Ep 49: Financial Mastery with Dr. Latifat Akintade

Money is often the limiting factor physicians cite in achieving our dreams.  Our relationship with money is more important than our current net worth. No matter the number, money can either trap us or liberate us.  How do we make money work for us?

💪 Examine our current flow of money and eliminate items that don't matter to us anymore.  Continually re-evaluating and choosing to spend money in a way that adds value to our lives.

💪 Recognize financial knowledge is important but can only bring results when accompanied by taking action.  Work on our minds and carefully choose the words we tell ourselves so we become action-takers. 

💪 Redefine our relationship with money.  We have inherent worth as human beings.  There is nothing we can do, earn or offer that will add more value to us.  If we ask for a raise and don't get it, that answer doesn't diminish us.  If we lose all our money, that doesn't diminish us.  Separating our worth from money gives us the freedom to gain and enjoy wealth.

I loved this profound conversation with Dr. Latifat Akintade, who is a GI doc, money coach, founder and CEO of MoneyFitMD, wife and mama to 3 girls, and who I admire as "a genius at life" because she is living in alignment with her core values and her dreams.

Listen to part 2 of the eye-opening interview on this week's episode of the Dare to Dream Physician Podcast!

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Dr. Latifat Akintade and MoneyFitMD Resources:

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Transcript

Dr. Gray, Host 0:01

Welcome back to another episode of the dare to dream physician podcast. I'm so excited. You're here today. You're going to love this week's episode, which is part two of the interview with Dr. Latifa of money fit MD. And if you haven't had a chance to listen to last week's episode, episode 48 financial liberation, also with Dr. Latifa, you'll want to go back and listen to that. You're going to get from both episodes, so many gems. Let's dive in. Um, I, I want to go back a little bit because, when you were talking about your story, and, and this is for, the, the audience that's listening, are maybe still in training or are in quote, lower paying specialties. Cause when you said, when you're in training your finances were, were really stressful. Did that all of a sudden go away once you became a GI attending and assuming that, the paycheck was way, way more at that point. I mean, did that solve your problem?

Dr. Latifat Akintade, Guest 1:03

No, it did not automatically go away. In fact, um, this is so it's, it's so good to write things down. Sometimes I posted something. Facebook group in a private Facebook group. I posted it about five years ago and this was, I was already an attendant. And part of what I posted on there was the fact that I was, I did still did not have money. And the reason I did not have money, though, it was different. It wasn't because I didn't have money coming in. It was because I was given all my money. And that's why it's, it's like an inter that's. Why it's you have to do the internal work? It's both the internal and the external work because here I was getting money, not wasting money in the sense of the world, but not realizing that I was still acting out of scarcity out of guilt, because money is bad. Money changes people when you hold onto money, those were all the thoughts that I had, and I didn't even realize. So until I started doing that work for myself. That's when I started having money, which is I still give, but I give him a space of abundance and I give from a space that feeds now, but also allows me to be positioned in a way to be able to give in future. And if I'm given everything that I have right now and it's not growing, how am I going to make sure I'm putting myself in a place to be able to give for the long haul, if that makes sense. So your problems don't go away. If you become an adult. In fact, when I was going from fellowship to attending, no one asked me what I was going to do. Grit with money. The question people ask me was, so what house are you going to buy? What purse are you going to buy? That was literally the question people asked me, and there's nothing wrong with buying a house. We did buy a house. Eventually. There's nothing wrong at all with buying a purse or anything like that. But I just want you to understand that when you're spending. When your income does change, it is really important for you to make sure that you don't inflate your lifestyle at the extent of the increase in the paycheck that is coming. So if your paycheck goes up by, let's say four times, it's okay. If you want to inflate your life by, one and a half times or whatever, right? Because ultimately I want you to make sure that you're spending your money, not just on consuming, but also. Owning things where you're investing in what I call high quality wealth items. Some people will call those assets. I call them high quality weld items, because those may be things like buying a property. That's going to cashflow or, putting your money in a syndication or increasing what you're having partnership of through the stock market. So it's making sure we go from that shift of surviving to breathe in, but understanding that your breathability. That big site that you want to take as an attended. It's not based on the increase on the exponential increase that existed. Do you get to choose how much joy you get by yourself? It's like when you have ice cream, I love it. Right. You can indulge in that ice cream, right? And sometimes it's not the size of the ice cream. That matters. It's how much enjoyment you get from each scoop that matters. And the same is with money. So if you think that buying something that's like a hundred thousand dollars is automatic and going to give you joy. Sometimes buying 20,000 can give you just as much joy, and that's the work. That's the exercise. That only those that are able to expand their mindset can do, because now you're like, you know what? I can indulge no matter what, I can find joy, no matter what, and guess what it makes you a superwoman or Superman, because now you're like, it doesn't matter. What's going on. I got this, I got this. It makes you pandemic proof when it comes to finances, it makes you recession proof. When it comes to your finances. You're not thinking that there's a recession. I'm not going to be. By as much. And suddenly my joy is going to go away because you were already economic proof to begin with. So now you have money and you can become other people's stimulus source of stimulus package. Because right now, I mean, we're recording this in may. We know that there's a recession that's already happening. That's probably going to get worse. Before it gets better. And honestly, my thought is I'm positioning myself and this is what I'm teaching my women. I want us all to position ourselves to be the source of oxygen when the world may be in trouble. Like we get to be that for the world. And it's not a matter of waiting until that happened. It's by prepping right now so that no matter what happens. We already have our joy because our joy is not dollar dependent. Right. we also now have cash so that we get to be abundant in our, given in our providing and also not investment because one does a recession. I want you all to be able to buy stuff. That's what's up. So we get to do all of that.

Dr. Gray, Host 5:53

Uh, awesome. So you mentioned, during the. When everyone else was freaking out about money, you were like, I'm fine. Was that the first time? You realize that, I got this, from the time when you're struggling with money, I guess I wanna know it wasn't that moment or was, was it a sooner moment when you're like, wow, I got this money thing down, I've mastered it. This is not a concern. When did you have that sense?

Dr. Latifat Akintade, Guest 6:21

So I probably had that sense about two years before the pandemic that I, okay. Now I figured money out. I figured money out. I know money's not hard. I now know how to simplify it, how to it to people. was already seeing the pupil that I was helping, like my friends, my colleagues, their money was already getting. You know, and some of them are not like in fancy profession. I mean, there are physicians, but pediatrician, primary care doc, maybe GI doc like different. So I already saw the result of the work that I, I saw it in my own life and it's not just about I have money, but it's also, I know how to create.

Dr. Gray, Host 6:57

Hmm.

Dr. Latifat Akintade, Guest 6:58

So that was already stuck, that was already happening. But in terms of being officially claiming that identity as someone that can actually officially teach people and have a business, that was when I was so the pandemic also forced me for lack of a better term to See the desperation that existed outside and the fact that I had a tool and I could help. And so that was what the pandemic did. And also I found out about some other life coaching stuff that I already had some of that stuff going on in my life anyways. And now I was able to find a place. That could teach me the framework of the life coaching stuff, so that the stuff I was already doing and helping people with, I could now create a system around it. So suddenly it was like, that was not a fluke. You know how it is. You're most times we don't think about how our families. We get up, we take care of ourselves. If you have kids to carry you don't think about your schedule, you just do it. And then when someone's actual, how does their family run? Like, can you talk to us about the schedule? And that is, that's actually more like real in my life right now because we're interviewing old pairs and they're like, actually there's a framework to my life. Right. So the same thing when I found out about more structured. Coaching life coaching training programs. I realized that everything that I've been doing and teaching my women that are already creating results, even before I became a coach, I was like, oh, there's a system to it. Now let's just learn the system so that what I've already been doing, I can now formulate it better and serve my women in a way that is even bigger in a way that is more official and then money for MD happened.

Dr. Gray, Host 8:40

Hmm. I love that. And can you share with the audience, especially when, what you're teaching physicians and then also, what you sort of, what you taught yourself, that, where you got to the moment of aha, I got this, like I'm, I'm, I'm good at this. Money is working for me instead of the other way around and. What are, and you start, you've, you've been talking about a lot of this, but what are the strategies or is it, I know it's a mindset, mindset's a big part of it, what are, maybe share a few things that you think are so key to, to help people.

Dr. Latifat Akintade, Guest 9:15

Absolutely. So when I, the framework that I sort of teach in my program is I, I break it down into three parts. So there's a financial education piece, right? For now you need financial education and it's not financial education. The wood that's grinding in the way that is so that you can just breath. Productive. So I teach women like what I call the 20% that they need to achieve 80%. And it's literally things like looking at how do you look at your money? Where's your money coming from? Where is your money going? And a lot of times, even yesterday, I still had someone telling me that, oh, I've tried every app. I've tried every system it's not working for me. I'm like, let's stop giving up power with two apps. I use apps, but you don't have to. Right. And it's a question of asking, where is my money going right now? Is it adding value? Am I getting value in exchange for the money that I'm paying? Am I getting valued to the extent of the amount that I'm paying? Six months from now. Am I going to be glad that I spent this money or am I going to wish that I had the money back? If we use that frame to look at where our money is going, most people would cut down a lot of things that are not adding value to their life. So that's number one, because ultimately I want women to have more money. I want you to make money. But if you're making a ton of money and it's going into a leaky bucket, you're not going to have money. And so that part is really important in talking about, so that's, I don't talk about budget in the traditional sense of the word, if the traditional work for you. Great. If it doesn't work for you, I call it a spending plan. Right. So that's literally what I just talked about right now. And I always ask people to looking at what you're spending. Is this the best deal that I'm getting for it? Or do I want to look for other options? I've had people find thousands of dollars by simply doing what I just talked about right now. So if you're listening to this, it's okay. If you want to pause and replay that part, ask yourself those questions. Look at your last month statement, look at that and just don't judge it. Just be curious only, and I want you to mark down the things that are not adding value to your life, that you may have to spending money on. Maybe it added value in your life six months ago, but maybe it's not adding value right now. So maybe in depend DEMEC you signed up for a bunch of. And now with some, I'll go add in value. Maybe two months ago, you signed up for stuff. It's an, and now it's just decluttering is all you're doing. Right. And just mark what you can get rid off in that regard, because ultimately if all you find is even a thousand dollars, I'm going to tell you what a thousand dollars can do right now. I can get your weekend in LinkedIn. And that would be fabulous. Right? So it's not just about saving for the sake of saving is spending your money in a way that adds value to your life, augments your life and builds your wealth. Right? If you had a thousand dollars right now, extra that's already there. What can you donate to if you already have, what can you buy in the stock market? So he can see how this is not about like suffering or starving or taking your joy away. It's about just redirecting your fun and just saying, okay, I make decisions in the past. That's what I'm seeing now, is this what I want to see six months from now? If that's not the case, then you get to change it. So that's. The mindset part is huge. Of course, it's huge because it's not just mindset. It's also about the emotions behind why we do what we want to do or not. In fact, yesterday I was speaking at my workshop about diversifying income source, like simplifying and diversifying income. And I shared the fact that a lot of us leave money on the table. We maybe on a negotiating, our income, maybe you were under billing. Maybe we have services we're providing, but we're undercharging from that now, because we don't know the how, but because of our minds, the sentence in our brain that we peak. Making us talk ourselves out of the things that we know we can be great at. Right? So sometimes people would say, I don't know how to diversify my income source. I was called BS on that because if I let them, they would tell me all the 10 ideas they've had, but never executed. So that's how the mindset part comes into place. It's the things we're talking ourselves out of. The things that we could be doing, because when we help you learn how to stop talking yourself out of stuff, suddenly you like momentum. You're doing crazy stuff. You're making changes. You're growing in leaps and bounds. So the mindset part absolutely has to do with that. If you're thinking about investing in stuff like really. I had someone literally tell me, they've been thinking about investing the last five years. They've taken every program that exists to learn how to, so they have the financial education, but they're not taking the actual steps because they're talking themselves out of it. I don't have time. It is hard. I'm going to lose money. Those are all sentences in our brain. And literally the mindset or the mentality of success is how to pick the right sentences in our brain. That actually helps us move through. Okay. And then the last part is what I call the relationship that is core. And that is maybe part of my secret sauce. Um, and it's because nobody talks about this when it comes to relationship there's relationship with you yourself. If you have money and you feel like you're the shittiest person in the world of our values, Right. And I remind people that our relationship with things are literally our sets of thoughts about them. So our thoughts about ourselves is important. Like how do you think about yourself? Do you think you have value? Do you think you're amazing and it's okay. I don't think I'm amazing all the time, but most of the time I think I'm good. I'm okay. Right. But if your predominant thought about yourself, as I suck, I don't deserve money. I'm bad with money. I'm never going to do great things in life. It doesn't matter how much. Cash you have, you're always gonna have that baggage with you. So the relationship part is the relationship with yourself, your relationship with money and your relationship with other humans. And those are all part of what I believe is essential in creating a wealth in life. And those are the things that I help women build upon in the MoneyFitMD money school.

Dr. Gray, Host 15:13

Wow. Wow, those are amazing, just amazing strategies. And you've really simplified because it does cover, cover it all. I was hoping, uh, uh, of a confession, as, as, money. I was hoping that you were going to say, oh yeah, people don't need to budget. that's like old school. but what I loved about what you share about budgeting or spending plan, or, whatever is the word that resonates with you too, so that you can start doing it. The way you approach it, because I think a lot of people, when they budget, it does come from this place of dread and restriction and it's, it comes back to the third item, which is the relationship. There was a language we, we use when we're looking at her budget. There's a lot of judgment and, and this is where you're changing the language of even, how we think about the spending plan, Personally, I try to make it as simple as possible. I pay off my credit card every month, but I actually like having the credit card. So I actually see, instead of me having to track it, if I were to use casually, I could see where the money is going. Um, and, but it's, it's the. Just just talking about it as this is a value system, right. Instead, you know, it's not shameful. You're not, you're, you're, you're not like out of control. And it's so lovely that the way just the language that you use on the budgeting and then, oh, the mindset piece, of course, that's what we've talked about, for a lot of this episode, but one of the examples that you mentioned was negotiation, and I see this, I I've definitely heard other physicians say this. They're like. Well, I don't want to ask for more money, even though, the market would suggest that they could ask for more money, because I don't want to seem like I'm greedy or, I looked, physicians already make a lot of money compared to the janitors or physicians, or I make a lot of money compared to, another occupation in the hospital. And what I usually tell them is. I am still to ask for what I'm worth and I could do whatever I want with that money. I could donate it back to the hospital. Why want to, I could donate it to charity. I can give a hundred percent of it of a way, but I'm still going to negotiate because that also, that has other impact, right? Because the way we show up, the way we ask for our value, whether it's at work or somewhere else, that also affects other people because other people are going to see how you. advocate for yourself and they're going to start advocating for themselves. And then also when we advocate for ourselves, we often, you get into this habit of advocating and then you start advocating for others as well. So I think it's such an amazing way of, working on our minds that we don't have to say, say these stories to ourselves that are not really working for us or the things that we care about.

Dr. Latifat Akintade, Guest 17:54

Absolutely. And I want the janitors to ask for more money.

Dr. Gray, Host 17:57

Exactly.

Dr. Latifat Akintade, Guest 17:58

I do. Let's do it. And we know what though, it's harder for us to tell people to do what we're not doing. So if you don't feel comfortable, if you don't expend, if you don't sit down in that discomfort and let you grow and understand that that discomfort doesn't mean retreat, it could mean embrace. If we don't do that, how are we going to. Well, the janitor also has the same thought you have. Why would I ask for more when there are people that don't have jobs, right? So there's always a sentence in our brain and we think it's because we already earned this amount of money. No, it's just what the human brain does, but if I'm not willing to do it, if I don't do it, how am I supposed to help the women physicians that I'm working with? How am I supposed to tell them, listen, I get it. I felt uncomfortable too. And I did. You can do it. I promise you if you are not comfortable asking for a raise, you're not going to help the janitor feel comfortable asking for a raise because it's the same sentence in the brain, just different scenarios. And we get to believe it so we can help other people do it too.

Dr. Gray, Host 19:00

Um, yeah, that's that that's deep and so true. And the third, the third item, the relationships. Wow. I love that. I love that. You said that's your magic sauce. And what I'm hearing is a lot of it is the kindness and the gentleness, that was your original way that you started looking at money that was different than how other people talked about it. Can you give me an example of that perhaps, where wow. someone was maybe getting the other two items and then once they, they got the relationship part, that's when everything came together,

Dr. Latifat Akintade, Guest 19:36

A hundred percent. I have a lot of examples and this is for women in my program. And also for those that are not in my program that I've actually gotten to teach, You're never going to think you have enough money. You never got a few wealthy. If you don't get this third one into place, it's impossible. And I stand by that every example of money that is a bad example in the world is because of the absence of this third part. And I stand by that. Right. And when I say relationship doesn't mean I'm better than anybody. I'm not. I truly believe that every human is equally amazing. I believe that our value was a hundred percent. The moment we're born and there's nothing we can do. There is nothing you can. There's nothing you can be offering. That's going to add more value to you as an individual, because your values are already a hundred percent. Because when you think that everything else becomes like just little extensions of you like mascara, that it just improves your life. It doesn't matter if my bus is no one to ask for your race. It doesn't mean that my value is less is just words. Thoughts. Right. So it doesn't diminish me, which means that I'm more comfortable asking for whatever, because he doesn't diminish me. Right. If I lose all my money in the world, it doesn't diminish. You see what I mean? And part of the thoughts and example of those thought was there's a woman physician that is amazing. All my women are amazing. Amazing, amazing, amazing, right. She is hardworking all of that stuff, but then she just always thinks she asked us thought about ourselves, that I'm never good at holding. I'm never. Oh. And of course that shows up in life because when you think I'm never good at old and money, anytime money comes into your life. You're quick to want to let go of it. And for her working on that, it's like riding a bicycle, you exercise it every day. It has been helpful for her to see her value, to see her worth, see that, you know what? Maybe I am good at money. Maybe I'm someone that can have control over mine. Maybe I'm someone that can actually tell my money where to go. And suddenly she's I'm paying off my. I'm having more fun with my kids. Right? I am making all this changes that is actually helping our have more cash. And at the same time as having more cash, it's just helping her lead the wealthier life. And that's what I'm all about. So

Dr. Gray, Host 21:47

Um, this has been such an amazing conversation. I thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I try to ask this at the end of every interview, the name of this podcast is called dare to dream physician. And my why for having this podcast is to inspire physicians to one, discover what their true dreams are, not the dreams that somebody else had for them. But what is it? What, what are their dreams for their life? Because we only have one life and we don't know how long we're going to be here on earth. To help them start dreaming what their life is and to start living their true dreams as soon as possible. What words do you have for them?

Dr. Latifat Akintade, Guest 22:27

Listen. I mean, we're physicians, we know that life is vulnerable. We know that there's anything we've learned at all from the pandemic is a fact that nothing is. Predictable. We don't know what the future holds. I, and I, I share the story that I've always been aware of that I've had family members that I've lost a relatively young age. So I've been aware of that. And then last year I lost my dad who was only 68, which would be three years after the traditional retirement age. So if my dad had done. Typical stuff. It would have worked his entire life and would not be able to, I cannot wait till I retire and it would have lived three years and died. Is that what we want? Right. So for me, that's an additional lesson and an additional reminder that there's. They can be extremism. They can be, let me Soffer until I get here. But at the same time, it doesn't mean Yolo. And then you suffer when you're like age 65 and I'm like, oh crap. I have nothing. There's a balance in the middle there. And I think that's what most physicians want. And so if you look around at the financial world, you may hear things like financial independence retire early. I dare to say that most physicians don't even want to fire. Most physicians want to be financially liberated. They want to have money. They want to maintain autonomy. They want to be able to leave their life right now and enjoy life and take a sabbatical as they choose to and take care and walk part-time with the one, two, and walk an extra shift of the one, two, and be able to speak in ways that improves patient care without worrying about their finances. For me, that's what I think is most important. And if you have a life that's liberated, you will be financial independent, because again, your value was never dependent on how much you have. Because you already had value your enjoyment with not necessarily with the magnitude of what you have. It's more of like the indulgent in the quality and not just the quantity only. So everything that I preach is a hundred percent about that. And I love, love, love that you talk about life plan and then creating your dream life now. And I believe that those two things together synergize, whatever ESL, baby,

Dr. Gray, Host 24:32

Synergy. Yes.

Dr. Latifat Akintade, Guest 24:33

right? They have the they're both the same. And that is what physicians want. Physicians want to leave life well now, and they want to have the money to live life for now with our sacrificing and worrying that they're not going to have in future. And that's what we all about here. So yes.

Dr. Gray, Host 24:50

oh, thank you so much. And I'm going to share your information and the show notes and share, share how people can reach out to you. But I thank you so much for your time. This has been amazing.

Dr. Latifat Akintade, Guest 25:00

Thank you for having me. Thank you for what you do. And we would probably sit down and talk for another one hour if we didn't both have other stuff happening to this. So y'all are welcome.