Even though their job descriptions differ, attorneys and physicians follow similar career paths. After completing their undergraduate studies, they go to grad school, where they have a lot of debt to pay for their law or medical degrees.
After three years of law school sprinkled with summer internships, the typical law school grad will go to a law firm where they’ll start at the bottom as an associate and work their way up to partnership status. The path to a first job for a physician takes a little bit longer, with residencies and internships required after graduating from med school. Still, once they obtain their first jobs, the career paths are similar – starting from the bottom and working up to ownership status or senior positions in practice.
Because of their high salaries and debt balances, physicians and attorneys also live similar lifestyles and are viewed similarly by society. Being a doctor or lawyer holds prestige in the public’s eyes.
Lawyers live off billable hours, and physicians are compensated per office visit and procedure. Yes, most are highly compensated, live in big houses, and drive fancy cars. Still, their incomes are contingent on them showing up for work; believe it or not, if any were forced to miss long stretches of work, their financial condition would suffer significantly.
Physicians and lawyers make good money. Some would even say they are rich, but based on the common definition of “wealthy,” they are not wealthy. True wealth is having the ability to walk away from your job on your terms. It means having the freedom to do what you want and go where you want on your terms. For physicians and attorneys, staying on the typical career path will not get them to this level of financial independence. It will require something that former attorney Harvey Levin found out.
Harvey Levin is an American television producer, lawyer, legal analyst, and celebrity reporter. He is the founder of the celebrity gossip website. He currently serves as Managing Editor and Executive Producer of TMZ Productions, Inc. After graduating from law school in 1975, he was an active attorney in California but also worked in various legal roles in the entertainment industry. Most notably, he served as a legal reporter on KCBS-TV in Los Angeles, where he reported on the O.J. Simpson murder trial.
Levin’s financial landscape changed dramatically when he moved to New York, where he parlayed his legal and entertainment experience into launching entertainment news and gossip website TMZ.com which quickly took off to become one of the most-cited entertainment news sources, utilized by national networks and local news gathering organizations across the country.
Only through creating a source of passive income was Levin able to achieve the type of wealth where he no longer had to rely on his degree and billable hours to live the lifestyle he wanted to enjoy.
Wealth is commonly defined as having a passive income that exceeds expenses. In other words, being wealthy means not having to depend on your day job because a passive income source can cover your living expenses.
It’s not the number of things you’ve accumulated that make you wealthy; it’s the ability to walk away from your job on your terms.
Starting a business is one way to cut the cord from the time clock. Still, there are other tried and true ways for physicians to achieve the type of financial freedom they covet to ease the day-to-day stress of having to continue to work to pay their mortgage, country club dues, car payments, or private school tuition.
While you may not own a media company or be a well-known personality, Harvey Levin has provided you with the blueprint for achieving ultra-wealthy status. That key is to acquire the right types of assets. While many lawyers and physicians are focused on acquiring flashy assets to maintain their prestigious status, those who achieve financial freedom acquire a different kind of asset.
Instead of acquiring assets like big mansions, fancy cars, expensive clothes, and high-end electronics, savvy physicians and attorneys acquire productive assets that make money, not drain it. Not everyone can start their own media company, but most attorneys and physicians can acquire assets or equity interests in companies that generate income and build wealth.
Smart physicians have been acquiring equity positions in established companies and startups for decades to generate passive income to build and maintain wealth. They’ve also been acquiring real assets that generate passive income towards the same goals. These passive income opportunities can be found in private markets and not public ones. And its passive income from these assets is the key to achieving financial freedom and ultra-wealthy status.
Where do you find passive income opportunities – of the type coveted by smart investors?
Fortunately, because of relaxed SEC rules on advertising, qualified investors no longer have to look far to find private investment opportunities. Besides word of mouth, opportunities can now be found on search engines, social media, and YouTube.
For physicians and attorneys, your high incomes will provide decent lifestyles, but those incomes alone will not help you achieve that type of stress-free lifestyle untethered from the stresses of a day job you truly desire.
Passive income through productive assets owning a business or real assets is the assets you’ll need to get there.