Jul 6, 2018
Not sure what you're doing with your life? Would it be nice to see in other people's lives to see how they're doing? Well, Kevin Yee, Paul Tran, and Brian Fung all have YouTube channels where you can follow the ups and downs of a pharmacist finding meaning in and out of their profession. I also recommend a book called The Defining Decade, which provides some answers to "How do you decide what you should do with your life?" Also, Pharmacy News and some free audiobook codes in my Facebook contest you can enter here.
https://www.facebook.com/tonypharmd1
Full Transcript:
welcome to the pharmacy leaders podcast
with your host Tony Guerra the pharmacy
leaders podcast is a member of the
pharmacy podcast network with interviews
and advice from building your
professional network brand and a
purposeful second income from students
residents and innovative professionals
hey welcome to the pharmacy leaders
podcast I think I'm gonna do a response
to actually a group of YouTube channels
what our Kevin Paul and Brian doing
right I'm listening to a new book it's
called the defining decade and I have to
check I think her name is Meg J and
she's a PhD and she's a researcher and
what she's kind of come across is that
your 20s are really important because
they set up your 30s and your 40s and so
forth and I know there are
non-traditional students and I you know
certain they have non-traditional
students but I think what she's saying
is that there's a certain time in your
life where you don't have the
constraints like I do where I'm placed
bound with triplets and you can figure
things out a little bit easier and what
she goes through and talking to a number
of her clients and figuring out what it
is that people are really struggling
with so the reason I I titled the
episode you know the Kevin Pollan and
Brian show is because on YouTube you can
kind of follow them and their three
pharmacists who are struggling with okay
well here's pharmacy and then here's
what I get satisfaction from and
sometimes they gel and sometimes they
don't
we'll start with Kevin so I know he's
working has invested tens of thousands
of dollars in his own personal growth
and he's very open and very transparent
and I was really impressed that you know
he's been able to make a transition
that's really hard and also that he is
working really hard to figure out what
it is that it's going to be that really
makes him satisfied with his day with
his career with his life he had a recent
episode
I'll talk about a little bit later then
Paul Tran he has three or four jobs I
think he is four but the first thing
that he's doing right is he doesn't have
a single source of income so even if his
primary job went down he would still
have other opportunities and wouldn't be
scrambling fearful and so forth he's
paid off his loans and been very mindful
about doing those types of things but he
also has I don't want to call it a side
hustle because I know it hasn't really
reached the monetary fruition yet or I
don't think it has but he's gotten tools
from one company and I think he's
working with Home Depot to do some
things and he's also working with video
and both of them are clearly developing
skills that are very useful in digital
marketplace and then Brian Fung is just
taking a different direction he's the
informatics guy and he is working on an
mph at Hopkins and then that's going
back to Baltimore and getting that
experience but also I know he's
traveling soon and has a tremendous
travel schedule so these three guys are
really I don't necessarily know if
they're all in their twenty still but
even if you're late 20s early 30s the
way that pharmacy kind of pushes you way
late to start your life I feel like this
book doesn't really adjust for that
change like well what if I was in grad
school or professional school for the
first six seven eight years does might
one do my twenties really start well you
know where do my twenties really start
but there are a couple of things that
she talked about that these guys have
dealt with and her kind of going through
right now one of the big ones was in
terms of you know is it better to be
unemployed or is it better to be
employed and the answer is weird it's
better you're going to feel more
depression or depressive symptoms if you
are underemployed then if you are
unemployed no being unemployed causes
more problems later on so that's not the
goal but what I'm telling you is that
this recent kind of rash of
underemployment that we're starting to
see in certain areas of the country
that's really going to have a
tremendous impact on a lot of students
and then the student loans and what
she's saying is that the 20s or this
early graduation time is a really
uncertain time and there are specific
things that you can do to make them less
uncertain and there's certain directions
that you want to try to go to see if
that's the direction that you should go
or that it's not so for me I went out to
see if writing and journalism was my
thing and I really didn't understand how
that would work and then the kindle and
audiobooks they weren't really
accessible to me as just a person who
says well I just want to publish my
writing so I may have gone too soon with
that but then I went home and then I
started a real estate practice or I
started as a real estate agent and there
again I was taking a chance and saying
wow you know I feel it's more work it's
more hours but I was much happier with
that freedom that I had so I left retail
or full-time retail practice around
seven or eight years after I graduated
and you know the we just had a terrible
storm my rental took a beating in the
basement find out I didn't have flood
coverage so now I know what flood
coverage is and then our roof also took
a beating too and why say this is that
the roofer came over and he said he had
50 jobs to do and what he was saying was
literally he had 50 individual jobs that
he could do I said well well you know
you must you know get people all the
times like no I can't keep a lot of
people on staff I know that you got your
pharmacy degree I know the expectation
was to get a job in a pharmacy or to
work with a pharmacy or to work as a
clinical pharmacist but I feel that that
narrows things so much that it
completely closes the door to what might
really make you happy
and in that book meg Jay make gives a
couple of examples of people who did
just that
well my my parents expectations my
expectations were this but when I went
with what I was
working to develop skills in what I
found myself doing so while I was
daydreaming about this I ended up you
know kind of leaving this other path and
what I'm trying to get at is that I
think that it's a good audio or book
resource to start answering the question
what should I do with my life after
graduation because many of you are just
graduating and it takes about 2 or 3
months but about 2 or 3 months the
newness wears off and all of a sudden
you realize that you're going to be
doing the same thing for a very long
time and that realization is a bit
disheartening because here you are
you've been learning something new every
year for the last oh I don't know
subtract 6 from when you want to
graduate it so 19 years I learned
something new every year and now I'm
gonna learn a little bit new in the
first 2 or 3 months but then my job is
kind of the same every day every week
every month every year every decade and
to this generation I know that is simply
not acceptable so I know residency gives
you one more year up to two more years
of that kind of newness but I feel like
answering that question figuring out
what you want to do because it's
probably not it may not be on your radar
at all at no time did I ever say later
in life I'm going to be an audio book
editor and my favorite thing to do is
going to be creating great scripts and
great audio books to teach students that
never what I barely passed English and I
barely passed English because not
because I didn't know English I actually
knew English pretty well it's that I
just hated conforming to that style that
kind of prose formal writing and that
just wasn't for me and other people
don't want to hear that either as an
audiobook so my specialty is making a
conversational for nonfiction so I guess
I was just really excited to have this
book have this resource to kind of start
thinking forward about some of the
things that you know in my 20s what did
I do
and I made some right moves and some
wrong moves but here are three guys on
YouTube that you can watch that are
telling you this is what I did and this
is why I feel like this and then now I
feel better about it and it's just a
phenomenal trio of opportunity for those
YouTube videos so let's go through some
of the lot of things coming up so again
on Facebook I have my 24 US codes and 25
UK free audiobook codes so it really is
probably just gonna take a matter of
putting your name down there in the
comments and then I'll ask for your
email to send you the specific
instructions and this week I'm going to
the pharmacy technician educators
conference and it's in Indianapolis
Indiana and I hope I'll be able to
interview a lot of people there and talk
to them those are my favorite things to
do although I you know certainly enjoy
doing an interview you know as I'm doing
it really when I get to an event there's
kind of an excitement and it's nice that
you know while you're in one room you're
always like oh I wish I could have gone
to that one too or I wish I could have
met this person I was kind of known
about this person so hopefully I get to
do some interviews there with some of
the pharmacy technician leaders and
educators that are at the conference so
that should be fun
Pharmacy podcast network I know that
PGX for pharmacists can Sternfeld I had
a talk about the antidote for delayed
clinical trials episode 626 and then
I'll spell his last name Kevin hej na s
he did a couple of YouTube videos one
has 220 thousand views and it was about
a twenty thousand calorie day or the
twenty thousand calorie challenge which
is nuts but if you think about a lion
eating a deer that's about 25,000
calories which makes it a lot easier
just kind of do it in one one thing but
as you see him sitting there in that
first video and he's got two dozen
donuts and a couple of wraps and
I think he has a gallon or half gallon
tub of Blue Bunny ice cream it is just
well it's if you've got nothing going on
I would check it out it's pretty cool
and it's a great interview by Haley ward
from the pharmacy future leaders really
really talking about how you can be
known for something but it doesn't have
to be something bad it can be something
very good and I know that in general and
I'll talk about Paul trans video this
week in general pharmacists are very
conservative don't want to make mistakes
don't want to look bad but on the other
hand you are not known for anything and
if you're not known for anything I think
you're kind of sunk in the water here
people are looking for specialists
people are looking for somebody that can
fix things that can fix very specific
problems you know I need somebody that
can fix a roof I need someone that can
do drywall I need somebody that can put
in tile I will probably go to three
different companies a roof company a
tile company and a drywall person and I
know that right now you think well that
that would close me off the
opportunities but that's not what people
look for people are looking for a very
specific thing and when they look for me
they look for Pharmacology for people
that didn't have chemistry but still
have to pass pharmacology and hopefully
you know I continue to do well at fixing
that or helping with that pain point a
tldr pharmacy so I know he had a busy
busy June he has a new post how to
understand destroy your student loans
talking about the your financial
pharmacists course that they have there
and if you are on TLDR pharmacies email
list there was a special offer in your
inbox I know that he sends certain
things out to his email list first is
just kind of a thank you for being part
of his community so check out the email
box if you haven't for email from TLDR
pharmacy if you were subscribed
otherwise do check out his blog TLDR
pharmacy comm how to understand and
destroy your student loans and he talks
about how much he saved when he really
had a good understanding with student
loans and this is
smart guy this is a guys it's just about
the past the Board Certification for
chemotherapy so when we talk about
student loans and I was on your
financial pharmacist podcast too we have
intelligence I almost maxed out the
English GRE score with a 98 and then I
put a math of 87 so at 98th and 87th
percentile but just because I can do
English and math doesn't mean I know a
darn thing about student loans or the
very specifics of them and so I would
definitely recommend the yfp teams
course or just start listening to their
podcast and kind of get an idea of who
these guys are and what they're doing
speaking of we can talk a little bit
about that with the pharmacy advisory
group
Hillary Blackburn just had Tim Church
from your financial pharmacists podcast
on and they talked about the VA and
talked about his role as part of the yfp
team so I always recommend hers as well
when I looked at your financial
pharmacists website it's always a little
bit of a delay between the newest
podcast episode which I think we were
they were talking with Tim Baker about
why it matters how your financial
planner gets paid and the key is that in
some way you want people that are
working for you to be tied in to your
success and if somebody just gets one
percent or two percent off the top of
what they sell you that's not really
doing anything with your success but if
in some way they're tied to your success
and your income and the money that
they're building for you then that's a
completely different model so I would
definitely check out the yfb podcast the
last one that they had on and then med
ed 101 so we'll split the blog and
podcasts or the blog itself you can
check out he's got a number of free
different this is Eric Christensen at
med ed 101 you want to check out the
BCPs stuff or you want to check out some
of the free pharmacology things that he
has there he does a really good job of
going from my p3 p4 year and then
since a year and then on from that where
I focus more on p1p2 year and then now
to some extent trying to get resource
out for AP PE students that we can talk
about cases we can you know work work up
certain ways to keep things in their
mind keep things memorized so that when
preceptors start throwing things at them
they're not like okay well what drug is
that or what class of drug is that
they're moving on to the advance thing
so memorization gets a bad rap in the
classroom right now but I have to tell
you that before understanding comes
memorization that is the very first and
most fundamental pillar so real-life
pharmacology so Eric Christensen also
had an episode coming out this week on
amoxicillin and augmentin pharmacology
it's a little bit longer than his usual
ones it's about 15 minutes but again
very listenable very easy ice
Midwesterners well now I'm a Midwestern
ER I just kind of have an easy way of
talking about things and just make it
feel like it's gonna be a good commute
an easy quick 15 minute update on
amoxicillin and augment in pharmacology
okay so on to the youtubers so Kevin yi
he's done a couple of recent videos
about pharmacy first he did why he quit
pharmacy then why it's not a good career
and then things that people don't really
tell you about pharmacy and he's not
trying to be mean or difficult with the
profession what he's just saying is that
these are the reasons I did pharmacy and
these are reasons that you probably
shouldn't do it and what I'm seeing over
and over again is that dissatisfaction
comes from not being tied to a purpose
that's in lined with a purpose that
matters to you I should shorten that in
some way or another but because my
family I'm first-generation college I
struggled so much with just the system
and understanding how things work in the
United States and how things work
as a new student and the mistakes that I
made 90% of them were preventable I
didn't know that I didn't study well at
home and never did my homework at home
because it's just not a good environment
for me but if I was at the library I
would absolutely be able to do it I
didn't know that the sticker price on a
private school wasn't what most people
paid I eliminated all private schools
when I applied for school because I
didn't know and my parents said this is
what we can afford and I said okay well
then that takes out all the privates I
didn't know that I possibly could have
paid less for a private school gone to a
smaller school and it would have been a
better thing because I wanted to
continue with wrestling and I wasn't
able to because I went to one of the big
schools and Florida didn't have
wrestling Maryland was one of the tops
in the country and I could have been a
decent d3 wrestler I think but that was
at the privates and I the the privates
were double what my parents were saying
I could could afford so that was just
not something that was just pure
ignorance
I just didn't know the answer so
separating intelligence and wisdom I was
an intelligent person I did well but I
wasn't a wise person I didn't know I
didn't have an older brother or older
sister to tell me oh yeah you know when
you're applying for schools this or when
you're studying that so I really
appreciate Kevin being so transparent
with everything Paul Tran he did a new
video on things you should not do during
pharmacy rotations and it is always fun
to see how conservative you know some
some students are with you know these
types of things but then how some
students completely break the mold and
like do I really need to tell you to put
your cell phone away do I really need to
tell you not to do this and so it's it's
kind of a it's a good reminder of those
things that you can do to maintain you
know your professionalism and keep in
good good stead because you really never
know who the pharmacy resident or the
preceptor knows funny story from an old
movie it's called doc Hollywood it was
my
J Fox and Michael J Fox was going across
the country to do work in this private
practice in Beverly Hills he was going
to be a plastic surgeon and I think the
drive was from New York to New York to
LA and he runs into like there was a cow
in the road he turned right and ran into
a fence and knocked down the fence and
then you know his cars wrecked and come
to find out that the fence that he
wrecked was a judge's fence so he gets
sentenced to community service
he's now delayed for this big interview
out on the west coast with this plastic
surgeon and then he stays in town for a
while and he saves the you know town
doctor and the doctor is very
semi-retired like he's got a note that
basically says call me only if
something's disattached or something
really bad happened and come to find out
that after he you know loses the
interview and possibly the position that
the doctor knew the surgeon recommended
him and he got the job because of it so
going circling all the way back to this
whole preceptor thing you really never
know who these preceptors know obviously
we you hear over and over that
pharmacies a small world but you know
I'm I have what 5,000 connections on
LinkedIn I don't know what it is but I
know a lot of people that can help these
people and I want to help them and it's
always easy
if you make it easier for us to refer
you and so that's why I do work and ask
them to get on LinkedIn and I do ask
them to do certain things that will
hopefully maybe push their boundaries a
little bit and make sure that they're
starting to get known for something
because people are looking for
specialists especially if in a little
more saturated areas so Brian Fung no
video this week but I feel like he is
going to be traveling I put in a request
from a video from Iceland just because I
think it's cool and I think that
traveling is really important getting
away is really important I always
go kicking and screaming because I do
love to work and you know once I'm about
two or three days in that's when I feel
not relaxed but I feel like I'm starting
to like all the racing thoughts are
going away I'm able to kind of start
putting things together starting to get
something out of the vacation in such a
way that I can bring them back and come
back with more energy so to kind of
recap I do recommend this book called
the defining decade why your 20s matter
and how to make the most of them now by
Meg J and I'm not sure when it was
written because some of the percentages
and the numbers she talks about seem
like they're a bit older so I'm
wondering if I'm gonna have to look it
up because I feel like this can't be a
recent book the the material is
certainly current and they're certainly
up to date but let me see when the
actual original publication date was no
it was 2013 so it's maybe the economy
hadn't lit up like it is now but she'll
talk about some things about
unemployment rates and things like that
they're probably not quite as true it's
not as hard to get a job but it's
certainly true about underemployment
it's certainly true about getting caught
up in internships that are unpaid jobs
that are less than satisfying and she
provides some really good solutions so
it's one of the top 1,000 books on
Amazon and to give you kind of
perspective on that my memorizing
pharmacology book I think is number 20
let me see I want to say it's like
around 20,000 or something like that the
paper book itself Oh 34,000 so my book
is around 34,000 and my book sells oh I
don't know about 4,000 copies a year so
as you move towards number one you're
exponentially moving up so you're you're
really looking at
thing that is selling probably I'd say
it probably sells 100,000 copies a year
easy and I definitely recommend this
book because I feel like the one thing
you want right now is you've been in
curricular institutionalized whatever
you want to call it for so long that now
that you're given all the options it
actually is not the best thing and so we
like those it was so much easier when I
graduated would you like to do retail or
hospital like the my cousin Vinnie would
you like the breakfast lunch or dinner
you know you just pick one or the other
and now I feel like we're still kind of
going to one or the other where it goes
do you want to do residency or not do
residency okay well if you do residency
then which residency do you want to do
you don't have to decide you do pgy one
and then you know you have this choice
and probably like what 30 specialties or
something like that if you do pgy - so
anyway I think that it's really really
valuable to take time to start listening
to other people that are struggling with
it the three youtubers but also in
succeeding the three youtubers but also
somebody who is a PhD and can answer
some of those questions because your 20s
are going to be apparently the most
uncertain time in your life and I can
vouch for that right now it's the first
time I've been able to invest in real
estate and go I know where I'm probably
gonna be in 20 years and that's awesome
in one way because I can you know make
accurate investments because I know
where I'm gonna be or I hope I know
where I'm gonna be all right well that
was a long one so I will talk to you
guys next week
support for this episode comes from the
audio book memorizing pharmacology a
relaxed approach with over 9,000 sales
in the United States United Kingdom and
Australia it's the go-to resource to
ease the Pharmacology challenge
available on audible iTunes and
amazon.com in print ebook and audiobook
thank you for listening to the pharmacy
leaders podcast with your host Tony
Guerra be sure to share the show with a
hashtag hash pharmacy leaders
