There Will Always Be A Bigger Yacht with Dr. Alex Schloe

🎙️ 𝗪𝗲𝗹𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗵𝘆𝘀𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗵𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗗𝗿. 𝗔𝗹𝗲𝘅 𝗦𝗰𝗵𝗹𝗼𝗲.

💡 What if the most valuable return on your investments was not cash flow, appreciation, or IRR?

In today’s reflective solo episode, Dr. Alex Schloe shares a powerful lesson from an anniversary trip through Rome, the South of France, Monaco, and the Mediterranean.

Surrounded by mega yachts, helicopters, Formula One, and extraordinary wealth, Alex found himself confronting a feeling nearly every ambitious physician and entrepreneur knows well: comparison. No matter how much you build, there will always be someone with a bigger portfolio, more doors, more income, and yes, a bigger yacht.

But the lesson was simple:

What matters is not the size of the yacht. It is who is on the yacht with you.

🔥 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂’𝗹𝗹 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻:
✔️ Why comparison can quietly steal your joy, even when you have built something meaningful
✔️ Why there will always be someone with more wealth, more units, and more zeros
✔️ How physicians get trapped on the achievement treadmill long after training ends
✔️ What “return on time” means and why it may be the most important metric in your life
✔️ How real estate and entrepreneurship can create margin, flexibility, and choice
✔️ Why your “life number” may matter more than your financial freedom number
✔️ How to avoid letting the vehicle of wealth-building become the destination
✔️ Why intentionality—not portfolio size—determines whether you actually enjoy the life you are building

🔥 𝗞𝗲𝘆 𝗧𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀:
✅ There will always be a bigger yacht, so stop using someone else’s life as your benchmark
✅ A successful portfolio means very little if it costs you your marriage, family, faith, or presence
✅ Real estate should create more options—not simply become another treadmill
✅ Return on time means having the freedom to make the game, take the trip, enjoy dinner, and be present
✅ Build wealth intentionally, with the people you love still at the center of the journey

If you are a physician or high-income professional working toward financial freedom, this episode is a reminder to pause and ask a better question:

Are you building a life that the people closest to you actually want to be part of?

𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗳𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗼. 𝗗𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘀. 𝗚𝗿𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀. 𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗼𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘆𝗼𝘂.

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Transcript

Dr. Alex Schloe: What matters is not the size of the yacht, it is who is on the yacht with you.

Welcome to the Physicians in Properties podcast, the show where we teach you how investing in real estate can give you the freedom to practice medicine and live life how you want. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Now, here's your host, Dr. Alex Schloe.

Dr. Alex Schloe: Hey, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the Physicians and Properties Podcast. I am so glad that you're here. If you don't know who I am, I am Dr. Alex Schloe. I'm a family medicine physician, real estate investor, and today I'm coming to you solo because I just got back from a trip that messed with my head in the best possible way.

My wife Stephanie and I, well, we just did an anniversary trip to Europe: Rome, the South of France, Monaco, and we ended up spending a week on a yacht thanks to my buddy Brian Lubin and his new fiancée, Natalia. Shout out, they got engaged on the yacht. We were there with some incredible friends for the week, going from the coast of France down into Monaco for the F1 race, and it was absolutely incredible.

But I wanna talk to you about what happened to me mentally while I was there, because I think it's a conversation that every physician needs to hear. Really, every high-earning professional who's building something on the side, you need to hear this. So stick with me. This one's gonna be a little bit different, uh, a little bit more reflective, but I think it might be the most important episode that I've done in a while.

So picture this: we're on the water. The Mediterranean is this ridiculous shade of blue that you don't even think actually exists outside of screensavers. We're cruising along the coast side, anchoring in these little harbors, eating food that I cannot pronounce but I will never forget, and it was absolutely incredible.

Truly one of the most beautiful and amazing experiences of my life. But here's the thing When you pull into a harbor near Monaco or really anywhere along the French coast, you are surrounded by an incredible amount of wealth on a level that most people never even see in person. I'm talking mega yachts.

I'm not talking about the amazing $18 million boat that we were on, which was incredible. But I'm talking about yachts that have helicopters sitting on the top deck, yachts that cost more than entire apartment complexes. Like, seriously, one of these yachts in Monaco was $325 million and had an F1 car on the top of the yacht.

It was unbelievable. And I'd be lying to you if I didn't say that I didn't have a moment, several moments actually, where I looked around and thought, "Man, I am not even close to that." You know that feeling, that gut-level comparison thing that just hits you? Sometimes it doesn't matter how far you come, it doesn't matter what you've built, you pull up next to a 300-foot yacht with a helipad, and for 30 seconds your brain goes, "What am I even doing?"

And that's probably reasonable. I think every physician who's building something, whether it's a real estate portfolio, a side business, a passive income stream, has that moment. You look at someone further down the road, and you feel small. So I wanna talk about what happened after those 30 seconds because that's where the real lesson is.

So I'm standing on the deck looking at all of this, the mega yachts, the helicopters, the beautiful blue water, the mountains, the money, the spectacle, and I look over at the most beautiful thing that I saw there. It was Stephanie She's got an Aperol Spritz and she's laughing at something. The sun's going down behind her, and it just hit me.

There's always going to be a bigger yacht. Always. No matter how much you build, how much you earn, how many doors you own, how many units you close on, someone out there will have more. That's just the math, and that's just how it works. But here's what I've realized in that moment. None of that matters if the person standing next to you on your yacht or your boat or your porch or your living room is the right person.

What matters is not the size of the yacht, it is who is on the yacht with you. And I looked at Steph and I thought, "I wouldn't trade this moment for any of those bigger boats, not one." That might sound like a greeting card, but when you're standing there and you feel in your chest, it's not a cliché, it's clarity.

And I know that can sound ridiculous because we were invited on this incredible yacht near Monaco, but I hope you really understand what I mean. There's always gonna be a bigger yacht. Now, let me bring that back to us, to us physicians, to the people listening to this show. We were wired for achievement.

We've been on the treadmill since organic chemistry, the MCAT, boards, residency, fellowship maybe, and then you come out on the other side and someone hands you a paycheck that by most standards is a really good paycheck, and you think, "Okay, I finally made it." But then you look around and you see the partner who's got three rental properties.

You see the colleague who just started up a company making millions of dollars. You see the friend who just syndicated a 50-unit deal. You see someone on Instagram standing in front of a building they just closed on, and that same feeling kicks in, the same 30 seconds that I had, that comparison that I am not even close.

And so you do what you've always done. You put your head down and you grind harder. You pick up extra shifts, you take more call, you say yes to things that you should say no to, and you start building, which is great, but you're building with blinders on. You are chasing the bigger yacht. And I know this because I've done it.

I've been the guy who is so focused on the next deal, the next acquisition, the next investment, that I forgot to look up and ask myself a really simple question: Who is on this boat with me, and are they still enjoying the ride? I talk a lot on this show about returns, cash on cash, cap rates, IRR, all the numbers, and the numbers matter.

Don't get me wrong. If you're going to put your capital into an investment, you have to understand the math. But there's a return that doesn't always show up on a spreadsheet, and it's one I've been thinking about the most since I got back from this trip. I call it return on time. It's measured in moments that you do not have to miss.

It is the most valuable return that exists. That's it. That's the metric. Return on time, that's what we're all chasing. Can you make your kid's game on a Tuesday afternoon? Can you take two weeks off to take your spouse to Europe and actually be present, not checking your phone, not running numbers in your head, ni- not white-knuckling through your inbox or your lab results?

Can you sit on a boat in the Mediterranean or really anywhere and just be there and be present? That's the return that I'm chasing. And real estate done right, entrepreneurship done right, they're the best vehicles to get there. Not because real estate makes you rich overnight, because it doesn't, because it's a lot of hard work.

But over time, you can replace a lot of your clinical income, and you get to make choices based on what you want to do and not what you have to do. I went from full-time clinical medicine to just working a couple of days a week as a float doc, and that transition didn't happen because I hit some magic number.

It happened because I built enough cash flow and enough systems that I could step back and we would be okay. And that's what let me take this trip. Not a bigger yacht, just enough margin to say yes to the things that matter, just enough margin to say yes to the spontaneous trips to Europe. So if you're listening to this and you're early in your journey, maybe you've got one rental, maybe you are still figuring out your first deer-- deal.

Here is what I want you to hear. Stop looking at other people's yacht. There's always gonna be a bigger yacht. I mean it. Stop scrolling through the feeds of people who are 10 years ahead of you and using that as your benchmark. That is a game that you will never win because the finish line keeps moving.

There's always gonna be someone with more doors, more units, more zeros. Instead, figure out what your number is, and I don't mean your financial freedom number, I mean your life number. I mean, what does it take to get the return on time that you desire? What does your Tuesday need to look like to feel like you're actually winning?

Who needs to be at the dinner table? What trip do you wanna take this year, and can you actually be present when you are on it? Build towards that, but use real estate as the vehicle. Use entrepreneurship as the vehicle, but don't let the vehicle become the destination. Because I've met people on both sides.

I've met physicians who have massive portfolios and miserable marriages, and I've met physicians with two rental houses and a life that they genuinely love. The portfolio size does not determine the outcome. The intentionality did. I'll share one more thing, and this is personal, so take it for what it's worth.

My word for the year is abide. It comes from John 15, the idea of remaining connected to the vine. For me, that's about staying rooted in my faith, in my family, in the things that are permanent, not the things that are flashy. And standing on that boat in Monaco, surrounded by all the wealth, all the spectacle, that word kept coming back to me.

Abide. Stay rooted. Don't get pulled into the concurrent of comparison. Don't let someone else's yacht make you forget what you already have. Look, the French Riviera is absolutely beautiful. Monaco is wild. The Formula One race was a life-changing, breathtaking, incredible experience, bucket list experience.

But the best part of the trip Was sitting across from my wife at dinner, sitting at a table with incredible friends and having conversations late into the night over a fantastic glass of red wine with nowhere to be and nothing to prove. That is what abiding looks like, at least for me. And I think a lot of you, you already know this.

You just need someone to say it out loud. So here I am saying it out loud to you. Build the portfolio, do the deals, grow the business, but do it in a way that the people who matter most actually want to be on the boat with you. Because at the end of all of this, the yacht doesn't matter. The person next to you does.

All right. That's what I've got for you today. A little different, I know, but sometimes the best investing advice is not about cap rates. It is about perspective. Look, if this resonated for you, I would love to hear from you. Shoot me a DM, leave a review, share this episode with a colleague who needs to hear it.

And if you're a physician or a high-earning professional who's trying to build a real estate portfolio that actually serves your life, not the other way around, that's what we talk about every single week on this show. I'm Dr. Alex Schloe, and thank you for listening to another episode of the "Physicians and Properties" podcast.

Go build something that matters and make sure the right people are on the boat with you. We'll see you next time. Signing off.

Hey, real quick, if you're still listening to this, I'm assuming you got value from it, so I need your help specifically. My two-year vision with this podcast is to help one hundred thousand physicians learn how investing in real estate can give you the freedom to practice medicine and live life how you want.

There are two main ways that a podcast grows. One is through ratings and reviews, and the other is word of mouth. If you can please leave me a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, as well as send this to one to two friends that you think would get value from it, we can reach the physicians that we wanna reach.

Thanks in advance, and talk to you on the next episode. Please note that the information shared on this podcast is for informational purposes only. It should not be considered financial or legal advice. The views expressed on this podcast are those of the host and the guests, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Defense or the United States Air Force