We are always preaching that time is your most valuable asset. But most people think that's just a mantra. We're going to discuss why time is your only asset. And Mike is going to break down how it works. In light of me, dude, this is something. When I hear only asset, my first thought is like, no, I have vehicles. I have a house. I have retirement accounts. I have investments, those are assets. Why is time my only asset? - So that's what people don't understand is the word value and time, when we say your most valuable asset, we're truly talking about value. And most people skim right over it, but your cars and your 401ks, the only reason you have those, and you call them assets, but the only reason you have those is because previously you have exchanged time in order to create value which was in turn currency. So you had to go to work and you give up your time. You knowingly are giving up your time in exchange for some sort of value because your time is the most valuable. I know you used to work at Wells Fargo. So Wells Fargo said your time is valuable to us and you made an exchange to say, I'll give you my time in exchange, you give me currency for the value of my time. And now you have that currency and you can choose to go buy a truck and you'll convert the value of your time into a truck, but you had to first earn that by giving up your time or you can convert that value that you've created and put it into a 401k. It's simply a transfer of the value that you created created with your time. So let's start at the beginning, right? This isn't just like some philosophy class. This is actually real how this works, but most people were so far removed that most people skim over it. And I really think that's the problem. You know, you say, time is your most valuable asset. And people are like, well, yeah, I've heard that. You know, and they just go on about their day. But it is actually your most valuable asset and your only asset and should be guarded and valued at all costs because of that. So let's take it back, let's just say hundreds of years ago, I don't know the exact timeline, but we know in general, at some point when you had a family, you didn't exchange goods, you just took care of your family, right? People went out and hunted, they farmed, they exchanged their time because they needed something valuable, which was food. So you exchange your time to go out and garden. You exchange your time to take care of chickens, you exchange your time to go hunting, you exchange your time to put a roof over your head and build the house. And then at some point in our history, people said, "Man, let's say if I'm taking care of chickens, I only need 10 chickens, so I exchange my time for the value of what 10 chickens provide. But I could take care of 20 chickens in that same amount of time. Therefore, I create more value with the same amount of time. And then a hunter said, I can go and hunt and I can get one animal, but it doesn't take me twice as long to get two animals. Sometimes there is two animals there, but I don't need both of them. But if I went and spent my time, same amount of time, I could bring back twice the value. And then the bartering system was created. So now people learned how to leverage their time. They said, if we exchange goods the same amount of time that I commit I get double the value in return I just have to exchange it for what I need and then things continue to go on and now we have the system where we're at today so what's the problem if I grow if I grow all kinds of corn and vegetables and I don't need it so I'm going to barter it with somebody but there's nobody that needs that my product right now They don't need vegetables. So what is the problem with that then I Become overstocked with the value or the asset that I have and it eventually starts to die With your vegetables in your corn like it starts to lose value because I've had to hold on to it for a few long correct and does Vegetables do they decay and lose value quickly or slowly quickly very quickly? So the problem becomes there always has to be somebody to barter on the other side. So the increase in value for my time is amazing, but only if there's a counterparty that has something of value that I can exchange. And that's where the currency system came into play. If I produce all these vegetables and I don't have an equal barter that I need to make at this time, we can just use currency to represent that value of what I would need. And I can now store that value in a piece of paper that we call currency rather than storing that as vegetables. So the same value, but I gave those vegetables away in exchange for a piece of paper that everybody accepts, that this is equal value to the amount of vegetables that I gave away. And that process is obviously grown and grown to now where we are today, which is that same process is, I give my time, I don't necessarily need something that Wells Fargo has. So I'm not trading my time for something that Wells Fargo has. So they give me currency in exchange for the value of my time. And then I can take that currency and exchange it with the rest of the world as needed when I see things of value that I need back. So everything starts. You cannot create value. You can't have money. You can't have anything. No assets unless you first give up your time in exchange for the value of whatever you're going to earn for giving up your time. That is pretty enlightening when you when you break it down that simply too with the farming analogy and Wells Fargo and the exchange of time. My thought then is like have people lost the idea or lost the concept of their time and the value of their time. In their mind they think I go to work again they're not thinking of time they're like I have to work so that I can get money so that I can buy things but but they lose the concept of their time and how valuable that is, given how fleeting and how short our lives are and the grand spectrum of everything. Like you get just a quick blip on earth. And so I feel like people are losing, they're losing the value, they're not losing the value of their time, they're not appreciating the value of their time. - Yeah, so let's break that down, right? There's pros and cons always. Anything that happens, what do they say like, any effect has an exact counter effect or whatever, but basically anything that happens, there's an equal opposite that happens. So the value that we can now give our time in exchange for currency means that we don't have to trade. We don't have to do just what we're able to do. We can give our time and then hold that value as currency and be used at another time. That is a huge advantage and it allows us to apply and leverage our time to get the greatest value in return. So if I don't wanna work at Wells Fargo because they don't value my time the same way another company does, I can switch and go get more value for my time working here. If I'm a physician and I wanna make a lot of money, I can go to school for 10 years and I can increase the value of my time. So when I enter the workforce, I'm not getting $20 per hour for my time, I now have committed to have an expert level at something and companies will trade much more currency for the value of my time because I'm now an expert at what we are doing. So that is the advantage, right? That we can increase the value of our time. We can shop the value of our time. We can do a lot of things. But what you brought up is that great point is we have lost the disconnect because now we forget that we're giving up time. We just focus on the dollar amount and the money that we earn. So if we take this all the way back to that initial family, they're on a homestead. All they do is give their time to work on their homestead. Whatever time they give out, only benefits their family. So if they wanna build a house, it takes a certain amount of time and they have a house. If they're gonna garden, have chickens, it takes a certain amount of time. So in those days, they did not have the advantage that we have today. They couldn't shop their time to get more value back, they couldn't do a number of things. But what did they have was the understanding of the value of time. So when you're sitting with your wife, fire going, staying warm, and the fire starts to go out, and you have to trade your time to go collect more firewood, you decide, is that worth my time or not? You're not asking how much will I get paid, it's just simply, is that worth my time? And you're looking to do an addition onto the cabin that you guys built and your wife says we're having another baby, should we add on another room to the side of this house? The question is simply how long will that take and is that worth my time? Is it more valuable to spend my time taking care of chickens? Is it more valuable to grow vegetables or is it more valuable to build onto this house and what mix of that creates the most value for the family in exchange for time. But as we move further, we got the benefit that we can leverage our time for more value, but we have lost that understanding of when I make a decision, it's no longer, is this worth my time? We just simply say, is it worth the money? And if we don't correlate and understand that money simply is a value of our time, a representation of a value of our time, we lose and we get that disconnect and then you find people chasing more and more money with no happiness, no fulfillment because they've had that disconnect of truly your time is your only asset. The only reason you have any money is because you have previously at some point traded your time in order to gain value that is represented by currency. Yeah, and I think that last point is super important. That's what I was going to say, is like, and even when I was, you know, a decade, decade and a half ago, you know, trying to climb that corporate ladder, it was always like, what am I worth? Like, I'm making this much. There's a promotion coming. There's a position opening up as like, what does Wells Fargo Steve my worth as? But again, it was always back to what are the dollars? Like, how many dollars are they going to pay me on an annual basis? And so I always equated that to like their value of me. In the inverse, it should have been, what is my time worth? Because if I do get that promotion and they do give me more money, that means I'm working a few extra hours. There's a little bit more stress. I'm now leading a team of people versus being an individual contributor. What is my time worth doing those things? Is it worth being more stressed? Is it worth being in the office an extra hour a day longer away from my family? Is that worth it? I was not think about it that way. It was just simply, what does Wells Fargo see that I'm worth? They're willing to give me more money to do this position. I must be worth more then. Correct. Yeah. And that comes with a promotion. Everybody wants a promotion and a raise, but really the question is, when you're even offered a promotion and a raise, how much more time do I need to commit to this? And if I need to commit time, is it even equal to the value of my time? Does this should make sense in the exchange for value. And what you brought up, you know, Wells Fargo, how much are they looking at me and what I'm worth? And everybody just compares salaries and dollars. But at the end of the day, it all is just about value. So if we look at Wells Fargo at that time and your salary, there's only two things that can be happening. Either you are worth more, but Wells Fargo doesn't recognize it, so they're not paying you more. So you need to show them my expertise makes me more valuable and you're gonna wanna pay more 'cause my time is worth more. That's one option. Or you are not actually as valuable as you think you are. So you think you're bringing more value and Wells Fargo says it's just not worth that amount of money for us. It's not worth the value that we're exchanging. We have to have a value exchange. You think you're worth that, we don't. It's not gonna work. That's the only thing that's occurring in that moment is just the exchange of value. Everybody focuses on dollars, but deep down, those dollars are just a representation of value. - Yeah, well, and they're not thinking about my time, right? They're just thinking about the dollars. So I need to personally be thinking about my own time and have that conversation versus they don't care about my time, they just are looking at the bottom line, you know, what it costs them to get me into that position. So I think that's good. - I would say nobody is actually looking at it and understanding, but truly what is happening in that negotiation is they're saying, what is your time worth to Wells Fargo? And you're saying, what is my time worth to my family? And that is the conversation. So they're saying, when Nate comes in and works for eight hours per day, what value is that time bringing to us? How much impact will it have on our profit statement? So they're just saying, what is your time worth? And when you're making a negotiation on your saying, when I go for eight or eight hours a day, I'm giving up eight hours of my life. What is that time worth to myself and my family? And that is truly the exchange that's happening, but people just negotiate dollars as if dollars mean something. But really, it boils down to how valuable is your time for the employer, how valuable is your time when you give it up to the employer? And that's the exchange. I would be the same if we brought it back. And Wells Fargo was the hunter, and you are the gardener. And it's just how many pelts are equal value to all of these vegetables. And there's a negotiation that happens there where finally there's an equal balance and you either make the exchange for vegetables and pelts or you make the exchange for dollars in time. Either way, it equals the same thing. - So the million dollar question then, no pun intended. With this being a wealth Wednesday, most of our listeners are physicians. How can they Increase the value of their time like how can they how can they generate more time with less? Man, I'm trying to say no, I get it. I go there saying so here I'll share with you because because we always talk about listening to this and they're trying to they're just like okay I get the idea I get the concept that Mike's talking about but like how do I? How do I create more time with more value. - Yeah, and this is what people, what we say all the time, but I think this part doesn't connect a lot either, right? Is buy back your time, buy back your time, stop giving away so much of your time. And people think, well, how, how do I do that? And you know, we say cash flow and stuff, but we'll break it down to super basics because it is cash flow, but what is cash flow? So here's how the process works. Let's use a physician example. You go to school to increase the value of your time when you enter the workforce. You're now in the workforce and you are paid very well because your time is very valuable, way more valuable than somebody, you know, valing cars because you're doing brain surgery. That carries more value in the world. So we're gonna give a greater exchange for your time to do that. So you go and give up your time and you had to give up all your time in school to make it that valuable, right? So you've given up a lot of time. And now when you give up your time at work, you receive currency as a representation of the value of the time that you gave up. What most people do when they receive that currency is either A, that's that's value and your time equals value, right? So they either take that currency and they lock it into a 401k and they say, I'm going to take this time back when I'm 60. I'm taking this value of time, I'm locking it in a 401k and then One day, I'm going to use all that stored up value of time to try to live out the rest of my life. And if there's enough stored up value of time, I make it. If there's not enough stored up value of time, I need to go back to giving my time for value exchange again. The other thing people do is they spend it. So now we have a representation of the time that I gave up, which is a value of currency. I now take that exchange of my time and I go spend it. So I just simply take the value that I earned by giving my time, and I give it to the GMC dealer, and he gives me in return a value of a car. And I say, well, I now have a car, it's an asset. But really, your asset was the time that you gave up previously. You've now exchanged it multiple times until you have a car sitting there, but really, that is what it is. So every time you exchange it for another item, you have given up that stored value of time in exchange for that item. So that time that you gave is now a representation of whatever is sitting in your parking lot, whatever house you live in. That is simply a representation of the time you gave up. The other path we talked about, they store that time value because they know I gave up very valuable time today, but one day I'm going to need that valuable stored up time that I've earned. So they store it in a 401 (k). So those are two paths and that's why Nobody gets wealthy because you either wait and hope there's enough stored time in your 401k or you have a house full of stored up money that you have given away and now you have items. So how do you actually get wealthy and how do you buy back your time? You trade your time for value which is represented by currency and then instead of taking those two paths that everybody else takes, you take the stored value and you put it into an investment and the investment is simply taking this value and multiplying it. So you have $100 ,000. That is a representation of how much time you have. You put it into a cash flowing investment and that $100 ,000 either starts buying back and giving you time today or it starts multiplying and growing. And then all of a sudden you say, "Hey, where is that $100 ,000 of stored up time I have?" And you go, "Whoa, now I have $200 ,000 a stored up time, I have doubled the amount of time that I was able to store and little by little you trade your time for value and then you put that stored time and value to work and it starts buying more time for you and at some point These converge and all of a sudden as much time as you are spending to create the value and earn that all of a sudden Your money is working just as hard as you were to create value and boom they converge and now you get to make a decision of do I stop trading my time for value now because I don't have to because I now have investments that buy my value in time or do I grow this more so I can give it away do I grow it for future generations so like if I put money into a savings account for my children or do a state planning I'm simply storing their future time they will not have to give up their time because I'm storing that value. I'm trading my time today, creating that value, and then storing it for them to use in the future. So for estate planning, for instance, that's why that's so valuable, is I don't wanna leave them a ton of money, but I do want them to have freedom of their time to do what is needed in this world. Whatever their passions are, their dreams, whatever's gonna change the world, I don't want them stuck saying, I have to exchange my time because I need a roof over my head. I need to exchange my time for other things, I want them to have the flexibility and freedom that that stored up time is already taken care of. Now, let's go do great things to change the world. Yeah, that is also good. Talk more about the cash flow side of things, that convergence that you talked about where that truly is like the definition of work optional. Now, you have the option to trade your time for value if you'd like to. Again, that goes to especially with physicians if they just have a passion for seeing patients they just they love doing what they do and they don't feel like it is a trade like it's just like hey I get to hang out with these patients and talk and provide change and the hospital just happens to give me money that's great I love what I do but that work optional I think is the big thing that a lot of people are looking for and so how do you how do you create that convergence like Once that cash flow is hitting, kind of define what that cash is doing. The cash to me is it is trading its own time, even though that asset over here, the investment tool that you use to create cash flow isn't a human being, but it's using its time to multiply and then giving it back to you versus you having to trade your own time for a value that becomes tangible at some point. - So We'll break it down to super easy understand. So first of all, that is the beauty and that's why it's so important to buy back your time is because when you no longer have to exchange time for value, you're now just exchanging time for fulfillment. All of a sudden life is unbelievable. You are living the dream because no longer is it feel like work 'cause it's not work. It's not an exchange of value anymore. It's simply an exchange of fulfillment. That value is not fulfillment for you. So the way this works, and we'll break it down because this can represent any sort of salary, but this makes it super easy. Let's say every time I commit an hour of my time, I earn 10 units of stored future value of time. I've made that commitment, right? So it's represented as 10 units. So I have one option to put it into the 401k and store it for later use. There's a million ways we could go with that, but the reality is these 10 units will likely still represent 10 future units down the road. They really won't grow. They'll keep up with inflation, they'll go up and down, they'll go down to eight units, 12 units, but at the time of retirement, it's roughly going to be a one -to -one trade. I'll get it 10 units, I'll put it away, one day I'll use these in the savings piggy bank. The other thing is I have these 10 units. I exchange 10 units of time value for a vehicle. And now I've given up this time value, but now I have a vehicle and the vehicle on day one equals 10 units. But now when I want to go to sell it, it's only worth seven units. So now I only have seven units left. And you start to lose those units. The cash flow side is we have these 10 units, we put them into an investment. And now I trade one hour of my time, I get 10 units. Maybe over here this works and it sends back one unit per month. So now I go to work and I earn 10 units but also every month this money that I put to work for me is sending an additional unit. So every month I get one more unit and now I take these units and I send them to work and also now I have 21 units that are working to buy my freedom. I'm still exchanging time I still get 10 units but now next month all of a sudden, I have 22 units stored up over here because now I had 21 and they were working sending back one more unit and little by little, however many units I need to live my life, I'm exchanging my time for, little by little these cash flow investments are earning so many units that this trade of time for units is no longer needed because where I put this money on the side over here is sending back all the units that I need. So if I need 100 units of exchange to live an amazing life, all I'm doing is sending the earned units to work, and they send back little by little. But the goal is just to get to 100 units of time working. And once that happens, my 100 units of exchange is no longer needed. Now I get to do whatever I want, keep working and make more, keep working just for fulfillment, go volunteer, sit on a beach, whatever I want, because I no longer have to make that exchange. - Yep, and I think that's where a lot of physicians, they get excited to hear things like that. Maybe not with the unit in perspective, but they're like, okay, I'm currently working 60 hours for this salary, I would love to only work 30 hours. Like if I can cut my time in half and fill that time out that I just cut with kind of like to your perspective, the units that fill in that time, like my lifestyle doesn't change from a currency perspective, but my time, I've just doubled my time availability because I'm only having to work half as long. I think that's what gets people most excited is, how can I, even if you cut it in half, like sure, you know, everyone thinks of retirement as I'm gonna someday stop working and literally have no work, wake up, have nothing nothing to do, there's some excitement there for them. But I think what most people want to do, especially physicians, are like, if I could just cut my time in half, still spend time with patients, but the other 50 % of my time that was going towards the tasks that I don't like to do, the administrative things, the leadership roles that I get dragged into. If I could take, if I can cut those out, but my lifestyle doesn't change to them. That is the dream. Because now, you said earlier, they're spending 50 % of their time with fulfillment and 50 % of their time doing whatever it is that they want to do. And there's no value lost in doing. Yeah. And I think people always just overcomplicate. That's why I wanted to break this down so simply because it is big dollars and it's just a narrative and You get kind of sidetracked and cut expenses and cash flow and all these words. But if you break it down into units, it's really very simple. You can make any ratio you want. But if we take that same 10 -unit example, let's say we need 100 units of commitment every week. When we earn those 10 units, we're trying to get to 100 units of free time. Our money's working. So when we earn those 10 units, we can either take those and put them to work. The other thing we can do is if we need 100 units, we can reduce that down to only needing 97. Now our goal is closer. That would be cutting expenses out of your life, right? So if every time I earn 10 units, eight of those go towards expenses, I only have two left to put to work. So if I want more to go to work, I can reduce how many are going towards expenses because I still only have 10 units. I need to cut that down. The other thing I can do is renegotiate, change jobs, work overtime, anything, because then that goes, okay, if I make 10 units regularly, eight go out the door to expenses, I have two units left to put to work. But now, if I work overtime, I got 12 units. So now I have 12 units, eight went out the door, and now I have four that I can put to work. So I just doubled the amount of my workforce that is working to buy back my time. So it's really that simple. The reason I break this stuff down is I talk to my kids about it a lot and they have very basic questions. So we got to break it down. I can't talk about a $400 ,000 salary, it makes no sense. So we just break it down into units and then on the table, we'll have little units and move them here and move them here. And it just becomes very simple to realize, oh, so I just need more units working to buy back my time. And there's really only a few ways to do that. Make more units or spend less units. That's really what it comes down to doing. And then take the leftover units and send them to work in the best option. So the same thing, when we send units to work, right? We're looking for investments. If I take 10 units and I send it to work and every month it makes one unit for me, well, if I find a better investment when I send 10 units to work. Every month it makes two units back for me. I'm going to reach my unit goal in twice as fast because I'm making two every time that goes to work now instead of just one. So it's very simple, but I understand why it gets super complicated. It's just when you break it down is when you realize, oh, this isn't as hard as it seems. It's actually quite simple. And I just have, I mean, really what's it come down to three or four levers to make a decision of where do I send these units? And what, what do I do with them. I am super excited to introduce to you the doctors and dollars five -day financial challenge. I'm Mike Newbauer. I'm CEO of Grand Vision Companies and I'm the one that you see on the Wealth Wednesday and Daily Dollar episodes with Nate. So Nate and I are partnering again to do something even more exciting which is the five -day challenge. We're taking the best of all of our episodes, all of our expertise and knowledge, and we're condensing it into an impactful and purposeful five day presentation, one hour per day for five days to give you everything you need to build that foundation for your financial future. So if you're looking to gain the pieces, you want those puzzle pieces and find out how they fit in your financial plan, head over to the Doctors and Dollars website, join us on the five day challenge. We're putting it together for free, so you got nothing to lose. We look forward to seeing you on the inside. - What would be the easiest first step for someone who's like, you know what, now is that time. I do want to buy back my time. Like what's an easy first step? Instead of exchanging their time for currency value and then using that currency to either spend or save, like what's kind of that, what's the easy step in? I don't wanna make it too complicated and say, okay, let's go down the rabbit hole of and investment strategies, but like, what's a good first step to get out of that mindset of exchanging my time for currency? Currency then is either spent or saved. How can they start investing to buy back that time? Well, I think the first step is really the breaking it down into simple units. Don't focus on what are my monthly expenses? Oh, man, 15 ,000. Break it down into simple units. Take whatever number it is and divide it by 100 and start breaking it down to simple units so that you're not emotionally attached to it. It doesn't feel like a big thing anymore. Just make it very simple like I do with my kids and start seeing, okay, how many units do I need to work for me if I wanna buy back my time? Okay, how many am I currently sending to work? I'm not sending any to work. Well, the reality is I'm never gonna buy back my time. There is zero option of that. So I need to start sending more. So breaking it down first like that. And then the next step would be super simple is just, do I have any expenses that I'm just giving away, you know, that I'm giving units away that are just a pointless expense? We might as well just cut that out. You know, I'm not, I'm not a big fan of focusing on it. I don't think you're going to, you know, cut out enough Starbucks in your life to become wealthy. But if there's just wasted units, you want to cut those But then it comes to your question of what are the best investment options for me now that I'm sending units to work, where am I sending those units? And you want to make a decision of A, how quickly do I need to buy back my time? If I need to buy back my time very quickly, do I want to start sending as many units I can? I'm working overtime to gain more units and I put those into cash flowing options because those are going to start sending units right back to me immediately. So even if it's only an hour. I'm buying back one hour at a time, little by little. Or do I really need big chunks of units? And now I need to focus on investments that are going to multiply. So when I send 10 units to work, it's going to turn itself into 20 units. And as those units grow, then I'll start having them go to work for me. So it really comes down to do I need growth or do I need cashflow? I will say that most physicians that we talk to and work with, they focus and think that they need growth. But it is very hard to get to the level of investing expertise equal to the level of medical expertise that they have. So they have committed so much time, they gave up their time to be paid an exchange of value for what they give their time at their employer back for money. So to go try to get that Equal exchange in understanding and making wise investments is much more difficult. So I'm not saying it's always the case, but what I see often is that it's easier to go earn that exchange of value, give your time up here at your current employer as an exchange for value, and then send that to work to send money back as a cash flow option. Because people think about, I want to pick a great investment, but every hour you spend trying to take a great investment to grow your wealth is an hour of time still is basically an exchange for no value. So if I was at work instead, I would be earning value at a much faster rate than trying to figure out how the heck to do good investments. And then the problem becomes two right is, if I make an investment over here, and it's a poor one, I might have 30 units that now drop down to 20. So, you know, call at wealth preservation, but like for simple terms, unit preservation is first and foremost. I want to make more to buy my time back, but I definitely don't want to lose any, because that's just a waste. Yep. Is it a one for one exchange? I'm just trying to think of some of the math behind it. Let's do easy numbers just so someone can understand. There's 30 days in a month. Let's say someone earns $1 ,000 a day, so $30 ,000 a month, $360 a year. So essentially just they wake up, they go to work, they earn $1 ,000. They wanna cut that time in half. They would love to work the equivalent of six months and then replace their income with, you know, cash flow type investments for the other six months. Is it a one -for -one exchange or is there some type of thought that needs to go into the investment side of thing or the time exchange that they're using for their six months of work. Which is it an even exchange or does one need to be more heavily than the other? - So it's not easy enough to go through on this. So go to the doctors and dollars website and join our community and could ask more questions. 'Cause really a lot of this boils down to the income statement which of course courses on the five day challenge and stuff. - That's where I was going. - I don't, okay, so I don't want to get too off topic because it's individualized for everybody. So like, for instance, when I have units that I earn, one thing, if I earn 10 units, right out of the gate, typically three of those go to the government. So now I really am only down to seven units. So when I invest, I don't send because money doesn't get taxed the same way that my time does. So when I send my units to work, they're not paying the same amount of taxes. So there's always a change. It's never a one -to -one because I actually need less units when my money is earning them to live than I do when my time is earning them because when my time is at exchange for value, the government gets its hands in the pocket as well. When my time is earning, there are still taxes, but the ability to strategize, to eliminate those taxes is so much easier than if you're just exchanging time for money. That is almost impossible to exchange time for money and find a strategy that will eliminate your taxes. So that's a lot of the nuance in there of how does this work as far as a one -to -one? How many units do I actually need to put to work? You know, and then of course that comes on to a calculator of, okay, two ways to do this, right? Set your goal and then find the calculator and then start sending money to work in a very purposeful strategy until you buy back your time. The other is just take this super passively, understand these concepts, and start sending that money to work. And over time, you'll find yourself like, oh wow, I have bought back a lot of my time. And whenever you want, you just make that decision. You either keep working and sending it to work, or you start to back off, but you don't have to necessarily have a target. If you just want to start buying back your time, and whenever it feels right, you just back off work at that point. I'm more a fan of having a target, having a vision, having a plan. I think that that makes all the difference in the world. But the most important thing is simply understanding the basics of this concept. Because this is where true wealth is made, is understanding that it all just starts with an exchange of time for value. And once you create the value, that's where wealth is made. What do I do with this value that value that I have earned because I exchanged my time. What you do at that point then is where the wealth is made. And that is exactly why nobody can earn their way to wealth. You can never exchange enough time in your entire life because there is just a value on time. So if somebody gets paid 500 ,000 a year, they would say, "Oh, my time is much more valuable." But it's truly not because you had to commit free time to go through 12 years of school, 10 years of school, to get to this point. If we take out a lifetime of people, the value exchange for one hour of time in the United States is going to standardize pretty much. To get to a level of expertise, you know, for me to have financial expertise, I get paid more in exchange for my time. But that came from years of traded time for no value return to build to the point where I'm at today. So really it equals itself out, which is why nobody can earn their way to wealth at the end of the day Or at the end of a lifetime. There's only so many hours in general Society decides what's the value of one hour of somebody's production of time and that's how it works out the idea Though how you create wealth is once you create that value now. What do we do with it? Do we waste it? Do we spend it? Do we put it to work? That's where the wealth is created. Yeah, it's just funny, I know I've said it on on Wealth Wednesdays before, but like the definition of leverage is finding the least amount of input to get the maximum amount of output. If you can, you can find that that is levered. It just brings me back to like business school. And even as a financial advisor, like the time value of money, like that phrase alone, the time value of money is still not, It's putting the value on the money, not the value on the time. And I think that that's just from a financial perspective. That's what we look at is how much time can you trade for money? And then from an investing standpoint, how long do you have to have that money compounding and growing for it to equate to the amount of time that it's spent growing? If that makes sense. And so I think the leverage then is how much less can I work while I have more output over here, and the value then is on the time spent here, not the time spent for this money to grow. And I think that just, I don't know, I kind of had a light bulb moment there where it's like, we, what you learn in business school, what you learn from an investing standpoint, what people, you know, positions, even if they don't have, you know, a higher acuity for finances and how all that works. They still just think, okay, the longer that I invest in something, the longer the money sits there and I don't use it, it will grow. But that value is on their time. The value is not in the amount of time that it's spent growing. It's on the amount of time it took you to earn the input. It's not necessarily the amount of the output. So kind of had a little bit of a light bulb moment that in finance, we're taught the opposite. - Yeah, so a few things like my kids will go do like a chore for somebody and they'll earn $20. And I explained to them that was an exchange of your time and this $20 represents the value of time that you gave up and now you have that $20. Even them, they can start to put that $20 to work or they can at least at minimum store that value of time for future use rather than wasting giving up their time. And if you start at a young age and realize that when I exchange my time, I'm giving all the value that I have. My only asset, I am giving away and I'm trading it for some representation of that value. If from a young age, I start making good choices with that value 'cause that's where wealth is created, I will be extremely wealthy by default. It's impossible not to. You brought up leverage when we think back to the initial person, the homesteader, every hour that he puts out, he's getting one back of value. He puts a roof on his home, he gets one value back of that roof. He's growing vegetables, he gets equal one -to -one. And you see how that started to work. When the bartering system was there, it was one hour of input is 10 chickens of value. But I can do 20 chickens in one hour. So now I'm putting in one hour still, but I've doubled the output. The problem was before I had no use for the doubled output. Well, now when I double the output, I take half of it and I exchange it for firewood or a pelt. And now I have double the output from my one hour and little by little, human society has figured out, how do I amplify my time? You know, people talk about AI, right? AI is not going to steal everybody's jobs, but it's going to leverage your time tremendously. So people that used to earn one to one, and then it was that farmer in the barter, it was now one to two, and it started to get more and more, it's about to be one to a thousand, one to a million, because technology can amplify and leverage your time, which is your asset. Yeah. I just think back to the homesteader or the people trading time is like, okay, I can do 10 chickens in one hour, or I can do 20 chickens in one hour, that's that value. Then you look at someone who is a hunter, it's like, well, it takes me six hours to hunt a deer. So that is more, if you're going to trade deer meat for chicken, like that is not a one -to -one trade, because it took me six hours to get one thing. It took you one hour to get 20. That exchange there doesn't work. And so I think that gives me some on with physicians. They're spending 10 years of their lives. They're paid some in residency, not a lot, but they're giving up so much of their time without gaining that value throughout undergrad medical school residency. That's why they are compensated higher once they come out. The value that they're creating, the quality of life that they're creating for others that they help, that exchange of their time to do that, that's why it is so valuable. And so I just, I think of the equations between or the equity between what someone who does this earns and someone who does this earns, they both work for an hour, but why is one more valuable than the other? It's just very interesting to think about. And it all comes down to time, not necessarily dollars and cents. - Yeah, exactly. And everything that we look back in history, all these industrial revolutions and you know we start with the homesteader and then the bartering and then how do we use currency as a medium and then we're plowing fields and trying to mass produce and we have an industrial revolution and then all of a sudden tractors now instead of doing 20 acres in a day I can do 200 acres in a day so now I've amplified that leverage of my time and all of a sudden you see the wealth of the United States grow everything is growing I mean, it's really everywhere, but every time you leverage time to get more output, you just simply get more value. So when you learn how to leverage your time for an exchange of more value, that's how the society keeps going. You know, and I think people don't realize too is, you look at like we go down to Guatemala, we have our mission trip coming up. Down there, people earn way less. That just simply is in Guatemala, the exchange value of exchange for an hour of time is not as much in Guatemala, it's just not valued the same. But you come to the United States, we put way more value on it. It all just comes down to that first initial asset is your time. And that's the only way to create any value in the world. And wherever you are, there's an exchange for that time. And you get to decide, am I giving my time up for that exchange of value or not? Where can people go to learn more about this? Because I think hearing 40 minutes of us say the word time and value about 1 ,000 times each, hopefully there was a lot of clarity that people got when they listened to it. Like when I asked that question earlier, like where, what's that first initial step? Where could people go, you know, if the two paths that they've been going is spend or save, but now they want to invest a buyback time, like where can they go? not necessarily what do they need to do, but where can they go to figure out, okay, I like what they said. I wanna get this started. - Yeah, I mean, I think, I know things are always changing. I know we have our new school community coming out and we have the five day challenge. I'm not sure exactly where all that falls right now, but in general, if you go to the website, the doctorsanddollars .co website, then there's different ways to get more access to different resources and kind of like the follow up, you know, questions and deep dive into this episode once it's published. So probably doctors and dollars website until we have final word that our new community. And I know the five day challenge getting moved over to the school community as well from the websites. I know that transition's going, but everything on the website will always be updated. And I'm super excited about a new school community because I totally realized that's the tough thing, right? Is we have these conversations, 40 minutes, somebody gets a light bulb moment while they're working out or while they're driving. And then it's like, okay, now I forgot what he said. I don't understand how to apply it to my life. So I think that's awesome. Have that school community, you know, coming online now. It's just an awesome location to be able to dive deeper and actually understand how the heck does this actually work? And, you know, I got three of the puzzle pieces, but I see three more and I don't quite know how to put those into use here. - Absolutely, yeah. I mean, we always put the link below these episodes and doctorsanddollars.co. We'll always be updated regardless of when you're listening to it, you know, we're recording in the middle of December. If it's the middle of January when you hear this episode, doctorsanddollars.co will always direct you to the right place, join our community, reach out, ask us questions, take the five day challenge, I think is the biggest takeaway or the biggest final thought that I would have that you and I crafted that to really give people a foundational piece of their financial plan and get that started. And it just provides education that they didn't get in medical school. And so I think even getting that first step there is going to spark more questions is going to spark a different mindset and gets people moving to where they want to be. Pretty good. Yeah, man, I think, I think the one thing too is like, you just said it. And I think, you know, I hear it and see it a lot is like the financial education that you didn't get in medical school. But the more we put together and the more we talk to people, and I mean, this is just the financial education that nobody got. You know, I mean, the wealthy, the elite, the people, the kids that grow up understanding this stuff and they're part of it, they know about it. But whether you went to med school, whether you went to undergrad business school with some professor who, you know, preaches in theory and never actually ran a business, whether you're a biology major, like most people don't ever get to the basics and understand this. Most people get caught up and lost in the Wall Street, you know, on the narrative and they just trudged through life and they never, they never really understand how to grasp this. So, um, that's kind of where I'm at in my life, right? It's like that fulfillment part, like the exchange of time for fulfillment because I love that moment when somebody has that light bulb moment and they're like, Oh my God, that clicked for me. And I know if you learned it at 30, the next 70 years are now saved because it clicked. If you learn at 50, the next 50 years, you know, whatever timeframe doesn't matter, you know, that once you learn it and once you have it, you have it forever and your kids now can learn it for, you know, they'll know it forever. So that I just love doing it because I think that's so powerful is once these moments and these aha moments click, it's life changing for generations. - Absolutely. Solid final thought there for me. So we'll come back with another one. Next one's like, see you buddy. See you, man.