Appreciation in the personal finance world [PODCAST]

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“Appreciation in the personal finance world has two different components to it:

• Quantitative: increasing value of net worth and financial assets
• Qualitative: feeling of gratitude for one’s finances, resources, and circumstance. This is not dependent on the dollar amount.

These are both important, but the qualitative is the best predictor of increasing wealth and personal wellbeing.

We are programmed by these components, which makes our brain to focus on what is wrong and what is insufficient. We tend to focus on what needs to be fixed than what we already have. When all our attention is on what needs fixing in our lives, our relationships, and our finances, we spiral into negative feelings.”

Latifat Alli-Akintade is a gastroenterologist and can be reached at MoneyFitMD.

She shares her story and discusses her KevinMD article, “Appreciation in the personal finance world.”

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Hosted by Kevin Pho, MD, The Podcast by KevinMD shares the stories of the many who intersect with our health care system but are rarely heard from.

Transcript

Kevin Pho: Hi, and welcome to the show, where we share the stories of the many who intersect with our health care system but are rarely heard from. My name is Kevin Pho, founder and editor of KevinMD. Today on the show, we have Dr. Latifat. She is a gastroenterologist and a money coach, and she wrote the KevinMD article “Appreciation in the personal finance world.” Dr. Latifat, welcome to the show.

Latifat Alli-Akintade: Thank you so much for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here today.

Kevin Pho: So we’ll get into the article in a little bit, but first off, can you share your story and your journey to where you are today?

Latifat Alli-Akintade: Absolutely. I am a gastroenterologist, like you mentioned. I’m also a mama of three ladies. I live in California, and I love medicine. I love GI. I love what I do.

But about five years ago, my husband and I were sitting down, and we were sort of looking around at medicine and the culture of medicine. One, I realized that I love medicine and I want to practice forever, if possible. However, there was a ton of burnout around me, right? So we sat down at that point, and we realized that in order to improve my longevity in medicine, we needed to have a better financial life.

So we started looking at our finances, and we were extremely broke. We were living paycheck to paycheck. We knew nothing about money. I had no 401(k). I didn’t even know what a freaking 401(k) was. So we had to make a choice at that point, that this is not sustainable. This is going to take away the power of my choice in how I spend my time in medicine. And that’s how we started this journey for ourselves, in terms of being financially free and being independent, and now I get a chance to teach that to other women physicians.

Kevin Pho: Now, what are some of the finance-changing events that you yourself implemented to become financially independent during your life?

Latifat Alli-Akintade: We had to do a lot, and the reason why is we were in debt. We were in negative six figures, like pretty deep negative net worth. So first of all was even looking at our finances and seeing how we were spending our money. Where is our money going every month? What are we spending on? Where are we wasting money? What are the things we’re doing mindlessly, that we didn’t even know we were doing, that weren’t adding value to our lives?

So the number one step was just looking and seeing what we were doing, and then figuring out how we needed to pay our debt off, especially the high-interest ones, how to refinance our student loan, or my student loan, I should say, and we just started creating a debt elimination plan and investing in diversifying our source of income. And that’s been huge for us.

Kevin Pho: And where did you learn about all this? And I think you’re completely right. I talked to a lot of physicians who are financially dependent, and there is very little personal finance training in medical school and residency. How did you learn?

Latifat Alli-Akintade: So I learned by doing a lot of googling. So Google. I did White Coat Investor, just learning on the website a lot of how to find a budget and how to budget, when you hit budgeting. All those “stupid questions,” quote unquote, were the things that I was asking myself. So I had to just go out there to a bunch of websites and gather all that information together. So now I know how to do it, and that’s what I teach my clients how to do, without them wasting too much time online.

Kevin Pho: And you have transitioned into a part-time money coach. So what exactly is a money coach, and tell me a little about your clientele.

Latifat Alli-Akintade: I am actually a certified life coach, and the reason why I do that is because, like the article that I wrote for you mentioned, it’s not all about just the numbers. Because if it was just about the numbers, every physician would be a millionaire, and every physician would be financially independent. But there’s a psychological part to money. There’s sort of a mindset part to money that is the block that a lot of physicians have that stops us from excelling in our financial life.

So now what I do is I have combined my interest in the numbers, which I’ve learned for myself even without a PhD in mathematics, and I’ve combined that with the skill set that I have as a certified life coach. So when we combine that together, it’s not just about you excelling in the numbers, but it’s about you excelling as a human, so you can actually have a good relationship with yourself, a good relationship with those around you, and a good relationship with your money. Because that is truly when you can live a rich life.

And that’s what I hope every single physician would have. I mean, I focus more on women physicians, but just being in that place where you’re like, “I am good. My money is growing. My life is growing. I am well. My money is a tool. It’s not who I am.” It’s just a rich place to be in, and I truly, truly wish that we could all get that gift.

Kevin Pho: So let’s transition into your KevinMD article, “Appreciation in the personal finance world.” For those who haven’t read that article, can you just walk my audience through it and maybe share the story of why you decided to write it?

Latifat Alli-Akintade: Absolutely. I decided to write it because I find that there’s a separation between money and mindset. A lot of times, people are like, “Oh, I want to have money. I want to pay off my debt.” But a lot of times, people are doing it from a not-so-good place, where it’s just about chasing the numbers.

So what that article is about is we can chase the numbers, but we also want to chase the overall wellness in ourselves. We want to be personally mindful. We want to be personally, mindly well. So what I talk about in that article is how to appreciate in a qualitative perspective, meaning the numbers, but also, I mean, excuse me, quantitative in terms of the numbers, but also qualitative in terms of life, right? Because, I mean, what’s the point of having 10 trillion dollars in your account if you have no life, if you’re not joyful?

So I talk about combining the quantitative and the qualitative, and one good way to get there is through the power of gratitude and practicing gratitude. Because a lot of times, it’s easy to see the glass as being half empty, right? But if you start to practice gratitude, it puts your foot on the ground, so you can actually appreciate what you currently have.

And that doesn’t mean you’re not going to be growing. That doesn’t mean you’re not going to be building more wealth. It doesn’t mean you’re not going to be having more money. What it means is you get to do that from a place of plenty, from a place of health, from a place of wellness, as opposed to from a place of scarcity, sadness, and deprivation. So it’s overall total life wellness and money wellness.

And I’m glad that you published that article, and my hope is that more and more people will read that and start to think about life as not just being one or the other, but both.

Kevin Pho: Can you take me through a specific example of how we can better practice gratitude?

Latifat Alli-Akintade: So one thing that I tell my clients to do is practicing gratitude every day. Because, I mean, it’s 2020. There’s a lot of craziness going on around us, and it’s easy to get lost in that craziness. But even something as simple as waking up in the morning and saying, “You know what? Today, I’m grateful that I have food. I’m grateful that I have an emergency fund. I’m grateful that I have health.” It just reminds you of what you have. So that daily practice is really important in life in general.

But then you can even take it deeper into your finances: “I’m grateful that I have a couch.” Because when you’re grateful for the things you have, it helps you take stock of what you have, so you’re not just in this place of buying, buying, buying, and spending money mindlessly.

So that’s how I tell people to just start opening up: Practice gratitude with yourself and also with your family. Because this is not about just you learning about finances. It’s also about you changing the culture of your family, if you have kids, transforming your kids and their story. And when your kids can practice gratitude for the toys they have, they’re less likely to go looking for other toys and forcing you to spend your money on things you don’t want to spend it on.

Kevin Pho: All right. We’re talking to Dr. Latifat. She is a gastroenterologist and a money and life coach. She wrote the KevinMD article “Appreciation in the personal finance world.” Dr. Latifat, what are some of the biggest issues that you see among physicians when it comes to personal finance? What are some of the biggest problems that you see during your coaching?

Latifat Alli-Akintade: One of the biggest problems that I see is that people don’t know where their money is going, because they’re too afraid to look, right? So that’s why awareness is really important. You want to take a look, take stock, and say, “Where exactly am I? What exactly am I doing with my money?” So that’s number one.

Number two is that people think that money is going to complete them. Money is never going to complete you. Your relationship with yourself is what completes you, and that’s part of what I help people do. As the certified life coach, part of my skill set is truly helping you love yourself, so that you’re not looking for money to love you, you know, looking for people to love you. And when you do that, you can truly be yourself.

So those are part of the things. Because in medicine, we’ve been taught that we’re not enough. We’ve been taught that life can always be better. And yes, life can be better, but we can also practice some gratitude and be grateful for the current now, so that we can grow well.

And the other thing is, fear is a big factor. People are afraid to lose money, so they don’t want to invest. People are afraid of looking bad, or feeling afraid of being overwhelmed or shamed. So those are some of the things. I try to remind people that there is a safe place for you to come to, where we can help you get to the bottom of your issues and help you transform, really, from the inside out.

Kevin Pho: Now, I talked to a lot of physician money coaches, and they suggest real estate is another way of having an additional source of income. But I just want to be clear: Physicians who want to take control of their money, they don’t need to necessarily invest in real estate or nontraditional investments. Is that correct?

Latifat Alli-Akintade: Well, real estate is a tool, and I always tell people diversifying is really important. So real estate is one of the tools that people can use. It’s not the only tool, but even within real estate, there are a lot of options you can do, right? There is passive investment, there is active investment, and even within active, there are a bunch of different options. We invest in long-term, rent-to-hold, cash-flowing properties, but we also will be investing in the short-term Airbnb option. So real estate is not one thing. It’s one thing that has a bunch of different options within it.

But even outside of real estate, there’s the stock market. There are things like what we do, like coaching. As a physician, you can optimize your billing in your practice. If you’re underbilling, you can make sure you’re getting paid what you should be getting paid, if you’re not, especially as a woman physician. So there are so many ways we can make money without selling our soul to the devil that we’re not even looking at.

The other thing is, you can create products. We’re physicians. We are great at seeing problems and finding solutions, right? We’re assessing and planning all day. We can do that. Your patients are struggling with things that you can create to make their lives better. So there are so many options, and part of what I do is really helping people think outside of the box, so they can grow their wealth in a way that is natural to them.

Kevin Pho: So let’s say I’m a clinician at the beginning of my professional journey, and I know nothing about personal finance, and I want to implement some of the ideas that you’re talking about. What’s the first thing that I should do?

Latifat Alli-Akintade: First thing you want to do is disconnect your Amazon account. Amazon has made life a lot easier, but also, it’s psychology: They make it very easy for you to shop.

So first of all, number one is taking care of yourself. It’s really, really important: getting sleep, maintaining your relationships. Because we know that when you’re isolated, you’re more likely to spend money. When you’re isolated, when you’re not sleeping well, when you hate your job, when you hate your life, you’re more likely to spend money as a way of dulling the pain and making yourself feel better. So number one is just focusing on improving yourself and just being a joyful, happier person.

Number two is go out there and find information. There are lots of us that are doing this together. White Coat Investor is well known. There are other options. There is Wealthy Mom by Bonnie Koo. You can also check out my page. I do a lot of vlogging and getting information to people. So there is a lot of information. Just find one source that you identify with, reach out to them, and learn from them.

There are people that learn from me that I don’t even know about, and the only way I know about them is when they send me messages, going, “Oh my goodness, I’ve been able to do this with your information. Thank you so much,” right? So there’s a ton of information out there. Find one, use it, and don’t let fear stop you.

Write down the things you need to learn. Write it down on a paper, not in a way that’s overwhelming, but in a way that gets it out of your head, so you’re not in a place of continuous overwhelm that’s not productive. And then pick one topic a week, or one topic every other week, and learn it. So before you know it, 10 weeks from now, one year from now, you have more information than you have today. So that’s my tip.

Kevin Pho: And what is your take-home message that you want to leave with my audience?

Latifat Alli-Akintade: My take-home message is, you know, your money life is important. Your life is important. We as physicians, our skill set is important. Medicine is changing. Medicine has changed. I want to be able to have a physician when I want one, 20 years from now. So it’s important that we are able to practice medicine how we want it, so we can have longevity, and that starts with you having financial freedom.

So I want you to be empowered and know that if all of us can do it, if we can do it, you can do it too. Because we’re not smarter than you are. We’ve just been able to find the skill set. So get out there and find the information. If you need help, reach out to us. We’re all here together, and our goal is to all thrive together and win together, and however we can help you with that, we’re happy to do that.

Kevin Pho: All right. How can people reach you?

Latifat Alli-Akintade: If you want to reach me, my website is a great place to go. It’s MoneyFitMD, M-O-N-E-Y-F as in Frank, ITMD.com. I am on Facebook. I’m on Instagram. You can also send me an email at [email protected]. And I would love to get to know you, work with you, and see how we can help you transform your money life.

Kevin Pho: All right. Well, thank you so much for sharing your insight, and thanks again for being on the show.

Latifat Alli-Akintade: Thank you for having me, Kevin.

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