. If you look at the goals that you have and some of the high-level calculations like, ten times income that would certainly put both of them well over $1,000,000 in terms of need.

I do like that it is purchased outside of their workplace that it is their own policy, but I guess it would be good to take a look at the details of the policies as well. As far as whole life, we have this conversation all the time. There is very rare circumstances where a whole life policy is cost-effective and really necessary in the planning process, so that would be one of the top priorities to look at that to see about surrender charges and use that money towards something better in the plan, perhaps the difference in increasing that term policy up to the amount that would be more adequate and of course, the disability as well.

Speaking of purchasing from outside, we recommend is the gold standard having your own disability policies, the 60% is reasonable, but Jason doesn’t have that short-term disability policy at all, so then you are looking at the emergency fund. Does that cover that or does he need his own policy as well? Just really looking at the fine print in the details and seeing, should they purchase that on their own as well.

[00:20:33] TB: Yeah. You can go out and purchase a short-term disability plan, but it probably it’s typically cost-prohibitive. I would probably just had the emergency fund. He’s covered from a long term disability, but he does have that wonky definition of two years on occupation and then any occ, after that, which is a little bit [inaudible 00:20:53] you should do there if you should go out and price a different policy and carry your own or just use what the employer has.

When you look at the debt, the outside of the of the student loans Robert, what are you seeing in terms of the personal loan, the credit card, the car note, the mortgage in general? Obviously, the conversation has changed a little bit in the last couple weeks and months with interest rates and where they’re going, but if you even assessment of where they’re [inaudible 00:21:19] debt perspective, what’s that look like to you?

[00:21:23] RL: Yeah. One credit card for a family these days is a little odd. I think it’s really awesome. We did just have a client come on board that they do just have the one joint card, using that for their monthly expenses to gain those points for travel. I love it. Having those points set aside for future travel points is really going to help them. The car notes 5.25% and 4% on those loans. Those would seem a little bit high in previous years, but it’s not too far out of bounds, right now. So I’m not sure they could refinance too much out of that.

Obviously, paying those off with the delta between what they’re getting on their savings accounts is a different conversation on, and it doesn’t make sense to carry those loans, yay or nay, but those are understandable loan amounts. Student loans at 7% interest, I think we can still maybe refinance those private loans down and probably get a better rate. There’s a bunch of tools that you can use online to find better rates between all the servicers and then the mortgage at 4.25%, yeah, for having this conversation six months ago we’re like let’s refinance, let’s get out of the FHA and do a conventional. We have at least 26% or 28% of equity in the home, so that wouldn’t have PMI on another loan. With the FHA, that PMI stays on for the life of the loan and if we were to refinance right now we’d end up with a worse rate.

The conversation with the mortgage would be how serious are we about getting another house? Are we going to be able to keep it as a rental? I think, the math doesn’t really work out too well for that, because there’s only about $200 of gap between what they’re paying on their mortgage right now. If we were to refinance that gap would even shrink. But how much is it going to cost to refinance from a funding fee or any points we have to pay? How much are we going to save on a monthly rate? Are we going to reset our amortization? We are going to start back at 30 or are we going to stay basically the 26 or 25 years that we have remaining on our loan since about 2018?

We can run those numbers and say, “If we keep this house for another five years, then it doesn’t make sense. Let’s just keep our 4.5 to 5%.” But if we know we’re going to leave within the next three years, because we’re going to grow our family farther and maybe we want to get into a better school district before we start getting Lucy towards that school age, which is a really common conversation, then maybe the math does start to work out well. We could still refi now get away from that PMI and then the math is going to flush out better. That’s really just a conversation that involves a bunch of steps of what are we really think we want to do with our life, what do we really think the math says, and what decisions does that lead us to. That’s really the power of financial planning is that process of planning.

[00:23:47] TB: Yeah, yeah. So much it’s not say about the plan, it’s about the act of planning. I think, it’s an interesting conversation to have, because in this particular case they think they can get $2800 a month as a rental, right now their mortgage is 2600, they’re paying that on a 30-year, four and a quarter. Probably when we wrote this out, four and a quarter was actually a higher rate, but if you can get that down and get rid of the PMI maybe you’re delta between what you can rent and what your mortgage would be, there’s a lot more. The other argument is because inventories are so low in a lot of different parts of the country, probably Dallas included, maybe the rent you can get is not 2800, maybe it’s 3032, I don’t know, but those would be some of the things that I want to dive a little bit deeper.

For some people, too, it’s like, “What’s the catalyst behind renting it out?” If it is from a wealth building perspective, maybe your point the math says, maybe sell it and roll it into your new home and minimize expenses on that. Maybe with Jason, maybe part of his idea in terms of shifting careers is more along the lines of supplement in his new career with real estate or something like that, and maybe an effort to diversify income. But to your point, I think it’s just like the PSLF discussion. I think it’s having a conversation that is supported with the emotional, but also the math in terms of what it looks like, and because things change, it seems like all the time with markets and interest rates and home values and rental, all that stuff, it constantly changes. I think having a little bit more of a clarifying discussion.

Kelly, if we assume that we’re going to go down the PSLF route and we’re really trying to make sure that the investments are buttoned up and really the cash is deployed in the most optimized sense, we’re looking at with this particular client would we say about $130,000 in cash between check in savings and the CD they have. So if we look at – we think would be in an emergency fund and how we would set up their investments. What are some opportunities for this excess of cash and what they can potentially do with that? What’s your take on that, if they’re asking, hey, because one of the things that we’re hearing from real clients is like, “Hey, with the forbearance we haven’t been paying towards our loans and we know that that’s good, but it’s also a bad thing because that cash is just sitting there not really doing anything.” If you’re looking at things travel or transition, or a mom fund, how would you approach the client in terms of trying to deconstruct what to do with this cash?

[00:26:23] KRH: I do think and I’m not sure if I’ll answer the question specifically, but I think it is indirectly related. It does really help to earmark those large portions of cash. So what is the emergency fund like we say six months, those necessary expenses, mortgage, student loan payment, car payments, from there, the travel budget really tying in a specific amount to a specific goal is very important. Then once you see what that looks like that is a much better view of what’s left. I guess in terms of debt, I would take a look at, is it paying off the private loan? We get asked that a lot. Invest versus private loan, I would see about a refi rate versus just paying it off directly.

In terms of the wealth-building, there are certainly a lot of opportunities if you’re pursuing a PSLF option to really look at how much is being contributed into the 403 B, it’s well under the limit of 20,500 for 2022. Jason’s going into the Roth side, he’s not at the maximum either, so looking at that contribution rate. Now with Lucy, I guess asking the question, is Lucy on Lauren’s health insurance or Jason’s? If she can be on Lauren’s, that HSA amount increases substantially as well to over $7,000.

Those would be the places where that’s always a great conversation with PSLF is, what else can you be doing? So not only are you not paying the student loan, you’re not having to put that money towards a payment amount, but then you’re also building wealth on the back end towards your savings capacity.

[00:28:14] TB: What do you guys typically see or what do you typically recommend in for an average client like this in terms of our emergency fund, are we saying emergency fund is 80,000 10,000? If you had to do a roundabout guess in terms of what you’re seeing in terms of an average emergency fund, what would you say you’re seeing?

[00:28:32] RL: Yeah. I like to break cash down to pure ratios. My checking accounts, I like to have a floor. Everybody resets their zero when they’re making it in life, right? When you’re in high school and college, maybe it’s zero, dollars is to zero. When you make a little bit of money, it’s a thousand bucks and it’s 10,000 bucks you want to have that feels like your real “Oh, no” moment. There we go. So I like to see 1.5 X, so one and a half times your monthly expenses in your checking account, that’s just to make sure you never overdraft, you never do anything crazy, from a savings account perspective, we always hear that 36 months for two people, if they’re both in very secure jobs, I think three months is going to be good enough. That’s generally going to be long enough for long-term disability to kick in depending on the plan, if it’s got a 90-day or 180-day exclusion period.

If we’re thinking that maybe there’s going to be some career change opportunity happening, then I’d like to be closer to six months of net expenses, I definitely want to be closer to that and you can decide if that’s just fixed expenses or if it’s all expenses. People are generally really bad at judging out what their expenses are for monthly basis, so I just take all expenses and make that our emergency savings. So for a client this, I think that we’re just going to need to have 60 grand kinda set aside. They’re spending about 10K a month between fixed and variable expenses. If we want six months, so that’s in 60K in an emergency savings wouldn’t be about right for them.

[00:29:50] TB: Yeah. That’s about half of what the cash that they have on hand, thereabouts. I think typically and it would probably be in a traditional case if Lauren and Jason were saying like, “Hey, we’re good with these jobs, more than likely they’re probably pretty secure. It might be half of that, but I think to account for some of the transition and give them some runway, if he does take a step back in salary, it makes a lot of sense.

I’m with you, Kelly. I personally like the idea of setting up a high-yield savings account that is called an emergency fund. Set in a high yield savings account or sub-accounts, that’s called travel. Our travel fund at Ally has sub-accounts that is like RV camping trips, Paris, which we just got back from our big trip this year, is Disney World, right? The idea is that we have goals for each of them, we turn that off and then we go on to the next thing. So we nerd out a little bit and get very granular with that and I think it does help, because it pushes the goals. Sometimes I think, if you have a big pot of money, you’re doing some of the earmarking already, but it’s a little bit more nebulous. Where it’s like, “Oh, okay. I think some of this is for X, some of this is for Y.

If you’re going to do that anyway, just actually do the accounting. That’s not everyone’s cup of tea, I get it. Sometimes it’s more percentages or things like that, but I think sometimes that’s one of the beauty of like a 401K or an IRA is that when you save money, do your 401K and all make that comes out of your paycheck, but for you to reach into that cookie jar and get that money out, there’s a lot of penalties, 10%, you pay taxes and things like that. At least from a savings perspective, we’re labeling it, and we have a goal set up that if I rob the Disney World account to go buy a Tesla, I’m going through that, at least mental barrier to do that.

I’m a proponent of building a savings plan and drawing those lines. Let’s talk about one thing that we haven’t talked about too much in depth is just the investments. When you look at are they saving enough right now, 5%, 7% for Lauren, and Jason respectively, they do get a match, target date funds 80-20 allocation for Lauren and Jason respectively. They have a taxable account, it’s a Robinhood account that he’s doing, individual stocks, ETFs. What’s your overall impression, Kelly, of the investment account? Then let’s talk about the retirement stuff and then we’ll pivot and we’ll talk about the education stuff. Kelly, what’s your take when you look at their investments?

[00:32:14] KRH: Right, I mean, sometimes target date funds are the best option in an employer-sponsored plan, but that would be the first place I would look to see what are the fees for the target date funds? Does it match Lauren’s risk tolerance and appropriate asset allocation and see if there’s a portfolio that can be developed that would be better? Again, sometimes that’s not the case.

As far as Jason, I guess I would be wondering if the 80-20 asset allocation was appropriate for his age and if maybe he should be taking on a little bit more risk now, of course, we’d be looking at his score and having that conversation from the risk tolerance as far as just in general with the taxable accounts too. I think one of the lessons from the tax season is just that these do have an impact on our tax liability, which can sometimes be a surprise at the end of the year. I think it’s always good to check in on just having that conversation, how does this fit with overall goals and what you want to accomplish and making sure just some high level facts.

The IRS is now having the conversation about cryptocurrencies, like, know what to expect, wash sales. All those pieces that individual investors really do need to take into account as they’re thinking through how they manage those. Would it be better somewhere else too.

[00:33:48] TB: Yeah. I mean, one of the things that I would call out here is in the fact, pattern. Jason’s doing $200 into his Robinhood account, so $2400. I would just ask a question like what’s it for? Sometimes the answer is like, “I don’t know, just to mess around.” Which is fine, but is that worth maybe deferring, should we earmark this for the transaction fund or for X, Y, or Z? The other thing that they’re probably doing that they don’t necessarily need to do, because they have the cash is they’re putting $500 into a joint account. They’re probably set there. Maybe we redeploy that into a travel fund or a mom fund or something like that, but I would agree with you, target date funds might be okay, might not be the most cost effective or align best with the risk tolerance.

You could argue with Jason being 33 in 80-20 allocation, 20% in bonds, might not be the best. Is there an opportunity to invest the HSA, right now it’s sitting on cash. She has 5,000, she’s contributing another 3,650, might be up to be to get that rolling and then maybe cash flow some health expenses. With a baby coming up maybe they don’t stay in a high-deductible health plan and maybe they switch over for that year, which turns off the HSA. All of these things I think are on the table. Robert, as you look at the education, so we see this a lot. Lauren and Jason are basically saying like, “We want to save for Lucy’s education, she’s six months old.” Sometimes people go behind even at six months old, but don’t know where to start. They’re in Dallas Texas. How would you start that conversation of how to approach the college savings conversation?

[00:35:23] RL: Yeah. Anybody who’s got student loans, wants to make sure that their children don’t have the same problems and issues that they have. So it’s a really common thing of, “What can we be doing and when should we be doing it.” With 529’s college savings accounts, those are probably going to be your best bet in most places, unless they’re both alumni of a particular school and that school has some prepaid credit options where you can actually pay for college credits now and they’ll be matched whatever they are in the future. That would be an option. But for the most part, 529 savings plans is where is at.

Now in other states you get a discount on your state taxes for that. Texas does not have any state taxes or income, so they can choose any 529. There’s some great ones out there. Some of my favorite ones actually have a feature that allows you to send a link to family, so then family can send money to the 529 as well. So that’s a great way to go about as well. Even if you just set that account up. I guarantee, I have a nine month old here in the house and they have way too many toys and people are going to start sending them more toys for the next six months, so instead of just sending out a 529 plan link to somebody that they can give $50 to the education savings account instead, which is better than having a little plastic drum in behind you in a video, so you can make noises or memes. That’s a great way to go about it, but really anything they do now is going to be beneficial.

We’re never sure what the college landscape’s going to look like in the future. Highly unlikely that it’s going to stay on the same trajectory that it’s at now, that would be completely untenable. But just getting something going and then allowing other family members to contribute so then, they can also feel like they’re involved in Lucy’s life. This maybe the first grandchild, this could be the first nephew, the first cousins to be the first of many or the first of only. We really want to make sure that everyone can be included.

[00:37:01] TB: Yeah, it’s so true. It’s like the war on plastic. I feel like Liam had so many cars and things like that. He doesn’t need any more of that stuff, so here’s a link and contribute to a gift that way. I think one of the places I would start even before get into that vehicle and to your point with them being in Texas where there is no state income tax, and you can do this in any state, but a lot of the time, if you’re a resident of Ohio, you’re going to contribute to Ohio’s. If you’re resident of Maryland, you’re going to contribute to Maryland’s, because they give tax benefit for that, but not all 529s are created equal. So you have different expenses and things like that. So you definitely want to make sure that you’re finding a plan that all things being equal has good investments, low cost, that type of thing.

I think probably one of the things that I would least start the conversation and sometimes it’s like, I don’t know, it’s like, what’s the goal? I’ve seen the spectrum, Robert, where it’s like, well, I’ve had to deal with my student loan, so my kid has to figure that out as well to like, what you said is I never want my kid to have to go through this. To me, it’s deconstructing, what is the goal? Most of the time when I feel when I ask that question of, what’s the goal with the planning for your kid’s education, it’s a shrug emoji, not really sure. But then sometimes we paint a little a picture of, so we talked about the one third rule in prior podcasts.

One third could be, you say even something like a 529, one third of tuition of this could be from when Lucy is 18 and you’re basically paying tuition out of your present paycheck. Then one third could be from things like grants, scholarships. Then last but not least, student loans. So you attack it that way. So if you’re trying to achieve a funding goal, 33% in your 529, you can work with an advisor and try to figure out what that is. But I think it’s having that conversation and get, I know some clients are like, I want to put my kid through four years of college, master’s, doctorate. Then that’s obviously a much bigger monthly amount that they have to save for, but. the earlier you do, the better because if not, if you’re still trying to achieve that, you’re paying that much, much more in future dollars without the benefit of it being able to invest in compound. I think it’s a worthy conversation is build out that part of the plan.

Any other call outs that you would say as you’re looking at this particular couple, the Joneses, is that either from a tax perspective, a cash, a debt, a wealth protection with insurance that you would say, “Hey, this is probably something that we really need to talk about.” I mean, I think probably the one that we didn’t dive too deep in is, what is the future prospects of a supplemental income?

She makes it seem here that she can increase it fairly substantially, but then also probably the other thing that I would want to talk more about is just what’s the situation with mom? What’s that timeline? What’s that look like? How are we going to prepare for that? Is that something that we’re looking at in terms of the next home purchase, which again is probably another point of conversation is, what’s the timeline for that? What’s your guys take on that?

[00:40:08] KRH: I mean, I think right, the housing we just had a recent conversation with a client about their next house. They were thinking through about having room for a parent or both sets of parents. I think when we do the estate planning conversation, it is always interesting how a lot of times it does come up about parents and their needs too, so making sure they have documents in place that are here and that you have a good understanding of expectations is really important, because it is a lot of work to take care of a child and a parent at the same time. The more clarity you can have, the better for sure. I would say that’s pretty important. Do they need long-term care insurance? Do they have it? What resources do they have available to help you help them in the process?

[00:41:01] TB: Yeah, absolutely. How about you, Robert, any other closing thoughts?

[00:41:04] RL: Yeah. I don’t know if we touched on the professional liability. I think that’s a big one. We’re getting that policy in place, the hospitals protecting her when she’s at work, but definitely not when she’s doing her supplemental income job. Even if the hospitals protecting her, they’re really protecting themselves, so it’s really important to have a policy of your own. These policies are very inexpensive relative to some other stuff for paying, so I think that that going out and getting professional liability policy would be easy and quick and a good solution.

[00:41:31] TB: Yeah. I mean, I think there’s some more to be done on the wealth protection stuff with the estate documents, probably be looking at some of the life insurance, maybe disability. Yeah, professional liability, low hanging fruit. I definitely probably in down the road if they are looking at a rental property and probably and one of the things that we haven’t called out here that we typically see with a lot of our clients, they have kids, they don’t take advantage of all the things available to them at IE like FSA for dependent care. If that’s something that we’re spending money on with Lucy, so probably some help with taxes in the future, perhaps, especially if they’re looking at a PSLF now you could argue with Texas, there’s no state income tax you really just need help with the federal.

As you’re looking at maybe a rental property and another baby PSLF and you feel you’re missing out on deductions and you’re owing that money, maybe some proactive planning around that as the financial situation becomes more complex is something that you might want to get a helping hand with. But yeah, good stuff, guys. We’ll leave it there. We really appreciate the conversation, looking forward to doing many more of these in the future. Yeah, thanks for doing this today.

[00:42:37] RL: Yeah, enjoy it Tim.

[00:42:38] KRH: All right, thanks, Tim.

[END OF EPISODE]

[00:42:41] ANNOUNCER: Before we wrap up today’s show, let’s hear an important message from our sponsor Insuring Income. If you are in the market to add own occupation disability insurance, term life insurance or both, Insuring Income would love to be your resource. Insuring Income has relationships with all of the high-quality disability insurance and life insurance carriers you should be considering and can help you design coverage to best protect you and your family. Head on over to insuranceincome.com/yourfinancialpharmacist or click on their link in the show notes to request quotes, ask a question, or start down your own path of learning more about this necessary protection.

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YFP 252: One Pharmacist’s Journey in Entrepreneurship and Independent Pharmacy

Posted on April 21, 2022November 2, 2022 by yfpadmin

One Pharmacist’s Journey in Entrepreneurship and Independent Pharmacy

On this episode, sponsored by Splash Financial, Emlah Tubuo, the owner and pharmacist in charge at Powell Pharmacy & founder of Emlah Naturals, a pharmaceutical-grade supplement line, shares why she decided to start her own business, the challenges she has had to overcome in starting and running a business, and how she defines personal and professional success.

About Today’s Guest

Emlah Tubuo, the owner and pharmacist in charge at Powell Pharmacy, arrived in the United States in August 2003 with $300.00 to her name. Prior to earning her PharmD in 2010 from The Ohio State University College of Pharmacy, Emlah Tubuo earned a BS in Microbiology from the University of Buea Cameroon, and an MS in Molecular Biology from Chicago State University. She has lived and studied in both a developed country and the developing African third world country of Cameroon. Her difficult early life experiences had an immense impact on her life perspective.

Emlah served as an Ambulatory Care Pharmacist for Nationwide Children’s Hospital, and previously, worked as a pharmacist with the Kroger Chain for 8 years. Her quest for work-life balance and her strong desire to be an emotionally available parent to her three children and wife to her husband drive her passion for opening Powell Pharmacy and founding Emlah Naturals. While living and working in her birth country of Cameroon, Emlah suffered from numerous preventable diseases such as Malaria, Typhoid Fever and Dysentery, which kept her out of school several times. This gives her intense respect for disease prevention through immunizations. She led her pharmacy team to immunize hundreds of patients in 2016 and earned national recognition from The Kroger Co. by ranking among the top 1 percent of immunization community pharmacies out of over 2,100 sites. Additionally, Emlah developed her pharmacy team to provide Medication Therapy Management (MTM) and led her pharmacy to rank in the top five pharmacies in Columbus Ohio for MTM claims billed for four consecutive years.

Emlah was featured in the October 2017 edition of the National Chain Drug Review in the “Excellence in Rx” feature. She has earned multiple awards for her efforts as a Kroger pharmacist including Leader in Patient Care in 2016 and Outstanding Mentor in 2017 from the Kroger Columbus Division. She is an active member of the Ohio Pharmacists Association and serves on the Practice Advancement and Innovation committee. In 2016 she received the Preceptor of the Year Award from the OSU College of Pharmacy. Emlah Tubuo is the recipient of the 2018 Ohio Pharmacist Association Distinguished Young Pharmacist Award and the Ohio State University Josephine Sitterle Failer Alumni Award which recognizes an alumnus who has made outstanding contributions to the community or professional service. She serves on the Alumni Board of Governors of the OSU College of Pharmacy.

Her respect for diverse viewpoints, integrity hard work, and resilience make her the passionate pharmacist-owner at Powell Pharmacy and the founder of Emlah Naturals, a pharmaceutical-grade supplement line. The concept of Emlah Naturals® was born out of a desire to not only provide superior quality supplements but more importantly to provide valuable information regarding the intelligent, individualized selection of these supplements. Supplement selection is based on individual needs, careful consideration of the mechanism of action, handling by the body, and any possible drug interactions, and education on drug-induced nutrient depletions.

Episode Summary

Pharmacists are experts in human health, medication, and dispensing medication their patients need. However, sometimes prescriptions merely treat the symptom of an underlying health issue and not the source of the health problem. Pharmacists have a unique skill set and opportunity to educate patients on lifestyle changes they can make in addition to medication to become healthier. Education and health optimizations are the drive and passion of pharmacist and business owner, Emlah Tubuo, who aims to educate the public on the benefits of using natural supplements and lifestyle changes in combination with medication to remedy underlying health issues. Her passion centers around people and providing personalized care and advice to suit their needs. Emlah is the owner and pharmacist in charge at Powell Pharmacy, founder of Emlah Naturals, and is an accomplished and respected pharmacist. Her personal and professional journeys will inspire and motivate the listener. In today’s episode, you will hear why Emlah decided to start her own business, Emlah Naturals. Emlah shares her inspiring path to become a pharmacist, the many challenges she has experienced as a business owner, what she has learned during the pandemic, how she has become an authority in her field and community, and her definition of personal and professional success.

Key Points From This Episode

Emlah’s professional background and training.
How Emlah was able to study abroad to further her career.
The first job Emlah had after graduating and what her role was.
Highlights of Emlah’s approach to pharmacy and health care.
What motivated Emlah to start her own business.
The first steps Emlah took when starting her business.
Tim and Emlah discuss when the best time is to start a business.
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the business and lessons learned.
How Emlah keeps motivated to do her best every day.
We find out more about Emlah’s new business, Emlah Naturals.
Why people should implement lifestyle changes along with taking medication.
What Emlah’s definition of success is, both personally and professionally.

Highlights

“If there’s anything we can do which is beyond prescriptions to take care of them, that’s really my focus and that’s what I encourage my team to do.” — Emlah Tubuo [0:07:39]

“If my worst-case scenario is going back to work at the previous job that I had, that’s fine. Have I impacted people along the way? That is my definition of success. That’s my definition of my life as a pharmacist.” — Emlah Tubuo [0:11:53]

“In this past three years, I have learned more than the past 30 years of my life put together because every day is a different challenge.” — Emlah Tubuo [0:14:22]

“I am always a student, I am always learning and that is what all of us should do. If you are not learning, if you’re not growing, you’re dying.” — Emlah Tubuo [0:17:13]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:00.4] TU: Hey everybody, Tim Ulbrich here and thank you for listening to The YFP Podcast, where each week, we strive to inspire and encourage you on your path towards achieving financial freedom.

This week, I had a chance to sit down with Emlah Tubuo, the owner and pharmacist in charge at Powell Pharmacy and founder of Emlah Naturals, a pharmaceutical grade supplement mind. A few of my favorite moments from the show include, hearing from Emlah of why she decided to make the leap to start her own business after practicing as a community and ambulatory care pharmacist for nearly a decade, the challenges and “failures” she has had to overcome in starting and running a business, the “why” behind her business ventures and how she, despite numerous accolades and recognitions, defines personal and professional success.

Before we hear from today’s sponsor and then jump into the show, I recognize that many listeners may not be aware of what the team at YFP planning does in working one-on-one with more than 240 household in 40 plus states. YFP planning offers fee only, high-touch financial planning that is customized for the pharmacy professional.

If you’re interested in learning more about working one-on-one with a certified financial planner may help you achieve your financial goals, you can book a free discovery call at yfpplanning.com. Whether or not YFP Planning’s financial planning services are a good fit for you, know that we appreciate your support of this podcast and our mission to help pharmacists achieve financial freedom.

Okay, let’s hear from today’s sponsor and then we’ll jump into my interview with Emlah.

[SPONSOR MESSAGE]

This episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast is sponsored by Splash Financial. With interest rates on the rise, it’s a good time to evaluate the refinancing of your student loans, if you’ve ever considered refinancing your loans, check your rate now through Splash Financial. If you qualify, refinancing could help you get a lower monthly payment on your student loans or get a lower interest rate.

Splash helps you shop and compare loan refinancing offers across lenders nationwide. Browsing rates through Splash Financial is fast, free and won’t impact your credit until you complete a full application. Now, when you successfully refinance $50,000 or more, Splash Financial will give you an extra $500 in cash bonus, using our link, splashfinancial.com/yfp. So check your rate today and see what you might be able to save at splashfinancial.com/yfp.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:17.3] TU: Emlah, welcome to the show.

[0:02:18.7] ET: Thank you Tim, thanks for having me. I am excited to be here.

[0:02:23.3] TU: Well, I am too. I’m excited to dig into your pharmacy career as well as your entrepreneurial journey in the inner section of those two things. We had a chance to connect briefly this past weekend at the OPA, Ohio Pharmacist Association annual meeting, that was such a treat and I’m really excited to introduce you further to the YFP community. Before we jump in to the entrepreneurial journey where I want to spend most of our time, tell us more about what drew you into the profession of pharmacy and where you did your pharmacy training.

[0:02:51.4] ET: You know, I originally hail from Cameron, West Africa and what happened is, I would be, I would volunteer at these WHO clinics and these clinics run by the Baptist Health Center that I live near and we had missionaries come in. We had some ladies who were pharmacists come form North America and I just adored them.

When the physicians or the nurses that work with them at this clinics, when they ask them any question about a medication, they spit the answer right out. And I thought to myself, “How do these ladies know about all those medications?” and this I speak of is like a charitable pharmacy where all the medications are donated with different names from different countries.

These ladies could tell you, “If we don’t have this medication in stock, let’s use this other one” or “This patient, they need this one” and they just amaze me and I started talking with them about how to become a pharmacist and there is no pharmacy school in Cameron. This was when I was in high school going to undergrad and I started researching and thinking of how I could be able to leave Cameron and go study pharmacy in their country.

That’s really what turned it around for me, those missionaries who were pharmacist and just working with their hearts, not just practicing pharmacy but influencing people around them.

[0:04:08.3] TU: That experience through the WHO and those folks that were there, helping to serve, tell us about the connection and we cross paths at the Ohio State University College of Pharmacy where we both have connections, you from your pharmacy training, me from my residency training. You’ve obviously precepted in and stay connected with OSU throughout your degree thus far as well but tell us more than about that connection of, “Okay, I see the role that a pharmacist can play” and then, what work you did ultimately start your undergraduate work and then go onto pharmacy school?

[0:04:38.4] ET: Yeah, it is all about consistency. That’s one word that has carried me on and it’s something that I share with everybody that’s around me. I started applying out, there is no space to take the B-cut in Cameron. So, the only way to come out of Cameron was to apply for a masters program in molecular genetics and that’s how I went to Chicago, did my masters there and during my master’s program, I started applying to colleges or pharmacies around the country. So that’s how I got to Ohio State with basically almost no money to make it out here, drove from Chicago, came to Columbus for the interview, I fell in love with Ohio State.

As soon as I was accepted, this became home for me. Ohio State is my base and I just got the mentors, people embraced me. Being in a foreign place with nobody, no family around, you know nobody. You walk in and the professors, Dr. Hill, Dr. Bracket, Dr. Rodis, they just loved me and took me like their own. This is really what they said, “You know what Emlah? You are in the right space. This is not only about pharmacy, this is about life.”

[0:05:47.5] TU: I love that Emlah and those names resonate with me, Dr. Kent Hill, Dr. Carrie Bracket, Dr. Jen Rodis, folks that have had such a positive impact on my life, I would suspect, if we have any Buckeyes that are listening, those names would resonate as well.

You graduate from OSU, you got some great mentors that are supporting you in this journey. Tell us more about the first job that you had after graduating and the work that you did in that job?

[0:06:11.8] ET: During my time at OSU, I had an absolute, wonderful help from people around to connect with. I worked at Kroger as an intern and so, with Kroger Health, I worked at almost ever Kroger store that existed at Central Columbus, so I turned out to make all those connections partially because I needed money from the overtime and because I was trying to broaden my base. Every time I work with the pharmacist, I work with you and I will make sure that I get your style of working, how you interact with patients.

My time at Kroger was wonderful, it was foundational because I did so much more than dispensing at Kroger, that I found my calling. I said, “You know what? There is a lot more to health than prescriptions” and Kroger was leading the way in immunizations, medication therapy management.

I jumped onto that and I looked at every patient coming to me and I said, “This patient is not just coming to pickup a medication, they need something more” and I worked with my team to become the top immunizing pharmacy in the Kroger Columbus division and that was a beautiful journey. It just brought the team together, changed the culture of the team when there’s so much burnout and stress in the pharmacy world around now.

That’s how my passion grew and connected with other people who are focusing on a lot more than dispensing because I believe dispensing brings people to the pharmacy. Patients come to pick up medications but nobody wakes up and goes, “I love Metformin, I want to go pickup Metformin because I want to take Metformin” They’re coming for health. If there’s anything we can do which is beyond prescriptions to take care of them, that’s really my focus and that’s what I encourage my team to do.

[0:07:46.7] TU: So, you spend about a decade in community pharmacy, some time in the inventory care practice as well and then you make the decision to open up Powell Pharmacy in the Columbus Ohio area. Tell us more about, you know, we talk about that with business owners and I think sometimes it’s hard to remember that big moment, that decision, that leap of faith and so, take us back to that point in time of what led to, “Hey, I want to do my own thing” and then ultimately, what took you across that line to actually get started?

[0:08:15.4] ET: You know, it’s hard to find that one moment that made that decision. Coming from Cameron like I said earlier where there are no chain pharmacies, so my background is, a pharmacist works in a hospital or a pharmacist owns an independent pharmacy. That’s what I knew growing up as a child and all through going through pharmacy school at the Ohio State University, I’m thinking, “You know, it’s kind of different.” When I walk into a chain pharmacy, I go today and they don’t recognize me, I got to next day later on.

Nothing against chain pharmacies because that was me for 10 years and that is – the most wonderful people you will find behind the counter taking care of our health but I just wanted to practice pharmacy a little different. I just wanted to do something beyond dispensing. To be able to take it one step further and I kept – you know, the fear of making a big decision and I started, I said, “You know what Emlah? Maybe I need an MBA to be able to open my own pharmacy.”

I started reading into that. I started looking at about a ton of books, I bought about 30 books and started reading. I started reading and I said, “You know what? With all these student loans, I don’t know, should I add and MBA and get more student loan onto this?” and that fear going back and forth and then, when I transitioned from Kroger and went to Nationwide Children’s Hospital and practicing in the Ambulatory Care space there. A lot of things, including having my own children, I do have three children.

Balancing pharmacy, mom and I said, “I can continue to postpone this and postpone it and there will never be that right moment” but at the back, I just felt that talk to keep going, “You know what? I really want to practice pharmacy the way I saw it growing up” to bring back the old style where I could relate with a patient and have a little bit more time to address all the needs and I said, when I’m most at children’s pharmacy and I say, “This might be the time.” I was working the night shift there and it kind of played with my balance as a mom.

I said, “Maybe this is the time to make that shift” and fear, going back and forth with that decision and I said, “You know what? If I’m going to fail, let me fail fast. Let me just go in and get it done and we will see how it works. If it doesn’t work, I’m going to come back to Kroger or I’m going to come back to Nationwide Children’s Hospital but guess what’s going to happen? I’m going to put in every single effort that I have in this body and it’s going to work” and so, the leap of faith.

[0:10:41.3] TU: I love that, I think a couple of things I heard there, “If I’m going to fail, I’m going to fail fast” right? I’m going to fail forward and really evaluating what is the worst-case scenario and I think for many pharmacists you know, we think about worse case scenario in a way that is unrealistic. There’s not many professionals that you can say, “Hey, my worst case scenario is I go back to a job that pays a six figure salary” that’s a really good worst case scenario, right?

[0:11:05.6] ET: That is. Tim, like you mentioned, a good worst case scenario with the connections because, one of the books I was telling you all these books that I was reading, one of the books that I read that made an impact was the E Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. He said, you know, nobody is interested in a commodity.

People buy failings. People buy relationships, people buy connections and that is in every space, especially in the pharmacy space and I always link it. Nobody wakes up and goes, “I would like to go and buy a medication.” People buy health, people want to feel better, people come to you and I as pharmacists in this space to feel better about themselves to live better.

What can we do as pharmacists to connect that? If my worst case scenario is going back to work at the previous job that I had, that’s fine. Have I impacted people along the way? That is my definition of success.

[0:12:05.3] TU: I love that.

[0:12:05.5] ET: That’s my definition of my life as a pharmacist.

[0:12:09.5] TU: Yes. And the other thing you said that it really resonate with me there is, there may never be “the right moment” right? I think of – you know, it could be student loans, it could be a young family, it could be other prioritizing other financial goal. There’s so many things that can get in the way and kind of reminds me of, I’ve got four boys, you mentioned three children. There’s never a right time to have a baby or to have a child and –

[0:12:33.5] ET: Absolutely Tim, yes.

[0:12:35.1] TU: I think it can be similar with business that if we wait for all the stars to align, we might be looking back at a point in time and wondering, “What if? What if, what would have been?”

[0:12:41.9] ET: Absolutely, should I have done it? Should I have done it at that time or maybe this was the right time to do it or when? You name all those factors, it’s a compounding effect.

[0:12:51.8] TU: Yes.

[0:12:52.3] ET: You put it and then when the baby is here, guess what? We’re going to have to take care of this baby, Tim. We’re going to figure out how to, we have never learned how to change a diaper before, we’re going to change it. This is how I practice pharmacy, I relate it to being a mother and I tell my patients, “I am a great pharmacist because I’m a great mother and I’m a great mother because I’m a great pharmacist” and I’m not saying great because I know how to do the parenting thing right but this is because every day, I put in my 100%. Some days I feel like that 100% is equal to 0% but I put it in regardless.

[0:13:24.8] TU: Yeah, I love it and figure it out mentality and the factor. So April 2019, you opened a business and not even a year later, we’ve got the pandemic that obviously, hits us close. It has had such an impact on small businesses, certainly new businesses, arguably to a greater degree.

Tell us about what impact the pandemic had on the business, on you as a business owner and then, what were some things that you were able to learn through perhaps a difficult time that have allowed you to grow as an individual and a business owner.

[0:13:57.7] ET: Talk about timing, Tim. Talk about timing and I kept reminding myself, I said, “Emlah, it is about the impact that you are going to have for the people around you.” It is about the impact. Once the pandemic hit, I said, “Oh my goodness, I have not figured out what I’m doing” Every day, I learn more, opening the pharmacy. I tell people, the pharmacy has been open for two and a half years now, almost three here and I said, “In this past three years, I have learned more than the past 30 years of my life put together because every day is a different challenge.”

I could either put my head on the pillow and cry or I could face it and I say, you know, the fastest way through a storm is going right through it every single time and this pandemic was a hit in the face. I said, “Oh my goodness, what did I just do?” and such is life, Tim, such is life. To me, as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, as a mother, I’m going through opening a business in the pandemic and navigating how to continue to stay present in the community and I said, refer back to what started, what made you Tim to open Your Financial Pharmacist?

YFP is here and it has impacted so many people. Myself included, I look up to you. The inspiration, are you doing what you set out to do? Are you inspiring the people around you? I keep asking myself that question, every single day, “Emlah, are you making the impact with everybody that you cross paths with? Are their lives better because they crossed paths with you, are their lives better because they came in to Powell Pharmacy? Are their lives better because they came into contact with me or with my business?” That is really the drive. My why, why, why did I start this?

[0:15:35.8] TU: Yeah, and I think as I’ve observed Emlah, you know, the work that you’ve done from a far and being in Central Ohio and hearing through many shared connections that the great work that you’re doing. One of the things I observed is you know, I’m looking at in preparation of this interview, an article that you have in the Columbus Dispatch where you reference, you’ve been in various videos and interviews and media outlets in Columbus throughout the pandemic about vaccine services and other thing you’ve been working on. I feel like it’s a great example of turning some of the challenges into opportunity.

You’ve really positioned yourself as a voice of authority on community pharmacists and the importance of pharmacy in a community here in Central Ohio and so, what a great, great thing as we think about the challenges of small business in the pandemic and obviously, the impact we know pharmacists have had and the positive impact they’ve had throughout the pandemic but to really position yourself as that voice of authority I think was really, a cool thing to watch. Congratulations, I think to you and obviously the team that’s been involved in moving that forward.

[0:16:31.8] ET: Thank you Tim. You say that and you mentioned being that voice but during this space and during this time, those doubts, that difficulty and my message to the YFP community is that when I mentioned earlier that I left Cameron and I came here, my breach to the PharmD program was to do a masters in molecular genetics and all that while I kept telling myself, “Oh my goodness” You know that little voice inside, “Oh, what a waste of your two years, what a waste of your two years”, you know?

My message is, everybody, and I tell this to my children, they’re still little but no time is spent as a waste if I spend this minute with you. I am always a student, I am always learning and that is what all of us should do. If you are not learning, if you’re not growing, you’re dying. That’s what we need to continue to do and I learned so much during this pandemic. I used the time and my knowledge of molecular genetics, who knew that that will come in handy? In fact as to be able to make a video and talk about MRI vaccinations and how because there was so much doubt when the vaccines came out.

I did a video that would inspire people and people would really understand how they work and this new type of vaccines as, “Is it really new, you know? Is it going to hurt, me, is it going to help me?” You see how pharmacy and what I have done during this days, I tell you Tim, if you look at the people that I surround myself with, I surround myself with great pharmacists. I surround myself with like minded pharmacists, I surround myself with people like you.

People who will inspire me to do more and then people said, “Well, Emlah, you’re a wonderful pharmacist, you should see my friends, you should see my team” That’s – I’m just a reflection of them and that’s the beautiful thing about life.

[0:18:13.0] TU: So powerful, I felt that this weekend, you know, at OPA, being around you, being around Adam Martin, Being around folks like Jen Rodis and other people.

[0:18:20.2] ET: Oh my goodness, the energy.

[0:18:22.1] TU: Such a great point. Yeah, the energy, the enthusiasm, the accountability, the challenging, so powerful. Emlah, you talk about some of these doubts, some of these voices and I want to spend a moment here because as a small business owner myself, those are certainly things that I have experienced and have had to work through and have other challenge me and keep me accountable.

I know many other pharmacists business owners are not. They have struggled with similar things as well. So my question here is what do you do practically to kind of get yourself in the right mindset, despite these challenges, despite some of these doubts or voices. You mentioned, you know, surrounding yourself with folks that really challenge you and keep you accountable and help move you forward.

What are some other things that you do practically as a business owner, as a mom, to really bring your best self forward each and every day?

[0:19:08.2] ET: I continue, Tim, every single day to remind myself where I started from and learning how to practically – I love the fact that you used the word practical there because we read all of these things in books each week, there’s a book already written about it. It is in the textbook, we learn about it, burnout, stress, you know making decisions but we are so hard on ourselves and we forget that just the little things will encourage us and encourage the people around us.

What I do is I am truly present every time. Say for example, I have somebody in front of me at the pharmacy. I, in this line of people, I focus on that person. I give my 100% to that person and I just ignore the line behind them because when it is your turn, I am going to be with them and I learned how to forgive myself for the past mistakes. I practice self-acceptance. It was really hard to do at first but I with three children, having to wake up in the morning, get them all ready.

Even when I worked at Kroger, I worked at Children’s, I would have to wake up in the morning like everybody else does, get myself ready, get the kids ready, drive, drop them off and then get to work. To be able to have a great morning routine, which will put me in that mind space and that mindset that will lead me to success throughout the day, it’s a challenge but I make sure that before the kids wake up, I have to have 10 minutes to myself where I refocus my energy.

I refocus my energy into myself and harness what’s inside because there is something inside each and every one of us. You know, to be there for yourself before you’re there for other people because I cannot come to you, everything, the beautiful, it’s amazing, everything is coming from inside of us, you know? You have to be kind to yourself and that’s why my mantra is we all struggle. Choose kindness, always.

You have to be kind to yourself and once you have filled yourself with that inner peace and kindness, it has no choice but to overflow into the spaces around you. Wellness and kindness are multidimensional Tim but this thought inside you, so I am grounded in the morning. I do my meditation and as much as I am distracted by the number of things on my to-do list for the day, I have a time where I say, “You know what bad energy? Get going, get the kids ready and revisit that happy moment.”

I have it with the kids, a happy moment like I was sharing with you during your talk. By the way Tim, what an amazing talk. That was amazing.

[0:21:35.7] TU: Thank you.

[0:21:36.6] ET: It spoke straight to me and just touching those practical things, I said to myself, I need to encourage myself to calm that fear because it will come. Fear will come every day, to calm me every day and to calm before my children and to calm before my team and all my colleagues because my goal is to inspire people to enjoy life. We have invested so much already into this.

Tell me your happy thought for the day, tell me your gratitude thought for the day and let’s keep it moving.

[0:22:00.8] TU: Yeah, it is starting with the state of mind. You know, we talked a little bit about that in the session but when I hear you talk about the morning mindset and the importance of self-care and filling your buckets, you can serve others. You know, whether that be your family, your patients and you have a gift. You talk about the person at your pharmacy regardless of what else is going on, focusing a 100% on them and you have a gift in doing that.

When someone talks with you one-on-one, you are fully invested in them and that is a rare trait and a gift and I can see why that has had such a positive impact on so many, whether that’s patients, whether that’s students that you are reaccepting and teaching, whether that’s folks that you are connecting within in the business community or family, what a gift to be able to share with others.

[0:22:42.8] ET: I am honored Tim. I am honored, thank you.

[0:22:45.0] TU: Yeah, so not only the pharmacy, which we could talk at length about the work that you are doing there, which is really incredible but you’ve also opened a second business, which is Emlah Naturals. So tell us a little bit more about the idea and vision behind that and what you’ve learned thus far through that experience or we’ll link to both Powell Pharmacy and Emlah Naturals in the show notes so folks can learn more.

[0:23:06.2] ET: Yes, so Tim, practicing as a pharmacist I see there is some spaces that we learn some of these things in school but to be able to take it and translate it too again, the what practical comes in. What practical changes, what things can I make? Because when we council patients, somebody comes and picks up their Metformin today, I give them the counseling points that I learned from school and everything.

Prior to saying that at school, we always learned through pharmacy school lifestyle changes, non-pharmacologic options. We mention that at the beginning of every counseling in addition to lifestyle changes, the Metformin is going to reduce your blood sugar and that’s as far as we go. We don’t focus on those lifestyle changes and that is key. That is the long term goal because there is a study that I always tell my students about, a navigator story.

Where they took like two drugs and they measured how much they will reduce people’s blood sugar and then reducing the effects or the long term effects of diabetes and lifestyle changes. Number one, every single time reduce the complications of diabetes more than the medication every time to combine those medications because people want to – nobody wakes up in the morning Tim and goes, “I am going to jeopardize my health today.”

“I am going to wake up and not eat better. I am just going to be mean to my health today” nobody wakes up and makes that decision consciously. We all want to do better. It is all coming from a great space. We all want to do better for our body, so when we come to the pharmacy and we are picking up medications, I have noticed that because my background having lived and studied in a third-world developing country and a developed country here, I bring a unique perspective on life and medicine and wellness to the table.

You know, from the economic challenges that I grew up with, my mom had a garden behind the house and we eat turmeric every day, it’s ginger every day, it’s mint, you know, it’s aloe every day for all the medications and even when I had malaria. I had malaria maybe 30 or 40 or 30 times, it’s you know, stayed out of school several times because of malaria, she would treat malaria. Sometimes we had Chloroquine but now we are doing that with Chloroquine is all the resistance but she would do everything lifestyle changes.

Just hydration, you know, all the herbs that she would do. I have that knowledge in me and then combine it with the clinical knowledge that I learned during my doctoral pharmacy studies at Ohio State. I said, “You know what? I think this is a space I want to encourage people to focus on that lifestyle medication, to eat healthier, feel better, manage stress, exercise more, love more, give more so they can be kind to their body” but we are missing that space.

About 70% of the US people are taking natural supplements already. They are taking supplements and vitamins but we’re buying it from Amazon, from the store. We just go in there and buy it but these medications are interacting with all the medications that we’re taking all these vitamins. People come in and go, “Oh, my girlfriend is taking echinacea and it is really helping her. It is boosting her immune system. She has not had a cold.”

“You know what? I am taking wolf berry right now.” I’m like, “Oh, I’m going to take that echinacea too” but that is a space where the pharmacist is supposed to be forefront and be, “You know what? We run drug interactions” and I say, “I’ve been thinking about this but this is the need that I need to solve with Emlah Naturals.” You know, create a supplement line where education is key and that’s what sets Emlah Naturals apart.

Empowering the pharmacist to be able to recommend these supplements with confidence, run those strong interaction reports and make sure that the supplement that’s good for you, it is not the one that is good for me and then to solve from too. A lot of times you have people going in there, you see the doctor said, “Oh, they run the lab test and they’re anemic. I have to go pick up some iron.” They go to the pharmacy and they pick up this ferrous sulfate, ferrous gluconate.

They came in different forms and they’re like, “Which one should I get? This one is on sale, maybe I should get it” or “This one is the most expensive, it is probably going to work better” yeah, that was me. The point that turned it around for me, I said, I was diagnosed as – my vitamin D was very low when I was pregnant with my first son and I went back straight to work. I worked at Kroger at the time and I looked at the shelf, there were like 20 vitamin Ds.

I said to myself, “Which one am I going to take?” I am a pharmacy student and I don’t even know which one to take, then when I think about my mom, I think about other people who have no knowledge of pharmacy, so that’s really what sparked my interest in opening Emlah Naturals and it has been tremendous, satisfying and, fulfilling. To help encourage people, to educate people, to be able to make this supplement recommendations, and supplement selection with personality in mind.

[0:27:27.7] TU: Again, we’ll link to both of those in the show notes, so emlahnaturals.com and then powellpharmacy.com and of course, if folks find their way in central Ohio, I highly encourage you to stop by Powell Pharmacy. Emlah, as I think as folks hear your story, by any objective measure they would say, “Wow, Emlah has been very successful” and lots of examples of recognition.

A couple you mentioned in terms of what you achieved in your time at Kroger and your store is in the top one percent of the immunization statistics. You are also featured in National Chain Drug Review, many Kroger recognition including leader and patient care outstanding mentor, you have been preceptor of the year at Ohio State, you’ve won the OPA, Ohio Pharmacist Association distinguished young pharmacy award.

So based on those external measures, those objective measures, “Wow, she’s really successful, those awards, she owns two businesses” but your definition of success is what I believe matters, your measuring bar and so my question here is, how would you measure success as you think about what that means for you both personally as well as professionally?

[0:28:37.5] ET: Well Tim, that is a great question. I have always asked myself that question and I make sure to write and answer. I have not always formed it the way you formulate it but I always tell myself, “Emlah, if I cross paths with somebody, if I meet you today Tim, does your life get better because I am in it? Do my children’s life get better because I am in it? Do my girlfriends, my friends, my neighbors, my family, my church, my community, the pharmacists that work with me, the pharmacists that I meet at OP, do their lives get better?”

Everyone who I am honored to cross paths with, does their life better because I am in it. How can I give emotionally, financially, physically just to be there? Have I been able to make their lives better? That to me is the true definition of success in my mind and that’s what keeps me going. If I can make my son happy, if I can make my team member happy, if I can improve their lives, help them in any way possible because health is different for everybody.

That to me is the true definition, you can give me all those awards you mentioned, I mean, they are great to have. They boost my confidence, they help me do more in different ways but I am inspired by people who have gone ahead of me and I reach out to help other people but to be truly successful and to have my head on the pillow at night and feel good about my day and feel good about the day tomorrow and get me to be in a better mindset to perform tomorrow better than I did today. Have I help the people around me to eat healthier, feel better?

You know, manage stress, love more, give more, be kind to my body so that my children can see me being kind to my body and they can emulate, they can be kind to their body. You know, that gets more blood going to the brain, that gets more oxygen going to the brain, that helps me think clearly, that helps me give me more energy so that I can radiate to the people around me. That truly to me is success.

[0:30:38.7] TU: That is beautiful Emlah and I would argue that those awards are simply an external affirmation of all of those things that you just mentioned, right? Your ability to focus on others and look at how can I help you be a better individual to motivate, to inspire, to share your gifts with others, to love more, to empower them and one of the things I’ve heard is you’re talking there is just an incredible gift of presence that you’re giving other people and in those lives throughout the day.

Again, whether that is personal or professional, that is really hard you know from personal experience to say, “I am going to be present in this moment as a business owner, as a boss, as a spouse, as a father or a mother.” To be present in that moment especially you got a couple of businesses, things are busy, there is a lot of I think individual work that has to be done to be able to develop that state of mind and presence, so what a beautiful thing to share with others. Thank you so much.

[0:31:35.3] ET: Thank you. I appreciate you Tim. I share those, it is hard to keep in touch with your money to get embraced that change and challenges that are along their journey because not every day is a 100% day. Some days my self-worth is down, some days it’s up there but my dispensing, I frame it. I tell my team, I say, “We are dispensing wellness. We are dispensing care and kindness, you know it’s beyond the prescription and daily life”, you know? Coming with the goal is to dispense care every single time, to ourselves as well.

[0:32:08.4] TU: Absolutely. I love that. Well, this has been a real treat. Thank you so much for coming on the show, for sharing your story. Let’s do it again. Where can people find more about you? I have mentioned the two websites thus far but if people want to connect with you further and follow your journey.

[0:32:22.1] ET: Well, we are present on Facebook. We are at emlahnaturals.com and we are also on Instagram. Also just Emlah Naturals on Instagram. The goal is to inspire people, just help people remember that there is a lot more to health and prescriptions. So we’re sharing about the information so you’re not just going out to buy a supplement. We just share information about supplements and my long-term goal, God willing, and giving me the energy that I would get from my friends and my mentors is to be able to help people.

Remember just basic things, we’re working on some things here in the future to encourage hydration, which is – yeah, so that is something probably honored to get on the show again and share with the YFP community because yes, so it’s those things that will help us get better. Instagram and Facebook, we’ll share our upcoming events on there and going to be present in the community.

Hydration and helping people to motivate as pharmacists and the work that you are doing is tremendous, it’s tremendous Tim. That financial peace of mind and getting your newsletters. I tell you, I read every single one of your newsletters every single day when it comes in. They are short, they are bite size information and that’s something that I learned from you. Again, being a student of life, when I started my newsletters were long.

I go back and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, what was I thinking?” and I said, “You know what? Your newsletters are the perfect length.” I read them and guess what? Emlah Naturals newsletters are just like that on emlahnaturals.com, you can subscribe at the bottom and you will get bite size information about supplements and about general things, anything that will help contribute to your health, which is not exactly related to prescriptions.

Yes, so that’s what and we will be looking for more to come and hoping that I will be any station I am honored to be on will be helping to motivate people, pharmacists, especially to invest. We’ve invested a lot into this, we need to be happy while doing it and to feel fulfilled.

[0:34:23.5] TU: Absolutely and I am confident whether folks are in a patient care role, in the community inventory care hospital setting, whether they are running a business, whether they’re working to be the best version of themselves as a parent or as a spouse or significant other, I am confident they are going to get a lot out of this episode. So Emlah, again, thank you so much for taking the time. I really appreciate it.

[0:34:43.3] ET: I am honored Tim, thank you very much and thank you for everything that you do too to those in the YFP Community. I love it, this is a fantastic place to be. Thank you Tim. Thanks for having me.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[0:34:53.0] TU: Before we wrap up today’s episode of Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast, I want to again thank our sponsor, Splash Financial. If you’ve ever considered refinancing your loans, check your rate now through Splash Financial. If you qualify, refinancing could help you get a lower monthly payment on your student loans or get a lower interest rate.

Splash helps you shop and compare loan refinancing offers across lenders nationwide. Browsing rates through Splash Financial is fast, free and won’t impact your credit until you complete a full application and now, when you successfully refinance $50,000 or more, Splash Financial will give you an extra $500 in cash bonus, using our link at splashfinancial.com/yfp. So, check your rate today and see what you might be able to save at splashfinancial.com/yfp.

[DISCLAIMER]

[0:35:38.6] TU: As we conclude this week’s podcast, an important reminder that the content on this show is provided to you for informational purposes only and it is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. Information of the podcast and corresponding materials should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with a financial advisor with respect to any investment.

Furthermore, the information contained in our archived newsletters, blog post and podcast is not updated and may not be accurate at the time you listen to it on the podcast. Opinions and analysis expressed herein are solely those of your financial pharmacist unless otherwise noted and constitute judgments as of the dates published. Such information may contain forward looking statements, which are not intended to be guarantees of future events. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward looking statements. For more information, please visit yourfinancialpharmacist.com/disclaimer.

Thank you again for your support of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast. Have a great rest of your week.

[END]

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YFP 250: 10 Takeaways from 50 Financial Conversations with Pharmacists

Posted on April 7, 2022November 2, 2022 by yfpadmin

10 Takeaways from 50 Financial Conversations with Pharmacists

On today’s episode, sponsored by Splash Financial, YFP Director of Business Development, Justin Woods, PharmD talks about 10 takeaways from more than 50 discovery calls he’s conducted, where he has had a close look at the financial goals and concerns of pharmacists across the country.

About Today’s Guest

Justin Woods, PharmD received his Doctor of Pharmacy degree from Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, completed two years of postgraduate residency training at The Ohio State University College of Pharmacy, and is currently in his final semester at the University of Nebraska at Omaha pursuing a Masters in Business Administration degree.

Justin has spent nearly 10 years as a practicing pharmacist in community and specialty pharmacy settings. Originally from Upstate New York, Justin met his wife, Sara, also a pharmacist, during residency in Columbus, OH. They lived in Omaha, NE for four years and currently reside in Richmond, VA.

Justin is looking forward to connecting with our community and communicating the value of YFP to help pharmacists on a similar path as himself toward achieving financial freedom.

Episode Summary

Knowing the steps to reach your financial goals can be overwhelming and confusing, particularly at the start. YFP Co-Founder & CEO, Tim Ulbrich, PharmD, sits down with Justin Woods, PharmD, a fellow pharmacist and YFP Director of Business Development. Currently, Justin leads the discovery call process designed to help individuals determine whether or not the comprehensive financial planning services at YFP Planning comprehensive are a good fit for them. Since joining the YFP team in November 2021, Justin has conducted more than 50 of these discovery calls. Justin talks about ten takeaways he has had from these conversations. Justin shares his unique experience working at YFP and how he has gone from a fan of the podcast to the Director of Business Development. Justin explains how his prior experience as a YFP Planning client helps him conduct discovery calls, the benefits of discovery calls, what makes the YFP approach to financial planning different, and the best time to start your financial planning journey. Finally, Justin details why financial planning requires a substantial investment of time and money, why the transparency of the fees involved is so important, and addresses the most common question he hears, “What’s the return on investment?”

Key Points From This Episode

What YFP Planning has to offer clients and what discovery calls are.
Why people feel guilty about their financial situation when seeking advice.
The concerns clients have regarding saving up for retirement.
The prevalence of questions and interest that Justin experiences regarding real estate.
A brief outline of the concerns around repayment of student debt and the PSLF program.
Why YFP Planning services are suited for non-pharmacists as well.
The importance of involving both partners in the planning process.
When is the best time to begin the financial planning process.
Justin outlines some of the fees associated with the planning process.
An explanation of the “fee-only” model that YFP Planning uses.
Challenges around estimating the return on investment for clients.
The benefits of coupling your financial plan with a tax plan.

Highlights

“Generally speaking, if you have the motivation to book a discovery call, to find time in your busy schedule to prioritize your financial wellness, you’re making a big step and that should be acknowledged.” — Justin Woods, PharmD [0:11:24]

“In most models of financial planning, the more that you put money into an IRA, brokerage accounts, the more the advisor gets paid.” — Justin Woods, PharmD [0:16:34]

“We’re called Your Financial Pharmacist, but our planning services are technically for people of all income levels, all career backgrounds.” — Justin Woods, PharmD [0:21:47]

“Over time, investments are a tool to actually combat inflation and, with proper allocation, keeping expenses in your investment accounts low, your investments will grow with the market.” — Justin Woods, PharmD [0:30:13]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:00.4] TU: Hey, everybody. Tim Ulbrich here, and thank you for listening to The YFP Podcast where, each week, we strive to inspire and encourage you on your path towards achieving financial freedom.

This week, I had a chance to welcome fellow pharmacist and YFP director of business development, Justin Woods on to the show. Justin leads our discovery call process designed to help individuals determine whether or not YFP Planning and its comprehensive financial planning services are a good fit for them. Since joining the YFP team in November 2021, Justin has conducted more than 50 of this discovery calls.

And on today’s show, we talk about 10 takeaways he has had from these conversations where he’s had a close look at the financial goals and concerns of pharmacists across the country. Some of my favorite moments from the show include hearing Justin talk about the various guilt individuals have when reaching out to a financial planner, whether that be about a previous mistake, join the club, feeling like they could be doing more or even as you’ll hear Justin say, having too much cash on hand.

Also, hearing Justin talk about determining when the timing is right to work with a planner and why there is a cost to not starting with the financial planner. Why planning requires a substantial investment of time and money and why the transparency of the fees involved is so important and how he answers the most common questions he gets, which is, “What’s the return on investment of the planning services?” Okay, let’s hear from today’s sponsor and then jump into my interview with Justin.

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[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:16.8] TU: Justin, welcome to the show.

[0:02:18.4] JW: Hey, Tim. Pleasure to join you. A bit surreal, actually, since I’ve been a long-time listener of the podcast since 2017 now, and now feature as a guest in addition to being part of the YFP team.

[0:02:29.0] TU: We are so glad, Justin, to have you as a part of the team. You and I have known each other for sometime on the pharmacy world, we completed residencies a few years apart of your house at University College of Pharmacy, had some great shared mentors there and are really excited to have you as a part of the YFP team.

[0:02:45.2] JW: Definitely. One quick point before we get started, I don’t want our listeners to think this podcast is having an issue buffering when I’m speaking. I do have a stutter or as I like to say, I speak with a remix. That is my one disclaimer for folks who might not know me since I’m human and you may hear a stutter periodically throughout this episode.

[0:03:06.1] TU: Appreciate that, Justin. So, here we are, episode 250, we just crossed a million downloads. Thank you so much to the YFP community, the support that you’ve provided us since launching the podcast in July of 2017. Really, a surreal moment for us and for folks that had been listening for a while, if you haven’t yet done so, if you could please do us a favor and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcast, wherever you’re listening to the show, we’d really appreciate that and be a great way to help others find the show as well. Thank you so much for the ongoing support that everyone has provided.

Today, we’re going to be talking, Justin and I, about 10 takeaways that he has had in 50 plus conversations with pharmacist about t heir financial goals, about their financial plan, since he joined the YFP team in mid-November of 2021. These conversations come through the discovery call that we offer folks and Justin leads these efforts, these discovery calls are an opportunity to learn more about YFP Planning and comprehensive planning services and folks can learn more at yfpplanning.com.

Justin, before we jump into your story, before we talk more about the takeaways that you have had through these 50 plus conversations, give our listeners who may not be familiar with the planning services offered by YFP Planning, more insights into what the discovery call is, why it’s important and what they could expect?

[0:04:31.5] JW: To be honest, hiring a financial planner, it’s a big investment in time and dollars. With that said, our model is worth it for the right people and it’s wrong for some and that’s certainly okay. And through a discovery call, I seek to understand your specific financial needs and concerns. I meet with people who vary, in terms of their season of life.

Some folks are new practitioners building their careers while simultaneously tackling student loan debt, learning how to be efficient with their income, others are growing personally by starting a family or purchasing a home, some are mid-career, seeking to optimize their income, given more cashflow through being debt free here just no longer paying for daycare.

Then we have pharmacists who are near retirement and want to protect the assets that they worked so hard for. Typically, people share, they feel overwhelmed or concerned about their debt. Maybe even frustrated that they’re making a good income but are not progressing financially. I also hear some folks are unsure if they’re optimizing the income they’re making or even afraid that they won’t be financially secure in retirement.

And it is only through a discovery call process that we can uncover your financial why and understand if YFP has solutions that fit your needs. In terms of what to expect when you take that initial step to book a discovery call, you first book the call through our scheduling application that shows you my availability to help find the best time that works with your schedule, we conduct these calls via zoom conference and in fact, when you become a YFP Planning client, you work in a virtual space with your lead planner as well.

The meeting will last 30 to 60 minutes, depending on where their conversation goes. I do take notes throughout the process to capture information in the moment and also because, if you take the next step to become a client of YFP Planning, anything we discuss goes directly to your lead planner to review before your first meeting with them.

[0:06:48.9] TU: Great stuff, Justin, and for folks that are listening, maybe had been following the community for some time and they’re ready to take that step, they can do so. By going to yfpplanning.com, they’ll see that option to schedule a discovery call, they’ll see your face and they can pick a date and time that works for your calendar and works for their schedule as well.

Let’s jump into 10 takeaways that you’ve had. Now that we framed what the discovery call is, we’re going to talk about 10 takeaways you’ve had through over 50 of these discovery call, financial conversations with pharmacists over the last few months.

I think the first one is a good segue from what you just shared that this is really about discovering more about an individual’s financial plan and their goals, it’s hence called the discovery call and number one, I think the thing that we first see is that individuals might be seeking financial advice in these calls and my question is, what’s the problem here, isn’t that the team at YFP Planning has expertise in? Tell us more about this one.

[0:07:44.7] JW: Yes, right, exactly. Trust me, I’m not an expert in personal finance. You can certainly ask my own YFP financial planner, Kelly Reddy-Heffner. In fact, I’ve made many mistakes that you, Tim, outlined in episode 247 of 10 common financial mistakes pharmacists make.

Realistically, five months ago, I was a practicing pharmacist. I’ve spent 10 years in community and especially pharmacy settings including two years of residency at Ohio State, go Buckeyes. If you’re listening right now and afraid I’m going to test your financial literacy on a discovery call, I promise, you have nothing to worry about when I’m on that other side of the screen but even though, I’m not a financial planner, I do understand our comprehensive financial planning service better than most folks since I see it from the inside as part of the YFP team.

But my wife, Sara, also a pharmacist and I are YFP Planning clients as well. For a bit of background about the industry, a survey of financial advisors show that advisors spend 15 to 20% of their time on business development activities as in meeting with perspective clients and in our model, our financial planners focus solely on financial planning and I lead those discovery calls.

[0:09:10.1] TU: That’s a great call, Justin. I don’t think that’s something we’ve talked about before on the show that the model we’ve chosen is to really let the planners be really good lead planners so they can focus on the needs and the issues that the client is bringing forth and then obviously, your role, and Tim and I have shared some of this as well, to really focus on some more of those business development activities and I would even further contend, Justin, that I often said this.

Hey, I’m not a financial planner as well, I love the topic, I love to learn but I think there’s often value and not getting in the tactical weeds, right? In that first call, when you’re really just trying to understand, what are the goals, what are the hopes, what are the dreams, what are the pain points, what are the problems so that we don’t get sucked into very detailed student loan repayment or investing strategy but rather, we can just really learn about what is of greatest need and significance to the client. It’s so important early on in that relationship.

Number two, Justin, I often felt like you know, I still joke with folks as that I feel like sometimes when I do a talk or people come and talk to me, it’s almost like financial confession, you know, sometimes. Number two is I think that folks may feel like, “Hey, I’m coming with some guilt about the financial situation.” This one resonates with me, I felt a lot of financial guilt and pressure early on in my journey. Tell us more about what you’re seeing here?

[0:10:25.2] JW: Yeah, this was an element I honestly did not anticipate early on when I started taking discovery calls, particularly knowing my own financial mistakes. It has been fairly common for people to acknowledge they feel guilty or feel ashamed of how sharing or admitting a piece of their financial lifestyle that they’re not proud of, it could be related to a number of things, like their lack of a budget or consistently sticking to a budget, maybe the amount of student loan debt they have, not being able to clearly define their financial goals and more recently, many people have shared, they feel guilty about having a large amount of money sitting in their checking or savings account since their expenses were minimized during the pandemic and they just don’t know what the best strategy is but also know, it’s losing value sitting in a checking or savings account.

Generally speaking, if you have the motivation to book a discovery call to find time in your busy schedule to prioritize your financial wellness, you’re making a big step and that should be acknowledged. That should be celebrated. It’s okay to be human, you’re obviously aware that a change needs to happen on your financial path and whether financial planning can achieve what you need, it’s something we’ll talk thorough together. It’s similar to working with patients, right? When you have an engaged patient, ready to make a change, there are certainly a greater likelihood for success.

[0:12:00.8] TU: Absolutely, and then, number three on our list here of common things you’re hearing through these 50 plus conversations is, you know, folks coming in with questions, perhaps some concern about saving for retirement, why is this such a common concern?

[0:12:16.0] JW: Yeah, this is the second biggest concern from potential clients is saving for retirement. They share that they feel behind for retirement but they’re not sure why they feel that way. They say, “I just know I don’t want to work forever” or “I’m not confident, I’m on the right track for retirement because I don’t know what the finish line is or how to track my progress.”

The typical question is, “Is retirement and age, is retirement a dollar amount?” People often admit that because it is a goal that’s decades away, it’s hard to relate to and objectify. Honestly, that’s just human psychology. The further away something is, the harder it is to relate to. Typically, when people bring up retirement, I ask them, “You know, of the steps you’ve taken so far, do you think you’re on the right track?” and inevitably, the answer is a clear “No” or they refer to the chart on the dashboard of your 401(k) account, right?

Through the planning process, our planners help clients conduct what’s called a “nest egg calculation” or the amount of money that you would need to retire comfortably. The last time I did this calculation for my wife and I, it was about 3.3 million dollars and this is generally where people, look at me, I haver three million heads, right? Since it’s a big number, way in the future.

Whether retirement’s 20 years away, 10 years away, 40 years away, the big question is, what does that actually mean in today’s dollars and what do I do with that number? I think a good financial plan will really take that information, distill it down to, “Okay, let’s discount that information back to today’s numbers, what does that mean for how much we need to be saving each and every month?” and then, let’s begin to put a plan in place based on the tools we have.

Like a 401(k), a 403(b), and IRA. Automate that plan so we’re contributing in a tax efficient manner or keeping the fees low and we’re allowing compound interest to do its magic and time, value, money to kind of take its course.

[0:14:34.8] TU: Great stuff, Justin. I think we often think about retirement as a hope, a wish, a dream or a big scary data off in the future or we do get a little bit more granular, maybe punch some numbers in a calculator and then the number that’s spit out were like, that feels impossible, right?

[0:14:49.5] JW: Right.

[0:14:50.5] TU: I feel behind or I’m worried about that becoming a reality and I think, what I really hear there is that value in coaching of bringing that to life and then, let’s make sure we put that into numbers that mean something today and let’s also make sure we’re prioritizing that along with other goals that we’re working on with the financial planning, that’s great stuff.

Number four, the prevalence of questions and interest that you’re seeing in real estate. Both purchase of a primary home as well as in investment properties. I think this – I will say, this doesn’t surprise me, right? We’ve seen a lot of growing interest in real estate investing.

Part of the reason we launched the Real Estate Investing Podcast, we certainly have felt the interesting home buying, could be a first home, second home, obviously we know that that market is pretty wild right now. Tell us more about what you’re seeing here?

[0:15:35.2] JW: Yeah, I mentioned a bit ago that retirement was the second top concern of people I meet with, another top five concern is home purchase. What I found is that this is not limited to people who are buying their first home. I also hear this concern from people who have outgrown their current home or maybe looking for a second home, a vacation home.

Followed closely behind that topic of home purchase is interest in real estate investing. The prevalence of this topic as you said could be due to the nature of our podcast content, particular when they and David on the Real Estate Investing Podcast.

But for most people, it seems like real estate is an outlet for their entrepreneurial spirit and helps also create passive income but I also think it’s due to the nature of our fee only financial planning model. As Tim Baker shared in episode one of the Real Estate Investing Podcast, in most models of financial planning, the more that you put money into an IRA, brokerage accounts, the more the advisor gets paid.

They’re not incentivized to say, “Hey, maybe you should dump $50,000 into this property?” Because again, it takes away from that traditional investment vehicle. But our team does view real estate investing as a method to build wealth and we have the resources to help people through that process if that is the path you want to take.

[0:17:10.4] TU: Great stuff, this is another example, just like we often talked about with, “Hey, when you work with a planner, if you’ve got student loans and they don’t understand student loans, that’s a problem” right? If you’re working with a planner that maybe doesn’t prioritize or value real estate investing as an option, right?

We’re not saying this for everyone but it’s an option to consider, has experienced either themselves or advising other folks. Such an important distinction in that relationship. Number five, to no surprise, we’ve just talked about this in episode 248 of the podcast as I mentioned is, folks coming with questions, confusion, angst, excitement, any other emotion I think, surrounding PSLF. Tell us more ab out what you’re seeing here?

[0:17:49.6] JW: Yeah, as you said, if you’re listening and new to the term PSLF, definitely queue up episode 248 to learn more about the program and hear some of the pharmacist success stories there.

Since I did not practice as a pharmacist for a nonprofit or a 503(c) organization, I wasn’t eligible for PSLF but through my role here at YFP, I quickly learned how overwhelming and confusing the process can be for some people and personally, I would want an expert to help me through that process, to help me get thousands of dollars wiped away after a hundred twenty payments. That is what I hear on discovery calls as well.

People are confused about the nuances of the program, confused about how to optimize the repayment strategy in a tax efficient way and need a partner to help get them across the finish line. Obviously, I have a biased opinion but I’ve heard the success stories and I see the joy our team shares on Slack when they help a particular planning client get those loans forgiven. If you’re a pharmacist listening and need the support of a team to give you that peace of mind that we can get you to the finish line, YFP Planning is your best option.

[0:19:13.7] TU: Awesome stuff. Number six, Justin, is spouses or significant others where maybe one is a pharmacist and one is not and you know, maybe wondering, “Is YFP Planning even for us? Do we both have to be pharmacists or do you guys work with non-pharmacist?” Tell us more about what you’re seeing here.

[0:19:29.7] JW: Yeah, I wanted to include this observation since it was brought up during one discovery meeting and generally, if one person has a question many other folks do too. In this example, we were nearing the end of this particular discovery call and the pharmacist shared, “Even though I’m a pharmacist, my husband is not and I want to make sure that he’s represented throughout the planning process” and I could have not been more thrilled that she brought that up.

Because one, it taught me that I need to acknowledge upfront at our planning process is not just suited for pharmacists. Obviously, we’re called Your Financial Pharmacist but technically only 80 to 85% of our clients are pharmacists and the majority of those households we work with, only one person is a pharmacist. The active involvement of both partners regardless of their background we feel is critical to the planning process.

In fact, when you book a discovery call, we ask you to find a time that both you and your partner are available. If you’re married, engaged, maybe not married but living with your partner for many years, you generally have shared assets, maybe not combined finances, which is a step we walk clients through during the planning process if that makes sense but you generally own things together like a home.

In these cases, it is impossible to optimize the financial planning process if we don’t have all the decision makers at the table and I’ve learned this the hard way that generally speaking, if we conduct a discovery call with only one partner, we get to the end and they say, “Oh this sounds great but let me check with my spouse” and then what we end up doing is going through the discovery call process all over again because that partner may have a different perception of money, its impact and also their own financial goals.

It is critically important that both partners are involved in the discovery call and in that initial planning phase should you become a client of YFP Planning. So long story longer, yes, we’re called Your Financial Pharmacist but our planning services are technically for people of all income levels, all career backgrounds. It just has to fit what you’re looking for.

[0:21:57.2] TU: Yeah, so important, Justin. I’m a firm believer – I wrote an article way back when about 10 financial discussion every couple should have whether they decide to merge accounts or not and how assets are joined or not, whether they’re married or they’re not married, just healthy discussion for folks to have about getting on the same page financially even having an understanding where they agree to disagree in certain areas just to have those conversations.

We believe as you mentioned that outcome of the planning process is so much stronger, so much richer when both folks have a voice because what we often see and I’ve experienced this first hand with my wife, Jess, and I and Tim Baker, being our planner, is that you have that hour with Tim is great but the two hours afterwards and the conversation later that night and that weekend throughout that week where we are then discussing among ourselves, it’s so helpful to have that third party and to make sure both folks are present, to start that all the way at the beginning as they are evaluation that service to begin with.

Number seven, Justin, you shared with me kind of this chicken and the egg of timing of when to work with a planner, meaning that, “Hey, Justin, I’ve got a lot going on and the need is there for help but also just wondering of like maybe I should just wait to a certain point” right? Maybe I am in a busy phase of life and I should just wait until we get through things in the next six or 12 years but the other side of that coin is, right now I am looking ahead. I am in the middle of a lot of things where I could use the value, the help and a planner. So, talk to us through this one.

[0:23:18.0] JW: Yeah, so I heard Tim Baker share a phrase during a discovery call when I first started and it’s that, “Transition points bring lots of financial decisions.” The emphasis is that there is a cost to not starting with a financial planner. If you see the value that it can bring to you or your family, it will continue to cost you to not get started. It could be a tangible thing like paying more in interest on student loans, right?

Or money sitting in your savings account that’s being eroded by inflation or possibly more time lost toward your short-term goals like a home, vacation, car purchase, starting a family or even just stress around balancing multiple priorities. I hear people say, “Let me get rid of credit card debt and let me streamline my budget before I hire a financial planner” and I try to challenge those people that, “Isn’t that the reason you book this call because you need help with some of these aspects of your financial life?”

I also hear other people say, “Let’s wait until student loan repayments start” or “Maybe after our wedding” or “After I started my new job” and I totally understand that these transition points are stressful and that it’s difficult to think about adding one more task to your plate but that’s the beauty of financial planning. It is more about the process than the plan itself and through that process, these points of transition become easier to manage personally and maybe even enjoyable with less financial stress.

[0:25:00.4] TU: Great stuff. Number eight has to do with the fees and I think the unawareness of the fees and this is really insightful for you to come into the YFP Planning our fee-only, our pricing model, which I think is a little bit non-traditional to the industry and to get some experience but generally here, what you are seeing is an unawareness of the fees associated with the planning. Folks realizing maybe there is a lot of variation in the industry but not knowing really what to expect here in terms of that investment of money. Tell us more.

[0:25:27.7] JW: Yeah, as I mentioned before, hiring a financial planner is an investment of both time and dollars so we obviously talk about pricing during the discovery call but what I’ve noticed is that generally people have no idea how much a financial planner costs or even how a financial planner gets paid. Tim Baker tells the story of when he decided to become a financial planner.

He went to his mother and said, “I am changing career paths to become a financial planner” and his mother told him it was the stupidest idea he’s ever had since she doesn’t pay her financial planner anything and that lack of awareness around fees is not unique in the financial service industry. I actually started working with an advisor back in 2014 with another company and when I went through the discovery call process myself out of curiosity if YFP Planning was a good fit for me and my family, Tim Baker really educated me on all the hidden fees.

Since that point, I’ve learned that payment models for financial planning come in more varieties than Skittles and Jolly Ranchers combined. The most common fee though is called “assets under management” where your planner will charge you a percentage of the money you invest with them. This percentage can range based on the services they provide but it is generally at least one percent.

What I didn’t know is that there are also expense ratios assigned to those investments or funds based on where they are invested and since you need to pay a small fee for the company of the fund to handle those day-to-day operations but if you are not careful, those expense ratios can really impact the overall performance of your portfolio in the long run and that is where our model is different, right?

We’re fee only, we’re fully transparent about the fees that we charge. We believe that fee only is the best way to operate as a financial planner because it reduces conflict of interest. Similar to the real estate example that I just shared, in reality most folks don’t wake up one day and decide to hire a financial planner. You typically hire a financial planner to solve a problem and generally it’s not a math problem.

It’s because you want to live a richer life than you currently have and achieve your version of financial freedom and we believe a fee only model is the best way to keep your financial goals a top priority.

[0:28:12.8] TU: Justin, you’ve mentioned now twice that it’s a significant investment of time and money and you and I are both analytical pharmacists and I suspect you talk with many folks that are like, “Okay, it’s an investment of money, I get that” maybe they have even talked with someone before where it’s quote “free financial planning” and then they realize otherwise that there is either hidden fees or perhaps sale of products in their best interest.

That is really where the revenue might be coming from and truly not providing confidence of planning, so I value the transparency. I understand there is a fee involved with that but naturally the next question here is, what’s the ROI, right? What is the ROI? Tell me more about what you’re hearing from folks as they’re trying to make this decision of, “This is an investment of time and money, then what’s the potential return?”

[0:28:58.4] JW: Yeah, this has to be the number one question and I’m mastering a discovery call and it is very difficult to answer since as a comprehensive financial planning firm, we prioritize your complete financial life. When some people think of a pharmacist, they think of counting pills and I say some people because I like to think and believe that that narrative is changing.

The point I’m trying to make is that when most people think of financial advisers, they think of investments and in our model, investments is only a small piece of the financial plan. A few people have recently asked me, “What is your investment philosophy for combating inflation?” and one, I’m not a financial planner so I probably don’t have the best technical answer and two, if that’s your primary concern that’s fine but we’re probably not your people and that’s okay because in general, the market is efficient, right?

93% of active management advisors, so those who attempt to beat the market, 93% of them fail, right? There are pockets of inefficiencies like we’ve noticed recently but overtime, investments are a tool to actually combat inflation and with proper allocation, keeping expenses in your investment accounts low, your investments will grow with the market.

[0:30:24.9] TU: Yeah, great stuff. Definitely as Tim always say, which I wholeheartedly agree with his investments as you mentioned it is one part of the plan among many others, an important part but it is one part of the plan and in traditional planning and part because of how the industry was born and how fees are assessed, often you know that maybe with some insurance might be the bulk of the plan and there might be things like, “Hey, those student loans will just take care of themselves” or “That home buying like nah, not so much us” or “Investing in real estate, not so much.”

I think when you look at really good comprehensive planning, which I am bias of the work that Robert and Kelly’s team does and under Tim’s leadership with YFP Planning, a really good comprehensive planning will again, get us out of the silo and be really looking at how do we make sure we’re taking care of our future self. We need to be thinking about that – how do we also make sure we’re living a rich life along the way, right?

Yeah, we need to be saving and investing and in doing so efficiently and saving on fees and taking advantage of the tax benefits but we also need to be thinking about many, many other parts of the financial plan including the protection parts as we think about things on the insurance side, on the estate planning side, obviously the debt management piece and then all the other things that come throughout life and throughout the financial plan.

That takes time, an investment of time, an investment of money and obviously there’s benefit in that being transparent as you mentioned. Number ten is what you’ve I think seen often, which I will hear often as well is, “You do taxes?” and I think a lot of individuals may not be thinking about the synergies between the tax and the financial plan or the power of the synergies between the tax and the financial plan.

What are you hearing here and what perceived value are you getting that folks see of, “Okay, well, what could be possible if we really have the tax plan rowing in the same direction as the financial plan?”

[0:32:10.9] JW: Yeah, as you said, the synergies between taxes and the financial plan, that’s something that I’m still personally learning about since I too did not understand that for a long time how interconnected they are and in this time of year, a lot of people share with me how their tax returns went. I hear from people who own quite a bit of money and then excitement from other people expecting a big refund.

Previous Justin would have also been excited about a big refund but my perception is changing through my own comprehensive financial planning process. If you’re listening right now and are expecting a big refund, let me ask you how would you have spent those dollars better throughout the year? Could you have put up a bigger down payment on your home? Could you have added more to your 401(k) or investment contributions?

Could you finally leave your state and go on vacation, right? When you get a tax refund, you’ve basically given the government money interest free and through our planning process in quarter one, we file your taxes for you but the real magic happens during the year through our tax planning service where we ask you for a couple of documents and by understanding your situation, we can estimate either how much money you will owe or how much money you will get back and neither of those are great options.

We want to get as close to zero as possible, so we outline strategies that we can proactively put in place during the remainder of that year to again, get that number as close to zero as possible because that shows us that we’re being as efficient with our income as we possibly can.

[0:34:05.7] TU: Well, there you have it, 10 takeaways from 50 plus financial conversations that Justin Woods has had with pharmacists over the last few months and Justin, I can tell you firsthand when you came up with this list of ten, I’ve done a handful of discovery calls prior to your arrival. Tim Baker has done ten times as much as I have but these are themes that we’ve seen for years.

I think some of the takeaways that you brought here I suspect will resonate with many folks that are listening to this episode. As I listen or hear to this, I’m a pharmacist thinking, “Hey, maybe I am interested in taking this next step to get on a discovery call with Justin and learn more about the planning services” you know, see whether or not it’s a good fit, tell us more about what next step they can take and where can they go to schedule that.

[0:34:46.8] JW: Yeah, thanks for having me, Tim, and I hope that by sharing these observations of mine, it will encourage or maybe even motivate more people listening to consider a discovery call and we can work together to really understand if it’s a good fit for you specifically.

[0:35:03.9] TU: Great stuff and, again, folks can go to yfpplanning.com. You can see an option there to schedule a call and that will allow you to get some time on Justin’s calendar. Justin, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

[0:35:13.8] JW: Thanks, Tim.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[0:35:14.9] TU: Before we wrap up today’s episode of Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast, I want to again thank our sponsor, Splash Financial. If you’ve ever considered refinancing your loans, check your rate now through Splash Financial. Refinancing could help you get a lower monthly payment on your student loans or get a lower interest rate.

Splash helps you shop and compare loan refinancing offers across lenders nationwide. Browsing rates through Splash Financial is fast, free and won’t impact your credit and now, when you successfully refinanced $50,000 or more, Splash Financial will give you an extra $500 in cash bonus, using our link at splashfinancial.com/yfp. So, check your rate today and see what you might be able to save at splashfinancial.com/yfp.

[DISCLAIMER]

As we conclude this week’s podcast, an important reminder that the content on this show is provided to you for informational purposes only and it is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. Information of the podcast and corresponding materials should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with a financial advisor with respect to any investment.

Thank you again for your support of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast. Have a great rest of your week.

[END]

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