"Who’s Doc with Pop?"

 

This is my journey from Not have to Have. By profession, I'm an Anesthesiologist but I call myself an entrepreneur. I’m not some very wealthy businessman or a physician but I've come a long way from a deprived youth to the path of financial freedom through my self-belief and some risk-taking attitude.

 I didn’t like the way my life was going,  so i decided to take massive actions and today i can say that I'm starting to reap the fruits of my actions.

 

“Who you are tomorrow begins with what you do today”  

-Tim Fargo

 

In this journey, I have learned some very important lessons which I would like to share with people who may need some positivity and motivation in times when they believe they are stuck in mediocrity and hopelessness or they simply want to change the course of their life.

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Like many lower to middle-class people, I was raised with a poor mindset and had some disturbing views about very wealthy and successful people, I constantly heard the phrases like " Money is the root of all evil," "Rich people are all corrupt and arrogant," "Money makes you a bad human being," etc.  

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My father always struggled with money and the only goal he had was to provide us with daily meals, pay the bills, and make sure we go to school. He was a very hardworking man and all his life he stayed at the mercy of his employer for a monthly paycheck. Unfortunately like so many, he also suffered from the most common disease of mankind which is “limited belief .“ But my parents made sure that all seven of their kids had everything necessary for our education, which was their only goal, and because of them we all went to college and became successful in our respective fields.

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Growing up in Pakistan, I was just an average kid with no special skill except my love for sports and competition. Whatever sports I played, I was very good at it. This competitive nature helped me achieve lots of success in life. I was a pretty decent student and achieved good grades in school and my parents knew my friends well. I was extremely lucky to have wonderful friends all my life, whenever I needed a hand, they were there to pick me up. My friends were also very motivated to do something big in life, which was not a norm in the socioeconomic class I belonged to but they all had a growth mindset. You don’t need tons of good friends, you only need 2-3 highly positive and sincere friends in your life, especially when you are struggling to keep your head above water.

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“Surround yourself with people who are going to lift you higher”

- Oprah Winfrey

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 It was due to this treasure of positive friends in my life, I made it to medical school. In medical school, there are two distinct socioeconomic groups, people from the middle or lower/middle class and elite class. Initially, I made friends from my own socioeconomic class because of my Poor mindset.  As time passed, I realized that it was not the elite class kids who had problems but it was me, and people like myself, who were misinformed and had a mindset of being stuck poor.

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“Most rich people do not become rich because they take from the poor, but because they create benefit for others” - Jack Ma

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Due to my love for sports and competitive nature, I started mingling with “elite kids” and realized that they were just like normal people. They also loved sports and they were not arrogant at all. They were just like me but obviously with more confidence and better self-esteem. Due to their high confidence and self-esteem, girls were also more comfortable talking to them as compared to someone who has low self-esteem and quivering voice.

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Like many people in third-world countries, I also wanted to go to the US for better training and a better life but due to low self-esteem, I never thought it was possible. I give this credit to my older brother who really had an intense desire to go to the US. He managed to get admitted into a US school for his engineering degree. Obviously, my father didn’t have money to send him to the US and give him his tuition fee, so he borrowed money from my uncle and arrived in the US with literally no extra money. After he settled in this beautiful country and saw the lifestyle of highly successful people, he motivated me to come to the US and apply for residency training at US hospitals. He took care of all the expenses and exam fees needed to travel to the US. He went to school in the morning but worked hard after school to make sure he can help himself and his brother with all the fees associated with my USMLE exams.

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As time passed, and I settled in the US as a practicing physician, I started making a decent amount of money. I had no financial knowledge but I decided to invest in the stock market and bought a rental property. I took a huge hit in the 2008 recession when I had to sell my rental property and took a huge loss. My stock portfolio was cut in half and, obviously, I was very upset and decided to never invest again. My dear boss, Dr. Prakash Ayyagari (RIP) at that time encouraged me to keep investing when the market is down, as a result not only I recovered my losses but even made some decent profit very quickly after the recession ended.

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I moved to Dallas, TX in 2009 and started working in a local hospital. I worked really hard and made some serious money but still had no clue what to do with it except keep losing money in the stock market. In 2016, I suffered from major burnout due to too much work and long hours. I felt depressed and became very uninterested in work and life in general. My wife and my doctor begged me to stop working so hard, so I decided to change my life and reduced my workload by 40%. Of course, it caused a major decline in my income but I was sleeping better, spending more time with family, and all of a sudden I was happier and more energetic.

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At this time I decided to find ways to better understand "money." I met a few business people who taught me an important lesson: how to put money to work so it makes you money even when you are sleeping. This concept of making money without working was very strange to me, who only knew one way of making money which is to work extra hours, more shifts, more time away from family, and more sleepless nights. 

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 wanted to learn this technique where I can make money in my sleep. Those very successful people taught me to start investing in myself and understand the dynamics of money. I read a lot of books, attended seminars and workshops, and started networking with more successful people. 

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“Surround yourself with the dreamers, the doers, the believers and the thinkers, but most of all surround yourself with those who see the greatness within you even when you don’t see it yourself.”   -Edmund Lee

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“You become like the average of five people you hang out with"

-Jim Rohn

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Due to better education, and understanding of the stock market, my return went up many folds.

Due to effective networking, I started businesses with partners. I started investing in a multi-family apartment building after I understood the business first. The first thing you should do before investing is to learn the business where you are going to invest. Know the people well in that business and then take a risk of starting a new investment or start up businesses with credible partners.

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After just four years of intense learning and networking, now I have multiple sources of income. Not all of the businesses are producing income yet, but I know it takes time and incredible patience before you see the reward of your hard work and planning. Train your mind for delayed gratification, don't expect instant results. It's like taking care of your garden, make sure soil is good, sow seeds, and water it well. It takes time and sincere effort before your garden is loaded with fruits and flowers. It's very important not to rely on a single source of income. Life is unpredictable, you never know when this single source is cut off. Secure the well being of yourself and your family by creating different sources of income.

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"It does not take money to make money, it takes courage to make money"

-Grant Cardone

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I’m glad that I was able to turn one bad event in my life ( my burnout ), into something positive because of the belief that God has given us all humans the ability to change the course of their life whenever they want. No other species has this incredible ability. If you are not happy with your life, only you can get up and change the course of your life.

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Because I'm a teacher in a prestigious university hospital in Dallas, TX, I love to teach residents and medical students. I love passing the knowledge to these young fellows and my colleagues, not only how to become the best doctors in their own fields, but also how to become the most successful person in real life.

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My motto is simple, “Learn, Practice, and Teach”

 

It's my passion to motivate people to think positively and set goals in their life, always have your own dreams. If you don’t set high goals and targets, you will be working for someone else to achieve his or her goals and dreams. Don’t give control of your life to someone else, have self-belief, and think positive. It's better to be a player in the game of chess rather than just a game. Act on your passion. Don’t let fear be your demise, there is no better teacher in life then failure. Recognize your enemy- fear of failure- and limited belief are the two biggest enemies in the path of prosperity. Please don’t let fear win, don’t let fear control your life.

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Sometimes you will be knocked down in life, you will face challenges and set back, it's part of the package, When you fall, you have two choices; you can remain down and play your victim role OR you can get up, dust off, and keep marching forward. There’s nothing stronger than human will.

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Someone once said, “ If you can not run, you walk, if you can not walk, you crawl but just keep moving forward”

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Don’t let these negative events in life dictate who you are, you cannot avoid these bad days in life, just learn how to stay strong, how to think positive at the time of hardship, only those who learn how to build a positive attitude in the face of these unavoidable calamities will see the new dawn, a new day and a new chapter in their life and yes those are the people known as the most successful people in the world.

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“Your attitude determines your altitude”

- Anonymous.

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My Current Portfolio:

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