← White Coat Investor Podcast
White Coat Investor Podcast
WCI #419: Getting to Know Jim: His Past, Present, and Future Relationship with Money
00:53:11
Today we are turning the tables and Dr. Dahle is being interviewed by our friend of WCI, Dr. Tyler Scott. We turn away from our usual pattern of answering technical questions and instead Tyler asks Jim about his views of money growing up, lessons he...
Loading summary
Transcript93 lines
- [00:00]
White Coat Investor
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.
- [00:16]
Tyler Scott
Hello everyone. Welcome to episode 419 of the White Coat Investor podcast, an interview with Dr. Jim Dali. My name is Tyler Scott. I am a friend of WCI and here today to try something a little different with the podcast. Most of you, like me, I think, really look up to Jim, admire him, appreciate his worldview, perspective and contributions both to our financial literacy and to our broader medical and financial world at large. And so I've been a fan of his for 15 years and looked up to him as a blogger and podcaster. And then I've had this opportunity the last three years as Megan, my wife has become the podcast producer and I transitioned from dentistry to financial planning where I've got to know Jim on a personal level and it's been awesome for me to get to hear his stories and hear his motivations and reasonings and how he has come to form his opinions and these contributions he makes where they started. And so my hope with today's podcast was to get some of those stories and perspectives out and documented some of the things I've got to hear. As we've been hiking or at the conference together and with the help of Carl Richards previous podcast guest who put together a list of great questions to evoke deeper conversation about finance, I'm going to see if we can learn something about Jim, get to know him better, and it's my hope that we will get to see him for more than just the tactical backdoor Roth enthusiast and expert that he is. So thanks for joining us today. For something that's a little different, let us know what you think. If it's not something you enjoy, please blame me. And if it is something you like, let us know and we can try to do more of that in the future. Today's episode is brought to us by SoFi, the folks who help you get your money right. Paying off student debt quickly and getting your finances back on track isn't easy, but that's where SoFi can help. They have an exclusive low rate designed to help medical residents refinance student loans and that could end up saving you thousands of dollars helping you get out of student debt sooner. So if I also offers the ability to lower your payments to just $100 a month while you're still in residency. And if you're already out of residency, SoFi's got you covered there too. For more information, go to sofi.com whitecoatinvestor SoFi student loans are originated by SOFI bank and a member FDIC. Additional terms and conditions apply. NMLS 696891 Today's Quote of the Day is from the great Morgan Housel no one is impressed with your possessions as much as you are. I think you'll hear in the interview we do with Jim today some indication about how experiences are the things that matter most and relationships. And it is rarely the things that we own or possess or buy that bring us the most joy. Certainly they rarely impress people. Great quote by Morgan Housel thanks as always to all of you for what you've done today. Whether you're in the hospital, at the dental clinic, you're at the middle school, in the engineering lab, all the myriad contributions you make to the society we live in. We see you, we appreciate you, we know the hard work it takes to do what you do, the sacrifices you've made to get there, and we're very grateful for what you're doing. And so if no one has told you today already, thank you. Thank you for making our world a better place to live. Thank you for being here with us today. We have a new survey partner here at the White Coat Investor. Their business is Enos and you can find more about them at whitecoatinvestor.com Enos that's E N O S and this is for those of you who are interested in making a little money on the side doing surveys. We've talked about that on the blog and podcast, how you can earn meaningful amounts of money in some cases. Or it can just be a way to set up a solo 401k because you now have your own side business and that can give you a place to roll over old 401ks so that you can control the fees and investments, or a way for you to ditch old pre tax IRAs that are getting in the way of your backdoor Roth. So it's great to have a good relationship with someone who provides paid surveys. What's cool about Enos is that panel members are paid instantly via Venmo PayPal, or you can choose a paper check. There's no delays, no redemption thresholds, no red tape, and unlike similar companies, Enos always pays for your time. Even if you're ineligible for a survey after completing screener questions, they'll still send you five bucks. So go check out more about Enos@Whitecoatinvestor.com Enos we have a event coming up on May 20th. This is for the few, the financially empowered women and you can join them with guest Alexis Galati, founder and tax Strategist at Cerebral Tax Advisors. This women only event will be where Alexis shares her top strategies to reduce tax burden. Whether you're W2, an employee, business owner, side gigger and so come join us on May 20th at 6pm Mountain Time. You can sign up at WhiteCoatinVestor.com Few wonderful. Now that we've got all those things out of the way, we'll bring Jim in and hope you enjoy this interview as we get to know maybe a deeper, different side of Dr. Dali. Awesome. Well, thanks Jim for joining me for a different kind of podcast episode today. I appreciate you doing this and you know, as someone who's looked up to you from afar for over 10 years as a new dentist and now someone who's got to know you a little more personally over the last three years as we've moved to Salt Lake and Megan works here and I've started my financial planning journey, you know, I making a big but optimistic assumption in doing this that other listeners who like me admire you, appreciate your perspectives, really appreciate your contributions that you make to us in medicine and the world at large that that others will find this conversation valuable as we learn a little more about you and your stories and how you formed your relationships with money and finances. And so in hopes of doing that, I've adapted some questions from Carl Richards previous podcast guest, and they're meant to evoke a type of conversation about money that transcends the typical tactical questions that we often tackle here. And the hope is to take us to a deeper place of how you formed your hopes, fears, relationships with money at large. And so if it's a flop, I take full responsibility. I acknowledge here that this is not your idea, this is not Megan's idea. So if anyone has emails to send, direct them to me and please spare Megan and Jim those critiques. But I am optimistic that at least a few white coat investors will find this conversation.
- [07:38]
Dr. Jim Dali
So one thing people ought to be aware of out there in podcast land is most guests that I bring on here get at least a little bit of a heads up of what we're going to talk about on the episode, in the interview, you know, some sample questions, that sort of thing. I'm operating without any of that. So this may go very deep. I don't really know where it's going to go. So I hope this is enjoyable for you as hopefully it will be for us.
- [08:02]
Tyler Scott
Yeah, let's get started. Wonderful. So I'm curious, what is an early memory of money that stands out to you early in your life?
- [08:13]
Dr. Jim Dali
You know, I never felt like I was from a very wealthy family when I was growing up. Now my father is an engineer. My mom was a stay at home mom. You know, we went to the nicest high school in town. It covered the hillside in Anchorage. Those of you who know Alaska, I went to service high school in Alaska. And at that point, the wealthiest neighborhoods in town went to this high school. But I was at the very edge of the boundary. I was at the bottom of the hill is where we lived. And so a lot of my peers definitely had more money than I did in high school. And I knew that what things cost mattered in my family. I can distinctly remember not asking to play competitive or travel hockey because it was expensive. And I did get to play, you know, on the, on the cheapest team a couple of years in high school. And I remember really appreciating that. But I, I do remember being jealous that my younger sisters were able to play comp soccer. Now soccer was cheaper than hockey for sure, but they got to play, you know, a number of years of comp soccer. And I'm like, well, maybe I should have asked for that. And I didn't because I knew there wasn't money coming out of our ears as kids now we weren't going hungry or anything. And there's a roof over our head. And it's interesting, a lot of people don't realize this, but I've never had my own room, at least not since the time I turned five and my younger brother was born. My entire life, whether it was at home, whether it was at college, whether it was, you know, as a missionary after, obviously after I got married, I've always had a roommate. I've never slept in a room by myself really for any lengthy period of time. And I look at my kids, they've all only had their own room basically their entire life, other than the very youngest years. And it's just a very different life for my kids than me growing up. And I think there's some good with that and I think there's some bad with that. And it's a little hard maybe to sort out where to draw the balance sometimes.
- [10:20]
Tyler Scott
How old do you think you were roughly when you kind of discerned whether you were one of the rich kids or one of the poor kids? And how did you know it? What were you reading that you could tell you were in that demographic.
- [10:31]
Dr. Jim Dali
Oh, I think it came, it was probably high school before I ever thought anything about that. And it was what people drove, probably. It was probably what people drove. No, I can remember a younger time than that when I found out there were kids going skiing in this ski period from school. I didn't take up skiing until I was 12 years old. And even then we went to the cheap places and I had crappy old gear and, you know, and I remember it was expensive when it was 20 bucks a day, you know, now it's $300 a day if you walk up to the window at Park City. But expensive was $20 a day. We went to the $10 a day place when I was growing up. But I remember finding out there was an after school or even left school early a little bit to go skiing in this program. And I knew some kids went and did that. And I figured that wasn't something my family was going to do because we didn't, we didn't have the money. So that, that was well before high school. That might have even been grade school. So it was, it was pretty clear, you know, I mean, we weren't poor by any means. I mean, my father was a bush pilot. We did have a plane most of the time I was growing up, you know, and the plane had to pay for itself with some extra jobs he did. But, you know, we weren't poor by any means. But I drove a Chevette in high school. Right. Those of you who may not even know what a Chevette is, it's a hatchback five person car with, you know, I mean, getting this thing to 65 miles an hour was no small feat. But I can remember my dad was driving this car once. We were going out to the airport, it had just snowed and so they plowed the lanes, but there was a little 6 inch berm of snow between the lanes. My dad changed lanes and got a lap full of snow. When he changed lanes, the floor had completely rusted out in this car. There was a hole in the floor under the driver's feet. So when we got home, what did he do? Did we get a new car? No. Did we take it to a mechanic? No. He put a board down and we had a plywood floor in that car. And it subsequently became the car I drove when I first turned 16 was literally a Flintstone car. So that was kind of my upbringing. If it gives you a sense of what money was like in my home.
- [12:46]
Tyler Scott
Simple solutions to simple problems, that's fantastic. What was your parents Relationship like with money growing up for you. So when you were young, what was your understanding of your parents relationship with money? What messages do you remember hearing from them or your family about money?
- [13:06]
Dr. Jim Dali
I don't know that I remember any messages. There was certainly no teaching about money happening. No one was teaching you about investing or anything. My parents weren't investing anything. My dad by that point was working for the state. He had a pension coming, but they didn't start saving for retirement until he retired from the state. He was 58 or 59 or something like that at that point. And then he did some similar work as a contractor and put some money away for retirement after that point. But there wasn't saving happening. There wasn't investing happening. I can remember at one point one of his friends or work acquaintance or something and talked him into buying options.
- [13:46]
Tyler Scott
Oh, no.
- [13:47]
Dr. Jim Dali
And those of you from Alaska, you know about the permanent fund dividend where every member, every resident of Alaska gets some money from the government essentially every year from the oil. Money is where it comes from originally. And then it was reinvested. And that might be $500. I think it topped out at something like $1,800 or something for every man, woman and child in the state. And so we'd get that. Sometimes it got put away for us and sometimes it goes out spent by my parents. But I remember one year, my first investment was literally options. Oh, no. I put $500 into some option. I didn't really understand how it worked, and my dad clearly didn't really understand how it worked. The options expired, worthless, and. And I lost my entire $500 investment. That was the investing education happening in my home. But I don't know that I remember my parents talking about money in front of us. I don't know that they really did, but we certainly knew that the price of things mattered.
- [14:43]
Tyler Scott
What was your first source of income? Did you have an allowance? Did you have chores where you could earn extra money? Did you go flip burgers? When did you start bringing in your own money?
- [14:54]
Dr. Jim Dali
Keep in mind, Tyler, we're talking about 40 years ago, right? It's been a little while. I think we did have some allowances at some point. I think, you know, we might have done some chores and gotten a little bit of extra money. My first job, I think I was 15 or something. Certainly by the time I was 16, I was working in the summers. I think I worked at tcby schlepping yogurt death. And then I had a summer job at the batting cages. You know, it was interesting. They just leave a 16 year old out there. You ran the batting cage all day by yourself. There's nobody else around. And so my swing got a lot better that summer. I remember that. But you know, those are the sorts of summer jobs I had until I finished high school.
- [15:36]
Tyler Scott
Did you have a number in mind for how much annual income you would need to be rich when you're in middle school or high school?
- [15:44]
Dr. Jim Dali
No idea. No idea whatsoever. I had no idea what my father made. These were not discussions we ever had. In fact, I would bet that I didn't really start thinking about that stuff, at least until medical school and possibly afterward. I mean, when I talk about my financial awakening happening in residency, it really happened in residency and not a moment before. Was I interested in money? Yes. Did I know you needed to spend less than you earned and don't those sorts of general principles. Maybe debt's kind of bad and those sorts of things? Yes, I knew that. I was always kind of interested in learning more about it, but I don't know that I had any idea how to do that. And it wasn't until I started actually making money as a resident, money that wasn't going to be spent in the next few months, going to school or whatever, that I started actually paying attention to. And I started reading financial books. And I read a lot of financial books, you know, relatively early in residency. And my process of becoming financially literate was relatively rapid. It was not spread out over many years. Like, I have a nephew right now who's reading books off my shelf. He's super interested in finance. He was over here the other day. I sent him home with six books and he's reading them. That was not me in high school. Right. I had no interest in personal finance or investing or business as an undergrad during medical school, I can remember a few of my classmates must have had some money or something. They were day trading during medical school. Right. I, I started med school in 99. So it was right before the big bubble burst. And so that first year, I can remember people down there on the computers in the student lounge, day trading. And you know, obviously we all know how that kind of ended, but, but that, you know, I was, I wasn't me. I didn't have any extra money. You know, at that point I was getting a little stipend from the military.
- [17:33]
Tyler Scott
But it was all being spent options as your first investment and day trading with your medical. Not that you were doing it, but those are two.
- [17:40]
Dr. Jim Dali
I probably would have tried it if I'd had any money to do it, but I had no idea how to open a brokerage account. Right.
- [17:47]
Tyler Scott
Well, that leads me to one of my questions, which was any of these messages about money and these perceptions you had growing up, did that at all influence your choice to go into medicine?
- [17:59]
Dr. Jim Dali
I mean, I think like most of us, we always knew we'd make good money in medicine. When I looked around and I knew parents of friends or people that we associated with at church or whatever, I knew that the doctors had a little more money than some of the other people. That part was obvious. But when you're a kid, you think about just a handful of careers. You can be a teacher or a cop or a firefighter or a doctor. That's really it. Nobody sits there in high school and goes, I'm going to become an insurance agent. Nobody says that. Nobody says, I'm going to be a supply chain manager. So when I thought about those things, I think I said, well, the doctors make the most and I'm reasonably smart. I think maybe that seems interesting. I like science. Obviously when I got into college and became more educated about what I was getting into, you know, that couldn't be the primary driver. And it wasn't. I mean, you never really know though, right? Until you become financially independent, you never really know how much of it you're doing for the money. And I guess at this point I'm working 0.4 FTEs, so I guess 0.4 of it I was doing not for the money and 0.6 I was doing for the money.
- [19:18]
Tyler Scott
40% pure. I want to take care of people. That's pretty, that's a good metric to gauge that perhaps.
- [19:25]
Dr. Jim Dali
I don't know how else to gauge it. You know, how much would you do if you weren't getting paid for it or if the money didn't matter? And you know, we all wrote in our, in our application essays that I want to help people. And I love science. You know, they're all the same. I read them. I was on admissions committee for a year as a fourth year medical student. And you know, and it really is true deep down inside that really is what drives people into medicine. I think those who are happy in medicine feel at least part of it as a calling.
- [19:53]
Tyler Scott
I think we have seen that with burnout. Is that the money? While good, of course we have first world problems, many of us, but the money is not enough to keep us going. I mean, here I am, I've left dentistry and found something I'm much more passionate about. And so yeah, that's an interesting way to gauge it. Once you reach financial independence, how much do you keep doing as a kid? What do you think your perspective was of someone who had a million bucks?
- [20:21]
Dr. Jim Dali
Oh, that was money coming out of your ears. A million bucks was a millionaire. Are you kidding me? That's a lot of money, right? That's like the guy on Monopoly board. I mean, millionaire always meant a lot of money. I certainly never had a million dollars. I was pretty sure my parents didn't have a million dollars. And I don't know that I ever thought I'd have a million dollars. So it was a huge amount in my mindset as a kid, growing up and probably well into medical school.
- [20:48]
Tyler Scott
Yeah, that leads me. When did that change? When did you come to think reframe a million dollars? Was it during reading those books and residency?
- [20:55]
Dr. Jim Dali
Yeah, it had to be at some point during residency when I reframed things. And of course, inflation had taken its toll over 20 or 30 years. A million dollars isn't what it was 30 years ago, but certainly the ability to have a realistic view of what $100,000 can do or what a million dollars can do. That process didn't even start until I was nearly 30 years old.
- [21:22]
Tyler Scott
Now, with the benefit now of hindsight, 20, 30, 40 years of looking back, all this that we've talked about so far with your childhood, what do you make of that now with the benefit of time and experience, what do you wish you would have known then? How do you think those messages around money benefited or hurt you over time?
- [21:44]
Dr. Jim Dali
Well, I think the main way I look at it is I just try to take what I've learned over the last 20 or 25 years and incorporate that into my family and how I raise kids. My kids are far more financially literate than I was. Even at 10, 12 years old, they're far more financially literate than I was when I left home. So I think that's probably the main way I've made change, is trying to change your family tree, as Dave Ramsey likes to say, and making it so money is not only okay to talk about, but expected to talk about and to put it in its proper position in your life. Now, obviously, my kids are going to be dealing with a much different financial situation than I was dealing with leaving home, but I guess that's the main way. I certainly don't begrudge my parents for not teaching me that stuff. They did the best they could. And I think they're like most people out there. Most people are not particularly Financially literate. If you have the combination of financial literacy and financial discipline in our world, it's like having a superpower. You look around, you're like, oh, nobody else gets this. Nobody else has heated vision can fly through the air. It's pretty cool. When you really understand this stuff and see the power and what you can do with not only your life, but blessing the lives of others with it.
- [23:03]
Tyler Scott
What does that look like for you and Katie with the kids? And the way you talk about money, is it dollars and cents? Do you reveal what things cost? Is it investment education about looking at index funds in their Roth IRAs and seeing how much has grown? What are some of the. How have you applied that desire to move, change the family tree with. With more literacy for the kids?
- [23:29]
Dr. Jim Dali
It's all of the above. And the tricky part is getting it right at the right ages. That's the hard part because obviously you want to just brain dump everything onto em when they're seven years old. And that's obviously not the right approach. And so you got to start slow for sure. One of the approaches we take is as we drive around town, we point out businesses, particularly publicly traded businesses like here's Home Depot, you own that. Here's McDonald's, you own that. Here's Wendy's, you own that. What do you mean? How does that work, dad? What do you mean I own it? Well, McDonald's makes money, the stockholders get some of it, and you own that Stock and you're 529 via an index fund. And you can get into a lot of details and sometimes it's just talking about interest. Do you want to pay interest or do you want to be paid interest? And you repeat those lessons long enough, they figure them out. They figure them out. But it's interesting. Every kid's different. I have spendthrift kids and I have cheapskate kids. And it's very fascinating to see them develop despite growing up in the same kind of situation, having the same opportunities available to them. Some people are just wired differently.
- [24:37]
Tyler Scott
What does enough look like to you now? Do you have enough? And if you do, when did you know it?
- [24:46]
Dr. Jim Dali
We're long past enough. Enough was at least six or seven years ago. Now the first thing you do when you hit your enough number and as you become financially literate, you learn how to set that something like 25 times what you spend. The first thing you do is you start spending more money and you're like, Geez, I'm 45 years old and I've already got Enough. And I'm not really done working. Well, what else can I spend money on that would actually make me happier? So I think that's pretty natural when you get financially independent relatively early in your life is you increase your spending. We started saying, well, it really is a lot more comfortable to be in first class on a flight than particularly overseas, some red eye flight than it is to be back in economy. Especially if you're relatively tall like I am and don't sleep well on planes like I don't. Those sorts of issues come up and you start finding ways to spend more money. So enough definitely grew a little bit in those first few years of financial independence. But even with that growth, we've still exceeded that. And so then the big questions start. What are you going to do with the rest? How much are you willing to leave to your kids? How much is too much to leave to your kids? How should it be left to them? When should it be left to them? You start hitting those big questions and you start reading different books when you become financially independent. I talked about this at WC Icon last, last year. And you know, you stop reading books about how to get rich and you start trying to find books about how to be rich. And it's not as easy as it looks. It's clearly a first world problem, don't get me wrong. But it's not as easy as it looks to get all that stuff right and figure out how much are you leaving to charity? How much do you just want to give away to charity now? You know, I was reading a book not long ago that talks about it not really being all that generous to leave money when you're dead because it's not your money at that point.
- [26:43]
Tyler Scott
How hard is it to give away?
- [26:45]
Dr. Jim Dali
You can't spend it. Right? So how generous is that? Really? Really. The generous people are the ones giving it away long before they die.
- [26:51]
Tyler Scott
And how did you arrive at that sensation of enough? Was it a calculation? Yeah, you leaned into the Trinity studies.
- [26:59]
Dr. Jim Dali
I'm obviously totally into personal finance and investing. I know how to run the numbers. I know what enough is. This is what we spend 25 times that. Okay, that's enough. Give yourself a little factor for the fact that you're in your 40s or whatever. It's good enough. When we first drafted a financial plan in 2004, ish. We put a number in it. I think the original number was 2.7 million. That was enough. And with inflation, that's 4 million or something now. And then of course we bumped it up A little bit, but it really is a math calculation. Enough is a number. Retirement is not an age, it's a number.
- [27:37]
Tyler Scott
Well, you and I certainly agree with that. And there is tremendous value in doing that calculation and feeling the benefit of getting there, though for many people, it's hard to name it and own that they're there and adapt. It's cool to see that.
- [27:55]
Dr. Jim Dali
Well, I think it's hard to change your habits, right? To get to being a multimillionaire takes certain habits, right? Thrift, you know, some financial literacy, some hard work. And I think this is very hard for retirees to start spending their money. It's very challenging. I understand it now why it's so hard, but I think the solution is to start spending before you get to retirement, you know, and start developing those habits of being able to spend money and you know, on things that you actually do value or that might make your life a little bit better or to give money away. And I think doing that before you get to the stage where you've totally stopped earning is really helpful to making that transition better.
- [28:38]
Tyler Scott
That's a great point. What's an important lesson you've had to learn about money and how does that shape your perspectives now? Maybe it was a mistake or a regret or just a lesson that you learned along the way that impacted you going forward.
- [28:55]
Dr. Jim Dali
I mean, if you can see the end from the beginning and you know how wealthy you're going to be later, you'd probably live a little bit differently earlier, right? I mean, I got out of the military and we had one car that we took across the country to Virginia and Katie was driving that until it got wrecked while I was driving it. But I need another car to commute with. And so within the first few months of becoming an attendant, I got another car. We bought it at auction. We thought that was a pretty smart way to buy it. It was a Mazda 626. It was a 97. So this would have been like 2006. Bought a 97, 626. It turned out the AC didn't work. I didn't catch that in the 15 minutes I was looking at it before we bid on it.
- [29:42]
Tyler Scott
Buyer beware part at the auction.
- [29:44]
Dr. Jim Dali
The buyer beware part for sure. It cost $1850 though, and I commuted in it and it's just fine. I'm an emergency doc. Only some of my commuting was at 2 o' clock in the afternoon, so most of the time it was fine. But we sold it four years later and all the money I put into it, I put some used tires on it. I bought some new windshield wipers and I had to replace the battery one morning. That was it. And we sold it four years later before leaving Virginia. And I could have gotten what I paid for out of it. Katie forbid me from selling it for that price because we were selling it to a friend. So I got $1,500 out of it. $350 basically cost me $350 plus used tires and a battery and windshield wipers to drive this car for four years. Now, did I need to drive a $2,000 car for four years as an attending physician? In retrospect, no. That was not why I became financially successful. That mindset probably helped, but was that necessary? No. Could I put some AC in it? Yes, I could have put AC in the car. So you start thinking about some of those things you cheaped out on and going, maybe that wasn't the right decision. The author, Bill Perkins of Die With Zero, talks a lot about this. If you're 80 years old and you had a time machine, would you go back in time and give $10,000 or $100,000 to 45 year old you or 35 or 25 year old you if you were a Deca millionaire? And the answer, of course, is yes. Well, that's your opportunity to spend some of your money now is to realize that it's basically a loan from future you and it's okay to do that. You're not going to live forever. And I think a lot of us that really get into this personal finance stuff, we don't always remember that fact. And I think it's an important lesson.
- [31:33]
Tyler Scott
How, if at all, did your accident in the Tetons last year impact any of this? Has that changed your worldview on spending more on sitting in first class, on advancing those charitable givings? It's been almost. We're coming up on a year here. What reflections from the Tetons do you feel are true for you in this relationship?
- [31:57]
Dr. Jim Dali
Well, I think the most important thing is you got to realize that you in your 50s is not the same as you in your 30s. The biggest change I feel is a physical change. I feel like I moved from youth to middle age in the last year. Part of that was I got really out of shape sitting around recovering from my injuries and it took a long time to get back into shape. I'm actually very proud. I did 13 pull ups yesterday without having to let go of the bar. And it's good now that I can hold onto the bar long enough that it's my other muscles getting fatigued that stops me from doing them. Because before I'd do two pull ups and I'd fall off the bar because I couldn't hold onto the bar long enough. So I'm getting back into shape. But that's the biggest change is that I've moved into middle age. And so it's a reminder of your mortality. And it's true that what even I can do in my 50s, I'm probably not going to be able to do in my 70s. So it's given me a lot of thought about, well, how do I want to spend my 50s, what do I want to accomplish in my 50s, what adventures do I want to have and what trips do I want to go on and those sorts of things. So I think I'm a little more free with spending now than I was a year ago. Now that's been a Trend probably since 2015. Every year I'm a little more free to spend more money. I have more money to spend and I'm getting better at spending. I mean, obviously I told you the story about the $1850 car. I was not always very good at spending. I'm much better at spending now, but that's what I have to work on. I'm pretty good at giving, pretty good at earning, pretty good at investing and saving. But spending is definitely my weak point of the money activities.
- [33:32]
Tyler Scott
Like your left wrist. We want that fifth muscle, the spending muscle, to get stronger here.
- [33:37]
Dr. Jim Dali
That's right.
- [33:38]
Tyler Scott
I'm going to make a statement and I just want you to reply to it. How much I earn as an individual is an indication of my value.
- [33:48]
Dr. Jim Dali
There is some truth to that, right? Obviously we're all equal in a lot of ways. The world does not necessarily view you all equally. It is not going to reimburse you. To use the word used so often in medicine, it's not going to reimburse you equally. It reimburses some things, some skills, some abilities, some uses of your time better than others. I think the sooner you realize that, the more you can adapt your life to the fact that that's the way the world works. You know, I think, you know, in high school there's these guidance counselors, right, and they tell you to go wherever you want and study what you love and do what you like. And some of that's good advice. But the truth is, if you go and borrow $200,000 for student loans and you come out with an art History degree, that's not going to pay off very well. And so I think it's important to recognize that there is some truth to the world, the economy, valuing certain things differently. If you are a particularly good three point shooter, the world puts a lot of value on that, much more than if you're a particularly good kindergarten teacher. And it's important to recognize that and adapt your life accordingly to a certain point. But at the end of the day, you know, it's not all about money. None of it's going with you. You don't have your trailer, your hearse will not have a trailer hitch, you know, and you can't do it all for the money. At the end of the day, money should be a tool, not a master. And hopefully you get to the point in your life where money is in its proper place. Nobody on their deathbed says, I wish I had more mud. Nobody says that.
- [35:38]
Tyler Scott
It's not in Jordan Grummet's hospice list for sure. That's not where people are thinking, let's just imagine there's an archeology dig a hundred years from now and they find your last 10 years of credit card receipts. What might these archaeologists surmise about Jim Dali?
- [35:59]
Dr. Jim Dali
You know, I think you're getting to the point where what you spend money on is what you value, you know, and there's some truth to that. A lot of our spending goes toward travel. So apparently we value travel a lot. Now it's interesting because Katie travels or loves to travel way more than I do. You know, if she could go on five or six international trips a year, she'd be all for it. I get past about two and I'm like, I'd rather stay home a little bit, you know, but we definitely spend quite a bit of money on travel. You know, these days we're busier. You know, I've got two jobs. Neither one of them is really full time, but I've got two jobs. Katie's got two jobs. So we spend a lot more money, I think, like dual doc couples do, you know, we're paying somebody to come in and clean the house. We're, you know, we're eating out a lot more. We're, we're spending money on things that are ways for us to buy time a lot more than maybe we used to. I think those are some of the things they'd notice.
- [36:59]
Tyler Scott
Credit card statements certainly don't tell the whole story about someone. So what if there was a financial planner in this archeology dig and they dug up your written Investment plan, the most updated version. What do you hope or assume they would surmise about you from your broader written financial plan?
- [37:19]
Dr. Jim Dali
I think they'd probably just say this was a person who was living their financial life very intentionally. I think that's probably the main thing that's your mind. Okay, this person had a plan, this person had goals, this person reached them. You say the most updated version of the plan. This plan has not had very many updates. It's basically the same plan we wrote up as when I was in residency in 2004. There's been a couple of tiny tweaks on the asset allocation, and obviously we've done a lot more estate planning more recently, but it's basically the same plan. People asked the other day I saw on a forum online, and they talk about, well, when you have enough money or more than enough money, do you dial back the risk in your investments because you don't need to take that risk, or do you actually dial it up because now you can take that risk and maybe have some great legacy for kids or charities or whatever? I could never decide between those two things. So we just kept the same asset allocation after financial independence, and we're still plugging along because I just can't decide. So I thought it was an interesting question to ask, but I don't know what the right answer is.
- [38:28]
Tyler Scott
It's a great answer. If I'm still doing this job as a financial planner 20 years from now, and if one of your kids comes to me as a client, what would you hope that they say when I ask them about their relationship with money?
- [38:45]
Dr. Jim Dali
I think I would just hope that they would have a healthy relationship with money, know how to save, know how to invest, you know, know how to talk about money and put money in its appropriate place and. And have it be a tool in their lives, but also not have it be the driving force of their lives. You know, if nothing else, the fact that we can give them a dramatically better start than either of us had, you would hope that that would allow them to focus less on money than we have during our lives and be able to really use it to boost their lives. For example, Whitney just came back from a trip to China. She went to China and a couple other countries with a professor as part of kind of a little bit of a study abroad thing. And then she's later this summer, she's going on a big, long trip. I don't know, she's visiting 12 or 15 countries on this study abroad, international business thing. She's going to Get a minor or certificate or something all in one semester, basically. But she's thrilled to do it. She loves to travel. She's like her mother that way. And you know, to be able to afford to pay for something like that is a pretty good feeling. You know, when you view part of your life as being the provider for this family and realizing I've provided a pretty cool thing, that's a nice pat on the back for yourself. When you see those sorts of moments and especially when they appreciate it and recognize where that comes from, that's very cool.
- [40:11]
Tyler Scott
Just one last question before we go to our bonus lightning round at the end, which will have a different tone to it. What else is on your mind in the spirit of this conversation? Is there anything you wish you'd got to say or anything we missed?
- [40:25]
Dr. Jim Dali
I mean, this could go so many directions. Who knows where it's going to go. But you know, I think back, I'm working a lot with my son right now. He's in a bunch of tryouts for competitive hockey teams. What he's been doing this last month, he wants to play on some travel teams. And I think back to a lot of the lessons I learned about life in high school. I wanted to play on the high school varsity hockey team. That was a big deal to me. And I realized when I got to high school and I was the worst player trying out in ninth grade that I had a ways to go. Despite the fact that I started playing when I was six, I was the worst player at those tryouts as a freshman. And so I started working. It's 10 below, I'm at an outdoor rink skating around. And I can still remember when I found out that we'd started bombing Iraq in the Gulf War. I was at that rink, someone come to pick me up and I was out there skating around at minus 10 trying to become a better hockey player. But I emphasize to him a lot that the lessons I learned doing stuff like that, to be able to self motivate myself, to work toward a goal is the same thing. Made me successful in my career, makes us successful in business. It's made us successful with money. And some of those lessons are even more important, I think, than learning about how an index fund works.
- [41:45]
Tyler Scott
And as a fourth liner in your senior year of high school, do you want to share with us a brief.
- [41:51]
Dr. Jim Dali
My moment of glory? Yeah. So we were sitting around at WC Icon. I told Tyler this story, but I did eventually make the varsity high school team as a senior. You know, it wasn't until I Was a senior. And I don't know if they just felt bad that I'd been in the program for four years and put me on the varsity team, but I was on the fourth line. In hockey, basically, the first three lines play, right? You've seen them. They change people on the ice every 45 seconds or 60 seconds, right? Well, there's usually three lines that go out there, and the fourth line is basically backup players. So, you know, I was a bench warmer is what I was at the beginning of my senior year. And my two line mates were freshmen. You know, they're in there to develop them for future years, really. And they played most of the year that way. You know, I went in the game when we were up by 10, you know, is when I'd go into the game. And thankfully, we had a pretty good team. And so that happened not infrequently, but, you know, by the time we get to the end of the season, we go to the regional tournament. I hadn't played that much. I hadn't scored that many goals. And one of my friends got hurt. He was a senior. He was on the third line. He later, like many of the players on that team, played on a College Division 1 team. He went and played at Army, I believe, and he got hurt. So I was put up into his slot and I was on the third line. Well, now I was playing right. I'm in the regular rotation. I'm going out there all the time. The other guys on my line were seniors. None of us were particularly talented, but we were bigger than the other lines because we were seniors. So we were kind of the checking line. We work our way through regionals well enough to go to the state championship. And we win the first game in the state championship. And so we get to the semifinals. Wasn't a big state, right? It's Alaska. There's not that many high schools. We're in the semifinals after winning one game, and it goes to overtime. It's five to five, it goes to overtime. And our coach decides he's not going to shorten the bench. He's not just going to play the first two lines. He's going to keep rolling all three lines as he has been through the tournament. And we go out there, finally, the first two lines play, and then we go out and play, and there's a big scuffle in front of the net. There's like eight people are on the ice in front of me, and somehow the puck ends up on my stick and I put it in the upper Corner score the game winning goal in the state semifinal game. You know, and so I'm on tv. I'm on the local tv. I'm in the paper. They describe me as an unknown, low scoring senior.
- [44:09]
Tyler Scott
Backhanded compliment of the year. Amazing.
- [44:12]
Dr. Jim Dali
And the next night we won the state championship. You know, I did not score any goals in the state championship game, but that was my moment of fame in high school hockey. It was interesting though. I went away to play in college. I didn't play division one. I played club. And in Utah, you know, hockey's not what it is in Alaska or Minnesota or Michigan or anything. You know, I was the leading scorer at least one year on that team. So I went from being the worst player on the team to, you know, the best player on the team. And it's interesting how unique it can be in different parts of the country. Awesome.
- [44:42]
Tyler Scott
Great story. Hockey's coming around here in Utah as we record this on May 8th. Yesterday, May 7th, the Utah Hockey Club is no more. We are now the Utah Mammoth.
- [44:52]
Dr. Jim Dali
Yeah, it's pretty exciting.
- [44:53]
Tyler Scott
Yeah.
- [44:54]
Dr. Jim Dali
So we're going to get there. The fun part about it is youth hockey is going nuts around here now. There's twice as many people playing youth hockey now as there was a year ago, so it's definitely having an effect.
- [45:04]
Tyler Scott
And at least one 41 year old financial planner trying to get started after his hero inspired him at the conference to try.
- [45:11]
Dr. Jim Dali
I'm trying to get Tyler into hockey. I took him down to the hockey store, got him some skates and some gear and we're going to see him on the ice here shortly.
- [45:18]
Tyler Scott
I think played two on two yesterday for the first time. It was a disaster and I loved it. It was fun. Okay, bonus lightning round here at the end. Different tone, different tenor. This is we stole from Carl Richards earlier. Now we're going to steal from Stephen Colbert and the Colbert questionnaire. So, Dr. Jim Dali, a piercing, critical, deep question. Everyone wants to know about you. What is the best sandwich?
- [45:44]
Dr. Jim Dali
The best sandwich. Let's go with a Philly cheesesteak.
- [45:51]
Tyler Scott
Strong, strong option. What is your favorite smell?
- [45:56]
Dr. Jim Dali
My favorite smell? Well, it's not in an emergency department, I can tell you that. What is my favorite smell? I think there is a smell. I don't even know what it comes from. I think it's a weed that grows in Little Cottonwood Canyon that you notice when you're climbing. You can smell typically in the springtime. I don't know what it belongs to, but it reminds me of climbing when I smell it. And I wish I could tell you what the plant was, what the flower was. I cannot. I am not that wise when it comes to plants. But it's one of my favorite smells for sure.
- [46:31]
Tyler Scott
It's beautiful. Let's find out. That's awesome. Okay, back to the ER least favorite smell.
- [46:36]
Dr. Jim Dali
Homeless feet, for sure. It's way worse than butt pus. It's way worse than anything else. Homeless feet. If you have not changed your socks in 10 days and they've been inside boots for those 10 days, it's amazing how badly that smells. It's way worse than pus or vomit or, you know, diarrhea or code Brown down the hall. Homeless feed is by far the worst smell in the emergency department.
- [47:05]
Tyler Scott
I am going to take your word.
- [47:06]
Dr. Jim Dali
For it to the point where I once rotated in a department that had a washer and a dryer in the department, and while they had the patient in a gown, they'd take all their clothes and put them in the washer and dryer, and by the time they were discharged, they had clean clothes. It was one of the best services that ER offered, not only to the patient, but to the staff.
- [47:26]
Tyler Scott
When I worked at the public health clinic in Oregon all those years, and we would go out on a mobile dental unit to take out teeth for the homeless and the migrant workers.
- [47:34]
Dr. Jim Dali
You should be so happy their teeth are not on their feet.
- [47:37]
Tyler Scott
Yeah, yeah, I'd like to. It'd be interesting to get you in the mouth with me on those real abscess. We could compare, but we would give them a pair of socks when they'd leave, and sometimes they'd cry. It was one of the most impactful things we did at the dental visit was give them socks. Have you ever asked anyone for their autograph and did you get it?
- [47:54]
Dr. Jim Dali
Wow. I can't remember ever asking anybody for an autograph. It's entirely possible I have. I've certainly had some books signed and things like that, but I don't know that I can remember a particular instance.
- [48:07]
Tyler Scott
What was your first concert?
- [48:09]
Dr. Jim Dali
Oh, boy, that's a good question. I don't know what my first concert was. I'm not a big concert guy. I can tell you what the best concert I've been to was.
- [48:19]
Tyler Scott
We'll take that.
- [48:21]
Dr. Jim Dali
And it's put on by a particularly talented showman. And whether you like the music or not, if you watch his concert, you recognize that there's a lot of talent. And that's Garth Brooks. I went and see. I saw him in a stadium here in Salt Lake. And he's got 20 people out on the stage for most of the show. And for his first encore, he brought his wife, Tricia Yearwood, out and did some of her songs. And then for a second encore, he just came out with his guitar and took requests from the audience. His songs, other people's songs, didn't matter. And he'd sing and play the first verse and whatever the audience came up with. And it was impressive. And that was when I realized, okay, this is somebody with a lot of talent. You know, when you can just do that in front of 25,000 people, I was pretty impressed. So if you get a chance to see him, I think it's pretty good. I've also heard Metallica puts on a pretty good concert. You know, blows up their stereos and lights the roadies on fire. I'd like to see one of those one of these days. Well, that.
- [49:21]
Tyler Scott
That's how I feel about you at the conference, when you take live questions from the audience. And after, I was like, man, for him to stand up there and just take whatever and speak off the cuff. You're doing it right now.
- [49:31]
Dr. Jim Dali
And.
- [49:31]
Tyler Scott
And it's very cool. Okay, a couple more. What's the scariest animal?
- [49:38]
Dr. Jim Dali
Scariest animal? It's almost surely in Australia. I gave a talk in Residency about the 10 most poisonous animals in the world. I think eight of them were from Australia. So whatever it is, I'm sure it's down there.
- [49:53]
Tyler Scott
Beautiful and terrifying place. If you had to listen to one song for the rest of your life, what would it be? It's not that this song plays continuously, but when you go to listen to music, this is the song that's on.
- [50:07]
Dr. Jim Dali
That's a good question. I don't even know that I can tell you the name of the artist right now, but there's a country song called Remember when that I've been listening to quite a bit lately, and I'm embarrassed. I can't remember the artist's name right now. I'm going to blame that on the head injury, but. Alan Jackson. Yep, it's Alan Jackson. And. And I don't know that I listen to a lot of Alan Jackson's music, but I like that piece particularly.
- [50:31]
Tyler Scott
Awesome. Last one. Describe the rest of your life in five words.
- [50:38]
Dr. Jim Dali
Dedicated to the service of others. Is that five or six?
- [50:41]
Tyler Scott
We'll take it, whatever it was. Thank you, Jim. Thanks for doing this. It's an honor to know you. We're grateful for what you do here. You're changing lives. You've certainly changed mine. And the sincerity with which you and Katie operate this business and your intentions with doing it are admirable and credible and profound. And to have this chance to get to know you a little more has been really meaningful to me. Hope it's meaningful to our listeners. Thank you.
- [51:10]
Dr. Jim Dali
Well, thank you for your kind words and also for doing the work for a full episode here. So there's no better gift than some work I don't have to do. So thank you very much. You bet.
- [51:22]
Tyler Scott
Thanks Jim. Wonderful. Well, I enjoyed that. I hope that was interesting or meaningful to you in some way. Thanks for taking a chance on us with something different on the podcast today. As I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, SoFi can help medical residents like you save thousands of dollars with exclusive rates and flexible terms for refinancing your student loans. Visit sofi.comwhitecoatinvestor to see all the promotions and offers they've got waiting for you one more time. That's SoFi.com/White Coat Investor SOFI Student Loans are originated by SoFi Bank NA member FDIC. Additional terms and conditions apply and MLS 696891 don't forget the few event coming up on May 20th at 6pm Mountain Time. Join Alexis Galati, Founder and Tax Strategist at Cerebral Tax Advisors for this women only event as she shares her top tax strategies to help you reduce your tax burden. Whether you're W2 1099 business owner side Gigger, this free event will help you get your taxes right. Sign up@whitecoatinvestor.com few and please consider leaving us a five star review and telling your friends about the podcast. The one we'll share today from March is called the Gold Standard. Five stars simply says. Listen to this. Read his blog Profit Direct and To the Point. Head up, shoulders back. You've got this. We can help. Thanks for being with us today.
- [52:51]
White Coat Investor
The hosts of the White Coat Investor 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.