Carissa Explains It All: How One Pharmacist is Accelerating Her Financial Goals Through Rodan & Fields
On Episode 069 of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast, Tim Church, YFP Team Member, hosts another edition of the Side Hustle Series featuring an interview with Dr. Crissy Mahl, a pharmacist and entrepreneur from Yuma, Arizona. Crissy talks about her pharmacy career path and how she became interested in entrepreneurship. She started working for Rodan and Fields and has created a significant side income.
In the Side Hustle Series, Tim talks about ways you can create additional streams of income to reach your financial goals faster and highlights pharmacists who are doing this to help you get inspired.
About Today’s Guest
Crissy graduated with her Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of Findlay in 2012. After living in Ohio all her life, she moved to Yuma, Arizona and completed a PGY1 residency. She has a passion for acute care and hospital pharmacy and is now is one of her hospital’s biggest influencers and leaders. She also has a passion for empowering and inspiring others which is what lead her to become an entrepreneur.
Summary of Episode
On this episode, Dr. Crissy Mahl speaks about her pharmacy career and urge to travel which ultimately moved her from Ohio, where she lived all of her life, to Yuma, Arizona. She carries a passion for acute care and hospital pharmacy and currently works in a position where she is able to help create pharmacy jobs. To supplement her pharmacy income, Chrissy took on an entrepreneurial side hustle and started a business selling Rodan & Fields. In doing this, she’s learned how to fit her side hustle in with her full-time pharmacy career, allowing her to make larger payments on her debt and save for the future.
Crissy says that there are certain personality traits and characteristics that aid to the success this type of work. Her leadership skills as a preceptor to PGY1 students and Family Med residents matched with her personality and work ethic allow her to help navigate and balance her busy schedule. Crissy manages her time wisely, prioritizes well, and is incredibly focused on her business. She stopped watching television and even uses the “spare” time she has while walking or on an elevator to send emails and text messages that help fuel her business. By hustling around the clock, she has a goal set to retire by age 39.
Mentioned on the Show
- Splash Financial
- Rodan and Fields
- The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan
- Contact Dr. Crissy Mahl
Episode Transcript
Tim Church: Crissy, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show and for being part of this side hustle edition.
Carissa Mahl: Thank you for having me, Tim. I’ve never done anything like this before, so I’m pretty excited about it.
Tim Church: Awesome. Well, we’re glad to have you on. And I was really excited when you reached out to me on LinkedIn to inquire about Your Financial Pharmacist and just to talk about some of the ways that you’ve been working towards financial freedom.
Crissy Mahl: Absolutely. Honestly, I felt like your page was everything that I wish that I knew when I was in pharmacy school. Honestly, there’s so much when it comes to finances and student loans and all this other stuff, and it’s super overwhelming. And it’s even more overwhelming when you come out of school and you’re not really sure what way to turn. And so this side hustle topic is very dear to my heart, and I think it’s something important for people to consider and kind of learn about too.
Tim Church: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. I thought it was really cool when we were talking that we actually share a similar background in that we grew up in Ohio, lived there our whole life, and then we said, hey, let’s go ahead and take off to a state pretty far away and really kind of go from there. So I want to — can you share a little bit about how that happened and why you made such a big move?
Crissy Mahl: Absolutely. So I lived in Ohio all my life, moved to Yuma, Arizona about a little over five years now. So I went to pharmacy school in Ohio, the whole nine yards. I didn’t move until a few months ago after I had graduated pharmacy school. Ohio is where my whole family resides. It’s literally the only thing I know, honestly, because we didn’t have a lot of money when I was growing up. So traveling really wasn’t something that I had ever done before, you know, venturing outside of my little heart of Ohio State was a little bit nerve-wracking, but it was something that I felt I really needed just, you know, for my own push to get outside my comfort zone. And that’s exactly what happened. I was definitely outside my comfort zone, but honestly, I love it here in Ohio — or in Arizona! And I mean, the weather is awesome. I am constantly cold, all the time, so Ohio was really not my jam when you get like nine months of winter. So yeah, this heat is — this is my jam.
Tim Church: I hear you, I hear you. That’s how I got — I moved down to Florida, and for me, it was kind of a temporary situation. But after I was here, it was kind of like, you know, this is it. This is where I want to be, at least for awhile.
Crissy Mahl: Yeah.
Tim Church: So what was the main driver for you to get out there? Was it for a particular job? Or did you know people out in Arizona?
Crissy Mahl: You know, to be honest with you, I had always felt this inner — I don’t know what you would call it — this calling, if you will, to just explore the world. And like I said, I’d never really been able to travel when I was younger or even in school, to be honest with you. In pharmacy school, I had an internship, I worked all the time, so I really didn’t travel even while in pharmacy school. But I always had this inner feeling of just wanting to explore the world and get out there and try something new. And when I had first graduated pharmacy school, I actually had applied for pharmacy positions in both Ohio and Arizona. And I just kind of picked Arizona because I’d been to Orlando once before in my life, and my hair doesn’t quite agree with humidity, so I knew that humidity couldn’t be a thing in my life. And so I was like, oh sure, yeah, Arizona. Like their licensure requirements are similar to Ohio and I could totally pull off getting a license there if I needed to. Kind of a long story short, I actually got a job at a hospital where I had done a lot of my last year of pharmacy school rotations at. And I felt very comfortable with it. I was doing something that, you know, I thought that I wanted to do, which was work as a pharmacist at a acute care hospital. But honestly, I was a little bit scared because I felt like I was too comfortable with what I was doing, and I had only worked there for a couple of months. And it kind of gave me this feeling of like is this really it? Like you know, is this the challenge? Is this what I’m going to do my whole life? And you know, I don’t know. I’m kind of weird in the fact that I like constant change. And I don’t do well with monotony. So I actually had went to Midyear in Vegas that year and met up — just to say hey — to the director of pharmacy and the assistant director of pharmacy at a hospital in Arizona that I had done a phone interview for. And I don’t know if you and anybody listening to this right now have encountered this situation, but I feel like whenever you’re applying for a pharmacy position, they want to fill it pretty much immediately. So that was kind of a problem I came across while I was putting in applications, just before actually graduating is that they wanted to fill the position quickly. And so a lot of the positions I had applied for were already taken by the time I graduated. And I said hey to them, and they were like, “You know what? We have a position, and we want to bring you out to Arizona just to see the place and have the experience.” And I was like, “Oh no, I’m fine. I have a job, it’s cool.” And they were like, “Well, we’ll bring you out and you can see what it’s like.” And I was like, “You know, actually, I’m thinking about going back and doing a residency. I feel a little bit too comfortable with what I’m doing, and I really want to get more clinical.” Long story short, they flew me out to Yuma, Arizona, in the month of February where it’s like hell froze over in Ohio and gorgeous in Yuma, Arizona. It’s like 70 degrees during the day and then in the morning, it’s like 50. Like it’s perfect. And so they probably set it up purposely that way. But essentially, I did my residency there for a year in Yuma, Arizona. Yes, I moved to Yuma, Arizona, after going to Midyear and meeting them. And ended up staying on as a pharmacist after residency.
Tim Church: Crissy, was that a tough transition between working as a pharmacist and then actually going back to do a residency?
Crissy Mahl: You know, honestly, it was so much easier. I feel like the first year that you have after graduating and you are a licensed pharmacist is when you learn so much, regardless of if you’re doing a residency or you’re going straight into a new position as a staff or clinical pharmacist. I just learned so much because you — I mean, I guess you do those things ishish to a degree in your last year of school, you know, during your rotations. But when you have to sign your name to all these things and you are now an independent, licensed pharmacist, there’s like this heavy weight on you to constantly overthink everything and all this stuff. But to be honest, I felt like doing a full year as a pharmacist before going into residency — while I understand how unconventional that is — it actually almost prepared me even more for the residency, giving me more of an advantage because honestly, I felt like I was actually training some of the pharmacists that I ended up being a resident under. Not to like an extreme degree, but I was able to actually like cover vacations for people. It was kind of weird. But I’m glad that I did it, and I’m glad that I went back.
Tim Church: I mean, I think that’s just, that’s a cool story because you don’t hear too many pharmacists who are actually working, practicing as a pharmacist and decide, you know what? I am going to go back and do that residency. And so I just really commend you for doing that because I think that when you’re set in a position, as you said, you kind of get comfortable to some degree. And for some people, that’s not the way that they like to feel and they like the challenge of learning new things.
Crissy Mahl: Yeah.
Tim Church: And I totally get that you were much more prepared because you had that experience under your belt. But one of the things that often comes up — and I’ve heard some of this from my colleagues is that you go from making a full pharmacist’s salary, and now you’re taking a huge pay cut for a year. Was that tough having to do that?
Crissy Mahl: Honestly, it wasn’t too terribly tough. And that doesn’t — probably doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but I will start off by saying that I make much more working in Yuma, Arizona, than I did in Sandusky, Ohio, per hour. So the move alone pay difference, you know, there was that. Also, I had a lot of perks going to the residency here in Yuma, Arizona. They actually have — the hospital owns an apartment complex. And so I was able to stay in their apartment complex for the full year of my residency. And I think I paid like $300 a month in rent, which was like squadoosh. It’s like nothing. And then our residency here in Yuma, Arizona, actually compensated residents a lot more than almost any other residency I looked at. I can’t remember off the top of my head right now what it was, but honestly, I think it was not quite — it wasn’t even half of what I was making as a pharmacist in Ohio. Like it was more than half. And you know, I just — it’s one of those things where if you’ve ever just made a serious commitment in your life, whether it’s I’m going to pharmacy school and you get that acceptance letter and you just like, you’re all in and you are going to make this work and you’re going to do this. And you’re going to see it out until the end, it was something like that. I knew that residency was something that I needed to do if I wanted to be able to work in the position that I wanted. And I knew I had to just go all in, regardless. And you know, I was already kind of used to being a student and having no money, so you know, the one year that I actually was a pharmacist and making a pharmacist salary, it was kind of like a vacation, if you will. And then it was like, OK, go back to student mode.
Tim Church: Did you have to make any sacrifices for that year during the residency? You know, compared to the previous year when you were making the full salary?
Crissy Mahl: You know, I did share wifi with your neighbor. So the wifi was a little bit horrible. I didn’t update my phone every year like I was used to. Like if it fell on that year, I didn’t do it. Actually, the year that I moved to Arizona and was a resident, I just, I did a lot of quick trips to like Sedona and Page and just stayed at cheap hotels. So I mean, I totally made it work. Like I said, it’s like student living. You just know that you can’t go all out with vacations and stuff. And honestly, I feel like our compensation wasn’t too terribly bad. So I felt like I didn’t have to make too many compromises when it came to, you know, the normalcies of life as far as finances.
Tim Church: Sure. So talk about a little bit about your current position and what you’re doing at your full-time job.
Crissy Mahl: Sure. OK. So right now, I am a clinical pharmacist at a 400-bed hospital here in Yuma, Arizona. I literally do a little bit of everything, and most of that is due to the fact that I did my residency here. So as a PGY1 resident, I every month did a different rotation, including oncology, ICU, internal med, infectious disease, like you name it. And so literally, I mean the goal at the end of any residency, in my opinion, should be that once graduated, you should be able to fit in any of those roles confidently. And that’s what I was able to do. So they kind of fill me into almost any position in the hospital, in and outside of the hospital, that is needed. And I’ve actually created a lot of the positions that we have here at the hospital now, including our Tower 2, which is our cardiac unit. We now have a pharmacist position there, so I helped create that. I also helped create an additional staffing position for the evening shift. And let’s see — now it’s been almost two months — about two months ago I helped, me and my coworker created an IV room pharmacist position. And I was actually a IV technician back in my day, so I kind of already know 7.7 and compounding chemo and things like that. So today, I work in the ICU. And yesterday, I was the quality and safety pharmacist.
Tim Church: You’re doing it all.
Crissy Mahl: I know. When I was mentioning that I get a little bit of pharmacy ADD and you know, I don’t like monotony, this is pretty much like, this is pretty much best case scenario as far as getting to dabble into a little bit of everything. And you know, we’re talking now about starting a ER pharmacist position. And actually, our ER here in Yuma is the busiest ER in all of Arizona. So the fact that we don’t have a pharmacist down there yet is pretty surprising to me. So within the next couple of months, I’ll be rolling that out. And I’m super excited about that.
Tim Church: Wow, well you are just doing everything there. And you’re doing a lot. And it’s pretty cool because it sounds like you’re taking on a leadership role as well and helping to get these positions created and just advocating for pharmacy in the hospital.
Crissy Mahl: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I guess I could consider myself — I don’t know if you’re like a Game of Thrones guru or anything — but I’m kind of like Tyrion. I don’t necessarily rule any kingdoms, if you will. But I’m kind of like the hand of the kings and give advice and help make things happen, which is kind of more my passion rather than being a boss, if you will.
Tim Church: And would you say that your going and doing the residency, do you feel that that was critical to be able to do a lot of what you’re doing today?
Crissy Mahl: You know, I do because one of the things that I really tried to make sure that I did during my residency was have experiences that I knew I wouldn’t be able to get as a staffing pharmacist. So for example, when I was doing my ICU rotation as a resident, I made sure that I asked to sit in on a open-heart surgery and then also be in the room when the patient comes up to the ICU and how the nurse handles all of the drips and you know, patient assessment scales and everything. I also followed respiratory therapy and how they adjust ventilation settings. And I even got to sit in on a patient who had a Passy Muir valve put on, which was pretty interesting and gross at the same time. I am so glad that people think that respiratory therapy is the bomb because I cannot handle that stuff. So I really feel like I got to not just get an angle of what a pharmacist does in a hospital setting, clinically, but also what the team approach and what they bring to patient care so that I can understand the process in a holistic manner rather than just constantly looking at it from my angle.
Tim Church: Sure, sure. I think that’s awesome, and thank you for sharing that story and just kind of how you got into that role with the residency. So before we kind of move into your side hustles, I want to ask you one more question. And that is, you know, in our profession, there seems to be a lot of negativity — and I know it depends on the job setting — but a lot of negativity around job satisfaction, just the profession. So I want to know, what do you like about being a pharmacist and about your job in general?
Crissy Mahl: Sure. So honestly, pharmacy wasn’t something that was on my radar when I was 5 years. When I was 5, I wanted to be a tornado chaser. When I was 8, I wanted to be an astronaut. And when I was 10, I wanted to be a veterinarian. You know, I don’t know if it’s because I just never really like knew anything pharmacy existed, but it got into my radar when I was in high school and had to sit down and be realistic about what a career required as far as schooling goes and how much to expect to get paid at that job. And for me, going to school for six years — and now they have the fast-track programs and everything where you can get done even sooner — but more or less, six years, and it paid $100,000+ per year, depending on where you work and what you do, obviously. But you know, I feel like there were other professions at the university that I went to. They obviously paid a little bit less than I did to go to that school because we had that College of Pharmacy tuition tacked on, but you know, at least I feel like I’m not in a position where it’s 100% impossible for me to pay off my student loans if I had only had my pharmacy job, but also pharmacy is growing in a lot of different ways, and one of the biggest things is outpatient services, so you know, oncology is huge right now. Anticoagulation, hypertension, diabetes, all of these clinics, they want to have pharmacy involvement. It’s big right now. And I have a hard time believing that we’re ever going to necessarily run out of different things to do. I know that there has been a concern regarding how many pharmacists are graduating every year and how many positions are available between those graduates and people transitioning in and out of jobs, but honestly, if you keep yourself competitive in a way of always learning and just kind of — I don’t know — having a personality where you are open and willing to work and go above and beyond, then I don’t know that you’d ever have a problem finding a job. You may have to, you know, go outside your comfort zone as far as location — that’s definitely something that I’ve seen, especially coming out of Ohio where we have — oh my gosh, I don’t even know how many.
Tim Church: Seven schools. There’s seven schools now, the last I checked, that’s how many. I don’t think there’s eight yet.
Crissy Mahl: Right. Yeah. And so you know, I remember it being rather competitive trying to find a hospital position in Ohio when I graduated. So I can only imagine how much harder it is now, especially if they’re doing any kind of cuts in the way of hospitals and retail and all that.
Tim Church: I think you’re definitely right, though, that it is competitive and that there are certain markets that are saturated, and there is concern with the number of pharmacy schools. But I think that’s even more incentive just to always keep yourself ahead of the curve in learning new skills and really making yourself incredibly valuable to the organization, the institution that you work for but also learning different ways on how you can provide value in patient care. So I think you really hit that. And I think it will be important too to see as there’s a lot of legislation going through to get provider status, to get more opportunities for pharmacists to bill, so that will be interesting to see kind of how that plays off. Well, let’s switch gears a little bit. So you’re working as a pharmacist, you’re creating all these positions, you’re loving it after you got through your PGY1 residency. How do you transition or how did you say, ‘You know what, I’m making pretty good money. I’m working as a pharmacist. But I’m looking for something else.’ What was your main motivation for pursuing a side hustle?
Crissy Mahl: That’s a really good question. So to be honest with you, my very first side hustle was something that was brought up to me by a coworker. You know, he had mentioned that he worked at a physical rehab hospital where he hooked up a couple of hours every weekend or holiday. It was super chill, he did patient interaction. And it was pretty low-key. And honestly, I wasn’t looking for anything super intense. I was just in my brain thinking, you know what? I could use a couple extra bucks, you know, like thousands of dollars every month going towards student loans and just not really seeing that number go down very much was a little bit depressing. So I was like, OK, yeah, like maybe I could do that. So I actually, that’s why I got into it. My very first side hustle was working as a PRN pharmacist at a local physical rehab hospital. And you know, honestly, at first, it was super chill. I knew half of the pharmacists who were working there, so it was easy and familiar. It was different than what I was already doing because it was a outpatient facility with a different workflow, so my job was essentially to literally face-to-face talk with patients about their home medications and what they were going to get discharged on and make sure that they have the education that they need and whatever paperwork is helpful to them in understanding, you know, what the plan of care is once they go home. So it felt very purposeful and, like I said, it was not very stressful. So it was just kind of nice to make that extra money.
Tim Church: Sure. How many hours were you working there? What was typical when you were doing that side hustle?
Crissy Mahl: Typically, in the beginning, it was around probably six hours, which wasn’t bad because I got to sleep in, you know. Sleeping in is until like 7 o’clock. And then I would go in sometime around 9 o’clock and leave sometime around 3:30 and then, you know, maybe catch a movie or something with some friends afterward. But the problem came when we doubled in size and they were doing cuts left and right. Like they got rid of our HR department, they actually let go the technician that we had for — he worked there for more than 10 years. It was heartbreaking. And then — so literally I was doing technician, which means I was packaging medications, I was doing outdates, I was doing narcotic inventory, all these like things that are just not fun for me. And not only was I in charge of doing that, but I was also now taking care of twice as many patients. And the facility was now accepting patients at pretty much all hours of the day. So I would literally — I remember one time, I got a phone call from a physician — or no, it was from the nurse, bless her heart. She caught me at a bad time. But it was like 11:30 at night, and they needed Levaquin. And I’m just like, are you serious? You’re going to make me get up and go in and get you a Levaquin? When they probably already had a dose before they left the hospital that morning. And in that moment, I was just like, oh my gosh, I don’t want to do this anymore. Like, I was literally — I probably had one or — no, that’s a lie. I probably had two or three days off each month between those two jobs. And at the end, I was probably working 10- or 12-hour shifts every time I went in there. So it went from chill, six hours, you know, doing my thing to over the course of a year or two, now double the work, 10 to 12-hour shifts, getting yelled at for putting in so many hours and just stress, like ugh. I was crabby. Nobody liked me.
Tim Church: So it started out like it was a pretty good position starting out, but then it sounds like with all the extra work and the stress that it wasn’t worth the extra money that you were making in order to kind of accelerate the goals that you were looking at.
Crissy Mahl: Exactly. Yeah.
Tim Church: So how long did you work at that facility?
Crissy Mahl: I am not good at quitting. So I stayed at that facility longer than I wanted to, to be honest. I was there for probably close to three years. And it was probably halfway through there where I actually wanted to quit. And I didn’t have necessarily a backup plan because I was already used to that double income and couldn’t really afford, based on my plan for paying things off loan-wise, I couldn’t afford to just dip out. And so that’s kind of when I got into my second side hustle.
Tim Church: Yeah, so talk a little bit about that.
Crissy Mahl: So my second side hustle was something completely unexpected. Honestly, so I got into it because I wanted an eye cream. I was 29 years old, almost turning 30, and I wanted an eye cream. And I was talking with — this is going to sound so ridiculous — I was talking with a friend of a friend who was also a pharmacist. She’s from Arizona and lives in Wisconsin, and she was talking to me about, you know, what this particular side hustle did for her. And for her, she really, really wanted to be present for her kids at home. And she worked at a retail pharmacy location, and I know that the hours can be long and exhausting and just draining overall in retail in particular, and in my opinion. Maybe it’s just because retail isn’t my jam and it stressed me out more than maybe other people. But she was actually able to go down to only working two days a week with this side hustle. And so that impressed me, and I was like, I know how much a pharmacist makes, and you’re telling me that this side hustle is bringing in enough money that you can go down to working two days a week? That’s intriguing. So I joined the business with her. And within a couple of months, I think it was like less than three months, I was able to make back my initial investment in the business. After that, it was gains. And by, again, I suck at the quitting thing. So I could have quit at the rehab hospital a lot sooner than I did because I was actually to make more with this side hustle, with this business, after only five months than I made at the rehab hospital. So I was making more with this business than I was at the rehab hospital, and I was able to do it from home.
Tim Church: So talk a little bit about the actual business that you’re working for and what you’re actually doing.
Crissy Mahl: Awesome. I would love to. OK, so I am essentially paid to have conversations with people about the No. 1 skincare brand in North America. So I talk with people about their skincare concerns, and I also talk with people about the business opportunity. And I make a commission off of the skincare that people purchase through me, and I also make a commission off of the team that I build under me. So with this particular company, there are certain standards. You can’t just make money by sitting back and not doing anything. You actually have to be physically present in the business, working and like I said, building and coaching your team. Skincare isn’t necessarily something I was passionate about at all. Like literally, you’re talking to the chick who used a Neutrogena face makeup cloth before going to bed every night, and that’s it. Like that’s all my skincare routine included. And so once I got into this, it was kind of opening a whole new door of, you know, what skincare actually is and people started noticing my skin just after a couple of weeks. And that’s really when I saw the value in working with this particular company.
Tim Church: And what is the company that you’re working for, Chrissy?
Crissy Mahl: It’s called Rodan & Fields. Have you ever heard of it?
Tim Church: I have heard of that. And is it slang within the biz or is just on the street as R&F, also known as?
Crissy Mahl: No, R&F is like a thing. It’s their logo, it’s their — yeah.
Tim Church: OK.
Crissy Mahl: So that’s legit.
Tim Church: OK. I just didn’t know if you guys typically use that or you use the full name because I’ve kind of heard it both ways.
Crissy Mahl: Sure. So usually if somebody, if I’m bringing it up for the first time, I usually say Rodan & Fields because most people if I just say R&F are kind of like what? But sometimes, people will say, ‘Oh yeah, that sounds familiar. Tell me more.’
Tim Church: Right.
Crissy Mahl: And so that kind of opens up the door to me chatting with them.
Tim Church: So when you were talking about the different ways that you’re serving people and getting additional income, where is most of the income coming from? Is it from the products that you sell? Or is it from getting other people to work for the company?
Crissy Mahl: Sure. So to be honest with you, most of my personal paycheck comes from the products, the skincare products that I sell. However, with this business, that is not the same story for everybody. I know people who really were only interested in building a team. And so they made all their money through commissions on their team’s sales instead of, you know, necessarily selling product themselves to clients. So you can really work it either way. And I’m currently trying to find a balance between the two because I was very comfortable with the talking with people about the products in the beginning rather than the business. And so that’s kind of where I started. And the commission that we get for the products is always retail profit. And then after that, based on your position in the company, you can make, you know, 30%+ commission from product. As far as team-building, it again depends on your promotion within the company, but essentially, you can make 5% of your team’s sales up to six generations below you. So that’s where your residual income comes in. And that’s how people can make six, seven figures doing this business and literally retire them and their spouses in — I think most people like somewhere between like four and nine years. So it’s not a get-rich-quick scheme, it definitely takes work, like anything other business building would. You definitely have to get uncomfortable and push yourself to do things that you normally wouldn’t do because entrepreneurship isn’t something that I ever saw myself doing necessarily. So this is definitely outside my comfort zone, but it’s really been just so rewarding because it’s so different than pharmacy. So much more different than pharmacy.
Tim Church: Was that hard, making that transition into something completely different and kind of shifting your mindset?
Crissy Mahl: You know, it wasn’t that much. It sounds really weird, but I think that because of my natural want to help other people make something extraordinary, whether that’s a pharmacy position or building their own business, that kind of ties in together. And then also, I kind of like to have things that I can call my own, whether that’s a project or whatever, whatever it is. So this thing that is my own is my business. And so I have — give or take — full control over where my business goes. If I put a lot of work into it, I’m going to see a lot of gain from it. If I don’t put a lot of work into it, you know, it can slide backwards. So I have some control over it as far as that goes and that kind of give me a feeling of — I don’t know — safety, if you will.
Tim Church: And I wanted to ask you, Chrissy, because a lot of these business models, sometimes there’s negative connotations with them. And there’s a lot of stories out there of people who are very unsuccessful actually when they’re in these kind of businesses. But what would you say has led you for you to be successful in doing this? Because clearly, you’ve mentioned that it is bringing some additional income and is helping you achieve your financial goals quicker so that you were able to really quit the rehab facility position that you had.
Crissy Mahl: Sure. Yes. So my story in this business is unique to me. I don’t think I’ve ever come across two people with the same story in this business. Some people go super fast, some people are a little slower. You know, some people literally don’t do anything. And honestly, it kind of depends on your mindset — and when I say kind of, it’s like it depends completely on your mindset. So are you willing to do the uncomfortable? Are you willing to put in the work? Are you willing to be coachable? You know, things like that. And honestly, pharmacists have a bit of an edge in this kind of business because we’re already viewed as a trusted resource to people. And so for me, I mean, people would — before I even joined this business, people would come to me all the time, specifically to me, and say, ‘I have this patient. I need your help. What should I do?’ Or, ‘I’m going to Spain, and I need to know what restaurant to go to. Which one do I go to?’ You know, they look to me because they trust my opinion is going to be honest and is going to be helpful and accurate. And so, honestly, the relationship that you have with people in general and the, I guess the personal brand that you have on yourself does impact how well you’ll do in the business, especially in the beginning. So again, pharmacists having that trustworthy, you know, reputation kind of really puts you at a good spot because again, people are going to come to you with their problems. And they expect that whatever you tell them is going to be true and honest.
Tim Church: So besides just being a pharmacist, kind of being a trusted figure, are there any other skills or experiences that you’ve had in pharmacy school or just throughout your professional experience that have helped you be successful?
Crissy Mahl: You know, some of it I probably knew and had experienced throughout pharmacy, and I just didn’t realize it and it hit me more head-on in this kind of business. So for example, different personality types, different learning styles. Even though I am a preceptor to the PGY1 pharmacy residents that we have now as well as I help out with the family medicine residents that we have at the hospital here too, you know, everybody learns a different way. But when you are coaching somebody on how to utilize this system and how to run a business and what works for me, it doesn’t mean that they’re going to do what you tell them to do. And that part can be a little bit frustrating, and you just have to know that it’s going to happen. Like, there’s going to be somebody who wants to do it their way, and you have to just let it happen. There is that — I have encountered that negative connotation about, oh, you’re in direct sales, like what are you doing? And to be honest with you, their opinion doesn’t pay my bills. And if it did, then I would care. But it doesn’t, so I don’t. And you have to have that mentality to get through it because if you care too much about what other people think of you, and if you don’t have a place that you can go to reset your mind and bring you back to you, then you won’t get through it. You have to be able to say, again, ‘I’m all in on this. This is going to work for me. I will make this work. These are my goals. This is my timeline. You know, this is exactly what I want to do.’ And you have to kind of make yourself a plan. Like with pharmacy school, you know you’re going to be in school for six years. You plan it out. Year one, year two, year three, done. So with this, I’m like, OK, personally, my goal is to retire myself at the age of 39, which is a huge goal. It’s scary. It sounds audacious because it is. But you know, you have to believe in yourself enough to know that if you have the grit and the persistence, the coachability, you can literally do whatever you want with this business.
Tim Church: Have you ever considered leaving pharmacy and doing this full-time? Or does pharmacy still have something that’s very central to you?
Crissy Mahl: You know, I have thought about that, which is flipping crazy to think about, honestly, because it’s like, are you serious? Like you just went to school for six years and did a residency, and you’re telling me that you would be willing to drop it and do this business. Like are you nuts? But to be honest, like, once you find that thing that makes you, that fills all the holes from a perspective of career, you know, you kind of just have to go with it. And again, if you have a plan, and it’s a legitimate plan, and you’re moving along with it, it’s hard to turn down. Like if and when I hit that goal of, you know, matching my income as a pharmacist through this company, when I’m 39 years old, how could I not consider it, you know? Like when you have an e-commerce type business — I love to travel now. I don’t think I mentioned that. But instead of working in a pharmacy on holidays and weekend — like I still work holidays and weekends at the hospital because hospitals never close. But I travel so much now, so much. And it’s something, as I mentioned before in the beginning of our conversation, that I really, really, really, really, really wanted to do. I wanted to explore the world and just, you know, take in the cultures and take in scenery and experiences and with this business, I’m able to do that. And so I feel like I have such a better work-life balance, which is honestly pretty much anybody I know would love to have.
Tim Church: Well, that’s what I was going to ask you, Chrissy. I mean, it sounds like, you know, in order to be successful, obviously you have to actually do work. You can’t just sit back and expect to get this residual income that you’ve been. But how do you practically manage your side hustle with your full-time job and your personal life?
Crissy Mahl: Yes. So to be honest, it was really hard at first because I didn’t quit that rehab hospital position right away, you know. So I was literally working two jobs with 2-3 days off every month, in addition to this business. And honestly, it’s just having the focus and utilizing your time wisely. So literally, every nook and cranny that I had in my day, I was doing my business. So if — this is going to sound dangerous, and I don’t recommend that anyone does it — but if you’re walking down a really long hallway in a hospital, I would literally be sending text messages to people and catching up on my messages because, you know, my business is pretty much virtual for the most part, so that’s how I kind of kept up with that. Also, I stopped watching TV, except for Game of Thrones, you can’t take away that. But I stopped watching TV. And my other half, he loves watching TV. So I would literally still be in the same room as him, but I would have my computer in front of me, and I would be doing work. So you know, instead of being I guess nonproductive with my relaxing time, I was actually working my business. I stopped saying no to things that didn’t really benefit me in achieving my goals. So honestly, there’s always a baby shower, there’s always a birthday party, there’s always something going on. And unless there was a legitimate networking opportunity for me or it was, you know, a best friend or an immediate, really close family member, I said no. If I had work to do, then I did work. You know, like any other job, if you don’t get your work done, then it doesn’t get done, and there’s nobody else there to do it, so you have to make the time. I also stopped doing a lot of extra overtime at my full-time position, which now I guess isn’t so much of a problem because when I was first there, we were extremely understaffed, and I was doing a lot of overtime. But I don’t really do overtime anymore. I come home, and I work my business. I mean, also, not only like texting when I’m walking down the hall of the hospital, but you know, texting on the toilet is totally a thing. Just make things work. I was going to make this work. If I am sitting and eating, then I am sitting, eating and texting or emailing or having a conversation with somebody quickly over the phone. You can make it work. And that’s one of the reasons why I really loved this particular company’s business model setup, that it works for busy people. People who are in this particular company, I mean, they excel. And by excel, I mean they’re amazing. They’re like the top of their company amazing at their primary breadwinning position at their careers. It’s pretty astounding because I just got back from New Orleans at our convention, and just seeing all these amazing people and what they’re accomplished, it’s pretty cool that they were able to accomplish something so extraordinary with a business, you know, when they had so much else going on.
Tim Church: Wow, so you basically, you’re not wasting any time going all in in order to really drive this income and get to that goal. But I think that’s cool that you’ve cut out TV and you’re really prioritizing all the things that are really important to you. And I think that’s something that I’ve even struggled with in my side hustles is trying to figure out, you know, what is the process or system that works?
Crissy Mahl: Yeah.
Tim Church: And one of the things that I thought was kind of interesting when I read in this book called, “The One Thing,” by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan is talking about that whole work-life balance and how it’s really not the best way to view something that you actually should do. And I thought that just kind of blew my mind, like when they talked about that because it was basically saying that if you want to be completely balanced and equal in what you’re doing, then that really is how you’re going to be mediocre, that it actually leads to mediocrity. But rather what the reality is is that to be successful in something, sometimes you have to go all in. You have to be willing to do things that are uncomfortable to sacrifice some of the time that might be spending with family members or friends but then kind of shifting back at other times or different periods or seasons and kind of rebalance that in that sense. So it kind of sounds like that’s what it’s taken for you in order to do that. I mean, would that be something that’s fair to say?
Crissy Mahl: Yeah. I would say that’s totally fair to say. And actually, after you mentioned that, I remember reading this quote, and honestly, I can’t remember where I saw it or whose quote it was, but it said something to the effect of, if you are not obsessed with the process of what you’re doing, then you will be average. And it’s kind of true. Like I know people who are literally obsessed — and I call them nerds — with pharmacy. Like literally, I know a guy who on his honeymoon in Hawaii, read like I think it was a BCPS book or something. I’m like, are you flipping serious? Like you’re sitting on a beach in Hawaii, and you’re reading.
Tim Church: Was he still married after that?
Crissy Mahl: Yes. Oh my gosh.
Tim Church: Oh, OK.
Crissy Mahl: Right? She knew what she was getting into. But you know what I mean, and he is like somebody that I can ask any pharmacy question to, and he knows the answer right off the top of his head. I mean, he could probably literally tell me word-for-word, oh, well that study called blah blah blah said on page 3 that this that and the other thing. I’m like, oh my God, what? But if you’re obsessed with what you’re doing, like, you don’t even think about it. You just do it. And it shows, like you can tell when somebody is really into what they’re doing.
Tim Church: I totally agree. Well, Crissy, thank you so much again for coming on the show, talking about your story and your side hustles and some of your goals and aspirations. I think people are going to be better off hearing that, and hopefully that inspires some people to kind of pursue some of the things that they’ve always wanted to do or just really look at that. So again, we thank you. And if somebody wants to reach out to you or learn more about what you’re doing, how can they do that?
Crissy Mahl: Yes, so the best way to get ahold of me honestly is email. Email works perfectly, and you can reach me at [email protected]. So it’s Crissy Mahl at gmail.com. And I’d be more than happy to send you some information about what it is that this company is about, what I’m doing. Honestly, I’m not in the business to convince anybody of anything because I wouldn’t want anybody to do this business if it wasn’t right for them. And I want you to pick the side hustle that fits into your life and your family life best and what you’re trying to pursue.
Tim Church: Thank you, Crissy.
Crissy Mahl: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me, Tim. This was so fun.
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