The $7 Million 7 Years Wealth System

And I want to apologize for my spreadsheet posting out of column and difficult to read. I tried three times to edit it and straighten it up on wordpress, but it wouldn’t let me for some reason ;(

No problem with the spreadsheet, Scott. Just wonder why you can’t live your dream now – from what you just described, you could hire others to do the grunt work while you do the patient care. Your income would be less now, but it sounds like that is NOT what you are after, other than paying off the mortgage, the student loan, and getting some new vehicles. Did I miss something? Does it cost doctors to do the Doctors-without-borders care? Do you mind telling us what kind of doctor you are? Are you GP, internist, surgeon, or what? My niece and her husband (one in Chicago at Loyola now, the other in Ohio, both in residency now) are also MDs, and my brother is a DDS. With my ex-in-laws being ENTs (father/uncle inlaws), I’ve had vicarious education in what it’s like in your field (tho not in how to do what you do, of course!).

@ Diane – I run a spinal injury/rehabilitation clinic here in Louisville with plans to open up at least 2 more clinics in the near future. As far as living my dream, I most definitely am in terms of chosen profession but the greatest myth and illusion of all is that working in your dream profession is exactly what you thought it was cut out to be before seeking out the dream. As we all know, the grass isn’t greener on the other side. In other words, as i’ve stated before, what most people don’t realize is the bureaucratic rat race behind practicing any healthcare discipline here in the U.S. As i’m sure is true in any profession from being a professional baseball player to being a rock star.

As I was saying, I could hire more people to handle the paperwork, marketing, etc..and make my job nothing but pure joy, but those are salaries that you have to pay(at least 2 additional salaries to cover what I personally do myself right now in marketing and paperwork) and the pay-back that I would receive from their services would not increase gross profits very much as they would be just taking care of what I already take care of, basically cutting my income down considerably.

I believe a better question to ask one’s self is this:

How can I work my tail off in my chosen profession with as much passion, commitment and determination as possible, while living as low below my means as possible and investing every penny above that lifestyle towards buy and hold strategies that create great wealth until the day when you no longer have to do what you do for money, rather do it for the love of ‘doing it’ without asking for anything(in this case reimbursement from anthem, aetna, humana, etc..) in return except the smile on someone’s face when you’ve made a difference in their life?

I imagine Bill Gates, Howard Schultz, Ray Croc and Colonel Sanders got great joy out of pursuing their chosen professions, but they also wanted to use it to build great wealth with, and I’m certain all of them have made a difference in countless lives later on with that money(just try and fathom what the Bill Gates foundation has done for people)

Aside from those challenges, I personally believe building great wealth is something that you attain while living your life’s purpose and having something to give charity with, support yourself and family with should you get injured and become disabled with, be able to fall back on during true retirement years, instead of falling back on failed government systems or being a financial burden to your children, enjoy a richer fuller life with, travel and see and enjoy other cultures with, give, give, and then give some more with, etc…well you get the point.

I just believe that someone should obviously soul-search and find their chosen profession as a vehicle to build this great wealth, just as I would love seeing you write a best seller with your chosen profession skills, sell millions of copies and become wealthy living your ‘dream’.

@Scott – Thanks for your “revision” I have really struggeled with this exercise but your latest revision helped me. I think 🙂

Also I wanted to say that all of us have been given certain abilites, talents and passions that if used properly will enable us to become all that we were created to become and that we need to also balance the “me and them” issues of life. More specifically our life needs to be directed by something more than our own personal dreams.

I like what I hear about you and am honored to be a part of the experiment with you. I look forward to hearing and reading about your work around the world.

@ Lee – Thank you so much for kind words and encouragement Lee. I feel honored to have a group with people such as you to help push each other through these obstacles, while continuing to see ‘the big idea’ behind why we are doing what we are doing. So that way we can get it done!

I’ve never been a person who operates very well in terms of motivation when it is based on fear. However, give me a vision to be inspired about and I feel I can move mountains.

@ Scott – Kudos for revising your number DOWN! Now you’re automatically closer to your goal!

Can you tell me/us more about your current clinic? I am in the business of spines too.

@ Ryan – My clinic uses a variety of tools such as therapeutic exercise, neuromuscular rehab, massage therapy, spinal traction, spinal adjustments as well as spinal biomechanics to rehab spinal disc injuries, sports injuries, auto and work related injuries, scoliosis reduction and/or correction or any other physical spinal problem etc.. basically if a condition is related to the spine and/or nerves as well as some extremity work, we focus on getting you back to 100%, and without drugs and surgery.

@ Scott – If I just take out all the words that I don’t understand, I get: “My clinic uses a variety of tools to make ME a lot of money, but the drug companies and hospitals aren’t so lucky” 😉

@ Scott – What a great business! Very necessary, extremely beneficial to your patients, mostly recession proof, and likely to grow significantly in the coming years.
I sell implants for spine surgery, so I’m acutely aware to the great work you are doing and pain and suffering you are saving your patients from.
Have you explored the idea of attempting to develop some IP for back pain/treatment? You have the perfect place to test your ideas and start a referral base. There’s no income like passive income!

@ Scott – Ryan’s definitely on to something … you do great work, and if you really believe in what you do, how does ‘Drug Free, Surgery Free, and Pain Free Sports & Spinal Injury Rehabilitation For ALL Americans’ sound to you?! I can just see the infomercials …

If you can sell the idea, I may be able to put you in touch with some investors. The ENTs I was related to have a personal interest (a child of one of them) in non-surgical, non-drug relief of spinal pain. They also managed to do (without a clinic, but with real estate and stock/bond investments) what you have proposed, for their own families. I’d love to have such a solution for the tendonitis I have right now… and no surgery in my shoulder when I’m older (or anywhere else!)

Thanks for your good thoughts on the best-selling book. I think I am the one who is “motivated” by fear. It’s not actually the motivator; it’s the red flags that go up when I think I am “getting too big for my britches” or trying to make myself be more than I am…if you know the thought process I’m talking about. I’m trying not to let myself scare myself out of doing something I really want – not to use rational thought to talk me out of it, in other words, but to accept that there are risks and I have to stop the negative voices at those times and just go for it. It’s really hard to explain. I usually just see everything good happening and it happens. I guess a part of me thinks “I could never do THAT” and I know that is not true, but there it is.

I’m trying to ask myself now, “What’s the worst that can happen if I fail?”

What did the guy House say on “House” the other night? “We’re all dying.” Sounds like something Hawkeye (Benjamin Franklin Pierce, Capt., M.D., for anyone without the instant reference) might have said.

The risks I have to take are perhaps a little bit bigger than the ones you have to take, and quite a bit higher than most folks my age want to take. Now’s the time when they redo their kitchens and send their kids off to college. Mine are still in middle school and high school and I’m selling off my belongings – basically reaching back to that 21-year-old optimism, realizing that I have a bit more experience than I did then, and hoping I can merge the two into something fantastic!

Scott, Here’s another idea for making some quick money….or, make an alternative, build a guest house for some year when…and then do the same thing…or run a B&B. This is from another blog that led me to Adrian’s eventually…thought it was interesting…unfortunately my house is not quite within the 100 mile radius indicated, but I thought yours might be…read on (and smile!): http://www.freemoneyfinance.com/2008/10/help-a-reader-r.html

@ Adrian – LoL, I guess you can say that about the hospitals and drug companies. I think I’ve kept enough people out of surgery just in the past 6 months at least that the orthopedic surgeons around here probably don’t like me too much, eheh. The funny thing is though, my referrals come mostly from people that have been pushed around like a hockey puck from one surgeon to the next and from one general practitioner to the next, just handing out pain pills while the patient’s condition is getting worse and telling the patient everything from “it’s all in your head”. They end up coming to me as a last resort(when they should have came first so it wouldn’t have gotten so bad in the first place) and we just have them do what their bodies where designed to do to get them better.

@ Ryan – Wow, small world Ryan, lol. Thanks for the compliments! And it looks like you have developed quite a success in helping people with spine trouble with your work. Keep up the good work. I’m definitely exploring as many options as I can to build my practice in different ways to help more people and that is a terrific way to spread it across the country. I figure the only way I can get what I want in life is to help more people get what they want in life!

@ Diane – I wish you were near by, I could probably help with the tendonitis and shoulder problem.

Using our home as a bed and breakfast after all the work is completed is not a bad idea actually. We have already toyed with the idea of boarding horses on our property for some passive income as well.

@Scott – A ‘Bed & Breakfast For Horses?’ … do you OWN the clinic that you are in, or are you a PARTNER or EMPLOYEE?

@Adrian – I own 50% of the clinic. I will own it 100% in 3 years. I’m also planning to buy the building that it is in, next year.

@ Scott – Both sound like good moves to me … now, get back to work! 🙂

LoL, you got it!

[…] myself, after coming to the realization that I don’t actually need quite so high of a number in the next 10 years to fulfill my life’s purpose as I previously thought, I now have to pick […]

[…] myself, after coming to the realization that I don’t actually need quite so high of a number in the next 10 years to fulfill my life’s purpose as I previously thought, I now have to pick the […]