We want to wish all of our listeners and readers a Happy Thanksgiving! Today, we wanted to focus on gratitude and also hear from all of you about things you are grateful for. We listen to a handful of speakpipes and discuss the things that you are feeling this holiday. We also have two great guests on the podcast today. First, we hear from Andrew over at studentloanadvice.com. He will be joining us once a month for a few months to help keep everyone in the know about what is going on with federal student loan forgiveness. Things are changing constantly right now, and Andrew will do his best to make sure everyone knows what to expect. Later in the episode, we will hear from one of our WCICON23 keynote speakers, Dr. Stacy Taniguchi. He will let you know a little about himself and the awesome things he will be talking about at the conference.
We asked you to send in Speak Pipes today about gratitude. Today is Thanksgiving and what better time to talk about gratitude than Thanksgiving? It reminds me of a Will Arnett quote. He said, “I am happy because I'm grateful. I choose to be grateful. That gratitude allows me to be happy.” Isn't that what we all want? We're all seeking happiness. And one of the keys to that is gratitude. An attitude of gratitude makes you happier. Your financial situation hasn't changed. Your work situation hasn't changed. Your relationships haven't changed. All this changed as you're more grateful, and yet you are more happy. That's why Doris Day said, “Gratitude is riches and complaint is poverty.”
Now, Thanksgiving is not the world's most perfect holiday. It has some problems. When we were in grade school, we got this Thanksgiving story that the Pilgrims and the Indians were all very much buddy-buddy friends. That's not necessarily the case. Part of the reason they could even land there in Plymouth Rock was because a flu epidemic had gone through that Native American community in the prior couple of years and basically killed everybody. The actual history of the holidays may be not that great. It's true. There are a lot of terrible things that were done during this 400-year war that the European settlers had with Native Americans as they moved east to west across the continent. There are some excellent books that talk about everything that happened. The history itself is fascinating and knows a great deal of tragedy. I can understand why there are a lot of people that don't really like celebrating this holiday, but let's divorce it from its history and recognize a huge benefit of having gratitude, of celebrating gratitude one day a year. It's still worthwhile to celebrate gratitude.
Let's take a listen to what our first listener shared about what they are grateful for.
Amen. That is a great thing to be grateful for. You know what I'm grateful for? I had a patient who was terribly ill, came in from what essentially was a hoarder house, covered in stool, and continued to have bowel movements throughout her ER stay. Sorry for those of you who aren't docs. It's kind of gross. The whole room smells of melena—which if you've smelled it, you know what that smells like. By the time we were done, there was stool everywhere in this room. It's all over the gurney. It's all over the floor. It's everywhere. I'm grateful for the person who went in to clean that up. That was somebody's job to go in and clean up that room when we were done taking care of that patient. They are very much a part of our team in our ER as our housekeeping staff, and I'm super grateful for them.
We're thankful that you're grateful for the staff here. I am certainly grateful for the staff here. I don't know how often I've talked about this on the podcast, but in 2019, I was pretty darn burned out on The White Coat Investor. A lot of you weren't even listening to this podcast back then. Hadn't even heard of The White Coat Investor in 2019. But I was kind of done. And Katie and I, we had a big decision of whether we were going to make the company bigger and get a lot more help from people helping us keep it going, or whether we were going to make it smaller and just do less. At the time, we had moved out of our house. We were doing a renovation on our house. We were living in what was a much smaller house. It was pretty echoey, because it was essentially one big room in this house. We had a few bedrooms off of it, but the kitchen, main living areas, dining room, etc., was all one big room. It had no carpet and was very echoey.
By the end of this period of time, we were in this house for seven months. We had the kids at home, because the pandemic had started by 2020. We were trying to run a business in this room. The kids are all trying to go to school in this room. It was chaos. It was pretty terrible, pretty wild by the end of that stay before we got back into our now-renovated house. And basically, we reached out and hired a bunch of awesome people that have helped us to build this into a fantastic company and, most importantly, to keep us in the game.
One funny incident we had that came out of while we were living in that house is we went on a trip. Katie and I went on a trip while we were there, and we had a young couple—a young married couple—come and watch the kids. They stayed in our room while we were there. At the time, we had been recording the podcast in the only place we could, the only place with any carpeting, which was that master bedroom. They walk in there and what do we have? We have cameras set up, we have microphones set up, we have lights set up. So, they come out and ask our oldest daughter, “What exactly do your parents do in this room?” They felt very much reassured when they found out that I actually had a podcast. It was a funny situation.
Let's hear our next gratitude Speak Pipe.
Health is so valuable. It's interesting in personal finance we talk about so much about money. We're trying to get more money. We're trying to build money, we're trying to have more money, not running out of money in retirement. Money, money, money, money, money, money.But the truth is, once you have enough, the limiting asset on your life is no longer money. You have enough. It's now time. There is no way to get more time. You cannot go to work and trade your time for time. You can't get it. In some ways, you can trade money for time, but even those are limited. You can pay somebody to clean your house and somebody to shovel your driveway. You can get a NetJets subscription instead of riding with the rest of us in the cattle car, save yourself some time on travel, those sorts of things. For the most part, you only get so much time on this planet. And it's hard to enjoy that time when you don't have good health. Health and time, those become the valuable commodities as you build wealth. Those start mattering a whole lot more.
Our next one comes from Andrea. Let's take a listen.
That's an excellent point. Diagnoses often come up suddenly. Yesterday, I had to tell somebody that he had cancer. And that often becomes my role, falls to me, just because people come in with undiagnosed symptoms. In this case, this was a late 70s-year-old male who had back pain. When I talked to him, he'd had back pain for a long time. It turned out nobody had ever actually taken a picture of his back. No X-rays, no CT scans, no MRIs. I said, “Well, it's been long enough. Someone needs to look. Just to make sure there's nothing really bad going on that you need surgery for or you need any other treatment for.” It turns out he had a bunch of metastases in his spine and in his pelvis, and that's probably the cause of his back pain. And some terrible spinal stenosis too, but it was probably the mets that were causing all his pain. I had to go in there and break that news to him and his dear wife and his son. The truth is we have good health until we don't have good health. That often is a sudden change. Be grateful for what you have health-wise. It's wonderful at times to be able to enjoy that. Even just waking up and not being in pain. There are a lot of people that don't enjoy that type of an existence. They're in pain all the time. I know when I'm nauseated or I'm in pain, or even I just itch, I'm miserable. I’m the epitome of the man cold. If anything's not perfect, I get in a foul mood about it. I need to be more grateful for the wonderful health that I do enjoy.
Let's hear from Lauren now.
That's a great thing to be grateful for. We are also very grateful for the snow. I just went skiing two days ago on November 12, and there was a lot of snow. All the rocks were covered, which we're pretty excited about in Utah. We've been in the middle of a drought here for many years, and we have had a number of years when the rocks really weren't covered—even at the end of January. We're thrilled to be able to go skiing. Unfortunately, everybody else was thrilled too. The lift lines were like 40 minutes long. It was kind of terrible that way. Only half the lifts are open, and the lift lines are super long. But it was great to be out. It was actually warm because it's still November. It was like being out in the spring. We're also grateful for that—not just for the snow to play in all winter, but because it fills up our reservoirs for the spring and that allows us to do all kinds of other fun activities, but most importantly, we have something to drink and bathe with. We're also grateful to have snow on the mountains when I look out from my office here at WCI headquarters in Utah.
Melody Beattie said, “Gratitude turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity. It makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” I think there's a lot of truth to that. Having an attitude of gratitude changes you from a scarcity mentality into an enough mentality. When you focus on other people, you're grateful for what you have. You focus on other people, and it brings even more happiness into your life. Another one of my favorite gratitude quotes is actually a Vietnamese proverb that goes, “When eating fruit, remember the one who planted the tree.” There's always somebody who came before, and you were enjoying the benefits of their work, of their sacrifice. You really should take the time to kind of count your blessings. Willie Nelson said, “When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.”
Our next Speak Pipe is from Tyler, who is near and dear to the hearts of all of us here on the WCI podcast team.
Thanks, Tyler. Tyler is married to our current podcast producer Megan here at White Coat Investor. We have a few of us here at The White Coat Investor that are kind of audience-facing. If you're in the Facebook group, you know about Michelle who helps run that Facebook group. If you've gotten student loan advice from Andrew, you've met him. Obviously, Dr. Spath does a lot of ambassadoring for us and helps host the podcast and host the conference and those sorts of things. So, there are some of us that are kind of forward facing, but most of the people here at The White Coat Investor work behind the scenes. Megan is one of those. If you've enjoyed the monthly newsletters, you don't realize that Megan has her fingerprints all over the monthly newsletters. Same thing with this podcast now that she's producing it.
Tyler, her husband, is a dentist by training. He practiced dentistry as well as did some academic dentistry for a number of years. Has had some disability issues in which he has become extremely grateful for his disability insurance. Also, he is now pivoting careers, and he is actually now doing some financial advising with one of the firms that we've been working with for years and years here. Just as he is grateful for his association here, we are grateful for our association with Tyler and all the wonderful things he's done. I just actually referred a colleague to him, somebody I met at a speaking gig I had in northern Utah last week. This was a speaking gig to dentists and I'm like, “Oh, I have the perfect person for you,” and connected them.
It's pretty awesome to be able to work with such an awesome group of people. I include not just the WCI staff, but all of our partners that are out there. These are people that we've referred people to for whatever need they might have. Insurance, financial advising, tax help, student loan refinancing, whatever. It's wonderful to have an association with you guys. Without you, The White Coat Investor would not be necessarily what it is today. This obviously also extends to the audience, to all of you. Without you, there would be no White Coat Investor. In reality, The White Coat Investor is not me. It is you. You are The White Coat Investors. You are who the blog and, particularly, the podcast is about. The whole point of it is to serve you better, to connect you with the good guys in the industry, to give you a fair shake on Wall Street.
That's what we're doing here. That's what The White Coat Investor is all about. I'm grateful for you because the opportunity I've had to serve so many of you has brought richness in my life in more ways than one. Both literally and metaphorically, it has dramatically enriched my life to be able to serve you here at The White Coat Investor. I hope you have a fantastic Thanksgiving. Whether or not you agree with the politics of Thanksgiving, I hope you will take a day this year to be grateful for what you have and let that bring happiness into your life.
Today, we have a couple of interviews. Our first one is with Andrew from studentloanadvice.com. You guys know Andrew, he's been on here a number of times before. A bunch of you have actually had conversations with him. You can always go to studentloanadvice.com and book an appointment with Andrew. For about an hour of your time and a few hundred bucks, he can make sure you're doing the right thing with your student loans.
However, I just recorded this interview on November 14. We just recorded this last week, and it's already a little bit out of date because we talk about the forgiveness aspect of the new Biden forgiveness plan. This is the $10,000 or $20,000 if you had a Pell Grant forgiveness of your student loans. Since that time, there has been a judge who has actually struck it down and said it's illegal. Now, I'm sure this thing's going to be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. But keep that in mind. We try to keep this up to date, but things change so fast sometimes that in between recording and when you listen to this, changes occur. As you listen to this, if that sounds not quite right, it's because it isn't quite right. But I still think everything else we talk about in this interview is worth your time. So, let's take a listen to that. Those of you with student loans need to listen extra hard to it.
[Editor's Note: On November 22, it was reported that the Biden administration was planning to extend the student loan holiday through June 30, 2023, if the student loan holiday continued to be tied up in the courts.]
Andrew, there are all kinds of crazy things happening with student loans. Can you update us on what's been going on lately?
Now, we talked, I don't know, a year ago or so, and people were still in the 0% mode. They'd been taking these 0% payments or non-payments—whatever you want to call them—and having them count. Some people had said, “Well, what if rates go up? Maybe I should refinance now when I can still refinance to 2% or 3%, even though I'm giving up my 0% for the next few months or whatever.” Now rates are a little higher. What was the right move? Did those people do the right thing that refinanced six months ago? Or were they better off holding on for the 0% now?
Still 4.5% beats 6.8%. There's still savings there for sure. Plus, you get the cash back and we're still giving out an online course at The White Coat Investor for those who refinance through our links. It's still an option. It still works for lots of people, particularly those with private loans. Private loans you can refinance early and often. They're never going to qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness.
What do you think about the possibility of this really going through, that people who work for a private group that contracts with a 501(c)(3) hospital, you think that'll really go through? What's your gut sense?
The problem is they change the rules so quickly sometimes. Our careers, we have to plan them so far out in advance that it's hard to make all the right decisions, especially when things are changing so quickly all the time. Of course, there's also the pushback from the people that are like, “Well, what in the world? Why didn't I just go in a deferral in residency? Why'd I make these IDR payments? I was trying to do the right thing and now this guy who didn't do the right thing is being rewarded for it.” That's very much a lot of the pushback that came even with just the $10,000 in forgiveness. Politicians heard about that. They're like, “What the heck? I paid off my student loans or I didn't go to college because I couldn't afford it.” And now these guys get $10,000 in free money. I think there's always that risk of pushback, keeping it from changing as well.
But at any rate, it’s good to have you on again, Andrew. For those who need some help with their student loans, if you need help with the student loan plan, you need someone to help you run the numbers, decide what IDR program to be in, decide whether to go for Public Service Loan Forgiveness or not, decide when to refinance, decide how to file your taxes to maximize your forgiveness, these are all the issues that Andrew deals with all day long. You can sign up to have a consultation with him at studentloanadvice.com. Thanks again, Andrew, for being on the podcast.
This interview is with one of our keynote speakers for WCICON. If you like what you hear, you may want to sign up and come to that conference. You can do that at wcievents.com. This is Dr. Stacy Taniguchi, who is a dear friend of mine, somebody I am incredibly grateful for. He's going to talk a little bit about the presentation he's going to be making at WCICON. Welcome to the podcast, Stacy.
I've known Stacy for a long time, longer than any other speaker we've ever had at the conference. He's going to be one of our keynote speakers this year. Do you want to tell them briefly where we met?
We go way back, way back. But what's interesting and the reason you're coming to speak at the conference is kind of what you've done since then, since we knew each other when I was a kid. After you finished your high school teaching career, you launched another career. You went off and got a Ph.D. in essentially education leadership. Tell us about what you've done with your career since that time.
Tell us a little bit about what you're going to be talking about at the conference.
Early in life, you did something that most people have not done in their lives. You made a list. You're careful not to call it a bucket list, but you made a list of things you wanted to do in your life. Tell our listeners about this list.
Give us some examples of some of the things that you put on your list.
When you look at the list, what percentage of your list have you found that you've accomplished already in your life?
Congratulations on accomplishing that. That's pretty impressive to have designed a life in advance and then lived it. I'm looking forward to our audience, the White Coat Investors, to learn from your wisdom, to learn from this approach that you've taken to life, and to really grab the bull by the horns and to take from life the most that you can get out of it and what is going to bring you the most happiness and the most long-term joy. Congratulations to you on that. We are excited to have you at the conference. Thank you, Dr. Taniguchi for being on the podcast.
I hope you enjoyed that. I have a lot of stories with Stacy. We spent a lot of time together. We've climbed mountains together, including 20 days we spent on Denali. I can remember one time he was kind of mad at me. I'm a 17-year-old kid—I'm about to turn 18—and we're in a snow cave. There's, I don't know, three or four of us younger men in there. This snow cave has settled a little bit. We probably only have six inches of air above our heads while we're laying in the snow cave. We're at 16,400 feet on the West Buttress of Denali. We were literally on a ridge, dug into a ridge in a snow cave. You go off one side of the ridge, you fall down 3,000 feet. You go off the other side of the ridge, it’s 2,000 feet down. The wind is howling. It's 80 or 100 mph of wind. You do not go outside except to go No. 2. That was the only reason we went outside for days. We were there literally for four days, dug into this snow cave. He was annoyed at all of us, probably for not helping out with whatever needed to be helped out with. Probably doing some cooking or some melting snow or something like that. He sticks his head in the snow cave and yells at us and told us what we ought to be doing, which was true, of course.
One of the great memories I have from that trip is him poking in. We've just been sitting there dawdling the time away because the wind's blowing 90 mph when things actually needed to be done. I think about that a lot with my kids. Because my kids dawdle a lot when things actually need to be done. I'm grateful for that lesson that I learned there. As you will find out at the conference, Stacy may be the only keynote speaker we've ever had at WCICON who I have actually tried to kill. Not on purpose, but we've been through a fairly traumatic incident, as well, that he'll be talking about, I'm sure, at the conference. Come and hear about that, as well.
I estimate that 80% of doctors need, want, and should use a financial advisor and/or an investment manager. Some investment gurus such as Dr. William Bernstein think my estimate is way too low. At any rate, if you want to use an advisor temporarily or for your entire life, there is no reason to feel guilty about it—just make sure you are getting good advice at a fair price.
If you need help updating your financial plan or just getting one in place, check out our list of recommended financial advisors at whitecoatinvestor.com/financial-advisors.
You can do this and The White Coat Investor can help.
This derm resident has just begun his journey to financial independence. He is learning from mistakes made in his early years and changing his ways. Today we celebrate one of the first of what will surely be many financial milestones for him. He dumped his lease and bought a beater that he now owns outright. He is now saving for his family's future.
Transcription – WCI – 290
Intro:
This is the White Coat Investor podcast, where we help those who wear the white coat get a fair shake on Wall Street. We've been helping doctors and other high-income professionals stop doing dumb things with their money since 2011.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
This is White Coat Investor podcast number 290 – Gratitude.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
I'm your host today. I'm Dr. Jim Dahle, the founder of the White Coat Investor.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
I estimate that 80% of doctors need, want, and should use a financial advisor and/or an investment manager. Some investment gurus such as Dr. William Bernstein think my estimate is way too low. At any rate, if you want to use an advisor temporarily or for your entire life, there is no reason to feel guilty about it—just make sure you are getting good advice at a fair price.
If you need help updating your financial plan or just getting one in place, check out our list of recommended financial advisors at whitecoatinvestor.com/financial-advisors.
You can do this and The White Coat Investor can help.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
This is continuing Financial Education week here at the White Coat Investors. So, if you haven't heard on the blog or from the emails, everything's 10% off this week. That includes our courses, includes our conferences, includes our swag from our WCI store, includes the books. You got to buy them through the WCI store to get that. I don't know that Amazon's going to give you 10% off. But all our stuff is 10% off this week. That goes, I believe, from the 21st through the 28th of November.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
Celebrate Thanksgiving week, celebrate Continuing Financial Education week, get 10% off everything. This is your chance. If you've been waiting for a great price on anything we sell here at WCI, now is the time.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
The code you need to know to put in to get all that stuff at a discount, WCICFE2022. That's White Code Investor Continuing Financial Education 2022. WCICFE2022 is the code.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
All right. Our quote of the date today comes from Jeff Bezos. Yes, that Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, who said, “Given a 10% chance of a 100 times payoff, you should take that bet every time.” And clearly, he has a number of times in his life.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
Well, today is Thanksgiving. This podcast is dropping on Thanksgiving. So, what better time to thank you for what you do as a doctor, as a dentist, as a PA, an NP, pharmacist, whatever you do as a high income professional. It's not easy work. Some of you are on your way into work this morning to work on Thanksgiving and everybody else is eating turkey.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
Don't worry, I'm right there with you. I'm working this evening. I've got a shift. We're having our Thanksgiving meal about noon, and by 02:00 o'clock I'll be in the ER taking care of hopefully not too many patients. But in my experience, the two worst days to work on the air are the day after Thanksgiving and the day after Christmas. Apparently people can be propped up on the holiday, but the next day they end up coming in. So hopefully the holiday itself won't be too bad for you. In fact, I'll probably get a second Turkey Day dinner from the cafeteria. So, I'll be stuck on Turkey later today, I'm sure.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
What do I need to tell you about? Oh, yes, we got a conference coming up. WCICON23, the Physician Wellness and Financial Literacy Conference, March 1st through 4th in Phoenix. And if you don't know, March 1st through 4th is the best time of the whole year to be in Phoenix. It's fantastic. They've got sun, they've got cactuses, they've got sand. You name it, it's there. But most importantly, it's very stable, perfect weather.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
We do lots of events outside at this conference. In fact, a lot of people, because we record everything and actually broadcast it virtually, if you're attending in person, you get the virtual option too. They actually go out by the pool and watch some of the sessions on their computer. You don't have to sit in the classroom even. You can put your feet up, put your feet in the pool and watch the sessions. It is a fantastic conference. It's my favorite conference that I've ever been to, and we're going back to the JW Marriott this year. It's going to be awesome.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
A couple things you need to be aware of though. If you are planning to come virtually, there was no early bird price for you coming virtually, but starting December 5th, you do not get the swag bag anymore. We have to put in a swag bag deadline every year for this thing because the swag bag is so awesome. You get a number of books from keynote speakers in the swag bag. You get a bunch of other cool stuff. You actually have to save room in your luggage for your swag bag to go home from this conference. But we mail it out to the virtual people.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
So, we need time to actually physically print the books, get them to us, ship them out to you, because we want you to have them before the conference starts. So, if you sign up after December 5th, you don't get a swag bag. You have to sign up by December 5th, whether you're coming in person or virtually, if you want to get a swag bag. Now, you can still come after that and we hope you do.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
But I'm telling you, the swag bag's worth it. You should sign up by December 5th in order to get that. And I'm going to bribe you to do it. I'm going to give you an extra discount. Don't tell anybody, all right? Don't tell the people on the YouTube channel, don't tell the people on the WCI subreddit. Don't tell the people on the blog and forum.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
This is just for you, the podcast listeners. If you use code PODCAST200, when you sign up for the conference at wcievents.com, PODCAST200, you get $200 off. Now, that's only for the in person. In person regular, in person premium. It's not for the guest. That's already a huge discount. It's not for the virtual. That's already a huge discount. It's just for in person. But if you will do PODCAST200 as your code in there, you'll get a couple hundred bucks off. It's not quite as good as yearly bird price, but it's very, very close.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
I hope to see you there. I'm looking forward to meeting as many of you as possible. This is one of my favorite parts of the year, is to actually meet the White Coat Investors in person, listen to your concerns, listen to your successes and kind of get pumped up for the whole next year. So, I hope to see you there.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
All right. We told you to send in Speak Pipes today about gratitude. It is Thanksgiving. What better time to talk about gratitude than Thanksgiving? It reminds me of Will Arnett quote. He said, “I am happy because I'm grateful. I choose to be grateful that gratitude allows me to be happy.”
Dr. Jim Dahle:
And isn't that what we all want? We're all seeking happiness. And one of the keys to that is gratitude. An attitude of gratitude makes you happier. Your financial situation hasn't changed. Your work situation hasn't changed, your relationships haven't changed. All this changed as you're more grateful, and yet you are more happy. That's why Doris Day said, “Gratitude is riches and complaint is poverty.”
Dr. Jim Dahle:
Now, Thanksgiving is not like the world's most perfect holiday. It has some problems. In a lot of ways, especially when we were in grade school, right? We get this Thanksgiving story that the Pilgrims and the Indians were all very much buddy-buddy friends. That's not necessarily the case. Part of the reason they could even land there in Plymouth Rock was because a flu epidemic had gone through that Native American community in the prior couple of years and basically killed everybody.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
And so, the actual history of the holidays may be not that great. It reminds me of some of my favorite memes. You've probably seen this picture of Geronimo and his band. It's usually titled “Homeland Security” at the top, or “Original Homeland Security” at the top. And then at the bottom, it has a caption like “Fighting terrorism since 1492”, or “Defending the borders since 1492”, or “Homeland Security a bit late now”.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
And it's true, there are a lot of terrible things that were done during this 400-year war, the European settlers had with Native Americans as they moved east to west across the continent. Atrocities on both sides. There are some excellent books that talk about everything that happened. The history itself is fascinating and knows a great deal of tragedy there.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
So, I can understand why there's a lot of people that don't really like celebrating this holiday, but I think you ought to celebrate it anyway. Divorce it from its history and recognize a huge benefit of having gratitude, of celebrating gratitude one day a year. Whether it comes from something that you don't really appreciate or don't even agree with, that's okay. It's still worthwhile to celebrate gratitude. As Voltaire said, “Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent and others belong to us as well.”
Dr. Jim Dahle:
All right. I asked you guys to put some gratitude stuff on the Speak Pipe and we got a number of people that actually did. So, I'm excited to hear what they're grateful for. This first one is from an anonymous listener. Let's take a listen.
Speaker:
I wanted to say thank you so much to all of my office staff from the front desk to my nurses and MAs to the lab. They bring me granola bars when I'm working through lunch and smile when I'm having a stressful day. Thank you to them and everyone else doing the same. Happy holidays.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
Amen. That is a great thing to be grateful for. You know what I'm grateful for? I had a patient who was terribly ill, came in from what essentially was a hoarder house, covered in stool, continued to have bowel movements throughout her ER stay. And sorry for those of you who are docs. It's kind of gross. The whole room smells a melena, which if you've smelled it, you know what that smells like. And try as best we can, all the gowns and gloves and everything we wore and tried to clean her up.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
By the time we're done, there's stool everywhere in this room. It's all over the gurney. It's all over the floor. It's everywhere. And I'm grateful for the person who went to clean that up. That was somebody's job to go in and clean up that room when we were done taking care of that patient. And they are very much a part of our team in our ER as our housekeeping staff, and I'm super grateful for them.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
All right, our next gratitude Speak Pipe comes from Keenan.
Keenan:
Hey, this is Keenan Brown. I just wanted to get on here to say I'm thankful for my health, my family and friends, all of my relationships, my education, my fiancé, and everyone over at the White Coat Investor. I really appreciate everything you guys are doing. I've learned a lot. So, thank you.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
Awesome. Well, we're thankful that you're grateful for the staff here. I am certainly grateful for the staff here. I don't know how often I've talked about this on the podcast, but in 2019, I was pretty darn burned out on the White Coat Investor. A lot of you weren't even listening to this podcast back then. Hadn't even heard of the White Coat Investor in 2019. But I was kind of done. And Katie and I, we had a big decision of whether we were going to make a company bigger and get a lot more help of people helping us keep it going, or whether we were going to make it smaller and just do less.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
And at the time, we had moved out of our house. We were doing a renovation on our house. We were living in what was a much smaller house. It was pretty echoey, because it was essentially one big room in this house. We had a few bedrooms off of it, but the kitchen, main living areas, dining room, etc, was all one big room. No carpeting, anything, places echoey.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
And by the end of this period of time, we were in this house for seven months. We had the kids at home because the pandemic had started by 2020. And so, we were trying to run a business in this room. The kids are all trying to go to school in this room. It was chaos. It was pretty terrible, pretty wild by the end of that stay before we got back into our now renovated house. And basically, we reached out and hired a bunch of awesome people that have helped us to build this into a fantastic company and most importantly, to keep us in the game.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
One funny incident we had that came out of while we were living in that house is we went on a trip. Katie and I went on a trip while we were there, and we had a young couple, a young married couple come and watch the kids. And so, they stayed in our room while we were there.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
And at the time we had been recording the podcast and the only place we could, the only place with any carpeting, which was that master bedroom. They walk in there and what do we have? We have cameras set up, we have microphones set up, we have lights set up. So, they come out and they talk to our oldest Whitney, and they're like, “What exactly do your parents do in this room?” And they were felt very much reassured when they found out that I actually had a podcast. So, it was kind of a funny situation. We were grateful for them for watching our kids, because we did have a really great trip, but it was kind of a funny situation.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
All right. To break up, our podcast today, we've got a couple of interviews. Our first one is with Andrew from studentloanadvice.com. You guys know Andrew, he's been on here a number of times before. A bunch of you have actually had conversations with him. You can always go to studentloanadvice.com and book an appointment with Andrew. For about an hour of your time and a few hundred bucks, he can make sure you're doing the right thing with your student loans.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
However, I just recorded this. It's November 14th today. We just recorded this last week and it's already a little bit out of date because we talk about the forgiveness aspect from the new Biden forgiveness plan. This is the $10,000 or $20,000 if you had a Pell grant forgiveness of your student loans.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
Since that time, there has been a judge who has actually struck it down and said it's illegal. Now, I'm sure this thing's going to be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. But keep that in mind. We try to keep this up to date, but things change so fast sometimes that in between recording, when you listen to this, changes occur.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
So, as you listen to this, and that sounds not quite right, it's because it isn't quite right. But I still think everything else we talk about in this interview is worth your time. So, let's take a listen to that. Those of you with student loans need to listen extra hard to it.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
All right, we got our student loan man, Andrew Paulson from studentloanadvice.com back on the podcast. Welcome Andrew.
Andrew Paulson:
Hey, good to be here again, Jim.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
You're looking very happy. You've been on a trip lately or something?
Andrew Paulson:
Here and there, but I just got done skiing the other day. I'm really pleased that we're already getting snow in the Wasatch Mountains.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah. Awesome. Well, we're recording this on November 10th, and indeed, we are looking at a pretty good snow year so far. Hopefully it helps us get out of our drought. But we're not here to talk about skiing. We want to hear an update. There are all kinds of crazy things happening with student loans. Can you update us on what's been going on lately?
Andrew Paulson:
Yeah. As most of you are aware, we just hit this October 31st deadline that was pertinent to what's called the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Waiver. And that was where they temporarily relaxed a number of the rules for the PSLF program, where they were counting late payments, they were counting under payments. They were even supposed to be counting some payments that you maybe had made before you went to medical school.
Andrew Paulson:
So, all of that stuff kind of wrapped up on October 31st. That was a big, big push. And again, that was just for borrowers that were in the public space. And so, you had to do this consolidation and submit your PSLF paperwork by that time. But I did want to kind of bring to light as well, there's also this income driven repayment waiver that was supposed to be more applicable for the masses, the entire 45 million federal student loan borrowers out there.
Andrew Paulson:
And so, this is kind of a run on from some of the stuff that counted under the PSLF waiver that's going to be counting during the income driven repayment waiver. But the big difference there was the fact that they're going to be counting forbearance, certain forbearance and deferment. That's that 12 months of consecutive forbearance or 36 months of accumulative forbearance or longer.
Andrew Paulson:
The perfect example that I saw is a psychiatrist resident that I was working with as a client that got four years of credit during their residency as if it were payment towards the public service loan forgiveness program.
Andrew Paulson:
Really what these waivers are doing is they're really helping to expedite your ability to receive public service loan forgiveness or even pursue that 20-to-25-year taxable forgiveness track as well. So, there’s that. And that's supposed to be implemented by the IDR Waiver by July 1st, 2023. So just know, I know there's a lot of you out there that are waiting to see your payment counts get updated and for them to process all of the paperwork, but that's the deadline there.
Andrew Paulson:
I also wanted to mention that they are trying to bring some wholesale changes to the public service loan forgiveness program that is based on some of these temporary relaxing of the rules, whatever you call it, under these waivers where they're starting to try to really count periods of time when you were in military forbearance or you're on active service duty.
Andrew Paulson:
And the other is when you switch repayment programs, or if you're re-certifying. Sometimes they will put your loans into what's called administrative forbearance. They're trying to start counting those as well, because typically they put your loans into this administrative forbearance for two months and you don't get credit for those. That means two more months likely that you're going to have to pay at a higher level of income, which is a pain.
Andrew Paulson:
So, there's that. And they're going to start allowing you to make payments. They have already implemented where you can make a lump sum payment up to your next re-certification day, or you can just make your monthly required payment, but they're also going to implement installment payments as well.
Andrew Paulson:
So, this is key for those of you that are getting loan repayment assistance. Maybe it's from the VA, maybe it's from the NIH, NHSC or anything to that effect. This should help allow you to kind of double dip on those different repayment programs.
Andrew Paulson:
And then the one other point that I wanted to highlight is they're trying to change the employment requirement for public service loan forgiveness. And bear in mind, this is supposed to be implemented by July 1st, 2023. It's not going to be from now until that point, but they're going to continue to discuss this, where they're going to simplify the employment requirements. It was you had to be working full-time down to 30 hours per week.
Andrew Paulson:
And it was kind of tricky because sometimes you're working 30 hours a week, but you're not considered full time. And so, your employer wouldn't sign the form. Well, now they're going to remove that so that it's only 30 hours per week that you have to work, whether that's full-time or not. It's just a very clean and simple 30 hours per week.
Andrew Paulson:
And the one other point is you have to be employed by a nonprofit or a 501(c)(3) to do the public service loan forgiveness program. They are trying to change this.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
Wow.
Andrew Paulson:
And it's particular to healthcare providers that are working in particular states that are not allowed to be directly employed by nonprofit hospitals. This is those working in California and Texas. You'll hear about Kaiser all the time. So, they're trying to change that as well. And that could change the paradigm for public service loan forgiveness wherein you could be working at private group or a private organization that's contracted with a hospital and still get credit for PSLF. That's a huge thing that we're still kind of trying to wait to see what happens. But those are the big things.
Andrew Paulson:
And then the other is we're going to have to make payments in January again. The pause is I believe over. And that they're not going to continue to extend this. If you haven't made plans on your repayment program on what you're going to do, now is the perfect time to get that set up so that you're in autopay come January.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah. Now, we talked, I don't know, a year ago or so, and people were still in the 0% mode. They'd been taking these 0% payments or non-payments, whatever you want to call them, having them count. And some people had said, “Well, what if rates go up? Maybe I should refinance now when I can still refinance to 2% or 3%, even though I'm giving up my 0% for the next few months or whatever.” Now rates are a little higher.
Andrew Paulson:
Oh yeah.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
So, what was the right move? Did those people do the right thing that refinanced six months ago? Or were they better off holding on for the 0% now?
Andrew Paulson:
Yeah. And to add another thing in there as well, then the $10,000 to $20,000 of student loan forgiveness that we haven't touched on, kind of got into the mix. But what I was seeing was attendings that I was working with in January and February, they could refinance their student loans from the 6% or 7% federally, what they were to 1% to 2%. And we cannot get close to that.
Andrew Paulson:
Today, it's 4.5% to 6-ish, it’s the range right now. With them getting raised, I think it was last week, and I know that there's another rate hike that's probably anticipated this coming December. So, if you were in the camp where you were positive that you were going to refinance, maybe you should have done it earlier. And you could still do it now before rates go up.
Andrew Paulson:
Where this really benefited you was if you're in a situation and you're in a job that qualifies for the public service loan forgiveness program and you weren't going to refinance it. So, there are definitely some people that are probably hurting a little bit because they could have locked in those lower rates back then and then skipped on the 0% interest that they've had this year.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah. Still 4.5% beats 6.8%.
Andrew Paulson:
Yeah, totally.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
There's still savings there for sure. Plus, you get the cash back and we're still giving out an online course at the White Coat Investor for those who refinance through our links, which you can go to just on the main page there. If you go to our recommended tab, you'll see student loan refinancing under that. So, it's still an option. It still works for lots of people, particularly those with private loans. Private loans you can refinance early and often. They're never going to qualify for public service loan forgiveness.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
What do you think about the possibility of this really going through, that people who work for a private group that contracts with a 501(c)(3) hospital, you think that'll really go through? What's your gut sense?
Andrew Paulson:
I've been surprised in the past with so much of the stuff that's counted. I was very, very surprised that forbearances and deferments counted. And I really wanted to kind of delay telling people that this actually happened until I saw that some of the stuff that was mentioned on the income driven repayment waiver was actually happening. Because I wanted to be able to see that this happened and it has.
Andrew Paulson:
So, I'm still on the camp where I don't know if they're going to allow that, because then it gets very, very complex to what are the states that don't allow hospitals to hire for certain healthcare providers, physicians, whatever you call it. And then that's a whole another legal situation because then it's what if you're working in the state of Pennsylvania? You're not in California or in Texas and you're paid by a private group, but you're working at a hospital, that's a nonprofit hospital that can't staff this radiologist or this anesthesiologist. So, they have to go to some private group to do that.
Andrew Paulson:
I still do think I'm in the camp that I don't know if this is a surefire thing that's going to happen because if it does, then I think it's going to kind of muddy this situation even further on employment and what qualifies. And it could change, maybe there's going to be less physicians that are going to be taking those jobs in academia if they can have a different pay structure, maybe a different ceiling if they're working in private practice, but they still qualify for the loan forgiveness program.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah. The problem is they change the rules so quickly sometimes. And our careers, we have to plan them so far out in advance that it's hard to make all the right decisions especially when things are changing so quickly all the time. And of course, there's also the pushback from the people that are like, “Well, what in the world? Why didn't I just go in a deferral in residency? Why'd I make these IDR payments? I was trying to do the right thing and now this guy who didn't do the right thing is being rewarded for it.”
Dr. Jim Dahle:
That's very much a lot of pushbacks that came even with just the $10,000 in forgiveness. Politicians heard about that. They're like, “What the heck? I paid off my student loans or I didn't go to college because I couldn't afford it.” And now these guys get $10,000 in free money. So, I think there's always that risk of pushback, keeping it from changing as well.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
But at any rate, it’s good to have you on again, Andrew. For those who need some help with their student loans, if you need help with the student loan plan, you need someone to help you run the numbers, decide what IDR program to be in, decide whether to go for public service loan forgiveness or not, decide when to refinance, decide how to file your taxes to maximize your forgiveness, these are all the issues that Andrew deals with all day long. So, you can sign up to have a consultation with him at studentloanadvice.com. Thanks again, Andrew, for being on the podcast.
Andrew Paulson:
Thanks, Jim. See you soon.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
All right, I hope that was helpful. Remember, as I said before this interview, that $10,000 forgiveness is currently on hold at best. It's been struck down by a court. If it gets to the Supreme Court, it may not get through. It's a pretty conservative Supreme Court right now. And there's a lot of conservatives that are not happy about public service loan forgiveness, much less this new forgiveness program, the Biden Forgiveness program, for lack of a better term.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
All right, let's listen to Elizabeth. She has called in with a gratitude Speak Pipe.
Elizabeth:
Hi, Dr. Dahle. Right now, I'm currently thankful for a healthy mind and a healthy body, and that I have a healthy family that I get to spend time with.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
All right. Health. Health is so valuable. It's interesting in personal finance we talk about so much about money. We're trying to get more money. We're trying to build money, we're trying to have more money, not running out of money in retirement. Money, money, money, money, money, money.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
But the truth is, once you have enough, the limiting asset on your life is no longer money. You have enough. It's now time. And there is no way to get more time. You cannot go to work and trade your time for time. You can't get it. In some ways you can trade money for time, but even those are limited. You can pay somebody to clean your house and somebody to shovel your driveway. You can get a net jet subscription instead of riding with the rest of us in the cattle car, save yourself some time on travel, those sorts of things.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
But for the most part, you only get so much time on this planet. And it's hard to enjoy that time when you don't have good health. So, health, time, those become the valuable commodities as you build wealth. Those start mattering a whole lot more.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
All right, our next one comes from Andrea. Let's take a listen.
Andrea:
Hey. This year I am really thankful for my health. I've recently had some friends who have been diagnosed with different medical issues. And while I've watched them struggle through that, it has reminded me more than ever to be grateful for the health of myself and my family, and to not take it for granted.
Andrea:
I realize that can change any moment from things outside of our control a lot of times. And so, I'm really trying this year to focus on gratitude for my health and my family's health, and also trying to strive to be better at living a healthy lifestyle and teaching my kids the importance of that too. So, this year I am grateful for that and praying for those who are struggling with health problems and hoping for better things in the new year.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
That's an excellent point. Diagnoses often come up suddenly. Yesterday I had to tell somebody that he had cancer. And that often becomes my role, falls to me, just because people come in with undiagnosed symptoms. In this case, this was a late seventies year old male who had back pain. And when I talked to him, he'd had back pain for a long time.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
And it turned out nobody had ever actually taken a picture of his back. No x-rays, no CT scans, no MRIs. And I said, “Well, it's been long enough. Someone needs to look. Just make sure there's nothing really bad going on that you need surgery for or you need any other treatment for.” And of course, he's got a bunch of metastases in his spine and in his pelvis, and that's probably the cause of his back pain. And some terrible spinal stenosis too but it was probably the mets that were causing all his pain.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
And so, I had to go in there and break that news to him and his dear wife and his son. And the truth is we have good health until we don't have good health. And that often is a sudden change. So, be grateful for what you have health wise. It's wonderful at times to be able to enjoy that. And even just waking up and not being in pain. There's a lot of people that don't enjoy that type of an existence. They're in pain all the time.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
And I know when I'm nauseated or I'm in pain, or even I just itch, I'm miserable. I’m the epitome of the man cold. And if anything's not perfect, I get in a foul mood about it. And so, I need to be more grateful for the wonderful health that I do enjoy.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
All right. We are going to do another interview. This is an interview with one of our keynote speakers from the conference that's coming up from 2023 WCICON that I told you about. And if you like what you hear here, you may want to sign up and come to that conference. You can do that at wcievents.com.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
But this is Dr. Stacy Taniguchi, who is a dear friend of mine, somebody I am incredibly grateful for. And he's going to talk a little bit about the presentation he's going to be making at WCICON.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
Our guest on the White Coat Investor podcast today is Stacy Taniguchi, PhD. Welcome to the podcast, Stacy.
Dr. Stacy Taniguchi:
Thanks, Jim. Thanks for having me.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
I've known Stacy for a long time, longer than any other speaker we've ever had at the conference. He's going to be one of our keynote speakers this year. Do you want to tell them briefly where we met?
Dr. Stacy Taniguchi:
Well, we pretty much kind of lived in the same area in Anchorage, Alaska, and our association was basically around our church, but I knew your family very well, your parents very well. I still consider them good friends and see them every once in a while.
Dr. Stacy Taniguchi:
There was a group of you, your friends that went to the high school where I taught at in Anchorage. I think I taught most of you, probably coached some of you, even though I know you were kind of more in the hockey scene and those kinds of things and I was more in the running scene. But, yeah, we did quite a bit together, including climbing Denali together.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah. We go way back, way back. But what's interesting, and the reason you're coming to speak at the conference is kind of what you've done since then, since we knew each other when I was a kid. And after you finished your high school teaching career, you launched another career. You went off and got a PhD in essentially education leadership. And tell us about what you've done with your career since that time.
Dr. Stacy Taniguchi:
Well, I spent four years at a university here in Utah called Brigham Young University. I earned my PhD. And fortunately, I was at the right place at the right time. They were looking for a professor that could fill a position in a department called Recreation Management on campus. Eventually that department was moved to the Marriott School of Business, and we kind of reinvented ourselves, but recreation is all about experience.
Dr. Stacy Taniguchi:
And because my research and my studies were in an area called Experiential Education, we ended up becoming the Department of Experience Design and Management. I taught there at BYU for 15, 16 years as part of my second career, and eventually retired in 2019.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
Awesome. And tell us a little bit about what you're going to be talking about at the conference.
Dr. Stacy Taniguchi:
I have spent probably most of my adult life either guiding people around adventures around the world, or I've been teaching. And in that combination, I had lots of experiences where I began to see that there are people in this world that are really thriving and enjoying life and really making the most of the opportunities that they have.
Dr. Stacy Taniguchi:
And I've met some people who have really had some situations in their life that have kind of caused them to be more in a state of mind of enduring life, just kind of living day by day, hoping that tomorrow might be better than yesterday, and etc, etc. And I just began to realize, “You know what? I need to find out why the people who have this excitement in their life, thriving in their life, wanting to just live each day to its fullest, and they see life full of opportunities.” They really look at it in that way.
Dr. Stacy Taniguchi:
A lot of my research while I was a professor was around what I call “What makes meaningful experiences in life?” And in that process, I began to find that there are things that you can actually do in your life that can enhance the opportunities, make you wake up to the fact that your life is full of opportunities and you should try to take advantage of it. It's really trying to help people understand that this life is meant for you to thrive. So, figure it out and let me help you, I guess is the bottom line.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
Now, early in life, you did something that most people have not done in their lives. You made a list, and you're careful not to call it a bucket list, but you made a list of things you wanted to do in your life. Tell our listeners about this list.
Dr. Stacy Taniguchi:
Yeah. I was born and raised in Hawaii, the 50th state, but I lived on an island Moloka‘i, which probably most of your audience hasn't been to, maybe hasn't even heard of. But it's one of the eight islands in the chain. And our family came across, they subscribed to a magazine called Life Magazine.
Dr. Stacy Taniguchi:
I came across one of the issues and saw an article about a gentleman who had made a list of the things he wanted to do in his life. He didn't call it a bucket list. And I tell my audiences don't call it a bucket list. A bucket list is what you make in preparation of death. This was a list to live, to live a life to thrive. So, I call it the Thrive List, or the List to Thrive.
Dr. Stacy Taniguchi:
I just started putting things down that I felt like “I'd like to do this, I'd like to see this, I'd like to meet people.” Whatever. And I tried to make it as specific as possible. And that became my roadmap as I kind of lived through life.
Dr. Stacy Taniguchi:
And because I've written them down, I've really found that when an opportunity comes along, I try to take advantage of it. I find myself not making decisions based on the fact that “Well, I don't have the time to do that right now”, or “I really can't afford to do that right now”, or “I don't have friends to go do it with.” When the opportunity comes along, my attitude is more like, “Wow, that's on my list. I may never have this opportunity again. I should take advantage of it.”
Dr. Jim Dahle:
So, give us some examples of some of the things that you put on your list.
Dr. Stacy Taniguchi:
I'm sure many people would put certain things down. When I was young one of the things was, I would like to go to college and graduate with a degree. So, it can be pretty much what everybody else probably wants to put down on their list. But I've had other things like I wanted to build my own house. I ended up doing that in Alaska and ended up living in it for like 15, 16 years.
Dr. Stacy Taniguchi:
I wanted to learn how to fly. So, opportunities came along. My original idea about wanting to learn how to fly was obviously to fly a motorized plane, but in that process, I took advantage of learning how to hang glide and then eventually went on to get a pilot's license. So, it's things like that.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
Awesome. And when you look at the list, what percentage of your list have you found that you've accomplished already in your life?
Dr. Stacy Taniguchi:
Well, over a period of about 10 years, the list grew to about a hundred items. And there's a reason why it took a long time to come up with these things. And in the presentation that I'll give, in the conference, I'll explain some of the things that you have to consider in order to put this list together. You're not just throwing anything and everything on the list.
Dr. Stacy Taniguchi:
So, my list after about 10 years, came out to be about a hundred things. And back, I think it was around 2018, 2017, I finally checked off the 100th thing. So, my list is done as far as what I originally created.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
Awesome. Well, congratulations on accomplishing that. That's pretty impressive to have designed a life in advance and then lived it. And I'm looking forward to our audience, the White Coat Investors, to learn from your wisdom, to learn from this approach that you've taken to life and to really grab the bull by the horns and take from life the most that you can get out of it and what is going to bring you the most happiness and the most long-term joy. So, congratulations to you on that.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
We are excited to have you at the conference. The conference, for those who have not yet heard of it, you need to listen to more podcasts if you haven't, first of all. But for those who have not heard of it, you can still sign up to come to the conference. This is the Physician Wellness and Financial Literacy Conference. It's March 1st through 4th in Phoenix. You can go to wcievents.com and sign up for that.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
You can come in person. You can come virtually. We'd love to have you. You can meet Stacy. You can meet me. It's going to be an awesome conference. Thank you, Dr. Taniguchi for being on the podcast.
Dr. Stacy Taniguchi:
Thanks, Jim. I appreciate it.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
All right. I hope you enjoyed that. I have a lot of stories with Stacy. We spent a lot of time together. We've climbed mountains together, including 20 days we spent on Denali. And I can remember one time he was kind of mad at me. I'm a 17-year-old kid, I'm about to turn 18, and we're in a snow cave. There's, I don't know, three or four of us younger men in there. And this snow cave has settled a little bit. We probably only got six inches of air above our heads while we're laying in the snow cave.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
And we're at 16,400 feet on the West Buttress of Denali. We were literally on a ridge, dug into a ridge in a snow cave. You go off one side of the ridge, you fall down 3,000 feet. You go off the other side of the ridge, it’s 2,000 feet down. And the wind is howling. It's 80 or 100 miles an hour of wind. You do not go outside except to go number two. That was the only reason we went outside for days. We were there literally for four days, dug into this snow cave.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
He was annoyed at all of us, probably for not helping out with whatever needed to be helped out with. Probably doing some cooking or some melting snow or something like that. And he sticks his head in the snow cave and yells at us and told us what we ought to be doing, which was true, of course.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
And one of the great memories I have from that trip is him poking in. And we've just been sitting there dawdling the time away because the wind's blowing 90 miles an hour when things actually needed to be done. And I think about that a lot with my kids. Because my kids dawdle a lot when things actually need to be done. And I'm grateful for that lesson that I learned there.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
As you will find out at the conference, Stacy may be the only keynote speaker we've ever had at WCICON who I have actually tried to kill. Not on purpose, but we've been through a fairly traumatic incident as well that he'll be talking about, I'm sure, at the conference. And so, you can come and hear about that as well.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
All right. Our next gratitude Speak Pipe comes from Lauren.
Lauren:
Hi, Dr. Dahle. Right now, I am very grateful for the house that I live in, the beautiful state that I live in, and my dog and all of my family surrounding me. I'm so grateful that I was able to buy a house in this last year. And I'm grateful for the beautiful mountains that I live by and waking up to snow on the mountains every day.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
That's a great thing to be grateful for. We are also very grateful. I just went skiing two days ago on November 12th, and there was a lot of snow. All the rocks were covered, which we're pretty excited about in Utah. We've been in the middle of a drought here for many years and we have had a number of years when the rocks really weren't covered, even at the end of January.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
So, we're thrilled to be able to go skiing. Unfortunately, everybody else was thrilled too. And so, the lift lines were like 40 minutes long. It was kind of terrible that way. Only half the lifts are open and the lift lines are super long.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
But it was great to be out. It was actually warm because it's still November. It was like being out in the spring. So, we're also grateful for that, not just for the snow to play in all winter, but because it fills up our reservoirs for the spring and that allows us to do all kinds of other fun activities, but most importantly, have something to drink and bathe with. We're also grateful to have snow on the mountains when I look out from my office here at WCI headquarters in Utah.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
Melody Beattie said, “Gratitude turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity. It makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
Dr. Jim Dahle:
And I think there's a lot of truth to that. Having an attitude of gratitude, changes you from a scarcity mentality into an enough mentality. When you focus on other people, you're grateful for what you have, you focus on other people and it brings even more happiness into your life.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
Another one of my favorite gratitude quotes is actually a Vietnamese proverb that goes, “When eating fruit, remember the one who planted the tree.” There's always somebody who came before and you were enjoying the benefits of their work, of their sacrifice and really should take the time to kind of count your blessings. Willie Nelson said, “When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.”
Dr. Jim Dahle:
And one of my favorite quotes as well on gratitude is from Robert Brault, who said, “Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” I think there’s a lot of truth to that.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
Our next Speak Pipe is from Tyler, who is near and dear to the hearts of all of us here on the WCI podcast team.
Tyler:
Hi, Dr. Dahle. I'm hopping on to share a few things I'm thankful for this year. I'm so grateful for my fun, smart, beautiful wife of 16 years, our three sweet and spicy daughters, the good health and sufficient wealth to be able to do the things we love together.
Tyler:
I'm grateful for my 97 Camry that runs perfectly and never lets me down. I'm grateful the Salt Lake area ski resorts are open before Thanksgiving this year. I'm thankful for democracy, the right to vote my conscience, and for all those over the years who have sacrificed to uphold those rights for me.
Tyler:
I'm grateful for my mom who gave up so much so that I could reach my full potential despite challenging circ*mstances in our life. I'm grateful to you, Dr. Dahle and the whole team at the White Coat Investor whose platforms have transformed my life in ways I never could have imagined. Thank you so much. Happy Thanksgiving to you and to all the White Coat listeners out there.”
Dr. Jim Dahle:
Thanks Tyler. Tyler is married to our current podcast producer Megan here at White Coat Investor. We have a few of us here at the White Coat Investor that are kind of audience facing. If you're in the Facebook group, you know about Michelle who helps run that Facebook group. If you've gotten student loan advice from Andrew, you've met him. Obviously, Dr. Spath does a lot of ambassadoring for us and helps host the podcast and host the conference and those sorts of things.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
So, there's some of us that are kind of forward facing, but most of the people here at the White Coat Investor work behind the scenes. And Megan is one of those. If you've enjoyed the monthly newsletters, you don't realize that Megan has her fingerprints all over the monthly newsletters. Same thing with this podcast now that she's producing it.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
Tyler, her husband, is a dentist by training. Practiced dentistry. Some academic dentistry for a number of years. Has had some disability issues in which he has become extremely grateful for his disability insurance. Also, he is kind of pivoting careers. And he is actually now doing some financial advising with one of the firms that we've been working with for years and years here.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
And so, just as he is grateful for his association here, we are grateful for our association with Tyler and all the wonderful things he's done. I just actually referred a colleague to him, somebody I met at a speaking gig I had in Northern Utah last week. This was a speaking gig to dentists and I'm like, “Oh, I got the perfect person for you.” And so, I connected them.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
It's pretty awesome to be able to work with such an awesome group of people. And I include not just the WCI staff, but all of our partners that are out there. These are people that we've referred people to for whatever need they might have. Insurance, financial advising, tax help, student loan refinancing, whatever.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
It's wonderful to have an association with you guys. Without you, the White Coat Investor would not be necessarily what it is today. And this obviously also extends to the audience, to you guys. Without you, there would be no White Coat Investor. In reality, the White Coat Investor is not me. It is you. You are the White Coat Investors. You are who the blog and particularly the podcast is about. And the whole point of it is to serve you better, to connect you with the good guys in the industry, to give you a fair shake on Wall Street.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
That's what we're doing here. That's what the White Coat Investor is all about. And I'm grateful for you because the opportunity I've had to serve so many of you has brought richness in my life in more ways than one, both literally and metaphorically it has dramatically enriched my life to be able to serve you here at the White Coat Investor.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
I hope you have a fantastic Thanksgiving. Whether or not you agree with the politics of Thanksgiving, I hope you will take a day this year to be grateful for what you have and let that bring happiness into your life.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
I estimate that 80% of doctors need, want, and should use a financial advisor and/or an investment manager. Some investment gurus such as Dr. William Bernstein think my estimate is way too low. At any rate, if you want to use an advisor temporarily or for your entire life, there is no reason to feel guilty about it—just make sure you are getting good advice at a fair price.
If you need help updating your financial plan or just getting one in place, check out our list of recommended financial advisors at whitecoatinvestor.com/financial-advisors.
You can do this and The White Coat Investor can help.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
Don't forget, if you want to come to WCICON23, you want to sign up before December 5th. You get a swag bag if you do that. Also, if you use code PODCAST200, you get $200 off for your in-person trip there. You can sign up wcievents.com.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
Thanks for those of you leaving us five-star reviews and telling your friends about the podcast. Those reviews actually help us spread this message of financial literacy across physicians and other high-income professionals. In this case, PAs.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
Our most recent review from k2utah said, “Thank you for your recent episode featuring PAs. It is nice to hear how different professions are finding ways to succeed in money. I have benefited from your White Coat Investor content for many years, both on the website and the podcast.” Well, thanks for that kind five-star review.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
All right. Happy Thanksgiving. As you listen to this, I'm in the ER. Wish me luck. And hopefully, it's a great weekend at the hospital and we can help as many people there as we're helping here on the podcast.
Dr. Jim Dahle:
Keep your head up, your shoulders back. You've got this and we can help. See you next time.
Disclaimer:
The hosts of the White Coat Investor podcast are not licensed accountants, attorneys, or financial advisors. This podcast is for your entertainment and information only. It should not be considered professional or personalized financial advice. You should consult the appropriate professional for specific advice relating to your situation.
