Episode Notes

Dr. Kevin Mailo welcomes Dr. Nour Khatib back to the show to share her insight into personal finance and finding happiness. Dr. Khatib has an MBA and worked in the finance sector before returning to medicine as an emergency physician, which has given her educational and practical knowledge on physicians and finance.

Nour Khatib talks to physicians about burnout and wellness because, she said, digging into those topics made an impact on her and she wants to share that learning with her colleagues. Part of happiness is finance and she has some key pieces of advice to share. Advice for those just getting started, because it’s never too late to caretake your personal finances, but also advice for those already on their financial journey.  

In this episode, Dr. Kevin Mailo and guest Dr. Nour Khatib talk all about personal finance, from what incorporation means to compounding to diversification. Nour explains the time value of money, why everyone needs a team of experts to assist their financial aspirations, and how diversification can reach beyond the public markets into the public sector. The conversation is full of book recommendations, practical tips, and also real questions around what makes us happy and how finance is only one part of that equation.

About Dr. Nour Khatib:

Dr. Nour Khatib MD CM, MBA is an enthusiastic and dynamic emergency physician and financial professional with keen interest in Quality Improvement, Patient Education and Global Health. She completed her family medicine training at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center and did further training in emergency medicine at the University of Ottawa (CCFP-EM). With extensive experience and a professional record as a financial and business analyst, Dr. Khatib has excelled in both international and local firms with determination, hard work, and resourcefulness. Utilizing a broad acumen in healthcare, finance and business practices, she aims to solve issues regarding the quality of healthcare and the patient experience.

Resources Discussed in this Episode:

• Physician Empowerment “Episode 5: Med School Dropout with Dr. Nour Khatib”
• “Millionaire Teacher” by Andrew Hallam
• “The Wealthy Barber Returns” by David Chilton
• “Beat the Bank” by Larry Bates
• “The Value of Simple” John Robertson, PhD
• “The Millionaire Next Door” by Thomas J Stanley, PhD and William D Danko PhD
• “The Millionaire Mind” by Thomas J Stanley
• The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos podcast
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Physician Empowerment: website | facebook | linkedin

Nour Khatib, MD CM, MBA: linkedin

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Transcript

Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:00:01] Hi, I'm Dr. Kevin Mailo and you're listening to the Physician Empowerment podcast. At Physician Empowerment, we're focused on transforming the lives of Canadian physicians through education in finance, practice transformation, wellness and leadership. After you've listened to today's episode, I encourage you to visit us at PhysEmpowerment.ca - that's P H Y S Empowerment dot ca - to learn more about the many resources we have to help you make that change in your own life, practice and personal finances. Now on to today's episode.

Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:00:35] Hi everyone. I'm Dr. Kevin Mailo, one of the co-hosts of the Physician Empowerment podcast. And today I am absolutely honored and excited to have Dr. Khatib, Dr. Nour Khatib, joining us again for another great episode. And today Nour is going to be talking a little bit more about her financial journey and some of the fundamental aspects of finance that every physician, regardless of their stage of practice, needs to understand. And for those of you that do not know Dr. Khatib, she wears a lot of different hats. But the big thing is that she is a physician like us. She's an emergency physician, but she had a career before medicine. She practices not only in the GTA, but also northern Ontario in remote, and she does do some international work as well. Dr. Khatib also has.... well, maybe you want to describe it for us, Nour? Why don't I just, why don't we just break there and I'll let you just talk and share what you do, where you're at.

Dr. Nour Khatib: [00:01:35] Thanks so much, Kevin. I really appreciate the introduction. And thanks for having me tonight.

Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:01:39] I'm not very good at these. Not when they get this long.

Dr. Nour Khatib: [00:01:43] No. No. I thought you did great.

Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:01:44] Such highly accomplished guests on the show, so I'm just going to have to let you do it yourself.

Dr. Nour Khatib: [00:01:48] You're too kind. You're too kind. So over the last couple of years, I also started speaking to physicians like myself about burnout and wellness. And I know you're all rolling your eyes because I did, too. But I really feel that it's something that's affecting all of us. And I decided just a few years ago to stop rolling my eyes at things that are labelled wellness or labelled well-being and really start to dig deep and try to learn what that means. And it really made an impact on me and I wanted to share with my colleagues. So I've been invited to give talks about wellness and burnout in physicians. And so if you need to reach me to help out with your group, I'm happy to as well.

Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:02:28] Awesome. Okay, let's start. Tell us a little bit about your journey, Nour. How did you get from here? And for those of you that don't know the earlier episode, I think it's episode number five on the Physician Empowerment podcast, was a deeper introduction to Nour's background, but it's entitled Med School Dropout, so a really great story and by all means go back and listen to it. But for now, just tell us how you got to where you are.

Dr. Nour Khatib: [00:02:54] Absolutely. It's entitled Med School Dropout for a reason, because actually, I was a med school dropout. So basically what happened is, I had gotten into med school at a very, very young age, wasn't sure that it was for me, and ended up two months in quitting and going into business. So I in fact, did a finance degree. I worked in finance for Pratt and Whitney Canada, which is an engine airplane engine manufacturer. And there, that's where did my MBA at the same time. All in all, at the same time, always thinking what if, what if, what if, what if I had continued? What if I had not left? What if I had a different path? And at that point I thought to myself, If I don't try now, I never will. And I'll always be second-guessing and I'll always be wondering. So decided to risk it and quit the business life that I was working in and ended up going into medicine and absolutely love the fact that I left the first time. And I'm very, very grateful for being able to come back the second time. And in that career, though, in that path, I learned quite a few things about finance that I actually was never taught in my finance degrees. So there's a lot of things that real life teaches you and not your degree, not your piece of paper, not the textbooks.

Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:04:11] Good. Love it. One theme that's already popping out is the notion of the lifelong learner. I mean, we talk about continuing medical education throughout our careers, but it sounds like, you know, this has been a, you know, a big personal journey for you.

Dr. Nour Khatib: [00:04:27] Absolutely. And I would say the first ten years, I didn't not learn personal finance. But then once you start making money and wanting to know what do I do with it, that's when you start learning personal finance. And it's not really taught well in business school. It truly isn't. I believe it was an elective and one elective in the entire four years of the bachelors. So it wasn't even mandatory when truly it should be something mandatory for everyone in every field.

Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:04:56] Awesome. Awesome. Okay, continue. Share. Share your journey with us.

Dr. Nour Khatib: [00:05:01] I remember graduating and thinking, okay, great. It's June 30th. I'm ready to take on the world. I, you know, no longer does anyone have to sign the bottom of those charts. And, you know, these patients are now mine and these decisions are now mine. And I felt great about it until I realized, Oh, damn, these patients are now mine. These decisions are now mine. And I have no, there's very little hand-holding, especially when it comes to outside of medicine in terms of what do we do next? Who do we talk to next? So July 1st really felt overwhelming, especially the month after July 1st when you start actually making some income and realizing, okay, when do I incorporate? How do I invest, who invests my money and how much do I save and how much do I even invest? And what do I even mean by investing? So I spent the first two years after graduating, doing a lot of learning on my own. And honestly, it taught me more about finance and personal finance than I ever learned in business school.

Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:05:59] Wow. Wow.

Dr. Nour Khatib: [00:06:01] So exactly what you said, the lifelong learning thing. And I'm still learning. I still got a few books that I want to get through to learn more about it. And I'm telling you, a finance degree and an MBA did not teach me any of these personal finance pearls that you need, in fact, anytime.

Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:06:17] Let's stop there and I'll just share one reflection that I'm having is the fact that you don't have to have an MBA to be great at personal finance. You don't have to have a background in real estate to be a real estate investor. You don't need these things necessarily to be successful in this space. I'm not, I don't believe in do-it-yourself, not one bit, but you need to have at least the tools to be able to interact in the world of finance, and those can be acquired through self-learning.

Dr. Nour Khatib: [00:06:49] Absolutely. The tools, the drive and the curiosity. And I would say curiosity is the big one. You have your best self-interest in mind. And so if you're, you know, if you're not putting pen to paper and trying to learn on your own, and I know we all lead busy lives, but we're leading them for a purpose, right? We're leading them not just to work the 12 hour days that some of us do. It's because we want a better life for our families, because we want to retire eventually, we want to have a better life or enjoy what we're doing or earning. Right? And who better to try to sort that out than yourself through learning about how to do that? And so the first things I asked myself after is, okay, so what about this debt that I have, and when do I incorporate, when do I not? The first thing is get your tribe in order. And who's your tribe? It's going to be your accountant, your lawyer, your financial planner or advisor, and get the right people in your circle to advise you appropriately. I'm not saying become an accountant. I'm saying you need people around you that know things, more than you do, not everything can be DIY. I completely agree, Kevin. There are some things that can and some things that can't. And accounting is definitely one of them.

Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:07:59] Wealth creation is a team sport. Wealth creation is a team sport, in my opinion.

Dr. Nour Khatib: [00:08:04] Absolutely. Absolutely. And so when it came to debt and incorporating, I spoke to my accountant and we literally ran the numbers together. He was very, very patient with me and went through, okay, this is what happens if we incorporate now, this is what happens if we incorporate later. This is how much you need to save a month in order for it to make sense that you incorporate. So just keep listening to them, keep learning, keep looking that up, and just be curious about it. And whether you're two years in, six months in or 15 years in, don't think of the years that are lost. That's what we call in finance sunk cost. That's not going to help if you think that way because there's still the many, many years ahead that you can help renavigate yourself in the right direction.

Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:08:48] What an optimistic message, right? Because I think there's a lot of us out there who look back and go, woulda, coulda, shoulda. And I think that's all of us in some aspect of our financial lives. But the truth is, it's irrelevant to worry about past financial mistakes or I shouldn't have bought so much house or, you know, I missed out on this investment opportunity, or I wish I learned about real estate sooner in my career. You know, you can go endlessly with those kinds of questions, but I don't think it's helpful. I think what's helpful is looking at the here and now saying what's the best decision I can make for my life, for my family and for my future?

Dr. Nour Khatib: [00:09:19] Absolutely. And I mentor a couple of students from U of T, and what I've told them is here is here's what I wish I knew. And one of them was learn about what it means to incorporate. Even if you're a few years in it's good to know, it's good to know what you can expense, what you can't expense and what it means to incorporate. We all think that it's just a way to save us some taxes. No, there's a lot more to it than that. And there's a lot of things that we can learn at any stage really about incorporation.

Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:10:12] Love it. Love it. Okay, keep going.

Dr. Nour Khatib: [00:10:14] The next question I asked myself was, okay, so who invests my money? I mean, with a finance degree and an MBA, shouldn't I be investing my money? But I felt like I wasn't sure, wasn't capable, wasn't, wasn't sure if I wanted to, to do that on my own. So what happened is I ended up actually interviewing six financial advisors. It was a period of like three months where I met six different financial advisors, met with them, talked to them, and learned what they can offer me, what they can help me with. And in the end, what was right for me personally was I ended up doing the DIY investing route, but I hired a financial planner who helped me make some decisions that made sense for me. Okay, so I still, even though I had and I can tell you my job title at Pratt and Whitney Canada was financial planner. So, but I was a corporate financial planner. But regardless, I still needed that hand-holding, that guidance to help me decide what I need to do and look at like retirement planning and all that. So I still hired someone to help. So again, the degrees don't really help you with this stuff? It's you. It's your curiosity. And trust me, this information is not beyond our intelligence whatsoever. You as physicians, you're very intelligent people. You're very curious people. You will be able to understand these concepts with just a little bit of curiosity and a little bit of time, you'd be able to understand these concepts.

Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:11:44] My own reflection on this as well, when we're talking about wealth creation is a team sport, is make sure that as you build your team, the people you know, your accountants, lawyers, real estate professionals, financial advisors, portfolio managers, whoever it is you're working with, make sure they're accessible for you. Because in the end, you pay them and you should feel comfortable asking questions, including the so-called stupid questions, the really basic ones, where you're like, Actually, can we roll this back? I don't understand what you're saying, but I feel like it's important. Can you explain it to me? And I've learned over the years it took me a while to just go ahead and ask the questions that are popping into my head because these folks, they want to help. Right? And they can't help if they don't know what the issue is. So, again, you know, it sounds like you found somebody, Nour, that you can work with who meets you exactly where you're at.

Dr. Nour Khatib: [00:12:39] Absolutely. And so how did I decide on this person? First off, for me, I was looking at someone who was accessible, someone who would answer my stupid questions, because I had some, and someone who, of course, their costs were low. And for me, the fee-based financial planner was perfect for me. I was comfortable doing some investments on my own, but I just needed help, guidance, help with guidance on retirement planning, budgeting and things that really I never really looked into before. So that was in the end what did it for me in terms of how I picked the person that I picked. So it was the financial planner, the accountant, the lawyer, and I made sure that all three of these were people who were accessible and responsive and would answer any question that I had, right? And for me, the accountant was ideal for me to make sure that I have someone that I trust and that I can and that other people have vouched for. So I found him through word of mouth because I actually spoke to other accountants who I felt were more interested in how much business they were making themselves. And you can get that if you meet them face to face or whether it's virtual, you can get that sense and, you know, really go with your gut when that happens and you realize it's not a long-term relationship, you can always change if anything, if anything happens or you don't feel comfortable with them again.

Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:14:03] Absolutely. Absolutely. So, you know, you have all this background in business, years and years of training and you worked in finance. Tell us the big lessons you learned about money and personal finance.

Dr. Nour Khatib: [00:14:17] Sure thing. Absolutely. Here are some things that in seven years of business school, what I've learned mainly about personal finance and there are three concepts I think everybody should know in any field. Okay, so we'll start with the idea of compounding. So compounding, it's basically the process in which an asset's earnings are reinvested to generate additional earnings over time. So for example, if you are investing, if you are making, if you're investing $10 and then you make an extra dollar above that, the compounding is what that $1 will make in the future. It will be compounded for more and more. So it's really an exponential growth. Investments will generate earnings from both your principal, so your $10, and the accumulated earnings from the interest part, which is the $1. And so that, over time, is an incredible exponential growth. And the power of that idea of compounding is so significant that if I give you an example of like there's, here's an example of one investor who starts at the age of 25. She sets aside $5,000 a year for ten years. And that's it. At age 34, she stops. Then you've got a second investor who starts at 35, so starts ten years later than her, and he puts in $5,000 each year for 30 years and he stops age 65. Believe it or not, the first investor that only invested for ten years does better in the end at age 65 than the second investor, and that is because of the power of compounding. That's not because investor one was smarter than investor two or invested their money better, with someone better than investor two, it's literally about the amount of time. So when do you start? Now or yesterday. And don't feel bad that you haven't started yet or that you, um, or that you haven't looked into this yet. Just start is my biggest take, my biggest learning lesson.

Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:16:18] Wow. I love it. So. So what's this related concept of time value of money?

Dr. Nour Khatib: [00:16:23] Yeah. So the other concept that they teach you and they hound you in business school is the time value of money. Basically saying that the value of a dollar today is worth more than the value of a dollar in the future, mainly because the money you have today, the money that you get today can be invested and therefore can make more money in the future. So I'd rather have $100 now than $100 a year from now because in that one year, I can invest it and make more money. So that's the time value of money. Money today can be invested and therefore has potential to grow. And so it's worth more. And it's used to make some strategic long-term financial decisions, such as whether you invest in a project with certain cash flow versus another cash flow. So, you know, like when they tell you, well, if you win the lottery, would you like the lump sum now or would you like it over a few years? So people use time value of money calculations to try to make that decision. And it really it's compounding and the time value of money together are very, very similar concepts.

Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:17:25] I love that. Absolutely love that. And I mean, this also even just is, you know, a reflection of our personal spending. Right? Like spending on consumer goods or what have you, I mean, it's out the door, right? And that, it's not just the value of that dollar that was spent now on consumer spending. It's what it could have bought you 10, 20, 30 years down the road when it's been compounded. And that's always the calculation that runs in my head when I consider like, do I really want this like widget?

Dr. Nour Khatib: [00:17:55] Absolutely. And you have to think to yourself, like how much, when I start thinking like that, I go through a rabbit hole and then I don't want to pay for anything. But then you think to yourself what marginal benefit or marginal happiness is this going to get me?

Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:18:08] Yeah, right. Love it.

Dr. Nour Khatib: [00:18:10] Is this widget going to bring me more joy in the future or is it going to give me immediate joy for the next ten minutes and then once I get used to it, the joy is gone?

Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:18:17] Yeah, totally, totally. Love it. Keep going. Tell us what else you learned.

Dr. Nour Khatib: [00:18:22] So the third aspect that they teach you in business school is diversification. So diversification basically means it's a strategy where you're not going to put all your eggs in one basket. Okay? So what that means is you mix a variety of investments or a variety of different things in your basket so that if one does poorly, you're not at a huge loss because when one does poorly, sometimes one does better or one stays the same. And so it's a strategy that mixes a wide variety of investments within a portfolio in an attempt to reduce the portfolio's risk. So diversification is most often done by investing in different asset classes, like, for example, in stocks and bonds and real estate. And so when you mix that up, then the risk of that portfolio is actually reduced. So buying investments in different countries also is a type of diversification, industries, sizes of companies, and so that's also a concept that business school really hounds. And in fact, in a lot of classes in business school, they make us go through the calculation of trying to figure out how many stocks do you need in order to have a diversified portfolio. And if you look at some of these indices nowadays, there's like 12,000 stocks in them and whatnot. Right? But in fact, it's only a handful. It's about 30 stocks that you need in different industries and different companies and different types of companies that will help mitigate risk. And so you can mitigate that diversifiable risk.

Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:19:56] And what about diversifying outside of the public markets? Because I mean, we've seen we've seen a big market correction this year or last, beginning last year. And a lot of physicians, you know, come to us asking about private equity and whether that's startups or real estate projects, people are looking to diversify. It actually, if you look at the numbers, there's a lot more money being made outside of the public markets in the private markets than there is in the public, than there is, you know, on the stock market, if you want to call it that in its simplest term. So how do physicians diversify there? Right? Because there are pitfalls associated with it.

Dr. Nour Khatib: [00:20:36] Absolutely. So there's many types of diversification. You can diversify within the stock market, whether it's bonds or stocks or, you can diversify within that. But then what you're saying is go externally and that's another level of diversification. So absolutely, if you have the luxury of being able to access markets that are outside of, you know, the public domain, then that is a different, that's a type of diversification. As long as you're not putting all of your eggs in that one thing.

Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:21:02] Exactly.

Dr. Nour Khatib: [00:21:03] That's a type of diversification.

Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:21:05] Yeah. I mean, I often deal with physicians who are very keen to join in certain real estate projects, and I will often tell them to exercise some caution about like, don't put so much money into this, you know, if it's really going to hurt to lose it or if you're not, even if you're not going to lose it, but you're just not going to sleep well at night, you really haven't added to your well-being by making such a big gamble. And the other thing that, you know, I'll reflect on in the private markets is that physicians are very, very privileged because of our high incomes. We are almost all of us are accredited investors. And an accredited investor means, is a category that allows you to join in the private markets in a way that the general public cannot access because their income is not high enough. And those rules were set up to protect essentially middle and working-class folks from getting swindled in private equity deals. And so there is risk. But at the same time, there's a lot of upside because there's a lot more money that's made in the private equity sphere than the public markets potentially. But there has to be a lot of due diligence and caution exercised there as well.

Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:22:14] So again, it's just, it's that notion of diversity can be a lot bigger and a lot more three-dimensional than just picking a wide spread of stocks. The other reflection, and this is something that, you know, I kind of learned from Wing was, you can diversify within an asset class that you're comfortable with, right? So if you love real estate, you can own reits which are publicly traded. You can own reits that are privately traded. You can own your own doors and manage them yourself. You can invest in private equity deals and real estate projects where you are a limited partner and you're hands-off. You can even consider your personal residence to be a part of that diversification as well. Right? So again, it's kind of wrapping our heads around the idea of diversification being more than just, you know, a spread. And to allude to what Nour said earlier is like, you know, we sit there and you look at the staggering array of different stocks you can buy in the market, but there aren't necessarily a lot that are wildly different from one another when you're trying to diversify.

Dr. Nour Khatib: [00:23:15] Absolutely. Agree with everything you've said. And then the fourth concept, though, is with increased risk, increased return rate. When you have got a lot of risk, you might have a lot of return. Low risk, low return. That's another concept to think about. But as long as you're diversifying, whether it's public, private or a mix of both, as long as you have that in mind and you're comfortable with it, and keep in mind, you have to be very honest with yourself. Are you more of a conservative investor, more of an aggressive investor? And there is a ton of surveys out there that will help you decide that because you might not know yourself, right?

Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:23:53] Oh, I love that, actually. That's great.

Dr. Nour Khatib: [00:23:55] These will help you decide what kind of investor are you. There are certain questions and behavioral questions that they can take you through and they'll help you decide. Yeah. And whenever you sit with a financial planner or you sit with a financial advisor, they'll go through something like that with you. But if you don't have one right now, that's it's fine to try to understand what kind of risk are you?

Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:24:15] Developing our own notion. I love that. Developing our own notion of risk tolerance and what we can live with. Right. Because, and I've said this again, I kind of rant on it, is like no matter how much money you're making, you really want to be sleeping better at night. That's one of the whole purposes behind money is not just to buy you things, but to buy you a sense of security and peace of mind. So if you're not enjoying your process of investing, then maybe you should reconsider something that fits more along the lines of you as a conservative investor or you as a, you know, an investor with a higher risk tolerance. Right? Because there's upsides and downsides to both. The other aspect to diversification and appreciating risk is the notion that, you know, when we are diversified, that means that not everybody's a winner, right? Like if you look at your basket of investments, if you are truly, truly diversified, it's rare that they're all going up. And it's great when things are going down in certain categories because others will go up. But psychologically, you have to internalize the fact that, yeah, well, if I really spread myself geographically or across different asset classes, then it's, you know, there are going to be times when, you know, certain asset classes underperform relative to others and be willing to accept that as part of the discipline of diversifying.

Dr. Nour Khatib: [00:25:33] And you're constantly learning, you're going to learn about yourself. You're going to learn what your risk, your, you know, when it comes to real life, it might be very different from the survey you took to see what your risk level is. But that's the beauty of it, is that you're going to constantly learn and constantly adjust and just stay the course, stay, adjust, but stay the course, if that makes any sense. So it just is, navigate slowly but surely, as long as you've started. And I think that's the biggest thing I learned over the years, is that I just need to keep learning about it. I just need to keep going, keep learning about new asset classes or things, ways for me to diversify, ways I'll be comfortable with. And the learning never stops. And I hope that this kind of instilled a sense of curiosity in you, because I, I do have a couple of books that I would love to recommend to you and might recommend to your listeners. And they're books you may have heard of. And I've always had thought of reading, but I highly would recommend books like The Millionaire Teacher, The Wealthy Barber Returns, Beat the Bank or the Value of Simple. So those are the four books that I'm looking at and it talks a lot about investing. Any books, Kevin, that you highly suggest to the listeners?

Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:26:47] You know, like the ones written by Stanley Thomas in the 90s were foundational for me. They were called The Millionaire Next Door and The Millionaire Mind. He kind of wrote this millionaire series and he was a researcher, a PhD, and he did a lot of like quantitative, but also a lot of qualitative research. But really, I found those books to be so powerfully centering because society's concept of wealth, like what's projected on the media, social media advertisements, is very different from what real wealth looks like and that most people that enjoy an extremely high net worth, let's say, you know, people that are in the eight-figure range and up, they live a lot further below what you would think they do. And it's because fundamentally they haven't changed as a person. Right? And he summarizes his books by saying a millionaire is a cheap date, which means a millionaire can have fun, can enjoy life doing basic things. And not that you can't travel, not that you can't have nice vehicles, nice homes, all those sorts of things. But it's a centering and this grounding exercise. And so those books were very beautiful for me. It's something I teach my children, but it's being happy with what is now rather than always I want, I want, I want. Because that force, when we're in that position, we're spending today's dollars. And as you said earlier, Nour, the time value of money is so precious. Right? So I'd rather that money was compounding than a very transient joy or little dopamine hit from whatever little experience or widget I purchased. So it's funny, those books are, they don't teach investing, they don't teach anything about like making money. They're not even that relevant for the 2020s now. But there's a lot of wisdom there and a lot of universal truths. So, so those are the ones that I really, I really center on.

Dr. Nour Khatib: [00:28:45] That's a great add. That's a great one.

Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:28:47] And there are lots of others I recommend whenever I teach but those are the first ones that come to mind.

Dr. Nour Khatib: [00:28:53] You made me think of one of my favorite podcasts, actually. It's called The Happiness Lab. So the Happiness Lab by Dr. Laurie Santos. She's a psychologist at Yale. Oh, you're going to love it. You're absolutely going to love it. So every episode she talks about the science of well-being, the science of what makes us happy, and all these evidence-based studies that talk about what makes people truly happy. And the biggest thing that she mentions is something called the hedonic treadmill, the hedonic adaptation, basically the tendency of us mere humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite a recent positive or negative event that has happened. So buying that boat, eventually you'll go back to your stable level of happiness that you had before buying that boat. So just things to consider and things that I learned on that podcast were phenomenal. And adding to my, I would call it wellness wealth, I would say, because it's really helped. It's really helped.

Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:29:56] Your happiness bank.

Dr. Nour Khatib: [00:29:57] My happiness bank. Yeah. And it's something that definitely I would add to your financial literacy because it really does help in making us decide on what's important and what's not important.

Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:30:07] And even just the bigger question of the pursuit of money because I think it is important. Money matters. That's why I teach it. That's why I try to live by some of these principles. But in the end, it's like, how much do you need? How much? How much is enough for you? Not looking at what society thinks we should have, not looking at our neighbors, our colleagues, you know, but really, it's that bigger question of what do I need right now to be secure and enjoy peace of mind and have the most amount of happiness? And when I teach it, I've got this little cute slide saying that money isn't the cake, it's one of the ingredients. And that's all it is. That's all it is. And another million probably isn't going to have a meaningful impact in most people's happiness.

Dr. Nour Khatib: [00:30:55] Completely agree. Completely agree. When I teach my wellness talks, I tell them wellness wealth, one of the prongs is your financial goals.

Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:31:05] Love it.

Dr. Nour Khatib: [00:31:05] One of the prongs of the wellness wealth is your financial stuff. But otherwise it's many different things.

Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:31:11] Nour, this has been absolutely phenomenal. I know we've got more, but I think we've got to wrap up. So that means we just have to get you back on the show again at some point in the future.

Dr. Nour Khatib: [00:31:22] It would be my pleasure. Thanks so much, Kevin.

Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:31:24] You know what? It was just amazing. Every time we talk, I always love it, I always feel like I'm learning and not just like concepts, but the wisdom that you share. And for those of you that don't know, look Nour up. She does this incredible work in the space of workplace wellness, which I feel our profession needs now more than ever, because obviously things aren't getting better post-pandemic. So again, I encourage you to reach out to Nour for your group or your event. And with that being said, I want to wrap up and sincerely thank you, Nour, for joining us.

Dr. Nour Khatib: [00:31:58] Thanks for having me, Kevin. Have a wonderful evening, everyone, and thanks for joining us.

Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:32:03] Thank you so much for listening to the Physician Empowerment podcast. If you're ready to take those next steps in transforming your practice, finances or personal well-being, then come and join us at PhysEmpowerment.ca - P H Y S Empowerment dot ca - to learn more about how we can help. If today's episode resonated with you, I'd really appreciate it if you would share our podcast with a colleague or friend and head over to Apple Podcasts to give us a five-star rating and review. If you've got feedback, questions or suggestions for future episode topics, we'd love to hear from you. If you want to join us and be interviewed and share some of your story, we'd absolutely love that as well. Please send me an email at KMailo @ PhysEmpowerment.ca. Thank you again for listening. Bye.