100: Your Roadmap to Real Wealth!

In 2008, when I finished my surgical residency, my net worth was about negative $75,000—not bad considering that number included education until I was 33 years old! As you know, 2008 was also the year of the great meltdown of the financial system. Doctors that I knew who had been practicing for decades with the intent of retiring soon, suddenly realized that they couldn’t! Half of their money had evaporated within days! Why? The short story is Wall Street greed. You see, Wall Street has created this really profitable game for itself. Here’s how it goes. You work hard to make money. You entrust your money in Wall Street through your wealth manager with hopes that your wealth will grow. Of course Wall Street charges you a lot of fees and wins whether you win or lose. They also make big bets with your money so they can make even more money for themselves. When they win, they win big but you don’t get to see the money. When they lose, they are too big to fail so they get bailed out by you—the tax payer. Pretty nice gig if you can get it right? How do they get away with it in the first place? Why do we do we as professionals keep coming back for more? After all, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity, right? What kind of financial education did you get growing up? What did they teach you about personal finance? Chances are, you weren’t taught anything about investing. The educational system teaches you nothing about personal finance. And when we get out of school, what replaces the classroom? How do make up for what we haven’t learned? Where do we turn to for answers when we need to learn about real life? What replaces the curriculum when you leave school? The answer?…CONVENTIONAL WISDOM! The problem is, conventional wisdom is not always right. For a lot of years conventional wisdom was that the world was flat. Conventional wisdom, believe it or not, might not even be unbiased. It might have been perpetuated by big money, big banks—wall street. Think about it. What is conventional financial wisdom? Let the experts invest your money in a diverse portfolio of stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. Why is that conventional wisdom? The only time my dad invested in the stock market was the during the dotcom crash and he almost lost his shirt. How many people do you know have gotten wealthy BECAUSE they invested in stocks, bonds, and mutual funds? Do you think the most wealthy families in the worlds, like the Waltons and Rothschilds invest in mutual funds? Of course not! Then why do most high paid professionals believe that investing in mutual funds is the responsible thing to do? Because it’s conventional wisdom. But here’s the problem: CONVENTIONAL FINANCIAL WISDOM IS THE CREATION OF SPECIAL INTERESTS! It came form Wall Street. It has been hammered into you as gospel and to stray from that line of thinking—well, it’s like heresy. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard from very smart, highly trained professionals confess to me that they feel sort of guilty or unnerved about investing in “alternative assets” like real estate. Does that sound like you? Even your family gets on your case—they tell you that you are going to lose all your money and that you are not being responsible. I’m hear to tell you that if you don’t believe in trusting your money to Wall Street, that you are NOT an irresponsible heretic. I am living proof that wealth can be created outside of Wall Street. In my humble opinion, I will go as far as to say that it is a hell of a lot easier to become wealthy investing outside of Wall Street.