Future Thinking: A vet's journey in sugery & real estate (Jason Balara)

Dr. Jason Balara graduated from Tufts Vet School in 2004. Afterwards, he completed an internship and residency in surgery. 

Since 2008, while working in multiple large specialty hospitals, Jason has focused solely on surgery with a passion for complex orthopedic cases and teaching the veterinary community. He mentors interns and residents, trains technicians interested in specializing, and also helps increase surgical understanding in the practices he visits through his mobile surgery services, JMB Mobile Veterinary Surgery. 

He grew up working in construction and quickly started using real estate as an investment. He wanted to begin building generational wealth and started investing in single-family homes and while it was lucrative, it required a lot of work. So, he started leveraging a syndication model for investment. Jason founded Lark Capital Group to provide busy and fellow medical professionals with vetted, cash-flowing real estate investing opportunities. 

Dr. Balara also has a podcast called: Know Your Why Podcast (Apple Podcast, YouTube)

More Resources:

• Episode on YouTube
• Visit https://larkcapital.com/webinar/ to watch our free training titled “How Veterinarians Are Using Hands-Off Commercial Real Estate Investing For Time And Money Freedom”. 

Transcript

Megan Sprinkle: [00:00:00] Welcome to Vet Life Reimagined. We have another unique veterinary career journey today. Dr. Jason Balara is a veterinary surgeon and an expert in different ways to utilize real estate investment. Whether either or both of the areas of surgery or financial investment makes you nervous or you're very intrigued, this podcast episode is for you.

Megan Sprinkle: As a quick background, Jason grew up loving animals and understood the value of home ownership. Today he is a veterinary surgeon and owns a mobile surgery service called JMB mobile veterinary surgery. He also has a long history knowing how to completely flip a house as well as use real estate as a successful investment opportunity.

Megan Sprinkle: He founded Lark Capital Group to provide fellow busy medical professionals, vetted cash flowing real estate investing opportunities. He also has a podcast called Know Your Why. Jason shares a lot of valuable tips for life and career. So let's get to the conversation with Dr. Jason Balara.

 When did you know that you wanted to get into veterinary [00:01:00] medicine? , I feel like probably almost every child goes through the stage where they want to be a vet because they like animals. and then some of us carry that right through. So yeah, I pretty much remember that being What I always said I wanted to be. I don't think there was any, any real hesitation about that, especially when I was a child.

Now I happen to know you also have been involved in construction for a long time as well. So how did the construction piece come in? And then also you're interested in animals. Like how did that play out kind of in the early days? So, always wanted pets was that, was that kid that, loved animals.

construction came in, more when I was, you know, sort of teenager, high school age and then beyond. And, and the other part of my childhood is that just, we were, we'd have a lot of money growing up, we moved a lot. So, I just remember that for whatever reason, the impact that made on me was I wanted to.

Own my house. I didn't want to live in apartments. I wanted to own where I lived. And [00:02:00] so, that sort of idea was always in my head. My grandmother always liked to tell us stories of how I would draw pictures when I was little of, of the house I was going to own and she was going to live in the house and like, there was just all this stuff that apparently was, was always on my mind.

So, I mean, both, being a veterinarian and having. Homeownership, at least were part of my, early year thinking. And then, you know, that, became a journey into construction at first was just like, that was a good way to make some money. and then as soon as I could, as soon as I reached a point where I thought I could buy a house, I did.

it wasn't a nice house. It was, definitely sort of that fixer upper property. And I just started working and I, worked. On my own house, I also worked for contractors and, almost like you know, traded my work with them for help on my house, that kind of thing. And just used my development of those skills to help financially [00:03:00] basically, you know, like owning a house.

I had roommates. I did kind of all the things you can do to make homeownership affordable when it's not affordable, buy a bad house, have roommates, that kind of thing. you know, sweat equity is a very real thing. Piece of, Building a real estate, portfolio for most people.

And so then really this is now we're talking about, you know, kind of into mid to late twenties everything went in tandem. I eventually went to vet school. Went on to do an internship in a surgical residency throughout all of that time working on houses. I did that sort of live in flip thing a number of times.

I'm originally from Boston at one point owned a three family in Boston. So it was always, something that kind of went together. people often wonder, like, why do you like real estate? You're a vet or the people that know me in the real estate world. Like, are you still practicing?

 the answer is yes, I do both. And I don't think anybody is a [00:04:00] stranger to sweat equity too. So I think they do understand that concept and it's really impressive that you are able to do both of these things. And I know that eventually you find out that that, Was very time demanding and a lot of work to do the house flipping and we'll get there.

but definitely as you're going through vet school and you went to Tufts, did you know you liked surgery going into vet school or is that something you kind of discovered going through vet school? What was veterinary side of trying to figure out What would your work look like after vet school?

Yeah, no that that's a I didn't actually I did well, I knew I liked surgery because I had had an experience with a local veterinarian that I had worked with I think one summer during college where we fixed a fracture. In hindsight, we fixed it completely wrong. Dog did well Anyway, but like it just speaks to uh, sometimes they do they do well in spite what we do.

But I didn't know any better. I just knew I loved the experience of that. I also, worked. So I had three years [00:05:00] between college or between undergrad and vet school, and I worked at Children's Hospital in Boston in their research department, which meant working with animals. And it was a surgical research department.

So we were doing actually, fascinating stuff, but we were working with, the surgical cardiovascular fellows. So we were doing I was involved in like heart transplants and things like that, valve transplants. It was pretty crazy to get to see, you know, bypass and all of that that was going on.

I loved it. I loved what I saw. I loved watching these guys do surgery. like those are things I'll never forget. I didn't know I could do that as a career though. I didn't know. As a veterinarian going into vet school that I could become a surgeon and do only that. I knew I wanted to follow in some sort of path that involved surgery.

having that experience at Children's Hospital to me, that meant probably doing something similar to that to continue to be around surgery. And it was my second year of vet school that I, that we could do little [00:06:00] mini internships that was just like a half a day a week with, you know, whoever offered this.

And so I, I actually ended up working with one of the surgeons at Tufts, who turned out to be a mentor of mine, you know, from then on. And, so I would spend a half a day with him every Tuesday. I think it took me two or three times to be like, this is what I want to do. This is what I want to do forever.

How do I do it? And he was, he worked at Tufts, but he also had a mobile surgery practice. So that was a pretty unique thing at the time. but I just remember immediately, thinking that's what I want to do. And I mean, I clearly love to work with my hands because of, you know, my, involvement in construction and things like that.

I sometimes joke that, in a way, I'm just, just a highly educated carpenter. I fix bones a lot. they shockingly tie together more than you might think. but yeah, that was, that was it. I didn't know. That I could be a surgeon, but once I knew I could be a surgeon, that was it. Like that's everything I focused on.

[00:07:00] So I was thinking about, you know, what I would ask you and what might help the audience as well. And so I see that you kind of got this interest in lab for surgery fairly early on, and I wanted to know, maybe this is my tiny circle of perspective. And so please let me know yours, but I feel like I encounter a lot of veterinarians or hear a lot of stories about veterinarians being very intimidated around surgery.

I'll raise my hand. I was one of those going through vet school, especially I was like, do not want to do surgery. so what is that your perspective? Do you come across a lot of veterinarians who get very intimidated around surgery? Why do you think that is the case? And then I'll ask some follow up questions, yeah, it's a great question Not even sure that I necessarily I guess I'll give you my perspective on it I love surgery like I I [00:08:00] always did I was just always drawn to it.

And again, I've always liked working with my hands. So that's part of it. I think, this is sort of a nod to a joke with one of my residents, but like, I think that there's a lot of artistry in some forms of surgeries, particularly fracture repair. Like you have, I think as a surgeon, you have to have a vision of what the end result is going to be.

I think not everybody has it or doesn't have the, Ability to or not ability that just they just don't want to it's not their like direction in life, right? Which is totally fine. I think one of the big problems with veterinary medicine is that vets are expected by themselves or by clients to be able to do everything so People get forced into doing surgeries, and really shouldn't be.

I think that, it's a funny sort of misconception that every vet should be able to do a spay. [00:09:00] I can tell you there's plenty of surgeries I do that are easier than doing a spay. Like spay is not an easy surgery to do. And so I think, maybe in a. Eight week old kitten or something like that.

Yes, probably not such a challenge, but, that's not an easy surgery in an adult Rottweiler, like that's a very challenging thing. And, the expectation that vets should do surgery. Either on themselves or, by clients is, I think it actually hurts the profession. you shouldn't be forced to do something like that.

That especially you're literally taking lives in your hands. And so if you haven't had the training or the, skill set or the, even just the want, the willingness to do it, you probably shouldn't be doing it. and that's okay. that's the reality is like, that's okay.

there's a lot of things in veterinary medicine I don't do. And it's because I don't know how. Right? And so I, focus where my skill set is. I was at a clinic the other day. Someone was like, Oh, do [00:10:00] you want to look at this with an ultrasound? Like, I don't use an ultrasound. That does me no good.

I'm like, I don't do those things. I do what I do and I, do it well. And I think that we could, that's actually probably a whole other discussion in and of itself, but I think, yeah, if you're intimidated by surgery, you shouldn't do it and you don't have to, like, that's the reality is you don't have to do it.

So, I guess that's my, my take. It's a very interesting take and from what I read and I'm just talking with you because you have your own podcast. You like to share and I think educate, the veterinary community especially is you do a lot of training with interns and residents. And even with some of those interns and residents who may get excited by surgery, maybe you have seen someone who is like more hesitant to go orthopedic, right?

I think that is a good point that The neat thing about our profession is you can start to niche and find where you excel When you are in that learning [00:11:00] stage when it's just when everything seems a little scary to start with How do you encourage your interns and residents to start doing some of these things?

For you know for first time or earlier time and i'm sure you're there to support them and that may be it Find find the people who can support you through it Yeah, that's the two the two your two questions go hand in hand It's the training, like the appropriate training. when vets are learning to do surgeries out of a book or learning to do surgeries because, There with a colleague who did one to me.

That's not okay. It's not okay for the patients It's not okay for them because of course you're gonna be terrified Like if I didn't have my mentors and the people training me when I was learning surgery I also would have been terrified, but I knew that they were there with me And they had already seen thousands of these and had fix, can fix.

It's like when I was a resident, the way that it worked at Tufts, when you were a third year resident, you would [00:12:00] train the students in their spay lab, right? So students, and this is just another kind of thing that's funny about that. Like how vets are expected to be able to do spays. They did two. That's it.

They did two, and then they're supposed to go out into the world and be doing this surgery on a regular basis, but I would tell them, and I don't know, I hope this set their minds at ease, but I would tell them, look, there's nothing you can do here that I can't fix. So just do what you have studied to do.

we'll get through it together. It's going to take you five times as long as it takes, like, once you know how to do it, that's okay. Like you have, and, and that was the, you know, kind of the way that I trained my residents. That's the way I was trained as a resident. It was like, Here you go, like first you're going to watch me do a bunch of them, then you're going to start to do parts and you're going to start with the easier parts but people that are out in practice, just doing surgery that didn't go through these training [00:13:00] programs, they don't get that it's just not happening.

And so now you're, learning something that's, that's obviously pretty intricate and, can have. Significant consequences without having ever had that experience where something went wrong and there was someone there to, you know, sort of figuratively hold your hand or fix what went wrong. So I think that's.

The way you get good at something is through mentorship and doing it, like I've done thousands of surgeries. I did a surgery, a vet scrubbed in with me the other day on a, FHO on a cat, which to me is like very, very routine at this point. And she said, she's like, you just made that look easy.

I think I could do that. I'm like, I've done thousands. Like, that's why it looks easy. Cause I've done thousands. Yours, when you start won't look like this, like that's not how it's going to go. And I think just [00:14:00] recognizing that. if you don't have someone who has done thousands training you how to do it, it's never going to feel comfortable.

Yeah. And that is one thing I really like about your current vet practice, because you have mobile surgery practice too. You were mentioning that from your mentor back at Tufts. And. you seem really open to teaching all along the way, even though your business model is to come in to whatever practice and help them do surgery.

You seem extremely open. It's in your website that you let vets scrub in and you are trying to encourage them to feel a little bit more comfortable with surgery. So I think. That helps, because not all people may have access to someone who has done a thousand of those procedures. And so the more that we can support each other, whether it's, you know, the specialties from GP to specialty, , I mean, they'll still never do it quite as good as you, because even if you, if they watch you do some that they still will never get a thousand reps in [00:15:00] like you do, but still it gives them that a little bit of confidence, right? So maybe do some of these things. And I think it transfers to you, right?

Like when we start to realize we're doing something for the first time and we get through it, it adds up and I think it transfers over into some other skills as well, because we can go back and say, well, you know, I didn't do that surgery. I did it for the first time and I got through it. Maybe I can do this. , especially if you are a younger veterinarian or even vet tech you have to get confidence somehow. And that usually means you, you gotta put in a little bit of reps, hopefully appropriately supported.

Right. And it will give you more confident to start trying the new things. Cause I think a lot of times we won't necessarily find where our niche is or where we're thriving the best, or what we're interested in, unless we start trying some of these things that we've never done before. So just thanking you for, Being willing to support veterinarians through some of the things [00:16:00] that's for some people is really intimidating.

And like I said, I can, I can relate on the surgery side, so. Yeah. No, I, I've had plenty of friends that are like, I will never go in an OR. Just, I just won't. I don't, I'm not comfortable there and they don't want anything to do with it. And I mean, frankly, like, my own dog has a heart murmur and I didn't try to work that up myself.

I've, I called my friends who are veterinary cardiologists and was like, I don't know what to do here. Please, please help us. , I think you, can find your, your niche. And you might have to try a few things to do that, especially, obviously, if you, specialize, that's likely going to be your niche, but you're in general practice, figure out what you enjoy.

but then if you want to be good at it, you do have to, you have to put in the reps like that, that book, uh, outliers, I think by Malcolm Gladwell with the 10, 000 hours, but But you have to put in the time [00:17:00] and, try to Get good at it, whatever it is you're trying to be proficient in.

Yeah, exactly. And, and just going back to kind of the two different parts, the real estate, the construction, and then the surgery, you know, I think I kind of see it the same way in real estate. A lot of us in the veterinary industry, sorry to generalize. You know, finances and saving up and these kinds of conversations are a little intimidating because we aren't immersed in it and we don't know as much.

And sometimes the people that are the experts, we're not sure if we can trust them, which is really hard. but sometimes you have to do a little bit of it to start to get a little more comfortable. And I also like how you are making it even more achievable for veterinarians to. Start to understand and get involved without going the house flipping route.

So do you mind going back? Cause again, like these are kind of in [00:18:00] parallel, you're, learning to be a surgeon, you're working on real estate and things like that. And the real estate side also seems to kind of evolve as well. I mentioned. That was that was a lot of work, and you're having to be surgeon on top of it.

So what was that evolution of figuring out? I still value home ownership and creating this additional income and also where you're interested in sharing what you were learning with other people. Yeah. And I want to just touch on one thing you mentioned there in that, you know, vets as a general rule, not particularly good at, you know, we're knowledgeable in business and finance, and nor should we be a tie.

It goes into exactly what we were just talking about. Like. There's no time for that in vet school. There's no, you get your two spays. You, if you're only getting two spays, you're certainly not taking business and finance classes, right? Like there's not, it's a very, very intense curriculum. [00:19:00] I mean, I, I don't want to repeat vet school.

We, I mean, it's like, you know, multiple tests every week. it's super intense. and that's just the classroom piece of it. And then, you know, your last year, plus you're in clinics. In a very intense schedule. And so I think no one should feel bad that they don't know these things. Like we don't, learn it in high school or undergrad or unless you actively try to, it's just not there.

And especially not in, you know, veterinary curriculum, so for me, As I said, things went in parallel up until 2020. It was all, smaller residential stuff, live in flips. Like I said, I had a free family in Boston, but I may probably have done that with You know, seven or eight houses in terms of like buying a broken down house, fixing it up.

And then in, in 2020, that focus shifted a little bit in that two things, it had nothing to do with the pandemic, but two things, two things had happened, one, we finished our house, [00:20:00] like the house that we currently live in, which we renovated down to the studs and, myself with, my pregnant wife, at least for part of it helped, but I did almost all of the work on that house.

Like, I know how to build a house. I can do that. It's not necessarily the best use of my time, but it's a, a skill that I've, I've learned throughout life. So we finished our house. And then also our son was about a year old. And so the combination of those two things made me really start to think about how much time I was spending at work.

that was really the impetus for it. And my. as I was going through, you know, sort of vet school and career up to that time, I didn't have a child. My wife is a tech, so she understands kind of the demands of, of a surgeon and being on call and all of this. But it just got to the point where like, I didn't want to be away from them.

I didn't want to, it was affecting me too much. [00:21:00] And so I started to think about, okay, well. And it's going to sound counterintuitive, but I started to think about what can I do to change being tied to an OR. and I know real estate. And so I started to kind of go down that avenue and figure out what made the most sense.

And it's like, Okay, I could flip houses, but that's another job. it's a lot of work if I'm going to be, you know, on site and things like that. So that was just going to be trading. And, and frankly, when my kids get a little bit older, we're going to flip houses together because it'll be fun. And I think those are good life skills to have, but It didn't fit the now that I was, you know, talking about. And so I started to dig in and see, you know, more on the rental side of things. And what I came across was something called syndication. Syndication is just, basically the pooling of resources, between. Investors and then the real estate [00:22:00] professionals basically are the operators and sort of grouping them together and managing assets that are bigger than typically a single person would get.

So, in my case, we're talking about apartment buildings, and that's, that's really where that shift happened. And so a couple of things were good for me about that. One is as a syndicator and an operator, You become a CEO. I'm not swinging the hammers anymore. I'm hiring contractors to swing the hammers and it allows us to run everything more like a business.

And I can do it from literally anywhere. I go to the properties periodically, but I don't have to. Be there every day on site, doing the work, all of that. So you have third party property management. you become a, almost like a conductor of an orchestra. It's just that you're trying to make sure all the pieces fit together well.

And as the operator, that doesn't give me less work, right? So I probably work more now than I did before, which again, like I said, I [00:23:00] told you it was going to sound counterintuitive. I work more. But I can do it from home. So my ability to, you know, have this call with you and then have lunch with my son, like he's off for school this summer.

Like that control of my time became super important. And then tying that in with my mobile surgery business. Now I don't work for anyone else and I can say yes or no to any work on either side. That I want to, and like I said, I don't work less. I probably work more. I probably make less money, but the reality is I'm looking at this from a, how does this look in five years, 10 years, or even 30 years when my kids have.

You know, sort of learned this stuff from me and have been able to sort of build their lives in a way that they don't ever have to be stuck in that, you know, sort of trading time for money. What the other thing about a syndication and what this does is [00:24:00] allows us to offer these opportunities to other people and allows them to be investors in these projects passively.

So they literally don't have to do any work on the real estate. but they get all of the benefits from that real estate. So cashflow, appreciation, tax benefits, kind of whatever goes along with it. Now they have to work, they have to have some money, but, but vets are already working. You know what I mean?

They're already working. this is a way for them to take their active income and start to convert it into passive income so that over time you can create work optionality. And that's, that's what I want for me. And that's what I want for my investors. Yeah, I don't want to touch on that point, too, because you talked about that you, you might be working more.

It's more flexible. So it fits more with your time and you can, you can be from home. You can be, you know, your kids are in the next room just like me. I've got, you know, a kid that I hear getting lunch right now. And so that's nice. But then at the same time, it's [00:25:00] building something in the future to like, it's not just straight work.

You know, Get the transaction. It's an investment that you're doing on top of it, which I think is important to emphasize because we don't always think about that. The main investment that is traditional in the veterinary sense is you buy a practice. You hope to sell it and that's your retirement, right?

This is different. This is building that investment along the way. And the more you can do it passively, like you're talking about With your investors would be they are using, like you said, that current direct income transactional income as being an employee or something like that and putting it into a longterm investment.

That builds, correct? Exactly. Okay. You can feel free to explain it better. Exactly right. And it's no, no, no, no, no, no, that's perfect. I mean, I think one of the big problems in the investing world is it gets made really complicated. I think it's kind of intentional, honestly. Like I think that [00:26:00] there's a bit of a, I don't know, structure in place that sort of funnels people towards those traditional, retirement vehicles that you, that you spoke about, like 401, Oh, you spoke about practice ownership, which is, we can touch on that too.

But like the 401ks, the IRAs, they sort of, that's like, you have to do this. Like, this is, this is what everybody should do. But like the reality of. Those investment vehicles is you have no control over them and you're, you're paying actually pretty substantial fees in a lot of instances, but especially the 401k.

And so it's not that it's a bad thing to do, but you need to know enough about whatever your investment portfolio looks like that you understand what's good about it. where's the upside, where's the downside. Like if your employer, for example, like 401k, if your employer has a match.

You should at least put [00:27:00] in the money up until the match because that's free money, right? Like you're getting free money beyond that it actually gets pretty Like questionable as to whether or not it makes sense For you to continue to you know, sort of max it out or whatever it is. there's a lot of fees.

When I left my W2 job and I pulled out my 401k, like I wrote this down and I keep it next to me because a perfect example, but like my 401k in 2022, which was a rough market, no doubt, but the value of my 401k went down 16 and a half percent. So it's a pretty big drop, right? in a year. and I still got charged fees in that year.

So it's not a, not a performance based fee. It's a, amount of money in there based fee. And my overall return on that 401k in the five years that I had, it was 5. 8%. So annually real estate during the five years that I would have gone up probably [00:28:00] annually 30%. So it's just that the, just doing what is normal is not always going to be in your best interest.

And, and like, and I know, ask me how I know this stuff, because I've made all of the mistakes. Like I've literally made all of the mistakes in planning my financial future that I finally just had to Like, these last four years since Lark Capital started, to me, it was a second residency. I have just immersed myself in that world so that I could make sure that I'm doing things right, I can pass that information on to my family, and My colleagues, that's really it.

And it's again, I've made all the mistakes. I invested in an IRA because my accountant told me I should for a tax write off. Well, my accountant didn't tell me that I needed to invest that money. I did, I say, I invested in IRA. I just put money in an IRA. She didn't tell me that I had to actually invest it [00:29:00] for anything to happen.

So for six or seven years, that money just sat in there. Nothing happened, didn't go up, didn't go down, but like it was a bull market. So if I had invested it, it probably would have been a hundred thousand dollars at the end of those, you know, six or seven years. Like it's the not knowing that hurts us.

that's, to me, that's a big focus of what I'm doing is to try to make the education and the, and the knowledge in this accessible, like, like use my 10, 000, 10, 000 hours that I've put in over these last four years. And again, back to something I mentioned earlier that as your example shows that the people who are meant to be the experts in some of these financial areas, we hear stories like that.

And it's, it's hard. Not all of them are going to do that, nor could that have been intentional, right? Maybe I wasn't, that wasn't her fault. Right. But still, it, it, There's that little bit of where I'm not quite sure if I can trust [00:30:00] this, not necessarily because you're intentionally doing anything wrong.

It's just because I don't know. And I don't know you well. And, when it comes from someone, there's something very special about the veterinary industry in that. At least this is how I feel when we hear that someone else is a veterinarian or a vet tech or just in our community. There's kind of like this instant trust.

It's like, okay, we, we kind of know each other because we've gone down some similar roads and we can kind of relate. And so there is that. Feeling of, not only you're giving as you, as an example, you are a veterinarian and that's one thing that helps me already like, and trust you a little bit, but the fact that you have been doing this for so long, everything from, you know, how to put the house together to, okay.

Now you also know the investment side of real estate as well. So you kind of know a huge range, which is probably really helpful. And feel free to comment on that too. [00:31:00] Does knowing how to do the foundational part of real estate, as in like the construction and everything, does that help at all in understanding the investment side?

Like, are you able to kind of. Know who to work with. And that kind of thing. That's exactly what it helps, especially on the, you know, sort of management side of a project because what we do, they give it a fancy term value add, but basically it's, it's just a, a flip on a large scale, right?

Instead of flipping one house, you're flipping a hundred apartments or whatever it is. Over time, so managing that construction, my, background and understanding what actually needs to be done and, you know, materials and things like that. that has helped a lot. I also, like I said, I worked in construction for so long, like I have no problem getting in there and working with them and understanding the problem. And I know how to. talk. I know if someone's telling us we need something that's not necessary. I know how to source materials. I know if something was done incorrectly and I can, and we had, we had [00:32:00] this come up, like we had, uh, on one of our projects we had the exterior siding redone and they, they used the wrong flashing.

And I was like, you have to redo that. That's not like you have, this is the wrong flat. Sorry. You got to pull all that off and do it right. if someone hadn't been in construction, they may not have known that that was incorrectly installed. So there are places where it has come in extremely handy.

and again, I don't, I just have to have the knowledge. I don't necessarily have to do that work, which allows us to do, you know, if I'm, if I'm renovating the units myself, it's gonna take way longer than finding the right contractors that can turn, you know, 10, 15, 20 units a month. I do think that it has all helped and has all, it all continues to kind of snowball forward as you grow more and more knowledge about it.

And, I'm still learning. I don't know, I don't know everything. You're right about that veterinary connection. Cause I do know what [00:33:00] other vets have gone through in terms of the amount of time they spent in schooling. I understand the massive student debt that a lot of people have.

and frankly, I think If you want to do something, you know, sort of out of the norm, unusual, you also have to act out of the norm, right? So I'll give you an example that I'm sure a lot of people might disagree with me on this, but there's a huge amount of student debt out there, right?

Everybody talks about it. There's a lot of talk about whether or not, you know, loans are going to get forgiven or not. And yet there are many people trying to pay their loans off as fast as they possibly can. To me, that's a huge financial mistake because your student debt is relatively low interest rate.

Compared to what you might actually be able to earn by investing that money, okay? So that's, that's just one reason, right? If you, if your student loan is 6%, 7 percent and you can make a, [00:34:00] even a 10 or a 12 percent return, you're making money on that loan. Right. So it, I know people get this thing. We don't want to pay interest.

I get it. That's how wealthy people stay and grow their wealth is through debt. That's it. You just have to understand the debt structure. And so that's one reason why, why paying it off as early or as early is I think a mistake. The other thing is if you think about like, so if someone has. 200, 000 in student loan debt.

And I don't think that's unusual. Like I know people with, far more than that. Right. And they pay that off in five years instead of the 30 that they could pay it off in. Right. So they pay it off in five years. So basically they're paying a hundred grand plus, sorry, not a hundred grand plus. They're playing 40 grand plus.

per year towards that loan. Probably 50 grand if you're calculating in the interest and stuff like that. If they invest 50 grand a year for those first five years and let it start [00:35:00] growing, then the money they make off those investments will pay the loans. It's just an understanding and paying off your house early, especially the people that got locked in a few years back and have a 3 percent interest rate on your house.

Don't pay that off early. Invest that money. Like that's free money, basically. Like invest that money so that you can build for the future. And it's, I know the people that are paying their student loans off and trying to pay this debt stuff off really fast or working a ton to do it. They're making extra money by working extremely hard.

Great. Do that. And then invest that money. Then you don't have to keep working that hard forever. Like, it's just kind of one of those things that you just have to think about how debt works. Don't have a bunch of credit cards. Like pay those high interest, the credit cards, pay off car loans. Like don't go out and buy a brand new car.

The minute you finish vet school, like that kind of stuff, take those three to five years afterwards. And [00:36:00] get money invested and use time to your advantage. you just have to think about it a little bit differently. Like, and it literally will set you up for life. if you can do it early on, you'll be good.

Like it'll work out real well in the end for you. And you won't be, you know, a 50 or 60 year old vet that, that can't get out of practice even when they want to, because financially they can't afford it. And I think the. Owning a practice, it's a great investment. If you treat it as an investment, same thing as owning a home.

It's a great investment. If you treat it as an investment, if you buy a house, that's, the most expensive house you can afford, and there's no way to add value to it. And you're just relying on it, appreciating over time. But you're also, House poor because you got such a high payment.

That's not an investment, but if you buy a fixer upper and you have roommates and now that all of that is covering your debt, [00:37:00] your mortgage, that's an investment. people have strong opinions. Like, can your house be an investment or can it not? It is if you treat it as such. It's not, if you don't, it's fairly simple.

And a business is the same way. If you treat it as a business and you grow it that way, then it's a great investment for your future. If you don't and you're caught in the weeds, it won't, it'll just tie you up and you'll be locked in it forever. Yeah, I think these are great mindsets to plant in people because I do think we get this culture of, well, this debt, even it just says debt, right?

Not even thinking it's 3 percent interest rate is looming over me and I just want to get it away. So I don't have to think about it or worry about it anymore. Understanding your options and how things work, I think is really important. And I still remember this one story. I think I saw this post on Reddit or something, and it was someone Like trying to get into vet school.

And she [00:38:00] was asking financial questions and I said, get a financial advisor, like sit down, understands like what you're financially getting into. What are your options? And she's like, Oh yeah, I'll get a financial advisor. When I start paying it off, I'm like, No, that's too late. No, no, no. Start thinking about it now.

, I know , we get our brain set on like the next step in our career or I, I'm just a vet. I'm going to focus on my vet and stay in my vet lane. It's like, these things are all part of being a human being and being happy and being able to choose what you do in your other aspects of your career is understanding your options.

And, I'm definitely by no means an expert, but I do want to support what you say. , you are definitely not the first person who has mentioned the, you don't have to pay off your loans as fast as possible that because of the lower interest, see how you can kind of compensate with that money that you're earning.

And people who do know what they're talking about in finances have said that. And I think it's really good to understand, again, [00:39:00] you, don't necessarily have to be an expert in these things. Work with people, even multiple people to understand your options, because also, I think from a personal perspective, your situation may be very different from the next person, even though you might both be GPs and, straight out of school, right?

Like, I think everybody's situation is slightly different. So I think that's also helpful on a personal level to understand. Where am I right now? What are my, my goals in the future? Which is something I'm going to ask you here in a second. And understanding like what does success look like for you? What do you want at this time?

And again, you don't have to have perfectly painted out things change, but understanding your goals. Now we can do something very personal for you to help you achieve those goals. , so thank you. I think the more we can kind of plant these seeds, get people curious about this, I hope the more they're likely to explore some of these different options and hopefully set people up for. Bigger and better success long [00:40:00] term, , now and long term. A hundred percent. I mean, it's investing is just about delayed gratification, which I know you can all do.

I know vets can do that because you just did. Like you went, you went to undergrad, you went to vet school, like you did it. You, you can do it. Do it for four more years. just do it for four more years on the financial side, and you will literally be set for life by, taking that initiative. And it's just like the most powerful thing in investing is time.

the growth over time, a little bit of patience, which not all of us are amazing at, but it's okay. I'm terrible. I just, I get that. well, yeah, I wanted to ask you, like, to me, this is really exciting to hear all these things that you're working on. You do own your own practice. It's a mobile practice, and then also, what you're doing with the Lark Capital, helping, um, Veterinary professionals, especially, it does sound like you're really focused on supporting the veterinary community to help [00:41:00] invest in this way. what is your goal right now? Cause we talked about, when you had a one year old, where are you now and what are you excited in the, future for yourself?

Yeah. So my family, my kids, they're, they're kind of always front and center for me. It really helps me with the patience piece and the delayed gratification because if I, if I think about what this looks like for me, it's very easy to get discouraged and be like, oh, I, like, I'm 49, in theory, I have 10, 15 more year, more working years, right?

So it's in a way. If I, wasn't looking at things from an even longer perspective, which is, is how I look at it because my kids, it might be less motivating to, Grind it out in the beginning. I, again, a hundred percent wish I started sooner doing like, I, I can say all these things because I didn't do them.

I made these mistakes. Like if I had started this [00:42:00] journey straight out of vet school, I wouldn't have to work now. Like I would already be there because guess what? I finished my residency in 2008. If people don't remember the great recession happened in 2008, two years after that started the greatest bull run in real estate in history.

So if I had just started when I was started making good money as a surgeon, I would already be all set. Like legitimately, I wouldn't have to work at this point. knowing what the market has done in that time. So that's why I get so passionate about, especially like. People that are, are younger just getting out of school or, or a residency or internship and just having that front of mind.

But I look at it, you know, how my kids are. The other, the other piece of this, you know, what's important for me is, is can I have an impact in the veterinary community? this is not a secret, but I don't want my kids to be vets. I've said this before on my podcast. [00:43:00] I don't want my kids to be vets.

There's a, huge financial component, which of course I would help them with as if I could in whatever way I could, but, but also I don't believe in just sort of giving them a free ride through life. So huge financial component. There's also like just a ton of. mental health issues in the veterinary community and things like that.

And I, I don't really want them to have that. And so I just, it's, not a thing that I necessarily want them to follow in my footsteps. What I would like to do is change that. I would like to change it for the better that I would want, you know, my daughter loves animals. I would love to be able to be supportive of her following me into the veterinary world.

And I think that that, uh, there's a lot of change that needs to be happen, that needs to happen. currently our focus, you know, in the real estate world is our veterinary impact fund. A dream of mine would be if everyone who invests in it is from the veterinary [00:44:00] world, , that would make me so happy.

I think it would also maybe break some of those, stigmas that vets don't know anything about finance or business, sort of show the world that we can figure this out. , so I just think for me, , I think having an impact, whether that's through my family or, or, uh, through the veterinary world.

I think that is very well put in that working towards a future for this profession that we would be excited to welcome our children into. because there are challenges and It's a good way of putting the motivation behind giving back, even though I think a lot of us just naturally care about the profession, but when you think about it that way, it's like, we want to be really excited to welcome more people into it, including people who, we are very close to and love, we want them to be able to thrive.

In this profession that we do feel very strongly about. , I definitely share in the excitement of [00:45:00] really making sure that people thrive in this industry. So I'm glad to see that you are thriving and supporting that similar mission. So thank you very much. And so just to wrap it up, I like to end with a final few questions, just to get to know you a little bit better.

Is there anything on your bucket list that you would like to do? Uh, I want to go to Australia. That's been a place I've never been and, and have always wanted to. so that's probably pretty high up on the list in terms of travel. Gotcha. You get a unique one. I, for some reason, I really like looking at people's backgrounds and I've noticed there are a lot of superhero characters in your background.

Is there a story behind, superheroes? Uh, I mean, I've always been a fan. I like to think a little differently and, and I don't think I'm a superhero, but I think like if you don't think about things in a bigger way and how [00:46:00] you can actually impact the world in whatever capacity that you have, then you're, you might be missing out.

and it's just, it's like, my son's name is Logan because of Wolverine. so it's more than just the pictures you see in the background. Like, it's just a, a thing that I've always has always resonated with me, that hero piece. And, , I tend to like the heroes that , they're a little flawed too, , like Wolverine or Batman.

Like there's a little bit of darkness to them that I think, because everybody has that, right? And so you can still be, heroic to some by, not letting that darkness take, the lead. Yeah, because we, nobody is perfect and you can still make a huge impact, and sometimes because of it.

So I think that is a powerful message as well. And finally, what is something you are very grateful for? I'm grateful for my family, for my, my wife is Like I couldn't do this without her. Like I could, you know, I talk a [00:47:00] lot about the kids being my why, but like, she's the one that keeps this going.

And it's been the real estate market right now has been tough. she's been there for me and we've lost money of our own money in places and she hasn't left me because of it. So I'm very, I'm very grateful. And, and it's a lesson that, investing in general is, is.

Just that it's an investment and there's going to be ups and downs and it's okay. you just got to ride it through. You gotta, you gotta get through the down and come back up. I guess that's a metaphor for life too. So, yeah, I'm, just very grateful for her, for being there for me, for being the, the CEO of the family, for the kids, for making me more patient.

Really. I'm, not naturally a patient person at all. So I think it's, something that, that I feel very fortunate to have them. 

Megan Sprinkle: I hope you enjoyed this fascinating veterinary story. We can make an impact in so many places. Check out the show notes for lots of resources. Please make sure you are subscribed on your podcast app, [00:48:00] subscribe on the YouTube channel and follow me on LinkedIn, where I hang out the most. You can contact me on LinkedIn, on the website at vetlifereimagined.

Megan Sprinkle: com. And brand new is that you can text me to send me a text message. Find the link at the top of the show notes below that says, send us a text message. I want to thank our longtime sponsors, fire consulting, and we'll use who support the podcast over on our hosting platform. Buzzsprout. You can support the podcast to just check out the show notes for a link.

Megan Sprinkle: And I hope to see you next time on that life reimagined.