How looking after our financial health as part of our social health

One of the things that I think about a lot, is how to improve the health and wellbeing for our fellow GPs. In my mind, if we can help one fellow GP, we can help thousands through them. It’s leveraging.

Within biopsychosocial, financial health is an important part of our social health. If neglected, it can be a significant source of stress and anxiety.

So how can we improve the financial health for ourselves?

We hear a lot of pain and negativity around earnings amongst us. I get it, and at the same time, I wonder how can we ADD more perspectives to that in order to get a truer picture, especially for our newer GPs. Beliefs are both a powerful and dangerous thing. It can really dictate our lives, so choose wisely.

So, here it is...

I think we make a very good living as a GP. Don’t delete me just yet...

I’ve seen my parents accumulate significant wealth despite only making a fraction of our GP hourly rate. How? They leverage from a stable income.

So unlike other Professions or Trade, we often have ....

1. Great stability of income to leverage from. One only need a small amount of stable income to control an appreciating asset. One can control more assets with a lower stable income, than a higher unstable income.

2. We have great cash flow. We often don’t have to wait for weeks or months to get paid like builders. This will also help us leverage.

3. We have low bad debts.

4. We have excessive work rather less work. If we want extra cash to leverage for investments, we can. Work is available 24/7. I am not suggesting that one should do that. Just saying it’s accessible if one requires to “mine it”.

5. General Practice is relatively recession proof. Unlike other industries, we may get busier during a recession.

6. GPs can work until old age. We have “longevity of income”.

7. We have flexibility of hours. If we need more, we work more. If we need less, we work less. 

8. It’s “relatively easy” to set up shop and work for ourselves. 

9. We have more autonomy. 

All of the above characteristics allow us to have much more leveraging power to invest and compound over time.

So what’s my point?

I see that some of us are too focused or “zoomed in” on the absolute dollar value or the hourly rate, and compare that to somebody else’s. If we “zoom out” a little bit and see a bigger picture, we may just discover something else....