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White Coat Investor Podcast
WCI #434: Fixing Your Life, Burnout, and Money Problems by Identifying Your Core Values with Robert Glazer
00:43:49
Today we are talking with Robert Glazer. He is an entrepreneur, best-selling author, and will be a keynote speaker at WCICON26. We tackle topics like how to fix your life, and how to avoid burnout and money problems. The key to all of this is...
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- [00:00]
A
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. This White Coat Investor podcast number 434 Fixing your life, burnout and money problem by identifying your core values with Robert Glaser. 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 exclusive low rates 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. SoFi also offers the ability to lower your payments to just $100 a month while you're still in residency. 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 NA member FDIC. Additional terms and conditions apply. NMLS 696891 SoFi has been partnering with us for a long time. They were one of our first blog sponsors. I can remember sitting in the SOFI headquarters out in the Bay Area way back in like 2012, 2013. I was literally sitting with the entire C suite. It's a much bigger company now, but they've been great partners for us along the way. And you know what, it's interesting now with the recent passage of the OBBB and a that refinancing is a much more viable method of managing your student loans than some other methods since this legislation passed. So a real uptick in business there for our refinancing partners. No surprise, I suppose, if you're at that point now where it's like time to look at my student loan plan. Time to maybe think about refinancing some loans. Check them out for sure and you can look at our other partners as well. It's all under the recommended tab. Recommended Student Loan Refinancing at the White Coat Investor main website. We're grateful for our sponsors, especially long term sponsors have been with us for more than a decade like SoFi. I know they've helped out literally tens of thousands of white coat investors over the years. Get a little bit more of a fair shake on Wall Street. Our quote of the day today comes from Oscar Wilde who said, you don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy or any of your time or any of your space. Love that mindset because we all make those mistakes and you can't spend your life looking back at them. Couple of things coming up. One, this podcast sale we've been telling you about is 20% off all of our courses. For podcast listeners. It ends the day after this podcast drops. This is dropping on the 28th Thursday. Right. So that sale ends the 29th on Friday. So if you've been looking to get an online course, whether it's no hype, real estate investing, Whether it's the 2024 Continuing Education course, whether it's fire your financial Advisor, it's all 20% off, but only through tomorrow. Use code PODCAST20 at your checkout. Of course we're going to get a certain amount of return on investment for those courses, right? But you know, you can get a real bang for your buck with some of these courses designed for students and residents, right? We revamped fire your financial advisor this year. There's now a student version. There's also a resident version. You know, with that 20% off, the student version is down to 79 bucks. I mean, you're paying more than that for some of your textbooks and that information in it may be worth multiple millions of dollars to you throughout your career. That's a serious ROI taking those courses. And you can find all of Those again@whitecoatinvestor.com use that code podcast 20 today and tomorrow to get 20% off. We got a great interview today. We're actually going to be interviewing one of our keynote speakers from the upcoming conference. So let's get him on the line and and let you get to know Robert Glaser a little better. My guest today on the White Coat Investor podcast is Robert Glaser. Welcome to the podcast, Robert.
- [04:04]
B
Thanks for having me.
- [04:05]
A
For those of you who don't know him, and I suspect that's most of you since this is the first time we've had him on the podcast, he's the founder and chairman of the board of Acceleration Partners, which is a global leader in partnership marketing. He's also co founded and chaired Brand Cycle, which was acquired in 2021. He's a serial entrepreneur and he's award winning executive. But most importantly, he's passionate about helping individuals and organizations elevate their performance. He's also going to be one of our keynote speakers at WCICON 2026 registration for that starting early bird registration starting September 1st if the same thing happens that happened the last time we were in Vegas. Registration also ends September 21st if it sells out in 23 hours like the last one did. But Robert is an author of eight books. He's written twice as many as I have. And the most recent one that's come out is called Rethinking Two weeks notice. He's got another one in the pipeline, though, that'll be out within just a couple of months called the Compass Within. So lots of great work, Robert. You should be very proud of what you've accomplished so far.
- [05:08]
B
Thanks. Hopefully we're just getting started.
- [05:11]
A
Yeah. Now, one of the things we love about your work is you've had the opportunity to interview lots of business leaders, authors, thought leaders. Can you tell us a little bit about some of the most impactful things you learned from those interviews?
- [05:26]
B
Yeah, and this will connect to what we talk about later. But I think there's two things. One, we tend to hear about the highlights. And I think for me, in terms of particularly people that had success, what was the sort of turning point or the low light or when was it hard or when did they struggle? I think that's when a lot of the interesting stuff happened too. I tend to ask people, like, tell me about your childhood. What were you like as a kid? Like, what was. And it's amazing how much those stories connect to what it is that they're doing now. You know, either sort of going with or going against. I think it's just interesting and it ties to topic we'll talk about. Like we're trying to kind of figure out who we are and what we do best. And we, I think a lot of us were, you know, we were born and no one ever gave us the instruction manual. And it takes us a while to figure that out.
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A
Yeah, for sure. All right, well, on that note, let's go back to your childhood. Tell us a little bit about your upbringing, what it taught you about money, what it taught you about success, and the things you've kept from that upbringing and the things you felt like maybe needed a little bit of adjustment.
- [06:32]
B
Yeah. So interestingly, I had a super strong work ethic. I think I didn't realize I was an entrepreneur because no one told me that was the. I had a. I had a snow shoveling route and then I had a candy selling business. And then in college I rented trucks and I brought people stuff to school. And so I was much more interested in work and that sort of stuff than any of my schoolwork. And so I think I was, I constantly being told that I was not living up to my capability or expectations. Like literally every year for many years.
- [07:04]
A
You'Ll, this is coming from parents or teachers or friends or. Who's this coming from?
- [07:08]
B
Everyone. You may or may not see my report cards in my speech next year. They're pretty funny because they all say the same thing and they were different teachers. But that all sort of connects because it was, you know, I had to figure out what was important to me, what I like to do, and that wasn't necessarily what was going on in the classroom. And so at some point I figured out kind of how to put that all together and to spend the time unapologetically working on the things and studying the things that I was interested in and that I wanted to learn about. So I, I went through a period of underachievement. I think that led to a period of overachievement and almost burnout. And then it was really about finding what's that appropriate middle ground.
- [07:55]
A
Very cool. I love finding the balance. Our audience in large part is high income professionals. Right. It's like 75% doctors. These people were pretty hardcore about their education. It sounds like your report card may not look like their report cards did.
- [08:11]
B
I would not have gotten into medical school with my report card. Let's be clear.
- [08:15]
A
But they have the same struggle you have. Right. They have this period of time where frankly they're overachieving because you have to overachieve to survive. Right. 80, 100 hour work weeks during residency, et cetera, building a practice after work. And this idea that maybe going nose to the grindstone the whole time your entire life is not the right move is an important lesson for people to learn. But you discuss a concept you call core values. And I think the compass within this book of yours coming out soon goes into great depth about this. And I suspect you're going to talk about it at the conference as well.
- [08:51]
B
Yeah.
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A
But can you give a brief synopsis of what you mean when you talk about core values? What is a core value and why should it impact your life?
- [08:59]
B
Yeah. So we hear this term a lot. It's thrown around at a company level, individual level. My experience is, if I have a hundred people in a room and I say, how many people know what their core values are? 50 to 60% are like, man, I really. Maybe another 35, 36 are like, hey, yeah, I've thought about it. Or the word family or integrity or a bunch of one word things. And like one or two people will say, yes, I know, my core values are. Here they are, they're written out and they're not one words. And those people tend to be operating at a different level or with a different sort of sense of engagement and maybe harmony. So core values, we all have core, personal core values. They're different from office, corporate core values. But these are the non negotiable principles that guide our behavior and decisions. So they're intrinsic, they're not aspirational, they're who we've always been, not who we are. In fact, when you figure them out and you look back on your life, you're like, oh, now I get that job and that relationship and why that worked and that didn't. They're consistent, they show up in all areas of work, life, friendships. And I think they're clarifying to me, really having actionable core values that you can articulate helps you make some of the most important decisions.
- [10:13]
A
Right.
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B
It's a decision making rubric. Particularly in the book I talk about the big three, which is your vocation or profession, your choice of partner and your choice of community. If you don't make these aligned with your core values, they have very little chance of success. And a lot of us unfortunately kind of know a core value when it's been violated. My analogy is if you imagine you're taking a sports car and you're driving it through a tunnel, a really nice car, and I turn off the lights, you're going to drift to one side, you're going to hit the thing, it's going to screech, you're going to come back to the middle, you're going to go to the other side, it's going to hit the wall, you're probably going to get out the tunnel. I don't know if this is a PG or PG13 podcast. So we'll say your car is going to look like crap, we'll go with the PG13, but it's going to make it through. That's sort of how some of us operate. We're like, oh, this is bad. This feels like your core values. Understanding your core values is turning the lights on in the tunnel, seeing the lines and staying away from the walls, which is sort of the edges, staying away from these non negotiable kind of principles. Because when you're rubbing up against the wall, it's just never going to feel good and you're not going to feel like you're doing your best work or living your best life.
- [11:23]
A
Very cool. I love the guidepost analogies and you know, it's interesting. I mentioned before we started recording that it was Katie, my wife, who really kind of introduced me to you and your work. It's been very impactful in her life. She's our chief product officer here at the White Coat Investor, but starting this year has another job. She was elected to our local school board this last year, and so she's now a successful elected politician. But when she was considering running for school board, after encouragement from a friend, she spent some time thinking about all that and what would be involved in the position and whether it aligned with her core values. So she'd spent some time the previous year in that discovery process and realized that two of her core values were service and education. And so the. This Perfect.
- [12:11]
B
So picking a role. I remember she sent me that note. I'm just putting it all together now that that's the same person. Yeah. So. So if. If I knew your four core values and I said, hey, how does this job sound? I can make a job that sounds like just the worst thing ever, and like, worst jobs in America by picking the opposite of your core values are aligned. So, yes. So service and education. And look, she didn't change her vocation, but she added that to her life, which is important.
- [12:39]
A
Yeah. Very cool. Now, you mentioned three pretty important things, and let's dive into these a little bit. I want you to go into more detail on how these relate to your core values and how you ought to be living your life. You mentioned kind of three important choices that we make. Your vocation, your partner, and your community. So can you give some advice to people on those three things if they have not yet established that, as well as if they feel like there needs to be a change in each of those areas?
- [13:08]
B
Yeah. And it's interesting. The book is a parable. So it's a character going through these challenges, and a lot of people say, oh, that resonated with me or that story, because it's sort of things that we all have. So let's start with a partner. And this is something I probably didn't understand in my 20s or maybe even my 30s. Like, our partner could be very different than us on different personality tests, different activities. You know, it's not. It's not that we all like to do the same thing or we process information in the same way, but we've got to be on the same page about the big things. Right. I think that's where it sort of comes together when you talk about kids and community and these things. And if you're not really aligned with your partner on the big thing on values, I think it has very little chance of success. In fact, I was helping someone figure out their core values in a work context. They were going through a divorce. As we figured out too their values, they were like, my ex is the opposite of these two. And I was like, well, that's not surprising to me. That's really hard. You can have some points of friction, but if you have opposite magnets, if you have opposite values, let's just imagine someone even has a dominant value of. I have a value of long term orientation. I spent a lot of time thinking about long term strategies and playing the long game and otherwise, well, if that's really important to me, and I was married to someone who, or a partner who is all about today. It's all like, today we spend like there's no tomorrow. And maybe they are like that way because they had a parent or a loved one pass away early or whatever it is. But like, that's going to be hard if that's our kind of only disconnect on a values basis. We could, we could work around that. If we have like four of those things that are, you know, if every day is like, hey, we should like, think about what we want to save and do, like, nope, let's go spend it all today. And we have that, like, it's going to be too hard. It's just too much friction. So that's partner vocation. You know, this could be either what you choose to do, which, which is, you know, am I a doctor, Am I a lawyer? I think, though, for a lot of people, it's how and where do you choose to do it? Even? It's, it's, you know, the same. You can work at one law firm that has a different culture and value set from, from another law firm. So it's either like, I'm doing the thing I was supposed to do, or I'm doing it with the people and in a place where, you know, it aligns with my values. And interestingly, like the last one, I think we tend to forget a lot about is community, right? Because the community supports a lot of our behaviors and what we do. And I think particularly when you figure this stuff out, you're like, oh, if I'm someone who likes to, let's say, my core values include all perspectives and I like to hear from different people and learn of them. And I live in a town where around an election, it's like, choose your sign. You're either on team Red or team Blue and you're like, this just doesn't feel like me. Or I had a health scare or I had a parent that had a health scare. And I. Health and vitality is really important to me. Well, if I live in a community where everyone goes out drinking seven days a week and that's the primary form of socialization, I'm either going to go to the bar and not drink and it's going to be weird, or I'm going to go to the bar and drink and feel bad about myself because it's not what I want to do. So the communities we choose really drive our behavior and we need to be a little more cognizant of how they support our values.
- [16:35]
A
And I imagine you walk people through this process of discovering their core values, both in your books and your presentations in a lot of your work. But give me the brief method of trying to discover what are my core values.
- [16:50]
B
Yeah. So let me tell you how it all came about. So, so, so I figured this out like 10 years ago. It was a huge unlock for me. I was speaking a few years ago and I realized everything that someone said in my bio was sort of after I had figured out my core values. I was so excited about it that I took what I had figured out because I couldn't find anything good. I was at a leadership training where it convinced me I was values oriented. But they didn't tell us how to figure out our values. So I went on this kind of six months odyssey and figured it out. I then and following my definition of actionable core values, which by their nature cannot be one word. They cannot be things like integrity or family. We can double click on this later. But family to me is not a core value. It's a priority. There's a value behind how you show up for your family. That's probably the same as how you show up for your employees or your friends or otherwise. And it's consistent. So I built this curriculum. My company, we started using it in leadership training. We ran through five or six classes with it. And I was like, this is really good. And I wrote this book, Elevate, talking about spiritual capacity and understanding your core values. And people kept saying, all right, well how do I do it? And I was like, well, I don't have an easy answer for you. I have this program that I did with my team. So I ended up making it into a course. And a couple thousand people have taken the course. And your wife might have actually, I think probably took the course and they wrote incredible notes and I made changes And I went and joined a school board and all this stuff. So I was like, I got to get this to more people and I should write a book. But I'm just not sure people will read a book on core values. And I'm a big fan of Pat Lincione and Bob Berg and people that have written parables. And I kind of was like, huh. I think this, what if I created a character who's going through these things and he meets a mentor and he's coached through this process that I've built over the years. And you get to watch it, get to watch the core values discord and see yourself in the character Jamie. And you get to watch the coaching. And at the end of the book, it tells you exactly. It just says, look, this is what you saw and this is the framework and this is the process and this is how to do it. And actually anyone who buys and pre orders the book gets the course for free before launch. So that course can provide the support. So there's a process and framework behind it to figure out what I say are your actionable core values. And it's about an hour. The course and the book's about an hour. The work is longer than that. It'll take some time, but you'll have a pretty good start after you spend an hour on that.
- [19:08]
A
Very cool. And like anything, if it's important, it's going to require some time and effort and dedication. It's not something you're going to sort out in eight minutes.
- [19:16]
B
Yeah, a lot of people, they're like, yeah, this sounds good. And I see the stats that I'll share with you about the difference of people in organizations who are aligned to their values. But it sounds hard. It sounds like a lot of work. I'm like, do me a favor. Part of the framework is these six questions that you have to answer about things in your life that have gone well or not well. And it's designed to kind of pull out some of the behavioral based things. I'm like, and they're@robert glaser.com 6 if you want to see the six questions, that's G L A Z E R. Like just grab a coffee, answer these things and take a look and see what comes out for you. And I've seen people post their results on LinkedIn and their notes. And I think when you do that, you might look at that and be like, huh. There's some themes here I might not have realized. Like, maybe I should dig in on this and see what the rest of this looks like.
- [20:04]
A
Yeah. What's an example of one of those six questions?
- [20:07]
B
Yeah. So simple one, what non work environments have you been highly engaged in your life? If you think about it, what situations? I love it. So someone might say, when I was planning parties and organizing things and bringing people together. Right. So another one is, in what professional roles or jobs did you do your best work? And you know, it's not. It's not just like as an associate, like, get into the nitty gritty on that. Like, what were you doing? Oh, I was given independence and freedom and I was given, you know, kind of rope to figure it out. So you start making all these notes on these six lists and these six questions, and eventually you'll start to see there's some pretty recurrent themes. And sometimes the things that we learn the most are from some of these negative questions. So when were you disengaged? What did you struggle with? What are the qualities and people you struggle with the most? Things that are the opposite or that frustrate us are tend to be the opposite of something that we value. So if I knew one of your values, what I often do to test people is I would invent an archetype, and I would say, you're meeting this archetype at a party and they want to talk to you. And then when I describe them, like, your face is going to tense up and you're going to be like. Like it's kryptonite. Like, get this person. Like, if you tell me, like, it's generosity and being thankful for what you have. And then I'm like, okay, Jane comes over to you at the party and she's talking about her trust fund and how they won't give her the distribution. And, you know, and you're just like. Like, there's a visceral reaction to it.
- [21:46]
A
So is it possible for one of my core values to be avoiding meetings? Is that possible?
- [21:51]
B
Yeah. Well, we'd have to get into why you don't like meetings. Right. Whether you find they're not real or there's probably consistent things behind that.
- [22:01]
A
Yeah. Maybe related to undying.
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B
Maybe your core value. Maybe your core value is like, get to the point, Right?
- [22:05]
A
Yeah, maybe that.
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B
Maybe that's it. In that case, I'd say, how do you feel if you're talking to somebody? They just ramble. They ramble for like hours or something like that. And see that reaction that you just made? That's the sort of reaction someone makes.
- [22:19]
A
Exactly.
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B
Right.
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A
Yeah, for sure. And maybe it's just you know, under diagnosed ADD that most emergency physicians have. I don't know.
- [22:26]
B
But that's a good thing for emergency physicians.
- [22:29]
A
Exactly.
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B
The dopamine, you know, the rush.
- [22:31]
A
Yeah, it's, it's, you know, it's not a, it's not a bug, it's a feature, I think, in a lot of ways. But it's true though, matching your core values to, you know, a partner, your community, your vocation and particular workplace is probably pretty darn important in making us happy in life. Do you have any tips for helping us to match into our community?
- [22:57]
B
Yeah, well, first you need to figure out what yours are, and then you need to figure out what the environments are. And by the way, a lot of organizations, what is painted on the wall is their core values is not the core values. The core values is what or the values, what are they rewarding? You could say we reward working smart, but the truth is it rewards 100 hour weeks. That's different. So I think when you have that clarity, you can even think about, again, how am I doing my work? You know what, let's say I'm an include all perspectives person. You should give me the projects where I'm going into the field and getting everyone's feedback and collecting and getting a real good sense of the sentiment and coming back and being able to share that I'm not the person where you want me to go make a unilateral decision and not talk to anyone. Right. That just goes against everything I believe and feel. And so I think there's an ability for people to start to augment their work. And if they have a good boss or leader, say, look, I want to do more of this and less of this.
- [24:01]
A
Yeah, very cool.
- [24:02]
B
And any good leader should want to align their people to their strengths and use them to the best of their ability.
- [24:08]
A
Yeah, for sure. Good leaders recognize when their employees, their staff members or colleagues, whatever, are better at something than they are. Yeah. Which is most things with, with, you know, any sort of reasonably large organization, you're going to find somebody better than you at just about everything in your organization.
- [24:27]
B
Look, that's what you would want, right? In a, in a, in a perfect world. So you'd want a whole bunch of people that are really great at the things that you don't want to do or don't know how to do.
- [24:38]
A
Yeah, for sure. I think this is a big contributor to physician burnout. They get into a workplace, they've got what they value, which might be maximizing this outcome for a patient or spending time building A relationship with a patient and the workplace value is something else, like efficiency, cranking through as many patients as you can so they can make some money. And I think that contributes a lot to physician burnout. Any tips on knowing your core values and using that to reduce burnout in the workplace?
- [25:10]
B
Yeah, My experience is that burnout has not correlated to the amount of work. It's the amount of time you're misaligned to these values or what you want to be doing. Because when we're in the zone of things that are values aligned, this is time slips. This is the stuff you'd spend all night doing if it was free. Right. If it was aligned. So I think people can make that awareness. And unfortunately, in medicine, I think sometimes, as you were saying, let's say one of your values is solve the problem or figure out the point. You want to be in these emergency triage situations. You don't want to be in meetings. That's not where you want to be. So even within these disciplines, I think people have to think about what they want to do. I have a friend, years ago, a lot of times, this happens in every organization. He started taking on administrative stuff, and he hated it. He'd go on vacation and they'd call him, and it felt. And he just gave it up. And whatever he gave up for the income thing, he is so much more happy. He likes doing the work. He likes being the practitioner. The administrative stuff didn't feed any of his needs or wants. And frankly, he was happier with. With giving that up and taking less money. So a lot of times in the organization, we're pushed to take the next thing or take the higher thing or whatever. I think you want to figure out what the best thing is right for you.
- [26:34]
A
A good example of that. I've got a. I've got a partner. He joined our partnership a couple of years after I did. When he came out of residency, a fellow by the name of Dr. Casey Launder. He's now serving as our medical director. And he told me the other day we were going over a patient interaction, and he told me the other day, I like this way more than I expected. I was going to, you know, this administrative position because all of us emergency docs, we all think we, you know, only want to see patients and don't want to do any administrative work. And he's really found out that it does align in a lot of ways with some of his core values to.
- [27:06]
B
Do this additional right, whereas one of his friends might not. I remember a guy, years ago, at A hotel out in Park City. I said, what are you doing here? I spent the summer. I'm a doctor. Where are you from? Not from Utah. How do you do that? Well, I figured years ago that, like, I love this place and outdoors and flexibility. And so he created some medical job where he's the referral, second opinion guy on everything and people send him things and he makes a referral and he's figured out how to work wherever you want. And there was an example where someone would say, well, you can't do that. And he decided, well, no, this is my non negotiables. My non negotiables is I want to spend 12 weeks a year in Utah. I want to be outside in the summer. And he figured out how to create a job that allowed him to do that.
- [27:49]
A
Yeah. It may take some financial maneuvering or sacrifice to align core values with your life. What tips do you have for people that are finding, man, I've set up my life and my life requires this income that I can only get if I'm not living a life aligned with my core values. What tips do you have for them?
- [28:14]
B
Yeah, look, sometimes in your world this isn't probably putting food on the table, but sometimes we all want a Jerry Maguire moment, but there's real world responsibilities of having to do. And so I think sometimes it's, hey, identifying the problem, deciding you're going to fix it, but understanding it might take six months or a year otherwise. But look, a lot of us are stuck in some version of the rat race where we're in a community that has certain requirements, then we're working more to meet the requirements from that community. And it just takes some kind of, like, you know, it just takes some integrity with yourself or some honesty to say like this, this isn't what I want. Like, my kids don't need to go to this private school. In fact, that doesn't align with my values and not how I brought up. And I don't need to do the administrative job. And look, figure out what enough is because sometimes you're not. You have more, but you're not happy. Like, you know, it's like defense wins championships and sometimes like, the offense goes up and the defense go like, goes up. And you're like, look, I can, I can just change this equation. And I remember years ago, they asked, someone told me, they asked people who had a million dollars in net worth to $100 million in net worth, how much money was enough? And what do you think the answer was after they asked that group I'll.
- [29:34]
A
Bet it was twice as much as they currently had.
- [29:36]
B
It was a percent. It was like 40% more than they currently had. Right. Or whatever it was. So it just shows you. Good answer. It's all relative. And so there's a famous thing about. I don't remember who said it, but he was at Arthur, he was at a party. The guy was bragging about all the rich people at the party and what they had in the boats. And he turns the guy and he goes, but I have something that you'll never have. And he goes, what's that? And he goes, enough. And again, when you are doing more values aligned work, you're happy, you're engaged, you're at peace. I think you could be making more money, but be more miserable and spending it on things that you don't even really want to be spending it on.
- [30:21]
A
Yeah, that's a famous quote in the personal finance space for sure. It's Kurt Vonnegut.
- [30:25]
B
Yeah. Yeah, that's what it was. It's a great quote. Right, because just what is enough? And look, most of the people at this conference in your world, they probably have enough, but if they don't have.
- [30:39]
A
It yet, they should be on a pathway.
- [30:41]
B
They're on track. So that's not the problem to solve, right?
- [30:45]
A
Yeah, for sure. It's identifying, recognizing when you get there and aligning your values along the way is a pretty important piece.
- [30:54]
B
Yeah. And to those of us who are high achievers, if you've talked to folks, if you listen to Scotty Scheffler's kind of personal breakdown speech two weeks ago that I wrote about, when they just fixate on a summit and they get to that summit, they rarely enjoy the view. It's either a second or it's not as good as they thought. So what you're trying to do is find a really pretty climb where if you were climbing it an hour that day or four hours that day, it makes you sweat a little bit. It's uphill, but you could climb it all day. The view's unbelievable and you just enjoy it. We architect a lot of things of, when I get to this, I will be happy. And that is the false premise. Because if you've talked to almost anyone who's had that architecture, they will tell you you don't suddenly become happy when you look off that vista or that cliff.
- [31:50]
A
I love the climbing analogy. I don't know if you know this about me, Robert, but I'm a climber.
- [31:54]
B
I didn't know that.
- [31:55]
A
I spent my Whole life climbing. And you're right. It's amazing how little time you spend on the summit. Sometimes it's literally walking across the summit on your way to the descent route. And that's it. It really is about the climb and life too. Right. It's not about the summit.
- [32:11]
B
You got it. You got to enjoy the climb. I mean, there's the Everest summit, but look, most of the people at Everest don't even get to summit or even in the same party. So you better make sure that the whole thing is worth it. And I think we tend to get bullied into not bullied. There's like three climbs in life. So the first climb is the one where people talk about the mountains. I think about it more of climb where everyone else told you you needed to do it. So you get pushed onto that mountain and you climb it. And by the way, you didn't like the climb, and the view wasn't great either. Right. So it didn't provide what you're supposed to do. There's a second one where you feel like, I chose it, it's mine, and I enjoy the climb. Some days I don't, but. But it would all be justified by that destination. And I think a little bit, you get to the destination, you realize it doesn't make me fulfilled. And maybe I. Even though I said I chose it, I still was pressured by other people or society. And again, that third one is like beautiful vista uphill. I could do it for an hour a day. I could do it for 10 hours a day. I'm not really concerned with. With where it's going. I just like the climb.
- [33:22]
A
Yeah, I think a lot of us do figure that out from time to time. For example, Katie and I went climbing in the Tetons. It's been a number of years since this climb. And we. We did a route called the. The Lower Exim Ridge. And. And the route ends halfway up the mountain. Right. I mean, there's another route you can do if you want to go to the summit. We didn't go to the summit. We. At that point, we'd been to that summit. What we were there for was the climb. We enjoyed the climb, and so we. We escaped from the route at that point. Once we did the part of the route we were interested in doing, and I think there's probably a good analogy there for a lot of parts of your life that it's not about, you know, winning. It's not about hitting a milestone, or it really is figuring out how to enjoy it as you go along how you apply that analogy in your life, I think is a little more tricky than just understanding the analogy. But for sure, 100%.
- [34:14]
B
But first comes understanding. And look, your wife's a perfect example. Did she quit her job and become a teacher? No, but she started to think about how do I contribute and how do I do that in the education space, and how do I add that to my life and get that in my life? And so you can't do any of that without the awareness. Because again, what happened in that case, I think for her was awareness and opportunity crossed. And they're like, huh? I would have looked at this job opening or this request for people to run two years ago, and I wouldn't have even thought about it. But now I was like, oh, maybe I should think about it.
- [34:49]
A
Yeah, exactly. Great, Great summary. Other experiences you've seen people through, you know, in your work, where you've helped somebody discover their core values and how that impacted their life going forward.
- [35:03]
B
Yeah, I think it really can change how you lead because the best leaders are deeply authentic. And I think we lead from these values, whether we do that with awareness of it or without awareness of it. And having done this work with so many people I've seen. Let's take for example, someone who has a core value of trust. Well, in my thing, I talk about, a lot of values come from you're running towards something or ways. Someone for whom trust is really important in almost all cases that I've seen had a big violation of trust earlier in their life. So the way they operate with friends and work is, I sort people into, can I trust them or can I not trust them? Well, to that leader, someone who's five minutes late or misses a deadline or can't be found during a workday, that drives, like, deep, visceral, like, this person can't be trusted. Like, this is threatening. Right. Sort of thing. It wouldn't trigger it for me because it's not as important for me. And what they end up doing is they just sort people into binary, trustworthy or not trustworthy. And the people that are deemed not trustworthy don't know it. They're in the penalty box, the key's thrown out. They're sort of like, why can't. Why is this person not giving me any work? Like, what's going on? So that's the problem if you don't know it. So having done that work with some leaders, what they did was they went back to their team and they said, hey, I just realized trust is really important. To me as a leader. And actually, here's how you earn it with me and here's how you lose it with me. And if I feel really distant or sort of aloof or whatever, there's probably been a break of trust and you should, like, come have a conversation with me about it. So the folks that have figured that out for all their values, they go back to their teams and they're like, look, this is who I am. I'm not going to change myself. I lead from trust. But at least I can put this on my shirt and say, this is how I lead. And there's some really great things to do. You can't tell someone how they're going to lead. You can say these are qualities of good leaders in our organization, but you're going to lead from these things. They're really real for you. My dominant core value is find a better way and share it. That's. That's literally what I'm doing on this podcast. It's part of everything I do. Like, I just, I'm not going to not do that. And so that's what I tell people. Like, look, if you want to be on my team, you want to work with me. Like, we're about finding better ways and new solutions. And my fighting words is like, because it's been that way, why do we do that? Because it's been that way. Like, don't say that on my team. Like, that's a, That's a fireable offense. Right. So it really feels good when you're like, look, you can be you. But. But as I said, these. You're either driving the car or it's like one of those cars that they teach 16 year olds on where there's a second steering wheel and someone else is driving it for you.
- [37:45]
A
Yeah. Reminds me of my least favorite phrase to hear from my kids. Not my job. Not my job. You know, hate. Hate hearing it and that.
- [37:53]
B
Right. And we could dig around. What, What. There's some. You probably have some accountable or. Yeah. Do you come from military background or anything like that? Or family or. No.
- [38:02]
A
Well, I just been. I. I did spend four years in active duty, so.
- [38:08]
B
Yeah, so that would be like a fire.
- [38:10]
A
My wife certainly did.
- [38:11]
B
That would be a fireable offense in the. In, like, I've done this for a while, so that would be a fireable offense in the right to say, like, not my job.
- [38:18]
A
Yeah, exactly. Every. Every job becomes your job in the military sometimes. Well, very cool. Well, Robert, it's been awesome to chat with you. We've been talking with Robert Glaser. He's going to be a keyNote speaker at WCICON 26 that goes up for sale on September 1st. First, that's early bird pricing. Starting September 1st. Maybe it's the only pricing if this thing sells out as fast as the last time we went to Vegas. He is also the author of the Compass within and Rethinking Two Weeks Notice. Great thought leader in this space of aligning your life with your core values. Thank you so much, Robert, for being willing to come on the White Coat Investor podcast.
- [38:57]
B
Thanks for having me. It was great speaking to you. I look forward to seeing you at the event.
- [39:02]
A
It's wonderful to have great guests on the podcast. As Megan told me afterward, you can really tell when they're a keynote speaker because they're very articulate and obviously spend a lot of time and are very comfortable in front of other people and speaking and sharing their thoughts and sharing their core values and their core beliefs. If you are interested in hearing more from Robert, Best Way is probably coming to the conference. We're going to buy you a copy of his latest book. It's not even out yet. As we record this. It's the Compass Within. It's going to be in your swag bags at the conference. You sign up for that conference@wcievents.com I think it's going up for sale at midnight starting Monday, right? Monday the 1st of September. Early bird pricing is going to last through the 23rd of September or until the conference sells out, whichever one comes first. Last time we were in Vegas, we sold out in 23 hours. So if you want to come to the conference, I wouldn't delay. Not only do you get better pricing by buying it early on, but you're sure you're able to come as well. Now, we haven't sold out for a few years, but we get pretty close most years to the amount of people we're looking to bring there. So it wouldn't surprise me that such an accessible location that we actually do again this year, the conference, if you're not aware, it's in Vegas. Yes. So you get the convenience of a short, cheap, direct flight into Vegas, but it's not on the Strip. You're close enough to the Strip that if you want to do the Strip in Vegas, you can do that. Right. You can go down there to clubs or shows or gambling or whatever you want to do on the Strip, but you're not staying there. Okay. You're staying in a resort property that's well off the Strip and it's going to be much feel much more similar to prior WC icons, where it's a bit of a retreat feel, right? You come out, you're interacting with docs, you find your tribe, these people that are like you, that are not afraid to talk money, you know, with each other. Real dollars, real cents. At lunch in the hallways, they're all sitting next to each other in the classroom. This is your chance to really feel a member of this community. So sign up for that starting Monday. WCIEvents.com we're going to have a great time. I think I'm even leading some hikes, so I'm thrilled about that. That'll be the first time we do this at a conference, but one of my favorite places in the world is just outside of Las Vegas, Red Rock Canyon. It's pretty awesome. Now, as I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, SoFi could help medical residents like you save thousands of dollars with exclusive rates and flexible terms for refinancing your student loans. Visit sofi.comwhitecodeinvestor to see all the promotions and offers they've got waiting for you. One more time, that's sofi.com whitecoatinvestor SoFi student loans are originated by SoFi Bank NA member FDIC. Additional terms and conditions apply. NMLS 696891 don't forget about that podcast sale. Use podcast 20 today and tomorrow. I said podcast sale. It's because I'm only telling the people on the podcast about it. But we're not selling the podcast, we're selling online courses. The code you use though is podcast 20 use at the checkout and that goes for all of our online courses, even the student resident versions of Hire your financial advisor. Thanks for leaving us a five star review and telling your friends about the podcast. A recent one comes in from somebody calling themselves MoneyDoc said fundamental for all financial levels. 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Thanks so much for what you're doing out there. Your work is important. It matters. There's a reason they pay you so well. All we're here to do is help you to be able to focus on that work. On your patients, on your practice, on your business, whatever it is you do, on your family, on your own wellness. Keep your head up and your shoulders back. You've got this. We're here to help. We'll see you next time on the White Coat Investor Podcast. 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.