Breaking Down Barriers: From Homeless to Renowned Surgeon

Mindy:
Welcome to the BiggerPockets Money Podcast show number 273, where we interview SurgiFi Dr. David Rooney and talk about starting out with no privilege.

Dr. David:
Because one, I don’t look like everyone else. I don’t talk like everybody else. I don’t walk like everyone else. And I have a different background and I’m pretty competitive. So I got used to people telling me that, “You weren’t going to do well, that you weren’t going to make it.” And so I learned how to fight back and I always asked the question, “Why not? Why can’t I do it?”

Mindy:
Hello. Hello. Hello, my name is Mindy Jensen and joining me today as guest host is Doug Cunnington, host of the Mile High FI Podcast. Doug, tell us a bit about your show?

Doug:
Carl, your husband and I talk about personal finance and other topics related to life after corporate jobs. And that goes into lifestyle topics, side hustles, some FI topics. And we honestly go on a lot of tangents. So there’s side conversations all over the place, and we’re actually doing a lot more, long form interviews with awesome people like yourself, Mindy, and some of them go on for over an hour. We’ve also talked to JL Collins, Alan and Katie Donegan, and we’ve even recorded a live panel with Mr. Money Mustache, Alan and Carl.

Mindy:
Yeah. Your show is a super fun listen, while also sharing financial insights. I really like it. Thanks for joining me today. Thanks for taking time out of your busy day of recording with Carl to record with me. Doug and I are here to make financial independence less scary, less just for somebody else. To introduce you to every money story, because we truly believe financial freedom is attainable for everyone, no matter when or where you’re starting.

Doug:
Whether you want to retire early and travel the world, go on to make big time, investments in assets like real estate or start your own business, we’ll help you reach your financial goals and get money out of the way. So you can launch yourself towards your dreams.

Mindy:
Doug, today’s guest is a Naval Academy graduate, a two sport NCAA Division I athlete. He’s an applied mathematician, a cryptologist, a cybersecurity specialist, and a robotic general surgeon all before the age of 35. Yeah, me too. With this kind of pedigree, you would assume that he had everything handed to him and you would not be more wrong. David Rooney grew up financially insecure and for a period of time lived in a car with his mother and brother. He’s now using his voice and his success to democratize financial literacy and information because he also truly believes financial freedom is attainable for everyone, no matter when or where you’re starting.

Doug:
Yeah. I’m super excited to hear David’s story and just get the full rundown.

Mindy:
Yeah. I really like his story. I really like the way that he is so easily tells it. He’s had a lot of things thrown at him and his attitude of, “I don’t have any other option, but to succeed” is not one that everybody shares. And I don’t think that he pats himself on the back enough about that. I think he is amazing and I cannot wait to bring him in to tell his story. David Rooney from SurgiFi, welcome to the BiggerPockets Money Podcast. I am so excited to talk to you today.

Dr. David:
Hey, thanks for having me. I’m excited. I’m a big fan of BiggerPockets.

Mindy:
Aw, thank you. David Rooney is a robot surgeon. So you do surgery on robots?

Dr. David:
Oh, no. It’s more like I use a robotic platform. It’s a great opening and icebreaker, because that’s immediately what people say like, “Oh, you’re a robot surgeon? Do you like operate on robots?” Not, I use the intuitive da Vinci platform to do surgery in a minimally evasive way with smaller incisions, better precision, better vision. In order to give patients a better outcome. I should be a freaking [inaudible 00:04:00] for intuitive talking like that.

Mindy:
You should be.

Dr. David:
Pay me affiliate money.

Mindy:
Yeah. Reach out and I’ll connect you intuitive.

Dr. David:
There you go.

Mindy:
Okay. So let’s start off with your money journey. Where do you consider your journey with money to begin?

Dr. David:
I’m different than a lot of people. My money journey starts off from trauma. I grew up and my first money memory you can say is really of my mom bouncing checks in order for us to eat. So I grew up super, super humble beginnings, including having to live in a car for a significant period of time with my brother and my mom and her abusive boyfriend. And we ate Burger King Whoppers for every meal when they were two for a dollar. We then went to a homeless shelter and I’ve always had a scarcity mentality of money where. I’ve had to I learn how to conserve and save and to survive. And so my money journey is still ongoing. I’m still healing from that trauma, but it’s a traumatic one to start with.

Doug:
So when did things start to turn around? Obviously you have very of impressive background if we look through your resume and that thing. So yeah. Can you walk us through the journey from the humble beginnings as you mentioned to maybe not where you are today, but maybe through college or so to give us an idea how that journey went?

Dr. David:
Well, it’s like I say, this was not necessarily intentional on my part. It was a series of steps on just trying to survive. When you grow up in poverty, especially looking the way I look in the neighborhoods that I grew up in. You get counted out a lot. So people didn’t encourage me to go to college. I didn’t even know I was smart to really almost about 19 years ago. And I just continued to just try and get to the next step, get to the next rung in the ladder. So when we left the homeless shelter, my mom, who was, God rest her soul bipolar as well as a bad diabetic, she would go in and out of the hospital. So we spent a lot of times, me and my brothers were random strangers living on their couch or living in random houses in order to just get by.
Eventually I started to grow a little bit and I came into my own as a basketball player and I started getting recruited and I managed to make it to the United States Naval Academy on an academic or athletic, whatever type of scholarship you want to call it. But I was a recruited athlete to come play basketball there. That was a life changing moment for me because the only reason why I went there is because they guaranteed me how much money I could make in four years when I was done. And so when you’re telling a kid that is struggling just to buy clothes, pay tuition for the private school I had to go to in order to even graduate high school on time. Telling them that, “Hey, I can give you this guaranteed money.” Anything looks good. My mom never made more than $24,000 in a single year in her entire life.
And here I am, they’re telling me, “Oh yeah, you can make 42, 40, $5,000 right out of college.” I thought I was going to be rich. So that gave me a launch pad to take care of my family. And that was the whole thing was I made my grandmother promise that I was going to take care of my mom and my brother. And so I just kept fighting towards that, fighting towards that, inching a little bit further. Once I got to the academy, I started to that blinders. Because the ignorance is bliss. I don’t know anything outside what’s in front of me. So the blinders start to come off a little bit because one, I don’t look like everyone else. I don’t talk like everybody else. I don’t walk like everyone else. And I have a different background and I’m pretty competitive.
So I got used to people telling me that, “You weren’t going to do well, that you weren’t going to make it.” And so I learned how to fight back and I always asked the question, “Why not? Why can’t I do it?” So I got to the academy and I started looking around because I validated some very hard courses. And then I got to take a class biology as a freshman, as a plebe. And I’m looking around, I was like juniors and seniors in there. And the professor asked, “Well, what’s everybody going to do with their life?” And I’m looking around like, “I don’t know what I’m going to do in my life. I just want to eat, have some clothes on my back. Be able to take care of my mom, yada, yada.” And people are talking about going to medical school and going to dental school, going here.
And I’m looking around like, “Man, am I in the right place?” So afterwards I went to an advisor was like, “Hey, people are saying, that’s a class for doctors and dentists.” I was like, “Can I be a doctor?” And my professor was like, “You absolutely can.” So I was like, “Okay, I’m going to be a doctor.” Again, people didn’t believe that I could do it because people from my neighborhood don’t become doctors. And so I just kept inching forward, inching forward, inching forward. But the whole time I had zero financial literacy, zero. I was the poor, black kid that was playing on a team with people who their parents can go to games. Their parents could fly to these NCAA Division I games and I’m trying to keep up with them. So I’m like racking up credit cards left and right.
And eventually I had a coach that came up. So sorry about that. Had a coach that came up and who I looked at like a father figure, God rest his soul as well. He turned out to be an advisor for Prime America. And he was like, “Hey, you know what? You’re messing up your money.” I used to listen to him. Anything he said went, he’s like, “You’re messing up your money.” He put me on allotment. So I was only living off a $50 a month at one point as a college student. If you can imagine trying to take a girl on a date with $50 a month? And he locked up all my credit cards too. I had so many credit cards, low limits, just very, very bad for you. Anytime you walk to the airport, I was signing up for a new credit card and I rack up the debt.
And so he set me up when an allotment for a Roth IRA. And then I started getting the statements like, “Oh man, what’s this thing called compound interest and all this stuff?” And I was majoring at the time I switched for chemistry. So I’m doing the formulas and stuff like that. Like, “Oh yeah, that’s pretty cool, I’m making money.” So that I started putting more money in there. And then when I graduated, I had a pretty significant sum for somebody who basically started with nothing. I had saved quite a bit. And the financial crisis starts. This is around 2007, 2008, financial crisis hits. And man, my money starting to tank and I’m like, “What is going on here? This isn’t supposed to happen, this supposed to go up.” It’s not supposed to go down. And so I called up Prime America was like, “I just want to know why I can’t put more money in because this thing says it’s closed, what does that mean?”
And they were like, “Well you should probably talk to your financial advisor.” I was like, “Well, my coach doesn’t work for you guys anymore.” And I was like, “He was taking care of all of this. I didn’t ask any questions. He had my best interest in mind.” And then the customer service person or whoever it was, was just like, “Well you need to get a financial advisor.” I was like, “Well, can you guys assign me one?” They told me I didn’t warrant getting a financial advisor. And it pissed me off again. And I was like, “Well, you know what? Fine, tell me what do they read?” And they told me to start with the prospectus. I started with the prospectus and I’m reading through this thing and it’s all jargon field. And I realize, I don’t know enough.
And so I’m having to look up all these words. So then that started this journey of me consuming all the knowledge that I could to read the same stuff as financial planners and financial advisors, investment advisors so I can learn. So I never have to worry about someone telling me that I’m not good enough anymore. So that started that fire in me to really make more, to do better. And then I never worried about whether or not I was going to make a lot of money because I figured if I always took care of people and I was living for service and taking care of others, that God would always take care of me. And so that’s the route that I took each time.

Mindy:
Okay. Lots to unpack there. First of all, that breaks my heart that nobody ever encouraged you. And you said, “I didn’t even know I was smart until nine or 10 years ago.” What are you? Hold on, I got to get my notes. You are a mathematician, cryptologist, cybersecurity specialist, robot surgeon. I’m sad that those things don’t tell you that you’re smart. But again, when you are younger and nobody is encouraging you and you’re not hearing people say, “Yes, you’re smart. Of course, you’re smart. Look at how smart you are” all the time. It can be really hard to believe when other people start later on in life.

Dr. David:
Well, I mean, you got to imagine a lot of the spaces that I go into, I might be the only African American in that space. When I was a cryptologist, there were two young African Americans and they kept us separated. And so I’m always in a space where I’m like, “Man, am I supposed to be here?” Am I good enough to be here?” The reality is when you first get in that space, that’s what you’re going to think. But then afterwards you look back and was like, the reason why I was there was because I was very, very good, but that takes time to learn those things. And I grew up in a situation where I associated people with wealth to be better than me because I had nothing. I was a freshman in high school that showed up with a tit suitcase that I got from the thrift store to whereas a backpack. So I’m carrying this 50 cent old school, 70 style porn type suitcase that you would think that I’m some old businessman that’s carrying a suitcase to use as my backpack because I couldn’t afford a backpack.
So those things are a little bit embarrassing. I was a little bit embarrassed in that scenario. And I was always trying to fit in when I didn’t really fit in. Because I wasn’t like everyone else. And I didn’t feel that whether or not out that I was smart. I never got the chance to really think about that. All I was thinking about was I got to work harder than everyone else in order to make sure that I stay in this spot, that’s giving me money, that’s giving me an opportunity. And then what I realized over time is I just kept chasing hard problems. I chased the thing that everyone else didn’t want to do, because again, I get pushed to the back of the room.
I don’t look like everyone else. I’m not getting the same opportunities as everyone else. So then I had to make my niche being the thing that everyone else didn’t want to do. So being in cryptology, I ended up doing a lot of stuff that people was like, “Oh, that’s too hard. Or that problem’s unsolvable.” And I’ll just be like, “Okay, I’ll take a crack at it.” And I just work and work and work. And now it seems like a lot when you look at my resume, even I was like, “Man, I can’t believe I did all that stuff.” But in reality, I didn’t have with choice. I kept getting opportunities taken away from me. And the only way for me to even get down and have some semblance of job satisfaction or whatever was to try hard things and it kept taking me a different path.
Originally I was a chemistry major. And I got forced to move out of chemistry because my basketball coach said it was taking away and a distraction from the team. So he made me switch majors or I had to quit basketball. I had identified myself as a basketball player, not as academic, whatever. And I was just like, “Okay, I’m switching to something easy.” And math came easy to me. And that’s all I thought about. I didn’t think about how technically an applied mathematics degree for the United States Naval Academy is a very hard degree to get and people pay attention to those things that didn’t matter to me. I literally, after graduation, I threw my degree in the trash.

Doug:
Wow.

Dr. David:
That’s the truth. I honestly threw it in the trash. I was like, “I don’t know what this is for.” I couldn’t understand the semblance I and the meaning of it. I understand it now. But that’s the honest to God truth. If you come in my office, you don’t see any of my degrees on the wall. It was hard for me to acknowledge those things.

Mindy:
I want to celebrate your success because getting a math degree is above my head. Getting a math degree is hard. Getting a math degree, says to the corporate world, the hiring world, the the business world that this guy is really, really, really smart. And that math degree is going to open up a lot of doors. If you decided not to be a robot surgeon, if you decided to do something else entirely, having a math degree is going to say, “This brain works in a different way than somebody who gets a different degree. Their brain would work.” And it doesn’t make it, this different degree worse than you. It’s just different. Your mathematical mind is like you’re an analyst. Anybody would hire you as an analyst in a heartbeat because you are like, what’s a cryptographer first of all, I don’t even know what cryptology is.

Dr. David:
Cryptology if the easiest way to think about it is like the World War II codebreakers.

Mindy:
Oh, okay.

Dr. David:
Yeah. So signals, intelligence, things like that. My thing in that realm was cybersecurity. And that was one of those things that I got put into and I got a chance to do it, but they didn’t believe I was going to do it. My boss put his job on the line for me to even get that opportunity.

Doug:
Wow.

Mindy:
And what was the path from your math degree to the cryptology?

Dr. David:
Well, I originally started in a Navy Nuclear community. So I passed the nuclear interview and which is like this random thing. And again, I only did that because they were offering a bonus and the bonus money could have helped my family. So again, you see the carrot and the stick. I kept chasing this carrot. I need more money for my family. So let me go do whatever’s offering money. And I just did whatever it took, studied as hard as I could or whatever. And I just magically got through these doors and I kept getting to the next step. So I started there and the only reason why I didn’t make it to a submarine or anything like that was because my medical waiver never got submitted. And so I ended up with basically no job after completing one of my courses. And I got the option to either get out or go do this thing called cryptology, which they told me it was just cool math stuff. And I was like, “Okay, I know math and let’s go do some cool stuff.”

Doug:
I see.

Mindy:
Was it cool math stuff?

Dr. David:
No. Not at all. Not till the tail end of what I was doing before I went to medical school. It was no cool math stuff. It was a lot of cool stuff. Just not cool math stuff.

Mindy:
Okay. So for those of us who haven’t been in the Navy, does going to the Naval Academy automatically mean you’re in the Navy?

Dr. David:
Yes and no. It depends because part of the Navy is the Marine Corps. So you either go on the Navy or Marines primarily, you can petition to go into the Air Force or Army, but majority of the graduates go either way.

Mindy:
Okay. So are you currently in the Navy or the Marines?

Dr. David:
I am. And let me caveat this, nothing I say here is representative of the United States Navy. I am speaking on behalf of Dr. David Rooney. I’m not representative U.S. Army.

Mindy:
Yes. Thank you. Okay. I’m glad that we had that opportunity to give that disclaimer to you. Okay. So when you graduate, the Naval Academy is like college. That was where you went after high school.

Dr. David:
Yes.

Mindy:
So you graduated from the Naval Academy and you shared the story of signing up for a credit card every time you were in the airport, what sort of debt did you graduate college with?

Dr. David:
Ooh, I graduated. At the Naval Academy, they make you take what’s called a career starter loan. At the time a 0% interest, 30 or 35,000. Then I took another loan, which was another career starter loan was 5,000. And it signed you up for a life insurance policy that you paid off, whatever. So I had probably close to 70,000. I bought a new car-

Mindy:
Of course.

Dr. David:
… before I graduated, because the place I was supposed to move, I had a F-150 that I was driving. It was way too big to be going around South Carolina in F-150 at the time and gas was outrageous. So I bought a Volvo bad decision for me, because that was the worst car I ever owned. So I had about 70,000 when I graduated.

Mindy:
And a full ride scholarship. So you didn’t have any student loans that was just all credit cards and car loans?

Dr. David:
No student loan.

Mindy:
Okay. And after graduation, what year is this that we’re talking?

Dr. David:
2007.

Mindy:
2007. Okay. So after graduation, do you immediately go to medical school?

Dr. David:
No. I did the Navy Nuclear power community stuff for about six months and then switched into, I don’t remember, probably about four or six months at some timeframe in there and then switched to cryptology community. And then about three years later, went to medical school.

Mindy:
Okay. So what was your financial position going into medical school? This is going to be like 2010?

Dr. David:
Mh-mm (affrimative).

Mindy:
Okay.

Dr. David:
Well, it was pretty good at that point because once I made the decision to go to medical school, I went into overly safe mode. And so I just saved everything I could because I got this singular focus. That was the only thing that mattered. I wasn’t buying anything. Everything was devoted towards saving. So I could pay for things associated with the medical school process because the medical school application process is actually prohibitive if you don’t have money, it can be very, very, very expensive. I’m talking about five to 10 grand expensive. And not having the amount of money that you might need in order to apply broadly because I wasn’t a great candidate because I didn’t study at the Naval Academy. I never failed in class. Never really tried too hard at the Naval academy. So my grades I know were lower, my MCAT score was lower.
So I knew that I needed it probably broadly, in order probably broadly, it was going to be a lot of money. So I saved crazy and I probably should have paid off more debt. But if I got into medical school, I had like a $35,000. It might have been close to $30,000, sign on bonus for going to medical school for taking the Navy scholarship. So it was something crazy.

Mindy:
So 2010, you get into medical school, you’ve spent all this money applying to medical school. You get in, you get your $30,000, $35,000 in a stipend?

Dr. David:
Well, I got a sign. I can’t even remember what that… I just remember it was between me selling back all of my vacation time and whatever bonus they gave me, which was pretty significant. It was like 30, 35,000 roughly. And then the military paid for me to go to medical school.

Mindy:
Oh, so you didn’t graduate.

Dr. David:
Yeah, I went to medical school on a HPSP scholarship was a Health Professions Scholarship Program where the military pays for you to go to school. It doesn’t cover all of your costs, but it covers probably a good significant portion of it.

Mindy:
And then are you required to continue on with the Navy when you graduate?

Dr. David:
Yeah. It’s about a year for year commitment. So if they pay for four years in medical school, you owe them four years back. But obviously I had been in for a while, so it wasn’t that big of a deal for me.

Mindy:
Okay.

Dr. David:
I didn’t know anything else.

Doug:
Can you talk about the decision making process to go to medical school? It sounds like things were going okay with the job in general. So yeah. Why switch careers essentially?

Dr. David:
I made the decision to go to a medical school because I wanted to feel like I had a tangible result of helping people. Being in the field that I was in, in cryptology, it’s secret squirrel world. So people don’t even know that you exist and they don’t even know that you’re going to help them. And I really wanted to feel like I can see the results of what I was doing and I wanted a hands on thing and I wanted the ability to impact more lives. So I felt like becoming a doctor would be the best bet. I honestly had no clue what surgeons made. I literally had no idea. All I knew it was something hard that people said I couldn’t do. So I was going to do it.

Doug:
Well, and that makes me look at your career trajectory and where you are now and where you came from. Those tough years growing up. And you’re moving to maybe not bigger challenges, but pretty large challenges in long-term. So how did you keep motivated? How did you push through? It sounds like you weren’t always welcomed in the different environments that you were showing up in. So how’d you keep motivated, especially with a really long-term goals?

Dr. David:
Well, I mean, at the end of the day, what other choice did I have? If I didn’t succeed, what happens to my mom? Now my mom’s passed. But if I didn’t succeed there’s people who were looking up to me to be an example. For instance, my brothers older to me said that I was the motivation for him to keep going. Because he kept up seeing me do hard things. So when he told me that I was like, “Man, I can’t give up.” And then the other thing is, my mom used to always say is, “Are you going to give people the satisfaction of knowing they got you?” So you’re telling me I can’t do this. Am I supposed to give you that satisfaction? I’m too stubborn for that.
And so at the end of the day, I didn’t have a choice. What else was I supposed to do? At the end, I don’t have a fallback plan. I don’t because I don’t have that support network. My only choice is to keep going and to be successful because if I’m not, then it’s all over. There’s no reason for me to be on this earth. Because I’m falling right back down. I started literally with negative. When I went to the Naval Academy, we became homeless again. My mom got sick again. She stopped paying the bills when I was away. Because I was the person responsible for paying the bills. I lost everything, all my clothes. I had no home to go back to. I had no pictures from childhood, nothing.
I literally sat at the Naval Academy and I’m just like, “Well, I don’t even know what home is anymore.” Ever since step of the away, I’ve been the one, but like, “Okay, you know what? I have to put another foot forward. I have to put another step forward,” because I didn’t have a choice. My back’s always been against that wall.

Doug:
Wow. That’s heavy stuff. And I wonder and feel free to skip this question, but did your teammates or some of your close network at the Naval Academy, know some of the struggles that you were going through at the time?

Dr. David:
Well, I mean, you have to under understand that people… I mean you’re 18, 19, 20 year old kids. So You aren’t going to be as mature to understand. So I got teased a lot.

Doug:
Oh yeah.

Dr. David:
I got teased a lot. People making fun of me a lot. Because they couldn’t understand. They couldn’t relate to what I had been through. They couldn’t relate to the trauma and let’s say I defensive earlier and I feel like I’m a caged animal and I have to respond, because I’ve always had to be defensive in order to save myself. So they’re not going to respond to that. I didn’t, from that aspect, I have very few teammates who are very supportive of that.

Mindy:
So I hear you. I know what you’re saying. I’m totally understanding what you’re saying, but you’re saying, “What other choice did I have, but to continue forward.” There’s a lot of people that give up, there’s a lot of people who could continue to go forward and they’re like, “Hmm, nevermind. Life’s just going to kick me in the teeth. So I’m just going to let it.” And I’m saying that to celebrate you and celebrate your will and your determination and your motivation and you continue to move forward because that isn’t the story for everybody.
And I’m wondering if you have come to terms with that yet, like, “Hey, I really did great in life” because you did, you really have done amazing. And I’m excited for your future. You’ve got a lot on your horizon. You’re going to just crush it because of this determination. This will, this, “I’m not going to quit. I’m not going to let them see that they got to me, I’m going to win because I have to.” That’s a really strong personality trait. And I want to celebrate that. I want to say that’s great because you did absolutely have a choice. You could have said, “It’s not going to work out.”

Dr. David:
That’s where I hit the genetic lottery. Because I don’t look like my mom, but my mom was the… That was her. That was her personality. She had been through 10 times worse than what I went through as a kid. And I don’t understate that or anything like that. I have nothing I can complain about with the stuff that my mom went through and she survived. And so I may have been born into a situation where we were in poverty, but I hit the lottery when I gained her attitude like, “Well, you know what? You’re not going to stop me.” All these challenges aren’t going to stop me. And the other thing is calling it quits is the easy thing to do. It’s super easy to do that. The hard thing is actually to keep going forward. And then what I started to really over time, there’s value in doing the hard thing.

Mindy:
There is value in doing the hard thing. Quitting is absolutely the easy thing to do. And that’s just, you’re reiterating what I said. I’m celebrating you because you have pushed through and yes, your mother had different circumstances than you and they weren’t as good as yours, but your circumstances weren’t as good as somebody else’s and it’s very easy to say, “Well, I guess life’s just going to kick me in the teeth and I’m going to be done with it.”

Dr. David:
Yeah. I refuse to be that. In my house, my kids know the words, “I can’t” don’t get said in this house. That’s actually a bad word in this house. Considering I use were words a lot. That’s actually a worst word to… Phrase to say, and they know that I’ll immediately peek up and like, “Nope, you’re not saying that. Figure it out.” Because at the end of the day, when it comes down to things, whether that skill of not giving up and doing the hard thing that translates. And what I used to always say is I’m going to try and make myself so valuable. No matter what I’m doing, what field I am so valuable that you’re forced to keep me around and forced to pay me.

Mindy:
That’s an awesome mentality to have. Because then your bosses are like, “Wow, I can’t get rid of David because I would have to hire 17 people that do the work that he does.”

Dr. David:
The other thing is I make effort that every place I leave, I leave better. And so if I haven’t left that place better, then I didn’t do my job and I need to stay longer.

Mindy:
Okay. Let’s get back to medical school. You’re a surgeon, that’s longer than just going through medical school. You have to go through medical school and then surgery school.

Dr. David:
Yeah. You go through what’s called residency. Residences are anywhere from three to seven years, neurosurgery is the longest residency you can go through. Originally I was going to be a neurosurgeon. That was my goal because my brother said, “If it’s not hard, I’m not doing it.” And neurosurgery was the hardest thing you can do, brain surgery. I’m glad I’m not a neurosurgeon today. But the reason why I’m not a neurosurgeon today is because of discrimination. And I got told they didn’t want someone like me.

Doug:
Oh wow.

Dr. David:
And so despite all of my qualifications, I graduated near the top of my class. I had great board scores, hit all the checks in the box. But the one box I didn’t check was I looked the way I looked and they didn’t like that. And so I got pushed down a different path. And so I could have said, “Know what? Screw this. This is my dream.” And then been mad about it. But instead I just made my own path and said, “Know what? Just put me in operating room. I don’t care what happens. I don’t care what title you give me. I just want to operate. That’s the major thing for me.” And so I just took what God gave me. And I just kept going.

Mindy:
That’s got to be really discouraging to be told. “No, we don’t want you.” That is when…

Dr. David:
It’s not the first time. It’s not the first time they told me that at the Naval Academy, when I showed up after two weeks, they was like, “Hey, you don’t belong here and we’re going to do whatever it takes to get you out of here.” And I told them flat out, “I will, I don’t have anywhere to go. And this is the best place for me. So I’m staying, you can do whatever you want to try, but it’s not going to work.”

Mindy:
I love that attitude. So after residents, after medical school, which was paid for by the military, what was your financial position? Graduating from college, you had around $70,000 in debt. You were in super safe mode to pay for medical school. What did your debt load look like when you graduated medical school?

Dr. David:
So when I graduated medical school, in order to make sure my mom didn’t take the burn. Because now when I was working on active duty, I had a certain level of lifestyle and I was paying my mom. I think I subsidized her, I think $1,000 the month. And my brother was giving her roughly $1,000 a month to help her out because she couldn’t work. And so I had to keep that up. So I took out some loans, because there were low percentage at the time, 6.8% to me below seven wasn’t bad. I was like, “I’ll make enough in the future as a doctor in general, to be able to pay these back.” So it wasn’t a big deal. So I took out loans to make sure that her lifestyle didn’t take a hit.
I decided to go to medical school because that was my decision. And I had already took this thing on to help make sure that her lifestyle was okay. And so I graduated. I think I had about 70,000. Because the thing they don’t tell you about medical school is during your fourth year, when you have to go interview and you have to stay at these hotels and the rental cars and that’s all on you. Most people have to take out loans their senior year and that can be 30 to 40 grand. That of an expense, depending on how many interviews you do and how many rotations away from your house that you do. And that’s a hidden cost of medicine.
The other thing is our board exams, which in medical school, you’re going to take three board exams. Those can cost all together about five, six grand. So now you’re taking out loans for that stuff. And then you have to account for the fact that after you graduated medical school, you’re not making any money yet. Because you haven’t started working in residency. So you need money to be able to transition from being a medical student to a resident and you have to move wherever your residency is and you have to move your whole house. So then that costs money. So by the end I had about 70,000 when I started residency.

Mindy:
Now is that the 70 on top of the 70 that you are already had or had you paid off the other 70?

Dr. David:
I had paid off the other 70 because I was like, “Well, I had these bonuses.” I was like, “Well I’ll just pay everything off.” I paid off my cars at the beginning of medical school. I had zero debt when I walked in. So I started from a pretty good place. So I started in heavy debt. I lived a pretty fruitful lifestyle unknowingly to me. And then I paid off all that debt and got in debt again, which was good debt this time. Because this was me investing in myself.
So now I have a degree that’s worth X amount of whatever. So I was like, “I’m getting pretty good at this business stuff. I’m starting to learn a little, a bit more.” I was like, “Well fine. I’ll just negotiate it into my contract.” Whether I’m going to get a student loan repayment or not. Because when I got into medical school, the first thing I did was start asking every doctor I saw about the business side of medicine, what would they do differently? How do think about contracts? How do you get paid? How does health insurance work? How do you negotiate all these things? So I started learning that stuff from day one.

Mindy:
That’s huge. I mean, look at how far ahead you are at the end of your med school, beginning of your residency, you’re headed shoulders above all the people that you just graduated from school with who didn’t talk about any of that stuff. Maybe they take the first job that is thrown their way because they don’t know anything about this. They don’t know that you can negotiate all of these things in there. So what did you negotiate into your residency? Can you talk about that?

Dr. David:
So residency, there’s no negotiating that you can do, right?

Mindy:
Okay.

Dr. David:
Because it’s a standardized contract. But for me, I knew that after my four years in the military, after I paid them back. Now, I’ve got all my power back. Because now I’m like, “Well, I can go to the highest bidder if I want, I can go to the lowest bidder if I want.” And so now I’m starting to approach that next year in 2023, I’ll be able to say, hey, you know what? Do I want to sign a new contract with the military? Or do I want to go somewhere else? Or do I want to go in the middle of nowhere? Stuff like that. And I’m getting back to that. But that was years of preparation and understanding what the landscape looks like.

Doug:
So it sounds like you were slowly getting a handle on your finances, paying down the debt and then starting in a much better position. When did you start thinking about either financial independence or more about personal finance? Were you, “Hey, I not only understand, but I’m going to take this farther and I’m going to own this situation.”

Dr. David:
Well, the thing that will make you do that is have a kid. Because man, I remember me and my wife got married in 2016 and we got pregnant shortly thereafter. We weren’t planning to have a kid that first year. And then all of a sudden I’m like, I sat in the car crying. Because I was a resident and I’m like, “I don’t know how I’m going to do this. We’re just trying to make it, I’m working a lot. I’m frustrated.” And I’m like, “How are we supposed to add another mouth?” And that’s when I was like, “Okay, total shift. I’m either going to hit this wall and fail or I got to figure something out.” And so then I was like, “You know what? I have a lot of skills that I’ve obtained. I’m going to figure out how to start making extra money.”
And then I got on a BiggerPockets form. I was like, “Okay, what’s this real estate investing thing?” Because I started hearing about it on HDTV. And so I’m looking, I’m like, “Well how do I do this?” Some of them from BiggerPockets. And then I started reading all the stuff that’s there. And I’m consuming book after book, after book, after book. And I’m like, “You know what? The thing I need to get to is financial independence. So I never have to worry about what this situation will ever occur again.”

Mindy:
So you read all these real estate books. You now own how many doors?

Dr. David:
I don’t own enough. I’d tell you. I have two doors and both of them have been house hacked. And one of them I’m currently living in, which I think is probably going to be our forever home. I really like this house. But what I did is buy correctly. I bought in an area each time, the house that I negotiated. So I used a VA loan the first time around and the sellers paid our 90% of our closing costs. And so we only had to pay, I think for five grand. But that house we bought in 2017 has about 150,000 in equity right now. And so we started with about 9,000 and then we threw appreciation in the market. And then I knew that they would be expanding out to that area eventually.
So time started to allow the house to appreciate. And then the other thing is I have a tenant in there and we cash flow a pretty significant amount above the actual mortgage because my VA mortgage is low. And that size of a house actually commands a higher rent. So there’s a pretty good margin right there. And it’s a newer house. So my capital expenditures and I’m not having to worry about putting a roof on right now. The appliances are fairly new, things like that. So my numbers worked out very well. The house that we currently bought, which I bought site unseen, my wife saw the house twice. And then I was out of the country when we bought the house. Well, we bought the house and it immediately appreciated because of sales in the neighborhood. Now it’s worth 70,000 more than what we paid and that we bought the house in May.

Mindy:
Ah, yes. The 2021 ridiculous housing market that we find ourselves in. What part of the world are we in? You had mentioned South Carolina.

Dr. David:
Oh, I’m in Virginia currently.

Mindy:
Okay.

Dr. David:
Right outside Norfolk.

Mindy:
Okay. So there’s a huge military there and you’re still in the military. When do you get out?

Dr. David:
I am.

Mindy:
So we just had Grumpus Maximus on the podcast on episode 253. And he talked about your pension and if you have been in the military for four years of college and four years of med school and you graduated med school in 2014 now you’ve got what? 12 years in, 16 years in?

Dr. David:
That’s pretty good math actually. So they do a funny calculation where that they give me all of those years for my pay, but they have those years for my service and move my retirement to 2035.

Mindy:
Oh.

Dr. David:
But the kicker is, is if I make it to that point, I get like 28 or 30 years at retirement, something crazy. And so it actually increases the amount of pension that I would be eligible for. I haven’t decided what I’m going to do. I have a couple more months, I have to decide by February 28th, if I’m staying a little bit longer or if getting out and doing something else.

Mindy:
Ooh, okay. So this is, I said it was episode 253. It’s actually episode 259 of the Money Podcast where we talk about pensions, not every pension going to be worth it, but one thing to consider and you’re a doctor. So this is again, like all these different things on your seesaw to consider. One thing to consider with the military pension is you have access to TriCare and your dependents have access to TriCare. And that is enormously huge, except you’re a surgeon. So you probably have access the doctors. And my mom’s a nurse. We never went to the doctor when I was a kid, because all you’re going to do is see the nurse and they’re going to be like, “It’s nothing, it’s just a cold, you’re a kid. Get over it.”
We went when there was an issue, but it’s no big deal. I had my appendix out and I came home from work and I’m like, “Mom, my side here.” And she’s like, “Let’s go to the hospital.” I’m like, “Oh my God, you never say that, this must be really serious.” So you have access to medical care. I mean, you’re a doctor. So maybe that’s not such a big concern for you. I’m not sure.

Dr. David:
There’s no bad decision here.

Mindy:
Well, that’s the best and the worst, because it’s so easy to make the decision.

Dr. David:
It’s the best and the worst.

Mindy:
When there’s like, “This is great and this one’s garbage. I’ll make the great decision.”

Dr. David:
Yeah. There’s no bad decision here. So I’m just going with the flow. It was stressing me out for a little bit, because I was like, “I’m a person that tries to figure out what’s the next objective?” And there’s really no, I’m at a fork in a road. There’s no bad decision. I just have to make a decision and go either way. But I mean, there are awesome drawbacks. Because if I get out and I hate it, do I go back in? Or if I stay in and things change and I’m like, start to hate it. And I’m like, “Well it’s going to take me another five years to get out.” And so those are just things that I have to think about, but I don’t have a bad decision. It’s whatever keeps my family happiest.

Mindy:
That’s interesting. So if you get out and you decide that you don’t want to be out, you want to go back in, how old are you right now? I don’t think we ever talked about how actual-

Dr. David:
I’ll be 37 on Sunday.

Mindy:
My birthday’s tomorrow. Okay.

Dr. David:
Happy birthday.

Mindy:
So if you’re 37, can you go back in?

Dr. David:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mindy:
Do the age limits not apply to you because you’ve already been before or do they not apply to you because you’re a doctor?

Dr. David:
It’s a little bit of both. Because I have a rare skill as a surgeon, you can’t be choosy on who you’re taking. So as long as I’m in shape and I can pass mustard and someone will always take me.

Mindy:
Okay. Oh, that’s interesting. You really don’t have any bad options at all. And then if you do get out and you decide you want to go back in, does your next period of time get added to the other one or you don’t start over do to you?

Dr. David:
No, my previous period is added to the new period.

Mindy:
Okay. So what would you do if you left?

Dr. David:
I don’t know because there’s days that I really… I have three loves finance, technology and healthcare and I try my best to be at the end of section of those. And so I contemplate a lot of times on whether or not I’m staying in medicine full time, whether or not I want to be a surgeon full time because I’m actually better served doing a bunch of things as opposed to focusing on one thing. Because I might end up getting bored.

Doug:
I was going to say, and this may be related. So you seem like the kind of man David that likes challenges, you’ve talked about going after challenges and doing the harder thing. And what challenges are you going after right now it sounds like making a decision where you have two pretty good decisions in your path. So yeah. What are you looking for right now to push you hard?

Dr. David:
Well, I have this idea to build a early warning system for patients. For their medical records, where basically it keeps track of like, “Hey, you’re approaching age of 45 and your family history suggests that you’re a high risk for colon cancer. You should schedule a colonoscopy” or you’re like, “Hey, I need to go see a doctor. I can look to doctor up and send them all of my pertinent medical history by the press of a button directly to their office. So it uploads to their EMR.” Those are the ideas that I have that I really want to develop because I made this promise when my mother died that I would help as many as possible because she died unexpectedly from the medical system not being what it should be in which is taking care of patients and being preventative.
So that’s one thing. The other thing is I’m tired of the diversity numbers being bad in a lot of fields. People look at me today and still shut the door. And I think it’s ridiculous. Because after the fact, after they read my resume and they read my bio, they go, “Oh, well he’s actually pretty talented.” But when they look at me up front, they judge me and say, “You know what? Actually, he’s not talented.” And I think it’s ridiculous. I might not be the most talented person in the world. There’s probably somebody way more talented than me who’s not getting the opportunity. I think that sucks. So I’m trying to change that. So what I say is all the time I try and kick down as many doors as I can and leave them open.
So that’s one thing. And then another thing is the financial literacy aspect. I hate the fact that quality financial advice is not affordable in this country. I hate the fact that when I’m a surgeon, you want my business because I’m a Henry or whatever you want to call me. But when I’m making $45,000, you don’t want my business because I don’t qualify as someone you’re interested in. But the reality is I was full of potential. If you were to taught me the things that I knew, we could develop a bond, we could develop… And I would’ve never left you because you always would’ve taken care of me. That’s 10 years worth of business and 10 years worth of income growth that they could have had. Back then that maybe if I had a financial advisor, they didn’t be like, “Hey, you realize you don’t really need to go to medical school.”
Because if I would’ve just stayed in the path I was on, I’d be retiring from the military in a couple years from now. And I’d be 42 years old, starting another career. And I’ve already got a government pension and that’s all that passive income that I was always wanting. I was already on the path of financial independence and I had no idea. And so those are just things. It could have changed the trajectory of where I’m going. So I try and make financial advice. I try and democratize truly democratize it. Make sure that people who are like me can get access to jargon free, information that they need to succeed. And I use stories from my life in order to teach people those lessons.

Mindy:
I love that. And who could better use the finance advice? The 18 year old kid who actually has a Roth IRA or the 47 year old guy with $300,000? You have so much more potential. Look at what your income, and not even your income, look at what your net worth could be if you actually have a Roth IRA when you’re 18 years old, it just keeps growing and growing and growing. I mean, it grows faster if you contribute to it every year, but even if you don’t, it will continue to grow. You have so many more opportunities because you’re 18. You have your financial life in front of you. That’s what we’re doing here with the BiggerPockets Money Podcast. We’re trying to tell every money story because we truly believe financial freedom is attainable for everybody no matter when or where you’re starting, which I say at the beginning of every single show.

Dr. David:
It’s interesting that Roth IRA was like, remember I told you I didn’t start that. I didn’t know what it was. My coach was a God send, was an angel. And started that and put me in a hard to make sure it’s getting funded every month, that paid for my mother’s funeral. Think about that. If he never did that, my mom dies. I have no money to pay for her funeral. And then me getting a Roth IRA and learning what that was, led me to teaching my brother, what a Roth IRA was. And he got the same thing and started investing. It had a ripple effect. And I think those things are extremely important and those are things that I try and champion. And make sure that I’m fighting for those and equitable access.
It’s funny you ask me about how many doors I have. I go back and forth with whether or not I want to really buy apartment buildings or buy commercial real estate. And I’m constantly reading, constantly reading, constantly reading. And I’m trying to just figure out where I fit in, in the threshold, because there’s a huge spectrum of these things. I learned two years ago or a year and a half ago about mortgage notes. I didn’t even know that was a thing until I found it on BiggerPockets Podcast. I was like, “Oh wow. What is this?” And then it opened. And then I started learning about all these different things, the random 18 year old’s not going to know any of it. People don’t know their options for even getting a home loan.
And even then the VA loan or FHA loan, or was it the NACA loan, there’s all these little things. Or the first-time homebuyers assistance programs in their city, people don’t know to look for them or the fact that guess what? That Section 8 voucher that you just got approved for that actually can buy your home for you if you decide to go that route, you don’t don’t have to rent a home.

Mindy:
I didn’t know that.

Dr. David:
That was the intended purpose for that program.

Mindy:
I didn’t know that.

Dr. David:
Yes. That was the original intended purpose for that program.

Mindy:
Does it still work? If you have a Section 8 voucher, can you use that to pay your mortgage?

Dr. David:
Yes.

Mindy:
Okay. Now I have to do some research on that. Because that’s not something that I have known.

Dr. David:
It’s not well advertised, but that was the original intention of that program.

Mindy:
I love that. And I am in real estate. I work at BiggerPockets. I talk about real estate all day, every day. And I’m just learning about this now. I need to be a little bit more curious, David.

Dr. David:
Yeah. I mean, to be honest, I’m thinking bigger. And I’m willing to save and invest and wait because I’m trying to learn how to develop affordable homes that I can actually make a positive impact on the community around me. So I’ve pulled back from the thought that I just want to develop this many real estate empire. I’m just going to buy a bunch of single family homes and rent them out. I don’t want to do that because I’m like, the people who are going to afford those homes. Because now we’re talking about, and I learned this from Brandon Turner, the A, B, C, D class neighborhood stuff.
And so I’m looking at I’m like, I really don’t necessarily know if that’s a good thing for me to be in. Because it’s not helping people who are where I came from. So I look at cities like Detroit and I look at Portsmouth, Virginia, I look at Compton, California now, California and real estate prices out of control. But I’m like, if I can just go buy a large block of land and develop affordable homes on it, one, I can create some good for them and create a level of profit for me. And do both at the same time.

Mindy:
Yes. Okay. So there is this company that is building these affordable houses and I’m talking $20,000, but they still look like they’re in Architectural Digest magazine. They’re really beautiful. But I don’t think they have a lot of insulation in them, so they would have to be built in a warmer climate. But how cold does it get in Virginia in the wintertime?

Dr. David:
Yeah. I think it can get some frost occasional like snow. So not real snow, but snow, but it can probably get, I think probably about 32 or high 20s. It gets cold enough, but not a lot.

Mindy:
Okay. So your pipes aren’t going to freeze at 32 if there’s a little bit of insulation, but they’ll freeze at zero. If there’s a little bit of insulation. Okay. Yeah. I will find that link. I will include it in our show notes, but I’ll also send it to you because it’s a really interesting project and I’d love to hear what you think about it.

Dr. David:
Yeah. Please send it to me. Like I said, I am trying to learn, which is the reason why I’m trying to bug this developer who luckily answers my phone calls so I can learn how to build these things from the ground up in order to really figure out what numbers work. But I mean, everything’s just super expensive right now.

Mindy:
Well, you’re not kidding. Come out to Colorado. Everybody wants to be here.

Dr. David:
Well, I mean, there’s stuff that I thought would be maybe a couple, like two years ago, plots of land that were like $5,000 or probably like 60, $70,000 now it’s kind of ridiculous. It’s really annoying actually.

Mindy:
Yeah. And then I hear that I’m like, “Ooh, $60,000 land?” Yes.

Dr. David:
Yeah. I mean, part of the thing about being where I am is it’s a great opportunity to have a population that’s going to be consistent, but it has its challenges. So flood insurance is a thing here if you aren’t paying attention.

Mindy:
Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Flooded. We don’t have flood insurance. We’re in a desert, plus we’re at 5,000 feet.

Dr. David:
Yeah. So you don’t have to worry about that to hurricanes are a thing. And so everything that comes with being on a coast and being technically four feet under sea level. I mean, it’s really weird. There’s places that you are like, “This should be underwater.” Every time the water like, it rises.

Doug:
So kind of switching gears just a little bit here. Do you have any tips to approach people that might need help with financial knowledge without coming on so strong that they’re turned off?

Dr. David:
I guess, we do a very bad job of teaching financial literacy. And we teach with a jargon field approach where, “Hey, what you need to do is you need to utilize this zero degree or this zero base budget or this envelope method.” And yeah. People don’t don’t think like that. They think in scenarios. Like, “Hey, I don’t know how I’m supposed to pay this bill next month. Hey, I don’t know how I’m supposed to add like me an extra mouth to feed with what I’m making.” And so I think there’s an opportunity. Let people tell you what their problem is. And if they go and say, “Hey, you know what? I really want to get a new car. I’m not sure I can afford it.” Then sit down with them and say, “Well, where’s your budget.”
Well, and they’re going to be like, “Well, what do you mean by budget?” Well, “Oh, here’s a budget. Let’s make one right now. So you can know where all your money’s going,” and then help them find the answers because it’s going to be a longer lasting connection. If you give people answers that’s easy to go in one year out the other, they’re going to keep that answer as long as they need it. But it’s not going to be a long-term memory thing. But if they can form the connections and come to two plus two equals four realization, it will stay with them forever.

Mindy:
Yeah. That is so powerful. And it’s really hard for me to not just be like, “Here’s all the information you need,” and overwhelm people. I actually did used to do that a lot. And guess how many people retain that information? I think zero.

Dr. David:
Yeah. I mean, it’s something that we all do. Because are finance geeks and we like talking about this stuff and then we forget that other people aren’t the same way. So they don’t necessarily want to hear about all these things. They just want to hear about how to get from where they are to on the other side of their problem or their issue. So they don’t need the full financial journey. They just need a snapshot. And along the way, you can give them little nuggets that really they can develop themselves. Because the whole goal is not for you to teach them everything, but to get them to want to teach themselves and continue to ask questions and learn.

Mindy:
This has been a lot of fun. This has been super, super helpful. And I feel like I was telling Doug, I love your story and I hate your story. I love what you’ve been able to accomplish. I think that you need to spend more time patting yourself on the back because you really have done a lot. And what was my choice? You could have just quit. There’s a lot of people out there with less trying circumstances is than you have gone through, that have just quit. And they’re like, “Well, I guess it’s not going to work out.” So you need to spend more time patting yourself on the back and congratulating yourself because you really have done a phenomenal job. But I also hate your story because you’ve had so many things thrown at you simply because you’re African American and that sucks.

Dr. David:
Yeah, it does suck.

Mindy:
I’m not African American. So I don’t experience those same prejudices and I don’t have those feelings. It’s rather shocking that that’s still happening in 2021. I mean, I lived through 2020. It’s not that shocking, but it’s still shocking. You are a surgeon, you are a mathematician, cryptologist, cybersecurity specialist, NCAA athlete, which doesn’t really pertain to mental space. And you can’t get in the door as easily as I can. I am not a mathematician. I didn’t even know what cryptology was and that’s just not right.

Dr. David:
It baffles me actually, because the worst part for me is when I see someone else get an opportunity that I also went for and they have less credentials. I have tons of emails of people saying, “Oh yeah, look your resume’s super impressive. You’re obviously very brilliant. But unfortunately we’re going to go in a different direction because we want to give this other person the opportunity.” Or at the Naval Academy, “Hey, you know what? I know you deserve that B, but you’re never going to grad school anyway. So let me give this other person a B because they’re eventually going to go to grad school. You can just use the C,” that actually happened to me. And those are things that happen that happenned-

Mindy:
You don’t have a certain number of Bs to hand out.

Dr. David:
That’s what happened to me.

Mindy:
You don’t just have a certain number of Bs to hand out. Then you have to give Cs, what a bunch of crap.

Dr. David:
That happened to me. And I’m just like, “You got to be kidding me.” And I mean, I still, like I said, I get opportunities taken away from me. I get the lack of opportunity. I have to fight for every thing that I want to do. I mean, in the last year, I really took a law long hard look at the things that I wanted to do. And I was like, “This venture capital thing sounds fun.” Sounds challenging. And so I was like, “Well, how do you even get into the industry?” So I asked a lot of people and I would get doors shut on me there. I still get doors shut on me there. I was like, “Well I guess they don’t want me.” So guess what? I’ll just make my own way.
And so that’s what I just keep doing. I just keep making my own way and I’m going to continue doing so because I haven’t hit the goal that I want to hit, then I’ll really feel like I did something. And that goal is 20 million in net worth. Not necessarily for the benefit of my immediate family, but for generations, I’m concerned about my legacy. My mom died at the age of 49. I’ll be 37 on Sunday. And so I think about that, what if I only have 12 more years left? What do I want my kids to be able to carry forward? If I don’t start them off better where I was, then I failed. If my legacy doesn’t snowball and that my grandkids can pick up and run with, then I failed. Because I had every opportunity while I was alive to do these things. We all have the same 24 hours. And I can sit here and complain about what I wasn’t given or I can go out and get it. And so I just choose to go out and get it.

Mindy:
I love your attitude. I don’t know that I would have the same attitude, I might give up.

Dr. David:
I don’t think that, I refuse to think that. I refuse to-

Mindy:
I mean, imagine what you could do if all the doors were open.

Dr. David:
That’s actually a scary thing.

Mindy:
Imagine what we have missed out on.

Dr. David:
That’s actually a scary thing. Because my brain never stops working. I walk into a scenario and I’m looking and I’m listening to see how I can provide value. And then I start hearing and I connect the dots and I start hearing people talk about problems and I’m like, “That problem shouldn’t exist.” And I run through the scenario in my head like, that problem shouldn’t exist. I wonder if I can find a solution and I start working on solutions and stuff like that. That’s how I operate. And that’s how I do everything that I do is I try and find the things that people are saying are a problem. And I try and fix them and provide value.

Mindy:
Look, imagine what you could do if all the doors were open and imagine what others could do, who did decide to stop. What if we lost because the doors have been closed and nobody helped them. They didn’t have the same David drive and nobody helped them kick down those doors. They didn’t have the motivation.

Dr. David:
It’s interesting because I think about this all the time. When I was in medical school I did preceptorship with basically a sort of like you follow around that doctor to learn what they do and how they do S specialty. And he is a OBGYN, black man. And the reason he became an OBGYN is because at a time African Americans weren’t allowed to become surgeons. You just couldn’t get into a residency, but they would let you into OBGYN residency. And so that was their only way they were going to become a surgeon. If they wanted to become a surgeon, they had to go that route. And I think about that. And I think about the difficulty I had and it doesn’t make me feel as bad because I know that could have been the same scenario that I was in.
And so it makes me change my mindset. Someone always has it worse. I remember after going through all the crazy stuff that we were going through as a kid, I remember I had a friend whose family escaped South Africa during apartheid. And so he would tell me all these stories and I’m like, “Man, I didn’t really eat the past couple days, but you went through a lot, I’m not doing that bad. Because I was born in the U.S.” And so I try never to complain about that because someone always has it worse than you.

Mindy:
That’s true. But there’s always somebody that’s better too. And it just sucks. And I’m sorry that that has been your experience. And I am absolutely delighted that you have this David drive. I’m going to call it that now, the David drive that won’t let you quit.

Dr. David:
Yeah. I mean, I’m just trying to learn.

Mindy:
And a side note here reminds me of David Goggins a little bit. I’ve listened to and read his book and do you get that every now and then David?

Dr. David:
No, nobody brings that up. But first off the guy was a Navy SEAL. His story is amazing. And I think he’s a nut case when he is sitting there running those long marathons and talking at same time. That’s just crazy. I’m not that type of person. I will happily watch you run a marathon and drink some juice, something like that to the side and wave at you. But I’m not doing all that crazy stuff. But I think certain scenarios create a fork in the road for you. Each time you get a decision point and you get to say, “I’m either going to quit or I’m going to keep going.” And you get to the next hard thing. I mean, they’re going to quit or I’m going to keep going. And then you get to the next hard thing.
And then eventually the hard things don’t seem that hard because you’ve already moved mountains to get to where you were. So people always ask me, “What’s the hardest thing you did?” I said, “Getting to the age of 17, just survive was the hardest thing I ever did.” I was a kid and our house got shot up during a drive by on Christmas night, on Christmas Eve going into Christmas morning. And I could still remember the bullets, how they feel to fly across your head. And I stood up and my cousin pulled me down to get floor and the bullets are flying and I can feel the heat of the bullet going across my head. And so people ask me, “What’s the hardest thing you’ve done?” Just surviving to that point. So what I do now, it’s cake. It’s not hard. It’s not like someone’s trying to kill me. Is it bad? Does debt suck? Oh, it sucks every single time.
But the reality is, is it going to kill you? If they don’t get their money today, is it going to kill you? The reality that people don’t see is that whenever you’re in debt, the people just want some money. So just ask them, “How much can I pay you that you stop bothering me for a little bit?” And that will take some of the stress off of you. And I think we need to understand that, that everything can be a negotiation. You can figure things out, interest, whatever, think about just real estate in general. If you have a tenant that is not… The only time you’re really going to get upset is if they’re paying zero.
You can understand that they hit a rough patch and you’re like, “Hey, this month, I can only pay you this.” Well, if they’re paying you something. It may not be all of it, but if they can at least cover majority of your expenses, you’re okay. It’s not like you’re going to be super upset. And then they’re upfront with you about it. So then now you’re like, “You know what? Actually, I like this tenant, they don’t really give me a hard time. And they’re very honest. I’m going to work with this tenant.” The ones that you have a problem with, and you’re going to have a problem with, there are people who won’t say anything and they’re ashamed of that debt. And they’re like, “Well, I just can’t pay you because, guess what? You already have money, you own this house.”
That’s not bad. That’s not good mentality either. But that’s part of financial literacy and understanding. There’s good debt, there’s bad debt. And debt happens to us all. I’m not debt free. I’ll tell you that 100%, not debt free. I still have student loans. But I also know in one year I can sign a contract that pays me 120 grand right on the spot. Or I can go negotiate a contract with someone else to pay off my student loans right away. So I don’t really care to be honest because I don’t worry about what the Public Service Loan Forgiveness is happening because I don’t think on someone else to come save me. I never had that. I’ll save myself.

Mindy:
Oh, I like that. I think that is a good place to end the bulk of our show. But David, when not done yet, we still have our famous four. Are you ready?

Dr. David:
Yeah.

Mindy:
Okay. What is your favorite finance book?

Dr. David:
The Intelligent Investor.

Mindy:
Ooh, Benjamin Graham?

Dr. David:
Benjamin Graham, Benjamin Graham.

Mindy:
Nice.

Dr. David:
That book. I come back to, it sits by me. It’s like my Bible. It’s always somewhere near me. That book I read all the time.

Doug:
What was your biggest money mistake?

Dr. David:
Man, I made a lot of them. My biggest money mistake. There’s a one A and one B. So the biggest one I made was the credit cards. Because when I got at Naval Academy, I had all that credit card debt. I had no idea what credit was, your credit score. And I had a 520 credit score and couldn’t get an apartment, that was really terrible. So that’s one, two was not understanding what a car meant to me and buying the wrong cars. So I bought a certified pre-owned Volvo coming out of the Naval Academy because I was told that I couldn’t afford a BMW and I needed to be sensible.
I got a car loan, it was $18,000. I put another $12,000 into that car because the issues that had with it. And that was a money pit for me. And then I got rid of the car a couple years later, looking back I’m like, “I don’t really keep cars. Why am I doing this?” I’m just going to lease them because guess what? They’re new every single time, they should have low maintenance issues. And I shouldn’t have to be sinking money into it. It’s a fixed cost from me now.

Mindy:
What is your best piece of advice for people who are just starting out?

Dr. David:
Invest in your present and then invest in your future. Okay. Keep both of those things in mind, investing in your present is doing things that bring you immediate value back. Don’t go skimp on that meal that actually gives you enjoyment if you love food. Actually go pay for that, save in other places. And that’s how you keep that balance. And making sure that you live in a place that you’re comfortable with, that you buy the things that you want, that bring you joy and then save in other places. And then investing in your future is things like don’t be afraid. Yeah, student loan suck, but don’t be afraid of them. Because if it turns out that student loan is your only way to leverage yourself and leverage your talent and time, to get to a place that’s going to have enormous surrounding return.
If your parents can’t afford to pay for you to go to college, but guess what? You’re smart enough to go to college and go get that master’s degree in computer science, engineering, whatever, go get that MBA. Guess what? And your salary coming out into six figures, that thing is going to return and pay dividends later in the future. Because now you have an extreme earning consensual that you weren’t counting on.

Mindy:
What’s your favorite joke to tell at parties?

Dr. David:
Man, I’m more like a situational joker. You know what I mean? I need the set up from other people. I literally memorize zero jokes and I just-

Mindy:
I’ve got you.

Dr. David:
I personally, I’ll listen to other people talk and then I’m like, I’ll crack a joke off of that, but I’m not Kevin Hartman, anything like that. I can’t do that.

Mindy:
I’ve got you. Why do most surgeons or I’m sorry. How do most get so wealthy?

Dr. David:
I don’t know that one.

Mindy:
They take a cut after every successful surgery.

Dr. David:
That is true dad joke.

Mindy:
And if there was a good joke.

Dr. David:
That is a true dad joke. Absolutely. I got to tell that one to my kids. I can’t remember from that aspect and that, yeah. I got to tell that one to my kids.

Mindy:
I’m looking for more surgeon, dad jokes. Why did the string make a visit to the surgeon? He felt a knot in his stomach. These are terrible.

Dr. David:
Those are quality dad jokes. Because dad jokes aren’t supposed to be good. They’re supposed to be terrible. So they’re quality dad jokes.

Mindy:
Yeah, those are terrible. Okay. So I initially connected with you on Twitter where you are SurgiFi, S-U-R-G-I-F-I, right?

Dr. David:
Yes.

Mindy:
Where else?

Dr. David:
And someone sits on that handle. Ugh. Since 2012. And so I’m FiSurgi on Twitter, but SurgiFi you can also find.

Mindy:
Oh, FiSurgi. Okay. So we will link to that in the show notes, but where can people find out more about you?

Dr. David:
Unfortunately, if they Google my name, they’re going to see stuff pop up. If they go to the SurgiFi website, surgifi.com website and go to about, they can find out a little bit more about my story. I also have a video on there telling them why I started SurgiFi in the first place. Then they can see that video either on Twitter or they can see the video on the website. I have an Instagram account don’t really hang got on there. I like interacting with people. And Twitter is the way that I can interact with as many people and have as many conversations as possible.

Mindy:
I like Twitter too. Because I can use it on my computer instead of my phone, which I have terrible eyes.

Dr. David:
Yeah. I’m not a camera, Instagram, selfie person. That’s not my thing.

Mindy:
Yeah. Well, David, I really appreciate you taking the time out of cutting up robots to come chat with us. This was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed meeting you and I really enjoyed our conversation today. So thank you so much for your time.

Dr. David:
Hey, thank you.

Mindy:
And we’ll talk to you soon. Okay. That was Dr. David Rooney from surgifi.com. I love his story. I hate parts of his story and I am so admiring of his never give up, never quit, always move forward attitude. I think that is probably the number one reason for his success.

Doug:
The amount of drive that he has just internally to keep push harder. Well, it’s not only impressive. It makes me feel like I’m a little too lazy and it’s so inspiring to see what he’s been able to accomplish given, setback after setback. And it’s absolutely amazing.

Mindy:
Yeah. I really, really, really am excited for what the future holds for him. I’m super excited for that affordable housing idea that he has. And I can’t wait to see him bring that to success. Just like everything else he’s done has been successful. I have no doubt that he will also succeed in that as well. This episode did run a little bit long. So Doug, I think that we should get out of here.

Doug:
Let’s get out of here.

Mindy:
From episode 273 of the BiggerPockets Money Podcast. Here is Doug Cunnington, and I am Mindy Jensen saying, got a bolt cult.