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Pharmacy Residency Podcast


Jan 12, 2018

Tim is a NEOMED grad, PGY1 residency trained at West Palm Beach VA Medical Center, and practices chronic disease management clinical pharmacy. He's authored When Eating Right Isn't Enough: The Top 5 Medications to Control Your Type 2 Diabetes and co-authored The Seven Figure PharmacistHe's part of a company and movement to help pharmacy students and graduates achieve financial freedom. 
 
http://yourfinancialpharmacist.com/
https://sevenfigurepharmacist.com
 
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 on building your professional
network craft and a purposeful second
income from students residents and
innovative professionals this is Tim
church team member of your financial
farm assistant you're listening to the
pharmacy leaders podcast welcome to the
pharmacy leaders podcast we are ringing
in 2018 and the first thing of course we
think about is health but we also think
about wealth so I brought in one of our
experts from the your financial
pharmacists team to help us out a little
bit talk about some of them maybe major
decisions that you're going to be making
is you're going towards residency as
you're moving towards graduation and
maybe if you're going to change careers
so welcome Tim to the pharmacy leaders
podcast Tony thank you so much for
having me it's a real pleasure and I'm
excited to be on ok well the first
question I wanted to ask is everyone's
leadership road is a little bit
different maybe tell us a little bit
about where your leadership road started
and how you got to where you are sure
why I grew up in Ohio and I did all of
my training I undergrad in my pharmacy
school there and I was actually in the
first graduating class at Northeast Ohio
Medical University at the College of
Pharmacy home of the of the walking
Wales we have other interesting mascots
okay but I think really my leadership
journey kind of started when I was in
pharmacy school and I had the privilege
of being under just so many great
faculty members that had a tremendous
vision for the school and really
motivated me to want to pursue pharmacy
to serve patients and and just be a
great overall all-around person so we
had a we had a great Dean dr. David
Allen was just an amazing Dean he had a
great vision and so being under his
leadership I learned a lot from him and
a lot of the other people at the school
too and I think what was kind of cool as
being a part of the first graduating
class we had a lot of opportunities to
shape what the subsequent class
we're going to be like and so I got a
chance to start one of the local
chapters of the ACCP so American College
a clinical pharmacy we kind of started
an an unregistered student chapter now
that they that they actually do have
sanctioned chapters which is pretty cool
I've heard the same thing from other
students at other new colleges can you
tell me what the the trend across the
country is that if a new college opens
there's going to people that go and one
school of thought is there's too many
colleges we're opening too many colleges
but the other school of thought is there
wasn't enough choice when I went to
pharmacy school in 93 80 percent were
public and you just went to the
mothership and that was where you went
to pharmacy school can you tell me a
little bit about what made you take the
leap into a new pharmacy school and like
neo med is aptly you know that name new
pharmacy or new med so but what made you
what made you take that jump that's a
that's a big risk for guys that talk
about minimizing risk definitely you
know in in Ohio it's crazy I believe
there's seven schools now I believe do
med was the six and then Cedarville came
on board but there's a lot of options in
Ohio and I kind of felt that I wanted to
stay close to family and friends and so
neo med made the most sense and actually
one of the professor's he's now the Dean
there dr. Rick has more just a great guy
and great leader and he was one of the
mentors for me and kind of helped steer
me into going into the school and just
thought it would be a good opportunity
as I got to shadow under him at one of
the local hospitals in the area so that
was kind of how I got into going to neo
men but you're right I mean there
certainly are risks with a new College
of Pharmacy not having anybody in front
of you to talk to or know what it's like
me the guinea pigs yeah yeah and so yeah
it was I think it was exciting but also
there were some concerns about going
forward but like I said what what really
made me feel comfortable and confident
about being a part of the first class
was having just that tremendous
leadership team in place okay yeah I I
went to the first pharmd class at
Maryland
and what I was told was that after our
class there was less excitement kind of
like the first kid you're always
hovering around them making sure
everything's okay by the third kid
you're like well try not to pull the TV
on your head you know that kind of thing
and so I think that first class so much
is riding on that first class that
everybody really kind of pulls together
well let's talk let's talk money let's
talk wealth and and what is your you
know big pharmacy goal so what is your
goal for 2018 as it relates to wealth
and pharmacy and helping others either
create wealth or or save their wealth
sure well I recently partnered with Tim
Albrecht he's the founder of your
financial pharmacist and also Tim Baker
he's another fellow team member he's a
certified financial planner and owner of
script financial which is actually in in
Maryland it's in Baltimore I think
that's where you're from right yeah yeah
I'm actually on the other side of the
the inner harbor he's Canton he's over
in I think Locust Point but yeah for
those of you that haven't been to
Baltimore that three miles can take 30
minutes in traffic so but our goal our
goal as a team for four yfp is as we've
discussed kind of going into the new
year we really want to be the go-to
financial resource for pharmacists and
pharmacy students and help them achieve
financial freedom and and we're really
looking because we truly believe that
when pharmacists they get clarity with
their financial plan and have that
mindset on how they're going to tackle
their student loans and other parts that
they can really become happier they can
focus on other important aspects of
their life their career their family and
just other things that are really
important to them and so that's kind of
our big overall vision and what we're
looking for in the way we plan to do
that is just keep expanding the
resources that we're putting out we have
blog posts we have a podcast that's on
weekly and we continue to put up new
calculators and guides that are free for
everybody right on the website so you've
already were pharmacists and then you
- did pgy one residency how do you have
how did you get the you know what were
some of the barriers to adding this to
your life well I think obviously just I
didn't know what I was getting into
bliss what what's interesting is in
terms of personal finance and education
I had two hours before I graduated
okay
the education now had what I realized is
that I was doing everything wrong for
about the first two two-and-a-half years
after I graduated I had taken everything
that I had learned from my parents from
family from the media about how you
should handle your money and it turns
out it wasn't very good advice and so I
think I kind of felt like a lot of other
pharmacists do that are coming out that
yes you're making a good income but the
reality is is you're coming out with a
negative net worth and you're broke and
I didn't have that realization initially
it took about a year or two to wake up
and say look you're you're not in the
best financial position you could be and
you need a plan to sort of get in better
shape and when I look at my journey I
realized that I need to start gathering
really sound evidence and getting in
touch with podcast books and so I became
just a voracious reader of personal
finance just became a passion and
interest of mine and as I started to see
progress at my own and my own finances
that I did thought it's be great to help
other people on their journeys because
of what I had learned what I had learned
and really I started teaching some
classes help facilitating at my local
church and that was a really cool
opportunity because there's a lot of
people that that needed help and then I
sort of realized that well a lot of
other pharmacists need help too and
that's sort of when I got back in touch
with Tim Albrecht which for those that
people don't know Tim was actually my
preceptor when I was that man so you
know we go from Tim Tim was my preceptor
at Giant Eagle pharmacy and he was
making me go on otc scavenger hunts
and that you know fast-forward a couple
years later and now we you know we
become business partners and co-authors
on on the book so it's kind of a cool
and interesting journey but I think it
was really birth out of my own situation
and a need to get in a better position
and then also just I was looking for
ways and opportunities to what else
could I do besides just my my main
pharmacy job which I which I really
enjoy where I work in doing chronic
disease management but it's kind of like
well I have other interests and passions
that I want to pursue our schools tend
to be extremely secular we never really
talk about religion Christine Tamaki
langa and from University of the
sciences had a summer experience where
she would go with church group and
nurses and doctors and so there were no
borders across Health Professions
they're all working with the church to
find people that maybe were being missed
by the system check blood pressure
diabetes things like that was the ramsey
course or anything else in the church
what maybe i guess what i'm trying to
get at is is there something else within
the church that maybe is helping you
along with this road or path or is it a
belief that you have beyond just
pharmacists help people yeah i mean i i
believe you know i'm a believer and
through my faith that I find serving
people is one of the most important
things that i do and if you if you look
there's many instances with with money
and helping people through money and
their journeys and there's a lot of
things you know from scripture that talk
about money and how to help people and
that's definitely been important in my
life and in really one of my callings
for kind of going forward with all of
the others side projects that i've been
doing okay so let's say you're a
pharmacy resident or pharmacy student
you're looking at the numbers and you
see that it's going to be a little bit
tough with just the one salary you
actually have now on extra business what
recommendations would you make for them
to kind of get into their own passion
business or calling or however they find
what it
and how they want to serve well I think
the most important thing is even though
you're a pharmacist that doesn't have to
define who you are it's a part of your
life and it's in it for a lot of people
it's a very important part of your life
because you go through the training you
find that that's your calling and what
you want to do but it doesn't have to
define who you are and and that's what
I've sort of tried to look out for that
being a pharmacist is important I love
it I love my job I love serving patients
but it's only one aspect of really who I
am and and what I'm about and so I think
that I would tell students and residents
just to keep that in mind as you're
going forward that you don't have to
pigeonhole yourself into just pharmacy
just clinical activities that there's so
many opportunities to explore your gifts
your talents and your skills that you
have to and really to go after it and
you don't have to limit yourself to what
your training as a pharmacist has done
okay
well how do you have the energy to do
this so you have a long day at work then
you come home and now you're working on
your business yet maybe a family and all
of these things going on you've probably
got volunteer church groups maybe men's
club things like that how do you keep
your energy up well I think that the
first thing is is I'm just really
passionate every time I'm so excited to
work on your financial pharmacists
activities because I know that the work
we're doing is helping people get to a
better place with their finances helping
pharmacists and students be better off
than they were before if they wouldn't
have had those resources so that really
fires me up and I just I love working on
it and I'll be honest I do have to be
intentional with my time but if you look
at it everyone has a hundred and sixty
eight hours in a week 40 of them are
spent at work and then another 49 hours
if you're lucky are gonna be with you
sleeping so if you look at it I feel
like I have about 80 hours or so that I
actually control I mean if you look at
it that's a lot of time and so I'm
really intentional about how I use that
time
and you know some people may say that
you want to have a you've probably heard
it many people have heard you want to
have a good work-life balance and I kind
of bought into that and I believe that
for a while but my perspective change
when I read the book called the one
thing by Gary Keller I've read into so
we can talk about it for sure oh that's
great and I just I love that because he
it's so good when he talks about that
work-life balance is really something
that will promote mediocrity and I've
noticed that anything that I've wanted
to do that's substantial that's
meaningful that's important that I've
really had at times or seasons really
put massive amounts of time and energy
and then I have to shift myself back to
be a better husband be a better friend
and and the people that support me they
understand that and they know that when
you're passionate about something that
sometimes that you're going to have that
disconnect and you're not going to have
equal amount of time spent in each area
of your life
so right now a lot of students are
trying to get a job and there's a big
mind there's often the mindset of I need
to get this thing but it sounds like
your method or your philosophy is to
give then ask then receive how do you as
a student or new graduate keep that
service mindset as you're going to these
interviews that they're going to be
going on for the job well I think that's
the most important thing when I look at
another book that I would recommend that
I that I read and that really just
changed how I looked at making money and
jobs was a book call it's a small book
called the go Giver by Bob Berg and he
talks about something in there called
the law of compensation and what the law
of compensation is is that your income
is determined by how many people you
serve and how well you serve them and
I've always tried to keep that at the
forefront of my mind whatever I'm doing
whether it's working or I'm doing any
kind of side business is that it's okay
to make money number one but if you have
that intention and what you're trying to
do is you're trying to serve people and
keeping that in mind I
that's the most important thing and you
can you can express yourself that way on
when you go on interviews or whether
you're trying to come up with your own
entrepreneurial activities yeah I think
Ziegler has something like that where
it's a you can get everything you want
as long as you can get enough people
what they want
yeah it's a little bit keeping that in
mind well tell me a little bit about
your associates how do you first of all
tell me maybe a little bit about the
group of three that you have and then
what each of your roles is I know a lot
of students are entrepreneurial but many
of them are trying to take it on on
their own and it sounds like you've
managed to find this partnership where
you each have a piece and this group is
bigger than the individuals so tell me a
little bit about what each of the group
members of your financial pharmacists
does sure well I met Tim I already
mentioned that I met Tim Albrecht and
when he was my preceptor and and
professor at neo med and then we've kind
of just talked along the way and the
book came before the partner but the
part of the partnership with your
financial farms and so basically we
wrote the book together and then he's
actually the founder of yfp your
financial Pharma system had been
blogging since 2015 and basically just
recently over the past six months asked
me invited me to join on the team
because like like you said he he
believed that having more people with
their different strengths was better
than you know him alone and Tim Baker
he's the certified financial planner so
he brings his strengths to the table
just with his sheer education and his
experience with having clients
one-on-one and he's very interesting
practice because he's built that around
pharmacist which is really very very
niche for a certified financial planner
to build your entire practice around one
profession so that was kind of cool and
he and Tim Albrecht it's hard to get all
the Tim about the chemistry but he and
Tim Albrecht actually met via Twitter
and then they met up at a Bob Evans in
Ohio
and started the conversation there and
they talked about starting the yfp
podcast and so that was kind of in the
mix and then it was like okay how do we
all three of us come together to be able
to bring our strengths and our skills
and I think that that's essentially what
we've done
let me Tim Tim Albrecht he's been the
founder and he sort of been the
visionary for the company and what we're
trying to accomplish and then I brought
my own experience and knowledge with
learning about personal finance and with
writing the book and then also I've
we've basically had to bootstrap a lot
of the things and so I've learned
website development now on my own so
we're we're kind of learning some of
these skills as we go marketing you know
Facebook Ads and it's really it's really
cool because we're playing off each
other's strengths and we definitely look
to each other in different areas to make
sure that we're getting better results
than we could on our own okay well let
me break those down a little bit more so
let's start with your role I'm so are
you working the WordPress site I know
that you probably had a developer and I
can't know Matt and I know how much it
costs to put up a site like that so
that's that's definitely an investment
not only on your part but for your
clients but tell me a little bit about
what you're doing is it the WordPress
site that you're working is that what
you take some on lynda.com or something
like that so what so what interesting so
Tim Albrecht had this site already
created and then he did a revamp I want
to say that was about six to eight
months ago okay and essentially what I
realized is that we could save a lot of
money if I learned how to do web site at
you could save a lot of money or did you
decide you could save a lot of money and
I also thought it was kind of I mean
this is the nerd coming out as I
actually thought it was kind of fun so
what I learned okay a visual composer
which is a lot of drag and dropping and
I didn't need to know any code it
actually became you know pretty fun to
be able to work with the site and so
I've done a lot of the enhancements with
the site worked with developers to get
some calc
you laters and then also integrate some
other tech stuff such as leadpages in
order to make sure that we're capturing
people that want to come to our site and
want to be part of the community and so
I've done that's been a big role of mine
and then in addition to some of the
content development and then I've sort
of been leading up a project that we're
we're hoping to release we're planning
to release and around May or June but
we're going to come out with a student
loan online course that's really gonna
be geared for pharmacy residents and new
practitioners oh that's awesome
so tell me a little bit about your
Facebook strategy to say that you're
successful so I have 22 likes on my
website from Facebook and you have 607
so what did I do wrong and what did you
do right
social media is interesting I mean I I
wouldn't say that I'm an expert by any
means and and I know with Facebook or
anymore with Facebook I mean they're
they're constantly changing the
algorithms and how certain posts and
what you put in there and how they're
presented and how that gets to people
and it's always changing so I'm always
looking to Amy Porterfield on her
podcasts because she always is on the
forefront and has all of the updates on
what you should be doing so if you're if
you're looking at how to harness that or
Facebook ads or how you're marketing I
mean she's kind of like the go-to person
that I that I look to she'll be my new
best friend okay all right so now we've
got kind of your role with some social
media but also the website making sure
that your presence is there online you
talked a little bit about Tim Albrecht
anything more you want to add besides
founder can you tell me about a little
bit about the public speaking that you
guys do in the outreach I know as part
of the the church when I was younger
outreach was a tremendous part of it but
it sounds like this is kind of a
movement you're trying to get out there
to really educating maybe filling a gap
you mentioned two hours of financial
instruction when you were in school can
you tell me about the outreach you guys
are doing definitely so that this past
year
I I think we touched on about nine or
ten schools I was able to go to four
schools last year and really talk about
the book and talk about just personal
finance in general and and we do believe
that that is a big part of it because
unfortunately the way that the ACP
standards are right now there is no
mandatory personal finance courses
there's some business courses that are
and some schools have sort of they put
that in there in the mix with it and a
lot of other schools have elective
courses which is great but we're
definitely looking to get out to as many
schools as we can to kind of share that
message and spread the word and get
people interested and talking about it
even in their their early p1p2 years
just so that they're are prepared and
they have that information and can be
armed so that they can make really good
decisions you know upon graduating
whether they go into residency or
whether they you know go straight into
practice okay so now tell me a little
bit about the other Tim's role as a
financial planner how does that fit in
now he's a fee-only financial planner he
focuses on Gen X Gen Y no wait wait
millennial and Gen X do I have it right
yeah because it ends at me yeah so I'm
Jax so tell me a little bit about his
fee only seems to fit with your decision
to kind of make it a service but a
service kind of a heart but tell me a
little bit about how he fits into the
picture well he's definitely one of the
content experts just based on his
education and experience alone I mean
this the CFP designation you know it
takes a law it takes a while to get that
because it's not just about you take a
couple courses and and then you pass a
test you actually have to have a lot of
documented hours of experience okay and
it can take a number of years to get
that but one of the things that I think
is not just the fact that he's focused
his business around serving pharmacists
it's the fact that we believe in how
he's charging pharmacists and how he
charges for his services and like you
said with fee-only that's a really a big
deal because
when you say your fee only you're
essentially saying you're only paying me
for the advice that I'm giving you you
know I don't get paid by any products
there's other services that I recommend
and unfortunately so many people in the
financial industry that's been the
old-school model in terms of how people
have gotten paid and if you're not up
operating under the fiduciary standard
you're you don't have to do what's in
the clients best interests or do what's
reasonable or suitable but maybe not
necessarily the best thing and so with
his credentials the way he practices
something that we believe in and that we
believe is a great service for people
that are looking to that need a coach or
that need that really that overall
comprehensive management and planning
you know it kind of fits in with what
we're trying with what we're trying to
do so he just plays an awesome role and
he's he's the one he's Tim Baker is one
of the Tim's who's on the podcast
regularly and I'm kind of a guest on
there so he does that and he's like I
said he's the content expert and then
really is helping us with general
content and just the new course that
were coming out with and just being that
great resource where we can recommend
people that we know somebody that we
trust and we believe in how he's
practicing I'm trying to picture this
meeting because your business model
basically says let's take people that
are a hundred and sixty thousand dollars
in debt and let's start working with
them so it just to work in that in that
regard just is a is really selfless as
I'm kind of thinking through it like
it's so long-term then it's it's kind of
refreshing actually because I know that
the the industry it has its ups and
downs and and now with the market being
so hot everyone's an expert on stocks
but to take the long approach to talk
about the debt as well as you know the
possibilities is phenomenal well one one
other thing I wanted to kind of touch on
is time so when you talk about finances
would in general most people are going
to say okay yeah I'll get to it what was
your way or
how do you recommend somebody take
action now because yeah it's New Years
yeah we've-- resolutions yeah people
break resolutions what is it do they
have to fall off a cliff before they you
know come to you know a financial change
or is there a way that they can kind of
ease in and just kind of get started
well I don't I don't think they have to
have a financial pitfall or come to a
realization like I did that oh my gosh
I'm broke but I do think you have to
keep those most important goals and
where you're trying to go and and why
you want to get there so not just the
goal itself but why and sometimes it can
be overwhelming with the number of
financial things that you need to do or
need to get done and that's why I think
it's so important just to sort of break
it down and look at things individually
at a time and say well what's the most
important thing that I can do at this
time or what's the one thing that's
going to help me move in the right
direction that's going to increase my
net worth and get me into a better
financial position so there's there's a
number of different ways to sort of look
at that but it can be overwhelming it
can be overwhelming just to even get
started you know I for some people that
like you said they want to put it off
and get to it later there are people
that they're not going to change they're
not going to get away from the status
quo unless they people don't change
unless they have they're inspired or
they're in a desperate situation it's
usually one or the other but I think
it's just so important that the sooner
that you get that mindset that you get
those goals in place and you have that
strong motivation that why behind you
why you want to achieve those that
that's just so important because as you
know with compound interest and compound
debt I mean the the longer that you wait
to take action with your finances the
the worse off you're going to be because
interest works against you and compound
interest with investing works for you so
you really have to look at that and it
is a long-term play it's not just even
necessarily one decision but it's habits
and doing things over and over and over
again until you get good results
time later down the road okay well
that's a lot of value and I I think what
I want to do is just stop the episode
here and then what we'll do is we'll
come back with a second episode and
where we're gonna talk through your book
and kind of the six prescriptions that
you have for financial success so thanks
very much Tim for being on the podcast
thanks for having me Tony hey thanks for
listening the podcast this is Tim Church
team member of your financial
pharmacist's if you head on over to our
website your financial pharmacist calm
you can download one of our free guides
to help jump-start your financial
journey 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
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