Ep 180 - Empowering Doctors on the Journey to Financial Independence with Sanjay Sharma

Today we’re speaking with Dr. Sanjay Sharma, an oncologist who has leveraged his medical and business expertise to become a highly successful commercial real estate investor.

- Dr. Sharma explains how physicians can attain financial freedom without abandoning their medical careers. Learn why doctors make excellent real estate investors and syndicators and how to leverage your analytical skills.
- Discover Dr. Sharma’s “secret sauce” - the morning routines, business philosophies, and time management techniques that enable him to balance prospering medical and real estate careers.
- You’ll hear Dr. Sharma’s personal real estate investing journey - how he got started, mistakes made, and lessons learned about syndicating and developing big projects. Gain priceless tips on partnering with the right professionals.

If you’re a physician interested in real estate or an investor looking to work with doctor-led syndicates, don’t miss this insightful conversation. Dr. Sharma delivers proven methods to build wealth and find freedom.

Connect with Dr. Sharman thru the social links below and learn more about his business:
Instagram: www.instagram.com/hemeonclive
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanjay-sharma-md-218b05175/
Website: https://www.titan3capital.com/

Unlock 3+1 degrees of freedom (time, location, financial + health) with our 5-Point Blueprint! https://elevateequity.org/podcastgift

If you really enjoyed this content and are looking for more, you can continue to learn more about us in several different places for free!

• on our website for blogs & other podcast interviews! elevateequity.org
• our YouTube channel! youtube.com/channel/derekclifford
• our book/audiobook! amazon.com/dp/ebook

If you'd like to have a FREE copy of our 7 Ways Commercial Real Estate Syndications Protect and Build Wealth, simply click the link below. We are here and vested in your long-term success! elevateequity.org/7waysEbook

Transcript

0:01

Welcome to the three degrees of freedom podcast, where we explore lifestyle engineering with our expert guests to bring you in alignment with your own three degrees of freedom, location, time, and financial independence.

Derek: 0:14

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the show. Today we welcome a medical and a real estate professional to the show. Dr. Sanjay Sharma. Dr. Sharma empowers high net worth individuals and fellow doctors to achieve financial freedom through commercial real estate. He has over 90 million invested across major markets in the US. And his proven track record and multifaceted career highlight how medical professionals can leverage their unique skills to prosper even in the financial sector. Dr. Sharma aims to inspire physicians to transform healthcare by attaining financial independence. Dr. Sharma, Sanjay, how are you today?

Dr. Sanjay: 0:51

I'm good. I'm very happy to be here. It's an honor to be your guest, Eric.

Derek: 0:55

Absolutely. Thank you so much for coming on the show. This'll be no surprise to you, but we usually start off with the same question with all of our guests. But can you help us determine which of the three degrees of freedom, location, time, financial, do you feel the strongest in right now? And which one do you want to develop a little bit further? Got

Dr. Sanjay: 1:14

it. So I'm going to be, I think I'm going to be, give you a surprising answer for most doctors. Cause I'm going to say it's. Time freedom because even though I'm super busy all the time It's something that I've worked on my entire career to recognize what time how to dedicate time for Certain aspects so time for seeing patients time for family time for growing my business time for evaluating properties time for exercising and I feel that I've done a lot of Positive work in that direction. I'm actually going to say it's time now. Absolutely. Could it improve? Yeah, for sure. There's no question it could improve and I'm continually working on it. If I was a master and expert, then I guess I wouldn't even be here. I'd be in the mountains somewhere like where you like to spend it hanging out there. And then you were asking in terms of what are the ones that I want to achieve? I would say it's financial, something that's misunderstood about physicians and a lot of people in society and cultures sees doctors as high earning potential. We do have a high earning potential in what we do, but what's not seen is. Kind of the changes that happen in medicines. And if you look at it in terms of inflation adjusted, we've actually digressed significantly. We talked about payments have decreased for the more hours that we put in. We're actually on a decline. So I hope that I can share with all my medical colleagues and all my life science colleagues to recognize these changes and introduce them avenues in which they can still attain financial attainment. This career and what we do has meaning. And I want it to continue to have meaning. And I want those who are involved in it to be able to really be in there and recognize the meaning of why we all became what we're doing.

Derek: 3:09

This really hits pretty close to home because even though I'm not a medical professional and I don't even pretend to be so at any point in time or ever will. My wife is. And when you say how doctors are spending more and more time because either their patient load is increasing or the demands are increasing or the diseases that people are coming to you with is also getting more complicated and nuanced and the science behind it is getting more complicated, right? I'm sure it's a It's all three of those things. I can see that also impacting her as well and her billable for the amount of time that she's spending, cases are getting more complicated. And there's more information available to help make the right recommendation and then it's also more litigious as well. So there's also this litigious situation where depending on where you're practicing you have to be careful what advice you give or what services you render. And that's why I'm right there with you, even though I'm not a medical professional, I have direct stake in your mission of helping to improve the lives of medical professionals. So before we jump in a little bit more there, I wanted to ask you, you mentioned time freedom is something that you're the best at. I wanted to ask you, how are you able to balance your medical practice and your real estate investment work? Do you have a time management tips or what are some basic principles you employ to help with that?

Dr. Sanjay: 4:29

So I've always been raised. To be an early riser. That's like kind of the motto of that. What I'm raised to, we are taught to wake up early. My dad wakes up even earlier than I did, or I do. And, my grandfather, when he was alive, he worked up, woke up crazy early. So it was just in me that does what I got to do. What I didn't realize is you have to take advantage of that time. It's not so much. You just wake up and then you putz around you on your phone. You do this, you watch the news. It's what do you do in those morning out for me? It's those morning hours that makes you productive. And that's really, that's my mojo. That's my time where I've got the clear thought process. I can meditate, I can do actionable items. I can do create my call to actions. So what I get done in that morning hour is so significantly important for everything in my day, and it sets up the rest of my day. I wake up early, I wake up at 4 a. m. and I'm in the gym at 530 and I'm in my office or at the hospital by, by 645. So that those morning hours I find critically important and then I can shift right into patient hours. I can take care of my patients and then I can shift right out. And if it's a business task, I have to take care of. If it's a, that I'm going home to be with the family those are critically important. Another thing that I've always cherished is vacation time. I am big on traveling in terms of getting out and taking advantage in any moment I get. My family and I, we tried to try to get away. So I find that also important in terms of time. You said that I was best at time management. I would say best, but it's something that I've worked on and things. And you asked about skill sets that I do. There are certain things that I do. For example, I do the Eisenhower matrix where a lot of people do. So like my mornings are, okay, what am I grateful for? And then I label my thought process in terms of what's important and what's not important and then what's urgent and what's not urgent. And just by categorizing things, I can split up what could be an overwhelming day into categories that are either delegated to someone else or maybe wasteful that are not needed. Or things that immediately got to get done, shoot taxes or do, okay, that's right up there at the top of the thing. Or it's the time to create my vision and work on my vision and what's going to happen a year from now or next quarter, et cetera, et cetera. So once I have my day organized, things seem less overwhelmed. In a medical practice, by default, We are faced with, numerous decisions at any moment, at any given time. And that also can be overwhelming. And a lot of that just has come through practice. I've been in practice for, almost 19 years now. I'm used to it. I'm used to the diseases. I'm an oncologist. I'm a cancer doctor. So I'm used to the intensities of the diseases that come to me and the the needs and the interests of the family. And you learn to recognize, okay, how do you compartmentalize those into different areas? And that's how you get time done. Everyone says that, we all have the same number of hours and days. There are some who get so much accomplishments. There are so many people that I look up to that, they get this much done, but they get the same amount of days and same amount of hours. How do you maximize that? And so that's my philosophy a starting out just with kind of the basics. I wake up early, then be recognizing what do I do during those hours and during those minutes to make it most effective in terms of what goals I need to make. And that's. That's how I work things out all the time.

Derek: 8:03

I, I think that something that's important is obviously it's in your, I don't want to say in your DNA, but in your makeup and in your nature and nurture to wake up early and take care of some of those things. I'm also the same way. I like to wake up early. That's when I'm, I hit my peak energy and when my focus is the sharpest, right? There may be people out there, so I'm just talking to the audience right now where maybe you think sharpest at night. That would be a great time for you to do reflection, right? So I think that it's just a matter of understanding what your biorhythms are and basically sticking with that biorhythm, right? Because if your high energy comes in the middle of the day, Then that's when you should be doing your one thing, right? That book from Jay Papasan and I forgot I forgot exactly who that, oh, Gary Keller and Jay Papasan. That book the one thing reminds me a lot of what you're doing and it seems like you're compressing all that plus doing some miracle morning stuff all in the day so that your day is a success before it even starts with your. with your medical stuff, right? So I think that's an awesome time management tip and something that is probably one of the most cornerstone things for success. And so I, I can see that's just a lifestyle for you. I bet you when you're on vacation, you're still waking up early and still working on your business. Am I right about that?

Dr. Sanjay: 9:20

I I do that. I try to separate when I'm on vacation, I try to separate business stuff from family stuff. So yeah, I do wake up a little bit earlier. I still get stuff done. That's

Derek: 9:32

good. Okay let's make a quick shift here. I want to talk a little bit about the healthcare system real quick, and then we can talk about investing and some of the nuts and bolts there. How do you think the healthcare system itself would improve? Physicians themselves were able to get closer to financial freedom. I'm sure you've thought about this a lot. But since you're trying to serve that segment, I want to talk a little bit more about that. Yeah.

Dr. Sanjay: 9:57

Yeah. And so doctors we're an interesting breed. So we are taught rightfully so that we do what's right for the patient. Okay. No matter what it may be. Now, that's a, that's the way I practice, and that's the way I've been trained, and that's how I mentor other younger physicians and what they do. But in doing so, you also have to recognize you yourself. You have to recognize what is it that you need as a person, what is, what does it take to grow, and what does it take to sustain yourself. In marrying those two, there's inherent conflict. So if you're doing everything that is if you're always doing the right thing, it almost goes back to how we were trained in med school and how we were trained in residency. I was at, I trained at a period of time where you didn't have days off. There wasn't, nowadays I think residents get off after 12 hours or whatever it may be. We went two, three days at a time. A, to see the natural what happens into the disease. B, to be there with the patients. And as a result, you're doing some sacrifice. The medical industry has changed. We're required to do more and more, and that's not necessarily supported. COVID changed a lot of things. In fact, there was a classmate of mine who I just learned, I didn't even realize this, that while she was an ER attendee during COVID in New York City, she actually ended up committing suicide. It was just too much of her to handle to marry those two things. All right. So what are the things that we can do to alleviate some of those pressures of a doctor outside of medicine? One within medicine, you can do it okay, the way you practice, but outside of medicine and one of those key things is financial pressures. It really is. Expensive to do whatever to live your lifestyle. And that's true for everyone. But what if you can take that away and for anyone, all your listeners, what if you could take that financial pressures away, that's a huge burden. What if you're not concerned about how you're going to pay the kids college or the mortgage or help out the family or the parents and all that kind of stuff. That takes away a burden. It brings us closer and closer to having a freedom in our thought process, in our mindset. to be a better doctor. It brings in depending on a person's practice. You mentioned earlier, sometimes doctors are meant to see how many, 10 12 patients in an hour. I see over 20 patients a day, which in oncology is a significant amount. So what if you didn't have to practice that? What if it wasn't about making the finances? Wow. Maybe then you brought yourself back to those times when you were a med student, when you were a residence, when you were just thinking in this thought process, Oh, okay. What is going on with this patient? How can I help this patient? Maybe it can spawn additional research. I'm very active in research and we have tons of clinical trials, but maybe it would spawn me spending more time in clinical research. So it really is a shift. And how medicine is practiced. It's really a shift and the care that patients would get in the United States. And I talked about a nation of financially free physicians. I have a group called physician real estate nations, and that's why I look at. The nation and all the doctors and how we can help all the doctors attain that.

Derek: 13:19

I can only imagine what some of these doctors are going through, especially, I'm thinking, emergency doctors doctor, like surgeons, anesthesiologists, oncologists, folks like you that are really giving your all and the emotional energy. that must be involved there. And I think it comes with experience to be able to handle some of that energy right over time, but then to come home and potentially face financial issues, and to not have the choice to be able to decide I need to slow down and take time for myself because you're financially constrained. I think that's a huge consideration and being able to practice and. move at the pace that you want to move to be at your peak self for your patients and for yourself is super, super important. Now on a similar vein, I want to ask you, how does your medical knowledge in some of your upbringing around this, the oncology and through your med school training and holding a practice throughout all these years, how does that give you an edge in the real estate investing industry?

Dr. Sanjay: 14:23

It gives us an edge on several standpoints. We live by a certain ethos and a certain creed by nature as physicians, we are giving, we're always considering our patient and other people. I, you definitely need that trust. If someone is investing in one of our deals and in our company, they need that trust. And naturally as a doctor, we exude that in which is true. There has never been a moment where I have thought, Less of an investor or thought of how can I take advantage of investors? That's not even a consideration in my mind. I have seen deals out there, which question I, I questioned that of the sponsors when I see deals, which are maybe not so hot, or maybe not the best investment vehicle for an investor. And those kinds of things bother me. I truly, every time I talk to an investor, it's not so much, Oh, come invest in my deal is how can I help them in some way? To further them on their financial thing. The second thing that makes doctors very good is by nature, we doubt everything, every drug I treat in oncology is because it's gone through rigorous clinical trials. And then after that happens, it, I question everything about it. Okay. Does the mechanism actually make sense? Does this data make sense? We are super data driven. We're very analytical. And we always doubt the answer is not always. Yes. The answer is maybe why let me understand this further, we sit there and we read all the time. So when it comes to real estate, which a lot of times it's spreadsheets and then it's analyzing multiple variables, whether it's the location that, the class of the building, the future, what's happening in the community for us it's normal to have multiple variables coming at us. We're used to making critical decision life and death situations that when we're talking about a real estate deal Yeah. That's easy for us. We can look at spreadsheets all day and all night. And you want someone in that situation as a sponsor to question everything and make sure it's legitimate.

Derek: 16:25

Yeah. Alongside of that, I'm just hearing a lot of things that are very familiar to me because I have an engineering background. Yeah. Both my wife and I guess you could consider engineering the sciences. There's no doubt that. being, in the in, in medicine is a science for sure. And there's always research and cause and effect and new findings that help change the course of the way we practice. And so I think having that type of mindset of always wanting to understand how things work. is very compatible with the careers that we've chosen. And real estate investing, as I've found as a natural engineer, and so has my wife is a practicing physician. Also, real estate investing is the, it's formulaic, but there's also things that like lead to each other, just like in science. Once you understand what the formula is, now it's a matter of taking the formula and using it to diagnose a problem, which is financial. independence or gaining wealth, building wealth. And then there's little corollaries that come in from time to time. And once you get that core knowledge in, you definitely want to work with someone like you that has caught up with all of that, and is able to advise, beyond the obvious, because let's be honest, real estate investing is relatively simple, or maybe it's easy for me to say that as fellow scientists, but some people need some extra help. But as a physician, we are naturally tuned for this type of investment because that's the way our brain thinks and it's very formulaic and in that form. It's not like the stock market where you just drop your money in and hope it goes up, right? So I think that's very interesting there, too.

Dr. Sanjay: 18:01

Yeah I, it's yeah, engineering I think is built for this. My dad was an engineer I'm around engineers. So I recognize the thought processes. I recognize the spreadsheets of them. So engineering makes a lot of sense to get into real estate. And then you can understand how the risks are mitigated. You mentioned the stock market. The reality of the stock market is even though if you look at it over time, you get steady return. The reality is you're not sitting in the boardroom. You really don't know what's going on in that business. You're not making the widgets or the. Or whatever it is that you're investing in. So you don't really get it. And there's certain, and there's layers. And then on top of that, and the stock market, you're a retail investor and you're relying on a mutual fund. And so it's, I don't see control. I, with a real estate deal, when you're a sponsor, you really have control and you're a good sponsor. Let me have control of the real estate deal. People get. Nervous about the risks. And what if this happens? What if lightning hits the building? You got insurance, what if there's a significant change in in society or this, that, and the other, there's always going to be black swan events. COVID was a black swan events I shouldn't say they're always going to be, but there's always going to be those things that you absolutely can't expect, but you try to mitigate for all the risks that you can you go in with a professional team. And now it makes sense. Now you're controlling a property. You have everything in front of you. You're looking at the data. You're not just putting your money in the stock market. Like you were saying, which that'll go up. Yeah. Over time it'll go up, but. It's I find that more risky, if you will, than going into real estate. Yeah,

Derek: 19:39

I think that also, and this is the basic conversations that you have with people when they're just getting started, but there's more control. There's more that you can do with the property, right? With the stock, it's like your only choices are. By yourself, or maybe you can do options and maybe you can leverage against the stock, but that also can lead to issues. But with real estate, you can say, okay, are we going to replace the doors? Are we going to repaint the building? Are we going to get a different manager? Are we going to refinance here? Are we going to sell? Are we going to get a different insurance policy? You have all of these decision points where things can get adjusted and tweaked over time. And with a great operational team, there's just less risk, right? Then working in the stock market, add to the fact to Sanjay that you have tax benefits, which is something we haven't even talked about yet. And you get the fact that the demand for housing in the U S is just. sky high and the supply is nowhere near meeting the demand. That just sets yourself up for you're buying a business with hungry customers. Anyway, we can go on about this for decades, but I want to get back to you specifically. I'm interested in learning a little bit more about how you found out about real estate as a physician. We talked about all these areas around that, but for you personally, how did you find

Dr. Sanjay: 20:56

real estate? Yeah. So real estate for me. Was I'll start out by saying everyone understands real estate, everyone has had a roof over their head at one time, whether they're renting or whether they're buying and everyone knows stories like, oh, wow, did, when this property was purchased way back when. It's worth so much more now, and it doesn't matter whether it's L. A. or New York City or Cincinnati or whatever the southeast, everyone recognizes it that. Okay. This property is worth something. And now it's worth a little bit more. It's something tangible that you sit in and you live in. Okay. So that was recognizable. And I remember the time period. It's I lived in in New York City and we'd see apartments going. Okay. Up and up. I got married, my wife's family, they were involved in apartment investing in LA. And, they had recommended, why don't you do some real estate? And I was like, no, I'm a doctor. I need to concentrate on being a doctor. And the same things that everyone says, I don't want tenants. I don't want headaches. I didn't recognize at the time that there's multiple ways that you can invest in real estate, like numerous. And then I was, and I remember in New York City, I was like, Oh I had a couple uncles who said, Oh, you're in New York City. You're here for training for fellowship. Why don't you buy the apartment? Why don't you buy the building? I was like, this is crazy. Who the heck buys something and who could ever buy a building? I talked to my dad. He's no, that sounds risky. Don't do it. And so I passed on it. I passed on it. And then I got involved in some passive real estate investing. It was a medical office building and I didn't know what I was doing, but some of my partners are investing. And I was like, so I did it and it worked. Like I still am an investor in that building and I'm getting over 30 percent returns now. That's unheard of. And then I got involved in another building. This was a commercial building in LA. And I had an interest. I still didn't know what I was doing. It was at that time, it was a boatload of money that I was investing in. And then I periodically get a call and they're like, Oh, we were up on the roof. And, we found. So we were no renegotiating. I'm like, Oh my God, this is awful. The roof is going to cave in. And they'll be like we negotiated, a credit. And I didn't know, I was like, whatever. It sounds like I lost all my money. I kept on saying that I kept on saying that and then boom, I got a return and it was crazy. Like I got I think I got a paper check at that time for a lot more than I invested. And I was thinking like, Oh my God, this is crazy. And then. Eventually I was like, okay, we're going to do this on our own. So my wife and I started buying stuff in LA and Orange County. And the cap rates are super low out here. Things are very expensive. You mentioned that housing, if there's a big time shortage and rents are sky high. So there is tremendous value that you can get in investing in LA. And so we bought a duplex and then we exited that and about a triplex and a quad. And literally we were we were significantly increasing our money by multiples. And, but what I also recognize is that how awesome that this was, it still wasn't meeting that what I really wanted. Like, how do I make everyone else around me, all my colleagues get to that level? It, I was like, they can share in this. We work together. We do all this stuff. How do I increase that? And how do I actually get the the type of properties that I want? I wanted to buy buildings. That's when I started to syndicate. So then we started syndicating. We syndicated in L. A. We've done it. In Atlanta we're now developing in Philadelphia, a new city near UPenn. But that, the story I have was yeah, real estate is tangible. People seem to be making money out of it. I don't know how to do it. I'm a little bit nervous. I put a little bit of money and it worked, a little bit more money and it worked, got active and now it's really working. So now let me get to the level where I want to get to. And share this with everyone else. What

Derek: 25:07

a great story. And again this sounds I'm hearing myself when I first started, because it's I don't trust, I don't understand all this stuff at all because my my, my parents taught me and they did everything that they could, to raise me and I ended up doing okay with their advice, but I found out that there's a better way than just being in W2 for, 40 years and by trying this stuff out, like everyone was telling me that this wasn't going to work at all, but it wasn't until my wife came along and we fell into it by accident that we had to do it. And that's you talk, if you think that you are, that you are having a really hard time to pull the trigger, like I was probably three or four times, I had that, that, that big obstacle to climb early on in my career. So I can totally relate with what you're putting out there for sure. So maybe let's take that experience. It's fresh in our conversation now, and let's start talking to the audience because maybe there's some audience members who are Either they're a physician or they're in some sort of science and they're very risk adverse and they don't want to get into this or maybe they were like you in the beginning. What would you tell them about getting started or learning or why they should get started? If you had to speak directly to them, what would you say?

Dr. Sanjay: 26:23

Yeah, so you mentioned W two. So I'm going to I'm going to approach this in two different ways. So I'm going to approach this in terms of mindset. And I'm also going to approach this kind of in a practical way. You yourself mentioned that a W two job means that you're working for 40 years. Your money is in your 401k or whatever, 403b, whatever it may be your IRA and you watch that grow. With the idea of exiting 65 years old or 70 years old. First of all, let me talk about being 65 and being 70 years old. Although I'm a bigger and bigger proponent of longevity medicine. I am an oncologist and I see time and time again what happens with malignancies. And what happens when someone is okay, I'm going to retire X date. And literally it could be like May or June, whatever it may be. And I've ignored this abdominal pain and then. Sure enough, they find out that they have a malignancy and now they're, their thoughts of retirement are now filled with getting anti cancer treatments. So you are youthful, you're young, take advantage of it. Truly take advantage of it. It's not I don't think society in the world should look at things of you work until you're 65 or 70 years old, there's ways not to do it, and even for doctors, I have no intentions of ever stopping practicing medicine, but I'd like to practice it on my own terms. So real estate does allow you for that avenue on many aspects. One, that it grows in value quicker. Two, you talked about tax advantages. There are people that play very little in taxes, even though they have W2 jobs, because they're able to shelter their money through real estate. So purely from a financial standpoint, it makes sense. In terms of an entrepreneur in a business, you're a business owner when you're doing it. So for some people, it can fill that niche. So it's almost more frightening to stay in what. You're doing with the anticipations that after 40 years you can break away from your work and Discover all those freedoms that's almost more risky because you're risking that against your own cognitive decline, your medical decline, your joints, your weight, your thought process, medical diseases, etc. So it's almost riskier not investing in something like this in real estate. The second thing I want to talk about is mindset because that's probably more important. You and I. I mentioned it when you talked about, okay, fine. I was nervous to do this. My identity. I'm a doctor. Your identity is you're an engineer. Okay. So it's once you establish your identity, that is unequivocally who you are. When you ask me who I am unequivocally a doctor, a business owner, a real estate professional, a father. a wife, an uncle, okay? I did not limit myself to one. It's this and. In life is not ors, it's and. So meaning, you are not a doctor or a real estate professional. And no one is going to say, oh, you're a doctor or you're a good dad. No, people don't put that or in that situation. It's and. And how do you do that? Okay. Yeah. Of course there's techniques. I talk about time management and all that kind of stuff, but it's really being able to convince yourself that you are unequivocally the identity that you state that you are, and that's what you work towards. Correct? Like the Olympic athlete, they don't say, yeah, I'm a swimmer. Everyone who's going to be at the Olympics, they're gunning for that gold medal. None of them are saying that, yeah, maybe I'll make the team. No, they're saying I am unequivocally on this the, getting a gold medal, winning for my country. So that identity is so important. And for doctors, we are pretty talented and accomplished people. We have done a ton of things. We all got A's. We all graduated the Tupper class. We all competed to get into med school, into residency, and all that stuff. We all at one time or another were running a code where someone is dying in front of us and we're making decisions on what to do to try to save that person. You know what? That's pretty darn powerful. What the heck is stopping you from doing anything else? And so that's the mindset that you need to, or that's a mindset you can create if you don't have it, to do things which you seem that are risky. Nothing is as risky as what I do on a day to day basis in terms of taking care of patients lives. So that's what I hope to share with those who I talk to and those who I mentor. So it takes mindset and it's recognition of what is In front of you and what the reality is giving you in terms of work in the W2 life and what it can take for you to break out of that, to attain the freedoms you're looking for.

Derek: 31:13

Very well said. I think everything that you said, I cannot disagree with. And I had to underscore again for our audience, I did want to add one piece and I wanted to get your thought on it before we head into the final segment of our show, but the one piece is a lot of people think that a W2 is not risky. Or being in a business on your own is not risky. I'll tell you what is risky depending on just that w two for your whole financial future or depending on that one business for your whole financial future. That's not going to work. Like I've experienced that before. I've been lucky enough to not get laid off or fired or anything, but I recognize that when you are putting your entire financial future with a company that you're working for, There's like social media posts out there right now. This is we're recording this in Q1 of 2024 that like Slack and Google and all these tech companies are laying off like tens of percent of their entire workforce. That's like thousands and thousands of people. And if you don't have a backup plan or something else to depend on, you're going to be in a world of pain because you haven't thought about risk properly. So it's ironic, right? That people are thinking about risk like, Oh, I'm going to stay with my W2 because it's not risky. But it's extremely risky if you're not venturing out there and stepping into that and identity that you were talking about. Not the or identity, it's the and. You're a husband, a father, or maybe you're a wife, or you're a mom, right? And you're a W 2 employee or a doctor. Or an engineer, but you're also an investor. Gotta have that right? Because we fill all those roles and I think, it's important to, to recognize what's really happening here. And really the truth of the matter is that we are out all out on our own. It's true. And things are expensive. Going full circle back to when you first started, so Yeah. You got to depend on yourself. So I don't know. I wanted to get your thoughts on that before we head into the last part of the show, but do you agree? Disagree?

Dr. Sanjay: 33:19

What do you think? Yeah, no, I agree. The industry has changed where you don't work for one company, retire with one company and have the pension for one company. And the company person, the company identity is. It's gone in our modern society and modern industry. And it's also true for doctors. We the traditional doctor never was threatened in terms of what happens to his or her job, but things have changed. COVID. Again, a black swan event, there's doctors who lost their jobs. There's doctors who didn't have elective surgeries to go to. Things drastically changed for us in what's considered one of the safest jobs ever. And then secondly, just the way that medicine is being practiced is changing for doctors. And you're right. The reality is you can, things can change in a heartbeat. As a doctor, I see it all the time, someone is young and healthy and is sick and then, okay, that income is gone, okay, fine, you're on disability and that's only limits on what you can do. Yeah, they, they're sayings in terms of who are like the wealthiest or the highest net worth and it's the people who have seven, eight income streams coming in and it can just balance out. And weather storms. Yeah.

Derek: 34:38

Being able to completely weather a lot of those storms and anything that comes up. So yeah I'm glad that you agree with me. That's awesome. That gives me a good win going into the final segment of the show here.

Dr. Sanjay: 34:48

Good. You got all wins. Everything's going good. You

Derek: 34:50

gotta get some wins. Gotta get them where you can find them, right? All right. Final segment of the show is called the rapid round. It's five questions I ask every one of my guests and they're meant to be answered in about 30 seconds each. So do your best if you can and we'll get started. Okay. You ready? Sure. Yeah. Number one, name any resource that was or still is essential in your journey to pursuing

Dr. Sanjay: 35:11

freedom. Nah, I'm still going to say this. I'm so dumb, but I can still say pencil and paper apps that I look at when it comes down to it, every morning it's, I have a pen and paper, whether it's a notebook, whether it's actually Some sort of guided book to give me instructions. It's still, I'm writing things down. Even like here, I've got notes right next to me. I love it. So it's still pen and paper

Derek: 35:36

for me. That's, there's something about that tactile motion that like it's more solidified in your brain when you're actually writing it out versus typing. I think

Dr. Sanjay: 35:44

I think you're absolutely right. I agree. Number two,

Derek: 35:47

if you woke up and your business was gone and 500, a laptop place to live and some food, what would you do first to rebuild?

Dr. Sanjay: 35:56

Oh, you know what? I would go to my family and I would go to my wife. And I would look for the support and the comfort there. Oh, wow. Because that's a reality for all of us. And it's not just everything has disappeared, but everyone has moments where they feel that way. They feel overwhelmed or something like that. And quite literally, you need comfort before it's. You look at the scope of things in front of you and then you figure it out.

Derek: 36:26

There was a doctor in Arizona that operated on my mom. She had a surgery recently. It was a minor thing. I think it was for her rotator cuff or something like that. And, it turns out that a couple of weeks later, the guy came up and was accused of I guess it was malpractice by operating on the wrong part or, one of those horror stories. Yeah, operate like doing, some sort of administrative mistake. And what's scary about this is that this was the third time it's happened with that doctor once the case opened up. And so you never know because it may be a decision for the malpractice insurance company to be the insurance company. Just be like, yeah, we're not covering you. So you're on your own. And that suit could be a 10 million case. Depending on, how things work up. And so to your point about if you had to start over, if everything was taking away from you, I love the. Self awareness that you have to be able to seek comfort first in what you have, right? That gratitude there, right? To try to recalibrate. So before even any action is taking place, you're trying to like, reset the mindset. So I love your answer there. Just had to pass that story along to underscore your point. Number three, what does your self reflection and goal setting

Dr. Sanjay: 37:44

practices look like? It goes back to my morning routine. You talked about gratitude is what am I grateful for? What are my intentions for today? What, how does those intentions fit into my goals for Q1, Q2, Q3, one year, two years in my company at Titan three capital, we have this saying in terms of when we start coming up with an ideas, especially tangential ideas, we ask each other okay, is that a hundred X idea? Or is that a one X idea to just keep us focused on what our goal is. So I would say my morning routine does that. And within my partners at my company is reminding each other. And what our goal is and where we're trying to go and what our mission is.

Derek: 38:31

Love that one. Excellent. All right. Number four. I think this is pretty similar to what we just talked about. If it was self reflection and goal setting. I want to talk about your core work habits that you attribute mostly to your success. I think I know what the answer is, but what are your core personality traits or work habits that you attribute to your success?

Dr. Sanjay: 38:53

Yeah. So the core work habits. Yeah. So I mentioned my morning habits is important and also my, our, in my company that our mission values, we are creating communities worth living to create legacies worth leaving. So that always comes to mind when we're. Looking at a deal and it kind of centers and it focuses where we're going on in our business and what deals we're looking

Derek: 39:18

for. Awesome. Number five and final question. What tool or process has become one of your most important time, money or energy saving ninja magic tricks that you use every day?

Dr. Sanjay: 39:31

I like that the ninja magic trick. Like a hack. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. This sounds this is not, this doesn't answer your question, but it's actually simple. And I like heaters. This sounds so dumb. I have a heater under my desk. I live in Southern California in Orange County, but I like the warmth on my feet and I like the warmth in my car. On my feet. So that's my ninja hat for comfort. Hey, I'll tell you

Derek: 39:55

though, seriously, like if your feet are cold, like you're cold for the whole day, and then that's not good at all. You know what though, on a serious note, I have to mention this just to help just to help with the earnestness of this answer. My, my wife and I, we have a bed jet. Now, which is it's basically something you put at the foot of your bed that that pushes air onto your, and you can get like a special, it's you can get a water based one to control the temperature of your bed to help you with sleep. But we got one that has that has a temperature variable control and a bio rhythm. And if you set the heat up right in the morning, You can wake up through heat because you get warm, right? Rather than just using light or sound right to, to get yourself up that way it eases you in so that you're waking up and not interrupting a circadian rhythm. So I like that. Pretty interesting. I'll check that out. Pretty interesting stuff. So I know you meant that to be pretty come, but I want to bring it back to be there. I

Dr. Sanjay: 40:48

appreciate that you gave me some, you gave me some credit oh God, I listen, I wasted my time listening. to the whole podcast and this is what he's got. He's got a darn heater on his toes.

Derek: 40:59

Dr. Sanjay on that note, why don't you tell the listeners a little bit about how they can find out more about you and what you have going on?

Dr. Sanjay: 41:06

Yeah. Yeah. I'd love to meet everyone. I love to communicate. I'm on LinkedIn every single day. That's a great way to connect with me. I also through my company Titan three capital. com. That's my company. Like I said, we are bringing investors into communities that. Are worth living to leave legacies worth of leaving. It's a great way you can get my free ebook there. You can learn what we're doing in the life science communities and how we're supporting and doctors and sciences and building luxury apartments for them to grow and live in and, celebrate their family and how it brings our investors significant returns. that likewise leaves their legacy and makes them financially independent.

Derek: 41:46

Thank you so much, Dr. Sanjay. That's awesome. And I really appreciate you coming on the show and sharing your wisdom today.

Dr. Sanjay: 41:53

Thank you. Thank you for having me. It was an honor. Of

Derek: 41:55

course. Yeah. And for you listeners that have listened all the way to this end of, or to this point in the show at the end just want to thank you as well for listening and wherever you're listening or watching us, whether it's on YouTube or Spotify whatever. wherever you're watching this media. I'd encourage you to please reach out to us or interact with us any way you can, whether it's leaving a comment or thumbs up or subscribing or whatever, because we want to appease those algorithm gods so that we can get more exposure to great guests like Dr. Sanjay or get more incredible listeners like yourselves into the show. So once again, Dr. Sanjay, thank you so much for coming on. It was a pleasure.

Dr. Sanjay: 42:35

My pleasure. Take

Derek: 42:36

care, Derek. Thank you guys. We will see you guys in a few days. Talk soon. Yeah.