118 - How New Physicians Can Avoid Burnout and Build Wealth from Day One

Are you a new physician feeling overwhelmed by the demands of residency or new medical practice and unsure how to manage your finances effectively?

Starting out in your medical career can be exhilarating, but the financial stress and burnout are real threats. In this episode, we dive into how financial planning is the secret weapon new physicians need to avoid burnout while also setting themselves up for long-term wealth. Feraud Calixte, a financial planner with years of experience working with physicians, shares insights that go beyond basic financial advice.

• Learn the top financial mistakes many new physicians make that lead to stress and burnout.
• Discover practical steps to take from day one to protect your financial future and avoid the common traps.
• Gain actionable tips for balancing the financial demands of your career while building wealth and maintaining your well-being.

Listen to this episode now and start your journey toward a balanced, financially secure, and burnout-free medical career.

Connect with Feraud Calixte, J.D., CFP®

Partner | Lead Planner

 www.fortitudefp.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/feraudcalixte/

Instagram: @thefundedlife

Discover how medical graduates, junior doctors, and young physicians can navigate residency training programs, surgical residency, and locum tenens to increase income, enjoy independent practice, decrease stress, achieve financial freedom, and retire early, while maintaining patient satisfaction and exploring physician side gigs to tackle medical school loans.

Transcript

Coach JPMD (00:00.494)
So today we had a great interview with Feraud Calixte, JD, CFP who is a financial planner, financial advisor in Tampa. And it was a great interview. And I learned something today. I learned that there's something that we as organizations and physicians groups can do to help decrease physician burnout. And that is to give them

the opportunity to do other things. And so you'll learn a little bit, a little bit about what Fero says about that. We'll talk about his background and also the three things that he thinks that physicians need to avoid to decrease their stress and also what he thinks the best investment was in his life. And hopefully this will help you in your life as well. So here is the episode, our first episode in a while in studio.

So welcome back to another episode of the independent physicians blueprint, where we help physicians understand how to decrease their stress and generate wealth in this crazy world we're living in. And today we're joined in studio. We haven't done an in studio video in a long time, but for Feraud Calixte. Yes, sir. We are here for you and for our audience, because I think you have such a wealth of information to give and to share with our audience.

Before we get into the meat of the episode, just a quick intro for me. I met a Feraud fishing actually through my best friend, Philip, who introduced us. We went on a fishing trip and unfortunately, I think if I remember correctly, you might've gotten sick.

Yeah, so you did remember that part. So first of all, thank you for having me. I'm super excited to be here. And like Jude said, we met on a fishing trip. And even though I took motion sickness medicine before, didn't realize that when we went out, the waves were really choppy that day. I mean, it was raining. It was was crazy. But yes, he is correct. I did get sick. And our guides or tour guides was helpful enough. I said, that's great. So because I was

Feraud Calixte (02:05.88)
blowing chunks into the water and they say that's good for the fish that'll bring them to water so yeah that so that was that was crazy but it was fun

Yeah, and it's happened to all of us. So as soon as you start throwing up in the water, fish come. I don't know if acid or whatever. But but before you got sick, I was intrigued about your knowledge about physicians. And I didn't understand where that was coming from, because you had a deep knowledge and you kind of pegged us spot on with the stresses that we go through from a financial standpoint.

So what has been your experience with physicians and how did you get that knowledge?

Yeah, so first it's both personal and professional for me. So personally, I have a lot of physicians in my family. So my father's a physician from Haiti, trained in medical school in Mexico. My younger brother, I'm the oldest of three. My youngest brother is a physician. He's a radiologist now in Miami. My uncle is an OB, tons of friends, family, cousin who are physicians. So that's been my personal network. Professionally,

I work with them from different, as we'll kind of explore this later, kind of like my career trajectory, but just in working with physicians in a holistic way, because physicians are oftentimes targeted from financial professionals, mainly from our product salespeople. And the way that I've kind of worked with physicians kind of holistically without having to sell products, the way we work with physicians really resonated with them. And it just became such a

Feraud Calixte (03:39.394)
You know, get one physician, then another one, and then they start talking, and then you just build that clavicle.

Do you think that knowing having family members as physicians, do you think that they give you an edge in understanding the mindset?

yeah, so I think that yes, and it makes you empathetic because I see physicians not as just a client niche or a segment to serve. These are real people with real stories and I can empathize a lot with where they're coming from even though I didn't go through the rigorous training that you all went through, but I have a lot of empathy and can kind of understand some of the pay points that you go through.

And did your mom want you to go be a doctor?

Yes, like most Haitian parents, I had three choices, was either be a doctor, a lawyer, or an engineer. So what's funny is that I did go to law school, I did graduate from law school even though now I'm in financial services. So she got that part, but my youngest brother became the doctor, so she got two out of three of us.

Coach JPMD (04:32.302)
That's awesome. you know, it's interesting because we've had several physicians on the podcast and I don't know if it's because I grew up there. So I kind of gravitate to a lot of my colleagues that have similar experiences. Did you grow up in Haiti or were you born in

So like most people here, I was born in New York, the Haitians are either in New York, Miami or Boston. Those are the three places we were. So born and raised in New York, in Brooklyn, New York. Brooklyn was one of those places that we lived in the type of community. My grandmother lived in Brooklyn, New York for over 20 years without ever having to speak English because her whole community was Haitian people. My mother

was a social worker, she worked at the Flatbush Haitian Center. All she dealt with was Haitian people in her community. That's how large the population was there. So yeah, I'm from Brooklyn, New York.

So I have to say, so am I. Yeah. Born at Unity Hospital. think they, since close that down, but I think it was on the Flatbush area. Yeah. Flatbush is like Haitian zone. So did you ever go to Haiti?

It is Haitian zone, yes.

Feraud Calixte (05:39.498)
No, so it's interesting because like I said, I'm the oldest of three and my parents have a home in Haiti, but every time we wanted to go, it was just challenging some kind of unrest. So they never felt it was a good time for us to go. But that's something I would like to definitely share with my family and take them.

you're a financial planner or financial advisor. How do they differ?

They're interchangeable, but...

I like to refer myself as a financial planner because we lead with financial planning as opposed to investment management. I think that there's a distinction that's important to note there because financial planning takes a holistic view of all of your finances, anything that money touches. Whereas traditionally when you think about an advisor, all you think about is investments. And I always tell my physician clients like, if investment management is all you're getting,

It's such a commodity, hey, let's go to some of these robo-advisors, these cheap vanguard, or some of these other service providers, and you can get investment management for really low cost. I think financial planning that takes a holistic view, that takes a look at taxes, investments, cash flow, insurance, estate planning, how all of those pieces tie together, I think that's where the real value at is.

Coach JPMD (06:59.916)
And so as a financial planner or advisor, are you mainly focused on physicians or is there another group of professionals that you find that are similar to physicians and their stresses?

I'm part of a firm, so our firm has different client segments. So I head up the healthcare and retiree practice group. My partner deals with more of tech professionals and some of the business owners. Now, a lot of times there's some overlap sometimes because sometimes I could be working with a physician who owns a practice, so they're a business owner. So there's some overlap there. But mainly what I deal with is physicians.

You know, you know our stresses.

Yeah, I'd like to say that I've heard some of the same stories over and over.

So give me three things, more if you have more, but three things that you think stresses a physician out to the max. Like something that you've seen over and over again that you're like, man, I wish these docs wouldn't do that.

Feraud Calixte (07:58.606)
Yeah, so one of the things is that depending on if they're first generation doctors, so I think that's unique to if you're a first generation physician because a lot of times you spend the years that you have training. You go to medical school, then you may go to a residency and then fellowship and then you get your first job here, your big boy job as I call it, as an attendee. And a lot of times that,

you know, sudden wealth, there's a lot of complexities that come from that. You you delayed gratification for all this time. So then you feel that once you start working, it's time to make up for lost time. So one of the main points, particularly in the early career stages is really cashflow optimization. So you have this income coming in and the income that you make is actually one of your biggest tools. So you want to leverage that, that tool to really

Optimize your finances. So you want to look at some debt if you have to pay off It's probably your first experience with taxes really considering what what tax rate? Yeah, you're making all of this But then you're in a high-income tax bracket and you like snap I didn't I didn't realize it would be like this Some of the risk that you want to try to mitigate for so you would do want to look at insurance a lot of times That's a lot of financial professionals lead with insurance, but there's a reason why because you know you want to protect that

Largest asset which is your ability to earn so insurance and risk mitigation is there and then you know another thing so you have cash flow optimization risk mitigation and then you also have taxes taxes you also have to be mindful of when you get to a certain a stage or a certain income level the amount of ways that you can invest in a tax-efficient manner you have some limitations because you you you reach an income phase out where you can't

there's certain accounts that won't be viable for you and then you have to look for other ways. So those are some of the three, you know, financial pain points.

Coach JPMD (09:59.938)
So we had a guest on the show that talked about, and he has a shirt that says W2 LOL. And he's kind of helping physicians understand how they can do locum tandem jobs where they don't have to have a W2 income and have a 1099 income where they're consulting and they can, I guess, pay less taxes. that work? How often do you see that in your financial planning?

Yeah, so that's important. So one of the things when I talked about financial planning earlier, that holistic view, so the locum tenens movement, or if you look at social media, a lot of physicians are leveraging social media, that really stems from something deeper than just the financial aspect. It's trying to avoid burnout. It's trying to tackle that creative part of the brain.

creative part of ourselves that we really want to engage and build. And sometimes they're not finding that fulfillment just from the practice of medicine. So sometimes when I have a physician who says, hey, look, I want to leave the hospital. I want to leave a traditional practice and try locum 10 as well. First of all, it's the goals, why you want to do that. And like I said, we'll have those deep conversations as to what's driving that decision. And then the other aspect is again, you're going from W2 to 1099. So then

Are you going to incorporate? How are you structured? What tax deductions now are you going to be able to take advantage of as a 1099 employee? Now that you're 1099, how are you going to manage your benefits that you once had when you were W-2 employee? Now there's also other options that now that you're 1099, you don't have that. You're not a contributor or a participant in the hospital retirement plan. How can you set that up for yourself? So there's a lot of financial considerations.

to make that jump, but we'll help you with that. That to me is easy part, but it's also talking about why, what stems out of this.

Coach JPMD (11:58.284)
Yeah, so that's very, very, I'd like to dig deep into that because so you have physicians that are employed by hospitals and you have independent physicians who are looking to attend 99. But you said that they're doing that to fulfill the desire of the physicians that you're working with. And you've been doing this for how long? 12 years. Over the past 12 years, have you seen a trend to physicians that want to fulfill that that desire to be independent?

plus a 12 year

Feraud Calixte (12:24.206)
There's no question about that. I've seen a trend. I think it also, and then by specialty, it differs as well. for example, one of the things, and your physician audience will know this, is that there's a lot of people when they go through med school, they're familiar of the ROAD, acronym, R-O-A-D. If you're not familiar with it, that is the specialties with the, they say is the best quality of life. So radiology, ophthalmology, anesthesia, and dermatology.

Yep, they talk about, so that's the road to riches. That's the acronym that a lot of people.

Feraud Calixte (13:05.834)
It's not in there. So those are, you know, high income specialties and then you also have a good quality of life. Like for example, my brother who's a radiologist, he's fully remote. That's the trend of physicians like from when my father practiced or even when you got into medicine or my uncle who's an OB who's in private practice. He says all the time, there's a lot of physicians depending on the stage on your career you're at. You know, I wouldn't say regret.

But sometimes I mean, if I could do it over again, I would probably pick this specialty. I would do that. But back to what you were saying about the what trend lines I'm seeing. So I am seeing the younger physicians. There's a sentiment out there that, look, I'm more than what I do. I'm more than a doctor. There's other parts of my my being, my humanity that I would like to share.

with the world. So there's been an explosion of physicians leveraging social media and doing podcasts, going on speaking, having brand deals, really having these separate businesses, side businesses, if you will, really trying to leverage their other talents. And then I think, again, going into that independent practice, I think one of the challenges that come up is that med school

teaches you how to be a good doctor, but it doesn't teach you how to be a business owner. That's a big transition there that, you know, a lot of times when they need guidance in talking about how to run a practice, how to be a business owner, particularly if you're trying to delve into a space outside of medicine, you know, that's a learning curve. Yeah.

of those physicians that are doing that, they're, moving towards doing other things. How are you helping them understand that? What is something that you can do to help them understand how to keep from burning out? Because they can venture out and do these things, but if they don't do them well, or if it doesn't succeed, they're having to go back to the hospital and work for a salary position.

Feraud Calixte (15:07.458)
Yeah, so that's the beauty about the financial plan. This is why I get excited about working with physicians, because again, some physicians, because, and I say this jokingly, but you've been conferred an MD, and sometimes you think you know everything about everything.

We don't? No, you don't. So that's why they leverage expertise like mine. So and I say that my experience is unique because it's also when whenever I interview somebody or somebody comes to me for an initial consultation, there's no judgment. There's a deep empathy and a deep admiration actually for choosing a vocation where you truly can help a lot of people. So that's kind of my baseline where I come from. Then the expertise that I draw from

I'm a business owner. I've ventured into, and we'll talk about this, I've owned real estate, I've owned other businesses, I'm in private practice now, independent practice. So I get where you're coming from and why you wanna share some of your other talents with the world. the transition, so what do I help them with? What do we help them with? Is just that first, everything starts with the why. Because everything starts with the why. Really spending time and diving into

Let's get deeper and find out why these decisions are coming up. So if burnout a lot of times you hear about burnout burnout burnout well, it does that mean that you need to Abandon the traditional practice altogether. Can it be something as simple as scaling back your time if you can? Yeah, you know, can it be something is I remember I'll share a story. I remember I had a physician client and He was getting burned out from the practice of medicine and he said his passion is photography

and he wants to just go into full-time photography. Now his wife was a physician as well. But after talking to him, and it's not, and sometimes I'm this, I'm placed in this position because I can go over the math and the numbers and say that is this feasible? Does this check out? But then part of it is that, again, trying to solve the deeper, well, do you need to do this full-time? I mean, is that a hobby? You know, is this something you can just do on the side when you're not?

Feraud Calixte (17:19.261)
on call or you're not at the hospital, can you just explore this hobby? And maybe you dabble in it for a little while and see where it goes. And then we can kind of talk about some of the other avenues. Because again, the years of training, the expertise, the stress, just the grit, the income that you've been able to acquire, it's hard to walk away from that without having a sound plan.

Yeah. And I think that's what I had to learn the hard way is figuring out what the sound plan is personally. So before I enter any venture now, I have to make sure that the debts or whatever monies we're borrowing or not borrowing is there so that we don't get into a problem when that thing doesn't work out. Yeah. So your personal finances has to be in order. Got to get out of debt. You have to have a budget and you have to have a way of knowing, okay, I have this extra money.

coming in and this is what I can do with the extra money. If you don't, then you run into the problems that most physicians run into and that's increasing your stress and not being able to get that good investment. over the years, 12 years, what would be your best investment?

Home run. I typically like the boring stuff. So personally, my portfolio is allocated, I'm fairly young if you can't tell. I'm actually 90 % in equities right now and very 10 % in mix of cash and fixed income. most of my, you know, high growth, solid company, so that's kind of boring, steady eddy.

You wouldn't do it. S &P 500. You would pick individual stocks.

Feraud Calixte (19:00.078)
Well no, so some of it's a mix of ETFs, so low cost. I do have a couple of individual equities that kind of like, you know, I did some due diligence on, it sounded like a good company and that's been working out. But remember, I have a really long time horizon, so I'm not selling anytime soon. So, no, I'm not doing a penny stock. So that's in terms of the market and in terms of real estate, so commercial real estate has been good for me personally.

You're not doing penny stock.

Feraud Calixte (19:26.862)
We have a mixed use of property, so office space and residential units. That's been good. Yeah, so that was really well, it was kind of crazy because it was at the tail end of covid and people. So 20 was maybe in the covid, maybe like 20, 21 early.

So how did you acquire that?

Coach JPMD (19:45.902)
22 yeah

Feraud Calixte (19:52.268)
people weren't looking for commercial office space because nobody was going into the office. But I found a unique property that was in a great location, not too far from a university. And the only reason why I thought it made sense, like you, I'm doing my due diligence. My hedge was that there was residential property attached. yes, it had commercial, this was like 7,000 square feet, nine offices. I had my practice out of the office.

And, you know, so had eight other offices and I'd like to say that even though co-working was all the rage, you know, you have the more popular ones, we work, people have been doing key man offices for years.

Yes.

Exactly. So that's exactly what I did. So I ran my financial practice out of one office and I rented out the other offices and that has been good. So that was just through a mutual contact. mean the property was listed but I knew the owner and I think I got a pretty good deal on the property. So real estate and just traditional investments have been pretty good.

That's awesome. And I think I think what you what you're hitting on is that owner occupied properties are probably the best properties because then you're paying yourself rent and you're getting the appreciation of the property. So what would be what would you say would be your worst investment?

Feraud Calixte (21:16.078)
Yeah, so worst is a word, but I've learned from everything. One that you will never forget. Yeah, so there's a story here. So one of the things that, one of the asset classes that I got involved in, and this was a few years ago, and this is going to be, most people are going to be shocked to hear this, particularly because of my background from the inner city, but I lived in North Carolina and, you know, affordable housing was all the rage and thinking about affordable housing.

Won't do it again.

Feraud Calixte (21:45.556)
And, you know, somehow, someway being in North Carolina and the South, you know, I looked at single family residences, multifamily, then self storage. I went through the evolution. Then there was all the way over here on the end of the spectrum was a mobile home parks, trailer parks. And, you know, I listened to podcasts. That's usually how these stories start. You listen to podcasts, you talk to a few people and you're just like, huh.

So I've never actually been to a mobile home park until I owned one. And I found one in Eastern North Carolina, was small, relatively small, 15 units. And the idea is that you own the land and then, you know, the residents, the tenants own the actual, the mobile homes. And, you know, before you get comments and everything, because this is a very controversial, I wasn't a slumlord, my value prop

was to actually add value to the properties, improve the properties. Do think there was some capital expenditures that you could make to the property to not only increase the quality of life, but then you also increase the value of the property, right? Cause we're all in investments. So started there and then, you know, after a couple of years, you know, three parks in Eastern North Carolina, 120 pads. So it came to be pretty large. And this was all just kind of me managing it myself. So

The learning experience, I was in this interesting space at the time because while I'm having day to day in my financial planning practice, I would have, and this is interesting, this is why physicians resonate with the duality, the different parts of them. So in the morning time, I could be having a conversation with somebody worth millions of dollars. And then that afternoon, I'm walking a trailer park trying to collect $150 lot rent.

and dealing with those two opposite ends of the spectrum. But it was challenging because you do deal with a difficult population in that asset class and you can't really, there's not a lot of services around it. So meaning that, you anytime I had to try to find help, anything that a handyman who works, like it's only a specialized person who works on the breakdown of the parks. One of the parks that we had, the road conditions were so bad before we acquired it.

Feraud Calixte (24:12.32)
we got a call from the town that said EMS, ambulance can't go in to the property if there's an emergency, you have to fix the roads. That was something I didn't think about. That was an expensive thing. those are the kind of things. it wasn't the worst, but it was definitely, and I'm out of that business now, but that was definitely a learning opportunity for me.

Sure. Well, this has been a enlightening conversation. And what I used to do is do some rapid fire questions at the end of our episodes. Yeah. And I wanted to, I didn't share any of these with you. You start with the easy questions first. Okay. One one word answers or one sentence. So favorite book.

Okay.

Feraud Calixte (25:02.454)
I have so many good books, financial or not financial.

Last book you read.

The last book I read, well, I read the Bible every morning, so that's one, but the last financial book I read was, I think I recently reread The Intelligent Investor by Ben Graham.

Feraud Calixte (25:28.43)
Well as of this recording the Knicks are in the Eastern Conference finals, so you know I'm from New York We with New York is all the way up right now, so we love it. Yes So this is awesome. Also time to be a Nick Yeah, dream car man, I'm not a Not a car guy, but If I had to pick something that I think would be pretty cool. Probably a Porsche

Your dream car. Yeah.

Coach JPMD (25:55.118)
Okay. Your number one go-to stress reliever. Keep it clean,

Yeah, I'm a cycler. That was something I picked up after COVID. don't enjoy running, but getting out on that road, being outside on the bike, riding for miles, 20, 25 plus pounds is awesome.

That's awesome. I need to get out there with you. I don't know if I can do 25 miles. One thing your dad told you that you wish you did early in life.

Yeah, so my dad, one thing he told me, man, he just, he really stressed education. And it's not that I wish, I mean, I did do what he told me. And my brothers did it too. And then just, you know, I can't really think of something that he told me that I wish I did because, you know, the gems that he dropped and then we, we implemented, it was successful for us.

Awesome. If you had presidential powers today, that's one thing you do.

Feraud Calixte (26:57.038)
presidential powers today, what would I do? I guess it's cliche, but I have to talk about finances. I don't believe it. Well, I'd alleviate tax burdens on the people.

You have, how many kids do have? Three. have three. Yeah, three. Favorite child.

That's how I plan it. They're all my favorite.

Good answer, yes. What's the one thing you think you'd do if you had $10 million right now?

man, if I had $10 million right now, there was a portion, first of all, I start a foundation that would be, and you don't have to have $10 million to buy the that's also something that we talk about our traditions, but there's ways to be charitably inclined where you don't need millions of dollars. So start a foundation to support causes that we are passionate about, and then we would really live well. We would enjoy it, can't take it with you. Yes, I would invest, and that,

Feraud Calixte (27:55.53)
seed capital would probably last for generations.

What would be one thing that others would say is your superpower?

Man, I just love people. I'm great at listening. One of my taglines used to be, before I started joining my firm with my partner, was your net worth is not your self worth. And I really believe that. So a lot of times when physicians come to me or clients come to me, the question that they're trying to get at is like, am I where I'm supposed to be? Or man, I really screwed up. I really feel like I'm not where I'm supposed to be. And I really approach everything from an

empathy because I'm not perfect. know, people that I am not perfect. I have an expertise, which is why you're coming to me. But I've made mistakes. I've made money mistakes. We all have our money past and history money trauma, if you will. So yeah, I think I'm great at listening and just understanding and meeting people where they are.

One financial tip all physicians need to know.

Feraud Calixte (28:58.866)
One financial tip all physicians need to know. Look, you're gonna find I'm different than a lot of financial planners in the sense that, hey look, if you're a DIYer, do it yourself, that's awesome. I do think that you do need to recognize that you have an expertise that the same way I'm not performing surgery on myself, I'm not doing.

Everything. It's funny, my brother would, you know, if I look at an x-ray image, like, it's literally a different language. Like, I can't even understand what he sees. I think that it's incumbent on you. Have some humility to know, hey, look, I've gotten to this point, but it may be worth it to talk to somebody and at least get a second opinion. So yeah, so be open to second opinions. A lot of times those are free. Sometimes it'll just validate what you're doing or

you may see something that you overlooked at me like, I didn't think about that before. So be intellectually curious.

Wise, wise advice, my friend. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So how can we find you if someone wanted to reach out to you and get more information about you?

Yeah, so I'm on social media. So the funded life at Instagram is a place you could find me. So the firm is Fortitude Financial Planning. You could find us there. Another thing too, if you go to the website or if you contact me on social media, LinkedIn is just for road clicks. One of the giveaways that I give and I would implore anybody who wants to, we created a book, an ebook. It's called From Residency to Retirement.

Feraud Calixte (30:36.054)
And it's basically an easy read, quick read. You can download it for free. We give it away when we talk to residents and even people who are at different stages in their career. It has a lot of practical advice that kind of we've amassed over the years and that we just give that away. And that's just something we just do because we love the community.

Can we share that in the show notes? So I'll put that in the show notes. So as all your contact information and it's been awesome having you finally got you. Yeah. Turn my studio back on.

Yeah, no, this has been awesome. This is a lot of fun and I can't wait till the community hears it and I'm open. Like I said, if anybody wants to just reach out and just connect on any platform, I'm here and I just admire what you guys do and the vocation that you chose.

Thanks man.

Yeah.

Coach JPMD (31:25.88)
So thank you for listening to the independent physicians blueprint where we help physicians decrease stress and increase income and generate wealth. So if you haven't had a chance to please leave a review, subscribe to the podcast on your favorite podcast app. That's how we are going to help other physicians hear about us. And we know that if you're still listening, you're enjoying this show. So please share it with your friends.