Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast, where academic clinicians learn the skills
to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor.
As clinicians, we spend a decade or more as trainees learning to take care of patients.
When we finally start our careers, we want to build research programs, but then we find
that our years of clinical training did not adequately prepare us to lead our research
program.
Through no fault of our own, we struggle to find mentors, and when we can't, we quit.
However, clinicians hold the keys to the greatest research breakthroughs.
For this reason, the Clinician Researcher podcast exists to give academic clinicians
the tools to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor.
Now introducing your host, Toyosi Onwuemene.
Welcome to today's episode of the Clinician Researcher podcast.
I'm your host Toyosi Onwuemene, and I'm super excited to be bringing you today's guest,
Dr. Latifat Akintade.
I messed up your name.
Dr. Latifat, welcome to the show.
Thank you very much for having me here.
It's a pleasure to come hang out with you, spend time with you, and hopefully add some
value to your audience.
No, I'm super excited because as you know, this is a Clinician Researcher podcast, so
lots of academic clinicians listen here.
And I guess the question I would ask myself is, what is a financial guru doing on the
show?
Well, I want to introduce you because you're super cool.
And I want to say that Dr. Latifat, to everyone who's listening, literally just came back
from a year gallivanting around the globe, and she's able to do that because she's financially
independent.
And so I want to just pause and let her introduce herself and tell us how she was able to do
that.
Absolutely.
I mean, I love that you know that I love that you talk to clinicians and researchers,
especially.
And the reason why I love that is because I think that their work is so important.
And so first of all, in case people that are listening don't get to the end of the episode,
thank you for what you do.
So like you mentioned, I'm Dr. Latifat.
I'm a physician.
I'm a gastroenterologist and also a mama of three little ladies.
We're based in California.
I am married.
We've been married for about 12 years now.
And I have the honor and pleasure of being the founder of Money Feed MD, which is a platform
that's 100% committed to helping physicians learn money, know money, grow money, and really
live their life on their terms.
So when we're talking about clinical researchers, we definitely want our people to be able to
practice on their terms because your work is so important.
When you burn out, it's not good for us.
It's not good for the world.
But my journey didn't start here.
My journey started about, I mean, you could say my journey started about when I was born,
but I moved to the United States in 2022.
Grew up in Nigeria.
I knew zero about money, like absolute zero.
The only thing, the only financial education that I got when it came to money was there
is this amazing thing called a credit card.
You can use it whenever you want and you don't even have to pay it up.
Just pay whatever, like the minimum payment and you can buy anything.
Like that was literally all of my financial education.
And so, you know, I went through life with undergrad, with med school.
I did undergrad in LA, med school in San Francisco, New York for residency, and then back to California
for fellowship Sacramento.
And I've stayed on in Sacramento since then.
We had our first kid in my third year of residency.
And so by the time I was a fellow, I had my second kid.
And what all that migration means was that I had a bunch of debt, that I was moving around
with student loans and, you know, I really wasn't splurging or leaving it up or whatever
like that.
But I also had family responsibilities even before I had kids or got married.
And so here I was living my dream of almost becoming an attending physician, a gastroenterologist
who I can finally do the work of my life.
And I looked around, I looked at my attendings and I'm so, so glad that I saw that there
was burnout.
I saw that attendees that were incredibly smart people that loved humans, shoulders
were slumped, not advocating for us like they could have advocated for us.
And it just felt like they had no choice.
And this were not just clinicians only, but this were also researchers as well.
And we know the reputation of researchers being underpaid even more than clinicians
in medicine.
And especially being a procedural field, you end up having a higher likelihood of being
underpaid.
So I can now even imagine me going as a clinician, but I can also imagine me if I was doing a
research oriented career, how I would literally feel like what the heck is going on?
How am I supposed to survive?
How am I supposed to really leave this dream like this pinnacle that I now finally achieved
of becoming an attending physician?
How does this not become the biggest regret of my life?
That was the question that I had that literally led me down the path of learning money for
myself and eventually now let some money fit MD.
I'm sure we'll talk more about that and the travel sabbatical that my family and I took,
which was incredible and I highly recommend it at home.
Oh, thank you.
So Dr. Latifat, many of us going to academics because we just don't want to worry about
money.
We don't want to care about the business side of money.
And yeah, we know we're a little bit underpaid.
Actually, we don't know.
When we go to for the job negotiation, it's like, holy cow, it's this low.
But to some extent, we're feeling like we're choosing between having the job that we really
are dreaming of as an academic versus having enough money.
How do we balance that?
Absolutely.
I think that's a really important question.
And to be honest, even as a gastroenterologist, there is difference between what a luminal
gastroenterologist versus a hepatologist.
And then now if your hepatologist doing research, which hepatology can be research heavy, you
can now imagine what the difference in that will be.
But I think you bring up a really, really important point, which is that many of us
went into medicine not because of money.
We went into medicine to serve people.
And researchers are going into medicine to make a difference.
They love being stimulated as well.
It's like, what am I going to discover?
That curiosity part of us, part of all of us.
And unfortunately, it looks like there is a cost to it.
And I do agree that to every decision that we make, there is always an alternative that
we have to say no to.
But I don't think being broke is that option that we need to say no to or feeling cheated.
And part of that is going to be unlearning the things that we've learned before, unlearning
the assumptions that we've made before, learning the good things from those that have gone
before us, but learning that it's our responsibility to do better for those that are coming after
us.
So that goes down to even things like negotiations.
Like a lot of times we don't think that there is room to negotiate what we offered.
We take it because if you, God forbid, you negotiate, they're going to think you don't
care about this research position.
They're going to think you don't care about the advancement of science.
They're going to think you don't love humans, as see loving humans, loving science, and
wanting to be kind means that we have to like sign on a line of like, I'm going to be poor
forever.
You know, and honestly, this is not just in academic setting only.
It goes even far zoomed out into the world where, you know, a lot of us have stories
when it comes to money that we tell ourselves and the stories we tell ourselves are the
result of things that we've seen, that we've learned, not even just taught only.
So for example, thinking things like if you want to do good, then you have to be willing
to not be paid for it.
Right?
Or if I, people that have money are greedy, they don't care about humans because I am
choosing to be underpaid because I care about humans.
Right?
So we'll see how that becomes self-perpetuating, not just for ourselves, but even to like our
kids and our grandkids and our cousins and our nephews and our nieces and all the people
around us that we can potentially impact.
So the very first step is going to be questioning the beliefs that we already have when it comes
to things like money, questioning the beliefs that we already have when it comes to negotiating,
understanding that you asking for a fair pay, you asking for a good pay isn't a sign of
greed.
In fact, you not asking is a sign of you cheating yourself.
And how is that a good thing for the world?
Right?
How is that a good thing for the world?
So number one is understanding that you can negotiate and is it going to feel uncomfortable?
Yes, it will feel uncomfortable if you've never done it before.
But then the next step of that is also understanding too, that the fact that you're earning money
as a researcher doesn't mean you can't do anything else.
And in fact, I'm a huge believer of the fact that when we diversify how we earn, it decreases
burnout.
It also will help us and help our patients because now we're not dependent on that one
income for our survival, which means that we actually get to explore our creativity
a little bit more.
We get to pursue the questions that inspire us because you're like, you know what?
I have money coming from other sources.
So even if this one is weak and I really think that the question that I have is a great one,
I'm willing to pursue that question research wise, understanding that I'm not going to
suffer.
My kids are not going to be suffering.
My future, my retirement is not at stake here.
And I do believe that when physicians have the finances to be able to create the life
that we want, it's literally going to change not just bedside medicine, but also even research
because we get to ask the questions that we really know are important.
Even if there isn't a lot of like big money supporting it because we're self-sufficient
and all that good stuff.
So that's my thought.
No, thank you for sharing that because I think many researchers are saying, well, I really
want to do the research, but gosh, I've got to pay the bills.
And so people quit because they feel as if it's one or the other.
But you're saying that people can continue to do research and still be able to diversify
their income sources.
Can you talk about what that could look like?
Absolutely.
So number one is that, and I'm going to talk about that in a second, but the other thing
that I want to point out as well is as physicians, we're so good at tolerating pain and we're
so good at hoping that people can read our mind.
And we're so good at like bottling things inside that we don't use the power of our
voice.
So between doing the work that you're doing and quitting, there is a big room there that
we a lot of times we're not utilizing, which is the power of asking.
And understanding that it may be uncomfortable to ask, understanding that it may be uncomfortable
for the other person that you're asking, but discomfort is a currency to change.
Without discomfort, nothing changes.
Nothing.
The best things in our lives happen on the other side of discomfort.
I mean, your audience are experts at discomfort.
Many of them are like MD, PhDs.
They're doing research.
They're experts at sitting down and waiting for the results to happen.
Though I remember in undergrad sitting down in the lab waiting for those cultures to grow.
We are good at being patient for the right things, but what we don't necessarily do is
advocate for ourselves because we think it's greedy.
And so my thing is I don't think everyone quitting is a solution to the problem, but
if we could empower ourselves, build things like building our emergency funds, learning
to diversify, which I'm going to talk about in a second, but there is that big gap between
doing the job and quitting the job.
And that area right there is the asking that I think is underutilized by a lot of people
in academia.
And I mean, we all training, not all, but I trained in academia.
I was like, undergrad was UCLA.
I went to UCSF.
I went to Montana.
I went to UC Davis.
So very, very big center.
I definitely know us and I know that I got a lot of the things too.
And those were things that I had to unlearn so that I could be a better physician.
I could be a healthier parent.
I could be a healthier human and hopefully serve my patients better for the long-term.
But back to the question you asked, I got a lot to share with y'all.
So what do I mean by diversifying your income source?
I think a lot of times that sounds like loss.
Okay.
And what I want most everybody that's listening to understand is that most people that are
listening actually have diversified income already.
And what I mean by that is if you think about the fact that you invest in your retirement
account, that is diversifying.
You're invested in the stock market and you're saying, I don't want to extend my time for
money here.
I want you to work for me, but I've decided that I want that money in future.
Maybe when I'm in my sixties.
So most people that are listening are already diversifying.
But what I find is that many times we don't know that number one, but number two is we
don't our goals and what we want, like what we're doing and our goals are not aligning
together.
So if the only thing that you're doing is investing in stock market in a way that gets
you money when you're 65, it's doing that.
It's doing exactly what you told it to do.
But if you're trying to increase that now, then you have to do things differently.
And there are different ways of doing that.
What I always remind people is there are low hanging fruit ways and there are some other
ways that require taking one or two steps further.
The low hanging fruit way is what you're already doing with the stock market, right?
Many times we're invested in stock market for the long term, but you can also invest
for the short term.
Yes, there is variations in the market.
But you can literally say, I want you to pay out whatever my investment is growing.
I want to use the money right now.
I want the money in my bank account right now.
You will be taxed on it.
But again, if your goal is to have money right now, it's an option.
I personally don't do that because I like to have a lot more fun.
And the fun that I like to have is I like having fun with real estate.
And the reason why I call it fun is because I used to think it was scary, but then when
I replaced it with like, it's fun, that actually helped me take action more.
And there is no one size fits all.
It's not a get rich quick scheme, but it's something that can help physicians also do
more with your brains outside of the examination room.
So whether it's investing actively, meaning that you own the real estate and you are providing
that as a resource to people that need it, or you're investing passively what you like,
okay, this is all great, Letitia, but I don't think I want to spend my time that way.
But do you know people that are decent humans that are not going to like destroy the community
that maybe I can, you know, whatever your goals are, maybe that's not your goal.
Maybe you're like, I don't care.
Like there are people, there's something for everybody, but maybe I can partner with those
people.
Let me put my hard earned money into their hands and let them do the work of finding
the property, finding the tenants, changing the tenants, doing all that stuff.
And that's what you call like passive income through real estate and doing things like
syndications.
You know, so there are those things.
And the other thing I like to tell people is this.
One thing that we as physicians forget about is that our brain is an asset.
None of us were born physicians.
We chose to spend some time to learn one of the hardest skills to learn.
One of the skills that takes the longest to learn, which is mastering medicine and being
a researcher.
And we did that.
And now we are doing what we're doing because we learned that skill.
The skill we've learned is one of the skills that takes the longest to learn.
So there is no other skill that's going to take as long as what you've already done.
Right?
And so the question becomes like, what are those things that you enjoy doing that can
solve other people's problems so that you can earn through that?
Right?
You may go, I don't have any, but maybe you can learn.
I did not know how to do real estate.
I did not know how to build a business.
I did not know how to teach the money part because I was literally doing it for myself
to improve my life and my friends.
And then people are like, Latifah, we need help.
You know, the stuff teach us.
And that became a problem that I was helping people solve and still solving.
And now I can earn through that.
Right?
I will give you an example of a woman physician in my community.
You know, you know, the women in my community, badass woman physician, amazing.
We all are bad ass, but really, really amazing physician cares about her community.
And her goal is to impact her community through seeing them in clinic.
And for her, she thought she was going to do that forever.
So like a lot of researchers that are doing the work of their life, they're like, I find
joy and fulfillment and I'm willing to take a pay cut so I can keep doing the work that
I'm meant to do in this world.
And that was her, but in a clinical setting until she went on maternity leave and then
came back from maternity leave and was found to have some health stuff that she needed
to go take care of urgently.
And so she asked for time off and guess what they did?
They fired her instead.
They fired an amazing, well trained, excellent physician instead, instead, instead, no reports
of lack of professionalism.
One of the only physicians in that setting and was told, I'm sorry, we're going to have
to let you go because you have overused the time that you could take off.
And it's like, this is, that was maternity leave.
This is an urgent, I mean, our lives are like, listen guys, I don't care how amazing you
are, if you die, you're dead, you're dead.
And this is something that had the potential of being, of them losing their potential lives
on so they took care, she took care of this, but they literally walked her off premise,
walked her off premise and that was it.
And this is a breadwinner that was willing to be underpaid to serve her community, just
like a lot of your audience.
But what she did was this, she is, you know, is in our community and really pivoted.
She was like, okay, how can I earn my spots to take home, you know, the stay home dad
serving our kids?
How can I pivot?
And so I was like, we got to move.
So diverse support our income really quickly, invested in real estate, started earning with
that, started our own micro practice, got a part-time work clinically, where she in
her words negotiated for more money than she'd ever thought a primary care doctor could ever
make all because she chose to pivot.
And then what happened is this, the love that she had, the heart that she has to serve our
people has now morphed into something different where she now launched her own tea line and
she's now in like, I think maybe three or four, I want to say physical stores.
And she was just celebrating recently.
She's like, I did not imagine that a store would ever pay me money.
Like, and now I'm getting paid because I'm creating this tea line, serving people, educating
about my culture.
And now she's teaching physicians also how to incorporate herbal health into their practice
so that they can benefit from learning that alternative quote unquote, doesn't have to
be separate from the more traditional stuff that we've been taught.
Right?
So that's a power of understanding that you are literally one skill away and understanding
the change in mindset of how can I learn a skill that can solve people's problems that
they can thank me for solving and in exchange for that, I get to get paid.
But that doesn't have to be you doing research or this.
And in my opinion, when we actually diversify what we do, it decreases our burnout.
And I've seen that in my own life, I've seen in the life of the doctors that I've had a
chance and just the privilege of serving.
And I wish that every physician would wake up to the fact that we're not a one trick
pony like I used to think I was too.
Great.
Okay.
Well, Dr. Latifa, thank you.
That's very well said.
We're not one trick ponies.
We absolutely can do this.
And we've learned the hardest thing.
We've done medicine, we've done residency, we've done fellowship, we can do this.
So where do people go to learn?
Where do people go to learn?
Tell us about your community and how you serve women in this way.
Absolutely.
One of the easiest way for people to learn is podcasts.
Just listening, just optimizing the time that we already have.
So one of the things that people say is, I don't have time, I am busy.
And what I've found is that we have time for the things we choose to have time for, right?
But we don't understand that.
We think we need all the time in the world, but I always ask people just start where you
can start from.
So one easy way to do is like listen to podcasts.
I have a podcast called the Money Feed MD podcast where I talk about how people can
learn money, build their net worth and grow their wealth from the inside out.
That is something you can listen to on your commute, right?
Books, find a book or two.
The one that I wrote for women physicians is called Done with Broke, the woman physician
guide to more money and less hustle.
There are other books out there.
There's one that I love called Your Money or Your Life.
Like literally when we start to understand that when it comes to money, it's not about
greedy or not greedy.
It's about am I letting my money work for me so that my money can help me live the life
that I'm supposed to live so I can impact the people that I'm meant to impact.
Because whether you know it or not, whether you believe it or not, you're meant to impact
more than just the people you're serving right now.
There's nothing wrong with what you're doing.
But when I think about the humans that you're going to teach as well, how to be better with
whatever, whatever skill it is, whether it's like explaining money, giving money, spending
money on them, the housekeeper you're going to spend money on, the person you're going
to tip at the restaurant.
Like those are the effects of you having money that's going through you.
If you're like, I wish I could help change the world.
I could put my money into the things that I care about, but unfortunately I don't have
money.
How is that serving the world?
Right?
So the more you understand that this is not just about your money as in the paper amount.
This is about the impact that you can make on a daily basis in your life.
You understand that you have no choice but to learn.
But I will tell about my community as well.
I have a community that is specifically for women physicians.
And this is where women that want to learn about money in a safe, shame-free, guilt-free,
judgment-free zone, head income.
It doesn't matter if you're new to money.
It doesn't matter if you're seasoned with money.
If you're like, I don't even know what a 401k is.
That was me seven years ago.
I didn't know any of the stuff.
And so what we've done is we've curated an amazing village where you can come and learn
the money, knowledge, like literally the 20% you need to achieve 80% of success.
But it doesn't end there.
You get the education, you get the community, you get the coaching.
That's what I offer for women physicians.
But I also offer things like webinars that may be free webinars for people that are not
ready yet to like take the jump into getting into a coaching community.
And in fact, right now we're recording this in a week where I'm doing a money challenge
where women physicians join us for a super low cost and they can make money moves over
five days.
But all those information you can find on my website, which is moneyfitmd.com.
But the easiest place to go start right now, go listen to the podcast, start changing what
you're listening to.
Most of us, we're listening to things that's not helpful.
We're listening to our doubts.
We listen to like stories about why we cannot do this, what we don't have, what we lack.
We listen to stories from academia that says money is the root of evil.
If you ask for money, you're greedy.
As if it doesn't take money to run hospitals.
Like why do hospitals charge your patients?
Why do they charge patients?
Because they understand that it's not just about the money only, it's what they're able
to do because they can charge, they can pay the doctors, they can pay the nurses, they
can be sustainable so that they're not just here today, but they're here for the long
haul.
So they're onto knowledge that unfortunately they're not letting physicians get from that
knowledge and it's the fact that money in your hands is a great thing for the world.
So we have to change what we're hearing so that we can be transformed literally like
the Bible says, but add the renewal of our minds every single day so that when we change
how we think, we can change who we are, evolve to the next version of ourselves that we have
in this world.
Thank you so much, Dr. Latifa.
This is really good.
I want to ask you a question about why women though?
Why are you focused just on women?
Because I like us.
Is that enough answer?
No.
So the reason why is because there's something, you know, by the way, my podcast, I have men
listen to my podcast.
I have non-physicians.
I get messages from men.
I get like literally men, non-physicians.
So it's available for anybody that wants to listen to it.
In fact, some of my biggest fans, they're like, if I post anything, they're like, Latifa,
thank you for the zero man.
Right?
So it doesn't mean you cannot learn from me.
However, what we've found is that there is disparities.
The same way there is disparities between people that are in academia versus non-academia,
people that are proceduralist versus non-proceduralist.
There's also disparities that we find that is between men and women when it comes to
how we may be getting paid or reimbursed in the healthcare setting.
There was data showing that over the course of our career, average women will get paid
seven figures less than men over the course of their career.
And that is not because of the setting.
That's not because of the hours worked.
All those were controlled for, and we still have that data.
There's data that shows that women physicians in primary care get more messages than their
male counterparts.
And I think the same is true for surgery as well.
So there is disparities that exist.
The other thing as well is if you look at a lot of language that's around money, it's
not necessarily made with women and specifically women physicians in mind.
A lot of it is like debt averse, which I'm not pro high interest debt, but I do believe
that there are ways you can use debt in a way that's smart, in a way that is, yeah,
smart, efficient, and wealthy minded to help you accelerate your journey to freedom.
But a lot of the information out there doesn't really talk to us as people that have averaged
a high debt, but even specifically as women, it doesn't speak to us.
The other thing that I've found is this, and I've had people reach out to me and ask if
they can join my community and they're not physicians.
They may be nurses, may be nurse practitioners, may be physician assistants, even like PhD
non-physicians.
But here's what I found.
As physicians, when we're in an environment where non-physicians are, we, because of the
role that we feel as service minded people, we stop, we decrease, we start serving instead
of receiving.
So I don't allow non-physicians into my community because you're coming in to be served.
And I found the same to be true as well, that when I have conversations, including talks
in communities where we have men and women, a lot of times women are, we tend to be service
oriented, right?
And the men tend to over control the conversation.
And so I just want a place where women can get served so that we can come into understanding
that the languages around money can be different from us.
We may be part and service oriented, but that doesn't mean that we cannot have money and
build our six, seven figures and be a network.
So I love my community this way.
I have zero plans of changing it, but men that want to learn from me, they can absolutely
through my podcast and also by following me on social media and Instagram and Facebook,
so they can also get transformed as well.
Thank you.
And you're very generous.
You've got a lot of content out there that people can consume, certainly the podcast
and webinars that you do and your book.
So there are many opportunities.
I appreciate what you said.
The reality is that messages are different.
Messaging is different to women and men.
And many times the community has to feel safe for people to be able to really get the most
out of it.
So, I mean, I'm part of your community.
It's a great place.
So I definitely recommend it.
Thank you.
I love having you there.
And that, when I talk to women physicians and right now we're in the middle of the five
day money challenge where women are coming together and just taking actions every day,
making moves.
And it's just humbling, to be honest with you, to teach in there, to help women do the
things that we know we have the capacity.
I know we have the capacity to do.
But when I see comments from the women that are in there about what they've done in just
five days, when I read the things from our women physicians, that environment is important.
We know that to be true for plants and trees.
We know that you cannot take a plant in California and take it to Alaska and think it's going
to grow.
The environment matters.
And if we know that we have an example of that in nature, why can't we incorporate that
as well?
And I've found that that is true.
Women coming that are like, well, my money looks like scrunchie that is at the bottom
of the purse.
You know how like the scrunchie scrunchie is not looking good?
And now it's like they're having it decluttered.
They're having it organized.
It's making sense.
They're taking a pause.
They're traveling.
They're living their lives while serving humans.
We don't have to burn out.
I literally unsubscribe from the narrative that in order to serve, we have to burn out.
I unsubscribe from the narrative that in order to serve, I have to be poor to do that.
In fact, me with money, I can serve way more people.
Like think about the things you want to change in this world and how many times you're like,
man, that sucks.
Now imagine what would be different.
Like that sucks and I can do something about it.
That sucks and I can, the person that's running may not have the finances, but I can actually
pay to augment their stuff.
Like that's what we're here for.
We're not just here for words.
We're here for action.
We're here to be part of the change.
And I cannot think about better people than physicians.
So when I'm tired, when I'm like, I don't want to, I remember all this and I'm like,
no, we, we got work to do.
So if you're listening to my voice, you're listening, I'm glad you serve in the hospital.
I'm glad you're serving in the research department, doing whether it's clinical or bench work,
that stuff matters.
But don't be confused to think that that is all you're here to do.
I reject that for you because your life is of so much value, even much more than you
can ever imagine.
Like if you think that the ladder, like the peak of the ladder is the best you have to
do, the best you have to create, I'm telling you that that peak is, could just be like
a turn.
It could just be like the corner of the street because you just not seen fire enough yet.
And this is really important because it goes beyond just money.
It goes, extends to our lives because people will, physicians, let's be real, we have like
one of the highest suicide and it's not all because we're like, we were depressed to start.
No, it's because we've anchored our identity to the thing that says this is all I can do.
And the more we understand that this is just one of the hundreds of things you have the
capacity to do, the less dependent we are on that source of employment, which means
that maybe we can actually decrease the amount of physicians that are hurting ourselves.
This is conversation that I wish we had more of, unfortunately we're not, but I'm kind
of like, I'm done with the status quo, it's not working.
So this is beyond, this is money and more, this is our lives, our freedom, our kids,
the people that literally are not even born yet that your mentoring impacts.
So yeah, I will have that uncomfortable conversation.
And yes, I will talk about money forever because it does matter.
I hear you.
And I also hear deeper than that is, is the freedom to be everything you can be.
And money is one of the tools that allows you to do that.
Yes.
One of the physicians was, I mean, I took a sabbatical with my family and I'm calling
it a sabbatical, not because it's like a work sabbatical, but it's a family sabbatical.
Like my family decided that we wanted to take an extended sabbat.
That's what it was.
We wanted to take an extended time to rest, to silence the external, to deepen our roots,
to spend time with each other, deepen our relationship.
Cause I think life is about so much more, right?
And I quit my job to do that.
Not because my job said they wouldn't let me, but because I did not know how long I
was going to want to be gone for.
And I did not want anybody sending me emails to ask him to sign forms or asking me, so
are we there yet?
I just did not want that.
And what that meant was quitting, but it's hard to quit when you, when your identity
is like stuck on one thing.
And that's why this, this detaching our identity from what we do is so important because the
more we do that, the healthier we're going to be.
And I cannot, I cannot tell you number one, because I cannot even tell you in that amount
of time we have, but also because even I am still understanding the impact of the sabbatical
that we took as a family because it's life given in a way that nothing else has given
us life.
We wanted to go to nine countries.
We ended up in 19 countries.
You know, we were present for things in across the world.
Like we were there for like 90th birthday of distant family members.
We were there for like my sister's baptism.
We were there for like my dad's three year remembrance, my husband's like, we just, we
were there for just like us.
Well, we met friends, like we did things we've never done before.
We had conversations.
It was just what we did not even know that we needed.
And the only reason why we were able to was because we had taken care of the money stuff
before we even knew that a sabbatical was something that we even wanted.
But even more so was because we had done the work of learning how to understand money,
know money, grow money, diversify our income, but even deepen our relationship with ourselves
and our identity that is way beyond the work that we do every day.
That is so beautiful and so well said that I think, I think it's a good point at which
to wrap things up, but I do want to give you the last word.
We talked about a lot of things.
What is one thing that you haven't talked about yet that you feel like it's important
to share?
You know, I think that it's important for us to draw a line in the sand and decide that
our past is the past and whatever it is that is like, but I don't know how to yet, but
I didn't, so what?
And just understand that the reasons, the excuses, the stories that we've told ourselves
is the reason why we're creating exactly where we are right now.
So if you want something different, if you want to practice, if you want to love medicine
more, if you want to do your research wholeheartedly without fear and knowing that you could be
anywhere else, but I choose to be here, then it's time for you to ask yourself, what do
you need to build that confidence?
And if money is it, know that it's not too late.
I did not learn any of this until seven years ago.
I've had the joy of serving people that are in their fifties, right?
It is not too late for you, right?
This is the youngest you're ever going to be, but just ask yourself, what do I need?
Who do I need help from?
What do I need to surround myself with?
And understand that it may require you putting earplugs around the people that have been
talking into your life so far and removing your earplugs and finding a different environment
for you to be fed into.
And if that's something that you want, reach out, it's moneyfeedmd.com.
There's a contact form there.
I'm always happy to serve physicians because I know we have capacity to serve so many other
people that I would never ever be able to reach.
So my goal is to empower physicians so that people like you can do the work that they're
doing and serving people in ways that I would never be able to serve them.
That's so awesome.
So beautiful.
And thank you.
Thank you.
Money's important.
We can master it.
We need to.
And there's information and resources.
And certainly your community is a great place for those in my community who are women.
So you've heard Dr. Latifah.
You got to understand money.
Money is important.
Don't ignore it anymore.
You can learn.
You're able to.
Thank you for joining us today on today's episode, Dr. Latifah.
Thank you for being here.
We appreciate you.
And everyone else, we'll see you again the next time on the Clinician Researcher podcast.
Thanks for having me here.
Thanks for being here.
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Clinician Researcher podcast, where academic
clinicians learn the skills to build their own research program, whether or not they
have a mentor.
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