Ownership in Veterinary Medicine and What That Means for You featuring Isaiah Douglass, MBA, CFP, CEPA

Isaiah Douglass joins us today to break down some important topics - best ways to choose a financial planner, why you need to know the value of your practice if you own one, ways in which ownership can benefit an individual… and my personal favorite - you are allowed to fire toxic clients! Plus, he gave us a ton of resources and tips on leadership and financial investing. Let me know how this episode resonates with you!

...
About Our Guest

Hi, my name is Isaiah Douglass. I am a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™, Certified Exit Planner, and Fee-Only advisor. I left a large national firm to found a solo financial planning firm in 2018 to pursue a planning approach that is dedicated to identifying ways to grow the net worth of veterinarians and dentists. In the summer of 2020, I merged with another financial advisor and became a partner in Vincere Wealth Management.

I am the host of the weekly podcast The Veterinarian Success Podcast which interviews and discusses topics related to clinical, business, financial, and personal of the lives of veterinarians. I am deeply involved in speaking within veterinary medicine via students, podcasts, video interviews, and spoken at the Veterinary Financial Summit conference. I am on the Communications Committee within VetPartners to help deliver the message of the organization to membership, but also the veterinary industry.

Vincere Wealth Management
The Veterinarian Success Podcast
Isaiah's IG : @isaiahd_vwm
Isaiah on LinkedIn
Veterinarian Financial Advisor Network

Hear ME being interviewed on Isaiah's podcast!

Podcast Recommendations:
The Knowledge Project (specifically episodes 96 and 67)
Invest Like The Best
Morgan Housel on Modern Wisdom (episode 222)

Book Recommendation: The NEXT Millionaire Next Door by Thomas Stanley and Sarah Stanley Fallaw

Find the Veterinarian's Financial Guide HERE!
...

Ways to connect with The Whole Veterinarian!
Instagram: @thewholeveterinarian
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewholeveterinarian/
Email: thewholeveterinarian@gmail.com
www.thewholeveterinarian.com

SIGN UP for the The Whole Veterinarian Newsletter HERE!

Transcript

Stacey Cordivano: 0:07

Hey there, it's Dr. Stacey Cordivano. I want veterinarians to learn to be happier, healthier, wealthier and more grateful for the life that we've created. On this podcast I will speak with outside of the box thinkers to hear new ideas on ways to improve our day to day life. Welcome to the whole veterinarian. Hi, everyone. Guess what, I officially have a proper sponsor. Isaiah Douglas also happens to be my guest today, but I actually interviewed him quite a while before the sponsorship came to fruition. Please check out some info about his company and then enjoy this episode where we discuss some reasons why you might want to consider ownership in veterinary medicine. Questions about finances? Vincere Wealth Management is the solution. Isaiah Douglass is a partner of in Vincere Walth Management and the host of The Veterinarian Success podcast. He is a fee only certified financial planner and he and the Vincere team are dedicated to serving veterinarians in all stages of their careers. Vincere can assist you whether you are a new graduate getting started or an experienced but trying to navigate selling your clinic and moving into retirement. You have enough stress in your life. Finances no longer need to be on that list. You can find a link to download their free guide called a Financial Guide for Veterinarians on my website at thewholeveterinarian.com/resources. Thanks and enjoy the episode. I am sitting down today with Isaiah Douglass. Isaiah is a certified financial planner and a fee only advisor. He's a partner at vincere wealth management and is the host of the veterinarian success podcast. I'm so happy to sit down and chat with you today, Isaiah.

Isaiah Douglass : 1:59

Thank you so much, appreciate the invite. This is fun. I get to hear your questions now after getting to the interview.

Stacey Cordivano: 2:06

Yeah, this is good to reconnect. I know that you focus a lot of your clientele on veterinarians, and I was curious how you got to us?

Isaiah Douglass : 2:16

Yeah, first, I was told not to focus on veterinarians, because they don't like to talk about money, they don't make any money, which both are not true. There is a big need. And I think anyone that is a veterinarian knows like their the conversation around money and some of those conversations that you need advice and guidance. And people want that and they crave it. So one of the reasons and how I kind of got to veterinary medicine was a personal relationship actually had in the dental world. So I went to high school, rural Indiana high school with 62 people. One of the guys I played sports with got accepted to dental school, very humble upbringing, he kind of had asked me, hey, I want to own a business someday, I'm gonna have a lot of debt. I don't have parents that are paying for all this, I'm gonna come out with the ability to make some money, but I'm gonna have a lot of debt. Like, can you help me you do money stuff? After laughing a little bit? I said, Yeah, you know, at the time I was at Merrill Lynch. So he was by no means the ideal client because he had no no income and a lot of debt at that point. That kind of sparked the whole idea of looking at how do I help him, which developed into building out relationships with other people that were doing things differently than what I was doing. And that could be attorneys that were helping with practice purchases, healthcare, real estate, CPAs. They also were working in that med, a handful of them. And they had asked me, Hey, we have some veterinarians that we work with, would you ever be interested in talking to them? I said, Absolutely. And so once I started digging in more on the the vet med side, started seeing a lot of similarities between the two. So you kind of have these different life stages you go through as a new grad associate, you come out, you're trying to figure out like, what does the world look like outside of school, and you have a lot of the same questions, again, a lot of debt. Maybe I want to become an owner, maybe I don't, I'm getting married, I have kids. How do I start doing some of these things to set myself up for success? Then you move into, okay, I want to be an owner, I just bought a practice. Awesome. What does that look like? How do I run a business? How do I track things? How do I be successful? How do I not you know, get myself into a troublesome situation? And how do I grow this asset over time? And how do I market How do I become a leader? And those are things that maybe they haven't been taught before? And then moving to the end of transitioning to retirement making the work optional, which I think is traditionally where most people think about financial advisors coming in, like, Hey, you just got this big paycheck from you know, this consolidator. And what do you do with it? How do you make that into your retirement? You know, nest egg, I do have conversations with with all three,

Stacey Cordivano: 4:28

I'm gonna guess that your suggestion to most veterinarians is not to bank on that selling that nesting and having that later and starting early, correct? What are some fundamentals that you are passionate about?

Isaiah Douglass : 4:40

So there was a really interesting study by biz equity, which they are trying to look at valuations with all kinds of different businesses, not just veterinary medicine, but they put out a statistic that like 10% of small business owners understand the value of their business. And it's really interesting where I would probably equate that from the conversations I've had very true in veterinary medicine where most people don't know what their Rex is worth. It'd be like someone that is a an employee that saved in their 401k for 40 years, right? they've saved in there, they put money away each paycheck. They say, You know what? I'm gonna retire, Stacey. And you say, that's great. How much do you have in there? Well, I don't know, hopefully there's enough. And that's what most people do with the practice. Hopefully, there's enough and I get it that valuations are expensive. Hopefully, that will continue to come down. And there are some good services out there. They're helping to lower the cost of getting valuations and just understanding what are the drivers of evaluations in today's world not 10 years ago, not 15 years ago, but what's it look like today? The suggestion that I would have is, understand that this is the biggest asset that's going to change the dynamics of you know, your family, what is it worth? And how can you make sure that you're doing the most appropriate things to keep that value as high as it can be without sacrificing you know, your standard of care, moral, ethical, all that other stuff, like, make sure you run a business you're proud of, but there are things that you can do to certainly increase the value?

Stacey Cordivano: 5:52

And where do you see the role of a financial planner for potentially those people who don't have one or maybe aren't utilizing theirs? Well, even for non owners, what is your role for veterinarians?

Isaiah Douglass : 6:05

So I would say the role of a good financial advisor in to me is, if you have questions around anything that$1 sign touches in your life, they're helping you address those questions. And if they don't have the skills or expertise, they can make an introduction to someone that does, I think, for a lot of people, that's their CPA, and I think CPAs typically have a better reputation than advisors for a lot of different reasons. But I think it's partially the way the industry was created in the way it developed over time, from selling stuff to providing advice and guidance. Like, that's kind of been the transition where people historically have looked at advisors at selling stuff, there still are those people out there, unfortunately. But more and more, it's, it's much more of a relational and advice business. So again, if $1 sign is in your life, or it could impact $1 sign, which is pretty much everything, like everything, I've had conversations about trying to get pregnant and IVF versus, you know, buying a car versus buying a practice, like all these different things, anything $1 sign touches, like I think that's where an advisor can be beneficial, for the most part, they can help give advice and guidance to think of where you can go for specific things. So trying to be the person that you can bounce ideas off of and collaborate with, I think that's the key piece of what an advisor can do if they're good. And there are a lot of really good advisors out there.

Stacey Cordivano: 7:14

And can you clarify what a fee only advisor is?

Isaiah Douglass : 7:17

Yeah, fee only, it basically is, you know, if I'm paying someone $200 a month, or $5,000 a year, that's the only compensation they get, that's the way that they're compensated, it's not, hey, if I get you to open a credit card, and also get your mortgage here and your business loan, financial planner, Isaiah gets an extra bonus or a trip to you know, wherever I saw that in a previous life where, you know, it was like the household had have so many different things with the with the bank to qualify for this promotion, and you had to do X, Y, and Z to get paid more. And the fee only model, it just takes away some of the extra crap that's there. I mean, that's a very, you know, financial term, but it is there's just a lot of garbage that's there when it's a bigger institution. And for me, it's always you know, if you look at someone's a certified financial planner, and only if you screen by that criteria, you're gonna have 90% of the bad apples out of the way. And again, there's good people that don't fall within that umbrella. It's not me saying that everyone else is wrong. And there's no other way to do business.

Stacey Cordivano: 8:10

But that would be an easy way for people.

Isaiah Douglass : 8:13

Yeah, if I'm a consumer, I just want to make things as simple as possible so do that screen, then look for the right fit. And look, who knows, and has expertise in what your questions are. I think that's an easy way to kind of screen out and find the right fit.

Stacey Cordivano: 8:26

Perfect. So we connected at the veterinary financial summit, and you were on a roundtable and someone had asked how do I get myself out of this veterinary student debt? And there were a lot of long winded answers. And your answer was become a practice owner. So I wanted to dig into that a little bit and hear why you feel so strongly that veterinarians need to look at that.

Isaiah Douglass : 8:52

Yeah, I would say, first and foremost, because there's a reason why there's millions of dollars coming from consolidators into the space and why private equity really loves vetinary medicine. It's not because they're stupid. It's because it's a very profitable business and they see an opportunity. If you look back into the great financial crisis around 2008 2009, you know, vetinary, practice revenue was flat to down 1%, where most of the economy was actually wrecked. If you look at COVID, once again, recession proof. I don't love that term, because I that's not everybody again, but on average, most veterinary hospitals have done fantastic. Yeah, just kind of the way it's been. If I look at I have $1, where's the best place to put it? That's always the way that I start the average return on a hospital looking at the VSG report from 2018. And then again, its companion health. So yes, equally might be a little less certain practices can be different than the profitability but as an owner after you pay yourself compensation that should be normal for your position. The return on your money is in the mid teens, they had 16%. If I look at the return of the s&p 500, which is the 500 biggest stocks in the United States that everyone likes to track and say and call the market, that return is around 9%. And that's Since 1913, so if I can go get an extra 7% return, why wouldn't I want that. And I know that's very simplistic. Like, there's a lot of other things you got to do to be a practice owner, and make that work. But even if I have that additional return, I also am building equity in something that I can sell in the future. And you can go out and hire people, if you don't feel comfortable with the tax side of things, you go find a really good CPA, there's a lot of people that are great in veterinary medicine that can help come alongside you and be a partner to make your practices efficient as possible and help you take care of some of those questions. And you can still pay them and still make more than you would as an associate. And I think so many people look at all I'm an owner, I can't spend money on stuff, well, sometimes you need to look at what your your hourly rate is. And I think, aha at a study from 19, or 20, I can't remember but it was like the benefits in compensation guide where it put you know, $250 an hour is kind of the, the vetinary hourly rate. So that's kind of where I would like to challenge people is, hey, if your time is worth that, and maybe your time is worth more or less depend on what you do, and someone's gonna charge you, you know, $100, to do something, shoot, if you can go then do something else, like that's a good return on your time and a good return on your money. So go do that and go be as productive as you can do and something else. But yeah, I'm a big advocate of practice ownership, I own my own business and my partner in it. So I do have a bias take. But to me, it makes all the sense in the world to look at doing your own thing versus going to be an associate for someone else, where they dictate a lot of the rules that you kind of live by.

Stacey Cordivano: 11:20

I'm also a business owner. So I'm also a little bit biased. But I also know that there are some headaches that come along with it. But if someone comes to you and says, Yeah, maybe I've heard practice ownership can be a good way to increase my annual salary. But I have all this debt. And it seems so overwhelming is that the tactic that you would take with them is just comparing what they can do with that dollar? Or are there other things that you take into consideration when someone comes to you uncertain that they could pull it off?

Isaiah Douglass : 11:51

I would say when you got the letter of acceptance, again, a veterinary school, when you got that letter saying, hey, you can come and become a veterinarian. Obviously you celebrating, we're really excited. What was the picture in your mind that you thought of at that moment? Was it I want to go work for someone else? Or did I want to be an owner? That's the question I would ask. And if that desire or that itch is there that you want to be an owner, scratch it, just because you have a lot of debt, there are plenty of banks that still will lend you money, not that I think you should just pile on as much debt as possible. Because again, that can be stressful. And I get that, that there is a real element of human psychology and emotion that can overwhelm you if you have you know, millions of dollars of debt. The example I gave about my friend earlier, I think when he bought his practice, he bought a practice straight out. He was a dentist, I think he had $1.5 million in debt at one point, which is insane. But he had a healthy income that he will be able to pay that back over time. It's something that you can't look at it as you know, student loan debt is this is nasty thing. I think so many people are taught that debt is evil, and it's bad and you have to get rid of it as soon as possible. You know, Allah, think of Dave Ramsey run away from debt. It's terrible. Like it's the evil thing. Well look at it as an investment. So if you can invest in yourself and get a return that you can with your DVM degree, it's still not a bad investment, especially if you wanted to become an owner. Even if you want to be an associate. There's nothing wrong with that. It's not like I'm anti go work for someone else. There are certain times in life where it makes all the sense of the world. But your earning potential is seven half million$7 million. Like that's, that's incredible. That's a good investment. The CEO of JB, which owns compassion first/ NVA talked about veterinary medicine is in the first 10 years of a 15 year golden age of Veterinary Medicine. So we're in a really good spot. That's a guy that controls a lot of money and spoiling a lot of strings in the space. So I think the biggest thing that veterinarians do is they undervalue their skill set, they undervalue what you all can do. Because all of this money that's made in veterinary medicine doesn't happen without a DVM.

Stacey Cordivano: 13:37

Yeah, it's a good point. I'm trying, I'm thinking back to your question. I'm wondering how many people could answer that question on the spot? What did it look like when you first got accepted to vet school? I'm stuck on wondering how many people could answer that.

Isaiah Douglass : 13:52

Yeah, it might be it might be hard. But I did a recent podcast with Travis York. And he had a great line, which I've told him, I'm going to swipe, which is steal with integrity and pride. I'm going to reuse it all the time. But it was the entrepreneurial ownership versus economic ownership. And so there's a lot of consolidators, or corporate entities or even relief services that you can go work for. And you can have some economic ownership in equity. So some ownership in that larger entity to continue to have some return on the work that you do. So if you're putting in the work, you're doing a great job and that business grows, you can be a an owner in that growth, which is awesome. And that's great. But you can also go out and start your own business and have the ownership fully or most of the way right and seeing maybe more upside, but you have more responsibility around the decisions that are there. So I think you have to understand yourself and you have to look at the family dynamics and what it is that you do, what is your spouse do if you're married and kind of what does life look like long term because again, you don't have to work full time. You don't have to do all these different things. These are just things to discuss because again, it's ultimately your life and don't you know wasted chasing someone else's dream. Don't let someone else tell you have to be a practice owner. I think that's key too.

Stacey Cordivano: 14:58

Can we talk about some of the perks, Maybe perk is not the right word, some of the benefits while being an owner, things that associates aren't able to do.

Isaiah Douglass : 15:07

First and foremost, I think this will become more clear in the coming decade. And further, as long as we continue to have like all this money creation, that seems to happen, where we just kind of airdrop money to whoever is around a gadget. But as an owner, you have a lot of things that you can write off within the business. And I think that's something as a W two employee, or as you know, on someone else's payroll, you're not going to have those same abilities, you can't write off the same things. And that, to me is a huge thing. That's where I think having that quality tax expert to walk through that. And again, a good advisor that understand some of the different things, they can help with that too. But again, a CPA that really gets how you can take advantage of the things that's huge. And you can realize or not realize income and certain years, depending on the situation that you're in, and maybe you want to do extra and that retirement account, because the tax rates are different than they were the year before. Like you can play that game to make sure that you can keep more of your money that you're making. As an owner, you can also fire clients easier. Like if you don't like someone and they're a jerk, and they treat your staff like crap, get rid of them. Amen. If you're an associate, you might not have the same decision making authority. So you know, kick them to the curb and say, hey, that's not how we, you know, act around here, especially with the amount of need recently, I think it's sometimes good to right size, who you work with, if they aren't going to treat you with respect. And I know initially, if you start up a business, if the person can fog a mirror, and they're willing to pay or maybe even if they are hard to pay, but they'll pay eventually, if you chase them down long enough, you'll you'll keep them but don't do that forever, because it'll just like stress you out really bad.

Stacey Cordivano: 16:31

Yes, I 100% agree that getting rid of toxic clients, whether for you or your practice, or whomever is probably going to be better for your bottom line in the long run. At least that's been the case for me personally. I wanted to ask if there were general questions that you get when people come to you for services. I know when I left vet school and started my practice, my financial education was about nil. So I was curious if there's some common questions that you get from veterinarians?

Isaiah Douglass : 17:03

I think Usually, it's like student loans, as always, especially depending on if they're younger is the question that people have buying a practice? Can I afford this? Is this a good investment? Will I get a loan? Those are all questions, understanding what the practice is worth, from a value perspective, if they're on the other end and trying to understand like, okay, it's great that I'm selling this for x million dollars. But after I pay taxes after I pay back this debt, this is what I have left, like is that enough to sustain my lifestyle. Recently, I talked to someone and they were looking at possibly transitioning their practice to a child, and kind of what that could look like and how they could structure some things internally within the practice to maybe sell it in a unique way to where they don't pay as much taxes where it can be beneficial to everyone involved. So there's certainly some trust that needs to be built in there. That wouldn't work for everybody. But as a parent and child relationship, I think it could work really well and work work out for them. But I think a lot of times people just want efficiency and they want peace of mind to understand like, Can I actually do what I want to do. And just talk to that, you know, I have a maybe a different take than other advisors. But it doesn't have to be crazy complicated. But again, trying to have as many different things working for you that complement the asset that you have. And that might be very different. If I'm a practice owner, I might invest differently than if I'm an associate, I think that's important to understand as well.

Stacey Cordivano: 18:16

So I guess, a takeaway from that I'm getting is that in order to be successful in your financial planning, you really need to form a strong relationship with your advisor. Is that a good summary?

Isaiah Douglass : 18:28

Yeah, I would say I mean, if you're going to pay someone you want to see value for that, I will usually do like two meetings before we ask someone to become a client, because it's like, we don't want to rush someone into that decision. But shoot, like if you're going to pay someone you need to see value for that. So ask those questions, get to know them. How do they think and yeah, you want a deep relationship they should get to know you about as well as anyone else, especially those like crazy, wild dreams that you have. Like, if there's something you want to do that's really weird and odd, like share that let them know that that's in the background, or maybe be there. I think the goal of any planner is to put on the lenses of that client, put their biases aside, because you know, I might have the bicc of you need to be an owner bla bla bla bla, talking to a client XYZ, they told me this is why they can't be an owner, this is why they don't want to, maybe they have a spouse that's doing something entrepreneurial as well. And they can't take that risk of two incomes, maybe not being certain or they need health care, and they want to stay because the other spouse is doing something different. So there can be reasons why ownership doesn't make sense. And you know, sometimes you need to understand really where that clients coming from and what their history is and why they do what they do. And one of my favorite questions to ask is What did money mean growing up? And I think if you start hearing someone's stories of, of what money meant growing up and how they saw that is very interesting. What people will tell you.

Stacey Cordivano: 19:42

Yeah, that's really good advice. I think that's good to know that that is how people should be looking at interviewing a planner. I want to talk about your podcast a little bit. It's awesome. It's a great resource, and hopefully everyone has listened to it and if not, I will certainly direct them there. But what got you started on formation of the podcast?

Isaiah Douglass : 20:03

I appreciate the kind words in it's great to have you be a guest on the podcast as well. So highly encourage that that episode and take a listen there. The podcast was started, basically from me wanting to educate myself, like if I'm going to be the person in veterinary medicine, which is what I want to be, I want to be known as advisor that works with a lot of veterinarians and understands the industry and is very dialed into what's going on. I need to educate myself and stay in tune with what's going on. There wasn't that many podcasts that was answering the questions that I had, which I think, you know, for me, I was looking for more of the like the business and like general sense of the industry, where a lot of them were very clinical. Isaiah doesn't know clinical. So I'm not going to get a whole lot out of that. Nor am I going to come in and try to talk clinical and tell someone to do something differently. So I wanted to create a podcast where I could talk some clinical things, but maybe bring it in differently. Like one of the ideas that I'd love to have on is more on the cannabis side of things CBD like have that kind of conversation, we think it'd be really interesting. But generally the idea was, bring on people that I knew through vet partners and record those conversations, ask the questions that I had, let them answer it and then share it. And hopefully someone will listen. And so I started in 2019 enough people have listened, that I've continued to do it, which is great. And I enjoy it. It's a labor of love. I'm sure as you and I have joked about before, from a networking perspective and just connecting with other people in the industry. It's amazing how it's been beneficial.

Stacey Cordivano: 21:20

I think one part of your podcast that you're downplaying, which I feel like both of us are aligned on was, you're also really trying to expand the knowledge for veterinarians like just basic financial knowledge, which is definitely lacking. I mean, that's a generalization, but it's a pretty sound generalization. So I want people to understand it's not just like business logistics, you are providing like an excellent source of financial knowledge.

Isaiah Douglass : 21:46

Yeah, if I can, if I can help people understand things better. In case in point I had, I don't know if she'll listen to this podcast or not. But hopefully she does. I had someone reach out that had listened to 15 or 16 episodes, she already knew my opinion on a lot of different topics already. So it made the conversation really fun, where I didn't have to explain who I am. When I think about how I think about the world. You know, she was already Hey, I want to be an owner. I've listened your stuff. I have these questions. And it was a great conversation. So yeah, I can educate people and lead with education. That's always been my strategy with with how do you market I talk with veterans all the time? How are you marketing to getting new, new new people in the door to come in want to work with you? And they have all these other different veterinarians around the corner that go work with? Why are you different than VCA? Same thing for me, most veterinarians probably know, 10 different advisors, how am I going to be any different, I'm going to be different, because I'm going to know their business, I'm going to know what their pain points are and the issues that they have. For me, if I can educate them, they come in already kind of knowing how I think and what we want to talk about. And then if I can educate them to help prevent mistakes, hopefully, they can get to a point where they can say, you know, I do need an advisor. Now, maybe I didn't need an advisor a year ago, because I was able to kind of take some of the key things that he shared, and do that. And then maybe life changes. And I've had those conversations where it's like, Hey, listen this episode, maybe it'll help you. And that's all they needed. And that's great. I can't work with everybody. So that's amazing.

Stacey Cordivano: 23:01

Yeah, no, I'm thankful that you're providing the content. I think it's great information from people. Okay, we have a mutual love of podcast listening, not just creating. And I was wondering if you have a couple of podcasts that you think every vet should at least check out?

Isaiah Douglass : 23:18

Yes, I'm gonna go with specific episodes. So one of the things that I did is being a podcast like junkie, I created Spotify playlists that are business life, and then investing the investing one is kind of morphed a little bit into we talked about this on the podcast together of my passions around like Bitcoin and what I think that does the future. So I wanted to talk a little bit about just the business ones I think are really good because I think leadership is tough for veterinarians. So there was a really good interview by guy that they don't do any sort of promotion and it was on an investing podcast was all around leadership. And his name is Randall Stuttman. He's done a couple podcasts. Now he did one with Ted Saudis. Capital allocators, they also did one with Shane Parrish from the knowledge project. Randall is amazing when it comes to leadership and just thinking through that of how to not only incentivize people but deal with issues and I just think there's so much to be gained from that, regardless of where you're at and how you deal with people. And that to me was a really good one.

Stacey Cordivano: 24:13

I love the knowledge project. I'm definitely gonna check that out.

Isaiah Douglass : 24:16

That's Yeah, I would say probably the knowledge project is tilted more towards more general where that other one was kind of more specific to the investing world, which I don't think is always the best one. The other one that I really like, again, it's knowledge project. It's Jim Collins, keeping the flywheel in motion. I mean, he's written a lot of great books. That is a fantastic interview. It's really a long one, but I think it's really good. I enjoy invest like the best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy, is a really good and podcast. I know, people might be thinking, Oh, it's just going to be strictly investing related, but he's really kind of gone out and looked at some other areas to talk to people from a business perspective. So I think that's a good one.

Stacey Cordivano: 24:52

Cool.

Isaiah Douglass : 24:52

I would look for Morgan Housel. Just search Morgan housel for different interviews. He is a personal finance like writer does a lot Good blog writing and he has had some interviews, I'm gonna find the exact right one here it is with the modern wisdom. So it's Morgan housel, how to become wealthy, stay wealthy and be happy. It's a great episode perfect. I really like Morgan's writing. And I think that if you like some of the personal finance stuff would be a really good episode where he talks kind of on the behavioral side, and just how people think and how they're wired. It's excellent.

Stacey Cordivano: 25:23

Awesome. Yeah, those are great. I don't know most of those. And I will definitely try to link all those individual episodes too. So that's an awesome resource. And then do you have a book that you tell people they must read once they sign up with you?

Isaiah Douglass : 25:37

The book that I've given I guess out the most at different events or like as a surprise if the answer a question I asked in a panel discussion is the the next Millionaire Next Door, which was the sequel to The Millionaire Next Door. So Dr. Sarah Fallaw and her late father, Thomas Stanley, both PhDs studied, like, what does it look like when people have amassed a million dollars, which is very different than spending $2 million? I think a lot of people want to spend a million dollars, they don't want to be a millionaire, because being a millionaire is very different than spending a million dollars.

Stacey Cordivano: 26:04

It's pretty boring.

Isaiah Douglass : 26:05

Yeah, it really is. And so what they did is they looked at, what does it take to become that? And what are the, you know, the little lady down the street when she passed away? And she gave, you know, all this money to people like, how did that happen? And just how do people make these really good decisions and do it over time? And what is the makeup of that? So I really liked that book. And that would be my recommendation.

Stacey Cordivano: 26:24

Yeah, this is very not sexy date, but my husband and I listened to that one together. So I agree. That's a good book. And it gives me a good idea. We'll do a giveaway on social media for that one.

Isaiah Douglass : 26:34

And I tried to get my wife to read it. And she got about halfway through and quit reading. So it's okay, if you don't if it doesn't hit the same way. It's a little dry. Yeah, it I just know, data driven from a veterinary perspective. That is kind of the way that a lot of you like to see stuff, which is based in fact. I'm the same way. So I love the book, because it gives you some fact, do some research.

Stacey Cordivano: 26:52

Yeah. Perfect. I love it. I'm glad we talked about that. I asked all of my guests this, what is one small thing that has brought you joy this past week?

Isaiah Douglass : 27:03

Ooh, this past week. So I was very fortunate. And again, not to get into the whole COVID what people think of it from that standpoint, but my best friend is getting married. So I feel like through the business side of things I had a merger earliest years has been really busy. But I was able to go celebrate with him and friends that I don't get to see that much. and was able to go down to Tybee Island and hang out in Savannah and see them and just kind of relax and unplug from work for a day and then enjoy the weekend. But that was great. So that brought joy of sharing memories and just chatting with guys that I've grown up with for years and years.

Stacey Cordivano: 27:34

That sounds super fun. Where can people find out more information about you?

Isaiah Douglass : 27:39

There's a lot of different places I would direct you to the veterina ysuccesspodcast.com that's where all the content lives, show notes links, finding all kinds of information. The Veterinarian Financial Advisor Network is a network that I started with two other advisors, Dan Routh, Ashley foster both certified financial planners, fee onl great guys that are both marrie to veterinarians. So the certainly share a lot of th same passions that I do. But ou goal in doing that is t continue to provide mor education and guidance. So yo can check out those profile there. And then also vincer wealth.com, is where the hom base is for the website. Bu yeah, feel free to follow me o social media, different places I'm always looking for podcas episodes are gonna be the mos impactful. So if you have an ideas, please reach out. I' love to chat more on it

Stacey Cordivano: 28:18

I will definitely link all that in the show notes. I did just want to elaborate the veterinary financial network. Is that what you guys created?

Isaiah Douglass : 28:26

Yes, it's the veterinary financial advisor network. I know it's a mouthful. So the goal of that is to help make finding a financial advisor easier for veterinarians. The goal of it is a group of independent financial planning experts that are all cfps again, and fee only. And then we serve veterinarians nationwide. So you'll get different personalities, different styles of how we do things. That way you can find the right fit, but know that these are people that are pre vetted, so it has kind of the criteria to get involved. And I'm certainly actively going out and trying to find other advisors, which people might think is weird, like, why why would you bring other people into the fold to, you know, possibly compete with what you're doing? I think there's a lot of people that need help and advice and guidance and investment. And if they find a better fit with someone else, like that's awesome.

Stacey Cordivano: 29:10

By all means.

Isaiah Douglass : 29:11

Yeah, I think I think if I get a chance to chat with other people, that's that's the goal, right is to find the right fit.

Stacey Cordivano: 29:17

Yeah, great. Okay. That's an awesome resource. I'm glad to know about that. Thank you. Well, I really appreciate your time. I appreciate all the work that you are doing to try to help us little vets be successful in life. So thank you for your time.

Isaiah Douglass : 29:30

Thank you for having me on. This is great. And again, you're doing some awesome work with podcasts. I appreciate it. So thank you.

Stacey Cordivano: 29:37

Thanks again for tuning into today's episode. Isaiah broke down some really important topics - best ways o choose a financial planner, w y you need to know the value f your practice if you own o e, ways in which ownership an benefit an individ al veterinarian and my perso al favorite, you are allowed to fire toxic clients. Hey, if he money guy said so it must be true. Right? Plus he gave us a ton of podcast resources t dive into about leadersh p and investing. So that's lways really helpful. If you e joyed this episode, please shar with a friend make sure o hit subscribe and if you ave a spare moment, please l ave a review on Apple podcasts. lease also subscribe to our m nthly newsletter so you don't mi s out on any of the content that we've shared. You can find tha sign up at thewholeveterinarian com/subscribe. I hope you're d ing well this week and I will t lk to you again soon.