Episode 41: Reclaiming Identity despite Adversity with Dr. Jimmy Turner

What happens when success on paper comes at the cost of losing yourself?

In Episode 41 of the I AM Well MD Podcast, Dr. Santi Tanikella sits down with Dr. Jimmy Turner, anesthesiologist, author, podcaster, and coach to unpack what it truly means to reclaim identity, balance, and joy despite adversity.

Dr. Turner’s story is one many high-achievers will recognize: the struggle with burnout, the pressure to achieve, and the erosion of self in pursuit of accomplishment. In this vulnerable and empowering conversation, Jimmy shares what it looked like to rebuild his sense of identity.

We explore:

• Why accomplishments and identity aren’t the same
• The power of saying “no” without guilt
• A new way to think about balance in life and career
• How reframing our obstacles can transform our path forward

If you’ve ever struggled with burnout, people-pleasing, or the feeling of losing yourself in the process of “succeeding,” this episode is for you.

Connect with Dr. Jimmy Turner:
Websites: moneymeetsmedicine.com and thephysicianphilosopher.com
Twitter/X: @TPP_MD
Books: Determined: How Burned-Out Doctors Can Thrive in a Broken Medical System and

Transcript

Are you a busy parent? Do you feel like you're being pulled in multiple directions all at once? Are you exhausted and overwhelmed? Meet my mom. Her name is Santi Tanikella. She's a pediatrician, expert in mind body medicine, and a life coach. She can help you break free from guilt and overwhelm, so that you can enjoy the life that you've worked so hard to create.

She can also teach you how to support your family in a more holistic way.   

Welcome back to another episode of the I Am Well MD podcast. Today I have with me Dr. Jimmy Turner. Dr. Turner is a practicing academic anesthesiologist at Wake Forest in North Carolina. He's the host of the Money Meets Medicine podcast and co-founder of Money Meets Medicine Disability Insurance, which helps provide own occupation disability insurance to physicians. 

He is also a certified career coach and the author of two books, "The Physician Philosopher's Guide to Personal Finance," and "Determined: How Burned Out Doctors Can Thrive in a Broken Medical System."  Dr. Turner, welcome to the podcast.  

Ah, thanks so much for having me. I'm super excited to  chat and get, to get to share stories. 

Me too. So I have to ask, because your path has been pretty diverse, what led you to the field of medicine?  

Oh, man, that's, that's a deep question. Yeah. So I grew up in a house where my dad  got shot in a hunting accident five years before I was born. So I was born in 85. My dad got shot in 1980. A friend was, you know

basically walking up to the truck after they were, they were done hunting and um, was trying to unload his gun and there's still a bullet in the chamber and it misfired and hit my dad. And, um, lots of reasons why my dad probably shouldn't have made it out of that forest. But he did, uh, however,  he had a ton of medical problems and so, I grew up around my dad going to doctors all the time.

And so I got to see the good ones and what, you know, good doctors looked like. And I gotta see the ones that maybe I didn't want to emulate later on in life. It was interesting 'cause  I didn't always know that I wanted to go into medicine, but I had that in the background, I think is kind of what set up maybe that consideration later.

 I actually thought  for a while I was gonna go into the ministry, when I was a senior in high school, but then,  got to college and. I realized I really liked the sciences and that sort of thing, and thought about my dad's perspective  and my dad's, history growing up and what he went through.

 He's, you know, still got a lot of disabilities to this day and, you know, has CRPS, chronic regional pain syndrome, and I, you know, I, I do acute pain for a living now, so I'm sure that probably had something to do with it.  The idea of stomping out people's acute pain before it turns chronic.  And so my dad's background and history had a big impact on me growing up.

And, and ultimately I think is what planted the seed that that led to me going into medicine eventually.  

I'm so sorry to hear about your dad's accident. 

Yeah, yeah. He's, he's, yeah, he's always that way for me, so it was, it was super normal for me. Interestingly, like I just, my, my dad always had a cane and you know, he is got a scooter now and that's just like the way that it always was. 

Grew up with a, a ton of respect actually for him because he was one of those people that just never complained. Like he, he experienced more pain in a day than I probably will in my life. Never complained would play catch with me and,  do all the things.  I never felt like  I was missing out, you know,  my dad did a great job despite everything that he went with. 

That's amazing. That's amazing. I, I treat a handful of children who have amplified musculoskeletal pain,   chronic regional pain and they are hard to treat.  But there's so much that can be done in that realm, you know, now more than ever.  I have a lot of kids who are in denial. Like they want to be able to do the things that they wanna do and  they'll either try to plow through,  then end up in more pain afterwards, or they'll completely deny themselves of the joy of that activity without figuring out a way that they can adapt their schedule or routines to be available to do those things.

Yeah.  

It's a tough balance. 

Yeah.  I know that you've also decided to do some coaching and you have this interest in finance. How did you end up broadening your horizon? Like what led you to those various things?  

Yeah, my, my journey's been a pretty interesting one.

Uh, at this point. I, I think that if I had found entrepreneurship before medicine, I don't know that I would've gone into medicine. Interestingly,  I love being an anesthesiologist.  I'm very good at it. I enjoy it. It's procedural. I love using my hands. I played video games and, and sports growing up, played soccer in college as a goalkeeper.

And so I, I very much love what I do, but in some ways feel like I lucked out because I found entrepreneurship after my training. And I think it would probably would've been a huge distraction to be honest with you, if I'd found it when I was in training. But ultimately what led me to go down the road of entrepreneurship  and start multiple businesses is,  having something happen to me, right?

And so that's how a lot of good ideas and great businesses are born is, Hey, I went through this thing and I don't want you to have to go through it either. So for me, in my situation, that was getting really bad financial advice from an insurance agent. That led to me getting denied disability insurance, when I could have gotten it in training.

And  I won't go into  the weeds on that, but suffice it to say that. The person didn't do the right thing for me 'cause they couldn't make money if they told me to do the right thing. And so I kind of planted a seed that later would grow when I was finishing fellowship and started to learn about personal finance, reading the books and the blogs, the whole nine yards.

And I love teaching. I'm in academics for a reason.  I stayed in academics. I'm still in academics. And so as I did that, people wanted me to start teaching them about money, because it was a topic that readily came up. I'm an open book, I share about everything. And so  my residents loved that. And so I was the go-to person to ask about all that stuff.

And I quickly realized like, oh, this is interesting. It's something I'm passionate about, but it's also something that other people want to learn about.  Maybe I should create a platform of some kind. And,  back in 2017, those platforms were typically blogs. And so I started the Physician Philosopher, which was a blog back then.

And,  even back then,  the original tagline on the website was fighting burnout with financial independence.  I always kind of married  personal finance to physician autonomy,  and really wouldn't wrap my head around that completely until later on when I wrote determined.  But that, that just kind of took off.

 The platform grew. People started reading the blog more and more, which is hilarious because I'm totally dyslexic and can't spell. And back then, like autocorrect and Grammarly were definitely not as prevalent. And so I'd screw things up all when one of my posts go viral, like somebody would make fun of me 'cause I can't spell.

And, but it, but the ideas for whatever reason resonated with people. And, uh, and it just grew from there.  I ended up, you know, becoming a certified coach, like you mentioned,  because I'd always talk about two things, personal finance and burnout. And it made sense to me to help people work through their burnout after I experienced the next problem, which was burning out myself in medicine.

And personal finance was part of that solution in terms of providing some autonomy to allow me to cut back a little bit at the time. I'm a full FTE right now, but there was a two or three year period where I wasn't, I was I think 0.6 or 0.75, and during that time, I spent time getting coached and then became a coach because I found it to be so effective and so. 

 It's really, it really spanned the gamut. I mean, I published RCTs and, you know, I author books and podcasts and blogs and just kind of dabble in a little bit of everything. But personal finance  and burnout have been the two things that have kind of been constant in terms of topics that I talk about and teach. 

Can you talk a little bit more about your burnout story? Like, I have followed you for years and have always been in such awe of how you've managed to overcome some of the obstacles that come with burnout. There's the career piece,  the piece that goes with having a spouse and a family,  and then the personal identity piece.

How did burnout and your path inform that process?  

Yeah, so for me, the impetus to my burnout was actually.  Maybe I'll back up a little bit and say that, so I went to Wake Forest for medical school, residency, fellowship, stayed on faculty there. And so I was a student body president in med school. I was chief resident during residency and and so I was in a lot of ways being groomed to become a program director someday.

That's something I had an interest in. I'd expressed interest in that  and felt like that opportunity was  kind of being created for me. And I was a couple years out when they created three assistant program director positions at Wake. And, for whatever reason, I, I wasn't chosen for any of the three positions.

 And so. You know,  without going into a ton of detail to, you know, just bore people, essentially from my perspective, I felt like I'd done everything I could. You know, I checked the boxes.  I won the teaching award for the department. My first year I'd been publishing research. I was pretty good clinically, and so I, I was checking all these boxes and so my, in my head I'm like, I am, I'm qualified.

And when the decision happened, I actually wasn't mad, you know, or upset that other people got chosen. They were fantastic people. For me it was that it was my first time being in a situation where I had zero control. Like all the other things that I'd done, they've been democratic processes, right?

Like, hey, people put their name in the hat to become student body president, and then people vote. And whoever people want is  who wins. And this was my first time in my professional career where decisions were made behind closed doors politically, and for whatever reason, I wasn't chosen.

And so there was no application process, there was no interview, there was no conversation. It's just like, hey, these are the three people that were chosen. I tried to find out, you know, hey, like, is there something I need to be doing better? You know, are there areas I need to improve? Is there something I did wrong?

Had those conversations and pretty much no one would just went up to the fact, like, they just didn't choose me. And so for me, having this path where I felt like I'd done everything right and getting to the point where  the journey that I wanted to continue was, you know, closed to my face, that was pretty hard.

And then a year later, a fourth person got chosen and still, you know, still same exact process.  And so it became clear to me at that point that like, I wasn't gonna find my value. In that very specific path of becoming a program director at Wake.  And so,  at the time, I did not deal with that.

Like, I dealt with that very, very poorly. Uh, lots of IPAs drank on  my back porch,  for a couple of years and ended up on an antidepressant. And it may seem like a really kind of small thing, but ultimately I just felt like, Hey, this is the path that I want it to go and it's literally just not an option.

Like, I don't have any control over it. There's nothing I can do. I can't, you know, do more research, win more awards, or be better clinically. Like, I just, I just, I'm not the person. Um,  and so I ended up just completely burning outta that point because I didn't feel valued at all. Like, I had, in my mind, created this narrative that I'd done all these things and the residents wanted me to be in that position and, and all this stuff. 

The people  that chose me not to be that were, you know, people that they just didn't like me and they thought I was terrible or whatever. Like tons and tons of unhelpful, completely unhelpful narratives, about what happened when the fact was like just other people got chosen. Right?  But for me, like I didn't know how to process that at the time  

and  with a lack of information, what humans do is we fill in the gaps and it's almost always with the most negative possible thing we can think of. And so, you know, it became, well,  I'm not appreciated. I'm not valued.  I'm working more than I want to. 'cause back then I was, you know, I was working 1.3 ft e 'cause we were short in the department, so I was overworked, you know, opportunities were passing me up.

I just,  you know. For me, ultimately, that was kinda the impetus that led to, to my burnout and my need to kind of find out who I actually am and what I wanna do with this crazy thing called life. And it got worse by going part-time. And the reason why was because when I cut back, it turns out  and everybody thinks this, right?

You're like, oh, I'm like one FTE. I'm working so much more than I want to. Like, I'm married, I got kids. Like I just want my time. Then, you get all the time that you want. And it turns out that  most people that end up going into medicine are highly productive people who need a purpose. And I would argue that every human needs a purpose.

And so for me,  that crisis that people experience when they retire and they start asking existential questions about like, "what is life? What am I here for? Like, what is the purpose of this thing?" I got to experience in my mid thirties because I all of a sudden had a lot of time on my hands. 

My purpose had been going towards this career path that now had been closed, and I didn't really know what to do with myself. And so I poured myself in my business, but, really had to spend some deep, meaningful time kind of answering those existential questions that were plaguing me.  And ultimately a big part of it was because my identity and my path had been in medicine and  that was not gonna continue,

 at least in the way that  I had seen it going. So for me, that was what started that journey. And working on whether those narratives were actually true or not,  and what I could do about them, what I could not do about them,  and what my next steps were, you know, took a lot of time.

 Honestly, my wife is a saint for how she dealt with me for those two years. Uh,  yeah, that was the beginnings of it, at least.  

That's intense. Yeah. I have absolutely also faced points in my career where  I'm working towards something that I think is gonna happen. I'm being told that it's gonna happen.

Then when the time actually comes for a commitment to be made, the commitment then falls through and that that associated feeling of just sadness, disappointment, lack of choice. What now? Who am I? Yeah. Like you've hit all of those points in your own story and, and that's something that I think all of us feel at some point or another when we don't get what we want or we don't get what we think we're going to get.

I was gonna say, you know, in, in hindsight it was a huge blessing, right? I was gonna have to take that journey at some point in my life,  might as well have happened when I was 35 and instead of when I was 60 or 65.  And so now I, I have a, a much better perspective on what my life is, you know, what my priorities are, and, and have the ability  to set boundaries and say, no.

I've learned a whole host of skill sets that I would not have had if I hadn't had to go through that.    As the saying go right, the, the obstacle's not in the way. The obstacle is the way. And, and so for me, overcoming that obstacle taught me so many skills that I now still use, that I wouldn't have learned if I didn't have to go through that.

So it sucked  really bad at the time, for two years.  But like now, I'm very, very thankful for that experience  and it allows me to go through other things with much more resilience and ability to cope than I would have if I hadn't. 

 

 Life can feel like a constant balancing act, work deadlines, family responsibilities, and everything in between.

It's really easy to get stuck in go mode without ever stopping to ask,  "what do I really want?"  Imagine if you could set boundaries with confidence, say no without guilt, and start doing more of the things that light you up. That's what life coaching is all about, helping you get clear on what matters most and giving you the tools to make it happen. 

Your life is unique, your journey's unique, and your solutions should be too. If you're ready to stop surviving and start living with intention, let's talk.  Visit me at iamwellmd.com  and click on the link to contact me.  Send me a little message and we'll get you started with an introductory call.  I hope to see you soon.  

 It seems like this whole experience, a) like it just really asked you to  reevaluate your life  and b) 

the fact that you were able to move out of that space, out of that place where you felt paralyzed, is huge.

What do you think is the thing that ultimately helped you to find yourself again?  

 Oh man. You know, it's interesting for me because I actually had a friend when I was in my first year of medical school who ended up getting kicked out.

And  I watched him go from,  without getting into a ton of details about his life, from being a very happy, productive person to failing a course, not realizing he was on,  academic probation at the time from something else that he was not told about.  Got kicked out and he was engaged at the time  to somebody.

He, he'd been dating for years, since high school,  and, um, I was at his wedding and the wedding, you know, definitely  had an overtone  of kind of sadness 'cause I knew that he wasn't gonna continue in medical school. All the friends there didn't, so they were celebrating his wedding and he had found out the night before that  his final appeal had  been rejected.

And so he then got married, got divorced within 12 months from this girl that he'd been dating  and living with, you know, for several years that he loved deeply, but the reason that happened is because his identity was so wrapped up in medicine and being a physician or becoming a physician.

And so I learned that lesson really early. So when I say, like my identity earlier,  what I meant is in terms of  the career path I was gonna take, like I saw where I was going to be, more so than like my identity as a physician. Anybody that knows me will tell you that I, I never call myself Dr.

Turner.  Everyone calls me Jimmy. The only time I'm ever called Dr. Turner is literally in front of a patient. So my medical students call me Jimmy. My residents call me Jimmy.  My nurses call me Jimmy, and only if I'm in front of a patient, and it's because I think the patient probably needs to know, like, okay, this is the doctor that's taking care of you.

 So it's more for them. And, and the reason why was because I was very intentional. Hey, like I don't want to have my identity be a physician. I want to be, you know, a husband and a father. You know,  there were identities that mattered much, much more to me. And so I think that portion often trips people up the most.

But for me, that actually wasn't my journey. It was kinda like this future identity thing. Like this is what I was going to become, and all my identity had been wrapped up in that. And what I learned ultimately is that there's a couple of different things.  One is that  I'm a type three wing two on the Enneagram, so I'm what's known as an, an achiever.

 And so my entire self-worth,  historically, had been built upon accomplishments and accolades and external achievements, or external validation for people when I had done those things. And so as I'm driving this car, you know, to this destination and I've been meeting all the check marks and, and all the requirements, and then a brick wall got slammed in front of the car and I just couldn't go anywhere anymore,

that for me was very, very jarring. Because now all of a sudden all these things that I'd done, well, apparently they didn't mean much. And I hadn't really accomplished anything in my mind. And really that lack of   appreciation for the things that you'd done in terms of your accomplishments, one of the telltale signs of burnout.

And so for me, I was like,  I guess all that stuff I did didn't matter, right? Because,  I can't continue on this path anymore. And so I had to spend a lot of time,  through many difficult conversations with friends, family, coaches working through like, Hey,  what does it mean when your identity doesn't come from the things you accomplish, right?

So like,  what does it mean when, like, it's not from the books that you write or the podcast people listen to, or the awards that you win and  what happens when your identity is rooted in something much simpler,  that maybe isn't as public?  And for me, finding that was very, very challenging,  because I always felt like I needed to be doing something or accomplishing something in order to be worthy in a lot of ways.

 And the second thing was just  I'm by nature a people pleaser. I like to tell people I'm a recovering people pleaser just because I, I care very much about what other people,  think in terms of their happiness, right? I, I'm much more concerned about other people's happiness than my own, which may sound selfless, but actually  comes from tons and tons of like, just pure emotional, like trauma from parenting when I was a kid.

So I, I just learned in my house like, Hey, you know, you gotta learn how to make people like you, and make them feel safe and okay so that you don't get the brunt of the emotional abuse. And so that served me really well. I've been very good at making people like me most of my life.  I'm very good with people generally speaking.

 But at the same time, I didn't realize like, oh, like it's okay to say no to things. And so actually during the same process, I'm working through like this external achievement piece, I'm also noticing, hey, my kid who is five, when I ask them if they wanna go do something, and they're like, "no."  I didn't realize that was normal.

Right?  Because,  what ends up happening, right? When you have this career path that's slammed in your face is like, okay, well now where do I go? And people start asking like, Hey, do you wanna help with this? Do you wanna help with that? Do you wanna help with this? And, none of those answers at that time ever came from like, what do I want to do?

Like, what does Jimmy want do? It was always, Hey, I've got a skillset set to help somebody in this, and they're asking me to do this. I'm just gonna say yes.  That'll keep me busy so I don't have to deal with this external  validation, existential crisis that I have. And so it was really only until I let myself have the time and really work on that  and sort out like, hey, like who am I if I'm not accomplishing stuff?

Like, if I didn't do anything else after today, like, would I still be me and would I be okay with that?  It was very slow, methodical, deep, but uh, also very meaningful work.  

So, who are you, Jimmy?  

 I would say that  I'm a god-fearing husband and father of three. And that's about where it stops.

If you want additional details,  I'm someone who loves to be creative.  Usually that's gonna end up in content production of some kind, because I love to teach, right? And so, like, I more than anything love guiding, advising, teaching people. I would claim those things

 As personal attributes, I think at this point.  And  one of the ways that those things work really well is in entrepreneurship.  I think I have much more of an entrepreneurial mind at this point and than anything else. For me,  my identity stops at being a god-fearing husband and dad.

Ultimately, the rest is just kind of  added detail.  

 You know, I started my path in medicine pretty young. I wasn't married, didn't have kids.  So there's  what you start your career with  and multiple stops along the way within that.

 Recognizing that our identities change over time,  and moving with that as opposed to challenging it, right? Like, oh yeah, I could still do 80 hours a week  pregnant  with another child who's five.  No, no, 80 hours a week: A) was never healthy, but B) is for a person, a version of me from way long ago who had way more energy and was a people pleaser, right?

Like who says yes to 80 hours a week?  I don't think most people are voluntarily wanting to work 80 hours a week. We have the culture of medicine and you know, unfortunately for some people that is a reality,  but certainly not a reality that most people want to relate their identity to.

 

 When, when I'm advising  our medical students,  one of the conversations I'd love to have with somebody, they're coming through regional and they're expecting to learn about, so I do regional anesthesia, so peripheral nerve, peripheral nerve blocks, thoracic epidural, that sort of thing.

And,  so they're coming through expecting to learn, you know, about the brachial plexus and how to make arms numb. And I always ask 'em like, Hey, what are you going into? Like, what's your, what residency are you thinking about pursuing? And  I think I teach 'em through a few different tools, but one of them very specifically is like the person that's making this decision now. 

The person you're gonna be in five or 10 or 15 years is not the same person. And so as you make this decision, don't just think about you right now. Think about what are the things that are gonna be important to me in five or 10 years, and does that person still wanna choose this specialty? Right?

 I always find it funny when people are like, "oh, you've changed." As if that's a bad thing, right? Like, if you're not growing and learning  and moving on and realizing, oh, I used to hold this belief that probably didn't serve me.

I probably need to, you know, move on to this other one that does, and that's gonna, that's gonna change who you are. So, fundamentally, I completely agree with the idea that like,  you're gonna have multiple steps along your journey, right?  And they do result in different people. 

 So in terms of your current life, career, family, what helps you to create balance?  What makes you happy? 

You know, it's, it's really interesting, right? 'cause I, I think when most people look at my life and they would think I'm insane,  right? So I, I practice a full FTE.  My wife is an educator, so she works as well.

 And she's an amazing teacher.  So  she's. Just unbelievable at it. But,  we've got three kids, right? So like, I, I write books, I do podcasts, I do research, I teach at the hospital, I do clinical work. And oh, by the way, like I coach my kids sports teams and like I'm at every single practice or game, or like swim meet, like I don't miss anything.

 Every hour of my day is, is spoken for, for the most part. And, um, and so for me, like, like balance is kind of a funny word 'cause like my, my life looks insanely busy, but I love every second of it. And so for me, balance wasn't about like I gotta find the amount of time that, like I wanna be at the hospital versus here versus there,

or like what I'm doing, it was how do I create a schedule where no matter what I'm doing during the day, I love it, right?  I love doing anesthesia, so I'm the hospital, I'm gonna love doing anesthesia, right?  When I get off work and I gotta go pick up three kids and put 'em in three different locations and  try to organize this stuff, and try to make it to  this one practice I'm coaching while  Kristen's getting off work and we're trying to coordinate all that stuff.

Like, it looks insane. Of course we have a wonderful community around us. But like for me, I'm just gonna move on to the next thing that I love doing. For me,  finding balance wasn't actually like finding more time, like, I'm gonna have more time to relax.  I do think that that is very, very important,

don't get me wrong, I'm a big reader. I love reading. I read every night before I go to sleep. But at the same time, like for me, balance was actually not carving this time to just have all this free time to do all these things. It was how do I create a schedule where the vast majority of the time I'm doing something that I love doing

 in the various aspects of my life?   I thought that the answer was when I first got burned out was like, oh, I need to cut back because I just need more time. So I'm just burned out. I don't wanna be at the hospital anymore. I hate being stuck late and I don't get to choose this or that, and all this stuff. 

And really it had so much less to do with that and more about how do I say no to things, right? So what I call a hell yes policy.  I say no to anything that doesn't make me say hell yes, right? Someone's like, Hey Jimmy,  I know you've got some social media stuff out there and some followers, and we're thinking about doing the social media committee for the, this is a real story, by the way, uh, for, for the department, you know, and so, you know, you've got thousands of people that listen to you and that follow you on different platforms.

 We think you'd be the perfect person for that. And I'm like, Hey, I really appreciate you thinking of me. I'm so, I'm so flattered, but no,  that's not a priority for me right now. And, and just, just, that was very, very hard when I learned that skill.  After saying that throughout the last three or four or five years, like I really have carved out this really wonderful, interesting life where by saying no to all that other stuff, I can say yes to all the things that really matter to me.

And that doesn't mean I make 100% of everything these days,  but I make the overwhelming majority. And even if I'm missing something for something else, it's because I'm at baseball practice with my son and I'm missing swim practice for my daughter, but the next time I'm at a flute lesson for my daughter,  I'm missing  baseball for my son.

And so like, there are trade-offs, right? You can't be everywhere all the time.  But for me it definitely wasn't like, oh, I want all this time to like back off and just, you know, have more time to myself. It was saying no to the things that were dragging me down and providing some super negative energy, so that I could say yes

that mattered most to me.  

 This conversation came up between me and my husband about like retirement. So hot topic, when you have reached financial independence, people start to think about early retirement and.  We're not quite there. However the topic comes up and well, we wanna plan intentionally for the future.

Uh, so when he talks about early retirement  for himself. I'm like, yeah, I get it. And he's like, well what would you do if you retire? And I'm like, honey, I'm never gonna retire. Like it's just gonna look different. Like, I like what I do. I like being around kids. I like talking with people,  I like guiding, right?

So much of my job does include education as well.   It's just gonna look different, but based on how disabled I'm,  as I get older, right? If I can't see, well, I'm clearly not gonna be that one holding an otoscope and pretending, right? I'm gonna be the one who's like, okay, how do I pivot my career or pivot 

what I do to be able to adapt to that. You know, I just, I love being in this realm where I could make that choice. I mean, that's half of why I built the business actually, like this coaching business was partially because  I wanted safety, and I wanted to surround myself with people who I enjoyed, who also enjoy me.   

 Yeah. Yeah. I, think that the idea that you're just gonna retire and  go to the beach or play golf or, whatever  your version of that is, pretty,  pretty well found. I mean, there's a reason why a lot of people get depressed after they retire and they realize like, oh, like those things that I was doing, like they provided structure and purpose and community.  And actually there's someone, uh, named Jordan Grumet, who is kind of in the personal finance space.

You, are you familiar with Jordan? 

Yeah. Yeah. Great guy. 

So,  I love his stuff when he's talking about purpose and connection and identity. Like you, you need those three things no matter what stage of your life you're in, including retirement. For me, I think it would be extremely challenging if my wife kept working.

So she's like, no, like when you wanna hang it up, like I'll do, I'll, I'll hang it up too. So like, I, uh, but at the same time, like we would still need to do things right and have hobbies and things that we're trying to get better at and be productive and, and provide some purpose. And, um, but yeah, it looks completely different for everybody, right?

It's like, my crazy busy life probably looks insane to a lot of people, but I love it. Right? And  some people's life, if they were chilling all day,  I would be miserable.  

So,  my dad retired early and he was hilarious. He, he went into day trading,  but in between, like when he would take breaks from watching the ticker tape on the tv,  he would go into my room and literally move things like an inch. 

Perfection. And then he'd walk out. I'm like, what are you doing? Whatcha doing with your time?   It just cracked me up. I'm like, you know, we have to find some other hobby to be able to fill that space.   I guess his hobby was moving my stuff and then my brother's stuff, you know, like,  

well, I mean, it's something people don't think about and it's to ask people.

Whether you're, you're coming back from burnout or you are preparing for retirement.  Being thoughtful about, Hey, what would I do with this time?  There are a few sentinel events, right? If you, if you have burnout and you cut way back like I did, you're gonna find out this problem exists.

 If you were married and have children and don't work on your marriage while your children are in the house, you're gonna find out when they leave that you have a very similar problem, just in a different flavor. Um, you know, when you get to retirement and then you all of a sudden go from working 40 or 50 hours a week to not.

You're gonna have this problem. And so it's really just a matter of like, when do you wanna sort through this thing called life, And, finding your purpose and your connection, your identity, the, the stuff that you need to work on. You are going to face that problem at some point, right? And so, like, you can, you can force yourself to face it now and, and maybe while you have some time and to think about it, or you can face it all of a sudden at once, in one of those situations, which, you know, doesn't typically go well for most people. 

Agreed. Yeah. And I find that the questions pop up all the time.  Most of the time it's quietly. There's a little nudge, or there's a dream in the middle of the night, or trouble falling asleep, but Right, like the shower,  these thoughts come up like, what if, 

what if I did this instead of this? What if we took this path? What would that look like? How does that compare to my current path?  You know, like in having these conversations out loud sometimes with your spouse or with your kids.  It's just so important to be able to  figure out what makes you tick and figure out what makes the other people around you tick.

Because you might find that the paths are very parallel, and that makes for a much more enjoyable experience in life, right? When you find that there is actually alignment, you get to dive in deeper and savor it.  So as we come to a close with today's podcast,  I just wanted to highlight this podcast was really designed to help heal ourselves, heal our children, and heal our children's children.

Do you have any last words of advice or wisdom for our listeners? 

Hmm.  Maybe my biggest piece of advice is general in nature. But I think that the mistake that most people make when it comes to most things is just a lack of intentionality. Um, you know, if you wanna be a better parent, if you wanna be a better partner, wanna be a better doctor, entrepreneur, or coach,  it really comes down to being intentional and thinking about the tough questions. 

 You know, like,  what am I trying to accomplish with my kid in this, this situation? You know, like, should, should I talk to their teacher for them, or, you know, 'cause like they're uncomfortable and they, they feel unsafe right now. And should I, or should I ask them to have that conversation so they learn how to have tough conversations?

Like, what, what are you trying to accomplish? Right? And for me, when I ask those questions, it. It seems to be the tool that provides the most clarity for me. Like, what, what is the goal here in this relationship, in this business, and this hobby, whatever it might be. And, sometimes, you know, the purpose may be just to have fun, right?

Like, I play pickleball out just to have fun, right? But sometimes it's gonna have a, you know, a deeper purpose for you, in different areas of your life. But if you're not intentional, you just kind of go through the motions,  intentionality will be forced on you later at some point,  and it is much more challenging to deal with

 'cause you're, you're dealing with the consequences of not being intentional later, when you have a, a 16 or an 18-year-old, you haven't been thoughtful about how you parent them or, you know, you have a marriage that you've ignored for, for 25 years while the kids are in the house.  For me, the advice I would give to people is, is to be intentional.

 Regardless of the realm of that means.  

That's excellent advice. It really is, and I encourage everybody  to have that mindset as they're going into things. There's so many times where  life happens at inconvenient times where we're like, you know what, I'm just gonna bandaid that. And we don't even realize sometimes that we're bandaiding it, right?

Like, oh, I need some quiet, I just got home from work here, have an iPad.  So that I can sit here and scroll on my phone and go onto social media and do my thing to relax. Where many times we don't realize that what we're actually seeking is connection. The irony is you're trying to connect by going onto social media, you're trying to connect to something meaningful.

Yet we have all these people around us, like right there to connect to.  And if you think of it from that perspective, you're like, huh.  That's half an hour I just wasted doom scrolling and not connecting to my family.  

 Funny story. So my  soon to be 15-year-old doesn't have social media on her phone, so it's one of the intentional parenting choices we've made.

I'm not saying that's wrong.  For her, she's struggled with anxiety  as a kid and so.  Diving into the research and all that stuff to decide like, hey, like we want,  you to have a phone that can text and call and has Spotify. She loves music. And I, I think maybe she got YouTube.

I think I gave it up in the last like six months. But like, it's incredible, 'cause like I ask her about it, she's actually really insightful, like really mature kid  for her age.  and I'll be like, Grace,  what do you think about that? Like when you're around other people and she's like, well it really annoys me because like I'm right there with my friends

they're looking at their phone and like, I'm right there and I wanna talk to them and be with them and ask them questions and have conversations and, they're staring at their phone.  So from, from her perspective, exactly what you're describing, where she's like, oh, like, I actually really appreciate that

my parents don't let me do that because it makes me social and I'm good in conversation and I, I can connect better with people. And then hilarious, I'm coming home and I'm the one like, you know, doom scrolling on  my Twitter or, you know, whatever. And so  she'll call me out and she'll be like, Hey dad, like, can you put your phone down?

I'm like, oof. That's like, you know, dagger. But I, completely agree and, it's something that current thing I'm working through myself actually.  

The doom scrolling specifically, or  

I, I think maybe, mindless time on my phone in general,  whether that's, yeah

check an email or social media. There's actually an app called Unpluck that it makes you like, do this puzzle in order to unlock certain apps. And so I basically turn that on at 3:00 PM every day. It turns on by itself every day at 3:00 PM It's like for me to like go check my email after 3:00 PM  is actually very, very difficult.

 Enough. There's enough friction there where like it stops me from doing it the vast majority of the time.  And so like recognizing, the,  desire to build a habit, right? You wanna add some friction to, to it. If it's a habit you want to stop doing.  And so that's something that I've been working on for the  last couple months. 

That's a really cool idea for an app. I like that.  

That's great. Yeah. 

Sometimes we have to catch ourselves.  These are the ways that we do it, you know? So.  Well, I wanna thank you so much for your time on the podcast today, Jimmy. This was an amazing conversation. Really. We covered so much ground between identity, recreating our paths,  building an intentional life.

It's phenomenal. 

Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me on.  

Thank you. How can our listeners find you?  

The easiest way is the Money Needs Medicine podcast. If you wanna hear about things, personal finance and career related,  and  if you wanna scope out some old coaching blogs or articles, you can find those on thephysicianphilosopher.com. 

Awesome. Thank you so much, Jimmy.  

Absolutely.  

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