I QUIT my career as a doctor when I learned these 3 things about MONEY

You’d love to quit your job and never set foot in the hospital again but- you feel trapped because of the money. You’ve got a student loan balance that is growing by the day. You don’t know how to change to something else that pays what you make clinically.

You are not alone- so many medical professionals feel like they have no choice but to stay in their high-paying but unfulfilling jobs due to “the money”. In fact… I used to think that as well. But what if there was another way? In this episode, I break down the three money lessons that changed everything for me—so much so that I walked away from my medical career entirely.

You’ll learn:

• How a mindset shift could help you achieve financial freedom well before reaching a certain number in your bank account
• A little known fact about student loan repayment that will relieve the pressure to pay them off as quickly as possible
• How to start identifying more opportunities for high earning career paths.

Hit play now if you are ready to challenge what you’ve been told about money.

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Life After Medicine explores doctors' journey of finding purpose beyond their medical careers, addressing physician burnout, career changes, opportunities in non-clinical jobs for physicians and remote jobs within the healthcare system without being burned out, using medical training.

Transcript

Chelsea: 0:00

In this episode, I share the three things I learned that shifted how I viewed money so drastically that I quit my medical career.

0:10

welcome to life after medicine, the podcast, helping millennial health professionals find their purpose and turn it into their paycheck because you were meant for more than 15 minute patient visits under fluorescent lights. I'm your host, Chelsea Turgeon, a residency dropout turned six figure entrepreneur and world traveler together, we'll explore how you can make a difference without sacrificing your health and happiness.

Chelsea: 0:35

In this episode, you'll learn how to unpack beliefs versus truths about money. You'll learn the mindset around loan repayment that freed me and how to move into possibility instead of scarcity with money, let's get to the show. When I was on my five week leave of absence, I had this conversation with a physician burnout coach that helped me to realize that. Money was playing a significant role in why I felt stuck in medicine So during the conversation she asked like, If I had a magic wand What would you like your career to look like and I described? waking up going to a cafe like having time in the morning to meditate and like just a slow morning and kind of working on a computer doing my own thing and She was like, wait, but there's no like medicine in there. There's no hospital. And I was like, oh, no, there's not. I had this clear vision of yeah, it's not medicine. And then she asked, okay, well, what's stopping you from getting that? I kind of racked my brain and my body even. I checked in with that question and I realized the money. So I told her, yeah, the money is keeping me stuck. And she said, anything else? And I checked back in and I couldn't find anything else. And it was wild to me. I was like, no, nothing else. Like that's it. That's literally the only thing keeping me stuck. And so that rattled me and I got off the phone. And that was the thing that stuck with me the most from that conversation was the money is the only thing keeping me stuck and that didn't sit right with me. I didn't want that to be the truth. And so I decided to do some like self inquiry around that. I was like, well, what do I mean? The money is the only thing keeping me stuck. And I was like, well, I have a lot of student loans and I don't know how I would pay them back if I wasn't being a doctor. Okay. I don't know how I would pay them back because I don't know of another way where I could make this salary without having to go back to school and do all this training again. So really it's more, I'm not sure if there is another way. But am I believing somewhere that there's not another way or do I just not have knowledge of what the other way is? And so I started to realize through this whole process of self inquiry that it's not the money quote unquote that's keeping me stuck It's it's my beliefs around money that was keeping me stuck I had some belief Within me that the only way to earn like the kind of doctor money I would earn is I'd have to go back to school for a whole nother graduate program and profession and then make that kind of money doing that I uncovered that and I was like, well. I don't know that there's another way, but there could be another way. Like, what if instead of just holding onto the fact that like, this is the only way to do it. Like, what if I just opened it up a little bit and was like, well, what if there could be another way. Instead of, like scarcity and fear and like rigid thinking. I just moved into a little bit of possibility and I wasn't sure. I wasn't like, yeah, there's definitely going to be a way I can do it. I it just sort of opened up my mind to a bit of curiosity and possibility. If you are feeling stuck because of the quote unquote money, one of the most important things I can share here is. It's not the money because that doesn't mean anything. Money is a concept. It's an idea. And so it's like, what is the concept you've created around money? What are the beliefs that are keeping you stuck? And a lot of times the beliefs are keeping you stuck because they're rigid so once you realize, oh, this is a belief, it might not be the ultimate truth, then what you can do is just open things up a bit and and start to move into more of a curious possibility kind of energy. So you don't have to go into, well, there's definitely a way to pay back my loans and I'm gonna figure it all out. But what if you just started moving into possibility? Well, it could be possible. That there is another way to pay back my loans, or it could be possible. There's another way to earn this kind of salary without going back to school. Okay, the next thing I learned about money was I learned about my loans. As I'm going through this process of questioning my beliefs and realizing their beliefs, the big thing that came up for me was Loans. There was a heaviness around having debt in the first place, there was also this urgency. There's this urgency for me around paying off my loans very quickly because they would keep growing and growing. And this came from my upbringing, the way that my parents viewed loans. My dad was like a. Dave Ramsey person, which Dave Ramsey, Oh my God. So there was this belief around like, Oh, you can't have debt and debt is bad there's almost like this fear around having loans or debt. Like my parents almost wanted me to, we literally talked about going, me doing the military route to get my med school paid for because we're like, Oh, loans are so bad. And I didn't take out any loans for undergrad because I got a full scholarship. And so there was a lot of. I would say weird energy around having student debt. There was a lot of urgency, like from my mom as well to just like pay it back very quickly. there was just this sort of like sense of fear. And it's like, if you don't pay them back, like they're growing and growing and the interest is getting so big. And it just felt like this huge monster that's like growing out of control and sitting on me. That. Felt so heavy. And it's like, well, of course I felt frantic and scared around money because there's a lot of urgency and fear of like, if these don't get paid off in a really fast time period, was just, yeah, so much urgency around this whole concept. I did look up some things about. Loans and kind of like what the deal is and I looked up just kind of like what happens as You are paying back your loans. Like what happens if you Never pay it back. Like if you die and you haven't paid back your loans, what happens do they come after your family? Do they come after this and for the most part? They do not come after your family. there's actually like not consequences. Like your student loans don't transfer to your family members. um, so if I just take this mindset of I will pay them back 1 at a time, I'll do the minimum payments for my whole life. If I need to, like, ideally that's not what's going to happen, but I just like stopped caring that I needed to pay them off quickly. Like I just lost any sense of urgency around this. And I just decided I will pay them off 1 at a time. And. That means initially maybe doing the minimum payments until I feel like I want to do more, but even now, like when I could do more than the minimum payments, I'm like, I don't want to, because I don't want to put money towards that because it doesn't feel like a vibe for me. Like, that's not, it's not where I want to put my money. Like, I honestly, truly, I can't even tell you this, how much I don't care. If I ever pay them back or not, and that doesn't mean I don't pay them, but I just, I don't have any sense of like, this is weighing on me. This needs to, like, I have an auto draft that goes out every month that pays the minimum payment. I file for the income based repayments as I need to, and there's just no other energy put around that. Maybe at some point in my life I will, but I just. I don't care, and I feel really free about that, and I feel so good about that. And, and so what I want to just present to you is, like, you don't have to care. It doesn't have to be something that ruins your life. Like I would have been so mad. The things I've done in these past five years that have just been so epic, like living my life, enjoying myself, starting the business of my dreams. And if I had, if I had kept this idea in my head that I can't do any of that until I pay back my loans and I have to keep working in medicine until I pay back my loans. Like. This is my prime time. I'm like in my late twenties. Now I'm in my early thirties. If I had spent my prime time working in a job so I could pay back my loan, so I could avoid getting interest, like that doesn't even make sense to me for how I want to live my life. And so you just, you don't have to care about that. That does not mean you're being irresponsible. It just means you can have your own priorities with money, and you can do the things that you want to do, The third thing I learned about money is, That people can make six figure businesses online. That sounds really simple, but basically it started from this era of possibility, right? So I'm questioning my beliefs around, okay, well, how is the money keeping me stuck? Like what's, what's happening with that? Okay. Well, it's because I don't feel like I can earn. And so then I'm moving into a space of possibility of like, well, I don't know of a way I could earn money. But could there be, and so opening up to this possibility, asking these types of questions allowed me to start doing research. And so I just started looking up, I was like, well, who are the people I actually want to be like? And there was a travel blogger I admired, there was this podcast person I admired. And so I just started looking up their businesses and like figuring out like, well, how much money do they actually make? What's going on? And they're making six figure businesses and in my head, that's like the number I was like, well, as long as I can make six figures, I don't care what else I make, but like, if I can just get to sort of a base six figures, then everything will be fine. I'll feel like I can pay off my debts and blah, blah, blah. Um, So I just started looking people up online and I was like, Oh yeah, she makes six figures doing this thing online. And she makes six figures doing that. And I think I, I found like two examples that I cared about. And then I immediately was like, Oh, cool. It's possible. Someone else did it. So why not me? And yes, it was like a little bit of a naive approach. Um, but I love that I was naive. I think that's so epic. I didn't need a ton of evidence. I just had one person I saw who I kind of admire what they do. Um, Kristen Addis be my travel mates. I've actually had her on the show since then. Um, so I looked at her business and I was like, okay, she's making six figures from a travel blog. If she can do it, why not me? I'll just buy a travel blogging course, set up my blog, make it happen. I love that I did that, right? Why not take that approach? This is amazing. I think so many of you are taking the complete opposite approach. You're taking the, yeah, well she can do it, but I couldn't because of this because of why, because of whatever, because I don't even know. What if you just took the other approach? What if you just took the, Oh, well, this person had success doing this thing. Why not me? And the thing is, why fucking not you? Because you're hardcore. You have already gotten through your medical training. The, the amount of devotion and discipline that it requires to get through medical training is like, you're not like other people, you're an exception. So take that sense of like, I'm an exception, I'm exceptional. And if someone else can do this, who didn't even go through medical training, they could do it. So of course I could do it. There's no reason that you wouldn't be able to have the career of your dreams. There's literally no reason. It doesn't have to be a six-figure online business if that's not what you want. But find one example of someone else who's doing the thing you wanna do or adjacent to it and just tell yourself, oh, well they did it. Why not me? And take that approach because why not you? There's no reason that it doesn't have to be you. So my love, I hope this episode has completely shifted the way you think and feel about money so that you don't feel stuck in those golden handcuffs anymore. And so I want to just recap the things that shifted for me one, it's not the money keeping you stuck. It's your beliefs around the money keeping you stuck. And if you can move into possibility instead of this like rigidity around your beliefs, start to question them. Then things can really start to open up for you. Number two, you can pay back your loans 1 at a time. You can die and not pay them back and it's okay. You don't have to rush to pay back your loans. You don't have to waste your youth rushing to pay back your loans, and I honestly don't recommend doing that because you've already wasted your youth training in the hospital, in the library, like you deserve to enjoy your time on this planet. All right, number three, people can make six figure businesses online, and if someone else can do it, Why not you? There's no reason to stay stuck.

13:02

If this episode has inspired you to reclaim your bold audacious dreams and you want coaching that chips away at the disempowering conditioning from your medical training. And that helps you discover your unique path to changing the world. Then I'd love to connect with you on a career breakthrough call to see how I can best support you. Head to the link in the show notes to book your call.