Money as a Mirror

Show me your bank statement and I will tell you your likes, dislikes, and habits. In our day and age there is nothing can get done without money. Follow the paper trails, and you can learn a great deal about a person.

Is your lifestyle based on your priorities or peer pressure?

With your income, you have the power of choice—the choice to purchase what you want and when you want for the most part. The way you deploy your dollars says a lot about who you are as a person and what your core values are. Its easy to see what your friends are doing and buy and want to do the same. It’s almost like you're back in high school. When there is a new trend, you want to jump on it. But before you do, take a pause and evaluate if this aligns with your goals and your core values. It’s easy to get lost in a materialistic spiral because each dopamine hit feels good. Prioritizing your savings, investing, and ensuring current stability doesn’t give normal people a dopamine surge. Just be alert when deploying your capital.

Funding time

What do your decisions fund? Are you creating a life for the moment, or are you carefully crafting a way to expand your time? Depending on your current lifestyle, you can begin to build cushions to buy back your time by incorporating some aspects of delayed gratification. You can continue to work for as long as you would like but the key to that is working under your own accord vs working because you are forced to. What you can set up from the beginning can build a strong foundation to rest on when you feel like you don’t “need” to work anymore. At that cross-over point, going into your clinic, showing up for your shifts now becomes a choice that you make without other factors influencing your decisions.

Restraint > Aquisition

Could not spending be a greater superpower than spending? It seems counterintuitive. The ability to make purchases vs actually making purchases is 2 different things. You begin to realize that when you have resources, you have choice. Just because you can buy something doesn’t mean you have to. We all have desires and wants, but a greater power is to say no until you need something. As a physician, you typically have greater disposable income than the average person. Just because you have it doesn’t mean you need to exercise it. Be patient and use your capital when necessary or when you know something will bring you long-term joy.

In conclusion,

What you spend on says a lot about you. It’s a direct look into the things you desire and indulge in. Sometimes saying no is more powerful than saying yes.