Today, my interview is with Jordan Grumet who also goes by Doc G. As a hospice doctor who teaches people and inspires people about their relationship with money, Jordan paved a path to questioning many assumptions about money and the pursuit of happiness. In our conversation, Doc is sharing what he's discovered along his life journey and how that relates to living a better life, to making better choices for yourself and why he decided to write his new book, Taking Stock. I think it is life-changing for so many people when you take a step back and question the assumptions you are making and decide how you can not only have a better relationship with money but live more fully as a result. Enjoy.
Doc G shares with us his insights:
- We have all these things that we wish we did. Why do we wait til we're dying to come to terms with others, right? It's a very common thing for people who are dying to do something called the LIFE review and come to terms with who they are, and what their life was about and what they regretted, and what they found joy. But what if we could do that way earlier?
Like your mom and the sense, I think she's giving that gift to you. She's saying it's too late for me. But you can now go back and take some of what I've been feeling and integrate into your life now. And my belief is that we all should be doing that. We should all have a little bit of that perspective of hospice patients. So that we can start looking at our life now and trying to figure out what is important. What should we be spending our time doing; how do we have enough economic resources to use money as a tool, instead of a goal and use it as that tool to then do things that give us a sense of purpose identity and connections.
- The first one is, you have to think about purpose identity and connections before you start considering and worrying about money and wealth. I think if you don't do that, you find yourself changing what you believe are chasing what you believe our economic needs and you're not fulfilling your souls needs. So you end up wealthy on the outside, but rather bankrupt on the inside, or at least feeling fairly poor because you don't know what you really want to focus on in life. So, first and foremost, I think you need to really think about purpose identity and connections, what do you want your life to be about? What are your goals? What are your bucket list? And, I think you need to think about that at the beginning of your career. That's part one. Part two is then you need to set up a financial framework to fit within that purpose and identity. So now, I know, who I want to be in what's important to me. How can I build a financial life? And for me, I'm very interested in financial independence. How can I pursue financial independence? But do it in such a way in a framework that speaks to what I thought my purpose and identity were.
- ...answering this basic question of whether you're worried that you're not going to have enough time to spend it. You're going to die young or you're going to live for a long time and worried about running out of money. I think, if you can answer that last question, you can then put that all into perspective of what you want out of life. Because the idea again it all comes back to we want money to be a tool to get us to our goals. We don't want it to be a goal because money itself or wealth it never really made anyone happy. But what it allows us to do, which is kind of trying to figure out who we are, what our purpose; what gives us meaning; what kind of things we want to strive towards; that's what we want to use our money to do for us.
- That makes me happy so in the book I call that the climb. This idea of making headway towards something that's deeply important to you. It's a joke, we have in my family. I always tell my kids may you never reach your dreams, but may you get 90% there. And that's kind of my my thought is that I think it's really great to keep on striving towards something that really matters to you. But sometimes getting to that thing you thought that was important is not nearly as fun as the climb to get there. Medical School is a perfect example. Becoming a doctor was awesome and amazing. But I have to tell you, some of my greatest years were I when I was in the act of becoming. Because it was this goal, I was getting closer and closer, but it was still just out of reach. And talk about waking up every morning and being excited, something changes when you actually get to that goal. It just doesn't feel the same. So this act of becoming; this act of being in the midst of the climb; this act of enjoying the process, I think, is what true happiness really looks like.
Jordan Grumet was born in Evanston, Illinois in 1973. His interest in becoming a doctor was ignited when his father, an oncologist, died unexpectedly in the prime of life. This profound loss not only inspired him to practice medicine, it has given him a unique perspective as a financial expert, challenging him to think deeply and critically about concepts like wealth, abundance, and financial independence.
After graduating from the University of Michigan, Jordan received his medical degree from Northwestern University, and began practicing Internal Medicine in Northbrook, Illinois. He currently is an associate medical director at Journeycare Hospice.
After years of blogging about financial independence and wellness, Jordan launched the Earn & Invest podcast in 2018. In 2019 he received the Plutus Award for Best New Personal Finance Podcast and was nominated in 2020 and 2021 for Best Personal Finance Podcast of the year. His book, Taking Stock: A Hospice Doctor’s Advice on Financial Independence, Building Wealth, and Living a Regret-Free Life is being published by Ulysses Press in August 2022.
Learn more about Dr. Jordan:
Website:
https://jordangrumet.com
Book:
https://jordangrumet.com/#bookrelease
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2092508787746296/
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/earnaninvest