justin: [00:00:00] Welcome back to a Doctor’s Perspective podcast. Today on the show we have a Canadian from Saskatchewan. It’s pretty much above Denver for those who don’t know the Canadian landscape. And we have a Dr. Michael Bug. He’s a vet. He’s the first time we’ve had a vet on the podcast, not from my lack of trying just didn’t happen.
justin: But he also is a real estate developer. And a book author. So we’re going to dive into all of these things. His books, just so you get that outta the way, is called You’re gonna get peed on. Can’t Be More True, I’m sure. But it’s talking about like balancing your life, freeing up money, having more than just being a vet to make your bills.
justin: So all of that stuff. So please welcome to the show.
bugg: Hey, thanks for having me, Justin. Happy to be the first veterinarian on here.
justin: Excellent. Yeah, we had a vet company once that does some lasers, but that is not the same thing.
bugg: No, yeah, I’m just an independent guy. That’s
justin: it. So, of course the obligatory, how’d you get into vet school?
justin: Or, you know, why’d you pick to be a veterinarian? And then kind of what type of practice have you created for yourself? You know, the, the, the quick [00:01:00] version of all of that.
bugg: Yeah, you bet. So, I mean, it, it, it’s pretty classic, I loved animals, grew up on a farm. We had, you know, cows, dogs, cats, all that sort of stuff.
bugg: And it was seeing the veterinarian come out, especially like in the middle of the night on an emergency, you know, and they kind of swoop in and save the day. And I always looked up to them like, man, this, this guy’s kind of like a hero. And then I always liked science and all that, and I thought that was cool.
bugg: So that’s what drew me in probably what I was unaware of, right? As a little boy, you see the vet swoop in at three in the morning and you think this was really cool, like he just did surgery on this cow, and then he leaves. What you don’t think about is all the other side, like, oh, he didn’t really get to sleep that night, and then he was up at 7:00 AM for the next day.
bugg: But anyway, fast forward, I go through vet school. I graduated in 2008, at the age of 23. Went into mixed animal practice. So for, for your listeners, mixed just means everything, right? Cows, horses, dogs, cats, rabbits, whatever, can come through [00:02:00] the door. I’ll see it. Did that for about two years. Then I shifted to small animal medicine which was just dogs and cats, right?
bugg: So that’s more your traditional, like in the city everything comes to you. You’re not driving out to see. It did that, I guess, for probably about another eight-ish years. And in 2018 I actually, you know, hung up my stethoscope on clinical practice. Now I co-host a, a podcast, as you mentioned, I’ve written a book, but largely my income is derived from, from real estate investing.
bugg: That is quite
justin: the niche. I mean, you hear the real estate is the way to go, and if you’re, what would I say, successful enough in, in your doctor’s practice, in your clinic, you have the opportunity to invest in more properties than maybe the average person and. You get a couple of properties that replaces your income and all of a sudden it’s like, Hey, that’s a full-time job.
bugg: Yeah. Yeah. It does ramp up pretty fast. Like I, I didn’t start out intending it to be that way. Right? Like in 2012 when [00:03:00] we bought our first property, I was just looking towards retirement and I, you know, I knew from my research, I was like, real estate looks like a good place to put some money. And, and it just started working out quite well to the point where I was like, you know, this is starting to outperform my doctor’s salary.
bugg: Mm-hmm. Right? Like when you look at true net worth generation. So that’s where I slowly started the pivot and then eventually pulled. So what’d you do? Did you end up
justin: hiring an associate or you sold your clinic? So,
bugg: so I was never a practice owner. Oh. I like, so I would be, technically, I was an associate veterinarian, would be our, you know, sort of title.
bugg: And I was at a fork in the road where I’m very entrepreneurial, very business minded, and I was evaluating a veterinary clinic for purchase, right. And I had the veterinary clinic. I had hired you know, someone to help me sort of as, as a consultant to evaluate that. And I was also looking at a real estate deal, and they were side by side.
bugg: And I was kind of like, this is the fork in the road here, like, Am I, am I jumping into veterinary [00:04:00] practice ownership or am I going down the real estate path? And ultimately I chose the real estate path. So it’s kinda like you have this
justin: chunk of cash, it’s either going here or it’s going here, but it can’t do both.
justin: And one’s gonna be yep, month to month for the next five years. And the other one is like real estate, very ebbs and flows and creature on schedule. Yeah.
And
bugg: I mean, honestly, a lot of the decision came down to how did I wanna spend my time? Because I’m, I’m not gonna sit, sit here and say, real estate is better than owning a business, cuz I, that’s not true.
bugg: Mm-hmm. They’re different. It depends on what goals you’re trying to accomplish. And at that stage in my life, I just didn’t wanna dive into clinic ownership in everything that that entailed. Yeah. So
justin: you’re about $200,000 in debt, maybe not at that point. Obviously you’ve been in clinic for about 10 years, but most of us, We’re still at 1 75 going strong at that point because of all the interests.
justin: Putting words in your mouth a little bit there, but how did you decide, like, I spent all this time, I’ve invested all this [00:05:00] energy and my dream, and now I’m not even gonna do it once a week. You ever have that consideration of like, what if we have another bust? My real estate thing goes bad, I don’t like this anymore, but like, I haven’t really touched an animal in 10 years .
justin: Can I go back to it now and did I waste it? Are you keeping up with your ce like walk me through that. Cause that’s a big decision.
bugg: Yeah, that is, and that’s a fair question. I get asked this a lot. Sometimes it weighs on me. People all ask me, do I miss it? You know what, A little bit for sure. But really what I’ve, what I uncovered by accident was, I started out as a doctor for my animal patients, right.
bugg: And I, and I liked that. But now what I’ve almost pivoted to is I spend a lot of time talking with other veterinarians, right? And I’m not trying to position this as in like I’m not their doctor, but at talking with them more about like lifestyle design, finances, personal finance. And if I liked being a veterinarian, I love chatting with other veterinarians.
bugg: Like I have [00:06:00] really, like, this is in much more alignment. So, That makes it a lot easier for me to swallow, like, okay, you had all these years of education. I have the degree hanging on the wall and , I’m not in the surgery suite doing surgery on animals. Right. I, I look at it like I have a really, really good backup plan.
bugg: And then, so I’m not avoiding your question. My CE has slipped a touch. I do have to catch up. I, I still have a license. And how it works in our profession is I’ve switched it over to like non practicing. So I can switch it back just by catching my CE up. To your point though, there would be a, a relearning curve, right?
bugg: Like I haven’t physically done surgery in probably four years now. Yeah. So, okay.
justin: Well, I mean, I like the idea because, It’s all about like finding a niche and sometimes all of a sudden you could buy properties and all this kind of stuff. But if you pivot and become the coach to other vets of like, Hey, I speak your lingo.
justin: I know your salary, I know your burdens. [00:07:00] I know all of this stuff. This is how we can you can do this. I’m not saying replace, we’re just saying add two year portfolio of the diversification of your income, so that way you’re not 50 years old, 60 years old. Like, dude, I have to keep doing some neutering.
justin: It’s cuz cuz I have to, I don’t think nothing else.
bugg: Yeah. Okay. And it’s funny, I was at there was a gathering of sort of classmates a while back and there was probably 10 or 12 of us and I was the only one that is not a practice owner. Everyone else in the room was a practice owner and we were all great friends all the way through vet school and have, and have loosely stayed in touch.
bugg: And that was a really common theme. You know, now they’re all 10 or 15 years of owning a business, but they were like, wow. Like I, I need to start earning income and creating wealth without having to be there. Like without having to be the one doing the thing. Mm-hmm.
justin: Did you ever feel, I wouldn’t say imposter syndrome at this point, but chiropractors, we are kind of this, I’m a chiropractor if you didn’t know, so we’re kind of the same way as, yep.[00:08:00] justin: You go six years, 12 years out, and you’re like, dude, they’re not even doing chiropractic anymore. What are they doing? And, it could be anything and they just get burned out and stuff. And it’s just a wild feeling to think, man, all that time and effort and quote, you didn’t make it, or you just got so burned out that you quit the profe.
justin: For us, it’s usually they’re so fed up with blah, that they quit the profession and move on where you weren’t really necessarily fed up with it. But at the same token, you cover a lot of this stuff in your book.
bugg: Yeah. Oh man. There’s so much to say on this. So, in fairness, yes, I was drawn on the real estate and I, I love what I do with other veterinarians, but you know, in my book I introduced Miserable Mike and I, he’s sort of my, my alter ego that was experiencing, you know, the, the burnout and.
bugg: As you’ve pointed out, veterinarians aren’t unique. Like we can pick any medical profession and honestly it extends even outside of healthcare. You know, a lot of people are feeling that. So there was a component of, of miserable Mike showing up, being like, I need to make [00:09:00] some changes in my life here.
bugg: Mm-hmm. Right. And, and that’s sort of how the pivot, it was partially pushed by desperation and partially pulled by inspiration, you know, to pivot over. So, a few of the other things you mentioned there, like imposter syndrome, I mean, definitely I’ve kind of reframed imposter syndrome in that , it’s a good thing in that it’s an indicator of growth, right?
bugg: Anytime you’re entering into that new territory of doing something, there’s probably an element of imposter syndrome flaring up, and then you need to sort of quickly decide, is this evidence or a motion, right? Like, is the, is the evidence there that you know what, actually you do need more training on that thing.
bugg: You are an imposter, go get more training and put more reps in, or is it No, this is nonsense. You’re just, you know, talking to yourself in your head, you’re more than qualified. Keep giving her, so I, I always would say I am far more concerned about someone that does not experience [00:10:00] imposter syndrome. Than someone that does experience it and just navigates it.
bugg: Yeah.
justin: And these days there’s so many ways that you can learn from free to courses and Yeah. I mean, the only thing that kind of pees me sometimes is like, I’ve been doing, for instance, chat, G P T and AI for years now. You know, chat g p wasn’t a thing at that point. And now you’re seeing people that they, they always are selling some course on the latest thing that came out.
justin: And you’re like, dude, it’s been out for two months. How are you quote the expert already, like, you’re good at marketing. I’ll tell you that. Sometimes it’s kind of frustrating. You’re just, just like, man, you, you’re too confident and maybe you shouldn’t be quite yet. But that’s a whole nother thing too, I think,
bugg: and especially in today’s social media world, ? You’re, you nailed it. It’s, it’s all marketing, right? It’s just like, this is what they want you to see. That doesn’t mean that’s what’s actually true. Right, right.
justin: Well, let’s do this a little bit. I want to talk about your book just a little bit here.
justin: Cause they have some interesting topics, for instance. Two animals that can boost your self worth and free you from negative perfectionist thinking. Are we talking about actual animals [00:11:00] or are we talking about a, a trait that can become an animal? Yeah.
bugg: Yeah. So I mean, this, this is a little bit weird, but this is something that helped me in practice.
bugg: You know, we were talking about imposter syndrome and I, I’m sure there’s quite a deal of perfectionism, you know, in the chiropractor world and, and in all the medical professions. Because when we think about how we got here, We needed to be pretty darn good. You know, at studying and at writing tests. And if your listeners are anything like I was, you would get your test back and you don’t worry about the 90% you got right.
bugg: It’s that red circle. Yeah. That’s like, and there’s like, there’s only one or two of them, but you just can’t stop thinking about them. ? So we’re kind of trained to become perfectionists. Right. And, and, and breeds imposters in ’em. So for me, in practice, There was two things in my veterinary career that were my favorite things.
bugg: The first one, nothing to do with this story, but is when an owner picks a dog up after a spay. So a SP is just a very routine [00:12:00] surgery. When I first started, we’d keep them overnight the next morning. They’re so excited to see their owners. They just run to the front. They’re so happy. So that was number one.
bugg: Number two, when you’re taking a cat into surgery and you’re intubating them, the technician is holding them and you have to kind of picture it. You’re, you’re lifting their mouth open and their nose wrinkles up and it’s, I know this is audio only so no one will see it, but for all your listeners just sort of lift your top lip and like wrinkle your nose.
bugg: Right? And that was like my favorite thing with cats going into surgery. And so what I’ve just done there, this is the cat. This is the first animal that can help free you from imposter syndrome because as you were sitting there trying to wrinkle your nose, you were completely present. Whatever you were thinking about before you were like, this guy’s kind of weird, he’s got me wrinkling, wrinkling my nose.
bugg: But you have to stop and just focus on what you were doing, right? So that’s the first thing, right? When we talked about imposter center, we, we talked about evidence and emotion, and if you’re spiraling in [00:13:00] emotion, you’re not present. So the very first tip I would have is wrinkle your nose. That’s gonna just snap you back to like, shut all those thoughts down.
bugg: I am present. The next thing that happens with that cat when we intubate is we, we put the YouTube down and it takes this nice big breath, right? So that’s the second step here with the first animal is take a big breath, get present, big breath, right? And that immediately centers you and gets rid of the emotion.
bugg: The second animal, which these are my two favorite animals, by the way, cats and cows. So if you’ve ever worked with cows, where you want to be is right beside it, like you wanna be touching it. Right, because if I, if I go stand three feet behind a cow, guess what’s gonna happen? If it decides to kick, we’ll get you right.
bugg: I, I’m, I’m gonna get kicked really hard cuz it’s got the full leverage of that coming at me. If I’m standing right beside the cow and it, and it wants to kick me, it’s more just gonna sort of push me away. Right? So that’s the other point with imposter syndrome is you have to [00:14:00] lean in. . The, the worst thing you can do is if, if you are feeling like an imposter is kind of run away, go sit silently, you know, not talk to anyone about it and just go straight into your head.
bugg: So that’s sort of the cat and the cow method is get present, breathe, and then thinking of the cow. You gotta lean into it. Find a mentor. You know, there are people that have come before you, go talk to them. This is how I’m feeling. This is what’s going on. , and it’s just gonna shed light on that. And most of the times for us medical professionals, we’re gonna find we’re more than competent.
bugg: We’re just lacking some confidence.
justin: How do we tie that into being more grateful and gratitude, practicing that? It’s like a buzzword these days, but how do we practice that?
bugg: Yeah, I, I keep my whole wall beside me here is a giant whiteboard and my number one principle is lead with gratitude. ? And, you know, for the medical folks, we’re all familiar with our reticular activating system.
bugg: And, and in a nutshell, you know, what we focus on is going to expand. And so [00:15:00] if we can start, , every day intentionally with just a little piece of gratitude that’s gonna cert set us on the path to notice more things to be grateful for throughout the day. Right, and I, I mean, I notice it, like I virtually do not listen to or consume any news anymore because if you do, it’s just sending you down a negative path for the whole day, right?
bugg: Last thing I wanna do is wake up at 6:00 AM or whatever time you wake up, put on the news and then hear negative, negative, negative, negative, negative. Now that’s all I, that’s, that’s my training for the day is I’m gonna focus on the negative. I would much rather start with a bit of gratitude. You know, some positive things.
bugg: These are the things that are going well, this is what I’m grateful for. And for the rest of the day, that’s just gonna happen on autopilot. Yeah.
justin: And you can always check in when you start feeling you can do the cat and the cow anytime of the day. When you’re starting to get overwhelmed, just take a minute.
justin: Yeah, I mean, sometimes in the day, a shift of work. If you’re in a busy clinic, sometimes you just gotta go to the bathroom and just kind of take a break. You know, just [00:16:00] breathe for a minute, recollect, and then just get back out there. Yeah. You just have some tough days sometimes when everything kind of falls apart.
justin: Yeah. Book end your day, protect your peace, manage your availability. I’m not sure if that’s all one thing or if they’re three different topics, but I wrote ’em down to, to pick your brain on those. How do we wanna cover that?
bugg: Yeah. So I’m a big fan. Of, talking about being intentional and this ties into what we just talked about.
bugg: You know, if you jump on with the news, it’s decided how you’re gonna spend your day. So when we talk about book ending your your day, I mean, it’s really simple and you can bookend any period of time you want. Right. So starting super macro, I’m a really big like vision planner and goal setter. So, you know, I’ll, I’ll do the classic, like start five years out now, three years now, one year now, quarterly, now monthly.
bugg: Me and my wife try to do a weekly like Sunday system where on Sunday, like, Hey, what’s coming up for the week? And then even daily. So by bookending your day, I will, if I’m on my game, I try not [00:17:00] to consume anything outside. No email, no social media till seven 30. . And I know that I’m gonna have the kids in bed by eight.
bugg: I’ll give myself a little buffer till nine to catch up if I need to, but by nine, electronics should be off. Mm-hmm. ? Like setting some of those parameters. But it’s all about being intentional because if you’re not intentional with how you’re gonna show up, you know, with your time, with your intention, with your attention, the world is just gonna cram stuff down your throat, right?
bugg: So you wake up, if the first thing you do is check your email. Now there’s some. Not urgent, not necessarily important thing. Sitting there waiting for you, you pick it up. Now you’ve, you’ve directed, that’s directed where your day’s gonna go instead of you intentionally being like, you know what, this is the most important thing for me today, and these are my next two things.
bugg: If there’s time, and that’s the direction I’m headed. So that’s what I mean about book ending your day. Yep. You know, and it’s, it seems like it’s never been, More prevalent like, [00:18:00] like everything is coming at us from all angles trying to get our attention. I gotta be honest,
justin: book plug for myself, I got a journal coming out on Amazon called the Balance Success Journal, and I’m telling you, it talks about all of that stuff.
justin: It’s, you know, instructions and the rest is like a daily planner, monthly, weekly, and like the things that you’re talking about. Yeah. It just lays it all out. Because if you don’t have a, a plan, you just kinda wish around. And, and like I said, the email gets you that one patient that didn’t get better or got worse because you did something, you know, starts to bother you.
justin: And you’re like, you gotta refocus, man. That’s, it’s too much of the data. Yeah,
bugg: it, it is. Sorry, I’ve, I, super quick story. I’ll keep it really tight, but it’s one of my favorite, like fables is, You know, it’s set, set back in the day, but there’s this, there’s a shopkeeper, you know, and he is setting up his store and this guy walks by outside, stops in front of his window, looks up, and then keeps going.
bugg: And the shopkeeper’s like, oh, that’s kind of weird. And day after day after day, this keeps happening. And he doesn’t think much of it, but he hears the whistle, you know, the factory whistle down the street. So he closes [00:19:00] up his shop at five o’clock and. Goes on with his day. Finally, after this happens for like months, he’s like, I’m gonna stop that guy.
bugg: Like I need to figure out why does he stop outside my store every single day? So he goes out there in the morning and he is like, Hey, I can’t help but notice this. Like, why are you stopping here? And he is like, oh, I’m the foreman down the street at the factory. I stop here, look up at your clock and set my watch because I have to ring the five o’clock whistle and the storekeeper looks at him and says, I set this clock every evening at five o’clock to the factory whistle down the street.
bugg: And the point is, none of them actually know what time it is. They’re both just following the follower. Right. And I’m seeing this in like society right now. So when you talk about getting intentional with your day and your book planning, Or your, your planner. So many of us are just running around doing what everyone else does because they’re doing it and they’re doing it cuz they saw someone else do it.
bugg: So we’re doing it cuz we saw them do it and it’s like none of us actually know where we’re going. We’re [00:20:00] all just following the follower. Right.
justin: Kinda like setting your prices, we never know what you’re supposed to charge. You start that kind of, Talking to your buddies or cold calling with a secret number so nobody knows.
justin: And then you just started like, okay, well I guess this is the price. And I think there’s a point where you have to do that to know where you go and, but they say either be the cheap guy or be the most expensive guy, ? And then you gotta, yeah. Supply the value to that amount. And for me, like that was, you know, a challenge in a way because you have to really consider like, what do you want to do?
justin: What do you enjoy doing? Don’t offer all these things. If you hate, like for a chiropractor, we have some kind of specialized massage, whatever you wanna call it. We can use tools, we can do all this stuff. If that’s not your jam, don’t offer it. It takes the most time. Patients love it. But if that’s not your thing, then you gotta find something to create that value to charge.
justin: The more, the more rate so you don’t kind of get burned out and just feel like a commodity on top of everything else. To me, that’s what the story kind of. Leads to a
bugg: little bit. Yeah. Yeah. It can be, especially if you’re out of alignment and then you [00:21:00] start competing on price, which is kind of a reflection of your sense, of your own, like self-worth and self-value.
bugg: Mm-hmm. You know, and then that’s you’re racing to the bottom on something you don’t even wanna do anyway. It’s like, that’s a recipe for disaster. My goodness. I had a
justin: these electric acupuncture pins and at one point they were going for about 125 a piece, and within like a year it caught on and. Now you barely even make 10 or 15 bucks on them over cost.
justin: It’s crazy. I was like, guys to win, you just removed all the point of having this thing like it was profitable and now it’s not even worth reordering them. It’s crazy. It’s crazy.. But that’s what people do when they have no other other options. They, they don’t know how to do more value or anything else.
justin: Yeah. Looks like you have. Seven core values to tame the money mindset dream. And we might have copied some of those already, but do you have like your favorite one or two that you could spit on us? So, you know, we still need to read your book, but
bugg: yeah. Yeah. So these are just sort of seven principles [00:22:00] I’ve learned.
bugg: And I just my to set the table on this, These don’t replace basic money principles. These, these come sort of after them, right? So I’m not saying like you still need a budget, you still need your emergency fund, all the normal stuff. But some of my favorite ones would be diversification is dilution.
bugg: That, that, that’s kind of my opening one. You know, and I truly believe that obviously this, this depends at, on where you are at in life, but, You know, if you are starting out, if you are a new graduate, a new medical practitioner, I firmly believe you need to focus. Mm-hmm. Right? You start diversifying too quickly and you’re just diluting yourself.
bugg: So the thing I’ll always say to veterinarians is, you know, how did you get into vet school? How did you become a veterinarian? Right? You focused, right? Like you’re taking sciences, biology, then you’re in vet school. Once you were in vet school, you didn’t go take history. Across campus just to diversify.
bugg: Mm-hmm. Right? You [00:23:00] focused, and then within that, your seventies, you wanted to become an orthopedic surgeon. Awesome. Those are the classes you took. Right? You didn’t go take some obscure class just to diversify. But then as soon as we start talking about our finances, we apply a totally different strategy.
bugg: And, and so that’s kind of one of my favorite ones. It’s, I guess it catches people a little off guard. That being said, you’re, you’re 60 years old and you’re on, you know, you’re winding down. Absolutely. You should be diversified. I’m talking about people starting out and you with real estate.
justin: That doesn’t mean single home, it doesn’t mean multi-family. It could be in apartments, it could be duplexes and quadplexes and it could be land. There’s a lot of ways to do real estate, and we didn’t really see what you like as far as you know that question yet, but that’s a huge consideration.
bugg: Yeah. And it’s, there’s so many ways you can do it, but you can’t be the expert of all of them. Mm-hmm. Right. It’s no different than what, for your listeners, whatever kind of practice they’re in, you know, there’s, there’s niches within there where you can be the [00:24:00] best, you can be the best in your area, in your state, you know, maybe the, the world like Yeah.
bugg: Right. But you can’t be the best at everything. Yeah. So it’s just sort of picking, and then to your point on like, you know, what do you like doing? O Obviously the ideal is when you can start to align those things like, you know, what’s your passion, what do you like doing, what can you focus on? And then become excellent at, because that’s your biggest opportunity to increase your earnings and increase your net worth, ?
bugg: It’s not for all your listeners, it’s not going to be cutting out one coffee a day. It’s going to be becoming so valuable that people seek you out and your earning power will explode. And it’s
justin: quite wonderful if you have a hobby or something you enjoy that you can actually get paid to do. I get paid for some random stuff.
justin: Sometimes it’s not supplementing my income, it’s not gonna take over unless I like, like you said, let’s learn how to market. A thousand times better than I’m doing. But for now it like, it pays a bill. It pays a bill here and I love it. [00:25:00] So when I’m at nine, 11 o’clock at night, typing away or doing whatever, it’s not a sacrifice.
justin: I enjoy it. I wanna do it. Yeah. It makes a huge difference. And that could be a sport, that could be whatever. Just if you find that passion like you’re talking about, it makes a huge difference on when you spend your time doing it, it’s not draining at all.
bugg: Yeah. I like, like what you said there too, really jumps out.
bugg: I want to do it. And I feel like we, we tell ourselves stories about that word want like, and we’re looking for permission, right? I want to do this. But then we gotta look around and be like, is it okay? Do I like, is someone gonna gimme the blessing to do that? It’s like, you don’t, you don’t need anyone else’s permission.
bugg: Right? If that’s something you wanna do, go, go
justin: do it. Yeah. And I hope you have a spouse that’s supportive cuz sometimes that’s a problem. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It can’t be. So, and speaking of, let’s just transition or unless you have one more core you wanna talk about real quick. Is that good enough?
bugg: That’s good.
bugg: I mean, I have lots more, but I’ll chew up time. So let’s, okay, let’s continue on. We got
justin: a spouse, we love stay married, [00:26:00] we don’t wanna lose everything, the divorce. So what are your tips and tricks to keep the love alive and to keep everything going smooth that home life balance. Cool.
bugg: Okay. Wow, this is a loaded one.
bugg: We have a three and a half year old and a six month old currently. So if we are in it right now, for anyone that has kids like that, whew. It’s a
justin: tough
bugg: time. It, it’s cha, it’s challenging time. So sleep is a bit limited and time alone is very limited. I’m gonna kind of pick up on. Using the, the word balance there.
bugg: And to be honest, I don’t, I don’t really believe in that, that word. Right. So I picture if someone was completely balanced, they would be standing, their legs would be shoulder width, the part, their knees would be fairly bent, low center of gravity. And you’d be like, this person is really balanced, right?
bugg: Like, I can come give them a little shove and they’re not gonna fall over. But they’re not also not going anywhere. Mm-hmm. Right. Like they’re, they’re standing still. So I’m a bit of a runner and I [00:27:00] like to think about, running and running is, if we really break it down, running is a single leg movement.
bugg: You are, you are constantly off balance and you’re constantly rebalancing, right? So it’s like left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. And when you get into a stride and you get into a rhythm, you’re in flow. Right. So I much more prefer at looking at, instead of thinking of work-life balance, me and my wife just look at flow and there are going to be times where one leg is way further out in front of the other.
bugg: Right. And right now for us, that’s childcare. Like we are off balanced in terms of like our romantic life. It’s the season you’re in because there’s always a kid. It is. Right. That’s the stride we’re in. And we know though. That it’s gonna come around, there’s going to be flow and the other leg is gonna come forward.
bugg: And we’re gonna even things out. So I mean, a as per tactical tips, You, you gotta be aligned. Like we are both, you know, entrepreneurial, we both see the [00:28:00] vision. So when we go through these seasons, and I’m not talking here kids, I mean, kids is obviously that’s a choice. You need to be committed to it.
bugg: You know, there’s gonna be some heavy lifting, but we’re both business owners, right? My wife owns her own business and it is just one of those things when , a critical task comes up or an evening thing, sometimes that just needs to happen. Yeah. And there, there needs to be, give and take on that.
bugg: There’s
justin: been many times where, and I’m talking to my wife, I was like, Hey, this week, like you said, what’s going on this week? You know? All right, we got these kid things we need to do. I’ve got these business things that I need to do. And then all right, well then we need to definitely maximize Wednesday.
justin: And so we either make that date night or put the kid to bed and we spend time together talking and blah, blah, blah. But if you don’t, then I don’t know, you just, there’s like a wedge and it starts getting bigger cuz. It could be three weeks and you’re like, Hey, we haven’t really connected other side of like, logistically things we had to get done.
justin: And to me that’s whenever things start going bad cuz you
bugg: It could, yeah. And that’s where the, the planning, right? Like the book [00:29:00] ending the week then bec so you could look ahead and be like, okay, those days are kind of chaotic, but Wednesday there’s an opportunity Yeah. To connect. And you wouldn’t see that if you didn’t take the the time to
justin: look for it.
justin: Yeah. I mean, case in point, I work one Saturday a month and it changes. And so we were looking at the month ahead and you know, everything’s always like, well, let’s do this in about two, three weeks. I was like, no, no. I got this weekend. I got next week off. That magical week that you normally go towards, that’s where I’m gonna be working and you’re gonna be upset because I’m working that weekend.
justin: I was like, we need to figure it out now so that we can maximize my weekends. Yeah. And it’s just a little bit of conversation and a little bit of forward thinking and you can, I think, save the drama.
bugg: Absolutely. And that is, it’s being like proactive versus reactive. Yeah.
justin: Where are we at with books? You got a favorite book or a couple that you like to think about?
justin: Yeah. When you, with all this, whether it’s real estate or positive thinking and all this kind of stuff.
bugg: You bet. So I’m, I’m very fortunate. I’m part of a mastermind group. We meet every Monday. We’ve been doing it for years and years, and every quarter we deep dive. Mm-hmm. Something. And so [00:30:00] for Q1 2023, we deep dove.
bugg: The book 10 x is easier than two x. By Dr. Benjamin Hardy. So he’s an organizational psychologist, and in a nutshell, what it’s saying is 10 x, we have to reframe what we think about that. Most of your listeners probably sort of gut reaction was 10 x means do 10 x more. Mm-hmm. Right? And that’s not at all his philosophy.
bugg: His philosophy is 10 x is qualitative. . So like focusing on that, you know, Paretos principle, the 20% that gives you the 80% of the results. And really where the magic is, is looking at the 80% that doesn’t give you the results and letting go, right? Letting go of things that don’t serve you, that you don’t like doing, you know that you’re doing because you think someone else thinks you should do it.
bugg: So yes, so we’ve been deep diving that all quarter, we’re working through all of his questions. it’s been shining a big light. I’m, I’m kind of a big thinker [00:31:00] and I want transformational growth, you know, in various areas of my life. Mm-hmm. And I’m, I won’t get there thinking two x because if we just want things to get, a little bit better, there’s a million paths to get there.
bugg: M most notably, we can just work more, we can work more hours. That’s, that’s the default setting. But that won’t get you to 10 x. 10 x makes you ask an entirely different set of questions, and there’s really only one or two ways to get there. So that’s why it’s a way better question. So long answer, 10 x is easier than two x.
bugg: That’s the, that would be my current book recommendation. There we go.
justin: Dr. Michael Bug. How can people reach out to you if they have any questions about books? Veterinarian real estate,
bugg: all of the above. Yeah. Just personal website michaelbugg.com. That would be the the best and the easiest spot.
bugg: I’m on social media you know, Instagram, MichaelBugg.Dvm the DVMs Doctor of Veterinary Medicine. And then we, I also mentioned I do host a podcast that’s [00:32:00] called The Veterinary Project. If there is anyone interested in that. We don’t talk about medicine and surgery. It’s just about life. So there would be a lot of crossover with your medical professionals.
bugg: That’s the veterinaryproject.com . Same, same social media handle. Perfect.
justin: Dr. Buck, I really appreciate you being on the show and taking your time and just bringing it. I mean, this is a timely conversation to have. It’s the start of the second quarter we’re, a year and a half out of the pandemic and everything else where everybody’s like, all right, we got to, we had some challenges.
justin: Now we gotta get refocused because we got the next. Five years to deal with in the next year and everything. So we wanna make it the best we can. So I really appreciate you being on.
bugg: Yeah, thanks Justin. Thanks for having me. It was a pleasure.